1.
Bermuda
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Bermuda is a British Overseas Territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. It is approximately 1,070 km east-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina,1,236 km south of Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia, Bermuda is an associate member of Caribbean Community. The first person known to have reached Bermuda was the Spanish sea captain Juan de Bermúdez in 1503 and he claimed the islands for the Spanish Empire. Bermúdez never landed on the islands, but made two visits to the archipelago, of which he created a recognisable map, shipwrecked Portuguese mariners are now thought to have been responsible for the 1543 inscription on Portuguese Rock. Subsequent Spanish or other European parties are believed to have released pigs there, the island was administered as an extension of Virginia by the Company until 1614. Its spin-off, the Somers Isles Company, took over in 1615, at that time, the companys charter was revoked, and the English Crown took over administration. The islands became a British colony following the 1707 unification of the parliaments of Scotland and England, after 1949, when Newfoundland became part of Canada, Bermuda became the oldest remaining British Overseas Territory. Since the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997, it is the most populous Territory and its first capital, St. Georges, was established in 1612 and is the oldest continuously inhabited English town in the New World. Bermudas economy is based on insurance and reinsurance, and tourism. Bermuda had one of the worlds highest GDP per capita for most of the 20th century, recently, its economic status has been affected by the global recession. The island is in the belt and prone to severe weather. However, it is protected from the full force of a hurricane by the coral reef that surrounds the island. It is 898 nautical miles northeast of Miami, Florida, and 667 nautical miles from Cape Sable Island, in Nova Scotia, Canada. The islands lie due east of Fripp Island, South Carolina, west-northwest of Cape Verde, southeast of New York City, New York, north-northwest of Brazil and north of San Juan, Puerto Rico. The archipelago is formed by points on the rim of the caldera of a submarine volcano that forms a seamount. The volcano is one part of a range that was formed as part of the process that formed the floor of the Atlantic. It has 103 km of coastline, the two incorporated municipalities in Bermuda are the City of Hamilton and the Town of St George. Bermuda is divided into nine parishes, which have some localities called villages, such as Flatts Village, although usually referred to in the singular, the territory consists of 181 islands, with a total area of 53.3 square kilometres
2.
Puerto Rico
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Puerto Rico, officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and briefly called Porto Rico, is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the northeast Caribbean Sea. It is an archipelago that includes the island of Puerto Rico and a number of smaller ones such as Mona, Culebra. The capital and most populous city is San Juan and its official languages are Spanish and English, though Spanish predominates. The islands population is approximately 3.4 million, Puerto Ricos rich history, tropical climate, diverse natural scenery, renowned traditional cuisine, and attractive tax incentives make it a popular destination for travelers from around the world. Four centuries of Spanish colonial government transformed the ethnic, cultural and physical landscapes primarily with waves of African captives, and Canarian. In the Spanish imperial imagination, Puerto Rico played a secondary, in 1898, following the Spanish–American War, the United States appropriated Puerto Rico together with most former Spanish colonies under the terms of the Treaty of Paris. Puerto Ricans are natural-born citizens of the United States, however, Puerto Rico does not have a vote in the United States Congress, which governs the territory with full jurisdiction under the Puerto Rico Federal Relations Act of 1950. As a U. S. territory, American citizens residing on the island are disenfranchised at the level and may not vote for president. However, Congress approved a constitution, allowing U. S. citizens on the territory to elect a governor. A fifth referendum will be held in June 2017, with only Statehood, in early 2017, the Puerto Rican government-debt crisis posed serious problems for the government. The outstanding bond debt that had climbed to $70 billion or $12,000 per capita at a time with 12. 4% unemployment, the debt had been increasing during a decade long recession. Puerto Ricans often call the island Borinquen – a derivation of Borikén, its indigenous Taíno name, the terms boricua and borincano derive from Borikén and Borinquen respectively, and are commonly used to identify someone of Puerto Rican heritage. The island is also known in Spanish as la isla del encanto. Columbus named the island San Juan Bautista, in honor of Saint John the Baptist, eventually traders and other maritime visitors came to refer to the entire island as Puerto Rico, while San Juan became the name used for the main trading/shipping port and the capital city. The islands name was changed to Porto Rico by the United States after the Treaty of Paris of 1898, the anglicized name was used by the US government and private enterprises. The name was changed back to Puerto Rico by a joint resolution in Congress introduced by Félix Córdova Dávila in 1931, the ancient history of the archipelago known today as Puerto Rico is not well known. The scarce archaeological findings and early Spanish scholarly accounts from the colonial era constitute the basis of knowledge about them. The first comprehensive book on the history of Puerto Rico was written by Fray Íñigo Abbad y Lasierra in 1786, the first settlers were the Ortoiroid people, an Archaic Period culture of Amerindian hunters and fishermen who migrated from the South American mainland
3.
New Zealand
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New Zealand /njuːˈziːlənd/ is an island nation in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses—the North Island, or Te Ika-a-Māui, and the South Island, or Te Waipounamu—and around 600 smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some 1,500 kilometres east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly 1,000 kilometres south of the Pacific island areas of New Caledonia, Fiji, because of its remoteness, it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans. During its long period of isolation, New Zealand developed a distinct biodiversity of animal, fungal, the countrys varied topography and its sharp mountain peaks, such as the Southern Alps, owe much to the tectonic uplift of land and volcanic eruptions. New Zealands capital city is Wellington, while its most populous city is Auckland, sometime between 1250 and 1300 CE, Polynesians settled in the islands that later were named New Zealand and developed a distinctive Māori culture. In 1642, Dutch explorer Abel Tasman became the first European to sight New Zealand, in 1840, representatives of Britain and Māori chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, which declared British sovereignty over the islands. In 1841, New Zealand became a colony within the British Empire, today, the majority of New Zealands population of 4.7 million is of European descent, the indigenous Māori are the largest minority, followed by Asians and Pacific Islanders. Reflecting this, New Zealands culture is derived from Māori and early British settlers. The official languages are English, Māori and New Zealand Sign Language, New Zealand is a developed country and ranks highly in international comparisons of national performance, such as health, education, economic freedom and quality of life. Since the 1980s, New Zealand has transformed from an agrarian, Queen Elizabeth II is the countrys head of state and is represented by a governor-general. In addition, New Zealand is organised into 11 regional councils and 67 territorial authorities for local government purposes, the Realm of New Zealand also includes Tokelau, the Cook Islands and Niue, and the Ross Dependency, which is New Zealands territorial claim in Antarctica. New Zealand is a member of the United Nations, Commonwealth of Nations, ANZUS, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Pacific Islands Forum, and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation. Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sighted New Zealand in 1642 and called it Staten Landt, in 1645, Dutch cartographers renamed the land Nova Zeelandia after the Dutch province of Zeeland. British explorer James Cook subsequently anglicised the name to New Zealand, Aotearoa is the current Māori name for New Zealand. It is unknown whether Māori had a name for the country before the arrival of Europeans. Māori had several names for the two main islands, including Te Ika-a-Māui for the North Island and Te Waipounamu or Te Waka o Aoraki for the South Island. Early European maps labelled the islands North, Middle and South, in 1830, maps began to use North and South to distinguish the two largest islands and by 1907, this was the accepted norm. The New Zealand Geographic Board discovered in 2009 that the names of the North Island and South Island had never been formalised and this set the names as North Island or Te Ika-a-Māui, and South Island or Te Waipounamu
4.
Ramat Gan
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Ramat Gan is a city in the Tel Aviv District of Israel, located east of Tel Aviv. It is home to one of the major diamond exchanges. Ramat Gan was established in 1921 as a moshava, a farming settlement. The mayor of Ramat Gan is Yisrael Zinger, Ramat Gan was established by the Ir Ganim association in 1921 as a satellite town of Tel Aviv. The first plots of land were purchased between 1914–1918, the settlement was initially a moshava, a Zionist agricultural colony that grew wheat, barley and watermelons. The name of the settlement was changed to Ramat Gan in 1923, the settlement continued to operate as a moshava until 1933, although it achieved local council status in 1926. At this time it had 450 residents, in the 1940s, Ramat Gan became a battleground in the countrys language war, A Yiddish language printing press in Ramat Gan was blown up by Hebrew-language extremists. Over the years, the economy shifted from agriculture to commerce, by 1946, the population had grown to 12,000. In 1950, Ramat Gan was recognized as a city, in 1955, it had a population of 55,000. The first mayor was Avraham Krinitzi who remained in office for 43 years, in 1961, the municipal area of Ramat Gan expanded eastward, to encompass the area that includes the Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer and Bar Ilan University. In 1968, the worlds largest diamond exchange opened in Ramat Gan, the Sheba Medical Center and the Israel Diamond Exchange are located in Ramat Gan. Ramat Gan is located in the Gush Dan metropolitan area east of Tel Aviv and it is bounded in the north by the Yarkon River and in the east by Bnei Brak. Ramat Gan experiences an average of 500 mm of rainfall per year and is located and it is built on limestone hills. Ramat Gan parks include The National Park which covers some 1,900 dunams, 25% of Ramat Gan is covered by public parkland. According to the 1931 census Ramat Gan had 975 inhabitants, in 253 houses, as of 2006, Ramat Gan had 129,700 residents, on an area of 12,000 dunams. The population was growing at a rate of 1. 0% per annum with 90% of this growth coming through natural increase, the population density of the city is 9,822.6 per square kilometer, one of the highest in Israel. In terms of the origin of Ramat Gans residents,42,900 originate from Europe and America,10,200 from Africa,29,200 from Asia, and 40,600 from Israel. 86,200 of the residents of Ramat Gan were born in Israel, according to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, as of 2001, Ramat Gans socioeconomic ranking stood at 8 out of 10
5.
Tal Brody
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Tal Brody is an American-Israeli former basketball player, and current Goodwill Ambassador of Israel, who lives in Israel. Brody was drafted #12 in the National Basketball Association draft and he played on national basketball teams of both the United States and Israel, and served in the armies of both countries. A New Jersey All Star basketball player in school, Brody led his team to an undefeated state championship. In college, he was a high-scoring, slick-passing All-American and All-Big Ten guard in 1965 and that year, he was drafted 12th in the NBA draft. Before the NBA season started, he traveled to Israel where he led the American team to a medal in the 1965 Maccabiah Games. Convinced by Moshe Dayan and others to return to Israel to help elevate the countrys basketball team and morale, in 1977, he led Maccabi Tel Aviv to the European Cup Basketball Championship. Along the way, his team defeated the heavily favored Soviet Red Army team CSKA Moscow, Brodys famous remark upon beating the Soviets – We are on the map. And we are staying on the map – not only in sports, – became a part of Israeli culture. It has been used for decades in various contexts, from political speeches to National Lottery commercials, Brody is Jewish, and the son of Max and Shirley Brody. His father and paternal grandfather had emigrated from Eastern Europe to the United States and his father spent three years in Palestine in the 1920s, working as an engineer on the construction of the Rothenberg electric station, the countrys first. Both his father and his grandfather, who lived in Palestine for 10 years, helped build the countrys first airfield, Brody has an older sister, Renee. He was born and raised in Trenton, New Jersey, Brody started playing basketball at age 8 in the Biddy Basketball League of the Trenton Jewish Community Center, in the Police Athletic League, and in the local Boys Club League. He then attended Trenton Central High School, there, he was a New Jersey basketball All Star selected to the First Team All-State Team by The Star-Ledger in his senior year, and led his undefeated 24–0 team to a state championship. Asked by his yearbook what he wanted to be in his life, he said that he would like to either a professional basketball player. Over 40 colleges approached Brody with scholarship offers, conceding that the university was in fact a big one, Brody nevertheless told the coach that he liked the challenge of trying to be a big fish in a big pond. Brody attended the University of Illinois, on the social side, he joined Zeta Beta Tau, the campus Jewish fraternity. The basketball-focused Brody would sleep with his basketball, and dribble it to class, at the time, freshmen were not allowed to play on the varsity basketball team, but as a sophomore he replaced the just-graduated Jerry Colangelo. Brody was an outstanding 6 feet 1.5 inches basketball star for the Illini and he was quick, slick, smart, and an excellent shooter and passer
6.
Maccabiah Games
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The Maccabiah Games first held in 1932, are an international Jewish multi-sport event now held quadrennially in Israel. It is the third-largest sporting event in the world, with 9,000 athletes competing on behalf of 78 countries, the Maccabiah is often referred to as the Jewish Olympics. The 19th Maccabiah, the most recent edition of the Games, was held in 2013, the next edition, the 20th Maccabiah, will be held in July 2017. The most recent Games brought together 9,000 athletes, making it the third-largest international sporting event in the world, the 9000 athletes competed on behalf of 78 countries. Originally, the Maccabiah was held three years, since the 4th Maccabiah, the event is held the year following the Olympic Games. In contrast with other large events such as the Olympics, competitions at the Maccabiah are organized into four distinct divisions – Juniors, Open, Masters. Maccabiah is open to Jewish athletes as well as Israeli athletes regardless of religion, Arab Israelis have also competed in it. The Maccabiah is a forum for Jewish athletes to meet and convene, it provides these athletes with opportunities to explore Israel. The name Maccabiah was chosen after Judah Maccabee, a Jewish leader that defended his country from king Antiochus, modiin, Judahs birthplace is also the starting location of the torch thats used to light the flames at the opening ceremony, a tradition that started at the 4th Maccabiah. The Maccabiah games were the result of a proposal put forward by Yosef Yekutieli in 1929 at the Maccabi World Congress, Yekutieli, who heard about the Stockholm Olympics, wanted to form a representation for Eretz Yisrael. Following the appointment of the new British Palestine High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Grenfell Wauchope, the 1st Maccabiah opened on March 28,1932. The Maccabiah Stadium in Tel Aviv, which was built with donations, was filled to capacity, roughly 400 athletes from 18 countries took part in everything from swimming, football, and handball, to various athletics. In the first games, the Polish delegation took first place, following the success of the first games, the 2nd Maccabiah was held from April 2 to 10,1935 despite official opposition by the British Mandatory government. Over 1,300 athletes from 28 nations participated, the 3rd Maccabiah which was originally scheduled for spring of 1938 were postponed until 1950 due to British concerns of large-scale illegal immigration, World War II, and the Independence War. It became the first Maccabiah to be held after the establishment of the State of Israel, starting from the 4th Maccabiah, the games were changed to take place every four years on the year following the Olympics. Four athletes were killed and 63 injured, more than 5,000 participants from over fifty countries competed in those games. Over the last two decades, the number of participants have grown to 7,700 in the 17th Maccabiah, prior to World War II there was an attempt to organize a winter Maccabiah. Due to the warm temperatures in Palestine, the winter Maccabiot were organized in European nations
7.
Israel
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Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in the Middle East, on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea and the northern shore of the Red Sea. The country contains geographically diverse features within its small area. Israels economy and technology center is Tel Aviv, while its seat of government and proclaimed capital is Jerusalem, in 1947, the United Nations adopted a Partition Plan for Mandatory Palestine recommending the creation of independent Arab and Jewish states and an internationalized Jerusalem. The plan was accepted by the Jewish Agency for Palestine, next year, the Jewish Agency declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel. Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states, in the course of which it has occupied territories including the West Bank, Golan Heights and it extended its laws to the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, but not the West Bank. Israels occupation of the Palestinian territories is the worlds longest military occupation in modern times, efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have not resulted in peace. However, peace treaties between Israel and both Egypt and Jordan have successfully been signed, the population of Israel, as defined by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, was estimated in 2017 to be 8,671,100 people. It is the worlds only Jewish-majority state, with 74. 8% being designated as Jewish, the countrys second largest group of citizens are Arabs, at 20. 8%. The great majority of Israeli Arabs are Sunni Muslims, including significant numbers of semi-settled Negev Bedouins, other minorities include Arameans, Armenians, Assyrians, Black Hebrew Israelites, Circassians, Maronites and Samaritans. Israel also hosts a significant population of foreign workers and asylum seekers from Africa and Asia, including illegal migrants from Sudan, Eritrea. In its Basic Laws, Israel defines itself as a Jewish, Israel is a representative democracy with a parliamentary system, proportional representation and universal suffrage. The prime minister is head of government and the Knesset is the legislature, Israel is a developed country and an OECD member, with the 35th-largest economy in the world by nominal gross domestic product as of 2016. The country benefits from a skilled workforce and is among the most educated countries in the world with one of the highest percentage of its citizens holding a tertiary education degree. The country has the highest standard of living in the Middle East and the third highest in Asia, in the early weeks of independence, the government chose the term Israeli to denote a citizen of Israel, with the formal announcement made by Minister of Foreign Affairs Moshe Sharett. The names Land of Israel and Children of Israel have historically used to refer to the biblical Kingdom of Israel. The name Israel in these phrases refers to the patriarch Jacob who, jacobs twelve sons became the ancestors of the Israelites, also known as the Twelve Tribes of Israel or Children of Israel. The earliest known artifact to mention the word Israel as a collective is the Merneptah Stele of ancient Egypt. The area is known as the Holy Land, being holy for all Abrahamic religions including Judaism, Christianity, Islam
8.
Rugby union
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Rugby union, known in some parts of the world simply as rugby, is a contact team sport which originated in England in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its most common form, a game is between two teams of 15 players using a ball on a rectangular field with H-shaped goalposts on each try line. Historically an amateur sport, in 1995 restrictions on payments to players were removed, World Rugby, originally the International Rugby Football Board and from 1998 to 2014 the International Rugby Board, has been the governing body for rugby union since 1886. Rugby union spread from the Home Nations of Great Britain and Ireland, early exponents of the sport included Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and France. Countries that have adopted rugby union as their de facto national sport include Fiji, Georgia, Madagascar, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, Rugby union is played in over 100 countries across six continents, there are 101 full members and 18 associate members of World Rugby. The Rugby World Cup, first held in 1987, takes place four years with the winner of the tournament receiving the Webb Ellis Cup. The Six Nations Championship in Europe and The Rugby Championship in the Southern Hemisphere are major annual competitions. The origin of football is reputed to be an incident during a game of English school football at Rugby School in 1823. Although the evidence for the story is doubtful, it was immortalised at the school with a plaque unveiled in 1895, despite the doubtful evidence, the Rugby World Cup trophy is named after Webb Ellis. Rugby football stems from the form of game played at Rugby School, Old Rugbeian Albert Pell, a student at Cambridge, is credited with having formed the first football team. During this early period different schools used different rules, with pupils from Rugby. Other important events include the Blackheath Clubs decision to leave the Football Association in 1863, despite the sports full name of rugby union, it is known simply as rugby throughout most of the world. The first rugby football international was played on 27 March 1871 between Scotland and England, by 1881 both Ireland and Wales had representative teams, and in 1883 the first international competition, the Home Nations Championship had begun. 1883 is also the year of the first rugby tournament, the Melrose Sevens. During the early history of union, a time before commercial air travel. The first two notable tours both took place in 1888—the British Isles team touring New Zealand and Australia, followed by the New Zealand team touring Europe, All three teams brought new styles of play, fitness levels and tactics, and were far more successful than critics had expected. After Morgan began singing, the crowd joined in, the first time a national anthem was sung at the start of a sporting event, in 1905 France played England in its first international match
9.
Sailing
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Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the water, on ice or on land over a chosen course, which is often part of a larger plan of navigation. A course defined with respect to the wind direction is called a point of sail. Conventional sailing craft cannot derive power from sails on a point of sail that is too close into the wind, on a given point of sail, the sailor adjusts the alignment of each sail with respect to the apparent wind direction to mobilize the power of the wind. In the 21st century, most sailing represents a form of recreation or sport, recreational sailing or yachting can be divided into racing and cruising. Cruising can include extended offshore and ocean-crossing trips, coastal sailing within sight of land, until the end of the 19th century, sailing ships were the primary means for marine commerce. The earliest representation of a ship under sail appears on a painted disc found in Kuwait dating between 5000 and 5500 BCE, polynesian oceanfarers traveled vast distances of open ocean in outrigger canoes using navigation methods such as stick charts. Advances in sailing technology from the Middle Ages onward enabled Arab, Chinese, Indian and European explorers to make longer voyages into regions with extreme weather and climatic conditions. There were improvements in sails, masts and rigging, improvements in marine navigation including the tree and charts. Sailing has contributed to many great explorations in the world, the air interacting with the sails of a sailing vessel creates various forces, including reaction forces. If the sails are properly oriented with respect to the wind, however, boats propelled by sails cannot sail directly into the wind. They must tack back and forth in order to progress directly upwind, sails are airfoils that work by using an airflow set up by the wind and the motion of the boat. Sails work in two modes to use the wind to force, PUSH, when the boat is going in the same direction as the wind. The force on the sail is mostly aerodynamic drag, and sails acting in this way are aerodynamically stalled. This force manifests itself as pressure differences between the two sides of the sail - there is a region of low pressure on the front side of the sail and a region of high pressure on the back. Another way to say this is that sails generate lift using the air flows around them in the same way as an aircraft wing. The wind that a boat experiences is the combination of the true wind and this combination is the apparent wind, which is the relative velocity of the wind relative to the boat. When sailing upwind the apparent wind is greater than the true wind, iceboats can typically sail at 5 times the speed of the wind. Where there is a difference in motion, then there is energy to be extracted at the interface, the sailboat does this by placing the sail in the air and the hull in the water
10.
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
Bermuda 
Puerto Rico 
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