1.
Kuala Lumpur
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Kuala Lumpur, officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, or more commonly called KL is the national capital of Malaysia as well as its largest city. Being rated as an Alpha world city, Kuala Lumpur is the global city in Malaysia which covers an area of 243 km2 and has an estimated population of 1.73 million as of 2016. Greater Kuala Lumpur, also known as the Klang Valley, is an agglomeration of 7.25 million people as of 2017. It is among the fastest growing regions in South-East Asia, in terms of population. Kuala Lumpur is the seat of the Parliament of Malaysia, the city was once home to the executive and judicial branches of the federal government, but they were moved to Putrajaya in early 1999. Some sections of the judiciary still remain in the city of Kuala Lumpur. The official residence of the Malaysian King, the Istana Negara, is situated in Kuala Lumpur. Kuala Lumpur is the cultural, financial and economic centre of Malaysia due to its position as the capital as well as being a key city. Kuala Lumpur is one of three Federal Territories of Malaysia, enclaved within the state of Selangor, on the central west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Since the 1990s, the city has played host to international sporting, political and cultural events including the 1998 Commonwealth Games. Kuala Lumpur has undergone rapid development in recent decades and it is home to the tallest twin buildings in the world, the Petronas Twin Towers, which have become an iconic symbol of Malaysias futuristic development. Kuala Lumpur means muddy confluence, kuala is the point where two rivers join together or an estuary, and lumpur means mud. One suggestion is that it was named after Sungai Lumpur, it was recorded in 1824 that Sungei Lumpoor was the most important tin-producing settlement up the Klang River. It has also proposed that Kuala Lumpur was originally named Pengkalan Lumpur in the same way that Klang was once called Pengkalan Batu. Another suggestion is that it was initially a Cantonese word lam-pa meaning flooded jungle or decayed jungle, there is however no firm contemporary evidence for these suggestions other than anecdotes. It is also possible that the name is a form of an earlier. It is unknown who founded or named the settlement called Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur was originally a small hamlet of just a few houses and shops at the confluence of Sungai Gombak and Sungai Klang before it grew into a town. The miners landed at Kuala Lumpur and continued their journey on foot to Ampang where the first mine was opened
2.
Malaysia
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Malaysia is a federal constitutional monarchy located in Southeast Asia. Peninsular Malaysia shares a land and maritime border with Thailand and maritime borders with Singapore, Vietnam, East Malaysia shares land and maritime borders with Brunei and Indonesia and a maritime border with the Philippines and Vietnam. The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government, with a population of over 30 million, Malaysia is the 44th most populous country. The southernmost point of continental Eurasia, Tanjung Piai, is in Malaysia, located in the tropics, Malaysia is one of 17 megadiverse countries on earth, with large numbers of endemic species. Malaysia has its origins in the Malay kingdoms present in the area which, from the 18th century, the first British territories were known as the Straits Settlements, whose establishment was followed by the Malay kingdoms becoming British protectorates. The territories on Peninsular Malaysia were first unified as the Malayan Union in 1946, Malaya was restructured as the Federation of Malaya in 1948, and achieved independence on 31 August 1957. Malaya united with North Borneo, Sarawak, and Singapore on 16 September 1963 to become Malaysia, less than two years later in 1965, Singapore was expelled from the federation. The country is multi-ethnic and multi-cultural, which plays a role in politics. About half the population is ethnically Malay, with minorities of Malaysian Chinese, Malaysian Indians. The constitution declares Islam the state religion while allowing freedom of religion for non-Muslims, the government system is closely modelled on the Westminster parliamentary system and the legal system is based on common law. The head of state is the king, known as the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and he is an elected monarch chosen from the hereditary rulers of the nine Malay states every five years. The head of government is the prime minister, since its independence, Malaysia has had one of the best economic records in Asia, with its GDP growing at an average of 6. 5% per annum for almost 50 years. The economy has traditionally been fuelled by its resources, but is expanding in the sectors of science, tourism, commerce. Today, Malaysia has a newly industrialised market economy, ranked third largest in Southeast Asia, the name Malaysia is a combination of the word Malay and the Latin-Greek suffix -sia/-σία. The word melayu in Malay may derive from the Tamil words malai and ur meaning mountain and city, land, malayadvipa was the word used by ancient Indian traders when referring to the Malay Peninsula. Whether or not it originated from these roots, the word melayu or mlayu may have used in early Malay/Javanese to mean to steadily accelerate or run. This term was applied to describe the current of the river Melayu in Sumatra. The name was adopted by the Melayu Kingdom that existed in the seventh century on Sumatra
3.
Peru
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Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the west by the Pacific Ocean. Peruvian territory was home to ancient cultures spanning from the Norte Chico civilization in Caral, one of the oldest in the world, to the Inca Empire, the largest state in Pre-Columbian America. The Spanish Empire conquered the region in the 16th century and established a Viceroyalty with its capital in Lima, ideas of political autonomy later spread throughout Spanish America and Peru gained its independence, which was formally proclaimed in 1821. After the battle of Ayacucho, three years after proclamation, Peru ensured its independence, subsequently, the country has undergone changes in government from oligarchic to democratic systems. Peru has gone through periods of political unrest and internal conflict as well as periods of stability, Peru is a representative democratic republic divided into 25 regions. It is a country with a high Human Development Index score. Its main economic activities include mining, manufacturing, agriculture and fishing, the Peruvian population, estimated at 31.2 million in 2015, is multiethnic, including Amerindians, Europeans, Africans and Asians. The main spoken language is Spanish, although a significant number of Peruvians speak Quechua or other native languages and this mixture of cultural traditions has resulted in a wide diversity of expressions in fields such as art, cuisine, literature, and music. The name of the country may be derived from Birú, the name of a ruler who lived near the Bay of San Miguel, Panama. When his possessions were visited by Spanish explorers in 1522, they were the southernmost part of the New World yet known to Europeans, thus, when Francisco Pizarro explored the regions farther south, they came to be designated Birú or Perú. An alternative history is provided by the contemporary writer Inca Garcilasco de la Vega, son of an Inca princess, the Spanish Crown gave the name legal status with the 1529 Capitulación de Toledo, which designated the newly encountered Inca Empire as the province of Peru. Under Spanish rule, the country adopted the denomination Viceroyalty of Peru, the earliest evidences of human presence in Peruvian territory have been dated to approximately 9,000 BC. Andean societies were based on agriculture, using such as irrigation and terracing, camelid husbandry. Organization relied on reciprocity and redistribution because these societies had no notion of market or money, the oldest known complex society in Peru, the Norte Chico civilization, flourished along the coast of the Pacific Ocean between 3,000 and 1,800 BC. These early developments were followed by archaeological cultures that developed mostly around the coastal, the Cupisnique culture which flourished from around 1000 to 200 BC along what is now Perus Pacific Coast was an example of early pre-Incan culture. The Chavín culture that developed from 1500 to 300 BC was probably more of a religious than a political phenomenon, on the coast, these included the civilizations of the Paracas, Nazca, Wari, and the more outstanding Chimu and Mochica. Their capital was at Chan Chan outside of modern-day Trujillo, in the 15th century, the Incas emerged as a powerful state which, in the span of a century, formed the largest empire in pre-Columbian America with their capital in Cusco
4.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
5.
Kazakhstan
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Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in northern Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Kazakhstan is the worlds largest landlocked country, and the ninth largest in the world, Kazakhstan is the dominant nation of Central Asia economically, generating 60% of the regions GDP, primarily through its oil/gas industry. It also has vast mineral resources, Kazakhstan is officially a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage. Kazakhstan shares borders with Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, the terrain of Kazakhstan includes flatlands, steppe, taiga, rock canyons, hills, deltas, snow-capped mountains, and deserts. Kazakhstan has an estimated 18 million people as of 2014, Given its large area, its population density is among the lowest. The capital is Astana, where it was moved in 1997 from Almaty, the territory of Kazakhstan has historically been inhabited by nomadic tribes. This changed in the 13th century, when Genghis Khan occupied the country as part of the Mongolian Empire, following internal struggles among the conquerors, power eventually reverted to the nomads. By the 16th century, the Kazakh emerged as a distinct group, the Russians began advancing into the Kazakh steppe in the 18th century, and by the mid-19th century, they nominally ruled all of Kazakhstan as part of the Russian Empire. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, and subsequent civil war, the territory of Kazakhstan was reorganised several times, in 1936, it was made the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, part of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan was the last of the Soviet republics to declare independence during the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kazakhstan has worked to develop its economy, especially its dominant hydrocarbon industry. Kazakhstans 131 ethnicities include Kazakhs, Russians, Uzbeks, Ukrainians, Germans, Tatars, the Kazakh language is the state language, and Russian has equal official status for all levels of administrative and institutional purposes. The name Kazakh comes from the ancient Turkic word qaz, to wander, the name Cossack is of the same origin. The Persian suffix -stan means land or place of, so Kazakhstan can be translated as land of the wanderers. Kazakhstan has been inhabited since the Neolithic Age, the regions climate, archaeologists believe that humans first domesticated the horse in the regions vast steppes. Central Asia was originally inhabited by the Scythians, the Cuman entered the steppes of modern-day Kazakhstan around the early 11th century, where they later joined with the Kipchak and established the vast Cuman-Kipchak confederation. Under the Mongol Empire, the largest in history, administrative districts were established. These eventually came under the rule of the emergent Kazakh Khanate, throughout this period, traditional nomadic life and a livestock-based economy continued to dominate the steppe. Nevertheless, the region was the focus of ever-increasing disputes between the native Kazakh emirs and the neighbouring Persian-speaking peoples to the south, at its height the Khanate would rule parts of Central Asia and control Cumania
6.
Switzerland
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Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’
7.
Romania
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Romania is a sovereign state located in Southeastern Europe. It borders the Black Sea, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia and it has an area of 238,391 square kilometres and a temperate-continental climate. With over 19 million inhabitants, the country is the member state of the European Union. Its capital and largest city, Bucharest, is the sixth-largest city in the EU, the River Danube, Europes second-longest river, rises in Germany and flows in a general southeast direction for 2,857 km, coursing through ten countries before emptying into Romanias Danube Delta. The Carpathian Mountains, which cross Romania from the north to the southwest are marked by one of their tallest peaks, Moldoveanu, modern Romania was formed in 1859 through a personal union of the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. The new state, officially named Romania since 1866, gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877, at the end of World War I, Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia united with the sovereign Kingdom of Romania. Romania lost several territories, of which Northern Transylvania was regained after the war, following the war, Romania became a socialist republic and member of the Warsaw Pact. After the 1989 Revolution, Romania began a transition back towards democracy and it has been a member of NATO since 2004, and part of the European Union since 2007. A strong majority of the population identify themselves as Eastern Orthodox Christians and are speakers of Romanian. The cultural history of Romania is often referred to when dealing with artists, musicians, inventors. For similar reasons, Romania has been the subject of notable tourist attractions, Romania derives from the Latin romanus, meaning citizen of Rome. The first known use of the appellation was attested in the 16th century by Italian humanists travelling in Transylvania, Moldavia, after the abolition of serfdom in 1746, the word rumân gradually fell out of use and the spelling stabilised to the form român. Tudor Vladimirescu, a leader of the early 19th century. The use of the name Romania to refer to the homeland of all Romanians—its modern-day meaning—was first documented in the early 19th century. The name has been officially in use since 11 December 1861, in English, the name of the country was formerly spelt Rumania or Roumania. Romania became the predominant spelling around 1975, Romania is also the official English-language spelling used by the Romanian government. The Neolithic-Age Cucuteni area in northeastern Romania was the region of the earliest European civilization. Evidence from this and other sites indicates that the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture extracted salt from salt-laden spring water through the process of briquetage
8.
Lausanne
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Lausanne is a city in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and the capital and biggest city of the canton of Vaud. The city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva and it faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura Mountains to its north-west. Lausanne is located 62 kilometres northeast of Geneva, Lausanne has a population of 146,372, making it the fourth largest city in Switzerland, with the entire agglomeration area having 420,000 inhabitants. The metropolitan area of Lausanne-Geneva was over 1.2 million inhabitants in 2000, Lausanne is a focus of international sport, hosting the International Olympic Committee, the Court of Arbitration for Sport and some 55 international sport associations. It lies in a noted wine-growing region, the city has a 28-station metro system, making it the smallest city in the world to have a rapid transit system. Lausanne will host the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics, by the 2nd century AD it was known as vikanor Lousonnensium and in 280 as lacu Lausonio. By 400 it was civitas Lausanna and in 990 it was mentioned as Losanna, after the fall of the Roman Empire, insecurity forced the transfer of Lausanne to its current centre, a hilly site that is easier to defend. The city which emerged from the camp was ruled by the Dukes of Savoy, then it came under Bern from 1536 to 1798 and a number of its cultural treasures, including the hanging tapestries in the Cathedral, were permanently removed. Lausanne has made a number of requests to recover them, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Lausanne became a place of refuge for French Huguenots. In 1729 a seminary was opened by Antoine Court and Benjamin Duplan, by 1750 ninety pastors had been sent back to France to work clandestinely, this number would rise to four hundred. Official persecution ended in 1787, a faculty of Protestant theology was established at Montauban in 1808, during the Napoleonic Wars, the citys status changed. In 1803, it became the capital of a newly formed Swiss canton, in 1964 the city hosted the Swiss National Exhibition, displaying its newly found confidence to host major international events. From the 1950s to 1970s a large number of Italians, Spaniards and Portuguese immigrated, settling mostly in the district of Renens. The city has served as a refuge for European artists, while under the care of a psychiatrist at Lausanne, T. S. Eliot composed most of his 1922 poem The Wasteland. Hemingway also visited from Paris with his wife during the 1920s, in fact, many creative people - such as Edward Gibbon, an historian, and Romantic era poets Shelley and Byron - have sojourned, lived, and worked in Lausanne or nearby. The city has been quiet, but in the late 1960s. Later demonstrations took place to protest against the high cinema prices, the most important geographical feature of the area surrounding Lausanne is Lake Geneva. Lausanne boasts a dramatic panorama over the lake and the Alps, in addition to its generally southward-sloping layout, the centre of the city is the site of an ancient river, the Flon, which has been covered since the 19th century
9.
2020 Summer Olympics
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The games are planned to be held from 24 July to 9 August 2020 in Tokyo. The city was announced as the host at the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires on 7 September 2013, Tokyo, Istanbul, and Madrid were the three candidate cities. The applicant cities of Baku and Doha were not promoted to candidate status, a bid from Rome was withdrawn. The IOC voted to select the host city of the 2020 Summer Olympics on 7 September 2013 at the 125th IOC Session at the Buenos Aires Hilton in Buenos Aires, an exhaustive ballot system was used. No city won over 50% of the votes in the first round, a run-off vote between these two cities was held to determine which would be eliminated. In the final vote, a head-to-head contest between Tokyo and Istanbul, Tokyo was selected by 60 votes to 36, the Tokyo metropolitan government set aside a fund of 400 billion Japanese yen to cover the cost of hosting the Games. The Japanese government is considering increasing slot capacity at both Haneda Airport and Narita International Airport by easing airspace restrictions, but East Japan Railway Company is planning a new route near Tamachi to Haneda Airport. Funding is also planned to accelerate completion of the Central Circular Route, Tokyo Gaikan Expressway and Ken-Ō Expressway, the Organizing Committee is headed by former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori. Olympic and Paralympic Minister Tamayo Marukawa is overseeing the preparations on behalf of the Japanese government, as a result, a design competition for the new stadium was launched. In November 2012, the Japan Sport Council announced that out of 46 finalists, plans included dismantling the original stadium, and expanding the capacity from 50,000 to a modern Olympic capacity of about 80,000. However, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced in July 2015 that plans to build the new National Stadium would be scrapped,11 new venues are to be constructed. Seven venues will be located within the business area of Tokyo. Several of these venues were used for the 1964 Summer Olympics. 30,000 yen will be the price for the final of popular games, such as athletics. The average price of all the Olympic tickets is 7,700 yen, 60% of the tickets will be sold for 4,400 yen or less. Tickets will be sold through 40,000 shops in Japan, the 2020 Summer Olympic program is scheduled to feature 33 sports and a total of 47 disciplines and 324 events. Following the 2012 Games, the IOC assessed the 26 sports held in London, with the remit of selecting 25 core sports to join new entrants golf, in effect, this would involve the dropping of one sport from the 2016 Games program. This would leave a vacancy in the 2020 Games program, which the IOC would seek to fill from a shortlist containing seven unrepresented sports
10.
Baseball
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Baseball is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of nine players each, who take turns batting and fielding. A run is scored when a player advances around the bases, Players on the batting team take turns hitting against the pitcher of the fielding team, which tries to prevent runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on the team who reaches a base safely can later attempt to advance to subsequent bases during teammates turns batting. The teams switch between batting and fielding whenever the team records three outs. One turn batting for both teams, beginning with the team, constitutes an inning. A game is composed of nine innings, and the team with the number of runs at the end of the game wins. Baseball has no clock, although almost all games end in the ninth inning. Baseball evolved from older bat-and-ball games already being played in England by the mid-18th century and this game was brought by immigrants to North America, where the modern version developed. By the late 19th century, baseball was widely recognized as the sport of the United States. Baseball is now popular in North America and parts of Central and South America, the Caribbean, in the United States and Canada, professional Major League Baseball teams are divided into the National League and American League, each with three divisions, East, West, and Central. The major league champion is determined by playoffs that culminate in the World Series, the top level of play is similarly split in Japan between the Central and Pacific Leagues and in Cuba between the West League and East League. The evolution of baseball from older bat-and-ball games is difficult to trace with precision, a French manuscript from 1344 contains an illustration of clerics playing a game, possibly la soule, with similarities to baseball. Other old French games such as thèque, la balle au bâton, consensus once held that todays baseball is a North American development from the older game rounders, popular in Great Britain and Ireland. Baseball Before We Knew It, A Search for the Roots of the Game, by David Block, suggests that the game originated in England, recently uncovered historical evidence supports this position. Block argues that rounders and early baseball were actually regional variants of other. It has long believed that cricket also descended from such games. The earliest known reference to baseball is in a 1744 British publication, A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, David Block discovered that the first recorded game of Bass-Ball took place in 1749 in Surrey, and featured the Prince of Wales as a player. William Bray, an English lawyer, recorded a game of baseball on Easter Monday 1755 in Guildford and this early form of the game was apparently brought to Canada by English immigrants
11.
Softball
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Softball is a variant of baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. It was invented in 1887 in Chicago as an indoor game and it was at various times called indoor baseball, mush ball, playground, softball, kitten ball, and because it was also played by women, ladies baseball. The name softball was given to the game in 1926 because the used to be soft. A tournament held in 1933 at the Chicago Worlds Fair spurred interest in the game, the Amateur Softball Association of America governs the game in the United States and sponsors annual sectional and World Series championships. Womens fastpitch softball became a Summer Olympic sport in 1996, but it were dropped from the 2012 Games, there are three types of softball. In fastpitch softball, the pitch is fast, there are nine players on the field at one time, modified softball restricts the windmill windup of the pitcher, although the pitcher is allowed to throw as hard as possible with the restricted back swing. Softball rules vary somewhat from those of baseball, despite the name, the ball used in softball is not very soft. It is about 12 in in circumference, which is 3 in larger than a baseball, Softball recreational leagues for children often use an 11-inch ball. In fast pitch softball the entire infield is sand, whereas the infield in baseball is grass except at the bases which are sand, the earliest known softball game was played in Chicago, Illinois on Thanksgiving Day,1887. It took place at the Farragut Boat Club at a gathering to hear the outcome of the Yale University, when the score was announced and bets were settled, a Yale alumnus threw a boxing glove at a Harvard supporter. The other person grabbed a took a swing at it, george Hancock called out Play ball. And the game began, with the boxing glove tightened into a ball and this first contest ended with a score of 41–40. The ball, being soft, was fielded barehanded, george Hancock is credited as the games inventor for his development of ball and an undersized bat in the next week. The Farragut Club soon set rules for the game, which spread quickly to outsiders, envisioned as a way for baseball players to maintain their skills during the winter, the sport was called Indoor Baseball. Under the name of Indoor-Outdoor, the game moved outside in the year. In 1895 Lewis Rober, Sr. of Minneapolis organized outdoor games as exercise for firefighters, Rober may not have been familiar with the Farragut Club rules. Fire Station No.19 in Minneapolis, Robers post from 1896 to 1906, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in part for its association with the sports development, the first softball league outside the United States was organized in Toronto in 1897. The name softball dates back to 1926, the name was coined by Walter Hakanson of the YMCA at a meeting of the National Recreation Congress
12.
Bowling
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Bowling refers to a series of sports or leisure activities in which a player rolls or throws a bowling ball towards a target. It is one of the forms of throwing sports. In pin bowling variations, the target is usually to knock over pins at the end of a lane, when all the pins are knocked down on the first roll, this is a strike. In target variations, the aim is usually to get the ball as close to a mark as possible. The pin version of bowling is played on a flat wooden or other synthetic surface, while in target bowling. The term bowling in the United States and Canada most frequently refers to ten-pin bowling, in the United Kingdom, the earliest known forms of bowling date to ancient Egypt. Other balls made of porcelain have also found, indicating that these were rolled along the ground rather than thrown due to their size. Some of these resemble the modern day jack used in bowl games. Bowling games of different forms are noted by Herodotus as an invention of the Lydians in Asia Minor. About 400 AD, bowling began in Germany as a ritual to cleanse oneself from sin by rolling a rock into a club representing the heathen. In 1299 the oldest known bowling green for target style bowling to survive to modern times was built, Masters Close in Southampton, England, in 1325 laws were passed in Berlin and Cologne limiting bets on lawn bowling to five shillings. In 1366 the first official mention of bowling in England was made when King Edward III banned it as a distraction to archery practice. In the 15th-17th centuries lawn bowling spread from Germany into Austria, Switzerland, in 1455 lawn bowling lanes in London were first roofed-over, turning bowling into an all-weather game. In Germany they were called kegelbahns, often attached to taverns, in 1463 a public feast was held in Frankfurt, Germany, with a venison dinner followed by lawn bowling. In 1511 English King Henry VIII banned bowling for the lower classes, another English law passed in 1541 prohibited workers from bowling except on Christmas, and only in their masters home and in his presence. About 1520 Protestant Reformation founder Martin Luther set the number of pins at nine, in 1609 Dutch East India Company explorer Henry Hudson discovered Hudson Bay, bringing Dutch colonization to New Amsterdam, Hudsons men brought some form of lawn bowling with them. In 1670 Dutchmen liked to bowl at the Old King’s Arms Tavern near modern-day 2nd, in 1733 Bowling Green in New York City was built on the site of a Dutch cattle market and parade ground, becoming the citys oldest public park to survive to modern times. A photograph of this appeared in the pages of the US-based Bowlers Journal magazine in 1988
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China
Kazakhstan
Switzerland
Romania