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Some of our finest [ about ] Approved Articles Developed Articles (over 700) Article of the Week [ about ] (PD) Image: Ernst Haeckel Buzz of Life: One aspect of the interrelations among living entities. Researchers begin to understand the mechanisms governing the complex network interactions between plants and pollinators, such as hummingbirds, shown in this illustration from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur (1904). The U.S. Civil War in the U.S. 1861-65, saw the Union (North), led by Abraham Lincoln and General Ulysses S. Grant defeat the breakaway Confederacy (South) led by Jefferson Davis and General Robert E. Lee and end slavery. Reunion was accomplished by a difficult period of Reconstruction, 1865-1877, in which the freed slaves were given the right to vote. The war was between the United States (the "Union") and eleven Southern states which declared that they had a right to secession and formed the Confederate States of America, led by President Jefferson Davis. The thought "Cotton is King", meaning it was so powerful an economic force that European powers would help them win. The Union, led by Lincoln and the Republican Party, rejected any right of secession. They said they would not interfere with slavery inside the South, but would put it on the path to eventual extinction by preventing its expansion. Fighting began on April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces attacked a U.S. military installation at Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. Lincoln called for an invasion force to recapture the fort, and four more states, rejecting coercion, joined the Confederacy to make 11 in all. [more...] New Draft of the Week [ about ] Sri Lanka, officially named the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an island nation in South Asia, located 31 km off the south-east coast of India. It was known as Ceylon before 1972. It is sometimes called the Pearl of the Indian Ocean. PD Image Areas with major LTTE activity and control The language issue is at the root of a bitter civil war; official language is Sinhala, but Tamil theoretically has the status of a national language. Tensions between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil separatists erupted into war in 1983, and tens of thousands have died in the ethnic conflict that continues to fester. After two decades of fighting, the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) formalized a cease-fire in February 2002 with Norway brokering peace negotiations. Violence between the LTTE and government forces intensified in 2006 and the government regained control of the Eastern Province in 2007. In January 2008 the government canceled the cease fire and by March 2008 it launched a major military offensive against the ethnic Tamil insurgents, closing off the battleground to journalists and UN monitors as the peace negotiators left the country. Fear pervades Tamil neighborhoods, which the government raids at night. Few Tamils are willing to speak their minds, lest they be detained under stringent emergency laws. [more...]