Evan Lysacek
Evan Frank Lysacek is an American figure skater. He is the 2010 Olympic champion, the 2009 World champion, a two-time Four Continents champion, the 2009 Grand Prix Final champion, a two-time U. S. national champion. Lysacek was the 2010 United States Olympic Committee's SportsMan of the Year, the winner of the James E. Sullivan Award as the top U. S. amateur athlete of 2010. On January 22, 2016, he was inducted into the U. S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame; as of 2018, Evan Lysacek is the last American male figure skater to win an individual Olympic medal. Evan Lysacek was born in Chicago and raised in Naperville, Illinois, his mother, Tanya, is a substitute teacher in Naperville, his father, Don, is a building contractor. He has an older sister, a younger sister, who played on a nationally ranked volleyball team, his cousin Cole Chason is a former punter for the Clemson Tigers. Lysacek went to Spring Brook Elementary and to Gregory Middle School. Lysacek graduated from Neuqua Valley High School in 2003.
During high school, Lysacek was a member of the honor roll, where he earned a number of academic achievement awards, including the Presidential Award for Academic Excellence in 1999. Lysacek is of Italian and Czech descent, he is a Greek Orthodox Christian, having stated that one of his most prized possessions is his Orthodox cross. He wears Graf figure skating boots. Lysacek moved to Los Angeles, California in 2003, following his graduation from high school, he has homes in El Segundo, California and Las Vegas. Lysacek studied acting, having taken method acting classes at the Professional Arts School in Beverly Hills, he appeared in the independent short film Skate Great!, playing a Russian Olympic gold medalist. Lysacek uses power yoga as conditioning training. In September 2014, Lysacek moved to New York City to pursue a career in commercial real estate. In 2015, he started working for Vera Wang, his former costume designer. Lysacek began skating at the age of eight, his grandmother had always wanted to be in the Ice Capades, so she bought him skates for Christmas.
He wanted to play hockey, so his mother enrolled him and his sister Laura in figure-skating lessons to learn how to skate. Lysacek was soon competing as a figure skater. In 1996, Lysacek won the U. S. national title at the Juvenile level – the lowest qualifying level in the U. S. Figure Skating competition structure. In 1997, he moved up to Intermediate and won the pewter medal at the Junior Olympics, after winning both his regional and his sectional qualifying competitions. After failing to qualify for Nationals on the novice level in 1998, Lysacek won the U. S. Novice title at the 1999 U. S. Championships at the age of thirteen. In the 1999–2000 season, Lysacek made his international junior debut and competed on the 1999–2000 ISU Junior Grand Prix circuit, he placed seventh at his first event and won his second event. He was the third alternate to the 1999–2000 ISU Junior Grand Prix Final. At the 2000 U. S. Championships, Lysacek won the Junior title at the age of fourteen, he placed fifth in the short program and first in the free skate, placing first overall.
He was the first male skater since Terry Kubicka to win back-to-back Novice and Junior Men's titles in the United States. The win on the junior level was unusual in that Lysacek moved from third to first overall while sitting backstage, because he won through a tiebreak in the 6.0 ordinal system. Lysacek was tied with Parker Pennington in second place ordinals and had one more first place ordinal, giving him the win in the free skate in the Total Ordinals of Majority tiebreaker, which pushed him ahead in overall factored placements, allowing him to win the title overall. Following the U. S. Championships, he was assigned to the 2000 Gardena Spring Trophy in Urtijëi where he won the silver medal on the junior level. Lysacek had a strong showing in the 2000–2001 season, he competed in his second season on the Junior Grand Prix circuit and won two silver medals. He was the 7th qualifier for the 2000–2001 Junior Grand Prix Final and placed 8th at the Final, he made his senior national debut at the 2001 U.
S. Championships, placing 12th at the age of fifteen. Lysacek was named second alternate to the US team to the 2001 World Junior Championships and was placed on the team after Ryan Bradley withdrew due to injury. Lysacek performed two clean programs and came in second behind fellow American Johnny Weir, giving the United States a gold and a silver on the World Junior podium for the first time since 1987. Over the next season, Lysacek dealt with several injuries, including broken ribs, which resulted in lost training time. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the United States Figure Skating Association cancelled the 2001–2002 ISU Junior Grand Prix event to be held in Arizona and did not allow its junior skaters to compete on the Junior Grand Prix circuit for the rest of that season. At the 2002 U. S. Championships, Lysacek repeated his 12th-place finish from the previous year and was not selected for the team to the 2002 World Junior Championships, he was sent to the 2002 Triglav Trophy in April, where he won the gold medal on the junior level.
After that, Lysacek changed his diet and his training habits. In the 2002–2003 season, he competed on the 2002–2003 ISU Junior Grand Prix circuit and won two silver medals, he was the 4th qualifier for the 2002–2003 Junior Grand Prix Final, where he placed 5th. For the 2003 U. S. Championships, his goal had been to place in the top ten, he achieved this with a 7th-place finish. Lysacek was named third alternate for the 2003 Four Continents Championships and was placed on the team after other skaters withdre
Tatiana Navka
Tatyana Aleksandrovna Navka is a Russian ice dancer. With partner Roman Kostomarov, she is the 2006 Olympic champion, a two-time World champion, a three-time Grand Prix Final champion, a three-time European champion. Earlier in her career, she competed for the Soviet Union and Belarus. Tatiana Navka was born on 13 April 1975 in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union, she is the daughter of Raisa, an economist, Aleksandr, an engineer, has a younger sister, Natalia. In 1988, she moved to Moscow Oblast, Russian SFSR. Tatiana Navka became interested in skating at the age of five after seeing it on television. Tamara Yarchevskaya and Alexander Rozhin coached her during her early years as a single skater. In 1987, following a 14 cm growth spurt that hampered her jumps, her parents were advised that she should try ice dancing. In 1988, at the invitation of Russian coach Natalia Dubova, Navka relocated to Moscow and began training at the Moskvich sports club, partnered with Samuel Gezalian; the two represented the Soviet Union early in their career, winning gold at the 1991 Skate America and 1991 Nations Cup.
Following the country's dissolution, Navka/Gezalian chose to skate for Belarus. They placed ninth in their debut at the European and World Championships, in 1993. In the 1993–94 season, Navka/Gezalian won silver at the 1993 Skate Canada International and placed fourth at the 1993 NHK Trophy, they competed at the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, placing 11th, before achieving their career-best Worlds result, fifth at the 1994 World Championships in Chiba, Japan. In 1994–95, Navka/Gezalian won silver at the 1994 NHK Trophy and went on to achieve their best European result, fourth, at the 1995 European Championships in Dortmund, their partnership came to an end following the 1995 World Championships. Navka teamed up with Nikolai Morozov in 1996. At their first practice at the 1997 World Championships, Morozov sustained a torn meniscus in his knee but they finished 14th at the event and he underwent surgery, they earned an Olympic berth by winning gold at the 1997 Karl Schäfer Memorial. 90 seconds into their free dance at the 1998 Winter Olympics, nearly three-quarters of the floodlights turned off but Navka/Morozov did not interrupt their performance.
They finished 16th at the Olympics in Nagano, 10th at the 1998 World Championships in Minneapolis. They were coached by Alexander Zhulin and Bob Young at the International Skating Center in Simsbury, Connecticut. Following 1998 Worlds, Navka ended the partnership to compete with another skater. Navka teamed up with Roman Kostomarov and began competing for Russia during the 1998–99 season, they were coached by Natalia Linichuk. They won the bronze medal at the Russian Championships and were sent to the World Championships in their first season together, placing 12th. Linichuk dissolved the team and paired Kostomarov with Anna Semenovich. Navka took a year off from competition. In mid-2000, Kostomarov asked to skate with her again, they were coached by New Jersey. Navka/Kostomarov won the World title in 2004 and again in 2005, they won three European titles from 2004–2006. They won gold at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy. At the age of 30 years and 313 days, she became one of the oldest female figure skating Olympic champions.
Navka/Kostomarov retired from competition after the Olympics but continue to skate in shows together. Navka has partnered with Russian celebrities to compete in Channel One Russia ice shows: Stars On Ice, which she won with actor Marat Basharov, Ice Age, in which she was runner-up with actor Ville Haapasalo. In the 2008–09 season of Ice Age, she was runner-up for the second time, partnered with actor Vadim Kolganov. In September 2008, together with professional dancer Alexander Litvinenko, took part in the Eurovision Dance Contest 2008. In October 2011, she became a 2014 Winter Olympics ambassador. Navka became a citizen of Belarus by 1994 and of Russia no than 2002, she resided in New Jersey. In 2000, Navka married Russian ice dancer Alexander Zhulin, their daughter, was born in May 2000 in the United States. The couple filed for divorce in the summer of 2009 and were divorced in July 2010. Navka and Russian diplomat Dmitry Peskov, the press spokesman for Vladimir Putin, have a daughter, born in August 2014 in Russia.
They married in a civil ceremony at a registry office in June 2015 before a larger ceremony on 1 August 2015. From 2014 to 2015, Navka was the beneficiary of Carina Global Assets Ltd. an offshore company in the British Virgin Islands. In February 2019, questions were raised over Navka and her husband's wealth following reports about their ownership of multiple properties in the Moscow region. An investigation by The Guardian suggested that Navka may have underreported income, claimed married status for several years after her divorce from Zhulin, falsely told the IRS that she had sold a house. In 2016, Navka caused controversy when she and her dancing partner, Andrei Burkovsky, appeared in the Russian version of Dancing on Ice dressed as Holocaust concentration camp prisoners. GP: Champions Series / Grand Prix Tatiana Navka / Roman Kostomarov at the International Skating Union Care to Ice Dance? – Navka / Kostomarov
Timothy Goebel
Timothy Richard Goebel is an American former competitive figure skater. He is the 2002 Olympic bronze medalist, he was the first person to land a quadruple salchow jump in competition and the first person to land three quadruple jumps in one program. He landed 76 career quadruple jumps before his retirement in 2006. Goebel was born on September 1980, in Evanston, Illinois, he was adopted through Catholic Charities by Richard Goebel as an infant. Goebel attended Loyola Marymount University. Beginning in the fall of 2006, he studied at Columbia University's School of General Studies, graduating in May 2010 with a bachelor's degree in mathematics. After working for the Nielsen ratings company, he joined MEC, as a consumer analyst; as of April 2016, he was pursuing a master's degree in data science from New York University Stern School of Business. In January 2017, he began working as a data analyst for Google. In April 2016, Goebel became engaged to his boyfriend of Thomas Luciano, they married on April 2017, in Newport, Rhode Island.
Early in his career, Goebel was coached by Carol Heiss Jenkins and Glyn Watts near his Illinois home and moved to California to work with Frank Carroll. Goebel was sometimes referred to as the "Quad King" because of his ability to land quadruple jumps. On March 7, 1998, in Lausanne, Switzerland, at the Junior Grand Prix Final, Goebel became the first skater in the world to land a quadruple Salchow, the first American skater to land a quadruple jump of any kind in competition. International Skating Union officials ratified the jump at the end of the month after watching a video provided by the parents of Tiffany Stiegler / Johnnie Stiegler. On October 31, 1999, at the 1999 Skate America in Colorado Springs, Goebel became the first skater to land three quads in one program. In the free skate, he landed a quad salchow in combination, a quad toe loop, a quad salchow as a solo jump. Goebel made history at the 2002 Olympics by becoming the first skater to land a quad salchow jump in combination in Olympic competition.
Goebel's repertoire of quadruple jumps made him one of the most competitive skaters in the world during the peak of his career. He would land a total of 76 quads in competition. Goebel was criticized early in his career for focusing on jumping to the detriment of choreography and presentation, but in years he improved in those areas. Goebel struggled with his jumps after 2003 due to injuries. At the 2006 U. S. Championships, in what he had announced would be his last competitive season, he was unable to land either a quadruple jump or triple axel cleanly, dropped to a seventh-place finish which left him far short of qualifying for the 2006 Winter Olympics. Goebel represented the Winterhurst Figure Skating Club, he was coached by Audrey Weisiger in Fairfax, after having been coached by Carol Heiss Jenkins, Glyn Watts and Frank Carroll. On April 25, 2006, Goebel announced his retirement from competitive skating, he planned to continue to contribute to the sport as a technical specialist, having received certification for competitions sanctioned by the United States Figure Skating Association.
He worked as a technical specialist at the Aviator Figure Skating Academy in New York. He attended Columbia University. In 2016 he received a Master of Science in Business Analytics degree from New York University Stern School of Business, works for Google as a Marketing Mix Modeling Partner Program Manager. GP = Grand Prix. S. Olympic Committee
Russia
Russia the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country in Eastern Europe and North Asia. At 17,125,200 square kilometres, Russia is by far or by a considerable margin the largest country in the world by area, covering more than one-eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area, the ninth most populous, with about 146.77 million people as of 2019, including Crimea. About 77 % of the population live in the European part of the country. Russia's capital, Moscow, is one of the largest cities in the world and the second largest city in Europe. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a wide range of environments and landforms. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares land borders with Norway, Estonia, Latvia and Poland, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, China and North Korea, it shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk and the U. S. state of Alaska across the Bering Strait. However, Russia recognises two more countries that border it, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both of which are internationally recognized as parts of Georgia.
The East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, the medieval state of Rus arose in the 9th century. In 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus' disintegrated into a number of smaller states; the Grand Duchy of Moscow reunified the surrounding Russian principalities and achieved independence from the Golden Horde. By the 18th century, the nation had expanded through conquest and exploration to become the Russian Empire, the third largest empire in history, stretching from Poland on the west to Alaska on the east. Following the Russian Revolution, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic became the largest and leading constituent of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the world's first constitutionally socialist state; the Soviet Union played a decisive role in the Allied victory in World War II, emerged as a recognized superpower and rival to the United States during the Cold War.
The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the world's first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the world's second largest economy, largest standing military in the world and the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, twelve independent republics emerged from the USSR: Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and the Baltic states regained independence: Estonia, Lithuania, it is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic. Russia's economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2018. Russia's extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the leading producers of oil and natural gas globally; the country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.
Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. It is a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and an active global partner of ASEAN, as well as a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the G20, the Council of Europe, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the World Trade Organization, as well as being the leading member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Collective Security Treaty Organization and one of the five members of the Eurasian Economic Union, along with Armenia, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan; the name Russia is derived from Rus', a medieval state populated by the East Slavs. However, this proper name became more prominent in the history, the country was called by its inhabitants "Русская Земля", which can be translated as "Russian Land" or "Land of Rus'". In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus' by modern historiography.
The name Rus itself comes from the early medieval Rus' people, Swedish merchants and warriors who relocated from across the Baltic Sea and founded a state centered on Novgorod that became Kievan Rus. An old Latin version of the name Rus' was Ruthenia applied to the western and southern regions of Rus' that were adjacent to Catholic Europe; the current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Rus', Ρωσσία Rossía—spelled Ρωσία in Modern Greek. The standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are commonly
Stéphane Lambiel
Stéphane Lambiel is a Swiss figure skater and choreographer. He is a two-time World champion, the 2006 Olympic silver medalist, a two-time Grand Prix Final champion, a nine-time Swiss national champion. Lambiel is credited with popularizing some spin positions. Lambiel was born in Martigny and grew up in Saxon, Switzerland, his mother is from Lisbon and his father is from Isérables, Switzerland. He has a sister, a brother, Christophe, his parents divorced in 1999. Lambiel lives in Lausanne and received his "maturité" in biology and chemistry in June 2004. A native speaker of French, Lambiel speaks Portuguese, High German, English and is learning Italian. Unlike most figure skaters, Lambiel can spin and jump in both counter-clockwise and clock-wise directions, he is able to do successive double axels, changing his rotation direction between each one, but stopped training it. Lambiel had recurring injuries in both his knees, requiring him to miss exhibitions and training time, but his problems were resolved in 2009.
He assisted in designing his own costumes. Lambiel began skating when he was seven in Saxon, following in his sister's footsteps, his mother wanted him to play hockey but he was more interested in jumping. Around 1995, Lambiel began training in Geneva, coached by Peter Grütter; when ice was unavailable in Geneva from April to June, he trained in Germany, sometimes in Oberstdorf. Salomé Brunner became his main choreographer in 1996. Lambiel landed his first triple toe loop at age ten; as the novice national champion of Switzerland, he performed in the gala at the 1997 World Championships, held in Lausanne. He won the junior national champion for the next two years and spent three years on the junior Grand Prix circuit, winning two medals during this time. Due to the high cost of a season, his village created a fan club to help raise funds after his parents' divorce in 1999. Lambiel won his first senior national title in the 2001 season, aged 15, he made his senior debut at the 2001 Europeans, finishing ninth, was fifth at the 2001 World Junior Championships.
The next season, Lambiel turned senior and finished 6th in his first senior Grand Prix, the 2001 Trophée Lalique. The Swiss skating federation told him that they would send him to the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City if he placed in the top twelve at the 2002 European Championships. Lambiel was sent to the Olympics, where he finished 15th, he was 18th at the 2002 Worlds. Lambiel underwent knee surgery in November 2002, he moved up to tenth at Worlds. In the 2003-2004 season, he was sixth at the 2004 European Championships and fourth at the 2004 World Championships. In autumn 2004, Lambiel underwent an operation on the meniscus in his left knee. Around October, he began training in Lausanne, coached by Cédric Monod. Majda and Jean-Sébastien Scharl became his physical trainers in November 2004. Lambiel missed the 2004–05 ISU Grand Prix season but returned in time for the 2005 European Championships where he placed fourth. At the 2005 World Championships, held in Moscow, Lambiel was ahead of Evgeni Plushenko after the qualifying round and short program.
Plushenko withdrew from the competition with an injury. Skating to the King Arthur soundtrack in the long program, Lambiel landed two quadruple toe loops and gave an overall strong performance to win his first World championship, he became the first Swiss man to win the event since Hans Gerschwiler did so in 1947. With Lambiel training in Geneva with Peter Grütter and Monod decided to end their collaboration in late September 2005. Lambiel won the Grand Prix Final, he came in second at the 2006 European Championships in Lyon, behind Plushenko. Lambiel went into the 2006 Olympic Games, in Turin, with a strong chance to medal, he was third after the short program and only placed fourth in the long program, but was able to win the silver medal when other contenders faltered. Lambiel did not complete a triple axel at the Olympics, but he did land a clean quadruple toe loop-triple toe loop-double loop combination. Lambiel became the first Swiss figure skater since 1948 to win an Olympic medal. Plushenko chose not to go to the 2006 World Championships, Lambiel was considered a favorite to defend his title.
He was first after the qualifying round, fourth in the short program and first in the long program, became the first Swiss skater to be a two-time World Champion. After the 2005–06 season, Lambiel participated in the Champions on Ice tour. Lambiel began the 2006–2007 season with a win at Skate Canada, where he finished seventh in the short program but first in the free skate, he was assigned to the 2006 NHK Trophy, but withdrew prior to the event, citing health reasons. He recovered in time to skate at the Swiss Championships. On 16 January, Lambiel withdrew from the 2007 European Championships, he returned to compete at the 2007 World Championships in Japan. In the short program, Lambiel fell on his triple axel and only tripled the first jump in his intended quadruple toe loop-double toe loop combination, finishing sixth, he did better in the long program, landing two quadruple toe loops and a triple axel, earning high program component scores and a level four for three of his spins. Lambiel finished in 2nd on third overall behind Brian Joubert and Daisuke Takahashi.
In 2007, Lambiel finished 3rd at
Sweden
Sweden the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north and Finland to the east, is connected to Denmark in the southwest by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund, a strait at the Swedish-Danish border. At 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the largest country in Northern Europe, the third-largest country in the European Union and the fifth largest country in Europe by area. Sweden has a total population of 10.2 million. It has a low population density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre; the highest concentration is in the southern half of the country. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats and Swedes and constituting the sea peoples known as the Norsemen. Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is forested. Sweden is part of the geographical area of Fennoscandia; the climate is in general mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence, that in spite of this still retains warm continental summers.
Today, the sovereign state of Sweden is a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state, like its neighbour Norway. The capital city is Stockholm, the most populous city in the country. Legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister. Sweden is a unitary state divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. An independent Swedish state emerged during the early 12th century. After the Black Death in the middle of the 14th century killed about a third of the Scandinavian population, the Hanseatic League threatened Scandinavia's culture and languages; this led to the forming of the Scandinavian Kalmar Union in 1397, which Sweden left in 1523. When Sweden became involved in the Thirty Years War on the Reformist side, an expansion of its territories began and the Swedish Empire was formed; this became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, ending with the annexation of present-day Finland by Russia in 1809.
The last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since Sweden has been at peace, maintaining an official policy of neutrality in foreign affairs; the union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905. Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars and the Cold War, albeit Sweden has since 2009 moved towards cooperation with NATO. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995, but declined NATO membership, as well as Eurozone membership following a referendum, it is a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, the Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides universal health care and tertiary education for its citizens, it has the world's eleventh-highest per capita income and ranks in numerous metrics of national performance, including quality of life, education, protection of civil liberties, economic competitiveness, equality and human development.
The name Sweden was loaned from Dutch in the 17th century to refer to Sweden as an emerging great power. Before Sweden's imperial expansion, Early Modern English used Swedeland. Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod, which meant "people of the Swedes"; this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige means "realm of the Swedes", excluding the Geats in Götaland. Variations of the name Sweden are used in most languages, with the exception of Danish and Norwegian using Sverige, Faroese Svøríki, Icelandic Svíþjóð, the more notable exception of some Finnic languages where Ruotsi and Rootsi are used, names considered as referring to the people from the coastal areas of Roslagen, who were known as the Rus', through them etymologically related to the English name for Russia; the etymology of Swedes, thus Sweden, is not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning "one's own", referring to one's own Germanic tribe. Sweden's prehistory begins in the Allerød oscillation, a warm period around 12,000 BC, with Late Palaeolithic reindeer-hunting camps of the Bromme culture at the edge of the ice in what is now the country's southernmost province, Scania.
This period was characterised by small bands of hunter-gatherer-fishers using flint technology. Sweden is first described in a written source in Germania by Tacitus in 98 AD. In Germania 44 and 45 he mentions the Swedes as a powerful tribe with ships that had a prow at each end. Which kings ruled these Suiones is unknown, but Norse mythology presents a long line of legendary and semi-legendary kings going back to the last centuries BC; as for literacy in Sweden itself, the runic script was in use among the south Scandinavian elite by at least the 2nd century AD, but all that has come down to the present from the Roman Period is curt inscriptions on artefacts of male names, demonstrating th
Germany
Germany the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central and Western Europe, lying between the Baltic and North Seas to the north, the Alps to the south. It borders Denmark to the north and the Czech Republic to the east and Switzerland to the south, France to the southwest, Luxembourg and the Netherlands to the west. Germany includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,386 square kilometres, has a temperate seasonal climate. With 83 million inhabitants, it is the second most populous state of Europe after Russia, the most populous state lying in Europe, as well as the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is a decentralized country, its capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while Frankfurt serves as its financial capital and has the country's busiest airport. Germany's largest urban area is the Ruhr, with its main centres of Essen; the country's other major cities are Hamburg, Cologne, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf, Dresden, Bremen and Nuremberg. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity.
A region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period, the Germanic tribes expanded southward. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation. After the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, the German Confederation was formed in 1815; the German revolutions of 1848–49 resulted in the Frankfurt Parliament establishing major democratic rights. In 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the revolution of 1918–19, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic; the Nazi seizure of power in 1933 led to the establishment of a dictatorship, the annexation of Austria, World War II, the Holocaust. After the end of World War II in Europe and a period of Allied occupation, Austria was re-established as an independent country and two new German states were founded: West Germany, formed from the American and French occupation zones, East Germany, formed from the Soviet occupation zone.
Following the Revolutions of 1989 that ended communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe, the country was reunified on 3 October 1990. Today, the sovereign state of Germany is a federal parliamentary republic led by a chancellor, it is a great power with a strong economy. As a global leader in several industrial and technological sectors, it is both the world's third-largest exporter and importer of goods; as a developed country with a high standard of living, it upholds a social security and universal health care system, environmental protection, a tuition-free university education. The Federal Republic of Germany was a founding member of the European Economic Community in 1957 and the European Union in 1993, it is part of the Schengen Area and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999. Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G7, the G20, the OECD. Known for its rich cultural history, Germany has been continuously the home of influential and successful artists, musicians, film people, entrepreneurs, scientists and inventors.
Germany has a large number of World Heritage sites and is among the top tourism destinations in the world. The English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine; the German term Deutschland diutisciu land is derived from deutsch, descended from Old High German diutisc "popular" used to distinguish the language of the common people from Latin and its Romance descendants. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz "popular", derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- "people", from which the word Teutons originates; the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a coal mine in Schöningen between 1994 and 1998 where eight 380,000-year-old wooden javelins of 1.82 to 2.25 m length were unearthed. The Neander Valley was the location where the first non-modern human fossil was discovered.
The Neanderthal 1 fossils are known to be 40,000 years old. Evidence of modern humans dated, has been found in caves in the Swabian Jura near Ulm; the finds included 42,000-year-old bird bone and mammoth ivory flutes which are the oldest musical instruments found, the 40,000-year-old Ice Age Lion Man, the oldest uncontested figurative art discovered, the 35,000-year-old Venus of Hohle Fels, the oldest uncontested human figurative art discovered. The Nebra sky disk is a bronze artefact created during the European Bronze Age attributed to a site near Nebra, Saxony-Anhalt, it is part of UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme. The Germanic tribes are thought to date from the Pre-Roman Iron Age. From southern Scandinavia and north Germany, they expanded south and west from the 1st century BC, coming into contact with the Celtic tribes of Gaul as well
Stéphane Lambiel
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