1.
Slovenia
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Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a nation state in southern Central Europe, located at the crossroads of main European cultural and trade routes. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and it covers 20,273 square kilometers and has a population of 2.06 million. It is a republic and a member of the United Nations, European Union. The capital and largest city is Ljubljana, additionally, the Dinaric Alps and the Pannonian Plain meet on the territory of Slovenia. The country, marked by a significant biological diversity, is one of the most water-rich in Europe, with a river network, a rich aquifer system. Over half of the territory is covered by forest, the human settlement of Slovenia is dispersed and uneven. Slovenia has historically been the crossroads of South Slavic, Germanic, Romance, although the population is not homogeneous, the majority is Slovene. South Slavic language Slovene is the language throughout the country. Slovenia is a largely secularized country, but its culture and identity have been influenced by Catholicism as well as Lutheranism. The economy of Slovenia is small, open, and export-oriented and has strongly influenced by international conditions. It has been hurt by the Eurozone crisis, started in the late 2000s. The main economic field is services, followed by industry and construction, Historically, the current territory of Slovenia was part of many different state formations, including the Roman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, followed by the Habsburg Monarchy. In October 1918, the Slovenes exercised self-determination for the first time by co-founding the State of Slovenes, Croats, in December 1918, they merged with the Kingdom of Serbia into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. During World War II, Slovenia was occupied and annexed by Germany, Italy, and Hungary, with a tiny area transferred to the Independent State of Croatia, in June 1991, after the introduction of multi-party representative democracy, Slovenia split from Yugoslavia and became an independent country. Present-day Slovenia has been inhabited since prehistoric times, and there is evidence of habitation from around 250,000 years ago. A pierced cave bear bone, dating from 43100 ±700 BP, in the 1920s and 1930s, artifacts belonging to the Cro-Magnon such as pierced bones, bone points, and needle were found by archaeologist Srečko Brodar in Potok Cave. It shows that wooden wheels appeared almost simultaneously in Mesopotamia and Europe, in the transition period between the Bronze age to the Iron age, the Urnfield culture flourished. Archaeological remains dating from the Hallstatt period have been found, particularly in southeastern Slovenia, among them a number of situlas in Novo Mesto, in the Iron Age, present-day Slovenia was inhabited by Illyrian and Celtic tribes until the 1st century BC
2.
Ramsar Convention
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The Ramsar Convention is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands. It is also known as the Convention on Wetlands and it is named after the city of Ramsar in Iran, where the Convention was signed in 1971. The most recent COP12 was held in Punta del Este, Uruguay, cOP13 will take place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in 2018. The List of Wetlands of International Importance included 2,231 Ramsar Sites in March 2016 covering over 2.1 million square kilometres. The country with the highest number of Sites is the United Kingdom with 170, the Ramsar Sites Information Service is a searchable database which provides information on each Ramsar Site. As of 2016 there are 18 Transboundary Ramsar Sites, as of 2016 there are 15 Ramsar Regional Initiatives covering regions of the Mediterranean, Asia, Africa and South America. The Ramsar Convention works closely with six other known as International Organization Partners. The IOPs also participate regularly as observers in all meetings of the Conference of the Parties and as members of the Scientific. Conference of the Parties Conference of the Parties is the Conventions governing body consisting of all governments that have ratified the treaty and this ultimate authority reviews progress under the Convention, identifies new priorities, and sets work plans for members. The COP can also make amendments to the Convention, create expert advisory bodies, review progress reports by member nations, and collaborate with other international organizations and agreements. The Standing Committee The Standing Committee is the executive body which represents the COP between its triennial meetings, within the framework of the decisions made by the COP. The Contracting Parties that are members of the Standing Committee are elected by each meeting of the COP to serve for the three years until the next one, the Secretariat The Secretariat carries out the day-to-day coordination of the Convention’s activities. It is based at the headquarters of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature in Gland, Switzerland, the 2nd of February each year is World Wetlands Day, marking the date of the adoption of the Convention on Wetlands on 2 February 1971. Established to raise awareness about the value of wetlands for humanity, in 2015 World Wetlands Day was celebrated in 59 countries
3.
Karst Plateau
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The Karst Plateau or the Karst region, also simply known as the Karst, is a limestone plateau region extending across the border of southwestern Slovenia and northeastern Italy. It lies between the Vipava Valley, the low hills surrounding the valley, the westernmost part of the Brkini Hills, northern Istria, the western edge of the plateau also marks the traditional ethnic border between Italians and Slovenes. The region gave its name to the karst topography, for this reason, it is also referred to as the Classical Karst. The plateau rises quite steeply above the landscape, except for its northeastern side. The plateau gradually descends from the southeast to the southwest, on average it lies 334 m above sea level. Many interesting geological phenomena occur along the Karst Rim, including the picturesque Rosandra Valley, because the Karst steeply descends towards the Adriatic Sea, it is less exposed to the beneficial climatological effects of the Mediterranean. In the past, the vegetation on the plateau was oaks. Forests now cover only one-third of the Karst, starting the Middle Ages, the plateau suffered radical deforestation for economic reasons. Although much of the wood for the closely spaced piles that support the city of Venice, Italy came from this region. The most radical deforestation occurred in the century due to clear-cutting by local farmers. The Karst is famous for its caves, in Slovenia, they include Vilenica Cave, Lipica Cave, Divača Cave, Kačna Cave, Postojna Cave, and Škocjan Caves, and Grotta Gigante in Italy. Most of the Karst is located in the Slovenian Littoral, covering an area of 429 square kilometres, the Karst as a whole has exactly 100 settlements. The town of Sežana is the center of the region on the Slovene side of the border, the main rural centers are the settlements of Divača, Dutovlje, and Komen. Štanjel is a clustered settlement at the top of the northern rim of the plateau, its houses are tightly clustered around Turn Hill. On the Italian side of the border, important settlements include Opicina, Duino, natural conditions, including the bora wind, and the local way of life all shaped the elements of Karst architecture, creating simple but well-defined forms. One of the main tourist centers in the area is Lipica, the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Karst Plateau are ethnic Slovenes. As a consequence, today an estimated one fifth of the population of the Karst Plateau is Italian speaking, the Slovenes in the region speak two closely related Slovene dialects, both belonging to the Littoral dialect group. In the southern part of the plateau, the Inner Carniolan dialect is spoken, in the northern part, the Karst dialect is spoken
4.
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
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Covering an area of 255,804 km², the SFRY was bordered with Italy to the west, Hungary to the north, Bulgaria and Romania to the east and Albania and Greece to the south. In addition, it included two autonomous provinces within Serbia, Kosovo and Vojvodina, the SFRY traces back to 29 June 1943 when the Anti-Fascist Council for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia was formed during World War II. On 29 November 1945, the Federal Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed after the deposal of King Peter II thus ending the monarchy. Following the death of Tito on 4 May 1980, rising ethnic nationalism in the late 1980s led to dissidence among the multiple ethnicities within the constituent republics. This led to the federation collapsing along the borders, followed by the final downfall and breakup of the federation on 27 April 1992. The term former Yugoslavia is now commonly used retrospectively, the name Yugoslavia, an Anglicised transcription of Jugoslavija, is a composite word made-up of jug and slavija. The Serbo-Croatian, Slovene and Macedonian word jug means south, while slavija denotes a land of the Slavs, thus, a translation of Jugoslavija would be South-Slavia or Land of the South Slavs. The term is intended to denote the lands occupied by the six South Slavic nations, Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Montenegrins, Slovenes, the full official name of the federation varied significantly between 1945 and 1992. Yugoslavia was formed in 1918 under the name Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, the name deliberately left the republic-or-kingdom question open. In 1963, amid pervasive liberal constitutional reforms, the name Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was introduced, the state is most commonly referred to by the latter name, which it held for the longest period of all. The most common abbreviation is SFRY, though SFR Yugoslavia was also used in an official capacity, particularly by the media. On 6 April 1941, Yugoslavia was invaded by the Axis powers led by Nazi Germany, by 17 April 1941, Yugoslav resistance was soon established in two forms, the Royal Yugoslav Army and the Yugoslav Partisans. The Partisan supreme commander was Josip Broz Tito, and under his command the movement soon began establishing liberated territories which attracted the attentions of the occupying forces. The coalition of parties, factions, and prominent individuals behind the movement was the Peoples Liberation Front. The Front formed a political body, the Anti-Fascist Council for the Peoples Liberation of Yugoslavia. The AVNOJ, which met for the first time in Partisan-liberated Bihać on 26 November 1942, during 1943, the Yugoslav Partisans began attracting serious attention from the Germans. In two major operations of Fall Weiss and Fall Schwartz, the Axis attempted to stamp-out the Yugoslav resistance once, on both occasions, despite heavy casualties, the Group succeeded in evading the trap and retreating to safety. The Partisans emerged stronger than before and now occupied a significant portion of Yugoslavia
5.
Canyon
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A canyon or gorge is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from the erosive activity of a river over geologic timescales. A canyon may also refer to a rift between two peaks, such as those in ranges including the Rocky Mountains, the Alps. Usually a river or stream and erosion carve out such splits between mountains, examples of mountain-type canyons are Provo Canyon in Utah or Yosemite National Park in Californias Sierra Nevada. Canyons within mountains, or gorges that have an opening on one side are called box canyons. Slot canyons are very narrow canyons, often with smooth walls, steep-sided valleys in the seabed of the continental slope underwater are referred to as submarine canyons. Unlike canyons on land, submarine canyons are thought to be formed by turbidity currents, the word canyon is Spanish in origin, with the same meaning. The word canyon is used in North America while the words gorge and ravine are used in Europe and Oceania, though gorge. In the United States, place names generally use canyon in the southwest and gorge in the northeast, in Canada, a gorge is usually narrow while a ravine is more open and often wooded. The military-derived word defile is occasionally used in the United Kingdom, most canyons were formed by a process of long-time erosion from a plateau or table-land level. The cliffs form because harder rock strata that are resistant to erosion, Canyons are much more common in arid than in wet areas because physical weathering has a more localized effect in arid zones. The wind and water from the combine to erode and cut away less resistant materials such as shales. The freezing and expansion of water also serves to help form canyons, water seeps into cracks between the rocks and freezes, pushing the rocks apart and eventually causing large chunks to break off the canyon walls, in a process known as frost wedging. Canyon walls are formed of resistant sandstones or granite. Sometimes large rivers run through canyons as the result of geological uplift. These are called entrenched rivers, because they are unable to alter their course. In the United States, the Colorado River in the Southwest, Canyons often form in areas of limestone rock. As limestone is soluble to an extent, cave systems form in the rock. When these collapse, a canyon is left, as in the Mendip Hills in Somerset and Yorkshire Dales in Yorkshire, England
6.
Ecosystem
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An ecosystem is a community of living organisms in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment, interacting as a system. These biotic and abiotic components are regarded as linked together through nutrient cycles, as ecosystems are defined by the network of interactions among organisms, and between organisms and their environment, they can be of any size but usually encompass specific, limited spaces. Energy, water, nitrogen and soil minerals are other essential components of an ecosystem. The energy that flows through ecosystems is obtained primarily from the sun and it generally enters the system through photosynthesis, a process that also captures carbon from the atmosphere. By feeding on plants and on one another, animals play an important role in the movement of matter and they also influence the quantity of plant and microbial biomass present. Ecosystems are controlled both by external and internal factors, other external factors include time and potential biota. Ecosystems are dynamic entities—invariably, they are subject to disturbances and are in the process of recovering from some past disturbance. Ecosystems in similar environments that are located in different parts of the world can have different characteristics simply because they contain different species. The introduction of species can cause substantial shifts in ecosystem function. Internal factors not only control ecosystem processes but are controlled by them and are often subject to feedback loops. Other internal factors include disturbance, succession and the types of species present, although humans exist and operate within ecosystems, their cumulative effects are large enough to influence external factors like climate. Biodiversity affects ecosystem function, as do the processes of disturbance, classifying ecosystems into ecologically homogeneous units is an important step towards effective ecosystem management, but there is no single, agreed-upon way to do this. The term ecosystem was first used in 1935 in a publication by British ecologist Arthur Tansley, Tansley devised the concept to draw attention to the importance of transfers of materials between organisms and their environment. He later refined the term, describing it as The whole system, including not only the organism-complex, but also the whole complex of physical factors forming what we call the environment. Tansley regarded ecosystems not simply as natural units, but as mental isolates, Tansley later defined the spatial extent of ecosystems using the term ecotope. G. Raymond Lindeman took these ideas one step further to suggest that the flow of energy through a lake was the driver of the ecosystem. Most mineral nutrients, on the hand, are recycled within ecosystems. Ecosystems are controlled both by external and internal factors, external factors, also called state factors, control the overall structure of an ecosystem and the way things work within it, but are not themselves influenced by the ecosystem
7.
Karst
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Karst topography is a landscape formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes and caves and it has also been documented for more weathering-resistant rocks, such as quartzite, given the right conditions. Subterranean drainage may limit surface water, with few to no rivers or lakes, the English word karst was borrowed from German Karst in the late 19th century. The German word came into use before the 19th century, according to the prevalent interpretation, the term is derived from the German name for the Karst region, a limestone plateau above the city of Trieste in the northern Adriatic. Scholars disagree, however, on whether the German word was borrowed from Slovene, the Slovene common noun kras was first attested in the 18th century, and the adjective form kraški in the 16th century. The Slovene words arose through metathesis from the reconstructed form *korsъ, ultimately, the word is of Mediterranean origin, believed to derive from some Romanized Illyrian base. It has been suggested that the word may derive from the Proto-Indo-European root karra- rock, the name may also be connected to the oronym Karsádios oros cited by Ptolemy, and perhaps also to Latin Carusardius. The development of karst occurs whenever acidic water starts to break down the surface of bedrock near its cracks, as the bedrock continues to degrade, its cracks tend to get bigger. As time goes on, these fractures will become wider, if this underground drainage system does form, it will speed up the development of karst formations there because more water will be able to flow through the region, giving it more erosive power. The carbonic acid that causes karstic features is formed as rain passes through the atmosphere picking up carbon dioxide, once the rain reaches the ground, it may pass through soil that can provide much more CO2 to form a weak carbonic acid solution, which dissolves calcium carbonate. The oxidation of sulfides leading to the formation of acid can also be one of the corrosion factors in karst formation. As oxygen -rich surface waters seep into deep anoxic karst systems, they bring oxygen, sulfuric acid then reacts with calcium carbonate, causing increased erosion within the limestone formation. This chain of reactions is, This reaction chain forms gypsum, the karstification of a landscape may result in a variety of large- or small-scale features both on the surface and beneath. On exposed surfaces, small features may include solution flutes, runnels, limestone pavement, medium-sized surface features may include sinkholes or cenotes, vertical shafts, foibe, disappearing streams, and reappearing springs. Large-scale features may include limestone pavements, poljes, and karst valleys, mature karst landscapes, where more bedrock has been removed than remains, may result in karst towers, or haystack/eggbox landscapes. Beneath the surface, complex underground systems and extensive caves. Some of the most dramatic of these formations can be seen in Thailands Phangnga Bay, calcium carbonate dissolved into water may precipitate out where the water discharges some of its dissolved carbon dioxide. Rivers which emerge from springs may produce tufa terraces, consisting of layers of calcite deposited over extended periods of time, in caves, a variety of features collectively called speleothems are formed by deposition of calcium carbonate and other dissolved minerals
8.
Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
9.
Sinkhole
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A sinkhole, also known as a cenote, sink, sink-hole, shakehole, swallet, swallow hole, or doline, is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. Most are caused by karst processes—for example, the dissolution of carbonate rocks or suffosion processes. Sinkholes vary in size from 1 to 600 m both in diameter and depth, and vary in form from soil-lined bowls to bedrock-edged chasms, sinkholes may form gradually or suddenly, and are found worldwide. Sinkholes may capture surface drainage from running or standing water, but may form in high. Sinkholes that capture drainage can hold it in limestone caves. These caves may drain into tributaries of larger rivers, the formation of sinkholes involves natural processes of erosion or gradual removal of slightly soluble bedrock by percolating water, the collapse of a cave roof, or a lowering of the water table. Sinkholes often form through the process of suffosion, for example, groundwater may dissolve the carbonate cement holding the sandstone particles together and then carry away the lax particles, gradually forming a void. Occasionally a sinkhole may exhibit a visible opening into a cave below, sinkholes also occur in sandstone and quartzite terrains. As the rock dissolves, spaces and caverns develop underground and these sinkholes can be dramatic, because the surface land usually stays intact until there is not enough support. Then, a collapse of the land surface can occur. Sinkholes also form from human activity, such as the collapse of abandoned mines and salt cavern storage in salt domes in places like Louisiana, Mississippi, more commonly, sinkholes occur in urban areas due to water main breaks or sewer collapses when old pipes give way. They can also occur from the overpumping and extraction of groundwater, sinkholes can also form when natural water-drainage patterns are changed and new water-diversion systems are developed. Sinkholes tend to occur in karst landscapes, karst landscapes can have up to thousands of sinkholes within a small area, giving the landscape a pock-marked appearance. These sinkholes drain all the water, so there are only subterranean rivers in these areas, examples of karst landscapes with a plethora of massive sinkholes include Khammouan Mountains and Mamo Plateau. The largest known sinkholes formed in sandstone are Sima Humboldt and Sima Martel in Venezuela, some sinkholes form in thick layers of homogenous limestone. On the contact of limestone and insoluble rock below it, powerful underground rivers may form, in such conditions, the largest known sinkholes of the world have formed, like the 662-metre deep Xiaozhai Tiankeng, giant sótanos in Querétaro and San Luis Potosí states in Mexico and others. The state of Florida in the United States is known for having frequent sinkhole collapses, the Murge area in southern Italy also has numerous sinkholes. Sinkholes can be formed in retention ponds from large amounts of rain, an analysis of a case of sinkhole formation under a retention pond due to a large amount of rain can be seen in a sinkhole collapse study
10.
Siphon
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The word siphon \sy-fun\ is used to refer to a wide variety of devices that involve the flow of liquids through tubes. There are two leading theories about how siphons cause liquid to flow uphill, against gravity, without being pumped, the traditional theory for centuries was that gravity pulling the liquid down on the exit side of the siphon, resulted in reduced pressure at the top of the siphon. Then atmospheric pressure was able to push the liquid from the reservoir, up into the reduced pressure at the top of the siphon, like in a barometer or drinking straw. However, it has demonstrated that siphons can operate in a vacuum. Consequently, the cohesion tension theory of operation has been advocated. It need not be one theory or the other that is correct, the atmospheric pressure with gravity theory obviously cannot explain siphons in vacuum, where there is no significant atmospheric pressure. All known published theories in modern times recognize Bernoullis equation as a decent approximation to idealized, egyptian reliefs from 1500 BC depict siphons used to extract liquids from large storage jars. There is physical evidence for the use of siphons by Greek engineers in the 3rd century BC at Pergamon, hero of Alexandria wrote extensively about siphons in the treatise Pneumatica. In the 9th century, the Banu Musa brothers invented a double-concentric siphon, the edition edited by Hill includes an analysis of the double-concentric siphon. A practical siphon, operating at atmospheric pressures and tube heights. The chain model is a useful but not completely accurate model of a siphon. The chain model helps to understand how a siphon can cause liquid to flow uphill, a siphon can sometimes be thought of a little like a chain hanging over a pulley, with one end of the chain piled on a higher surface than the other. Since the length of chain on the side is lighter than the length of chain on the taller side. There are a number of problems with the model of a siphon. First, unlike in the model of the siphon, it is not actually the weight on the taller side compared to the shorter side. Rather it is the difference in height from the surfaces to the top of the siphon. An occasional misunderstanding of siphons is that they rely on the strength of the liquid to pull the liquid up. When the plug is removed and the liquid in the lower leg is allowed to fall
11.
Trieste
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Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a strip of Italian territory lying between the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city. It is also located near Croatia some further 30 kilometres south, Trieste is located at the head of the Gulf of Trieste and throughout history it has been influenced by its location at the crossroads of Latin, Slavic, and Germanic cultures. In 2009, it had a population of about 205,000 and it is the capital of the autonomous region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Trieste was one of the oldest parts of the Habsburg Monarchy. In the 19th century, it was the most important port of one of the Great Powers of Europe, as a prosperous seaport in the Mediterranean region, Trieste became the fourth largest city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the fin de siècle period at the end of the 19th century it emerged as an important hub for literature, Trieste underwent an economic revival during the 1930s, and Trieste was an important spot in the struggle between the Eastern and Western blocs after the Second World War. Today, the city is in one of the richest regions of Italy, Roman authors also transliterated the name as Tergestum. Modern names of the city include, Italian, Trieste, Slovene, Trst, German, Triest, Hungarian, Trieszt, Croatian, Trst, Serbian, Трст/Trst, Trieste lies in the northernmost part of the high Adriatic in northeastern Italy, near the border with Slovenia. The city lies on the Gulf of Trieste, built mostly on a hillside that becomes a mountain, Triestes urban territory lies at the foot of an imposing escarpment that comes down abruptly from the Karst Plateau towards the sea. The karst landforms close to the city reach an elevation of 458 metres above sea level and it lies on the borders of the Italian geographical region, the Balkan Peninsula, and the Mitteleuropa. The territory of Trieste is composed of different climate zones depending on the distance from the sea. The average temperatures are 5.4 °C in January and 23.3 °C in July, the climatic setting of the city is humid subtropical climate. On average, humidity levels are low, while only two months receive slightly less than 60 mm of precipitation. Trieste along with the Istrian peninsula has evenly distributed rainfall above 1,000 mm in total, snow occurs on average 0 –2 days per year. Temperatures are very mild - lows below zero are somewhat rare, winter maxima are lower than in typical Mediterranean zone with quite high minima. Summer is very warm with maxima about 28 °C and lows above 20 °C, the absolute maximum of the last fifty years is 37.2 °C in 2003, whereas the absolute minimum is −14.6 °C in 1956. Since the second millennium BC, the location was an inhabited site, originally an Illyrian settlement, the Veneti entered the region in the 10th-9th c. BC and seem to have given the town its name, Tergeste, still later, the town was later captured by the Carni, a tribe of the Eastern Alps, before becoming part of the Roman republic in 177 BC during the Istrian War
12.
Ancient Greece
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Ancient Greece was a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th-9th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and this was followed by the period of Classical Greece, an era that began with the Greco-Persian Wars, lasting from the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Due to the conquests by Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Hellenistic civilization flourished from Central Asia to the end of the Mediterranean Sea. Classical Greek culture, especially philosophy, had a influence on ancient Rome. For this reason Classical Greece is generally considered to be the culture which provided the foundation of modern Western culture and is considered the cradle of Western civilization. Classical Antiquity in the Mediterranean region is considered to have begun in the 8th century BC. Classical Antiquity in Greece is preceded by the Greek Dark Ages and this period is succeeded, around the 8th century BC, by the Orientalizing Period during which a strong influence of Syro-Hittite, Jewish, Assyrian, Phoenician and Egyptian cultures becomes apparent. The end of the Dark Ages is also dated to 776 BC. The Archaic period gives way to the Classical period around 500 BC, Ancient Periods Astronomical year numbering Dates are approximate, consult particular article for details The history of Greece during Classical Antiquity may be subdivided into five major periods. The earliest of these is the Archaic period, in which artists made larger free-standing sculptures in stiff, the Archaic period is often taken to end with the overthrow of the last tyrant of Athens and the start of Athenian Democracy in 508 BC. It was followed by the Classical period, characterized by a style which was considered by observers to be exemplary, i. e. classical, as shown in the Parthenon. This period saw the Greco-Persian Wars and the Rise of Macedon, following the Classical period was the Hellenistic period, during which Greek culture and power expanded into the Near and Middle East. This period begins with the death of Alexander and ends with the Roman conquest, Herodotus is widely known as the father of history, his Histories are eponymous of the entire field. Herodotus was succeeded by authors such as Thucydides, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Plato, most of these authors were either Athenian or pro-Athenian, which is why far more is known about the history and politics of Athens than those of many other cities. Their scope is limited by a focus on political, military and diplomatic history, ignoring economic. In the 8th century BC, Greece began to emerge from the Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, literacy had been lost and Mycenaean script forgotten, but the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, modifying it to create the Greek alphabet. The Lelantine War is the earliest documented war of the ancient Greek period and it was fought between the important poleis of Chalcis and Eretria over the fertile Lelantine plain of Euboea. Both cities seem to have suffered a decline as result of the long war, a mercantile class arose in the first half of the 7th century BC, shown by the introduction of coinage in about 680 BC
