Horse

The horse (Equus ferus caballus) is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus. It is an odd-toed ungulate mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature, Hyracotherium, into the large, single-toed animal of today. Humans began to domesticate horses around 4000 BC, and their domestication is believed to have been widespread by 3000 BC. Horses in the subspecies caballus are domesticated, although some domesticated populations live in the wild as feral horses. These feral populations are not true wild horses, as this term is used to describe horses that have never been domesticated, such as the endangered Przewalski's horse, a separate subspecies, and the only remaining true wild horse. There is an extensive, specialized vocabulary used to describe equine-related concepts, covering everything from anatomy to life stages, size, colors, markings, breeds, locomotion, and behavior.

Horses' anatomy enables them to make use of speed to escape predators and they have a well-developed sense of balance and a strong fight-or-flight response. Related to this need to flee from predators in the wild is an unusual trait: horses are able to sleep both standing up and lying down. Female horses, called mares, carry their young for approximately 11 months, and a young horse, called a foal, can stand and run shortly following birth. Most domesticated horses begin training under saddle or in harness between the ages of two and four. They reach full adult development by age five, and have an average lifespan of between 25 and 30 years.

Horse (disambiguation)

A horse is a hoofed mammal of the species Equus ferus caballus.

Horse or Horses may also refer to:

Animals

Arts and entertainment

Horse (1941 film)

Uma (馬, also known as Horse) is a 1941 black-and-white Japanese film directed by Kajiro Yamamoto and starring Hideko Takamine, whom Yamamoto had directed in his film Composition Class (Tsuzurikata Kyōshitsu) three years before. Uma was actually completed by assistant director Akira Kurosawa. It follows the story of Ine Onoda, the eldest daughter of a poor family of farmers, who raises a colt from birth and comes to love the horse dearly. When the horse is grown, the government orders it auctioned and sold to the army. Ine struggles to prevent the sale.

Overview

The film is a tale about a young girl and the colt she raises from its birth. But it is also about the struggle of farmers existing on the edge of poverty. Akira Kurosawa is credited as the film's production coordinator, which is equivalent to first assistant director. But Kurosawa's signature is all over this work and is the last film he was to work on as an assistant before starting his own directing career. The film took three years to plan and a year to film. Kajiro Yamamoto had to commute to the far mountainous location but had to turn his attention to his money making comedies in Tokyo and so he left production in the hands of his assistant, Kurosawa.

Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban

Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, Seigneur de Vauban and later Marquis de Vauban (1 or 4 May 1633 – 30 March 1707), commonly referred to as Vauban, was a Marshal of France and the foremost military engineer of his age. He is known for his skill in both designing fortifications and breaking through them; his ideas, starting from Pagan's "Les Fortification", were the dominant model of siegecraft and fortification for nearly 100 years. He also advised Louis XIV on how to consolidate France's borders, to make them more defensible. Vauban made a radical suggestion of giving up some land that was indefensible to allow for a stronger, less porous border with France's neighbours.

Life and doctrines

Vauban was born in Saint-Léger-de-Foucheret (renamed Saint-Léger-Vauban in his honour in 1867), in Burgundy France, into a family of minor nobility. At the age of ten he was left an orphan in very poor circumstances, and his boyhood and youth were spent amongst the peasantry of his native place. After some time he was put under the care of the Carmelite prior of Semur, who undertook his education, and the grounding in mathematics, science and geometry which was important in his subsequent career.

Vauban, Freiburg

Vauban is a new neighbourhood planned for 5,000 inhabitants and 600 jobs 4 km to the south of the town centre in Freiburg, Germany. It was built as "a sustainable model district" on the site of a former French military base named after Sébastien Le Prestre de Vauban, the 17th century French Marshal who built fortifications in Freiburg while the region was under French rule. Construction began in the mid-1990s.

Sustainable building

All houses are built to a low-energy consumption standard, with 100 units designed to the Passivhaus ultra-low energy building standard. Other buildings are heated by a combined heat and power station burning wood chips, while many of the buildings have solar collectors or photovoltaic cells. Perhaps the best example of sustainable building is the Solar Settlement in Vauban, a 59 PlusEnergy home housing community. It is the first housing community world-wide in which all the homes produce a positive energy balance. The solar energy surplus is then sold back into the city's grid for a profit on every home.