\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\title{\LaTeX}
\author{Anton Setzer\thanks{Dept. of Computer Science, Swansea University, Singleton Park, Swansea SA1 4PZ, UK. Email: {\tt a.g.setzer@swan.ac.uk}. This article is based on the example in Wikipedia, 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaTeX}}
\date{7 October 2011}

\newcommand{\role}{{r\^{o}le}}

\begin{document}
  \maketitle
  \LaTeX{} is a document preparation system for the \TeX{}
  typesetting program. It offers programmable desktop publishing
  features and extensive facilities for automating most aspects of
  typesetting and desktop publishing, including numbering and
  cross-referencing, tables and figures, page layout, bibliographies,
  and much more. \LaTeX{} was originally written in 1984 by Leslie
  Lamport and has become the dominant method for using \TeX; few
  people write in plain \TeX{} anymore. The current version  is
  \LaTeXe. \LaTeX{} plays an important \role{} in publishing scientific
  articles in Science.
 
  % This is a comment; it will not be shown in the final output.
  % The following shows a little of the typesetting power of LaTeX:
  \begin{align}
    E &= mc^2                              \\
    m &= \frac{m_0}{\sqrt{1-\frac{v^2}{c^2}}}
  \end{align}
\end{document}