What were the achievements of caliph Abū Bakr, the first caliph of Islam?

Abū Bakr, who was to become the first caliph of Islam, was a close friend of the Prophet Muhammad and one of his earliest converts. One proof of the closeness of their friendship was that the Prophet Muhammad took his daughter Aisha bint Abu Bakr as a second or third wife (sources disagree about the precise timing); Aisha herself became a distinguished scholar, narrating 2210 hadith.

Abū Bakr accompanied Muhammad to Medina in 622, acted as an adviser to Muhammad for many years, and led a pilgrimage to Mecca in 631. In 632, after much debate, he was acclaimed the  khalīfat rasūl Allāh (successor or caliph to the prophet of God.) As he died in 634, his caliphate lasted only two years. The Muslims who supported Abū Bakr and successive caliphs evolved into what are now followers of Sunni Islam; those who opposed him and supported the claims of Ali ibn Abi Talib became what are now the Shiite Muslims. 

Abū Bakr's main achievement during this period was to unify the Islamic world under the central authority of Medina in the “wars of apostasy”, a series of civil wars against other Muslims intended to unify Islam and suppress dissent. His success in these wars led to a strong central government in the Arabian peninsula and the beginning of the expansion of Islam into Syria and Iraq. He also work to collect and preserve the sayings of the Prophet in writing, into a form that became the Koran.

Why do you think Shakespeare inserts a comic scene at this point in the play?act 5 sc 1

As this play approaches its denouement, the emotional intensity becomes almost overwhelming.  Shakespeare understood that the audience needs a break at this point before the deaths of Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes, and Hamlet occur.  The playwright offers this comic relief just prior to Hamlet's and Horatio's witnessing the funeral of Ophelia in a scene that is at once poignant and anger-filled.  Laughter is the necessary outlet; this emotional discharge helps the audience prepare for the final, desperately tragic scene of the play.

What changes do we notice in Ralph's personality by the beginning of Chapter 5?

The beginning of Chapter 5 of Lord of the Flies evidences a maturation in Ralph:

Suddenly, pacing by the water, he was overcome with astonishment.  He found himself understanding the wearisomeness of this life, where every path was an improvisation and a considerable part of one's waking life was spent watching one's feet.

Ralph realizes the responsibility of leadership, the demands that it makes upon him, especially in the absence of any rules of society.  Gone is the carefree innocence which he first felt when he arrived on the island:

...remembering that first enthusiastic exploration as though it were part of a brighter childhood, he smiled jeeringly.

Ralph scoffs at his naivete, his childish thinking. Now, he knows that he must make no mistake as he calls an assembly since there is an urgent need to preserve order after Jack has earned the respect of the boys for having procured meat.  For, as the boys rejoiced in the killing of the pig, Golding writes, Ralph watched them, "envious and resentful" of their freedom as he realized the responsibilities that fall upon him as the leader.  He yearns for a return to civilization where he can again be a boy: 

With a convulsion of the mind, Ralph discovered dirt and decay, understood how much he diliked perpetually flicking the tangled hair out of his eyes, and at last, when the sun was gone, rolling noisily to rest among dry leaves.

In addition, Ralph realizes that he does not have the reasoning ability necessary for leadership:

Only, decided Ralph as he faced the chief's seat, I can't think.  Not like Piggy....He could go step by step inside that fat head of his, only Piggy was no chief...Ralph was a specialist in thought now, and could recognize thought in another.

At the meeting, Ralph wishes to "put things straight."  In his maturity, he explains that immediate gratification is problematic; he tells the hunters excited about the pigs,

You hunters! You can laugh!  But I tell you the smoke is more important than the pig, however often you kill one....We've got to make smoke up there--or die.

Unfortunately, Jack has gained power with the respect he has earned and the meeting does not go well as Jack undermines Ralph's authority by blaming Ralph for first personifying the beast.  As the boys argue, Ralph blows the conch for order.  But, Jack yells, "Bollock to the rules!  We're strong--we hunt!"  The savage brute strength contends now with the call to civilized order and Ralph shudders at the thought of losing control, a premonition about which he has had at the very beginning of the chapter:

We're all drifiting and things are going rotten.  At home there was always a grownup.  Please, sir; please, miss; and then you got an answer.  How I wish!

Who is Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks?Gordon parks

GARBP is an artistIc photographer born in 1912 and commonly known as Gordon Parks. He was born a stillborn and was declared dead until the attending doctor insisted in placing him in a bucket of freezing water to start up his heart- which worked. It is the reason why his name,Gordon, came about- H was saved by a Dr. Gordon.

He had bouts of homelessness and lived in poverty. He became interested in photography in his early 20's when he bought a camera reportedly for $7.50 and began snapping still life, people, and recording life in the city slums (as  well as fashion trends) with his camera.

He became a self-taught freelancer and his talent became so defined that he became the first African American photographer in Vogue magazine and Life magazine. He is godfather to Malcom X's daughter, and was even Gloria Vanderbilt significant other at some point. He died in 2006 from cancer.

Evaluate the labor movement and radicalism on the 1930s. How did they influence American political and cultural life?Also, to what extent were the...

As far as the second part of your question goes, what I would call popluar culture did not really reflect the grim realities.  I think you had some of that in songs like "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime" and in books like "Of Mice and Men."

But people can't go around being depressed all the time, even during a depression.  In most textbooks, the popular culture of the '30s is described as being pretty light-hearted, to get people's minds off their problems.  Movies were quite popular and were often pretty funny or escapist.  So you had Marx Brothers movies being very popular.  And movies like "Broadway Melody of 1936."  And you have songs like "Happy Days are Here Again" and Cole Porter songs like "Putting on the Ritz."

So the popular culture really did not reflect the grim realities -- why immerse yourself in grim reality for fun?

Which Russian leader does Snowball represent in Animal Farm?

Snowball represents a man named Trotsky. Snowball represents the brains of the animals. He thinks strategy and he thinks for the animals' benefit.

Trotsky was one of the men who Lenin had as a right-hand man during the beginning of the institution of Communism in Russia around 1917. Trotsky might have been a good predecessor of Lenin following his 1924 death. However, Stalin (the Napoleon character) did away with Trotsky early on by exiling him from the USSR.

What themes do "The Lovely Bones" and Sebold's new book "The Almost Moon" have in common? Many have read " the Lovely Bones", but some may have...

In terms of plot, both stories deal with murders that have no obvious motive.  However, the narrator of the new novel is the villian and not the vicitim, as was the case in The Lovely Bones.  Helen of Moon is not the rational creature that Susie is, either.  She shares more in common, as one might suspect, with Susie's killer Mr. Harvey.

This is the first common theme, the humanization of a murderer.  Both novels attempt to explain the reasoning behind the murders.  In Bones, Sebold spends significant time showing readers the Harvey's personal history,  his troubled childhood, and his attempts to avoid homicide.  All of Moon is devoted to the same theme; readers are shown Helen's history and the behavior of her mother so they might understand that she is not just a 'crazy person'.  Readers are meant to find some compassion for both characters.

The other theme is the dysfunction of family.  As mentioned, Harvey's family life as a child was unsettled - his mother taught him to steal, put him in dangerous situations, and abandoned him to an abusive father.  The Salmon family is dysfunctional after Susie's death because they do not communicate and work through their grief, resulting in injury and abandonment.  Helen and mother struggled through the father's suicide and the mother's agorophobia, also not communicating or sharing, which led to their troubled relationship.