Wikipedia:Portal:Portal
The portal of portals
A portal is an opening in the walls of a building, gate or fortification, and especially a grand entrance to an important structure. Doors, metal gates or portcullis in the opening can be used to control entry or exit. The surface surrounding the opening may be made of simple building materials or decorated with ornamentation. Elements of a portal can include the voussoir, tympanum, an ornamented mullion or trumeau between doors, and columns with carvings of saints in the westwork of a church.
Portals in science fiction, such as wormholes and gates, allow rapid travel between distant locations, often originating from some combination of natural phenomenon and technological device. These fictional devices are required for most stories on an inter-solar scale, otherwise transit time would be excessive for storytelling purposes. An advantage of portal technology over a faster-than-light drive is that it can be imagined to work instantly, and can travel to the past or future. In other forms of fiction, a portal may be magical, and connect to an alternate universe or plane of existence.
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ZanZarah: The Hidden Portal is an action-adventure computer game by German Funatics Development, released in 2002 by publisher THQ. An add-on, ZanZarah: The Lost Village (an unofficial title used by fans), was in development in 2002, but was later cancelled.
The game follows the story of Amy, a young girl from London who on her eighteenth birthday receives the strangest present in her life - a magic rune - from an even stranger creature, a goblin who appeared out of nowhere and disappeared without saying anything. The rune was one of the teleportation runes that the inhabitants of a magic parallel world ZanZarah used to travel across their lands.
Upon her arrival in ZanZarah, Amy discovers that she is the one an ancient prophecy told of and that it is her destiny to become the greatest fairy trainer of all times and save both her world and ZanZarah from impending destruction. Of course, to accomplish that she must undertake a long journey, but being an inquisitive and optimistic person, Amy readily accepts her destiny.
Selected biography
Wyndham Raymond Portal, 1st Viscount Portal PC GCMG DSO MVO (9 April 1885 – 6 May 1949) was a British politician. The eldest son of Sir William Wyndam Portal, 2nd Baronet, and [Florence Elizabeth Mary Glyn CBE, daughter of Hon. St Leger Glyn, 2nd son of George Glyn, 1st Baron Wolverton, he was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. In 1909 he married Lady Louise Rosemary Kathleen Virginia Cairns, MBE, only child of Arthur Cairns, 2nd Earl Cairns.
Portal was commissioned into the Hampshire Yeomanry in 1903, was promoted Lieutenant in 1905, and transferred to the 9th Lancers later the same year. He transferred to the 1st Life Guards as a Second Lieutenant in 1908 and was promoted Lieutenant again later the same year, but left the Army in 1911. He rejoined the Hampshire Yeomanry in 1914 and served in World War I. He was promoted Captain in 1914 while serving as adjutant of the Royal 1st Devon Yeomanry.
Transferring back to the Life Guards (Special Reserve) in 1915, he was promoted Lieutenant-Colonel in 1916 when he took command of the Household Battalion. In 1917 he was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and appointed a Member of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO). He relinquished command of the battalion in 1918 and reverted to the rank of Captain, but was soon promoted Major and attached to the Machine Gun Corps as a battalion commander, again with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He resigned his commission in 1919. He was succeeded to the Baronetcy only by his uncle, Sir Spencer John Portal.
In the news
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- Kids game portal BBC Jam to close after competition complaints
- With pressure from France, Chad and Sudan open door to possible troop deployment
- Switzerland shut door on Korean Republic 2-0 in Group G
- Sydney train doors stuck, passengers delayed
- Entrepreneur's RFID chip implant to open doors, start car
Categories
- Doors — panels or barriers used to cover an opening
- Gates — entry points to an enclosed space
- Portals — focus pages which highlight a particular subject
- Portals on Wikimedia Commons - images of portals
Did you know?
- Portal hypertension is often the result of cirrhosis of the liver
- The Dark Portal is the first book in the Deptford Mice trilogy
- Fort Portal in Uganda is the seat of both Kabarole and the Toro Kingdom
- Portal's Weighted Companion Cube has fan-created plush and papercraft versions
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Selected geography
El Portal is a village in Miami-Dade County, Florida, USA. The village name is derived from the Spanish phrase for "the gate", after two wooden gates that once stood as a gateway to the village. As of 2004, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 2,468.
A small, diverse enclave between Miami Shores and Miami, El Portal was incorporated on December 7, 1937, by residents eager for strict zoning that would ensure tidiness. Three small subdivisions (now neighborhoods), included Sherwood Forest, El Jardin (Spanish for "The Garden"), and El Portal merged into the Village of El Portal.
El Portal has been designated as a bird sanctuary for more than 50 years.
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