1.
United States
–
Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
United States
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Native Americans meeting with Europeans, 1764
United States
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Flag
United States
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The signing of the
Mayflower Compact, 1620.
United States
–
The
Declaration of Independence: the
Committee of Five presenting their draft to the
Second Continental Congress in 1776
2.
United States Census, 2000
–
This was the twenty-second federal census and was at the time the largest civilly administered peacetime effort in the United States. Approximately 16 percent of households received a form of the 2000 census. Full documentation on the 2000 census, including forms and a procedural history, is available from the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series. Microdata from the 2000 census is available through the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series. Aggregate data for small areas, together with electronic boundary files, personally identifiable information will be available in 2072. The U. S. resident population includes the number of people in the 50 states. The Bureau also enumerated the residents of the U. S. territory of Puerto Rico, its population was 3,808,610, the 2000 Census was the first time survey options for multiracial Americans were provided. S. Households had access to computers, 42% have Internet access, regionally, the South and West experienced the bulk of the nations population increase,14,790,890 and 10,411,850, respectively. This meant that the center of U. S. population moved to Phelps County. The Northeast grew by 2,785,149, the Midwest by 4,724,144, the results of the census are used to determine how many congressional districts each state is apportioned. Congress defines the formula, in accordance with Title 2 of the U. S. Code, each member of the House represents a population of about 647,000. The populations of the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are excluded from the apportionment population because they do not have voting seats in the U. S, since the first census in 1790, the decennial count has been the basis for the United States representative form of government. Article I, Section II specifies that The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, in 1790, each member of the House represented about 34,000 residents. Since then, the House more than quadrupled in size, today, each member represents about 20 times as many constituents. This recommendation was followed by the Secretary of Commerce, after the census was tabulated, Utah challenged the results in two different ways. Utah was extremely close to gaining a fourth seat, falling 857 people short. The margin was later shortened to 80 people, after the government discovered that it overcounted the population of North Carolina by 2,673 residents. Utah claimed that individuals traveling abroad as religious missionaries should be counted as residents, almost half of all Mormon missionaries, more than 11,000 individuals, were from Utah, only 102 came from North Carolina
United States Census, 2000
–
U.S. Census Bureau Seal
3.
Foster care
–
Foster care is a system in which a minor has been placed into a ward, group home, or private home of a state-certified caregiver, referred to as a foster parent. The placement of the child is normally arranged through the government or a service agency. The institution, group home or foster parent is compensated for expenses, the vast majority of children who would otherwise need foster care are in kinship care, that is, in the care of grandparents or other relatives. Most kinship care is done informally, without the involvement of a court or public organization, however, in the U. S. formal kinship care is increasingly common. In 2012, a quarter of all children in foster care were placed with relatives. In Australia foster care was known as boarding-out, Foster care had its early stages in South Australia in 1866 and stretched to the second half of the 19th century. It is said that the system was run by women until the early 20th century. Then the control was centered in many state childrens departments, although boarding-out was also implemented by nongovernment child rescue organizations, many large institutions remained. These institutions assumed an importance from the late 1920s when the system went into decline. The system was re-energized in the era, and in the 1970s. The system is still the structure for out-of-home care. The system took care of local and foreign children. New baby adoption dropped dramatically from the mid-1970s, with the tolerance of. Foster care in Cambodia is relatively new as a practice within the government. However, despite a later start, the practice is currently making strides within the country. Most notably, the found that the percentage of children within orphanages that had parents approached 80%. At the same time, local NGOs like Children In Families began offering limited foster care services within the country and these actions lead to an increase in the number of NGOs providing foster care placements, and helped to set the course for care reform around the country. Foster children in Canada are known as permanent wards, a ward is someone, in this case a child, placed under protection of a legal guardian and are the legal responsibility of the government
Foster care
–
Children of the United Kingdom's
Child Migration Programme – many of whom were placed in foster care in Australia
Foster care
–
New York street children in 1890
4.
Foster children
–
Foster care is a system in which a minor has been placed into a ward, group home, or private home of a state-certified caregiver, referred to as a foster parent. The placement of the child is normally arranged through the government or a service agency. The institution, group home or foster parent is compensated for expenses, the vast majority of children who would otherwise need foster care are in kinship care, that is, in the care of grandparents or other relatives. Most kinship care is done informally, without the involvement of a court or public organization, however, in the U. S. formal kinship care is increasingly common. In 2012, a quarter of all children in foster care were placed with relatives. In Australia foster care was known as boarding-out, Foster care had its early stages in South Australia in 1866 and stretched to the second half of the 19th century. It is said that the system was run by women until the early 20th century. Then the control was centered in many state childrens departments, although boarding-out was also implemented by nongovernment child rescue organizations, many large institutions remained. These institutions assumed an importance from the late 1920s when the system went into decline. The system was re-energized in the era, and in the 1970s. The system is still the structure for out-of-home care. The system took care of local and foreign children. New baby adoption dropped dramatically from the mid-1970s, with the tolerance of. Foster care in Cambodia is relatively new as a practice within the government. However, despite a later start, the practice is currently making strides within the country. Most notably, the found that the percentage of children within orphanages that had parents approached 80%. At the same time, local NGOs like Children In Families began offering limited foster care services within the country and these actions lead to an increase in the number of NGOs providing foster care placements, and helped to set the course for care reform around the country. Foster children in Canada are known as permanent wards, a ward is someone, in this case a child, placed under protection of a legal guardian and are the legal responsibility of the government
Foster children
–
Children of the United Kingdom's
Child Migration Programme – many of whom were placed in foster care in Australia
Foster children
–
New York street children in 1890
5.
Adoption and Safe Families Act
–
The Adoption and Safe Families Act was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on November 19,1997 after having been approved by the United States Congress earlier in the month. ASFA was enacted in an attempt to correct problems that were inherent in the care system that deterred the adoption of children with special needs. The biggest change to the law was how ASFA amended Title IV-E of the Social Security Act regarding funding, as such, ASFA was considered the most sweeping change to the U. S. adoption and foster care system in some two decades. One of ASFAs lead sponsors, Republican Senator John H. Chafee of Rhode Island, said, We will not continue the current system of putting the needs. Its time we recognize that some families simply cannot and should not be kept together, ideas for the bill originated with both Democrats and Republicans. First Lady of the United States Hillary Clinton originally voiced interest in the issue of orphaned children in an article she wrote in 1995. She then held public events to give the exposure, and met with U. S. Department of Health and Human Services officials. She cited the Act as the achievement which she initiated and shepherded that provided her with the greatest satisfaction, Hillary Clinton played a key role in finding a compromise between Republicans and Democrats on the latter issue after negotiations first broke down. In greeting the final measure, Bill Clinton stated that the bill makes clear that childrens health, the law required individual states to be in compliance with it in order to continue receiving federal funds for child welfare. Thus, each state had to pass legislation compatible with ASFA, in practice, as a result, some states have relied upon the three exceptions in the law more as part of stressing reunification, while other states have stressed adoption. Adoption 2002 Uniform Adoption Act Full text of Adoption and Safe Families Act
Adoption and Safe Families Act
–
Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997
6.
Nature and nurture
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The alliterative expression nature and nurture in English has been in use since at least the Elizabethan period and goes back to medieval French. The combination of the two concepts as complementary is ancient, galton was influenced by the book On the Origin of Species written by his half-cousin, Charles Darwin. The view that humans acquire all or almost all their traits from nurture was termed tabula rasa by John Locke in 1690. A blank slate view in human developmental psychology assuming that human behavioral traits develop almost exclusively from environmental influences, was held during much of the 20th century. The debate between blank-slate denial of the influence of heritability, and the view admitting both environmental and heritable traits, has often been cast in terms of nature versus nurture. These two conflicting approaches to human development were at the core of a dispute over research agendas throughout the second half of the 20th century. As both nature and nurture factors were found to contribute substantially, often in an extricable manner, in their 2014 survey of scientists, many respondents wrote that the dichotomy of nature versus nurture had outlived its usefulness, and should be retired. The reason is that in many fields of research, close feedback loops have been found in nature and nurture influence one another constantly. As in ecology and behavioral genetics, researchers think nurture has an influence on nature. Similarly in other fields, the line between an inherited and an acquired trait becomes unclear, as in epigenetics or fetal development. John Lockes An Essay Concerning Human Understanding is often cited as the document of the blank slate view. Locke was criticizing René Descartes claim of an idea of God universal to humanity. Lockes view was criticized in his own time. Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury complained that by denying the possibility of any innate ideas, Locke threw all order and virtue out of the world, Lockes was not the predominant view in the 19th century, which on the contrary tended to focus on instinct. The question of innate ideas or instincts were of importance in the discussion of free will in moral philosophy. In 18th-century philosophy, this was cast in terms of innate ideas establishing the presence of a universal virtue, during this time, the social sciences developed as the project of studying the influence of culture in clean isolation from questions related to biology. Franz Boass The Mind of Primitive Man established a program that would dominate American anthropology for the fifteen years. The tool of twin studies was developed after World War I as an experimental setup intended to exclude all confounders based on inherited behavioral traits, such studies are designed to decompose the variability of a given trait in a given population into a genetic and an environmental component
Nature and nurture
7.
White American
–
White Americans are Americans who are considered or reported as White. The United States Census Bureau defines White people as those having origins in any of the peoples of Europe. Like all official U. S. racial categories, White has a not Hispanic or Latino and a Hispanic or Latino component, the term Caucasian is often used interchangeably with White, although the terms are not synonymous. Whites constitute the majority, with a total of about 246,660,710, non-Hispanic Whites totaled about 197,870,516, or 62. 06% of the U. S. population. Definitions of who is White have changed throughout the history of the United States, the term White American can encompass many different ethnic groups. Although the United States Census purports to reflect a social definition of race, the 2000 U. S. census states that racial categories generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country. They do not conform to any biological, anthropological or genetic criteria, the Census Bureau defines White people as follows, White refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Europe, the Middle East or North Africa. It includes people who indicated their race as White or reported entries such as Irish, German, Italian, Lebanese, Arab, Moroccan or Caucasian. In U. S. Hispanic and Latino Americans as a make up a racially diverse group. In cases where individuals do not self-identify, the U. S. census parameters for race give each national origin a racial value. Additionally, people who reported Muslim, Jewish, Zoroastrian, or Caucasian as their race in the Some other race section, the US Census considers the write-in response of Caucasian or Aryan to be a synonym for White in their ancestry code listing. In the contemporary United States, essentially anyone of European descent is considered White, the definition of White has changed significantly over the course of American history. Among Europeans those not considered White at some point in American history include Italians, Greeks, Spaniards, Irish, Swedes, Germans, Finns, Russians, early on in the United States, white generally referred to those of British ancestry or northern and northwestern European descent. David R. Roediger argues that the construction of the race in the United States was an effort to mentally distance slave owners from slaves. The process of officially being defined as white by law came about in court disputes over pursuit of citizenship. Scholars such as David Roediger, Paul Gilroy, and others have based some of their work on this notion, moreover, Whites tend to be disproportionately represented in powerful positions, controlling almost all political, economic, and cultural institutions. Whites made up 79. 8% or 75% of the American population in 2008 and this latter number is sometimes recorded as 77. 1% when it includes about 2% of the population who are identified as white in combination with one or more other races. The largest ethnic groups among White Americans were Germans, followed by Irish and English, White Americans are projected to remain the majority, though with their percentage decreasing to 72% of the total population by 2050
White American
–
President
Abraham Lincoln was descended from
Samuel Lincoln, and was of English and Welsh ancestry.
White American
–
The countries from which White Americans claim their ancestry.
White American
–
Actress
Raquel Welch of Spanish (via Bolivia) and English ancestry back to the
Mayflower.
White American
–
Three members of the Kennedy political dynasty,
John,
Robert and
Edward. All eight of their great-grandparents emigrated from
Ireland.
8.
White people
–
White people is a racial classification specifier, used for people of Europid ancestry, with the exact implications dependent on context. The contemporary usage of people or a white race as a large group of populations contrasting with black, American Indian. It is today used as a racial classifier in multiracial societies, such as North Africa, United States. The term white race or white people entered the major European languages in the later 17th century, in the context of racialized slavery, description of populations as white in reference to their skin color predates this notion and is found in Greco-Roman ethnography and other ancient sources. Scholarship on race generally distinguishes the concept from pre-modern descriptions of collective difference. In the literature of the Ancient Near East and Classical Antiquity and we know that Egyptians were not oblivious to skin color, however, because artists paid attention to it in works of art, to the extent the pigments at the time permitted. Classicist James Dee states the Greeks do not describe themselves as white people—or as anything else because they had no word in their color vocabulary for themselves. Peoples skin color did not carry meaning, what mattered is where they lived. Religious conversion was sometimes described figuratively as a change in skin color, similarly, the Rigveda uses krsna tvac black skin as a metaphor for irreligiosity. The Ancient Egyptian funerary text known as the Book of Gates distinguishes four groups in a procession and these are the Egyptians, the Levantine/Canaanite peoples or Asiatics, the Nubians and the fair-skinned Libyans. The Egyptians are depicted as a reddish brown, the Nubians as black skinned, the Semites from the Levant and Canaan as light skinned. Herodotus described the Scythian Budini as having blue eyes and bright red hair. And the Egyptians – quite like the Colchians – as melánchroes and he also gives the possibly first reference to the common Greek name of the tribes living south of Egypt, otherwise known as Nubians, which was Aithíopes. Later Xenophon described the Aethiopians as black and the Persian troops as white compared to the skin of Greek troops. These color adjectives are found in contrast to the standard set by the own group. According to historian Irene Silverblatt, Race thinking … made social categories into racial truths, Alastair Bonnett argues that white identity, as it is presently conceived, is an American project, reflecting American interpretations of race and history. According to Gregory Jay, a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Before the age of exploration, group differences were based on language, religion. … the European had always reacted a bit hysterically to the differences of skin color, in the 16th and 17th centuries, East Asian peoples were almost uniformly described as white, never as yellow
White people
–
Macedonian mother
Teresa of Calcutta
White people
–
The
Georgian skull
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach discovered in 1795, which he used to hypothesize origination of Europeans from the
Caucasus.
White people
–
Italian inventor of the first telephone
Antonio Meucci
White people
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French chemist and
microbiologist Louis Pasteur
9.
Racial discrimination
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Racism is discrimination and prejudice towards people based on their race or ethnicity. Today, the use of the term racism does not easily fall under a single definition, the Holocaust is the classic example of institutionalized racism which led to the death of millions of people based on their race. Ethnicity is often used in a close to one traditionally attributed to race. Therefore, racism and racial discrimination are often used to describe discrimination on an ethnic or cultural basis, according to a United Nations convention on racial discrimination, there is no distinction between the terms racial and ethnic discrimination. Racist ideology can become manifest in many aspects of social life, Racism can be present in social actions, practices, or political systems that support the expression of prejudice or aversion in discriminatory practices. Associated social actions may include nativism, xenophobia, otherness, segregation, hierarchical ranking, supremacism, in the 19th century, many scientists subscribed to the belief that the human population can be divided into races. The term racism is a noun describing the state of being racist, the origin of the root word race is not clear. Linguists generally agree that it came to the English language from Middle French, a recent proposal is that it derives from the Arabic ras, which means head, beginning, origin or the Hebrew rosh, which has a similar meaning. Early race theorists generally held that some races were inferior to others and these early theories guided pseudo-scientific research assumptions, the collective endeavors to adequately define and form hypotheses about racial differences are generally termed scientific racism. To date, there is evidence in human genome research indicating that race can be defined in such a way as to be useful in a genetic classification of humans. An entry in the Oxford English Dictionary defines racialism simply as An earlier term than racism, but now superseded by it. The revised Oxford English Dictionary cites the shortened term racism in a quote from the year,1903. It was first defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as he theory that human characteristics and abilities are determined by race. Additionally, the Oxford English Dictionary records racism as a synonym of racialism, as its history indicates, popular use of the word racism is relatively recent. The word came into usage in the Western world in the 1930s, when it was used to describe the social and political ideology of Nazism. It is commonly agreed that racism existed before the coinage of the word, garner summarizes different existing definitions of racism and identifies three common elements contained in those definitions of racism. First, a historical, hierarchical power relationship between groups, second, a set of ideas about racial differences, and, third, the UDHR was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948. They are born equal in dignity and rights and all form a part of humanity
Racial discrimination
–
A rally against
school integration in 1959.
Racial discrimination
–
1902 use of the word "racism".
Racial discrimination
–
Students protesting against
racial quotas in
Brazil. The sign reads: "Want vacancy? Pass the
entry exam!"
Racial discrimination
–
Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses, Germany, 1933
10.
Eastern Europe
–
Eastern Europe, also known as East Europe, is the eastern part of the European continent. There is no consensus on the area it covers, partly because the term has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, cultural. There are almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region, a related United Nations paper adds that every assessment of spatial identities is essentially a social and cultural construct. One definition describes Eastern Europe as an entity, the region lying in Europe with main characteristics consisting in Byzantine, Orthodox. Another definition was created during the Cold War and used more or less synonymously with the term Eastern Bloc, a similar definition names the formerly communist European states outside the Soviet Union as Eastern Europe. Historians and social scientists generally view such definitions as outdated or relegating, several definitions of Eastern Europe exist today, but they often lack precision or are extremely general. These definitions vary both across cultures and among experts, even scientists, recently becoming more and more imprecise. The Ural Mountains, Ural River, and the Caucasus Mountains are the land border of the eastern edge of Europe. Eurovoc, a multilingual thesaurus maintained by the Publications Office of the European Union, provides entries for 23 EU languages, of these, those in italics are classified as Eastern Europe in this source. Other official web-pages of the European Union classify some of the countries as strictly Central European. The East–West Schism is the break of communion and theology between what are now the Eastern and Western churches which began in the 11th century and lasts until this very day and it divided Christianity in Europe, and consequently the world, into Western Christianity and Eastern Christianity. Since the Great Schism of 1054, Europe has been divided between Roman Catholic and Protestant churches in the West, and the Eastern Orthodox Christian churches in the east, due to this religious cleavage, Eastern Orthodox countries are often associated with Eastern Europe. A cleavage of this sort is, however, often problematic, for example, Greece is overwhelmingly Orthodox, the fall of the Iron Curtain brought the end of the East–West division in Europe, but this geopolitical concept is sometimes still used for quick reference by the media. The Baltic states have seats in the Nordic Council as observer states and they also are members of the Nordic-Baltic Eight whereas Eastern European countries formed their own alliance called the Visegrád Group. Estonia Latvia Lithuania The Caucasus nations may be included in the definitions of Eastern Europe, the extent of their geographic or political affiliation with Europe varies by country and source. All three states are members of the European Unions Eastern Partnership program and the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly, on 12 January 2002, the European Parliament noted that Armenia and Georgia may enter the EU in the future. Georgia — in modern geography, Georgia has been classified as part of Eastern Europe. Under the European Union’s geographic criteria, Georgia is viewed as part of Eastern Europe and is the only Caucasus country to be actively seeking EU membership and it is a member of Council of Europe and Eurocontrol
Eastern Europe
–
Division between the Eastern and Western Churches
Eastern Europe
–
Geographic features of Eastern Europe
11.
Europe
–
Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
Europe
–
Reconstruction of
Herodotus ' world map
Europe
Europe
–
A medieval
T and O map from 1472 showing the three continents as domains of the sons of
Noah — Asia to Sem (
Shem), Europe to Iafeth (
Japheth), and Africa to Cham (
Ham)
Europe
–
Early modern depiction of
Europa regina ('Queen Europe') and the mythical
Europa of the 8th century BC.
12.
China
–
China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
China
–
Yinxu, ruins of an ancient
palace dating from the
Shang Dynasty (14th century BCE)
China
–
Flag
China
–
Some of the thousands of life-size
Terracotta Warriors of the
Qin Dynasty, c. 210 BCE
China
–
The
Great Wall of China was built by several dynasties over two thousand years to protect the sedentary agricultural regions of the
Chinese interior from incursions by
nomadic pastoralists of the northern
steppes.
13.
South Korea
–
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea, is a sovereign state in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. The earliest Korean pottery dates to 8000 BC, with three kingdoms flourishing in the 1st century BC and its rich and vibrant culture left 19 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritages of Humanity, the third largest in the world, along with 12 World Heritage Sites. Annexed into Imperial Japan in 1910, Korea was divided after its surrender in 1945, peace has since mostly continued with the two agreeing to work peacefully for reunification and the South solidifying peace as a regional power with the worlds 10th largest defence budget. South Koreas tiger economy soared at an average of 10% for over 30 years in a period of rapid transformation called the Miracle on the Han River. A long legacy of openness and focus on innovation made it successful, today, it is the worlds fifth largest exporter with the G20s largest budget surplus and highest credit rating of any country in East Asia. It has free trade agreements with 75% of the economy and is the only G20 nation trading freely with China, the US. Since 1988, its constitution guarantees a liberal democracy with high government transparency, high personal freedoms led to the rise of a globally influential pop culture such as K-pop and K-drama, a phenomenon called the Korean Wave, known for its distinctive fashionable and trendy style. Home of the UN Green Climate Fund and GGGI, South Korea is a leader in low carbon growth, committed to helping developing countries as a major DAC. It is the third least ignorant country in the Index of Ignorance, ranking eighth highest for peaceful tolerance. It is the worlds largest spender on R&D per GDP, leading the OECD in graduates in science, the name Korea derives from the name Goryeo. The name Goryeo itself was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo in the 5th century as a form of its name. The 10th-century kingdom of Goryeo succeeded Goguryeo, and thus inherited its name, the modern spelling of Korea first appeared in the late 17th century in the travel writings of the Dutch East India Companys Hendrick Hamel. After Goryeo was replaced by Joseon in 1392, Joseon became the name for the entire territory. The new official name has its origin in the ancient country of Gojoseon, in 1897, the Joseon dynasty changed the official name of the country from Joseon to Daehan Jeguk. The name Daehan, which means great Han literally, derives from Samhan, however, the name Joseon was still widely used by Koreans to refer to their country, though it was no longer the official name. Under Japanese rule, the two names Han and Joseon coexisted, there were several groups who fought for independence, the most notable being the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea. Following the surrender of Japan, in 1945, the Republic of Korea was adopted as the name for the new country. Since the government only controlled the part of the Korean Peninsula
South Korea
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Flag
South Korea
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Balhae and
Silla, 830 CE
South Korea
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Jikji, the first known book printed with movable metal type in 1377. Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris
14.
Vietnam
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Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. With an estimated 92.7 million inhabitants as of 2016, it is the worlds 14th-most-populous country, and its capital city has been Hanoi since the reunification of North and South Vietnam in 1976, with Ho Chi Minh City as a historical city as well. The northern part of Vietnam was part of Imperial China for over a millennium, an independent Vietnamese state was formed in 939, following a Vietnamese victory in the Battle of Bạch Đằng River. Following a Japanese occupation in the 1940s, the Vietnamese fought French rule in the First Indochina War, thereafter, Vietnam was divided politically into two rival states, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam. Conflict between the two sides intensified in what is known as the Vietnam War, the war ended with a North Vietnamese victory in 1975. Vietnam was then unified under a communist government but remained impoverished, in 1986, the government initiated a series of economic and political reforms which began Vietnams path towards integration into the world economy. By 2000, it had established relations with all nations. Since 2000, Vietnams economic growth rate has been among the highest in the world and its successful economic reforms resulted in its joining the World Trade Organization in 2007. It is also a member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, Vietnam remains one of the worlds four remaining one-party socialist states officially espousing communism. The name Việt Nam is a variation of Nam Việt, a name that can be traced back to the Triệu Dynasty of the 2nd century BC. The word Việt originated as a form of Bách Việt. The form Vietnam is first recorded in the 16th-century oracular poem Sấm Trạng Trình, the name has also been found on 12 steles carved in the 16th and 17th centuries, including one at Bao Lam Pagoda in Haiphong that dates to 1558. Then, as recorded, rewarded Yuenan/Vietnam as their nations name, to also show that they are below the region of Baiyue/Bach Viet. Between 1804 and 1813, the name was used officially by Emperor Gia Long and it was revived in the early 20th century by Phan Bội Châus History of the Loss of Vietnam, and later by the Vietnamese Nationalist Party. The country was usually called Annam until 1945, when both the government in Huế and the Viet Minh government in Hanoi adopted Việt Nam. Archaeological excavations have revealed the existence of humans in what is now Vietnam as early as the Paleolithic age, Homo erectus fossils dating to around 500,000 BC have been found in caves in Lạng Sơn and Nghệ An provinces in northern Vietnam. The oldest Homo sapiens fossils from mainland Southeast Asia are of Middle Pleistocene provenance, teeth attributed to Homo sapiens from the Late Pleistocene have also been found at Dong Can, and from the Early Holocene at Mai Da Dieu, Lang Gao and Lang Cuom. The Hồng Bàng dynasty of the Hùng kings is considered the first Vietnamese state, in 257 BC, the last Hùng king was defeated by Thục Phán, who consolidated the Lạc Việt and Âu Việt tribes to form the Âu Lạc, proclaiming himself An Dương Vương
Vietnam
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A
Đông Sơn bronze drum, c.800 BC.
Vietnam
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Flag
Vietnam
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The
Imperial City in
Huế.
Vietnam
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French Indochina in 1913.
15.
United Arab Emirates
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In 2013, the UAEs population was 9.2 million, of which 1.4 million are Emirati citizens and 7.8 million are expatriates. The country is a federation of seven emirates, and was established on 2 December 1971, the constituent emirates are Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm al-Quwain. Each emirate is governed by a monarch, together, they jointly form the Federal Supreme Council. One of the monarchs is selected as the President of the United Arab Emirates, Islam is the official religion of the UAE and Arabic is the official language. The UAEs oil reserves are the seventh-largest in the world while its natural gas reserves are the worlds seventeenth-largest, Sheikh Zayed, ruler of Abu Dhabi and the first President of the UAE, oversaw the development of the Emirates and steered oil revenues into healthcare, education and infrastructure. The UAEs economy is the most diversified in the Gulf Cooperation Council, while its most populous city of Dubai is an important global city, nevertheless, the country remains principally reliant on its export of petroleum and natural gas. The UAE is criticised for its rights record, including the specific interpretations of Sharia used in its legal system. The UAEs rising international profile has led analysts to identify it as a regional. It appears the land of the Emirates has been occupied for thousands of years, there is no proof of contact with the outside world at that stage, although in time it developed with civilisations in Mesopotamia and Iran. This contact persisted and became wide-ranging, probably motivated by trade in copper from the Hajar Mountains, in ancient times, Al Hasa was part of Al Bahreyn and adjoined Greater Oman. Sassanid groups were present on the Batinah coast, in 637, Julfar was an important port that was used as a staging post for the Islamic invasion of the Sassanian Empire. The area of the Al Ain/Buraimi Oasis was known as Tuam and was an important trading post for camel routes between the coast and the Arabian interior. The earliest Christian site in the UAE was first discovered in the 1990s, a monastic complex on what is now known as Sir Bani Yas Island. Thought to be Nestorian and built in 600 AD, the church appears to have been abandoned peacefully in 750 AD and it forms a rare physical link to a legacy of Christianity which is thought to have spread across the peninsula from 50 to 350 AD following trade routes. Certainly, by the 5th century, Oman had a bishop named John – the last bishop of Oman being Etienne, in 676 AD. This led to a group of travelling to Medina, converting to Islam and subsequently driving a successful uprising against the unpopular Sassanids. Following the death of Prophet Muhammad, the new Islamic communities south of the Persian Gulf threatened to disintegrate, with insurrections against the Muslim leaders. The Caliph Abu Bakr sent an army from the capital Medina which completed its reconquest of the territory with the battle of Dibba in which 10,000 lives are thought to have been lost
United Arab Emirates
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Dubai in 1950; the area in this photo shows
Bur Dubai in the foreground (centered on Al-Fahidi Fort);
Deira in middle-right on the other side of the creek; and
Al Shindagha (left) and
Al Ras (right) in the background across the creek again from Deira
United Arab Emirates
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Flag
United Arab Emirates
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Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan was the first President of UAE.
United Arab Emirates
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View of
Sharjah city
16.
Korean War
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The Korean War began when North Korea invaded South Korea. The United Nations, with the United States as the principal force, China came to the aid of North Korea, and the Soviet Union gave some assistance. Korea was ruled by Japan from 1910 until the days of World War II. In August 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan, as a result of an agreement with the United States, U. S. forces subsequently moved into the south. By 1948, as a product of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, Korea was split into two regions, with separate governments, both governments claimed to be the legitimate government of all of Korea, and neither side accepted the border as permanent. The conflict escalated into open warfare when North Korean forces—supported by the Soviet Union, on that day, the United Nations Security Council recognized this North Korean act as invasion and called for an immediate ceasefire. On 27 June, the Security Council adopted S/RES/83, Complaint of aggression upon the Republic of Korea and decided the formation, twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force, with the United States providing 88% of the UNs military personnel. After the first two months of war, South Korean forces were on the point of defeat, forced back to the Pusan Perimeter, in September 1950, an amphibious UN counter-offensive was launched at Inchon, and cut off many North Korean troops. Those who escaped envelopment and capture were rapidly forced back north all the way to the border with China at the Yalu River, at this point, in October 1950, Chinese forces crossed the Yalu and entered the war. Chinese intervention triggered a retreat of UN forces which continued until mid-1951, after these reversals of fortune, which saw Seoul change hands four times, the last two years of fighting became a war of attrition, with the front line close to the 38th parallel. The war in the air, however, was never a stalemate, North Korea was subject to a massive bombing campaign. Jet fighters confronted each other in combat for the first time in history. The fighting ended on 27 July 1953, when an armistice was signed, the agreement created the Korean Demilitarized Zone to separate North and South Korea, and allowed the return of prisoners. However, no treaty has been signed, and the two Koreas are technically still at war. Periodic clashes, many of which are deadly, continue to the present, in the U. S. the war was initially described by President Harry S. Truman as a police action as it was an undeclared military action, conducted under the auspices of the United Nations. In South Korea, the war is referred to as 625 or the 6–2–5 Upheaval. In North Korea, the war is referred to as the Fatherland Liberation War or alternatively the Chosǒn War. In China, the war is called the War to Resist U. S
Korean War
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Clockwise from top: A column of the U.S.
1st Marine Division 's
infantry and
armor moves through Chinese lines during their
breakout from the Chosin Reservoir; UN landing at
Incheon harbor, starting point of the
Battle of Incheon; Korean refugees in front of an American
M26 Pershing tank; U.S. Marines, led by First Lieutenant
Baldomero Lopez, landing at Incheon;
F-86 Sabre fighter aircraft
Korean War
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Three Koreans shot for pulling up rails as a protest against seizure of land without payment by the Japanese
Korean War
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Soviet troops in Korea, October 1945
Korean War
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U.S. troops in Korea, September 1945
17.
Hague Adoption Convention
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The Convention was developed by the Hague Conference on Private International Law, the preeminent organization in the area of private international law. It was concluded on 29 May 1993 and entered force on 1 May 1995. As of July 2016, the Convention has been ratified by 96 states, south Korea, Nepal, and Russia are signatories, but have not ratified it. Many countries which have not ratified the Convention do not permit foreign adoptions of their children nor adoptions of foreign children, countries that have ratified the Hague Adoption Convention, agree to meet several requirements. Article III of the outlines the responsibilities that the entire process must be authorized by central adoption authorities designated by the contracting states. If fully implemented at the level, the Convention offers a protective framework against the potential risks of private adoption. To comply with standards, many changes have been introduced in national legislation enacting laws to criminalize the act of obtaining improper gains from intercountry adoptions. However, instances of trafficking in and sale of children for the purpose of adoption continue to place in many parts of the world
Hague Adoption Convention
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Ratifications of the Convention (countries in green have signed, but not ratified; countries in purple have ratified but are non-member states of the organization)
18.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, 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, 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 ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. 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. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly 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 Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
Russia
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Kievan Rus' in the 11th century
Russia
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Flag
Russia
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The
Baptism of Kievans, by
Klavdy Lebedev
Russia
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Sergius of Radonezh blessing
Dmitry Donskoy in
Trinity Sergius Lavra, before the
Battle of Kulikovo, depicted in a painting by
Ernst Lissner
19.
Guatemala
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With an estimated population of around 15.8 million, it is the most populated state in Central America. Guatemala is a democracy, its capital and largest city is Nueva Guatemala de la Asunción. The territory of modern Guatemala once formed the core of the Maya civilization, most of the country was conquered by the Spanish in the 16th century, becoming part of the viceroyalty of New Spain. Guatemala attained independence in 1821 as part of the Federal Republic of Central America, from the mid to late 19th century, Guatemala experienced chronic instability and civil strife. Beginning in the early 20th century, it was ruled by a series of dictators backed by the United Fruit Company, in 1944, authoritarian leader Jorge Ubico was overthrown by a pro-democratic military coup, initiating a decade-long revolution that led to sweeping social and economic reforms. A U. S. -backed military coup in 1954 ended the revolution, from 1960 to 1996, Guatemala endured a bloody civil war fought between the US-backed government and leftist rebels, including genocidal massacres of the Maya population perpetrated by the military. As of 2014, Guatemala ranks 31st of 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries in terms of the Human Development Index, Guatemalas abundance of biologically significant and unique ecosystems includes a large number of endemic species and contributes to Mesoamericas designation as a biodiversity hotspot. The country is known for its rich and distinct culture. The name Guatemala comes from the Nahuatl word Cuauhtēmallān, or place of many trees and this was the name the Tlaxcaltecan soldiers who accompanied Pedro de Alvarado during the Spanish Conquest gave to this territory. The first evidence of habitation in Guatemala dates back to 12,000 BC. Evidence, such as obsidian arrowheads found in parts of the country. There is archaeological proof that early Guatemalan settlers were hunters and gatherers, pollen samples from Petén and the Pacific coast indicate that maize cultivation had been developed by 3500 BC. Sites dating back to 6500 BC have been found in the Quiché region in the Highlands, archaeologists divide the pre-Columbian history of Mesoamerica into the Preclassic period, the Classic period, and the Postclassic period. Until recently, the Preclassic was regarded as a period, with small villages of farmers who lived in huts. This period is characterized by urbanisation, the emergence of independent city-states and this lasted until approximately 900 AD, when the Classic Maya civilization collapsed. The Maya abandoned many of the cities of the lowlands or were killed off by a drought-induced famine. The cause of the collapse is debated, but the Drought Theory is gaining currency, supported by such as lakebeds, ancient pollen. A series of prolonged droughts, among other such as overpopulation, in what is otherwise a seasonal desert is thought to have decimated the Maya
Guatemala
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Tikal Mayan ruins.
Guatemala
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Flag
Guatemala
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The Conquistador
Pedro de Alvarado led the initial Spanish efforts to conquer Guatemala.
Guatemala
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Criollos rejoice upon learning about the declaration of independence from Spain on September 15, 1821.
20.
Ethiopia
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Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north and northeast, Djibouti and Somalia to the east, Sudan and South Sudan to the west, and Kenya to the south. With nearly 100 million inhabitants, Ethiopia is the most populous landlocked country in the world and it occupies a total area of 1,100,000 square kilometres, and its capital and largest city is Addis Ababa. Some of the oldest evidence for modern humans has been found in Ethiopia. It is widely considered as the region from modern humans first set out for the Middle East. According to linguists, the first Afroasiatic-speaking populations settled in the Horn region during the ensuing Neolithic era, tracing its roots to the 2nd millennium BC, Ethiopia was a monarchy for most of its history. During the first centuries AD, the Kingdom of Aksum maintained a unified civilization in the region, subsequently, many African nations adopted the colors of Ethiopias flag following their independence. It was the first independent African member of the 20th-century League of Nations, Ethiopias ancient Geez script, also known as Ethiopic, is one of the oldest alphabets still in use in the world. The Ethiopian calendar, which is seven years and three months behind the Gregorian calendar, co-exists alongside the Borana calendar. A slight majority of the population adheres to Christianity, while around a third follows Islam, the country is the site of the Migration to Abyssinia and the oldest Muslim settlement in Africa at Negash. A substantial population of Ethiopian Jews, known as Bete Israel, resided in Ethiopia until the 1980s, Ethiopia is a multilingual nation with around 80 ethnolinguistic groups, the four largest of which are the Oromiffa, Amhara, Somali, and Tigrayans. Most people in the country speak Afroasiatic languages of the Cushitic or Semitic branches, additionally, Omotic languages are spoken by ethnic minority groups inhabiting the southern regions. Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken by the nations Nilotic ethnic minorities. Ethiopia is the place of origin for the coffee bean which originated from the place called Kefa and it is a land of natural contrasts, with its vast fertile West, jungles, and numerous rivers, and the worlds hottest settlement of Dallol in its north. The Ethiopian Highlands are Africas largest continuous mountain ranges, and Sof Omar Caves contain Africas largest cave, Ethiopia has the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Africa. Ethiopia is one of the members of the UN, the Group of 24, the Non-Aligned Movement, G-77. In the 1970s and 1980s, Ethiopia suffered from civil wars, the country has begun to recover recently however, and now has the largest economy in East Africa and Central Africa. According to Global Fire Power, Ethiopia has the 42nd most powerful military in the world, the origin of the word Ethiopia is uncertain
Ethiopia
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Coins of the
Axumite king
Endybis, 227–235 AD, at the
British Museum. The inscriptions in
Ancient Greek read "AΧWMITW BACIΛEYC" ("King of Axum") and "ΕΝΔΥΒΙC ΒΑCΙΛΕΥC" ("King Endybis").
Ethiopia
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Flag
Ethiopia
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Dawit II (Lebna Dengel),
Ethiopia (nəgusä nägäst) (Emperor) of Ethiopia and a member of the
Solomonic dynasty.
Ethiopia
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King Fasilides' Castle.
21.
Ukraine
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Ukraine is currently in territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014 but which Ukraine and most of the international community recognise as Ukrainian. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km2, making it the largest country entirely within Europe and it has a population of about 42.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. The territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC, during the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation in the 13th century, the territory was contested, ruled and divided by a variety of powers, including Lithuania, Poland, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. A Cossack republic emerged and prospered during the 17th and 18th centuries, two brief periods of independence occurred during the 20th century, once near the end of World War I and another during World War II. Before its independence, Ukraine was typically referred to in English as The Ukraine, following independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state. Nonetheless it formed a limited partnership with the Russian Federation and other CIS countries. In the 2000s, the government began leaning towards NATO, and it was later agreed that the question of joining NATO should be answered by a national referendum at some point in the future. Former President Viktor Yanukovych considered the current level of co-operation between Ukraine and NATO sufficient, and was against Ukraine joining NATO and these events formed the background for the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, and the War in Donbass in April 2014. On 1 January 2016, Ukraine applied the economic part of the Deep, Ukraine has long been a global breadbasket because of its extensive, fertile farmlands and is one of the worlds largest grain exporters. The diversified economy of Ukraine includes a heavy industry sector, particularly in aerospace. Ukraine is a republic under a semi-presidential system with separate powers, legislative, executive. Its capital and largest city is Kiev, taking into account reserves and paramilitary personnel, Ukraine maintains the second-largest military in Europe after that of Russia. Ukrainian is the language and its alphabet is Cyrillic. The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodoxy, which has strongly influenced Ukrainian architecture, literature, there are different hypotheses as to the etymology of the name Ukraine. According to the older and most widespread hypothesis, it means borderland, while more recently some studies claim a different meaning, homeland or region. The Ukraine now implies disregard for the sovereignty, according to U. S. ambassador William Taylor. Neanderthal settlement in Ukraine is seen in the Molodova archaeological sites include a mammoth bone dwelling
Ukraine
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Gold
Scythian pectoral, or neckpiece, from a royal
kurgan in
Ordzhonikidze, dated to the 4th century BC
Ukraine
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Flag
Ukraine
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Principalities of
Kievan Rus', 1054-1132
Ukraine
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The baptism of the Grand Prince Vladimir led to the adoption of Christianity in
Kievan Rus'.
22.
Kazakhstan
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Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in northern Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Kazakhstan is the worlds largest landlocked country, and the ninth largest in the world, Kazakhstan is the dominant nation of Central Asia economically, generating 60% of the regions GDP, primarily through its oil/gas industry. It also has vast mineral resources, Kazakhstan is officially a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage. Kazakhstan shares borders with Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, the terrain of Kazakhstan includes flatlands, steppe, taiga, rock canyons, hills, deltas, snow-capped mountains, and deserts. Kazakhstan has an estimated 18 million people as of 2014, Given its large area, its population density is among the lowest. The capital is Astana, where it was moved in 1997 from Almaty, the territory of Kazakhstan has historically been inhabited by nomadic tribes. This changed in the 13th century, when Genghis Khan occupied the country as part of the Mongolian Empire, following internal struggles among the conquerors, power eventually reverted to the nomads. By the 16th century, the Kazakh emerged as a distinct group, the Russians began advancing into the Kazakh steppe in the 18th century, and by the mid-19th century, they nominally ruled all of Kazakhstan as part of the Russian Empire. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, and subsequent civil war, the territory of Kazakhstan was reorganised several times, in 1936, it was made the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, part of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan was the last of the Soviet republics to declare independence during the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kazakhstan has worked to develop its economy, especially its dominant hydrocarbon industry. Kazakhstans 131 ethnicities include Kazakhs, Russians, Uzbeks, Ukrainians, Germans, Tatars, the Kazakh language is the state language, and Russian has equal official status for all levels of administrative and institutional purposes. The name Kazakh comes from the ancient Turkic word qaz, to wander, the name Cossack is of the same origin. The Persian suffix -stan means land or place of, so Kazakhstan can be translated as land of the wanderers. Kazakhstan has been inhabited since the Neolithic Age, the regions climate, archaeologists believe that humans first domesticated the horse in the regions vast steppes. Central Asia was originally inhabited by the Scythians, the Cuman entered the steppes of modern-day Kazakhstan around the early 11th century, where they later joined with the Kipchak and established the vast Cuman-Kipchak confederation. Under the Mongol Empire, the largest in history, administrative districts were established. These eventually came under the rule of the emergent Kazakh Khanate, throughout this period, traditional nomadic life and a livestock-based economy continued to dominate the steppe. Nevertheless, the region was the focus of ever-increasing disputes between the native Kazakh emirs and the neighbouring Persian-speaking peoples to the south, at its height the Khanate would rule parts of Central Asia and control Cumania
Kazakhstan
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Artistic depiction of medieval
Taraz situated along the Silk Road
Kazakhstan
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Flag
Kazakhstan
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Ablai Khan served as khan of the
Middle jüz from 1771 to 1781
Kazakhstan
–
Inside a Kazakh
yurt
23.
India
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India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and it is bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast. It shares land borders with Pakistan to the west, China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the northeast, in the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Indias Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a border with Thailand. The Indian subcontinent was home to the urban Indus Valley Civilisation of the 3rd millennium BCE, in the following millennium, the oldest scriptures associated with Hinduism began to be composed. Social stratification, based on caste, emerged in the first millennium BCE, early political consolidations took place under the Maurya and Gupta empires, the later peninsular Middle Kingdoms influenced cultures as far as southeast Asia. In the medieval era, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived, much of the north fell to the Delhi sultanate, the south was united under the Vijayanagara Empire. The economy expanded in the 17th century in the Mughal empire, in the mid-18th century, the subcontinent came under British East India Company rule, and in the mid-19th under British crown rule. A nationalist movement emerged in the late 19th century, which later, under Mahatma Gandhi, was noted for nonviolent resistance, in 2015, the Indian economy was the worlds seventh largest by nominal GDP and third largest by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India became one of the major economies and is considered a newly industrialised country. However, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, corruption, malnutrition, a nuclear weapons state and regional power, it has the third largest standing army in the world and ranks sixth in military expenditure among nations. India is a constitutional republic governed under a parliamentary system. It is a pluralistic, multilingual and multi-ethnic society and is home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats. The name India is derived from Indus, which originates from the Old Persian word Hindu, the latter term stems from the Sanskrit word Sindhu, which was the historical local appellation for the Indus River. The ancient Greeks referred to the Indians as Indoi, which translates as The people of the Indus, the geographical term Bharat, which is recognised by the Constitution of India as an official name for the country, is used by many Indian languages in its variations. Scholars believe it to be named after the Vedic tribe of Bharatas in the second millennium B. C. E and it is also traditionally associated with the rule of the legendary emperor Bharata. Gaṇarājya is the Sanskrit/Hindi term for republic dating back to the ancient times, hindustan is a Persian name for India dating back to the 3rd century B. C. E. It was introduced into India by the Mughals and widely used since then and its meaning varied, referring to a region that encompassed northern India and Pakistan or India in its entirety
India
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Flag
India
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The granite
tower of
Brihadeeswarar Temple in
Thanjavur was completed in 1010 CE by
Raja Raja Chola I.
India
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Writing the will and testament of the Mughal king court in Persian, 1590–1595
24.
Colombia
–
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a transcontinental country largely situated in the northwest of South America, with territories in Central America. Colombia shares a border to the northwest with Panama, to the east with Venezuela and Brazil and to the south with Ecuador and it shares its maritime limits with Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Jamaica, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It is a unitary, constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments, the territory of what is now Colombia was originally inhabited by indigenous peoples including the Muisca, the Quimbaya and the Tairona. The Spanish arrived in 1499 and initiated a period of conquest and colonization ultimately creating the Viceroyalty of New Granada, independence from Spain was won in 1819, but by 1830 the Gran Colombia Federation was dissolved. What is now Colombia and Panama emerged as the Republic of New Granada, the new nation experimented with federalism as the Granadine Confederation, and then the United States of Colombia, before the Republic of Colombia was finally declared in 1886. Since the 1960s the country has suffered from an asymmetric low-intensity armed conflict, Colombia is one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse countries in the world, and thereby possesses a rich cultural heritage. Cultural diversity has also influenced by Colombias varied geography. The urban centres are located in the highlands of the Andes mountains. Colombian territory also encompasses Amazon rainforest, tropical grassland and both Caribbean and Pacific coastlines, ecologically, it is one of the worlds 17 megadiverse countries, and the most densely biodiverse of these per square kilometer. Colombia is a power and a regional actor with the fourth-largest economy in Latin America, is part of the CIVETS group of six leading emerging markets and is an accessing member to the OECD. Colombia has an economy with macroeconomic stability and favorable growth prospects in the long run. The name Colombia is derived from the last name of Christopher Columbus and it was conceived by the Venezuelan revolutionary Francisco de Miranda as a reference to all the New World, but especially to those portions under Spanish and Portuguese rule. The name was adopted by the Republic of Colombia of 1819. When Venezuela, Ecuador and Cundinamarca came to exist as independent states, New Granada officially changed its name in 1858 to the Granadine Confederation. In 1863 the name was changed, this time to United States of Colombia. To refer to country, the Colombian government uses the terms Colombia. Owing to its location, the present territory of Colombia was a corridor of early human migration from Mesoamerica, the oldest archaeological finds are from the Pubenza and El Totumo sites in the Magdalena Valley 100 km southwest of Bogotá. These sites date from the Paleoindian period, at Puerto Hormiga and other sites, traces from the Archaic Period have been found
Colombia
–
San Agustín Archaeological Park
Colombia
Colombia
–
Lost City
Colombia
–
Muisca raft. The figure refers to the ceremony of the legend of
El Dorado. The legend and the gold would play a pivotal role in luring Europeans to New Granada during the 16th and 17th centuries.
25.
Translation
–
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. While interpreting—the facilitating of oral or sign-language communication between users of different languages—antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature, there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh into Southwest Asian languages of the second millennium BCE. Translators always risk inappropriate spill-over of source-language idiom and usage into the target-language translation, on the other hand, spill-overs have imported useful source-language calques and loanwords that have enriched the target languages. Indeed, translators have helped substantially to shape the languages into which they have translated, because of the laboriousness of translation, since the 1940s engineers have sought to automate translation or to mechanically aid the human translator. The rise of the Internet has fostered a world-wide market for services and has facilitated language localization. Translation studies systematically study the theory and practice of translation, the English word translation derives from the Latin word translatio, which comes from trans, across + ferre, to carry or to bring. Thus translatio is a carrying across or a bringing across, in this case, the Germanic languages and some Slavic languages have calqued their words for the concept of translation on translatio. The Romance languages and the remaining Slavic languages have derived their words for the concept of translation from an alternative Latin word, traductio, the Ancient Greek term for translation, μετάφρασις, has supplied English with metaphrase — as contrasted with paraphrase. Metaphrase corresponds, in one of the more recent terminologies, to formal equivalence, nevertheless, metaphrase and paraphrase may be useful as ideal concepts that mark the extremes in the spectrum of possible approaches to translation. Discussions of the theory and practice of translation reach back into antiquity, the ancient Greeks distinguished between metaphrase and paraphrase. Literally graceful, it were an injury to the author that they should be changed, Dryden cautioned, however, against the license of imitation, i. e. of adapted translation, When a painter copies from the life. He has no privilege to alter features and lineaments, despite occasional theoretical diversity, the actual practice of translation has hardly changed since antiquity. The grammatical differences between languages and free-word-order languages have been no impediment in this regard. The particular syntax characteristics of a source language are adjusted to the syntactic requirements of the target language. When a target language has lacked terms that are found in a language, translators have borrowed those terms. However, due to shifts in ecological niches of words, an etymology is sometimes misleading as a guide to current meaning in one or the other language. For example, the English actual should not be confused with the cognate French actuel, the Polish aktualny, the Swedish aktuell, the translators role as a bridge for carrying across values between cultures has been discussed at least since Terence, the 2nd-century-BCE Roman adapter of Greek comedies. The translators role is, however, by no means a passive, mechanical one, the main ground seems to be the concept of parallel creation found in critics such as Cicero
Translation
–
Rosetta Stone
Translation
–
John Dryden
Translation
–
Cicero
Translation
–
Martin Luther
26.
Transport
–
Transport or transportation is the movement of people, animals and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline, the field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles and operations. Transport is important because it enables trade between people, which is essential for the development of civilizations, terminals may be used both for interchange of passengers and cargo and for maintenance. Vehicles traveling on these networks may include automobiles, bicycles, buses, trains, trucks, people, helicopters, operations deal with the way the vehicles are operated, and the procedures set for this purpose including financing, legalities and policies. In the transport industry, operations and ownership of infrastructure can be public or private, depending on the country. Passenger transport may be public, where operators provide scheduled services, freight transport has become focused on containerization, although bulk transport is used for large volumes of durable items. Transport plays an important part in growth and globalization, but most types cause air pollution. While it is subsidized by governments, good planning of transport is essential to make traffic flow. A mode of transport is a solution that makes use of a type of vehicle, infrastructure. The transport of a person or of cargo may involve one mode or several of the modes, each mode has its own advantages and disadvantages, and will be chosen for a trip on the basis of cost, capability, and route. Human powered transport, a form of transportation, is the transport of people and/or goods using human muscle-power. Modern technology has allowed machines to enhance human power, human-powered vehicles have also been developed for difficult environments, such as snow and water, by watercraft rowing and skiing, even the air can be entered with human-powered aircraft. Animal-powered transport is the use of working animals for the movement of people, humans may ride some of the animals directly, use them as pack animals for carrying goods, or harness them, alone or in teams, to pull sleds or wheeled vehicles. A fixed-wing aircraft, commonly called airplane, is a craft where movement of the air in relation to the wings is used to generate lift. The term is used to distinguish this from rotary-wing aircraft, where the movement of the lift surfaces relative to the air generates lift, a gyroplane is both fixed-wing and rotary-wing. Fixed-wing aircraft range from small trainers and recreational aircraft to large airliners, two things necessary for aircraft are air flow over the wings for lift and an area for landing. The majority of aircraft also need an airport with the infrastructure to receive maintenance, restocking, refueling and for the loading and unloading of crew, cargo and passengers. While the vast majority of land and take off on land, some are capable of take off and landing on ice, snow
Transport
–
People walking in front of the
bulk carrier BW Fjord
Transport
–
French
National Police use several modes of transport, each with their distinct advantages.
Transport
–
Human-powered transport remains common in developing countries.
Transport
–
An
Air France Airbus A318 lands at
London Heathrow Airport.
27.
Facilitator
–
A facilitator is someone who engages in the activity of facilitation. Some facilitator tools will try to assist the group in achieving a consensus on any disagreements that preexist or emerge in the meeting so that it has a basis for future action. There are a variety of definitions for facilitator, An individual who enables groups and organizations to more effectively, to collaborate. A helper and enabler whose goal is to others as they pursue their objectives. The facilitators job is to everyone to do their best thinking. To do this, the facilitator encourages full participation, promotes mutual understanding, the Facilitator is responsible for the context. - Rush A meeting or workshop leader who creates an environment where every participant has the opportunity to collaborate, innovate, - Metz A neutral leader who makes a process easier, e. g. a Session Leader. The term Facilitator is derived partially from the Old French faculte via Latin facultås, both were derived from Latin faciilis or easy, an adjective formed from the verb facere, or to do. The concept of authority is one which can cause confusion, charismatic Authority - influence by presence, style and manner. However it is possible to draw from this the requirements for a facilitator to be clear how they are operating in any environment. A contentious issue for instance in the Occupy movement, disputes regarding the exercise of contentious authority functions probably require reference to all available skills and invoke deference to several kinds of authority. They will also need skill to ensure efficiently hearing the maximum number of people, business facilitators work in business, and other formal organizations but facilitators may also work with a variety of other groups and communities. It is a tenet of facilitation that the facilitator will not lead the group towards the answer that he/she thinks is best even if they possess an opinion on the subject matter. The facilitators role is to make it easier for the group to arrive at its own answer, decision and this can and does give rise to organizational conflict between hierarchical management and theories and practice of empowerment. Facilitators often have to navigate between the two, especially where overt statements about empowerment are not being borne out by organizational behaviors, conflict resolution facilitators are used in peace and reconciliation processes both during and after the conflict. Their role is to support constructive and democratic dialogue between groups with diverse and usually diametrically opposite positions, conflict resolution facilitators must be impartial to the conflicting groups and must adhere to the rules of democratic dialogue. They may not take parts or express personal opinions, educators in dialogic learning and other peer instruction approaches often serve as facilitators. In language teaching, teachers may shift to a role to increase student ownership of the learning process
Facilitator
–
US Navy training facilitator in action.
Facilitator
–
Shimer College facilitator conversing with students.
28.
Jurisdiction
–
Jurisdiction is the practical authority granted to a legal body to administer justice within a defined area of responsibility, e. g. Michigan tax law. In federations like the U. S. areas of jurisdiction apply to local, state, colloquially it is used to refer to the geographical area to which such authority applies, e. g. the court has jurisdiction over all of Colorado. The legal term refers only to the authority, not to a geographical area. International laws and treaties provide agreements which nations agree to be bound to, supranational organizations provide mechanisms whereby disputes between nations may be resolved through arbitration or mediation. When a country is recognized as de jure, it is an acknowledgment by the de jure nations that the country has sovereignty. However, it is often at the discretion of each nation whether to co-operate or participate, if a nation does agree to participate in activities of the supranational bodies and accept decisions, the nation is giving up its sovereign authority and thereby allocating power to these bodies. The fact that organizations, courts and tribunals have been created raises the difficult question of how to co-ordinate their activities with those of national courts. But, to invoke the jurisdiction in any case, all the parties have to accept the prospective judgment as binding. This reduces the risk of wasting the Courts time, each such group may form transnational institutions with declared legislative or judicial powers. For example, in Europe, the European Court of Justice has been given jurisdiction as the appellate court to the member states on issues of European law. This jurisdiction is entrenched and its authority could only be denied by a member if that member nation asserts its sovereignty. Hence, in the Netherlands, all treaties and the orders of international organizations are effective without any action being required to convert international into municipal law, in nations adopting this theory, the local courts automatically accept jurisdiction to adjudicate on lawsuits relying on international law principles. Otherwise the courts have a discretion to apply international law where it does not conflict with statute or the common law. According to the Supreme Court of the United States, the treaty power authorizes Congress to legislate under the Necessary and this concerns the relationships both between courts in different jurisdictions, and between courts within the same jurisdiction. The usual legal doctrine under which questions of jurisdiction are decided is termed forum non conveniens, to deal with the issue of forum shopping, nations are urged to adopt more positive rules on conflict of laws. In addition, the Lugano Convention binds the European Union and the European Free Trade Association, council Regulation 44/2001 now also applies as between the rest of the EU Member States and Denmark due to an agreement reached between the European Community and Denmark. In some legal areas, at least, the CACA enforcement of judgments is now more straightforward. At a national level, the rules still determine jurisdiction over persons who are not domiciled or habitually resident in the European Union or the Lugano area
Jurisdiction
–
United States Federal Civil Procedure doctrines
29.
Fraud
–
In law, fraud is deliberate deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud itself can be a wrong, a criminal wrong or it may cause no loss of money, property or legal right. The purpose of fraud may be monetary gain or other benefits, a hoax is a distinct concept that involves deliberate deception without the intention of gain or of materially damaging or depriving a victim. In common law jurisdictions, as a wrong, fraud is a tort. Proving fraud in a court of law is said to be difficult. In cases of a fraudulently induced contract, fraud may serve as a defense in an action for breach of contract or specific performance of contract. Fraud may serve as a basis for a court to invoke its equitable jurisdiction, in common law jurisdictions, as a criminal offence, fraud takes many different forms, some general and some specific to particular categories of victims or misconduct. The elements of fraud as a crime similarly vary, section 380 of the Criminal Code provides the general definition for fraud in Canada,380. In addition to the penalties outlined above, the court can issue a prohibition order under s.380.2. It can also make an order under s.380.3. The Canadian courts have held that the offence consists of two elements, A prohibited act of deceit, falsehood or other fraudulent means. The Supreme Court of Canada has held that deprivation is satisfied on proof of detriment, prejudice or risk of prejudice, it is not essential that there be actual loss. Deprivation of confidential information, in the nature of a secret or copyrighted material that has commercial value, has also been held to fall within the scope of the offence. The BBC World Service reported in 2012 that the value lost through fraud in the UK was £66 billion a year. According to a review by the UK anti-fraud charity Fraud Advisory Panel business fraud accounted for £144bn, the FAP has been particularly critical of the support available from the police to victims of fraud in the UK outside of London. In July 2016 it was reported that fraudulent activity levels in the UK increased in the 10 years to 2016 from £52 billion to £193bn. This figure would be an estimate, since as the former commissioner of the City of London Police, Adrian Leppard, has said. Donald Toon, director of the NCAs economic crime command, stated in July 2016, Fraud affects one in ten people in the UK
Fraud
–
A possibly fraudulent "work from home" advertisement.
Fraud
–
A fraudulent Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price on a speaker.
30.
United States House of Representatives
–
The United States House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the United States Congress which, along with the Senate, composes the legislature of the United States. The composition and powers of the House are established by Article One of the United States Constitution, since its inception in 1789, all representatives are elected popularly. The total number of voting representatives is fixed by law at 435, the House is charged with the passage of federal legislation, known as bills, which, after concurrence by the Senate, are sent to the President for consideration. The presiding officer is the Speaker of the House, who is elected by the members thereof and is traditionally the leader of the controlling party. He or she and other leaders are chosen by the Democratic Caucus or the Republican Conferences. The House meets in the wing of the United States Capitol. Under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress of the Confederation was a body in which each state was equally represented. All states except Rhode Island agreed to send delegates, the issue of how to structure Congress was one of the most divisive among the founders during the Convention. The House is referred to as the house, with the Senate being the upper house. Both houses approval is necessary for the passage of legislation, the Virginia Plan drew the support of delegates from large states such as Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, as it called for representation based on population. The smaller states, however, favored the New Jersey Plan, the Constitution was ratified by the requisite number of states in 1788, but its implementation was set for March 4,1789. The House began work on April 1,1789, when it achieved a quorum for the first time, during the first half of the 19th century, the House was frequently in conflict with the Senate over regionally divisive issues, including slavery. The North was much more populous than the South, and therefore dominated the House of Representatives, However, the North held no such advantage in the Senate, where the equal representation of states prevailed. Regional conflict was most pronounced over the issue of slavery, One example of a provision repeatedly supported by the House but blocked by the Senate was the Wilmot Proviso, which sought to ban slavery in the land gained during the Mexican–American War. Conflict over slavery and other issues persisted until the Civil War, the war culminated in the Souths defeat and in the abolition of slavery. Because all southern senators except Andrew Johnson resigned their seats at the beginning of the war, the years of Reconstruction that followed witnessed large majorities for the Republican Party, which many Americans associated with the Unions victory in the Civil War and the ending of slavery. The Reconstruction period ended in about 1877, the ensuing era, the Democratic and the Republican Party held majorities in the House at various times. The late 19th and early 20th centuries also saw an increase in the power of the Speaker of the House
United States House of Representatives
–
United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
–
Seal of the House
United States House of Representatives
–
Republican
Thomas Brackett Reed, occasionally ridiculed as "Czar Reed", was a U.S. Representative from
Maine, and
Speaker of the House from 1889 to 1891 and from 1895 to 1899.
United States House of Representatives
–
House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader
Steny Hoyer, and Education and Labor Committee Chairman
George Miller confer with President
Barack Obama at the
Oval Office in 2009.
31.
Social Security Act
–
620, enacted August 14,1935, now codified as 42 U. S. C. ch. 7, was a social welfare legislative act which created the Social Security system in the United States, although the program has been altered since its signing, the original purpose was to provide federal assistance to those unable to work. One of the most influential pieces of legislation came out of the Second New Deal was the Social Security Act. The act laid the groundwork for the welfare state in the United States with its primary focus to provide aid for the elderly, the unemployed. Industrialization and the urbanization in the 19th Century created many new problems, and transformed ideas of how society. As industry expanded, cities grew quickly to keep up demand for labor. Tenement houses were quickly and poorly, cramming new migrants from farms and Southern and Eastern European immigrants into tight. Work spaces were even more unsafe, in 1890, Jacob Riis wrote that “the quick change of economic conditions in the city…often out paces all plans of relief. In the 1930s, the Supreme Court struck down many pieces of Roosevelts New Deal legislation, the Court threw out a centerpiece of the New Deal, the National Industrial Recovery Act, the Agricultural Adjustment Act, and New York States minimum-wage law. President Roosevelt responded with an attempt to pack the court via the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, the debate on this proposal lasted over six months. In 1936, Roberts joined the four justices in using the Adkins decision to strike down a similar minimum wage law New York state enforced in Morehead v. New York ex rel. Tipaldo and his decision to reverse his previous vote in the Morehead decision would be known as the switch in time that saved nine, two Supreme Court rulings affirmed the constitutionality of the Social Security Act. Steward Machine Company v. Davis,301 U, the arguments opposed to the Social Security Act were that the social security act went beyond the powers that were granted to the federal government in the Constitution. That is, the Social Security Tax was constitutional as an exercise of Congresss general taxation powers. Flemming v. Nestor,363 US603 upholding §1104, allowing Congress to itself amend, further, however, recipients of benefits had no contractual rights to them. Goldberg v. Kelly 397 US254 Brennan J held there must be a hearing before a recipient can be deprived of government benefits under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Weinberger v. US labor law List of Social Security legislation
Social Security Act
–
President
Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act, at approximately 3:30 pm EDT on
August 14,
1935. Standing with Roosevelt are
Rep. Robert Doughton (
D -
NC); unknown person in shadow;
Sen. Robert Wagner (D-
NY); Rep.
John Dingell (D-
MI); Rep. Joshua Twing Brooks (D-
Pennsylvania); the
Secretary of Labor,
Frances Perkins; Sen.
Pat Harrison (D-
MS); and Rep.
David Lewis (D-
MD).
32.
Korean adoptee
–
The international adoption of South Korean children was triggered by casualties of the Korean War after 1953. The first wave of adopted people from Korea came from usually mixed-race children whose families lived in poverty, originally international adoption was supposed to be this race-based evacuation. The start of adoption in South Korea is usually credited to Harry Holt in 1955, Harry Holt wanted to help the children of South Korea, so Holt adopted eight children from South Korea and brought them home. Touched by the fate of the orphans, Western religious groups as well as other associations started the process of placing children in homes in the United States and Europe. Adoption from South Korea began in 1955 when Bertha and Harry Holt went to Korea and their work resulted in the founding of Holt International Childrens Services. The first Korean babies sent to Europe went to Sweden via the Social Welfare Society in the mid-1960s, by the end of that decade, the Holt International Childrens Services began sending Korean orphans to Norway, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland and Germany. However, this has been less successful over the decades. The numbers only picked up after 2007, however, the numbers of domestic adoption fell in 2013 due to tighter restrictions on eligibility for Adoptive Parents. However, the number in babies has also gone up with the registration of babies, also a new law. 33 facilities for single and divorced mothers, but the majority of them are run by orphanages, in a 2009 article, Stephen C. Morrison, a Korean adoptee, said that he wanted more Koreans to be willing to adopt Korean children, Morrison said that he felt the practice of Koreans adopting Korean children in secret was the greatest obstacle for Korean acceptance of domestic adoption. To stem the number of adoptions, the South Korean government introduced a quota system for foreign adoptions in 1987. And under the system, the reduced the number of children permitted for overseas adoption by 3 to 5% each year. The goal of the plan was to eliminate foreign adoptions by 2015. But in 1998 the government temporarily lifted the restrictions, after the number of abandoned children sharply increased in the wake of growing economic hardships. Notable is an effort of the 2009 South Korean government to seize international adoption out of South Korea (with the establishment of KCare. A2013 article in CNN said that Jane Jeong Trenka who is a Korean adoptee along with others came up with the Special Adoption Law. The article said that the Special Adoption Law would make it so birth mothers have to stay with their child for seven days before giving it up for adoption
Korean adoptee
–
Africa
33.
American family structure
–
The traditional family structure in the United States is considered a family support system involving two married individuals providing care and stability for their biological offspring. However, this two-parent, nuclear family has become less prevalent, the family is created at birth and establishes ties across generations. Those generations, the family of aunts, uncles, grandparents. Social movements such as the feminist movement and the stay-at-home dad have contributed to the creation of family forms. The nuclear family has been considered the family since the communist scare in the cold war of the 1950s. The nuclear family consists of a mother, father, and the children, the two-parent nuclear family has become less prevalent, and pre-American and European family forms have become more common. These include same-sex relationships, single-parent households, adopting individuals, the nuclear family is also choosing to have fewer children than in the past. The percentage of households with children under 18 has declined to 23. 5% of all households in 2000 from 25. 6% in 1990. A single parent is a parent who cares for one or more children without the assistance of the biological parent. Historically, single-parent families often resulted from death of a spouse, single-parent homes are increasing as married couples divorce, or as unmarried couples have children. Although widely believed to be detrimental to the mental and physical well being of a child, the percentage of single-parent households has doubled in the last three decades, but that percentage tripled between 1900 and 1950. The sense of marriage as a permanent institution has been weakened, increasingly, single parent families are due to out of wedlock births, especially those due to unintended pregnancy. Stepfamilies are becoming more familiar in America, divorce rates are rising and the remarriage rate is rising as well, therefore, bringing two families together making step families. Statistics show that there are 1,300 new stepfamilies forming every day, over half of American families are remarried, that is 75% of marriages ending in divorce, remarry. The extended family consists of grandparents, aunts, uncles, in some circumstances, the extended family comes to live either with or in place of a member of the nuclear family. An example includes elderly parents who move in with their due to old age. This places large demands on the caregivers, particularly the female relatives who choose to perform duties for their extended family. Uncles, brothers, and other relatives sometimes helped out
American family structure
–
An American family composed of the mother, father, children, and extended family.
34.
The New York Times
–
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper, founded and continuously published in New York City since September 18,1851, by The New York Times Company. The New York Times has won 119 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper, the papers print version in 2013 had the second-largest circulation, behind The Wall Street Journal, and the largest circulation among the metropolitan newspapers in the US. The New York Times is ranked 18th in the world by circulation, following industry trends, its weekday circulation had fallen in 2009 to fewer than one million. Nicknamed The Gray Lady, The New York Times has long been regarded within the industry as a newspaper of record. The New York Times international version, formerly the International Herald Tribune, is now called the New York Times International Edition, the papers motto, All the News Thats Fit to Print, appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page. On Sunday, The New York Times is supplemented by the Sunday Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine and T, some other early investors of the company were Edwin B. Morgan and Edward B. We do not believe that everything in Society is either right or exactly wrong, —what is good we desire to preserve and improve, —what is evil, to exterminate. In 1852, the started a western division, The Times of California that arrived whenever a mail boat got to California. However, when local California newspapers came into prominence, the effort failed, the newspaper shortened its name to The New-York Times in 1857. It dropped the hyphen in the city name in the 1890s, One of the earliest public controversies it was involved with was the Mortara Affair, the subject of twenty editorials it published alone. At Newspaper Row, across from City Hall, Henry Raymond, owner and editor of The New York Times, averted the rioters with Gatling guns, in 1869, Raymond died, and George Jones took over as publisher. Tweed offered The New York Times five million dollars to not publish the story, in the 1880s, The New York Times transitioned gradually from editorially supporting Republican Party candidates to becoming more politically independent and analytical. In 1884, the paper supported Democrat Grover Cleveland in his first presidential campaign, while this move cost The New York Times readership among its more progressive and Republican readers, the paper eventually regained most of its lost ground within a few years. However, the newspaper was financially crippled by the Panic of 1893, the paper slowly acquired a reputation for even-handedness and accurate modern reporting, especially by the 1890s under the guidance of Ochs. Under Ochs guidance, continuing and expanding upon the Henry Raymond tradition, The New York Times achieved international scope, circulation, in 1910, the first air delivery of The New York Times to Philadelphia began. The New York Times first trans-Atlantic delivery by air to London occurred in 1919 by dirigible, airplane Edition was sent by plane to Chicago so it could be in the hands of Republican convention delegates by evening. In the 1940s, the extended its breadth and reach. The crossword began appearing regularly in 1942, and the section in 1946
The New York Times
–
Cover of The New York Times (November 15, 2012), with the headline story reporting on
Operation Pillar of Defense.
The New York Times
–
First published issue of New-York Daily Times, on September 18, 1851.
The New York Times
–
The Times Square Building, The New York Times ' publishing headquarters, 1913–2007
The New York Times
–
The New York Times newsroom, 1942
35.
Wayback Machine
–
The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
Wayback Machine
–
Wayback Machine
36.
Adoption
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Modern systems of adoption, arising in the 20th century, tend to be governed by comprehensive statutes and regulations. Adoption for the well-born While the modern form of adoption emerged in the United States, the Code of Hammurabi, for example, details the rights of adopters and the responsibilities of adopted individuals at length. The practice of adoption in ancient Rome is well documented in the Codex Justinianus, the use of adoption by the aristocracy is well documented, many of Romes emperors were adopted sons. Infant adoption during Antiquity appears rare, abandoned children were often picked up for slavery and composed a significant percentage of the Empires slave supply. Roman legal records indicate that foundlings were occasionally taken in by families, although not normally adopted under Roman Law, the children, called alumni, were reared in an arrangement similar to guardianship, being considered the property of the father who abandoned them. Other ancient civilizations, notably India and China, used some form of adoption as well, evidence suggests the goal of this practice was to ensure the continuity of cultural and religious practices, in contrast to the Western idea of extending family lines. China had a idea of adoption with males adopted solely to perform the duties of ancestor worship. The practice of adopting the children of members and close friends was common among the cultures of Polynesia including Hawaii where the custom was referred to as hānai. Adoption and commoners The nobility of the Germanic, Celtic, in medieval society, bloodlines were paramount, a ruling dynasty lacking a natural-born heir apparent was replaced, a stark contrast to Roman traditions. The evolution of European law reflects this aversion to adoption, english Common Law, for instance, did not permit adoption since it contradicted the customary rules of inheritance. Some adoptions continued to occur, however, but became informal, for example, in the year 737, in a charter from the town of Lucca, three adoptees were made heirs to an estate. Europes cultural makeover marked a period of significant innovation for adoption, without support from the nobility, the practice gradually shifted toward abandoned children. Abandonment levels rose with the fall of the empire and many of the foundlings were left on the doorstep of the Church, initially, the clergy reacted by drafting rules to govern the exposing, selling, and rearing of abandoned children. The Churchs innovation, however, was the practice of oblation, whereby children were dedicated to lay life within monastic institutions and this created the first system in European history in which abandoned children did not have legal, social, or moral disadvantages. As a result, many of Europes abandoned and orphaned children became alumni of the Church, oblation marks the beginning of a shift toward institutionalization, eventually bringing about the establishment of the foundling hospital and orphanage. This system of apprenticeship and informal adoption extended into the 19th century, despite its intent, though, in practice, the system operated much the same as earlier incarnations. The experience of the Boston Female Asylum is a good example, adopting to create a family The next stage of adoptions evolution fell to the emerging nation of the United States. Rapid immigration and the American Civil War resulted in unprecedented overcrowding of orphanages, Charles Loring Brace, a Protestant minister became appalled by the legions of homeless waifs roaming the streets of New York City
Adoption
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Sister Irene of New York Foundling Hospital with children. Sister Irene is among the pioneers of modern adoption, establishing a system to board out children rather than institutionalize them.
Adoption
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Trajan became emperor of Rome through adoption, a customary practice of the empire that enabled peaceful transitions of power
Adoption
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At the monastery gate (Am Klostertor) by
Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller
Adoption
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Charles Loring Brace
37.
Child abuse
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Child abuse or child maltreatment is physical, sexual, or psychological mistreatment or neglect of a child or children, especially by a parent or other caregiver. Different jurisdictions have developed their own definitions of what constitutes child abuse for the purposes of removing a child from his/her family and/or prosecuting a criminal charge, definitions of what constitutes child abuse vary among professionals, and between social and cultural groups, as well as across time. The terms abuse and maltreatment are often used interchangeably in the literature, Child maltreatment can also be an umbrella term covering all forms of child abuse and child neglect. Defining child maltreatment depends on prevailing cultural values as they relate to children, child development, in general, abuse refers to acts of commission while neglect refers to acts of omission. Child maltreatment includes both acts of commission and acts of omission on the part of parents or caregivers that cause actual or threatened harm to a child. Delayed effects of abuse and neglect, especially emotional neglect. The World Health Organization distinguishes four types of maltreatment, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional and psychological abuse. Among professionals and the public, people often do not agree on what behaviors constitute physical abuse of a child. Physical abuse often does not occur in isolation, but as part of a constellation of behaviors including authoritarian control, anxiety-provoking behavior, and this includes hitting, beating, kicking, shaking, biting, strangling, scalding, burning, poisoning and suffocating. Much physical violence against children in the home is inflicted with the object of punishing, joan Durrant and Ron Ensom write that most physical abuse is physical punishment in intent, form, and effect. Overlapping definitions of abuse and physical punishment of children highlight a subtle or non-existent distinction between abuse and punishment. Multiple injuries or fractures at different stages of healing can raise suspicion of abuse, physical abuse in childhood has also been linked to homelessness in adulthood. Child sexual abuse is a form of abuse in which an adult or older adolescent abuses a child for sexual stimulation. Sexual abuse refers to the participation of a child in an act aimed toward the physical gratification or the financial profit of the person committing the act. Selling the sexual services of children may be viewed and treated as child abuse rather than simple incarceration, Children who are the victims are also at an increased risk of sexually transmitted infections due to their immature immune systems and a high potential for mucosal tears during forced sexual contact. In the United States, approximately 15% to 25% of women, in over one-third of cases, the perpetrator is also a minor. In 2014, the APA stated that, Childhood psychological abuse as harmful as sexual or physical abuse, nearly 3 million U. S. children experience some form of maltreatment annually. Psychological maltreatment is the most challenging and prevalent form of child abuse, victims of emotional abuse may react by distancing themselves from the abuser, internalizing the abusive words, or fighting back by insulting the abuser
Child abuse
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Rib fractures in an infant secondary to child abuse
Child abuse
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A child soldier of the
Sudanese People's Liberation Army (2007). In parts of the world, children are used in military conflicts.
38.
Foster Care Independence Act
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The Foster Care Independence Act of 1999 aims to assist youth aging out of foster care in the United States in obtaining and maintaining independent living skills. Youth aging out of care, or transitioning out of the formal foster care system, are one of the most vulnerable. States are encouraged to create programs that support youth by addressing finances, housing, health, education, the bill also increases support to youth aging out of foster care in other ways, such as broadening the eligibility requirements to obtain Medicaid and increasing funding for adoption incentives. The Act also included provisions relating to Social Security and Supplemental Security Income programs, the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999 was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on December 14,1999. The Act includes provisions relating to care and the OASDI. It also assists World War II veterans by providing special cash benefits, Title I of the bill includes the foster care provisions and Title II of the bill includes the OASDI and SSI provisions. Over 20,000 youth age out of care each year. 12% of all foster youth report being homeless at least once since their discharge from foster care, one-third of foster youth earn below $6,000 per year, which is well below the national poverty level. Foster youth are more likely to have substance abuse issues, become parents soon after aging out of care, one study reports that 56% of youth used street drugs while in foster care and 33% of youth report experiencing drug or alcohol problems since leaving care. Children who age out of care are at a high risk for mental illness, including posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety. 15% of foster youth have attempted or contemplated suicide and 1 in 6 youth have a mental illness. More than half the participants reported clinical levels of mental illness. Policy reform to aid foster youth was initiated in the 1980s by service providers and researchers who realized early on the poor outcomes associated with foster youth, the first policy impacting youth aging out of the foster system was the Federal Independent Living Initiative of 1986. The next landmark legislation came in 1997, when the Adoption and this reduced the time children remained in foster care before being available for adoption. One of the components of ASFA is the imposition of stricter time limits on reunification efforts. In conjunction with the passage of the Adoption and Safe Families Act, the project is a group created with the shared goal of supporting foster youth, and the Foster Care Independence Act was instituted in part by the National Foster Care Awareness Project. Funding supports financial, housing, counseling, employment, educational, additional funding promotes interactions with mentors and dedicated adults to provide personal and emotional support to foster youth. With the passage of the act, federal funding for the Independent Living Program was doubled from $70 million to $140 million a year, State agencies are expected to administer, supervise, and oversee the programs carried out under the plan
Foster Care Independence Act
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Clinton reads to a child during a school visit (1998).
Foster Care Independence Act
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Foster Care Independence Act of 1999
Foster Care Independence Act
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Senator John Chafee from Rhode Island
39.
Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act (1956)
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The Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act was enacted in India in 1956 as part of the Hindu Code Bills. The other legislations enacted during this time include the Hindu Marriage Act, the Hindu Succession Act, all of these acts were put forth under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru, and were meant to codify and standardise the current Hindu legal tradition. And a convert to the Hindu, Buddhist, Jain or Sikh religion, persons who are Muslims, Christians, Parsis or Jews are excluded from this definition. The act does not also apply to adoptions that took place prior to the date of enactment, however, it does apply to any marriage that has taken place before or after the Act had come into force. Moreover, if the wife is not a Hindu then the husband is not bound to provide maintenance for her under this Act under modern Hindu Law, under this act only Hindus may adopt subject to their fulfilment of certain criteria. The first of these asserts that the adopter has the right to. Next, they have to have the capacity to be able to provide for the adopted child, thirdly the child must be capable of being adopted. Lastly, compliance with all other specifications must be met to make the adoption valid, men can adopt if they have the consent of their wife or of all of their wives. Men who are unmarried can adopt as well as long as they are not a minor, however, if a man were to adopt a daughter, the man must be twenty one years of age or older. Only unmarried Hindu women can legally adopt a child, a married woman can only give her consent to adoption by her husband. A married woman whose husband adopts a child is to be considered the mother, if the child is adopted and there are more than one wife living in the household, then the senior wife is classified as the legal mother of the adopted child. The adopted child can be male or female. The adopted child must fall under the Hindu category, the adoptee also needs to be unmarried, however, if the particular custom or usage is applicable to the involved parties then the adoptee can be married. The child cannot be the age of sixteen or older, unless again it is custom or the usage is applicable to the involved parties, an adoption can only occur if there is not a child of the same sex of the adopted child still residing in the home. In particular, if a son were to be adopted then the father or mother must not have a legitimate or adopted son still living in the house. From the date of the adoption, the child is under the guardianship of the new adopted parent. This also means that this child, therefore, is cut off from all legal benefits from the family who had given him or her up for adoption. A Hindu wife is entitled to be provided for by her throughout the duration of her lifetime per Section 18 of HAMA56
Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act (1956)
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Hindu boy
40.
Dima Yakovlev Law
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The Dima Yakovlev Law, Dima Yakovlev Bill, Dima Yakovlev Act, anti-Magnitsky law, or Federal law of Russian Federation no. It creates a list of citizens who are banned from entering Russia, the law suspends the activity of politically active non-profit organisations which receive money from American citizens or organisations. It also bans citizens of the United States from adopting children from Russia, the law was signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin on 28 December 2012 and took effect on 1 January 2013. The law is named after a Russian orphan adopted by a family from Purcellville, Virginia. The bill was proposed by United Russia deputy Ekaterina Lakhova, the bill passed the State Duma on 21 December 2012 and the Federation Council on 27 December 2012. In Duma in first reading one was against, in second reading 4 against, in third, in Federation Council just one against - Larisa Ponomareva. The United States Department of State said in a release that it deeply regret Russia’s passage of a law ending inter-country adoptions between the United States and Russia. United States Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul said that the law will “link the fate of orphaned children to unrelated political issues. ”In the State Duma, the law was named after Dima Yakovlev. The child was renamed Chase Harrison while in America, in July 2008, less than three months after he arrived in America, Dima died while he was strapped into his adoptive fathers car. He had been alone for nine hours in the car as his father had forgotten to take him to daycare service. Following trial, Harrison was acquitted of manslaughter by a Circuit Court judge in Fairfax County, Virginia. The case became national news in Russia, highlighting abuse cases involving Russian children adopted by American parents, on 28 December 2012, Governor of Pskov Oblast Andrei Turchak suspended two officials pending an investigation into their roles in the adoption of Dima Yakovlev. Russian human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin said that the law will be contested in Russian constitutional courts, the Russian Orthodox Church supports the law. The U. S. media outlets Christian Science Monitor, Fox News, The Daily Beast, Time, the British newspaper The Guardian commented on the law that it is not about childrens rights and ruins lives and leaves both countries looking sordid. Due to the law being signed on the day many Christians mark as the Massacre of the Innocents, amnesty International called the law in no ones best interest and have called for Russian parliamentarians to reject the law. Human Rights Watch Europe and Central Asia director Hugh Williamson said that the law could deprive them of the families they desperately need. On 14 January 2013, about 20,000 people marched against the law in Moscow, Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar said that Russian orphans should not become the hostages of politics. The “Dima Yakovlev Law” // Laws of Attrition
Dima Yakovlev Law
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Standard of the President of the Russia
41.
Adoption in ancient Rome
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In ancient Rome, adoption of boys was a fairly common procedure, particularly in the upper senatorial class. The need for a heir and the expense of raising children and the Roman inheritance rules strictly demanding legitimes were strong incentives to have at least one son. Adoption, the solution, also served to cement ties between families, thus fostering and reinforcing alliances. Adoption of girls, however, was less common. In the Imperial period, the system acted as a mechanism for ensuring a smooth succession. As Rome was ruled by a number of powerful families, every senators duty was to produce sons to inherit the estate, family name. However, a family was an expensive luxury. Daughters had to be provided with a dowry and sons had to be pushed through the political stages of the cursus honorum. The higher the status of a family, the higher was the cost. Roman families therefore typically restricted their families to three children, the six children of Appius Claudius Pulcher were considered unusual. Sometimes, not having enough children proved to be a choice, as infants could die. For families with too many sons and the ones with no boys at all, even the wealthy Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus did not hesitate in giving his two oldest boys up for adoption, one to the Cornelii Scipiones the other to one of the Fabii Maximi. In Roman law, the power to children in adoption was one of the recognised powers of the paterfamilias. The adopted boy would usually be the oldest, the one with proven health, adoption was an expensive agreement for the childless family and quality had to be ensured. Adoption was agreed between families by the giving the boy they wanted to adopt equal status, often political allies and/or with blood connections. A plebeian adopted by a patrician would become a patrician, and vice versa, however, at least in Republican times, a sum of money was exchanged between the parties and the boy assumed the adoptive fathers name and a cognomen that indicated his original family. Adoption was neither secretive nor considered to be shameful, the boy was not even expected to cut ties to his original family. Like a marriage contract, adoption was a way to reinforce interfamily ties, the adopted child was often in a privileged situation, enjoying both original and adoptive family connections
Adoption in ancient Rome
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Possibly the most famous Roman adoptee,
Augustus first Emperor of the Roman Empire
