2008 (MMVIII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2008th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 8th year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the 9th year of the 2000s decade.
2008 was designated as:
- International Year of Languages
- International Year of Planet Earth
- International Year of the Potato
- International Year of Sanitation
The Great Recession, a worldwide recession which began in 2007, continued through the entirety of 2008.
2014 (MMXIV) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2014th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 14th year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the 5th year of the 2010s decade.
The year 2014 was marked by the surge of the West African Ebola epidemic, which began in 2013, becoming the most widespread outbreak of the Ebola virus in human history, resulting in 28,646 confirmed infections and 11,323 confirmed deaths according to the World Health Organization, who declared it a Public Health Emergency in August. The virus caused major socioeconomic disruption in the region, primarily in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Other notable health concerns in 2014 included a significant increase in polio cases in Pakistan.
The rise of ISIS became a major geopolitical crisis in 2014 after the group declared a global caliphate and launched devastating offensives in Iraq and Syria. The Camp Speicher massacre in which the Islamic State murdered 1,566 Shia Iraqi Air Force cadets and the Fall of Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, prompted a U.S led military intervention, which would later become a global effort. The Islamic State committed numerous atrocities, including mass beheadings, mass executions of civilians, and the genocide and persecution of religious minorities like the Yazidis, Christians and Shia Muslims. ISIS would attract thousands of foreign fighters from across the world to join their military, drawn by their ideology and promises of establishing a global Islamic state. ISIS led to a massive displacement of people in Iraq and Syria, creating a major humanitarian crisis for millions of peoples. Another notable conflict was the 2014 Gaza War, which Israel began 26 days after three Israeli teenagers were murdered in the West Bank by Hamas-affiliated Palestinian militants, the large-scale military operation, codenamed "Operation Protective Edge" saw intense fighting, with Israeli airstrikes and ground incursions into Gaza, killing 2,310 and wounding 10,626 Palestinians. The conflict would end on August 26, 2014, after a ceasefire agreement brokered by Egypt went into effect.
The Euromaidan protests, a series of demonstrations in Ukraine, were triggered by President Viktor Yanukovych's sudden decision to pursue closer economic ties with Russia and his refusal to sign the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement, which culminated in the Revolution of Dignity in February. Following this, a disputed referendum led to Russia occupying and annexing Crimea from Ukraine, subsequent pro-Russian unrest led to Russian backed separatist forces in eastern Ukraine seizing control of key areas, leading to the War in Donbas in April. The war escalated after Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down by Russian-backed forces while flying in Eastern Ukraine.
Political crises continued across the globe, with Thailand experiencing a military coup in May as the Royal Thai Army overthrew the caretaker government. Three main airplane disasters happened, the mysterious disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine, and the crash of Indonesia AirAsia Flight 8501, collectively claiming over 700 lives. Civil unrest emerged in Ferguson, Missouri in the United States due to the killing of Michael Brown and in Hong Kong, during the 2014 Hong Kong protests. Despite all these challenges, scientific achievement provided hope as India became the first Asian nation to reach Mars with its Mangalyaan mission, and the Rosetta spacecraft's Philae probe completed humanity's first landing on a comet.
2014 was designated as:
- International Year of Crystallography
- International Year of Family Farming
- International Year of Small Island Developing States
- International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People
Acura is the luxury and performance division of Japanese automaker Honda, based primarily in North America. The brand was launched on March 27, 1986, marketing luxury and performance automobiles. Acura sells cars in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, and Kuwait. The company has also previously sold cars in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Russia, and Ukraine. Plans to introduce Acura to the Japanese domestic market in the late 2000s did not eventuate due to the financial crisis of 2007–2008.
Acura was the first luxury division established by a Japanese automaker. The creation of Acura coincided with the introduction of a JDM Honda dealership sales channel, called Honda Clio, which sold luxury vehicles, joining previously established Honda Verno, followed by Honda Primo the following year. In its first few years of existence, Acura was among the best-selling luxury marques in the US, outselling established brands such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz. Though sales were down in the mid-to-late 1990s, the brand experienced a revival in the early 2000s, due to drastic redesigns and the introductions of new models.
In the late 1980s, the success of the company's first flagship vehicle, the Legend, inspired fellow Japanese automakers Toyota and Nissan to launch their own luxury brands, Lexus and Infiniti, respectively. The 1990 launch of the NSX, a mid-engine exotic sports car, offered a reliable and practical alternative to exotic European sports cars, and introduced Honda's VTEC variable valve timing system to the North American market. The 1993 Legend coupé featured Acura's first use of a six-speed manual transmission mated to a Type II engine. In the late 1990s, Acura produced a Type R version of its compact Integra, which featured a reduced curb weight, a stiffer and lower suspension, and a high-output VTEC engine.
In the early 2000s, Acura introduced new models, including the company's first all-original SUV, the MDX, and two models which replaced the Integra coupé and sedan, the RSX and TSX, respectively. Type-S versions of the RSX, CL, and TL were added to the brand's lineup during that decade. Acura's 2005 RL flagship introduced SH-AWD, a torque-vectoring all-wheel drive system. The 2007 RDX, a crossover SUV, featured the first North American use of a turbocharged Honda engine. A second generation NSX was launched in 2016 and features a twin-turbocharged mid-engine, a nine-speed dual-clutch transmission, and Sport Hybrid SH-AWD.
In 2024, Acura unveiled its new Performance EV Concept at the Monterey Car Week.
A brake is a mechanical device that inhibits motion by absorbing energy from a moving system. It is used for slowing or stopping a moving vehicle, wheel, axle, or to prevent its motion, most often accomplished by means of friction.
A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain, and brick.
The earliest ceramics made by humans were fired clay bricks used for building house walls and other structures. Other pottery objects such as pots, vessels, vases and figurines were made from clay, either by itself or mixed with other materials like silica, hardened by sintering in fire. Later, ceramics were glazed and fired to create smooth, colored surfaces, decreasing porosity through the use of glassy, amorphous ceramic coatings on top of the crystalline ceramic substrates. Ceramics now include domestic, industrial, and building products, as well as a wide range of materials developed for use in advanced ceramic engineering, such as semiconductors.
The word ceramic comes from the Ancient Greek word κεραμικός (keramikós), meaning "of or for pottery" (from κέραμος (kéramos) 'potter's clay, tile, pottery'). The earliest known mention of the root ceram- is the Mycenaean Greek ke-ra-me-we, workers of ceramic, written in Linear B syllabic script. The word ceramic can be used as an adjective to describe a material, product, or process, or it may be used as a noun, either singular or, more commonly, as the plural noun ceramics.
Honda Motor Co., Ltd., commonly known as just Honda, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate automotive manufacturer headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan.
Founded in October 1946 by Soichiro Honda, Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, reaching a production of 400 million by 19 December 2019. It is also the world's largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines measured by number of units, producing more than 14 million internal combustion engines each year. Honda became the second-largest Japanese automobile manufacturer in 2001. In 2015, Honda was the eighth largest automobile manufacturer in the world. The company has also built and sold the most produced motor vehicle in history, the Honda Super Cub.
Honda was the first Japanese automobile manufacturer to release a dedicated luxury brand, Acura, on 27 March 1986. Aside from their core automobile and motorcycle businesses, Honda also manufactures garden equipment, marine engines, personal watercraft, power generators, and other products. Since 1986, Honda has been involved with artificial intelligence/robotics research and released their ASIMO robot in 2000. They have also ventured into aerospace with the establishment of GE Honda Aero Engines in 2004 and the Honda HA-420 HondaJet, which began production in 2012. Honda has two joint-ventures in China: Dongfeng Honda and GAC Honda.
In 2013, Honda invested about 5.7% (US$6.8 billion) of its revenues into research and development. Also in 2013, Honda became the first Japanese automaker to be a net exporter from the United States, exporting 108,705 Honda and Acura models, while importing only 88,357.
Pads (also called leg guards) are a type of protective equipment used in a number of sports and serve to protect the legs from the impact of a hard ball, puck, or other object of play travelling at high speed which could otherwise cause injuries to the lower legs. These are used by batters in the sport of cricket, catchers in the sports of baseball and fastpitch softball, and by goaltenders in sports such as ice hockey, ringette, bandy, rinkball, field hockey, rink hockey and box lacrosse.
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