1.
.308 Winchester
–
The.308 Winchester is a rimless, bottlenecked rifle cartridge and is the commercial cartridge from which the 7. 62×51mm NATO round was derived. The.308 Winchester was introduced in 1952, two prior to the NATO adoption of the 7. 62×51mm NATO T65. Winchester branded the cartridge and introduced it to the hunting market as the.308 Winchester. Winchesters Model 70 and Model 88 rifles were chambered for the new cartridge. Since then, the.308 Winchester has become the most popular short-action and it is also commonly used for civilian hunting, target shooting, Metallic Silhouette, bench rest target shooting, palma, metal matches and military sniping, and police sharpshooting. The relatively short case makes the.308 Winchester especially well-adapted for short-action rifles, when loaded with a bullet that expands, tumbles, or fragments in tissue, this cartridge is capable of high terminal performance. Their interchange is, however, considered safe by the Sporting Arms, the.308 Winchester has 3.64 ml cartridge case capacity. The exterior shape of the case was designed to promote reliable case feeding and extraction in bolt action rifles and machine guns alike, all dimensions in millimeters and inches. Americans would define the angle at alpha/2 =20 degrees. The common rifling twist rate for this cartridge is 305 mm,4 grooves, Ø lands =7.62 mm, Ø grooves =7.82 mm, land width =4.47 mm and the primer type is large rifle. Rulings the.308 Winchester can handle up to 415.00 MPa Pmax piezo pressure, regulated countries every rifle cartridge combo has to be proofed at 125% of this maximum C. I. P. pressure to certify for sale to consumers. This means that.308 Winchester chambered arms in C. I. P, regulated countries are currently proof tested at 519.00 MPa PE piezo pressure. North American SAAMI maximum pressure for the 308 Winchester is 62,000 PSI, the.308 Winchester is one of the most popular hunting cartridges in the United States, and possibly the world. It has gained popularity in countries as an exceptional cartridge for game in the medium- to large-sized class. In North America it is used extensively on whitetail deer, pronghorn, clay Harvey, an American gun writer, says it is usable on moose and elk. Layne Simpson, an American who has hunted in Sweden, says he is surprised how many hunters there use the cartridge, craig Boddington was told by a Norma Precision executive that the.308 is one of Normas best-selling calibers. In Africa the.308 Win is one of the most popular calibers among Bushveld hunters and is used on anything from duiker right up to the massive eland. The.308 Winchester has slightly more drop at range than the. 30-06 Springfield
2.
United States
–
Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
3.
Winchester Repeating Arms Company
–
The Winchester Repeating Arms Company was a prominent American maker of repeating firearms, located in New Haven, Connecticut. The ancestor of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company was the Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson partnership of Norwich, Jennings rifle was a commercial failure, and Robbins & Lawrence ceased production in 1852. Smith designed a much-improved rifle based on Jennings, and the partners also hired away Robbins & Lawrence shop foreman Benjamin Tyler Henry. In 1855 the Smith & Wesson partnership, in order to manufacture what they called the Volcanic lever-action rifle and pistol, sought investors and its largest stockholder was clothing manufacturer Oliver Winchester. The Volcanic rifle had only limited success, the company moved to New Haven in 1856, but by the end of that year became insolvent. Oliver Winchester and his partner John M. Davies purchased the firms assets from the remaining stockholders. After Smiths departure Benjamin Henry continued to work with a Smith development project, the self-contained metallic rimfire cartridge, Henry also supervised a new rifle design based loosely on the Volcanic to use the new ammunition, retaining only the general form of the breech mechanism and the tubular magazine. This became the Henry rifle of 1860, which was manufactured by the New Haven Arms Company, the Henry rifle ensured New Haven Arms success, and together with the Spencer rifle established the lever-action repeater in the firearms market. In 1866 Benjamin Henry, angered over what he believed was inadequate compensation, Oliver Winchester, hastening back from Europe, forestalled the move and reorganized New Haven Arms yet again as the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Another extremely popular model was rolled out in 1873, the Model 1873 introduced the first Winchester center fire cartridge, the. 44-40 WCF. These rifle families are known as the Gun That Won the West. The Model 1873 was followed by the Model 1876, a version of the 73. It was chambered for longer, more powerful cartridges such as. 45-60 WCF. 45-75 WCF, Oliver Winchester died in December 1880, his son and successor, William Wirt Winchester, died of tuberculosis four months later. William Wirt Winchesters widow, Sarah Winchester, used her inheritance, several of these are still in production today through companies such as Browning, Rossi, Navy Arms and others which have revived several of the discontinued models or produced reproductions. The early years of the century found the Winchester Repeating Arms Company competing with new John Browning designs. The race to produce the first commercial self-loading rifle brought forth the.22 rimfire Winchester Model 1903 and later centerfire Model 1905, Model 1907, and Model 1910 rifles. Winchester engineers, after ten years of work, designed the Model 1911 to circumvent Brownings self-loading shotgun patents, one of Winchesters premier engineers, T. C. Johnson, was instrumental in the development of these self-loading firearms and went on to superintend the designs of Winchesters classic Model 1912, Model 52 and Model 54
4.
Rifling
–
In firearms, rifling consists of helical grooves in the internal surface of a guns barrel, which impart a spin to a projectile around its long axis. This spin serves to stabilize the projectile, improving its aerodynamic stability. Rifling is often described by its twist rate, which indicates the distance the rifling takes to complete one revolution, such as 1 turn in 10 inches. A shorter distance indicates a faster twist, meaning that for a given velocity the projectile will be rotating at a spin rate. Barrels intended for long, small-diameter bullets, such as the ultra-low-drag, 80-grain 0.223 inch bullets, extremely long projectiles such as flechettes may require high twist rates, these projectiles must be inherently stable, and are often fired from a smoothbore barrel. Muskets were smoothbore, large caliber weapons using ball-shaped ammunition fired at low velocity. Due to the high cost and great difficulty of manufacturing, and the need to load readily from the muzzle. Consequently, on firing the ball bounced off the sides of the barrel when fired, barrel rifling was invented in Augsburg, Germany in 1498. In 1520 August Kotter, an armourer of Nuremberg, Germany improved upon this work, though true rifling dates from the mid-16th century, it did not become commonplace until the nineteenth century. The most successful weapons using rifling with black powder were breech loaders such as the Queen Anne pistol, the grooves most commonly used in modern rifling have fairly sharp edges. More recently, polygonal rifling, a throwback to the earliest types of rifling, has become popular, polygonal barrels tend to have longer service lives because the reduction of the sharp edges of the land reduces erosion of the barrel. Supporters of polygonal rifling also claim higher velocities and greater accuracy, polygonal rifling is currently seen on pistols from CZ, Heckler & Koch, Glock, Tanfoglio, and Kahr Arms, as well as the Desert Eagle. Such guns have achieved significant increases in velocity and range. Examples include the South African G5 and the German PzH2000, gain-twist rifling begins with very little change in the projectiles angular momentum during the first few inches of bullet travel after ignition during the transition from chamber to throat. This enables the bullet to remain undisturbed and trued to the case mouth. After engaging the rifling the bullet is progressively subjected to accelerated angular momentum as burning powder propels it down the barrel. By only gradually increasing the rate, torque is spread along a much longer section of barrel. Gain-twist rifling was used as early as the American Civil War, colt Army and Navy revolvers both employed gain-twist rifling
5.
Prairie dog
–
Prairie dogs are herbivorous burrowing rodents native to the grasslands of North America. The five species are, black-tailed, white-tailed, Gunnisons, Utah and they are a type of ground squirrel, found in the United States, Canada and Mexico. In the United States, they range primarily to the west of the Mississippi River, despite the name, they are not canines. Prairie dogs are named for their habitat and warning call, which similar to a dogs bark. The name was in use at least as early as 1774, the 1804 journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition note that in September 1804, they discovered a Village of an animal the French Call the Prairie Dog. Its genus, Cynomys, derives from the Greek for dog mouse, the black-tailed prairie dog was first described by Lewis and Clark in 1804. Lewis described it in detail in 1806, calling it the barking squirrel.5 and 1.5 kilograms. Sexual dimorphism in body mass in the prairie dog varies 105 to 136% between the sexes, among the species, black-tailed prairie dogs tend to be the least sexually dimorphic, and white-tailed prairie dogs tend to be the most sexually dimorphic. Prairie dogs are herbivorous, though they eat some insects. They feed primarily on grasses and small seeds, in the fall, they eat broadleaf forbs. In the winter, lactating and pregnant females supplement their diets with snow for extra water and they also will eat roots, seeds, fruit, and buds. Grasses of various species are eaten, white-tailed prairie dogs have been observed to kill ground squirrels, a competing herbivore. Prairie dogs live mainly at altitudes ranging from 2,000 to 10,000 ft above sea level, the areas where they live can get as warm as 38 °C in the summer and as cold as −37 °C in the winter. As prairie dogs live in areas prone to environmental threats, including hailstorms, blizzards, burrows help prairie dogs control their body temperature as they are 5–10 °C during the winter and 15–25 °C in the summer. Prairie dog burrows are 5–10 m long and 2–3 m below the ground, the entrance holes are generally 10–30 cm in diameter. Prairie dog burrows can have up to six entrances, sometimes the entrances are simply flat holes in the ground, while at other times they are surrounded by mounds of soil either left as piles or hard packed. Some mounds, known as dome craters, can be as high as 0. 2–0.3 m high, other mounds, known as rim craters, can be as high as 1 m. Dome craters and rim craters serve as observation posts used by the animals to watch for predators and they also protect the burrows from flooding
6.
Groundhog
–
The groundhog, also known as a woodchuck, or whistlepig, is a rodent of the family Sciuridae, belonging to the group of large ground squirrels known as marmots. It was first scientifically described by Carl Linnaeus in 1758, the groundhog is also referred to as a chuck, wood-shock, groundpig, whistler, thickwood badger, Canada marmot, monax, moonack, weenusk, and red monk. The name thickwood badger was given in the Northwest to distinguish the animal from the prairie badger, monax was an Indian name of the woodchuck, which meant the digger. Young groundhogs may be called chucklings, other marmots, such as the yellow-bellied and hoary marmots, live in rocky and mountainous areas, but the groundhog is a lowland creature. It is widely distributed in North America and common in the northeastern and central United States, groundhogs are found as far north as Alaska, with their habitat extending southeast to Georgia. The groundhog is the largest sciurid in its range, typically measuring 40 to 65 cm long and weighing 2 to 4 kg. In areas with natural predators and large amounts of alfalfa. Groundhogs are well adapted for digging, with short, powerful limbs and curved, unlike other sciurids, the groundhogs spine is curved, more like that of a mole, and the tail is comparably shorter as well — only about one-fourth of body length. The etymology of the woodchuck is unrelated to wood or chucking. It stems from an Algonquian name for the animal, wuchak, the similarity between the words has led to the popular tongue-twister, How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. A woodchuck would chuck all the wood he could if a woodchuck could chuck wood, the groundhog prefers open country and the edges of woodland, and is rarely far from a burrow entrance. Since the clearing of forests provided it with a more suitable habitat. Groundhogs are often hunted for sport, which tends to control their numbers, however, their ability to reproduce quickly has tended to mitigate the depopulating effects of sport hunting. As a consequence, the groundhog is an animal to many people in the United States. In the wild, groundhogs can live up to six years with two or three being average, in captivity, groundhogs reportedly live from 9 to 14 years. Common predators for groundhogs include wolves, cougars, coyotes, foxes, bobcats, bears, eagles, young groundhogs are often at risk for predation by snakes, which easily enter the burrow. Man, the dog, and the red fox, in the order named, are the chief enemies of the groundhog. In areas of agriculture and dairying regions of the state of Wisconsin, particularly the southern parts
7.
Marmot
–
Marmots are large squirrels in the genus Marmota, of which there are 15 species. Other species prefer rough grassland and can be found widely across North America, the similarly-sized but more social prairie dog is not classified in the genus Marmota but in the related genus Cynomys. Marmots typically live in burrows, and hibernate there through the winter, most marmots are highly social and use loud whistles to communicate with one another, especially when alarmed. Marmots mainly eat greens and many types of grasses, berries, lichens, mosses, roots, the following is a list of all Marmota species recognized by Thorington and Hoffman plus the recently defined M. kastschenkoi. They divide marmots into two subgenera, the etymology of the term marmot is uncertain. It may have arisen from the Gallo-Romance prefix marm-, meaning to mumble or murmur, another possible origin is post-classical Latin, mus montanus, meaning mountain mouse. Beginning in 2010, Alaska celebrates February 2 as Marmot Day, the Marmot Burrow International Marmot Network
8.
.22 Hornet
–
The.22 Hornet or 5. 6×35mmR is a varmint, small-game, predator, and competition centerfire rifle cartridge commercially introduced in 1930. It is considerably more powerful than the.22 WMR and the.17 HMR, the Hornet also differs very significantly from these in that it is not a rimfire but a centerfire cartridge. This makes it handloadable and reloadable, and thus much more versatile and it was the smallest commercially available.22 caliber centerfire cartridge until the introduction of the FN5. 7×28mm. The.22 Hornet fills the gap between such popular varmint/predator cartridges as the.22 WMR and the.223 Remington, in regard to muzzle velocity, muzzle energy and noise, it is well suited to vermin and predator control in relatively built-up areas. Harwoods cartridge was formed by necking down. 25-20 Winchester brass to.22 caliber, the modern.22 Hornets ancestry is generally attributed to experiments done in the 1920s using the black-powder.22 WCF at Springfield Armory. Winchester adopted what had so far been a cartridge in 1930. It was not until 1932 that any company began selling commercially made guns for the cartridge, wildcat variants of the.22 Hornet, such as the.22 K-Hornet, can boost bullet velocity and energy considerably above factory. Factory ammunition is available from all major manufacturers, generally with bullets weighing 34,35,45, or 46 grains. Muzzle velocity typically is in the 2,500 to 3,100 ft/s range, published handload data from major handloading-product companies shows how versatile the.22 Hornet can be. Beginning during World War II, aircrew survival rifles in.22 Hornet were developed and issued by the U. S. military and they were a bolt-action rifle with adjustable stock, a break-open rifle/shotgun over-under, and a takedown bolt-action rifle. Military survival issue.22 Hornet ammunition was loaded with soft-point expanding jacketed bullets, however, they were labeled Under no circumstances is the ammunition to be used for offensive or defensive measures against enemy personnel. This ammunition is provided for use with your emergency survival Rifle for the Killing of Game for food under emergency survival conditions only and it was later determined by the USAF that exigent circumstances and self defense would have exempted soft point ammunition from that provision. The.22 Hornet is a cartridge for the Field/Hunters pistol category in IHMSA. Survivalist Mel Tappan on the.22 Hornet, It is accurate, has no recoil. Ts performance limits its use to game and pests within 150 or 175 yards. It is by no means a deer cartridge, even with handloads. The Hornet is considered an optimal cartridge for hunting, though it is not as powerful as modern.22 centerfires. At mid-century, southern sportsman Henry Edwards Davis pronounced the Winchester Model 70 chambered for the Hornet the best commercial rifle for wild turkeys the world has ever seen
9.
Deer
–
Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the deer and the chital, and the Capreolinae, including the elk, reindeer, the Western roe deer. Female reindeer, and male deer of all species, grow, in this they differ from permanently horned antelope, which are in the same order, Artiodactyla. The musk deer of Asia and water chevrotain of tropical African and Asian forests are not usually regarded as true deer and form their own families, Moschidae and Tragulidae, respectively. Deer appear in art from Palaeolithic cave paintings onwards, and they have played a role in mythology, religion and their economic importance includes the use of their meat as venison, their skins as soft, strong buckskin, and their antlers as handles for knives. Deer hunting has been a sport since at least the Middle Ages. Deer live in a variety of biomes, ranging from tundra to the tropical rainforest, while often associated with forests, many deer are ecotone species that live in transitional areas between forests and thickets and prairie and savanna. The majority of deer species inhabit temperate mixed deciduous forest, mountain mixed coniferous forest, tropical seasonal/dry forest. Clearing open areas within forests to some extent may actually benefit deer populations by exposing the understory and allowing the types of grasses, weeds, additionally, access to adjacent croplands may also benefit deer. However, adequate forest or brush cover must still be provided for populations to grow, however, fallow deer have been introduced to South Africa. There are also species of deer that are highly specialized, and live almost exclusively in mountains, grasslands, swamps. Some deer have a distribution in both North America and Eurasia. Examples include the caribou that live in Arctic tundra and taiga and moose that inhabit taiga, huemul deer of South Americas Andes fill the ecological niches of the ibex and wild goat, with the fawns behaving more like goat kids. Mountain slope habitats vary from moist coniferous/mixed forested habitats to dry forests with alpine meadows higher up. The foothills and river valleys between the mountain provide a mosaic of cropland and deciduous parklands. The rare woodland caribou have the most restricted range living at altitudes in the subalpine meadows. Elk and mule deer both migrate between the alpine meadows and lower coniferous forests and tend to be most common in this region, elk also inhabit river valley bottomlands, which they share with White-tailed deer. They also live in the aspen parklands north of Calgary and Edmonton, the adjacent Great Plains grassland habitats are left to herds of elk, American bison, and pronghorn antelope
10.
Netherlands
–
The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
11.
Wales
–
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, and it had a population in 2011 of 3,063,456 and has a total area of 20,779 km2. Wales has over 1,680 miles of coastline and is mountainous, with its higher peaks in the north and central areas, including Snowdon. The country lies within the temperate zone and has a changeable. Welsh national identity emerged among the Celtic Britons after the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century, Llywelyn ap Gruffudds death in 1282 marked the completion of Edward I of Englands conquest of Wales, though Owain Glyndŵr briefly restored independence to Wales in the early 15th century. The whole of Wales was annexed by England and incorporated within the English legal system under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542, distinctive Welsh politics developed in the 19th century. Welsh Liberalism, exemplified in the early 20th century by Lloyd George, was displaced by the growth of socialism, Welsh national feeling grew over the century, Plaid Cymru was formed in 1925 and the Welsh Language Society in 1962. Established under the Government of Wales Act 1998, the National Assembly for Wales holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters, two-thirds of the population live in south Wales, mainly in and around Cardiff, Swansea and Newport, and in the nearby valleys. Now that the countrys traditional extractive and heavy industries have gone or are in decline, Wales economy depends on the sector, light and service industries. Wales 2010 gross value added was £45.5 billion, over 560,000 Welsh language speakers live in Wales, and the language is spoken by a majority of the population in parts of the north and west. From the late 19th century onwards, Wales acquired its popular image as the land of song, Rugby union is seen as a symbol of Welsh identity and an expression of national consciousness. The Old English-speaking Anglo-Saxons came to use the term Wælisc when referring to the Celtic Britons in particular, the modern names for some Continental European lands and peoples have a similar etymology. The modern Welsh name for themselves is Cymry, and Cymru is the Welsh name for Wales and these words are descended from the Brythonic word combrogi, meaning fellow-countrymen. The use of the word Cymry as a self-designation derives from the location in the post-Roman Era of the Welsh people in modern Wales as well as in northern England and southern Scotland. It emphasised that the Welsh in modern Wales and in the Hen Ogledd were one people, in particular, the term was not applied to the Cornish or the Breton peoples, who are of similar heritage, culture, and language to the Welsh. The word came into use as a self-description probably before the 7th century and it is attested in a praise poem to Cadwallon ap Cadfan c. 633. Thereafter Cymry prevailed as a reference to the Welsh, until c.1560 the word was spelt Kymry or Cymry, regardless of whether it referred to the people or their homeland. The Latinised forms of names, Cambrian, Cambric and Cambria, survive as lesser-used alternative names for Wales, Welsh
12.
Northern Ireland
–
Northern Ireland is a constituent unit of the United Kingdom in the north-east of Ireland. It is variously described as a country, province, region, or part of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland shares a border to the south and west with the Republic of Ireland. In 2011, its population was 1,810,863, constituting about 30% of the total population. Northern Ireland was created in 1921, when Ireland was partitioned between Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland by an act of the British parliament, Northern Ireland has historically been the most industrialised region of Ireland. After declining as a result of the political and social turmoil of the Troubles, its economy has grown significantly since the late 1990s. Unemployment in Northern Ireland peaked at 17. 2% in 1986, dropping to 6. 1% for June–August 2014,58. 2% of those unemployed had been unemployed for over a year. Prominent artists and sports persons from Northern Ireland include Van Morrison, Rory McIlroy, Joey Dunlop, Wayne McCullough, some people from Northern Ireland prefer to identify as Irish while others prefer to identify as British. Cultural links between Northern Ireland, the rest of Ireland, and the rest of the UK are complex, in many sports, the island of Ireland fields a single team, a notable exception being association football. Northern Ireland competes separately at the Commonwealth Games, and people from Northern Ireland may compete for either Great Britain or Ireland at the Olympic Games. The region that is now Northern Ireland was the bedrock of the Irish war of resistance against English programmes of colonialism in the late 16th century, the English-controlled Kingdom of Ireland had been declared by the English king Henry VIII in 1542, but Irish resistance made English control fragmentary. Victories by English forces in war and further Protestant victories in the Williamite War in Ireland toward the close of the 17th century solidified Anglican rule in Ireland. In Northern Ireland, the victories of the Siege of Derry and their intention was to materially disadvantage the Catholic community and, to a lesser extent, the Presbyterian community. In the context of open institutional discrimination, the 18th century saw secret, militant societies develop in communities in the region and act on sectarian tensions in violent attacks. Following this, in an attempt to quell sectarianism and force the removal of discriminatory laws, the new state, formed in 1801, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, was governed from a single government and parliament based in London. Between 1717 and 1775 some 250,000 people from Ulster emigrated to the British North American colonies and it is estimated that there are more than 27 million Scotch-Irish Americans now living in the US. By the close of the century, autonomy for Ireland within the United Kingdom, in 1912, after decades of obstruction from the House of Lords, Home Rule became a near-certainty. A clash between the House of Commons and House of Lords over a controversial budget produced the Parliament Act 1911, which enabled the veto of the Lords to be overturned. The House of Lords veto had been the unionists main guarantee that Home Rule would not be enacted, in 1914, they smuggled thousands of rifles and rounds of ammunition from Imperial Germany for use by the Ulster Volunteers, a paramilitary organisation opposed to the implementation of Home Rule
