1.
1997
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January 17 – A Delta II rocket carrying a military GPS payload explodes, shortly after liftoff from Cape Canaveral. January 18 – In northwest Rwanda, Hutu militia members kill 6 Spanish aid workers,3 soldiers, january 19 – Yasser Arafat returns to Hebron after more than 30 years, and joins celebrations over the handover of the last Israeli-controlled West Bank city. January 20 – Bill Clinton is sworn in for a term as President of the United States. January 22 – Madeleine Albright becomes the first female Secretary of State, january 23 – Mir Aimal Kasi is sentenced to death for a 1993 assault rifle attack outside CIA headquarters that killed 2 and wounded 3. January 27 – It is revealed that French museums had nearly 2,000 pieces of art that had been stolen by Nazis, february 4 On their way to Lebanon,2 Israeli troop-transport helicopters collide, killing 73. After at first contesting the results, Serbian President Slobodan Milošević recognizes opposition victories in the November 1996 elections, British Home Secretary Michael Howard informs Moors Murderer Myra Hindley that she will never be released from prison. Mr. Howard has made the decision in agreement with a made by his predecessor David Waddington in 1990. February 5 The so-called Big Three banks in Switzerland announce the creation of a $71 million fund to aid Holocaust survivors, morgan Stanley and Dean Witter Reynolds investment banks announce a $10 billion merger. February 10 The United States Army suspends Gene C, mcKinney, Sergeant Major of the Army, its top-ranking enlisted soldier, after hearing allegations of sexual misconduct. Sandline affair, Australian newspapers publish stories that the government of Papua New Guinea has brought mercenaries onto Bougainville Island, february 13 STS-82, Tune-up and repair work on the Hubble Space Telescope is started by astronauts from the Space Shuttle Discovery. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 7,000 for the first time, february 22 – In Roslin, Scotland, scientists announce that an adult sheep named Dolly had been successfully cloned, and was born in July 1996. February 23 – A small fire occurs on the Russian space station Mir, february 27 – Divorce becomes legal in the Republic of Ireland. February 28 – North Hollywood shootout, Two robbers wearing kevlar body armor armed with AK-47s containing armor-piercing bullets injure 17 police officers, the incident sparks debate on the appropriate firepower for United States patrol officers to have available in similar situations in the future. March 4 – U. S. President Bill Clinton bans federal funding for any research on human cloning, march 6 Pablo Picassos Tête de Femme is stolen from a London gallery. In Sri Lanka, Tamil Tigers overrun a military base and kill more than 200, march 13 Indias Missionaries of Charity chooses Sister Nirmala to succeed Mother Teresa as its leader. The National Peoples Congress of the Peoples Republic of China creates a new Chongqing Municipality, the Phoenix Lights, a series of UFOs, are seen over Phoenix, Arizona. March 16 – Sandline affair, On Bougainville Island, soldiers of commander Jerry Singirok arrest Tim Spicer and his mercenaries of the Sandline International. March 18 – The tail of a Russian An-24 charter plane breaks off while en route to Turkey, causing the plane to crash, killing all 50 on board, and resulting in the grounding of all An-24s
2.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
3.
Monarch
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A monarch is the sovereign head of state in a monarchy. A monarch may exercise the highest authority and power in the state, alternatively, an individual may become monarch by conquest, acclamation or a combination of means. A monarch usually reigns for life or until abdication, if a young child is crowned the monarch, a regent is often appointed to govern until the monarch reaches the requisite adult age to rule. A monarch can reign in multiple monarchies simultaneously, for example, the monarchy of Canada and the monarchy of the United Kingdom are separate states, but they share the same monarch through personal union. Monarchs, as such, bear a variety of titles — king or queen, prince or princess, emperor or empress, archduke, duke or grand duke, Prince is sometimes used as a generic term to refer to any monarch regardless of title, especially in older texts. A king can also be a husband and a queen can be a kings wife. If both people in a reign, neither person is generally considered to be a consort. Monarchy is political or sociocultural in nature, and is associated with hereditary rule. Most monarchs, both historically and in the present day, have been born and brought up within a royal family, different systems of succession have been used, such as proximity of blood, primogeniture, agnatic seniority, Salic law, etc. In an elective monarchy, the monarch is elected but otherwise serves as any other monarch, historical examples of elective monarchy include the Holy Roman Emperors and the free election of kings of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In recent centuries, many states have abolished the monarchy and become republics, advocacy of government by a republic is called republicanism, while advocacy of monarchy is called monarchism. A principal advantage of hereditary monarchy is the continuity of national leadership. In cases where the monarch serves mostly as a ceremonial figure real leadership does not depend on the monarch, a form of government may in fact be hereditary without being considered monarchy, such as a family dictatorship. Monarchies take a variety of forms, such as the two co-princes of Andorra, positions held simultaneously by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Urgel and the elected President of France. Similarly, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia is considered a monarch despite only holding the position for five years at a time, hereditary succession within one patrilineal family has been most common, with preference for children over siblings, sons over daughters. Other European realms practice one form or another of primogeniture, whereunder a lord was succeeded by his eldest son or, if he had none, by his brother, the system of tanistry was semi-elective and gave weight also to ability and merit. The Salic law, practiced in France and in the Italian territories of the House of Savoy, in most fiefs, in the event of the demise of all legitimate male members of the patrilineage, a female of the family could succeed. Spain today continues this model of succession law, in the form of cognatic primogeniture, in more complex medieval cases, the sometimes conflicting principles of proximity and primogeniture battled, and outcomes were often idiosyncratic
4.
Elizabeth II
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Elizabeth II has been Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand since 6 February 1952. Elizabeth was born in London as the eldest child of the Duke and Duchess of York, later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth and her father acceded to the throne on the abdication of his brother Edward VIII in 1936, from which time she was the heir presumptive. She began to undertake duties during the Second World War. Elizabeths many historic visits and meetings include a visit to the Republic of Ireland. She has seen major changes, such as devolution in the United Kingdom, Canadian patriation. She has reigned through various wars and conflicts involving many of her realms and she is the worlds oldest reigning monarch as well as Britains longest-lived. In October 2016, she became the longest currently reigning monarch, in 2017 she became the first British monarch to commemorate a Sapphire Jubilee. Elizabeth has occasionally faced republican sentiments and press criticism of the family, however, support for the monarchy remains high. Elizabeth was born at 02,40 on 21 April 1926, during the reign of her paternal grandfather and her father, Prince Albert, Duke of York, was the second son of the King. Her mother, Elizabeth, Duchess of York, was the youngest daughter of Scottish aristocrat Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and she was delivered by Caesarean section at her maternal grandfathers London house,17 Bruton Street, Mayfair. Elizabeths only sibling, Princess Margaret, was born in 1930, the two princesses were educated at home under the supervision of their mother and their governess, Marion Crawford, who was casually known as Crawfie. Lessons concentrated on history, language, literature and music, Crawford published a biography of Elizabeth and Margarets childhood years entitled The Little Princesses in 1950, much to the dismay of the royal family. The book describes Elizabeths love of horses and dogs, her orderliness, others echoed such observations, Winston Churchill described Elizabeth when she was two as a character. She has an air of authority and reflectiveness astonishing in an infant and her cousin Margaret Rhodes described her as a jolly little girl, but fundamentally sensible and well-behaved. During her grandfathers reign, Elizabeth was third in the line of succession to the throne, behind her uncle Edward, Prince of Wales, and her father, the Duke of York. Although her birth generated public interest, she was not expected to become queen, many people believed that he would marry and have children of his own. When her grandfather died in 1936 and her uncle succeeded as Edward VIII, she became second-in-line to the throne, later that year, Edward abdicated, after his proposed marriage to divorced socialite Wallis Simpson provoked a constitutional crisis. Consequently, Elizabeths father became king, and she became heir presumptive, if her parents had had a later son, she would have lost her position as first-in-line, as her brother would have been heir apparent and above her in the line of succession
5.
Governor-general
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Governor-General or governor general, in modern usage, is the title of an office-holder appointed to represent the monarch of a sovereign state in the governing of an independent realm. Governors-General have also previously been appointed in respect of major colonial states or other territories held by either a monarchy or republic, in modern usage, the term governor-general originated in those British colonies which became self-governing within the British Empire. In these cases, the Crowns representative in the federated Dominion was given the title of governor general. Another non-federal state, Newfoundland, was a Dominion for 16 years with the Kings representative retaining the title of governor throughout this time, since 2016, the title governor-general has been given to all representatives of the sovereign in independent Commonwealth realms. In these countries the governor-general acts as the representative, performing the ceremonial and constitutional functions of a head of state. The only other nation which uses the designation is Iran. In Iran, the authority is headed by a governor general. As such they held the prerogative powers of the monarch. The monarch or imperial government could overrule any governor-general, though this could often be cumbersome, the governors-general are entitled to wear a unique uniform, which are not generally worn today. If of the rank of general, equivalent or above. The report resulting from the 1926 Imperial Conference stated, in other words, the political reality of a self-governing Dominion within the British Empire with a governor-general answerable to the sovereign became clear. British interference in the Dominion was not acceptable and independent country status was clearly displayed, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand were clearly not controlled by the United Kingdom. The governor-general, however, is appointed by the monarch. Executive authority is vested in the monarch, though much of it can be exercisable only by the governor-general on behalf of the sovereign of the independent realm. Except in rare cases, the only acts in accordance with constitutional convention and upon the advice of the national prime minister. The governor-general is still the representative of the sovereign and performs the same duties as they carried out historically. In some realms, the monarch could in principle overrule a governor-general, in Australia the present Queen is generally assumed to be head of state, since the governor-general and the state governors are defined as her representatives. However, since the governor-general performs almost all national regal functions, to a lesser extent, uncertainty has been expressed in Canada as to which officeholder—the monarch, the governor general, or both—can be considered the head of state
6.
William Deane
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Sir William Patrick Deane AC, KBE, QC is a former Australian judge and was the 22nd Governor-General of Australia. William Deane was born in the Melbourne suburb of St Kilda and he was educated at Catholic schools, including St Josephs College, Hunters Hill, and at the University of Sydney, where he graduated in arts and law. He also attended the Hague Academy of International Law, after graduation, Deane worked in the federal Attorney-Generals Department in Canberra and at the law firm Minter Simpson. He also travelled to Europe to study international law and he was called to the Sydney Bar in 1957 and also lectured in law at university. During this time, Deane was active in the Catholic community, in 1955 he briefly became a member of the Democratic Labor Party, a predominantly Catholic and anti-Communist breakaway from the Australian Labor Party. In June 1982 he was appointed to the High Court of Australia and he received a knighthood in August 1982. On the court he formed part of the majority which recognised native title in the landmark Mabo case of 1992. In August 1995, the Labor Prime Minister, Paul Keating, Deane retired from the High Court in November and was sworn in as Governor-General on 16 February 1996. Less than a month later the Liberal/National coalition led by John Howard defeated Keatings government in the Australian federal election,1996, Deane officially opened the 2000 Summer Olympics held in Sydney. He is also a Patron of Reconciliation Australia and of the Australian Indigenous Doctors Association, Government appointed him as Patron of the National Capitals 2013 Centenary Celebrations. He is a former Patron and Chair of international aid-organization CARE Australia, Deane was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire on 10 August 1982, a few weeks after being appointed to the High Court. On Australia Day 1988, he was made a Companion of the Order of Australia and he is also a Knight Commander with Star of the Papal Order of St. Gregory the Great and a Knight of the Venerable Order of St. John. In 2001, Deane was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize for his consistent support of vulnerable and disadvantaged Australians, governor General of Australia – Official biography of Sir William Deane and Lady Deane, published by Government House, Canberra. A Mirror to the People, documentary film on the Office of Governor-General of Australia, featuring Deane, Zelman Cowen, High Court biography Retrieved 20 August 2014
7.
Prime minister
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A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss members of the cabinet. In most systems, the minister is the presiding member. In parliamentary systems fashioned after the Westminster system, the minister is the presiding and actual head of government. In such systems, the head of state or the head of states official representative usually holds a ceremonial position. The prime minister is often, but not always, a member of the Legislature or the Lower House thereof and is expected with other ministers to ensure the passage of bills through the legislature. In some monarchies the monarch may also exercise powers that are constitutionally vested in the crown. The first actual usage of the prime minister or Premier Ministre was used by Cardinal Richelieu when in 1625 he was named to head the royal council as prime minister of France. Louis XIV and his descendants generally attempted to avoid giving this title to their chief ministers, the term prime minister in the sense that we know it originated in the 18th century in the United Kingdom when members of parliament disparagingly used the title in reference to Sir Robert Walpole. Over time, however, the title became honorific and remains so in the 21st century, the monarchs of England and the United Kingdom had ministers in whom they placed special trust and who were regarded as the head of the government. Examples were Thomas Cromwell under Henry VIII, William Cecil, Lord Burghley under Elizabeth I, Clarendon under Charles II and these ministers held a variety of formal posts, but were commonly known as the minister, the chief minister, the first minister and finally the prime minister. The power of ministers depended entirely on the personal favour of the monarch. Although managing the parliament was among the skills of holding high office. Although there was a cabinet, it was appointed entirely by the monarch, when the monarch grew tired of a first minister, he or she could be dismissed, or worse, Cromwell was executed and Clarendon driven into exile when they lost favour. Kings sometimes divided power equally between two or more ministers to prevent one minister from becoming too powerful, late in Annes reign, for example, the Tory ministers Harley and St John shared power. The monarch could no longer any law or impose any tax without its permission. It is at point that a modern style of prime minister begins to emerge. A tipping point in the evolution of the prime ministership came with the death of Anne in 1714, George spoke no English, spent much of his time at his home in Hanover, and had neither knowledge of, nor interest in, the details of English government
8.
John Howard
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John Winston Howard, OM, AC was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, serving from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. Only Sir Robert Menzies has served in the position longer, born in Sydney, Howard was a solicitor at Clayton Utz before entering politics, having studied law at the University of Sydney. A member of the Liberal Party and former president of the Young Liberals, he first stood for office at the 1968 New South Wales state election, but lost narrowly. At the 1974 federal election, Howard was elected to the Division of Bennelong and he was promoted to cabinet in 1977, and later in the year replaced Phillip Lynch as Treasurer of Australia, remaining in that position until the defeat of Malcolm Frasers government in 1983. In 1985, Howard was elected leader of the Liberal Party for the first time and he led the Liberal–National coalition to the 1987 federal election, but lost to Bob Hawkes Labor government, and was removed from the leadership in 1989. Remaining a key figure in the party, Howard was re-elected leader in 1995, after defeating Paul Keatings Labor government in 1996, the Howard Government was re-elected at the 1998,2001 and 2004 elections. Howards actions as prime minister included new gun laws, the introduction of a nationwide value-added tax, immigration reform, Australia also contributed troops to the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War under his government, and led the International Force for East Timor. The Howard government was defeated at the 2007 federal election, with the Labor Partys Kevin Rudd succeeding him as prime minister, Howard also lost his own seat at the election, becoming only the second prime minister to do so. John Howard is the son of Mona and Lyall Howard. His parents were married in 1925 and his eldest brother Stanley was born in 1926, followed by Walter in 1929, and Robert in 1936. Lyall Howard was an admirer of Winston Churchill, and sympathetic to the New Guard during its early years, Howards ancestors were English, Scottish and Irish. Howard was born and raised in the Sydney suburb of Earlwood and his mother had been an office worker until her marriage. His father and his grandfather, Walter Howard, were both veterans of the First AIF in World War I. They also ran two Dulwich Hill petrol stations where Howard worked as a boy, Lyall Howard died in 1955 when John was sixteen, leaving his mother to take care of John. Howard suffered an impairment in his youth, leaving him with a slight speech impediment. It also influenced him in ways, limiting his early academic performance, encouraging a reliance on an excellent memory. Howard attended the state schools Earlwood Primary School and Canterbury Boys High School, Howard won a citizenship prize in his final year at Earlwood, and subsequently represented his secondary school at debating as well as cricket and rugby. In his final year at school he took part in a show hosted by Jack Davey, Give It a Go broadcast on the commercial radio station, 2GB
9.
Election
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An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated since the 17th century, Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the executive and judiciary, and for regional and local government. This process is used in many other private and business organizations. Electoral reform describes the process of introducing fair electoral systems where they are not in place, psephology is the study of results and other statistics relating to elections. To elect means to choose or make a decision, and so other forms of ballot such as referendums are referred to as elections. Elections were used as early in history as ancient Greece and ancient Rome, and throughout the Medieval period to select rulers such as the Holy Roman Emperor, in Vedic period of India, the raja of a gana was apparently elected by the gana. The raja belonged to the noble Kshatriya varna, and was typically a son of the previous raja, however, the gana members had the final say in his elections. The Pala king Gopala in early medieval Bengal was elected by a group of feudal chieftains, such elections were quite common in contemporary societies of the region. In Chola Empire, around 920 CE, in Uthiramerur, palm leaves were used for selecting the village committee members, the leaves, with candidate names written on them, were put inside a mud pot. To select the members, a young boy was asked to take out as many leaves as the number of positions available. This was known as the Kudavolai system, ancient Arabs also used election to choose their caliph, Uthman and Ali, in the early medieval Rashidun Caliphate. Questions of suffrage, especially suffrage for minority groups, have dominated the history of elections, males, the dominate cultural group in North America and Europe, often dominated the electorate and continue to do so in many countries. Early elections in such as the United Kingdom and the United States were dominated by landed or ruling class males. However, by 1920 all Western European and North American democracies had universal male suffrage. Despite legally mandated universal suffrage for males, political barriers were sometimes erected to prevent fair access to elections. The question of who may vote is an issue in elections. In Australia Aboriginal people were not given the right to vote until 1962, suffrage is typically only for citizens of the country, though further limits may be imposed. However, in the European Union, one can vote in municipal elections if one lives in the municipality and is an EU citizen, the nationality of the country of residence is not required
10.
Northern Territory
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The Northern Territory is a federal Australian territory in the central and central northern regions of Australia. It shares borders with Western Australia to the west, South Australia to the south, to the north, the territory is bordered by the Timor Sea, the Arafura Sea and the Gulf of Carpentaria. Despite its large area—over 1,349,129 square kilometres, the Northern Territorys population of 244,000 makes it the least populous of Australias eight major states and territories, having fewer than half as many people as Tasmania. The archaeological history of the Northern Territory begins over 40,000 years ago when Indigenous Australians settled the region, makassan traders began trading with the indigenous people of the Northern Territory for trepang from at least the 18th century onwards. The coast of the territory was first seen by Europeans in the 17th century, the British were the first Europeans to attempt to settle the coastal regions. After three failed attempts to establish a settlement, success was achieved in 1869 with the establishment of a settlement at Port Darwin. Today the economy is based on tourism, especially Kakadu National Park in the Top End and the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park in central Australia, the capital and largest city is Darwin. The population is not concentrated in regions but rather along the Stuart Highway. The other major settlements are Palmerston, Alice Springs, Katherine, Nhulunbuy, residents of the Northern Territory are often known simply as Territorians and fully as Northern Territorians, or more informally as Top Enders and Centralians. With the coming of the British, there were four attempts to settle the harsh environment of the northern coast. The Northern Territory was part of colonial New South Wales from 1825 to 1863, except for a time from February to December 1846. It was part of South Australia from 1863 to 1911, under the administration of colonial South Australia, the overland telegraph was constructed between 1870 and 1872. A railway was built between Palmerston and Pine Creek between 1883 and 1889. The economic pattern of raising and mining was established so that by 1911 there were 513,000 cattle. Victoria River Downs was at one time the largest cattle station in the world, gold was found at Grove Hill in 1872 and at Pine Creek, Brocks Creek, Burrundi, and copper was found at Daly River. On 1 January 1911, a decade after federation, the Northern Territory was separated from South Australia, alfred Deakin opined at this time To me the question has been not so much commercial as national, first, second, third and last. Either we must accomplish the peopling of the territory or submit to its transfer to some other nation. In late 1912 there was growing sentiment that the name Northern Territory was unsatisfactory, the names Kingsland, Centralia and Territoria were proposed with Kingsland becoming the preferred choice in 1913
