“Mehndi or menhdi is the application of henna as a temporary form of skin decoration in India, as well as by expatriate communities from the country. The word mehndi is derived from the Sanskrit word mendhikā. The use of mehndi and turmeric is described in the earliest Vedic ritual books. Haldi (Staining oneself with turmeric paste) as well as mehndi are important Vedic customs as a symbolic representation of the Outer and the Inner Sun. Vedic customs are meant to awaken the “inner light” and so the gold of the inner Sun has an important symbolic function”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Application of henna or “Mehndi” to a girls hand in a market on October 18, 2010 in Jaipur, India. (Photo by Simon de Trey-White/Getty Images)

“Ecotricity's Greenbird vehicle, designed and piloted by Richard Jenkins, broke the land speed world record for a wind-powered vehicle in 2009. Greenbird recorded a top speed of 126.4 mph (203.4 km/h), and sustained a speed of 126.2 mph (203.1 km/h) for the required time of three seconds, beating the previous, American held, record of 116 mph (186.7 km/h), set by Bob Schumacher in the Iron Duck in March 1999 at the same location”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Richard Jenkins poses for photographs with the world's fastest wind powered land Vehicle at Science Museum on August 3, 2009 in London, England. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

“Kim Jong-il, also written as Kim Jong Il, birth name Yuri Irsenovich Kim (according to Soviet records) (16 February 1941/2 – 17 December 2011), was the supreme Leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). He was the General Secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea, the ruling party since 1948, Chairman of the the National Defence Commission of North Korea, and the Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army, the fourth-largest standing army in the world”. – Wikipedia

Photo: North Korean leader Kim Jong Il inspects a military unit in North Korea. (Photo by Korean Central Television/Yonhap)

“Joan Miro i Ferra (April 20, 1893 – December 25, 1983) was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona. Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride. In numerous interviews dating from the 1930s onwards, Miro expressed contempt for conventional painting methods as a way of supporting bourgeois society, and famously declared an “assassination of painting” in favour of upsetting the visual elements of established painting”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Joan Miro's, grandsons, Emilio Fernandez Miro and Joan Punyet Miro pose beside Personnage (1970) in the Yorkshire Sculpture park on March 14, 2012 in Wakefield, England. Yorkshire Sculpture Park stages the first major UK survey of sculpture by Spanish artist Joan Miro. (Photo by Bethany Clarke/Getty Images)

“Eyes Wide Open is an exhibit created by the American Friends Service Committee observing the American soldiers and marines that have died in the Iraq War. It contains a pair of combat boots to represent every American soldier and marine that has died in the war, as well as shoes representing Iraqi civilians who have lost their lives during the invasion and occupation”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A man pauses as he looks at rows of combat boots that are part of the "Eyes Wide Open" exhibit in front of San Francisco City Hall on March 19, 2012 in San Francisco, California. The Eyes Wide Open exhibition includes a pair of boots for every one of the 481 California servicemen and women who died in the Iraq war. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

“MSC Fabiola is a container ship owned by Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), the largest such vessel ever to dock in North America. In March 2012 the ship shifted from its initial Asia-to-Europe service to begin trans-Pacific service. On March 19, 2012, Fabiola docked at the Port of Long Beach, breaking earlier records for the largest container ship at a US port, and at any North American port”. – Wikipedia

Photo: The container ship MSC Fabiola (R) is seen docked at the Port of Oakland on March 22, 2012, in Oakland, California. The MSC Fabiola is the largest container ship ever to dock at any seaport in North America with an overall length of nearly one quarter mile long. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

“Philippe Halsman (2 May 1906 Riga, Russian Empire – 25 June 1979 New York City) was a Latvian-born American portrait photographer. Many celebrities photographed by Halsman include Alfred Hitchcock, Judy Garland, Winston Churchill, Marilyn Monroe, Dorothy Dandridge, and Pablo Picasso. Many of those photographs appeared on the cover of Life. In such photos, he utilizes a variety of his rules of photography. For example, in one of his photos of Winston Churchill, the omission of his face makes Halsman's photo even more powerful at making Churchill more human”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Marilyn Monroe, “Jumpology”, 1959. Photo by Philippe Halsman

“The Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) is a rare tiger subspecies that inhabits the Indonesian island of Sumatra. It was classified as critically endangered by IUCN in 2008 as the population is projected to be 441 to 679 individuals, with no subpopulation having an effective population size larger than 50 individuals, with a declining trend”. – Wikipedia

This photo taken on July 25, 2012 one of 14 preserved bodies of critically-endangered Sumatran tigers seized as members of the Indonesian national police and the special crime unit inspect the scene at a warehouse in Cibubur, south of Jakarta. Indonesian police seized 14 preserved bodies of critically-endangered Sumatran tigers in a raid on a house near Jakarta, a spokesman said on July 19. (Photo by Bay Ismoyo/AFP Photo)