1.
Vladimir Putin
–
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is a Russian politician. Putin is the current President of the Russian Federation, holding the office since 7 May 2012 and he was Prime Minister from 1999 to 2000, President from 2000 to 2008, and again Prime Minister from 2008 to 2012. During his second term as Prime Minister, he was the Chairman of the ruling United Russia Party, born in Leningrad, Putin studied German in high school and speaks the language fluently. He studied Law at the Saint Petersburg State University, graduating in 1975, Putin was a KGB Foreign Intelligence Officer for 16 years, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel before retiring in 1991 to enter politics in Saint Petersburg. He moved to Moscow in 1996 and joined President Boris Yeltsins administration, rising quickly through the ranks and becoming Acting President on 31 December 1999, when Yeltsin resigned. Putin won the subsequent 2000 Presidential election by a 53% to 30% margin, thus avoiding a runoff with his Communist Party of the Russian Federation opponent and he was re-elected President in 2004 with 72% of the vote. During Putins first presidency, the Russian economy grew for eight straight years, the growth was a result of the 2000s commodities boom, high oil prices, and prudent economic and fiscal policies. Because of constitutionally mandated term limits, Putin was ineligible to run for a third presidential term in 2008. The 2008 Presidential election was won by Dmitry Medvedev, who appointed Putin Prime Minister, in September 2011, after presidential terms were extended from four to six years, Putin announced he would seek a third term as president. He won the March 2012 Presidential election with 64% of the vote, under Putins leadership, Russia has scored poorly on both the Democracy index and the Corruption index. Putin has enjoyed high approval ratings during his career. In 2007, he was the Time Person of the Year, in 2015, he was #1 on the Times Most Influential People List. Forbes ranked him the Worlds Most Powerful Individual every year from 2013 to 2016, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin was born on 7 October 1952 in Leningrad, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, the youngest of three children of Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin and Maria Ivanovna Putina. His birth was preceded by the death of two brothers, Viktor and Albert, born in the mid-1930s, Albert died in infancy and Viktor died of diphtheria during the Siege of Leningrad. Putins mother was a worker and his father was a conscript in the Soviet Navy. Early in World War II, his father served in the battalion of the NKVD. Later, he was transferred to the army and was severely wounded in 1942. On 1 September 1960, Putin started at School No.193 at Baskov Lane and he was one of a few in the class of approximately 45 pupils who was not yet a member of the Young Pioneer organization
2.
Russian language
–
Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
3.
Shirshov Institute of Oceanology
–
The Shirshov Institute of Oceanology in Moscow, is the premier research institution for ocean and earth science in Russia, established in 1946. It is part of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the institute is named after Pyotr Shirshov, who founded it in 1946. Amongst others, Andrei Monin served as director, RV Akademik Ioffe RV Akademik Sergey Vavilov RV Akademik Mstislav Keldysh RV Professor Shtokman RV Rift RV Akvanaft MIR RV Vityaz - not active since 1979, now a museum in Kaliningrad. Nikolai M. Knipovich Polar Research Institute of Marine Fisheries and Oceanography List of Russian oceanographers Official website
4.
Russian Academy of Sciences
–
Headquartered in Moscow, the Academy is considered a civil, self-governed, non-commercial organization chartered by the Government of Russia. It combines the members of RAS and scientists employed by institutions, the Academy currently includes around 650 institutions and 55,000 scientific researchers. There are three types of membership in the RAS, full members, corresponding members, and foreign members, Academicians and corresponding members must be citizens of the Russian Federation when elected. However, some academicians and corresponding members were elected before the collapse of the USSR and are now citizens of other countries, Members of RAS are elected based on their scientific contributions – election to membership is considered very prestigious. In the years 2005–2012, the academy had approximately 500 full and 700 corresponding members, but in 2013, after the Russian Academy of Agricultural Sciences and the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences became incorporated into the RAS, a number of the RAS members accordingly increased. As of November 2016, after the last elections, there were 944 full members and 1159 corresponding members in the renewed Russian Academy of Sciences, the RAS consists of 13 specialized scientific divisions, three territorial divisions, sometimes called branches, and 15 regional scientific centers. The Academy has numerous councils, committees, and commissions, all organized for different purposes, Siberian Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences The Siberian Division was established in 1957, with Mikhail Lavrentyev as founding chairman. Research centers are in Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Yakutsk, Ulan-Ude, Kemerovo, Tyumen, as of 2005, the Division employed over 33,000 employees,58 of whom were members of the Academy. Ural Division of the Russian Academy of Sciences The Ural Division was established in 1932, research centers are in Yekaterinburg, Perm, Cheliabinsk, Izhevsk, Orenburg, Ufa and Syktyvkar. As of 2007, the Division employed 3,600 scientists,590 full professors,31 full members, started with just three members, The RSSI now has 3,100 members, including 57 from the largest research institutions. Russian universities and technical institutes are not under the supervision of the RAS, the Academy is also increasing its presence in the educational area. In 1990 the Higher Chemical College of the Russian Academy of Sciences was founded, the Academy gives out a number of different prizes, medals and awards among which, Lomonosov Gold Medal Lobachevsky Prize Demidov Prize Kurchatov Medal Pushkin Prize S. V. Expeditions to explore parts of the country had Academy scientists as their leaders or most active participants. A separate organization, called the Russian Academy, was created in 1783 to work on the study of the Russian language, presided over by Princess Yekaterina Dashkova, the Russian Academy was engaged in compiling the six-volume Academic Dictionary of the Russian Language. The Russian Academy was merged into the Imperial Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences in 1841, in December 1917, Sergey Fedorovich Oldenburg, a leading ethnographer and political activist in the Kadet party, met with Vladimir Lenin to discuss the future of the Academy. They agreed that the expertise of the Academy would be applied to addressing questions of state construction, in 1925 the Soviet government recognized the Russian Academy of Sciences as the highest all-Union scientific institution and renamed it the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. The Soviet Sciences Academy would be affected like all universities by the rules imposed particularly those pertaining to censorship, the Soviet Science Academy ended up with a leader of the philosophy department who was placed there simply to keep the man out of trouble. The government decided to not execute or send the famous writer to the gulag because he had won the Stalin award, doing this would have discredited the Stalin award and thus Stalin the leader of the Communist party himself
5.
Soviet Union
–
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
6.
Mir (submersible)
–
Mir is a self-propelled Deep Submergence Vehicle. The project was developed by the USSR Academy of Sciences along with Design Bureau Lazurith. Later two vehicles were ordered from Finland, the Mir 1 and Mir 2, delivered in 1987, were designed and built by the Finnish company Rauma-Repolas Oceanics subsidiary. The project was carried out under the supervision of constructors and engineers of the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, the vessels are designed to be used for scientific research. They might also be used to assist in rescue operations. The carrier and command centre of both Mir submersibles is the R/V Akademik Mstislav Keldysh, the two Mir units are operated by the Russian Academy of Sciences. The Mir submersibles can dive to a depth of 6,000 metres. Traditionally, the sphere of a deep sea submersible is manufactured of titanium plates that are welded together. On Mir, the sphere is made of a maraging steel alloy that has ten percent better strength/weight ratio than titanium. This alloy contains about 30% cobalt and smaller amounts of nickel, chrome, two hemispheres were made by casting and machining, and then bolted together, thus avoiding welded joints. The resulting construction is close to the density of water, thus making it easier to move in different depths, additional buoyancy is provided by 8 cubic metres of syntactic foam. Unlike other Deep Submergence Vehicles that use iron ballast to reach the ocean floor, the Mir submersibles are 7.8 m long,3.6 m wide,3.0 m high, and weighs 18,600 kg. The personnel spheres walls are 5 cm thick, and the diameter of the working area is 2.1 m. Three viewports are provided, the port is 20 cm diameter. Power is provided by NiCad batteries of 100 kWh capacity, electric motors drive hydraulic pumps to actuate hydraulic manipulators and 3 propulsors. The aft hydraulic propulsor is rated at 9 kW and 2 side propulsors are rated at 2.5 kW each, maximum underwater speed is 5 knots. Longitudinal trim is controlled using 2 spherical water ballast tanks, fore, water can be forced out of these tanks as required by using compressed air. VHF radio is used to communication with the surface
7.
Deep-submergence vehicle
–
A deep-submergence vehicle is a deep-diving manned submarine that is self-propelled. The term DSV is generally one used by the United States Navy, dSRVs are equipped with docking chambers to allow personnel ingress and egress via a manhole. Because of these difficulties, the use of integrated crew escape capsules, detachable conning towers, dSRVs that remain in use are primarily relegated to clandestine missions and undersea military equipment maintenance. The rapid development of safe, cost-saving ROV technology has rendered some DSVs obsolete. In a DSV/DSRV, the compartment and the ballast tank functionality is incorporated into a single structure to afford more habitable space. Most DSV/DSRV vehicles are powered by traditional electric battery propulsion and have limited endurance. Plans have been made to equip DSVs with LOX Stirling engines but none have been realized so far due to cost, all DSVs are dependent upon a surface support ship or a mother submarine, that can piggyback or tow them to the scene of operations. Some DSRV vessels are air transportable in very large cargo planes to speed up deployment in case of emergency rescue missions. FNRS-2 – the predecessor to Trieste FNRS-3 – contemporary of Trieste I DSV-0 Trieste – the X-1 Trieste bathyscaphe has reached Challenger Deep, dSV-1 X-2 Trieste II – an updated bathyscathe design, participated in clandestine missions, it was retired in 1984. Alvin has a maximum depth capability of 4,500 metres and operates from R/V Atlantis, the NSF has committed to the construction of a replacement sub with enhanced capabilities and 6, 500-metre depth capability to replace Alvin, which will be retired upon its completion. DSV-2 Alvin – a deep diving sub, has a 4, 500-metre depth capability, aluminaut – a DSV made completely of aluminum by the Reynolds Metals Aluminum Company, for the US Navy, once held the submarine deep diving record. Deepsea Challenger – a DSV made by the Acheron Project Pty Ltd, has reached Challenger Deep, Priz – a DSRV class of five ships built by the USSR and Russia. The titanium-hulled Priz class are capable of diving to 1,000 metres and these mini-submarines can ferry up to 20 people for very brief periods of time or operate submerged for two to three days with a regular crew of three to four specialists. In early 2005, the Russian AS-28 Priz vessel was trapped undersea, mir – a strictly civilian class of two DSVs which were manufactured in Finland for the USSR. These bathyscaphe-derived vessels can carry three people down to depths of 6,000 metres, konsul – a new class of Russian military DSVs, currently undergoing final acceptance trials before the official commissioning into the Navy. Nautile – a DSV owned by Ifremer, the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea, the titanium-hulled Nautile is capable of diving to 6,000 metres. DSV Shinkai – JAMSTEC operates a DSV-series called Shinkai, the latest DSV is Shinkai 6500 which can submerge to 6,500 metres with three crew members. JAMSTEC was operating a ROV called Kaiko, which was able to submerge to 11,000 metres, a total of 10 were built and are representative of late 1960s deep-ocean submersible design
8.
RMS Titanic
–
Of the 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, more than 1,500 died, making it one of the deadliest commercial peacetime maritime disasters in modern history. Thomas Andrews, her architect, died in the disaster, the first class accommodation was designed to be the pinnacle of comfort and luxury, with an on-board gymnasium, swimming pool, libraries, high-class restaurants and opulent cabins. A high-power radiotelegraph transmitter was available for sending passenger marconigrams and for the operational use. Titanic only carried enough lifeboats for 1,178 people—slightly more than half of the number on board, after leaving Southampton on 10 April 1912, Titanic called at Cherbourg in France and Queenstown in Ireland before heading west to New York. On 14 April, four days into the crossing and about 375 miles south of Newfoundland, the collision caused the ships hull plates to buckle inwards along her starboard side and opened five of her sixteen watertight compartments to the sea, she could only survive four flooding. Meanwhile, passengers and some members were evacuated in lifeboats. A disproportionate number of men were left aboard because of a women and children first protocol for loading lifeboats, at 2,20 a. m. she broke apart and foundered—with well over one thousand people still aboard. Just under two hours after Titanic sank, the Cunard liner RMS Carpathia arrived at the scene, where she brought aboard an estimated 705 survivors. The disaster was greeted with shock and outrage at the huge loss of life. Public inquiries in Britain and the United States led to improvements in maritime safety. One of their most important legacies was the establishment in 1914 of the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, which still governs maritime safety today. Additionally, several new regulations were passed around the world in an effort to learn from the many missteps in wireless communications—which could have saved many more passengers. The wreck of Titanic, first discovered over 70 years after the sinking, remains on the seabed, since her discovery in 1985, thousands of artifacts have been recovered and put on display at museums around the world. Titanic has become one of the most famous ships in history, her memory is kept alive by numerous works of culture, including books, folk songs, films, exhibits. Titanic is the second largest ocean liner wreck in the world, only beaten by her sister HMHS Britannic, the name Titanic was derived from Greek mythology and meant gigantic. They were by far the largest vessels of the British shipping company White Star Lines fleet, Teutonic was replaced by Olympic while Majestic was replaced by Titanic. Majestic would be back into her old spot on White Stars New York service after Titanics loss. The ships were constructed by the Belfast shipbuilders Harland and Wolff, cost considerations were relatively low on the agenda and Harland and Wolff was authorised to spend what it needed on the ships, plus a five percent profit margin
9.
German battleship Bismarck
–
Bismarck was the first of two Bismarck-class battleships built for Nazi Germanys Kriegsmarine. Work was completed in August 1940, when she was commissioned into the German fleet, Bismarck and her sister ship Tirpitz were the largest battleships ever built by Germany, and two of the largest built by any European power. In the course of the warships eight-month career under its commanding officer, Captain Ernst Lindemann, Bismarck conducted only one offensive operation, in May 1941. The ship, along with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, was to break into the Atlantic Ocean, the two ships were detected several times off Scandinavia, and British naval units were deployed to block their route. At the Battle of the Denmark Strait, the iconic battlecruiser HMS Hood initially engaged Prinz Eugen, probably by mistake, in the ensuing battle Hood was destroyed by the combined fire of Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, who then damaged Prince of Wales and forced her retreat. Bismarck suffered sufficient damage from three hits to force an end to the raiding mission, the destruction of Hood spurred a relentless pursuit by the Royal Navy involving dozens of warships. Most experts agree that the damage would have caused her to sink eventually. The wreck was located in June 1989 by Robert Ballard, and has since been surveyed by several other expeditions. Bismarck was ordered under the name Ersatz Hannover, a replacement for the old pre-dreadnought SMS Hannover, under contract F, the contract was awarded to the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, where the keel was laid on 1 July 1936 at Helgen IX. The ship was launched on 14 February 1939 and during the ceremonies was christened by Dorothee von Löwenfeld, granddaughter of Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Adolf Hitler made the christening speech, fitting-out work followed the launch, during which time the original straight stem was replaced with a raked Atlantic bow similar to those of the Scharnhorst-class battleships. Bismarck was commissioned into the fleet on 24 August 1940 for sea trials, kapitän zur See Ernst Lindemann took command of the ship at the time of commissioning. Bismarck displaced 41,700 t as built and 50,300 t fully loaded, with a length of 251 m, a beam of 36 m. The battleship was Germanys largest warship, and displaced more than any other European battleship, with the exception of HMS Vanguard, the ship had a cruising range of 8,870 nautical miles at 19 knots. Bismarck was equipped with three FuMO23 search radar sets, mounted on the forward and stern rangefinders and foretop, the standard crew numbered 103 officers and 1,962 enlisted men. The crew was divided into divisions of between 180 and 220 men. The first six divisions were assigned to the armament, divisions one to four for the main and secondary batteries and five. The seventh division consisted of specialists, including cooks and carpenters, the radio operators, signalmen, and quartermasters were assigned to the ninth division
10.
Soviet submarine K-278 Komsomolets
–
K-278 Komsomolets was the only Project 685 Plavnik nuclear-powered attack submarine of the Soviet Navy. On 4 August 1984 K-278 reached a record depth of 1,020 metres in the Norwegian Sea. The boat sank in 1989 and is resting on the floor of the Barents Sea, one mile deep, with its nuclear reactor. The single Project 685 was developed to test technologies for Soviet 4th generation nuclear submarines, although primarily intended as a developmental model, it was fully combat capable, but sank after a fire broke out in the aft engineering compartment on its first operational patrol. The Komsomolets was able to surface after the fire started and remained afloat for approximately 5 hours before sinking. Of the 42 crewmembers who died, only 4 were killed by the fire and smoke, while 34 died of hypothermia and drowning in the frigid waters while awaiting rescue that did not arrive in time. Because of this loss of life a very public enquiry was conducted and, as a result. The order to design the submarine was issued in 1966 and design was completed in 1974, the first keel was laid down on 22 April 1978 at Severodvinsk. K-278 was launched on 3 June 1983 and commissioned on 28 December 1983, K-278 had a double hull, the inner one being composed of titanium, which gave her an operating depth far greater than that of the best American submarines. The pressure hull was composed of seven compartments with the second and third protected by stronger forward, an escape capsule was fitted in the sail above these compartments to enable the crew to abandon ship in the event of an underwater emergency. Initial Western intelligence estimates of K-278’s speed were based on the assumption that it was powered by a pair of liquid-metal lead-bismuth reactors, when the Soviet Union revealed that the submarine used a single OK-650b-3 conventional pressurized-water reactor, these speed estimates were lowered. According to Norman Polmar and Kenneth J, the manning table approved by the Ministry of Defense in 1982 called for a crew of just 57 men. This was later increased to 64,30 officers,22 warrant officers, the reactor scrammed and propulsion was lost. Electrical problems spread as cables burned through, and control of the boat was threatened, an emergency ballast tank blow was performed and the submarine surfaced eleven minutes after the fire began. Distress calls were made, and most of the abandoned ship. The fire continued to burn, fed by the air system. At 15,15, several hours after the boat surfaced, it sank in 1,680 metres of water, the commanding officer and four others who were still on board entered the escape capsule and ejected it. Only one of the five to reach the surface was able to leave the capsule, rescue aircraft arrived quickly and dropped small rafts, but many men had already died from hypothermia in the 2 °C water of the Barents Sea
11.
Russian submarine Kursk (K-141)
–
K-141 Kursk was an Oscar-II class nuclear-powered cruise-missile submarine of the Russian Navy which was lost with all hands when it sank in the Barents Sea on 12 August 2000. It was a Project 949A Антей submarine and it was named after the Russian city of Kursk, around which the Battle of Kursk took place in 1943. One of the first vessels completed after the end of the Soviet Union, work on building Kursk began in 1990 at Severodvinsk, near Arkhangelsk. Launched in 1994, it was commissioned in December of that year and it was the penultimate Oscar II class submarine designed and approved in the Soviet era. The Antey design represented the highest achievement of Soviet nuclear submarine technology and they were second-largest attack submarines ever built, after the Typhoon Class submarine. It was built to defeat an entire United States aircraft carrier group, a single Type 65 torpedo carried a 450 kg warhead powerful enough to sink an aircraft carrier. Both missiles and torpedoes could be equipped with nuclear warheads and she was 9.1 m longer than the preceding Oscar I-class of submarines. The senior officers had individual staterooms and the crew had access to a gymnasium. There was a 200 cm gap to the 50.8 mm -thick steel pressure hull and she was designed to remain submerged for up to 120 days. The sail superstructure was reinforced to allow it to break through the Arctic ice, the submarine was armed with 24 SS-N-19/P-700 Granit cruise missiles, and eight torpedo tubes in the bow, four 533 mm and four 650 mm. The Granit missiles with a range of 550 km, were capable of flight at altitudes over 20 km. They were designed to swarm enemy vessels and intelligently choose individual targets which terminated with a dive onto the target, the torpedo tubes could be used to launch either torpedoes or anti-ship missiles with a range of 50 km. Her weapons included 18 SS-N-16 Stallion anti-submarine missiles, Kursk was part of Russias Northern Fleet, which had suffered funding cutbacks throughout the 1990s. Many of its submarines were anchored and rusting in Zapadnaya Litsa Naval Base,100 km from Murmansk, little work to maintain all but the most essential front-line equipment, including search and rescue equipment, had occurred. Northern Fleet sailors had gone unpaid in the mid-1990s and this was due to a lack of funds for fuel. As a result, many of her crew had spent little time at sea and were inexperienced, Kursk joined the Summer-X exercise, the first large-scale naval exercise planned by the Russian Navy in more than a decade, on 10 August 2000. It included 30 ships including the fleets flagship Pyotr Velikiy, four submarines. The crew had won a citation for its excellent performance
12.
Lake Baikal
–
Lake Baikal is a rift lake in Russia, located in southern Siberia, between Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Buryat Republic to the southeast. Lake Baikal is the largest freshwater lake by volume in the world, with 23,615.39 km3 of fresh water, it contains more water than the North American Great Lakes combined. With a maximum depth of 1,642 m, Baikal is the worlds deepest lake and it is considered among the worlds clearest lakes and is considered the worlds oldest lake — at 25 million years. It is the seventh-largest lake in the world by surface area, like Lake Tanganyika, Lake Baikal was formed as an ancient rift valley, having the typical long crescent shape with a surface area of 31,722 km2. Baikal is home to thousands of species of plants and animals, the lake was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. The region to the east of Lake Baikal is referred to as Transbaikalia, Lake Baikal is in a rift valley, created by the Baikal Rift Zone, where the Earths crust is slowly pulling apart. At 636 km long and 79 km wide, Lake Baikal has the largest surface area of any lake in Asia, at 31,722 km2. The bottom of the lake is 1,186.5 m below sea level, but below this lies some 7 km of sediment, placing the rift floor some 8–11 km below the surface, the deepest continental rift on Earth. In geological terms, the rift is young and active—it widens about 2 cm per year, the fault zone is also seismically active, hot springs occur in the area and notable earthquakes happen every few years. The lake is divided into three basins, North, Central, and South, with depths about 900 m,1,600 m, fault-controlled accommodation zones rising to depths about 300 m separate the basins. The North and Central basins are separated by Academician Ridge, while the area around the Selenga Delta, the lake drains into the Angara tributary of the Yenisei. Notable landforms include Cape Ryty on Baikals northwest coast, Baikals age is estimated at 25 million years, making it the most ancient lake in geological history. It is unique among large, high-latitude lakes, as its sediments have not been scoured by overriding continental ice sheets. Russian, U. S. and Japanese cooperative studies of deep-drilling core sediments in the 1990s provide a record of climatic variation over the past 6.7 million years. Longer and deeper sediment cores are expected in the near future, Lake Baikal is the only confined freshwater lake in which direct and indirect evidence of gas hydrates exists. The lake is surrounded by mountains. The Baikal Mountains on the shore and the taiga are technically protected as a national park. It contains 27 islands, the largest, Olkhon, is 72 km long and is the third-largest lake-bound island in the world, the lake is fed by as many as 330 inflowing rivers
13.
Seabed
–
The seabed is the bottom of the ocean. Most of the oceans have a structure, created by common physical phenomena, mainly from tectonic movement. The mid-ocean ridge, as its name implies, is a rise through the middle of all the oceans. Typically a rift runs along the edge of this ridge, along tectonic plate edges there are typically oceanic trenches – deep valleys, created by the mantle circulation movement from the mid-ocean mountain ridge to the oceanic trench. Hotspot volcanic island ridges are created by volcanic activity, erupting periodically, in areas with volcanic activity and in the oceanic trenches there are hydrothermal vents – releasing high pressure and extremely hot water and chemicals into the typically freezing water around it. Deep ocean water is divided into layers or zones, each with features of salinity, pressure, temperature and marine life. Lying along the top of the plain is the abyssal zone. The hadal zone – which includes the oceanic trenches, lies between 6, 000–11,000 metres and is the deepest oceanic zone, the acronym mbsf meaning meters below the seafloor is a convention used for depths below the seafloor. Benthos is the community of organisms which live on, in, or near the seabed and this community lives in or near marine sedimentary environments, from tidal pools along the foreshore, out to the continental shelf, and then down to the abyssal depths. The benthic zone is the region on, in and immediately above the seabed, including the sediment surface. Benthos generally live in relationship with the substrate bottom. Examples of contact soil layers include sand bottoms, rocky outcrops, coral, each area of the seabed has typical features such as common soil composition, typical topography, salinity of water layers above it, marine life, magnetic direction of rocks, and sedimentation. Seabed topography is flat where sedimentation is heavy and covers the tectonic features, marine life is abundant in the deep sea, especially around hydrothermal vents. Large deep sea communities of life have been discovered around black and white smokers—vents emitting chemicals toxic to humans. This marine life receives its energy both from the temperature difference and from chemosynthesis by bacteria. Brine pools are another seabed feature, usually connected to cold seeps, the seabed has been explored by submersibles such as Alvin and, to some extent, scuba divers with special equipment. The process that adds new material to the ocean floor is seafloor spreading. In recent years satellite images show a very clear mapping of the seabed, some childrens play songs include elements such as Theres a hole at the bottom of the sea, or A sailor went to sea
14.
North Pole
–
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is defined as the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earths axis of rotation meets its surface. The North Pole is the northernmost point on the Earth, lying diametrically opposite the South Pole and it defines geodetic latitude 90° North, as well as the direction of true north. At the North Pole all directions point south, all lines of longitude converge there, along tight latitude circles, counterclockwise is east and clockwise is west. The North Pole is at the center of the Northern Hemisphere, while the South Pole lies on a continental land mass, the North Pole is located in the middle of the Arctic Ocean amid waters that are almost permanently covered with constantly shifting sea ice. This makes it impractical to construct a permanent station at the North Pole, however, the Soviet Union, and later Russia, constructed a number of manned drifting stations on a generally annual basis since 1937, some of which have passed over or very close to the Pole. Since 2002, the Russians have also established a base, Barneo. This operates for a few weeks during early spring, studies in the 2000s predicted that the North Pole may become seasonally ice-free because of Arctic ice shrinkage, with timescales varying from 2016 to the late 21st century or later. The sea depth at the North Pole has been measured at 4,261 m by the Russian Mir submersible in 2007 and at 4,087 m by USS Nautilus in 1958. The nearest land is said to be Kaffeklubben Island, off the northern coast of Greenland about 700 km away. The nearest permanently inhabited place is Alert in the Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada, around the beginning of the 20th century astronomers noticed a small apparent variation of latitude, as determined for a fixed point on Earth from the observation of stars. Part of this variation could be attributed to a wandering of the Pole across the Earths surface, the wandering has several periodic components and an irregular component. The component with a period of about 435 days is identified with the eight-month wandering predicted by Euler and is now called the Chandler wobble after its discoverer and it is desirable to tie the system of Earth coordinates to fixed landforms. Of course, given plate tectonics and isostasy, there is no system in all geographic features are fixed. Yet the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service and the International Astronomical Union have defined a framework called the International Terrestrial Reference System. As early as the 16th century, many eminent people correctly believed that the North Pole was in a sea and it was therefore hoped that passage could be found through ice floes at favorable times of the year. Several expeditions set out to find the way, generally with whaling ships, one of the earliest expeditions to set out with the explicit intention of reaching the North Pole was that of British naval officer William Edward Parry, who in 1827 reached latitude 82°45′ North. In 1871 the Polaris expedition, a US attempt on the Pole led by Charles Francis Hall, another British Royal Navy attempt on the pole, part of the British Arctic Expedition, by Commander Albert H. Markham reached a then-record 83°2026 North in May 1876 before turning back. An 1879–1881 expedition commanded by US naval officer George W. DeLong ended tragically when their ship, over half the crew, including DeLong, were lost
15.
Arktika 2007
–
As well as dropping a titanium tube containing the Russian flag, the submersibles collected specimens of Arctic flora and fauna and apparently recorded video of the dives. The North Pole-35 manned drifting ice station was established, the ships had two Mi-8 helicopters and geological probe devices, and Il-18 aircraft with gravimetric devices. The base ship Akademik Fedorov left Saint Petersburg on July 10,2007 for the expedition, after five hours, the Akademik Fedorov began drifting in the Barents Sea because an electric motor controlling its propellor failed. The Russia,20 hours ahead by that time, turned to help, nine hours later the crew of Akademik Fedorov repaired the motor and the ship continued its voyage, staying close to the Russia. On July 27 The icebreaker landed a group of biologists on the Kheysa island. On July 29 the Akademik Fedorov approached a large ice-hole, surrounded by ice at 82°29′N 64°28′E,47 miles north of Franz Josef Land. There, the submersibles, each with one person on board, Anatoly Sagalevich took the MIR-1 down at 9,36 Moscow Time and Yevgeny Chernyaev followed at the controls of MIR-2 at 10,00. At 10,32 MIR-1 reached the seabed at a depth of 1,311 metres, descents were carried out on August 2,2007 in both MIR Deep Submergence Vehicles. The MIR-1s crew consisted of pilot Anatoly Sagalevich, Russian polar explorer Arthur Chilingarov, the MIR-2s crew comprised pilot Yevgeny Chernyaev of Russia, Australian adventurer Mike McDowell, and Swede Frederik Paulsen Jr. head of Ferring Pharmaceuticals). MIR-1 began its dive at 9,28 Moscow Time and at 12,08 reached the seabed 4,261 metres below the North Pole, MIR-2 began its dive at 9,47 and at 12,35 reached the seabed 4,302 metres down. At 12,35 the bathyscaphes were 500 metres apart and MIR-1 moved near MIR-2, at 13,46 both submersibles began to ascend, with MIR-1 surfacing at 18,08 and MIR-2 at 19,15. On the seabed,4,261 metres below the Polar ice, MIR-1 planted a 1-metre tall titanium Russian flag and it also left a time capsule, containing a message for future generations and a flag of the pro-President Vladimir Putin United Russia party. Soil and water samples of the seabed were taken during the mission, the same images were rebroadcast by Reuters, which mistook them as actual footage of part of the expedition. The agency, the reported, had admitted, it had “mistakenly identified this file footage as originating from the Arctic. This footage was taken during the search for the Titanic and copyright is held by Rossiya, on its way back to Franz Josef Land to collect marine biologists, the Akademik Fedorov on August 4 met the French Tara expedition. The ships MI-8 helicopter landed near the yacht, which had been drifting for eleven months, the French expedition had 9 tonnes of food and was growing its own — ‘. salad. is what we have grown. most. Corn salad grows very well’, even at those latitudes ‘, Akademik Fedorov then sailed towards the Ice Base, a group of nine polar explorers led by A. A. Ornithology research was conducted on Severnaya Zemlya islands
16.
Hero of the Russian Federation
–
Hero of the Russian Federation is the highest honorary title of the Russian Federation. A person that has been bestown this title receives a Gold Star medal. The title is awarded to persons for service to the Russian state and nation, the title is bestowed by decree of the president of the Russian Federation. Russian citizenship or being in the service of the Russian state is not obligatory, the title was established in 1992, and has been awarded more than 970 times since then, including more than 440 times posthumously. The title Hero of Russia is a successor to Hero of the Soviet Union, the corresponding Gold Star is derived from the Soviet design, created by architect Miron Merzhanov and approved by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of August 1,1939. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russian Federation under president Boris Yeltsin retained a modified award by Law of the Russian Federation № 2553-1 of March 20,1992. Article 71 of the Constitution of Russia permits titles, orders and medals to be presented by the government and this is the highest honour that can be presented by the Russian president to a citizen. The title of Hero of the Russian Federation can be awarded for a deed in the service of the state. It can be awarded to civilian and military personnel. The title can also be awarded if the heroic act costs the recipient his or her life. The President of the Russian Federation is the main conferring authority of the award, the insignia of Hero of the Russian Federation is worn on the left side of the chest above all other medals and decorations. Its medal is worn in full size, there is no ribbon bar or rosette that can be worn in its lieu. When Soviet titles, such as Hero of the Soviet Union or Hero of Socialist Labour are worn together with the medal of the Russian title, the latter has precedence. The insignia of the title of Hero of the Russian Federation is also called the Gold Star medal, the Gold Star medal is a gold five-pointed star with smooth 15mm dihedral rays on the obverse. The otherwise plain reverse bears the prominent relief inscription in 2mm high letters HERO OF RUSSIA at its center, in the upper portion, the insignia is secured to a standard Russian square mount by a ring through the suspension loop. The mount is covered by a silk moiré tricolour ribbon of white, blue, the majority of the early recipients of the title fell into two categories, participants in the Chechnya conflicts or cosmonauts. On some occasions, the person who was awarded the title was killed while in the course of duty, such as Major Denis Vetchinov and this includes those killed in battle as well as assassinated government officials. An example of such a recipient was Akhmad Kadyrov, the governor of Chechnya
17.
Order of Lenin
–
The Order of Lenin, named after the leader of the Russian October Revolution, was the highest decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union. Those who were awarded the titles Hero of the Soviet Union and it was also bestowed on cities, companies, factories, regions, military units and ships. Corporate entities, various institutions and military units who received the said Order applied the full name of the order into their official titles. The order was established by the Central Executive Committee on April 6,1930, the first design of the Order of Lenin was sculpted by Pyotr Tayozhny and Ivan Shadr based on sketches by Ivan Dubasov. It was made by Goznak of silver with some lightly gold-plated features and it was a round badge with a central disc featuring Vladimir Lenins profile surrounded by smokestacks, a tractor and a building, possibly a power plant. A thin red-enamelled border and a circle of wheat panicles surrounded the disc, at the top was a gold-plated hammer and sickle emblem, and at the bottom were the Russian initials for USSR in red enamel. Only about 800 of this design were minted, the second design was awarded from 1934 until 1936. This was a gold badge, featuring an silver plated disc bearing Lenins portrait. The disc is surrounded by two golden panicles of wheat, and a red flag with LENIN in Cyrillic script, a red star is placed on the left and the hammer and sickle emblem at the bottom, both in red enamel. The third design was awarded from 1936 till 1943, design was same as previous, but central disc was gray enamelled and Lenins portrait was separate piece made of platinum fixed by rivets. The fourth design was awarded from 1943 till 1991, design was same as previous, but was worn as a medal suspended from a ribbon. The badge was worn by screwback on the left chest without ribbon. Later it was worn as a suspended from a red ribbon with pairs of yellow stripes at the edges. The ribbon bar is of the same design, the portrait of Lenin was originally a riveted silver piece. For a time it was incorporated into a gold badge. The first Order of Lenin was awarded to the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda on 23 May 1930, also among the first ten recipients were five industrial companies, three pilots, and the Secretary to the Central Executive Committee Avel Enukidze. The first person to be awarded a second Order of Lenin was the pilot Valery Chkalov in 1936, another pilot, Vladimir Kokkinaki, became the first to receive a third Order in 1939. The first five recipients, a German and four Americans, received the award for helping in the reconstruction of Soviet industry
18.
Order of Courage
–
The Order of Courage is a state decoration of the Russian Federation first established on March 2,1994 by Presidential Decree 442 to recognise selfless acts of courage and valour. The Order of Courage nominally replaced the Soviet Order For Personal Courage in the post-USSR Russian awards system, the Order of Courage may be awarded posthumously and may be awarded multiple times to the same recipient. Individuals already awarded three Orders of Courage may be awarded the title of Hero of the Russian Federation for a fourth act of courage. The Order of Courage is worn on the side of the chest. The Order of Courage is a vaulted 40 mm wide silver cross pattée with rounded ends, the outer rim of both the obverse and reverse are embossed. At the center of the obverse is the emblem of the Russian Federation. On the obverse, embossed rays extend outwards from the center to the rim in each of the crosss four arms. In the center of the reverse, the inscription in stylized Russian Cyrillic «МУЖЕСТВО». On the reverse of the cross arm, an N in relief and a horizontal line reserved for the award serial number, under the line. The badge of the Order of Courage hangs from a standard Russian pentagonal mount with a ring through its suspension loop, the mount is covered by an overlapping 24 mm wide red silk moiré ribbon with 2 mm white edge stripes
19.
Lowell Thomas
–
Lowell Jackson Thomas was an American writer, broadcaster, and traveler, best known as the man who made Lawrence of Arabia famous. Thomas was born in Woodington, Darke County, Ohio, to Harry and his father was a doctor, his mother a teacher. In 1900, the moved to the mining town of Victor. Thomas worked there as a miner, a cook. In 1911, Thomas graduated from Victor High School where one of his teachers was Mabel Barbee Lee, the following year, he graduated from Valparaiso University with bachelors degrees in education and science. The next year, he received both a B. A. and an M. A. from the University of Denver and began work for the Chicago Journal, Thomas also was on the faculty of Chicago-Kent College of Law, where he taught oratory from 1912 to 1914. He then went to New Jersey where he studied for a masters at Princeton University, Thomas was a relentless self-promoter, and he persuaded railroads to give him free passage in exchange for articles extolling rail travel. When he visited Alaska, he hit upon the idea of the travelogue. When the United States entered World War I, he was part of a party sent by President Wilson, former president of Princeton. In reality, the mission was not academic, the war was not popular in the United States, and Thomas was sent to find material that would encourage the American people to support it. Thomas did not want to write about the war, he wanted to film it. He estimated that $75,000 would be needed for filming, which the U. S. government thought too expensive, Thomas and cameraman Harry Chase first went to the Western Front, but the trenches had little to inspire the American public. They then went to Italy, where he heard of General Allenbys campaign against the Ottoman Empire in Palestine. Thomas traveled to Palestine as a war correspondent with the permission of the British Foreign Office, where he met T. E. Lawrence. Lawrence was spending £200,000 a month encouraging the inhabitants of Palestine to rebel against the Turks, Thomas and Chase spent several weeks with Lawrence in the desert, though Lawrence said several days. With Allenbys permission he linked up with Lawrence for a couple of weeks. On being asked to come to England, he made the condition he would do so if asked by the King and he opened at Covent Garden on 14 August 1919. And so followed a series of hundreds of lecture–film shows
20.
The Explorers Club
–
The Explorers Club is an American-based international multidisciplinary professional society with the goal of promoting scientific exploration and field study. The club was founded in New York City in 1905, and has served as a point for explorers. The Explorers Club hosts a dinner to honor accomplishments in exploration. Joining Walsh were Adolphus Greely, Donaldson Smith, Carl Lumholtz, Marshall Saville, Frederick Dellenbaugh, after several further informal meetings, The Explorers Club was incorporated on October 25,1905. Women were first admitted in 1981, with a class including Sylvia Earle, famous honorary members have included Theodore Roosevelt, John Glenn, Jim Fowler, Walter Cronkite, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh and Albert I, Prince of Monaco. The Explorers Club has 26 chapters in the United States and around the world, which serve as contact points for explorers, scientists. Many chapters hold monthly dinners, lectures and seminars, award field-research grants to students, publish newsletters and organize expeditions, field trips and educational events. In 1965, the club purchased its current headquarters on the Upper East Side, a six-story Jacobean revival mansion on East 70th Street, ford Exploration Library, the Sir Edmund Hillary Map Room and a collection of artifacts from more than a century of exploration. The building was previously the home of Stephen C. Clark, in the 1920s, the club began to invite both explorers returning from the field and visiting scientists to relate their experiences and findings. By the 1930s these informal gatherings developed into academic lectures and illustrated talks, the club continues to provide weekly lectures and programs, which are often open to the public at its headquarters. In November 1921, The Explorers Club published the first edition of The Explorers Journal to share news from the field, remarks from headquarters, recent acquisitions, obituaries, the Explorers Journal is still published quarterly, with articles and photography from Explorers Club members in the field. To obtain permission to carry the flag, a member must show that an expedition holds the promise of scientific results. Once approved, the flag must be exhibited at every opportunity on the expedition. Today there are 202 numbered flags, men and women may offer their name for consideration
21.
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
–
Dædalus, the Academys quarterly journal, is widely regarded as one of the worlds leading intellectual journals. The Academy is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Academy was established by the Massachusetts legislature on May 4th,1780. Its purpose, as described in its charter, is to cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people. The sixty-two incorporating fellows represented varying interests and high standing in the political, professional, the first class of new members, chosen by the Academy in 1781, included Benjamin Franklin and George Washington as well as several foreign honorary members. The initial volume of Academy Memoirs appeared in 1785, and the Proceedings followed in 1846, in the 1950s the Academy launched its journal Daedalus, reflecting its commitment to a broader intellectual and socially-oriented program. The Academy has sponsored a number of awards throughout its history and its first award, established in 1796 by Benjamin Thompson, honored distinguished work on heat and light and provided support for research activities. Additional prizes recognized important contributions in the sciences, social sciences, since the second half of the twentieth century, policy research has become a central focus of the Academy. In the late 1950s, arms control emerged as a concern of the Academy. The Academy also served as the catalyst in establishing the National Humanities Center in North Carolina, in 2002, the Academy established a visiting scholars program in association with Harvard University. More than 60 academic institutions from across the country have become Affiliates of the Academy to support this program, robert Oppenheimer, Willa Cather, T. S. Eliot, Edward R. Murrow, Jonas Salk, Eudora Welty, and Duke Ellington. Astronomer Maria Mitchell was the first woman to be elected to the Academy, the current membership encompasses over 4,900 Fellows and 600 Foreign Honorary Members on the roster, including more than 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners. The current membership is divided into five classes and twenty-four sections, Class I – Mathematical and Physical Sciences Section 1. Applied Mathematics and Statistics Section 2, astronomy and Earth Science Section 5. Engineering Sciences and Technologies Section 6, computer Sciences Class II – Biological Sciences Section 1. Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology Section 2, cellular and Developmental Biology, Microbiology and Immunology Section 3. Neurosciences, Cognitive Sciences, and Behavioral Biology Section 4, evolutionary and Population Biology and Ecology Section 5. Medical Sciences, Clinical Medicine, and Public Health Class III – Social Sciences Section 1, Social and Developmental Psychology and Education Section 2. Political Science, International Relations, and Public Policy Section 4, archaeology, Anthropology, Sociology, Geography and Demography Class IV – Arts and Humanities Section 1
22.
International Standard Book Number
–
The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
23.
Titanic (1997 film)
–
Titanic is a 1997 American epic romance-disaster film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. Camerons inspiration for the film came from his fascination with shipwrecks, production began in 1995, when Cameron shot footage of the actual Titanic wreck. The modern scenes on the vessel were shot on board the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh. Scale models, computer-generated imagery, and a reconstruction of the Titanic built at Playas de Rosarito in Baja California were used to re-create the sinking, the film was partially funded by Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox. It was the most expensive film made at time, with an estimated budget of $200 million. Upon its release on December 19,1997, Titanic achieved critical and commercial success, with an initial worldwide gross of over $1.84 billion, Titanic was the first film to reach the billion-dollar mark. It remained the highest-grossing film of all time until Camerons 2009 film Avatar surpassed it in 2010. A 3D version of Titanic, released on April 4,2012 to commemorate the centennial of the sinking, earned it an additional $343.6 million worldwide and it became the second film to gross more than $2 billion worldwide. In 2015, Titanic Live, an orchestra version of the film. In 1996, treasure hunter Brock Lovett and his team aboard the research vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh search the wreck of RMS Titanic for a necklace with a rare diamond, the Heart of the Ocean. They recover a safe containing a drawing of a woman wearing only the necklace dated April 14,1912. Rose Dawson Calvert, the woman in the drawing, is brought aboard Keldysh, in 1912 Southampton, 17-year-old first-class passenger Rose DeWitt Bukater, her fiancé Cal Hockley, and her mother Ruth board the luxurious Titanic. Ruth emphasizes that Roses marriage will resolve their familys financial problems, distraught over the engagement, Rose considers suicide by jumping from the stern, Jack Dawson, a penniless artist, intervenes and discourages her. Discovered with Jack, Rose tells a concerned Cal that she was peering over the edge, when Cal becomes indifferent, she suggests to him that Jack deserves a reward. He invites Jack to dine with them in first class the following night, Jack and Rose develop a tentative friendship, despite Cal and Ruth being wary of him. Following dinner, Rose secretly joins Jack at a party in third class, aware of Cal and Ruths disapproval, Rose rebuffs Jacks advances, but realizes she prefers him over Cal. After rendezvousing on the bow at sunset, Rose takes Jack to her room, at her request, Jack sketches Rose posing nude wearing Cals engagement present. They evade Cals bodyguard and have sex in an automobile inside the cargo hold, on the forward deck, they witness a collision with an iceberg and overhear the officers and designer discussing its seriousness
24.
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
25.
Arctic
–
The Arctic is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Alaska, Canada, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, land within the Arctic region has seasonally varying snow and ice cover, with predominantly treeless permafrost-containing tundra. Arctic seas contain seasonal sea ice in many places, the Arctic region is a unique area among Earths ecosystems. For example, the cultures in the region and the Arctic indigenous peoples have adapted to its cold, in recent years, Arctic sea ice decline has been caused by global warming. Life in the Arctic includes organisms living in the ice, zooplankton and phytoplankton, fish and marine mammals, birds, land animals, plants, Arctic land is bordered by the subarctic. The word Arctic comes from the Greek word ἀρκτικός, near the Bear, northern, there are a number of definitions of what area is contained within the Arctic. The area can be defined as north of the Arctic Circle, the southern limit of the midnight sun. The Arctics climate is characterized by cold winters and cool summers and its precipitation mostly comes in the form of snow and is low, with most of the area receiving less than 50 cm. High winds often stir up snow, creating the illusion of continuous snowfall, average winter temperatures can be as low as −40 °C, and the coldest recorded temperature is approximately −68 °C. Coastal Arctic climates are moderated by oceanic influences, having generally warmer temperatures, the Arctic is affected by current global warming, leading to Arctic sea ice shrinkage, diminished ice in the Greenland ice sheet, and Arctic methane release as the permafrost thaws. Due to the migration of the planets isotherms, the Arctic region is currently shrinking. Perhaps the most spectacular result of Arctic shrinkage is sea ice loss, there is a large variance in predictions of Arctic sea ice loss, with models showing near-complete to complete loss in September from 2040 to some time well beyond 2100. About half of the models show near-complete to complete sea ice loss in September by the year 2100. Arctic life is characterized by adaptation to short growing seasons with long periods of sunlight, Arctic vegetation is composed of plants such as dwarf shrubs, graminoids, herbs, lichens and mosses, which all grow relatively close to the ground, forming tundra. As one moves northward, the amount of available for plant growth decreases considerably. Colder summer temperatures cause the size, abundance, productivity and variety of plants to decrease, trees cannot grow in the Arctic, but in its warmest parts, shrubs are common and can reach 2 m in height, sedges, mosses and lichens can form thick layers. In the coldest parts of the Arctic, much of the ground is bare, non-vascular plants such as lichens and mosses predominate, along with a few scattered grasses, herbivores on the tundra include the Arctic hare, lemming, muskox, and caribou. They are preyed on by the owl, Arctic fox, Grizzly bear
26.
Arctic Ocean
–
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the worlds five major oceans. Alternatively, the Arctic Ocean can be seen as the northernmost part of the all-encompassing World Ocean, located mostly in the Arctic north polar region in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere, the Arctic Ocean is almost completely surrounded by Eurasia and North America. It is partly covered by sea ice throughout the year and almost completely in winter, the summer shrinking of the ice has been quoted at 50%. The US National Snow and Ice Data Center uses satellite data to provide a record of Arctic sea ice cover. The Arctic may become ice free for the first time in human history within a few years or by 2040, for much of European history, the north polar regions remained largely unexplored and their geography conjectural. He was probably describing loose sea ice known today as growlers or bergy bits, his Thule was probably Norway, early cartographers were unsure whether to draw the region around the North Pole as land or water. The makers of navigational charts, more conservative than some of the more fanciful cartographers, tended to leave the region blank and this lack of knowledge of what lay north of the shifting barrier of ice gave rise to a number of conjectures. In England and other European nations, the myth of an Open Polar Sea was persistent, john Barrow, longtime Second Secretary of the British Admiralty, promoted exploration of the region from 1818 to 1845 in search of this. In the United States in the 1850s and 1860s, the explorers Elisha Kane, even quite late in the century, the eminent authority Matthew Fontaine Maury included a description of the Open Polar Sea in his textbook The Physical Geography of the Sea. Nevertheless, as all the explorers who travelled closer and closer to the reported, the polar ice cap is quite thick. Fridtjof Nansen was the first to make a crossing of the Arctic Ocean. The first surface crossing of the ocean was led by Wally Herbert in 1969, in a dog sled expedition from Alaska to Svalbard, with air support. The first nautical transit of the pole was made in 1958 by the submarine USS Nautilus. Since 1937, Soviet and Russian manned drifting ice stations have extensively monitored the Arctic Ocean, scientific settlements were established on the drift ice and carried thousands of kilometres by ice floes. In World War II, the European region of the Arctic Ocean was heavily contested, the Arctic Ocean occupies a roughly circular basin and covers an area of about 14,056,000 km2, almost the size of Antarctica. The coastline is 45,390 km long and it is surrounded by the land masses of Eurasia, North America, Greenland, and by several islands. It is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Bering Strait and to the Atlantic Ocean through the Greenland Sea, countries bordering the Arctic Ocean are, Russia, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Canada and the United States. There are several ports and harbours around the Arctic Ocean In Alaska, in Canada, ships may anchor at Churchill in Manitoba, Nanisivik in Nunavut, Tuktoyaktuk or Inuvik in the Northwest territories
27.
Arctic exploration
–
Arctic exploration is the physical exploration of the Arctic region of the Earth. It refers to the period during which mankind has explored the region north of the Arctic Circle. Dangerous oceans and poor weather conditions often fetter explorers attempting to reach polar regions and journeying through these perils by sight, boat, sailing past the Pillars of Hercules, he reached Brittany and even Cornwall, eventually circumnavigating the British Isles. From the local population, he heard news of the land of Thule. After six days of sailing, he reached land at the edge of a sea, and described what is believed to be the aurora. While no one knows exactly how far Pytheas sailed, he may have crossed the Arctic Circle, nevertheless, his tales were regarded as fantasy by later Greek and Roman authorities, such as the geographer Strabo. It was impossible, according to their perception of the world, the first Viking to sight Iceland was Gardar Svavarsson, who went off course due to harsh conditions when sailing from Norway to the Faroe Islands. This quickly led to a wave of colonization, not all the settlers were successful however in the attempts to reach the island. In the 10th century, Gunnbjörn Ulfsson got lost in a storm and his report spurred Erik the Red, an outlawed chieftain, to establish a settlement there in 985. While they flourished initially, these settlements eventually foundered due to changing climatic conditions and they are believed to have survived until around 1450. Greenlands early settlers sailed westward, in search of better pasturage, modern scholars debate the precise location of the new lands of Vinland, Markland, and Helluland that they discovered. The Scandinavian peoples also pushed north into their own peninsula by land. As early as 880, the Viking Ohthere of Hålogaland rounded the Scandinavian Peninsula and sailed to the Kola Peninsula and they also explored north by boat, discovering the Northern Sea Route, as well as penetrating to the trans-Ural areas of northern Siberia. They then founded the settlement of Mangazeya east of the Yamal Peninsula in the early 16th century, in 1648 the Cossack Semyon Dezhnyov opened the now famous Bering Strait between America and Asia. Russian settlers and traders on the coasts of the White Sea, by the 17th century they established a continuous sea route from Arkhangelsk as far east as the mouth of Yenisey. This route, known as Mangazeya seaway, after its eastern terminus, Exploration above the Arctic Circle in the Renaissance was driven by the rediscovery of Classical learning and the national quests for commercial expansion. This exploration was hampered by limits in maritime technology of the age, lack of food supplies. A seminal event in Arctic exploration occurred in 1409, when Ptolemys Geographia was translated into Latin, navigators were better able to chart their positions, and the European race to China, sparked by interest in the writings of Marco Polo, commenced
28.
Farthest North
–
Farthest North describes the most northerly latitude reached by explorers before the conquest of the North Pole rendered the expression obsolete. The northern polar regions are more accessible than those of the south, as continental land masses extend to high latitudes. A Dutch expedition led by Willem Barentz reached 79°49’ N on 16 June 1596 to register the first recorded Farthest North, in 1607 Henry Hudson probably reached Hakluyts Headland, but could not proceed further as ice lay packed along Spitsbergens north coast. In 1612 an explorer from Hull, Thomas Marmaduke, claimed to have reached 82°N, none of these claims have any basis in fact, with the second claim, made by Joris Carolus, impossible knowing ice conditions that season, although Marmaduke did at least reach Gråhuken. English whalers reached Svalbards Nordkapp in or before 1622, as shown on the Muscovy Companys Map, the Seven Islands, north of Nordaustlandet, were first marked on a Dutch map of 1663, but were allegedly reached by a ship of Enkhuizen as early as 1618. In 1707 the Dutch whaler Cornelis Cornelisz Giles rounded the northernmost point of Nordaustlandet in Svalbard, in 1806 the Resolution of Whitby, under William Scoresby, Sr. was said to have sailed north of the Seven Islands and reached 81°50 N. One of the first expeditions with the purpose of reaching the North Pole was that of William Edward Parry in 1827, who reached 82°45′ N. Albert Hastings Markham, a member of the British Arctic Expedition of 1875-76 was the one to get closer to the pole 48 years later. Adolphus Greelys Lady Franklin Bay Expedition bested Markham by a few miles, in 1895, Norwegians Fridtjof Nansen and Fredrik Hjalmar Johansen reached latitude 86°14′ N. Two American explorers claimed to reach the North Pole in 1908 and 1909, cooks claim was soon judged to be fraudulent, and Peary was credited as the discoverer of the North Pole for much of the 20th century. In recent decades, however, Pearys claim has become the subject of controversy, with Pearys claim accepted at the time, overland expeditions to the North Pole came to an end. Roald Amundsen of Norway redirected his planned Arctic expedition and instead aimed for the South Pole, which he achieved in 1911. In 1931 an expedition, led by Hubert Wilkins and Lincoln Ellsworth and partly financed by William Randolph Hearst, the Nautilus was modified for under ice operations by submarine designer Simon Lake so it could detect openings in the ice pack and surface to recharge her batteries. While the expedition was a failure, the Nautilus did reach a latitude of 82 degrees north - the farthest north a vessel had ever been, in accordance with the lease agreement, the Nautilus was scuttled after the expedition to prevent her reuse as a warship. On 9 May 1926, Richard Evelyn Byrd attempted to fly over the North Pole in an airplane and he was widely credited with achieving this, but his claim subsequently became subject to doubt. The first man definitely to set foot on the Pole was the Russian Alexander Kuznetsov, on 3 August 1958 the United States submarine USS Nautilus was the first to sail under the ice pack to reach the North Pole. On 17 March 1959 the United States submarine Skate became the first submarine to surface at the North Pole, in 1968–69 the British explorer Wally Herbert became the first person to indubitably reach the Pole on foot, having sledged from Alaska. His expedition was supported by air drops, Arctic exploration List of Arctic expeditions Farthest South Fleming, Fergus
29.
Willem Barentsz
–
Willem Barentsz was a Dutch navigator, cartographer, and Arctic explorer. He went on three expeditions to the far north in search for a Northeast passage, during his third expedition, the crew was stranded on Novaya Zemlya for almost a year. Barentsz died on the voyage in 1597. In the 19th century, the Barents Sea was named after him, Willem Barentsz was born around 1550 on the island Terschelling in the Seventeen Provinces, present-day Netherlands. Barentsz was not his surname but rather his name, short for Barentszoon Barents son. A cartographer by trade, Barentsz sailed to Spain and the Mediterranean to complete an atlas of the Mediterranean region, between 23 and 29 June, Barentsz stayed at Kildin Island. On 9 July, the crew encountered a bear for the first time. After shooting it with a musket when it tried to climb aboard the ship, once leashed and brought aboard the ship however, the bear rampaged and had to be killed. This occurred in Bear Creek, Williams Island, upon discovering the Orange Islands, the crew came across a herd of approximately 200 walruses and tried to kill them with hatchets and pikes. Finding the task more difficult than imagined, they left with only a few ivory tusks. Barentsz reached the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, and followed it northward before being forced to back in the face of large icebergs. Although they did not reach their goal, the trip was considered a success. Setting out on 2 June 1595, the voyage went between the Siberian coast and Vaygach Island, on 30 August, the party came across approximately 20 Samoyed wild men with whom they were able to speak, due to a crewmember speaking their language. 4 September saw a crew sent to States Island to search for a type of crystal that had been noticed earlier. The party was attacked by a bear, and two sailors were killed. Eventually, the turned back upon discovering that unexpected weather had left the Kara Sea frozen. This expedition was considered to be a failure. The Town Council of Amsterdam purchased and outfitted two small ships, captained by Jan Rijp and Jacob van Heemskerk, to search for the channel under the command of Barentsz
30.
Henry Hudson
–
Henry Hudson, born circa 1565-1570, dead 1611, was an English sea explorer and navigator in the early 17th century. Hudson made two attempts on behalf of English merchants to find a prospective Northwest Passage to Cathay via a route above the Arctic Circle. Hudson explored the region around modern New York metropolitan area while looking for a route to Asia while in the employment of the Dutch East India Company. He explored the Hudson River, and laid thereby the foundation for Dutch colonization of the region, Hudson discovered the Hudson Strait and the immense Hudson Bay on his final expedition. While searching for the Northwest Passage, Hudson and his son would lose their lives. In 1611, after wintering on the shore of James Bay, Hudson wanted to press on to the west, the mutineers cast Hudson, his son and seven others adrift, the Hudsons, and those cast off at their side, were never seen again. His name also lives on with the Hudsons Bay Company that explored and worked in the vast Hudson Bay watershed and this large company, and one of the longest lasting, was very successful with fur trading all across North America. Canada acquired a portion of land from the purchase of Hudsons Bay Company lands. Details of Hudsons birth and early life are mostly unknown, some sources have identified Hudson as having been born in about 1565, but others date his birth to around 1570. Other historians assert even less certainty, Mancall, for instance, states that was born in the 1560s. Hudson is thought to have spent many years at sea, beginning as a cabin boy, in 1607, the Muscovy Company of England hired Hudson to find a northerly route to the Pacific coast of Asia. The English were battling the Dutch for northwest routes and it was thought at the time that, because the sun shone for three months in the northern latitudes in the summer, the ice would melt and a ship could make it across the top of the world. Hudson sailed on 1 May with a crew of ten men and they reached the east coast of Greenland on 14 June, coasting it northward until the 22nd. Here they named a headland Youngs Cape, a high mount, like a round castle near it Mount of Gods Mercy. After turning east, they sighted Newland on the 27th, near the mouth of the great bay Hudson later simply named the Great Indraught. On 13 July Hudson and his crew thought they had sailed as far north as 80°23 N, the following day they entered what Hudson later in the voyage named Whales Bay, naming its northwestern point Collins Cape after his boatswain, William Collins. They sailed north the following two days, on the 16th they reached as far north as Hakluyts Headland at 79°49 N, thinking they saw the land continue to 82° N when really it trended to the east. Encountering ice packed along the north coast, they were forced to turn back south, Hudson wanted to make his return by the north of Greenland to Davis his Streights, and so for Kingdom of England, but ice conditions would have made this impossible
31.
William Parry (explorer)
–
His 1819 voyage through the Parry Channel was probably the most successful in the long quest for the Northwest Passage. In 1827 he attempted one of the earliest expeditions to the North Pole, Parry was born in Bath, the son of Dr. Caleb Hillier Parry and Sarah Rigby. He was educated at King Edwards School, Bath, from 1813–1817 he served on the North American station. In 1818 he received command of the brig Alexander in the Arctic expedition under Captain John Ross and this expedition followed the coast of Baffin Bay without making any new discoveries. Parry and many thought that Ross was wrong to turn back after entering Lancaster Sound at the north end of Baffin Island. Partly as a result Parry was given command of a new expedition in the HMS Hecla accompanied by the slower HMS Griper under Matthew Liddon, others on the expedition were Edward Sabine, science officer and Frederick William Beechy. For protection from ice the ships were clad with 3-inch oak, had plates on their bows. They also carried food in tin cans, an invention so new that there were as yet no can openers, instead of taking Rosss easy route anti-clockwise around Baffin Bay he headed straight for Lancaster Sound. Fighting his way through ice he reached clear water on 28 July and he passed Rosss farthest west and kept going. Blocked by heavy ice, they went south for more than 100 miles into Prince Regent Inlet before turning back, continuing west they passed 110°W which entitled them to a £5,000 award offered by Parliament. Finally blocked by ice they turned back to a place Parry called Winter Harbour on the shore of Melville Island. Cutting their way through new ice the ships reached anchorage on 26 September, here they were frozen in for the next 10 months. There were three months of total darkness and in the new year the temperature reached −54 °F, the men were kept busy with regular exercise while the officers put on plays and produced a newspaper. The first case of scurvy was reported in January and by March fourteen men were on the sick list, there was some excitement in early March when the first melt water appeared, but by the end of the month the ice was still 6 feet thick. In June Parry led a group of men dragging a wooden cart to the shore of the island which he named Hecla. It was the first of August before the ships were able to out of the harbor. They got as far west as 113°46W before turning back and it was too late in the season and new ice was already beginning to form. They reached England in October 1820 having lost only one man,1819 was unusually ice-free and no ship was able to travel so far west until Edward Belchers expedition in 1850
32.
North Magnetic Pole
–
Magnetic declination or variation is the angle on the horizontal plane between magnetic north and true north. This angle varies depending on position on the Earths surface, and changes over time. The angle between magnetic and grid meridians is called grid magnetic angle, grid variation, or grivation. ”By convention, declination is positive when magnetic north is east of true north, and negative when it is to the west. Isogonic lines are lines on the Earths surface along which the declination has the constant value. The lowercase Greek letter δ is frequently used as the symbol for magnetic declination, Magnetic declination varies both from place to place and with the passage of time. As a traveller cruises the east coast of the United States, for example, the declination at London, UK is one degree 7 minutes west, and as the country is quite small that figure is fairly good for the whole of the country. It is reducing, and scientists predict that in about 2050 it will be zero, similarly, secular changes to these flows result in slow changes to the field strength and direction at the same point on the Earth. The magnetic declination in an area may change slowly over time, possibly as little as 2–2.5 degrees every hundred years or so. For a location closer to the pole like Ivujivik, the declination may change by 1 degree every three years and this may be insignificant to most travellers, but can be important if using magnetic bearings from old charts or metes in old deeds for locating places with any precision. As an example of how variation changes over time, see the two charts of the area, below, surveyed 124 years apart. The 1884 chart shows a variation of 8 degrees,20 minutes West, the 2008 chart shows 13 degrees,15 minutes West. The instrument used to perform this measurement is known as a declinometer, the approximate position of the north celestial pole is indicated by Polaris. In the northern hemisphere, declination can therefore be determined as the difference between the magnetic bearing and a visual bearing on Polaris. Polaris currently traces a circle 0. 75° in radius around the celestial pole. At high latitudes a plumb-bob is helpful to sight Polaris against an object close to the horizon. A rough estimate of the local declination can be determined from a general isogonic chart of the world or a continent, isogonic lines are also shown on aeronautical and nautical charts. Larger-scale local maps may indicate current local declination, often with the aid of a schematic diagram, unless the area depicted is very small, declination may vary measurably over the extent of the map, so the data may be referred to a specific location on the map. The current rate and direction of change may also be shown, the same diagram may show the angle of grid north, which may differ from true north
33.
John Ross (Royal Navy officer)
–
Admiral Sir John Ross, CB, RN was a British naval officer and Arctic explorer. Ross was the son of the Rev. Andrew Ross of Balsarroch, minister of Inch in Wigtownshire, and Elizabeth Corsane, daughter of Robert Corsane, in 1786, aged only nine, he joined the Royal Navy as an apprentice. He served in the Mediterranean until 1789 and then in the English Channel, in 1808, he acted as a captain of the Swedish Navy and in 1812 became a Commander. Sir John was the uncle of Captain Sir James Clark Ross, RN who explored the Arctic with him and this entailed going around the extreme northeast coast of America and sailing to the Bering Strait. He was also to note the currents, tides, the state of ice and magnetism and he left London in April 1818 in the Isabella accompanied by the Alexander under Lieutenant William Edward Parry. He sailed counter-clockwise around Baffin Bay repeating the observations made by William Baffin two hundred years before, in August he reached Lancaster Sound at the north end of Baffin Island and entered Lancaster Sound which later proved to be the eastern gate of the Northwest Passage. He sailed a number of miles west but went no further and he named the apparent mountains Croker Mountains, in honor of John Wilson Croker, then First Secretary of the Admiralty. He then returned to England despite the protests of several of his officers, including Parry, the account of his voyage, published a year later, brought to light their disagreement, and the ensuing controversy over the existence of Croker Mountains ruined his reputation. This expedition failed to discover much that was new and its main effect was to open a route for whale ships to northern Baffin Bay and provoke William Edward Parry to re-explore Lancaster Sound and find a major portion of the northwest passage. Ross attained the rank of captain on his return to Scotland and about this time built the house North West Castle, in Stranraer, partly to redeem his reputation Ross proposed to use a shallow-draft steam ship to break through the ice. The Admiralty was not interested, but he was able to convince the gin-magnate Felix Booth to finance a second expedition and his ship was the Victory, a side-wheel steamer with paddles that could be lifted away from the ice and an experimental high-pressure boiler built by John Ericsson. It carried four officers and 19 men, the goal was Prince Regent Inlet at the west end of Baffin Island where Parry had lost his ship in 1825. He left the Thames on 23 May 1829, Baffin Bay was unusually ice free and on 6 August 1829 he passed the point where he had turned back 10 years before. On 11 August 1829 he turned south into Prince Regent Inlet, the hulk was gone but there were heaps of stores on the beach, some of which he took. Continuing south he became the first European in the Gulf of Boothia and he took winter quarters at Felix Harbour at the eastern tip of the Boothia Peninsula. In January 1830 a group of Netsilik Inuit arrived and provided food, for one of them the ships carpenter made a wooden leg. In the spring of 1830 James Clark Ross made several trips west into the interior. On 9 April 1830 he reached the west side of the Boothia Peninsula and in May 1830 crossed over ice to the northwest shore of King William Island and it was mid-September 1830 before the ice broke part of its grip
34.
James Clark Ross
–
Ross was born in London, the nephew of Sir John Ross, under whom he entered the navy in 1812, accompanying him on Sir Johns first Arctic voyage in search of a Northwest Passage in 1818. Between 1819 and 1827, Ross took part in four Arctic expeditions under Sir William Parry and it was during this trip that they located the position of the North Magnetic Pole on 1 June 1831 on the Boothia Peninsula in the far north of Canada. It was on this trip, too, that Ross charted the Beaufort Islands, in 1834, Ross was promoted to Captain. In December 1835, he offered his services to the Admiralty to resupply 11 whaling ships which had trapped in Baffin Bay. They accepted his offer, and he set sail in HMS Cove in January 1836, the crossing was difficult, and by the time he had reached the last known position of the whalers in June, all but one had managed to return home. Ross found no trace of this last vessel, the William Torr and he returned to Hull in September 1836 with all his crew in good health. From 1835–39, except for his voyage with the Cove, he conducted a survey of Great Britain with Edward Sabine. Between 1839 and 1843, Ross commanded an Antarctic expedition comprising the vessels HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, Francis Crozier was second-in-command of the expedition and commanded HMS Terror. Support for the expedition had been arranged by Francis Beaufort, hydrographer of the Navy, on the expedition was Joseph Dalton Hooker, who had been invited along as assistant surgeon. In 1841, James Ross discovered the Ross Sea, Victoria Land, and the volcanoes Mount Erebus and Mount Terror, which were named for the expeditions vessels. They sailed for 250 nautical miles along the edge of the low, Ross reported that Admiralty Sound appeared to Ross to have been blocked by glaciers at its southern end. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Société de Géographie in 1843, elected to the Royal Society in 1848, in 1848, Ross was sent on one of three expeditions to find Sir John Franklin. In the spring he and Francis McClintock explored the west coast of the island by sledge and he recognized Peel Sound but thought it too ice-choked for Franklin to have used it. The next summer he tried to reach Wellington Channel but was blocked by ice and he was married to Lady Ann Ross. He died at Aylesbury in 1862, five years after his wife, a blue plaque marks Rosss home in Eliot Place, Blackheath, London. His closest friend was Crozier, with whom he sailed many times, Crozier is known to have become leader of the Franklin Expedition after the death of Sir John Franklin, but he disappeared thereafter along with the other members of the expedition. He also lived in the ancient country house of the Abbots of St. Albans, later known as The Abbey and he is buried with his wife in the local churchyard of St. James the Great, Aston Abbotts. In the gardens of the Abbey there is a lake with two islands, named after the ships Terror and Erebus
35.
Elisha Kane
–
Elisha Kent Kane was an American explorer, and a medical officer in the United States Navy during the first half of the 19th century. He was a member of two Arctic expeditions to rescue the explorer Sir John Franklin and he was present at the discovery of Franklins first winter camp, but he did not find out what had happened to the fatal expedition. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Kane was the son of John Kintzing Kane, a U. S. district judge and his brother was attorney, diplomat, abolitionist, and American Civil War general Thomas L. Kane. Kane graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in 1842, on September 14,1843, he became Assistant Surgeon in the Navy. He served in the China Commercial Treaty mission under Caleb Cushing, in the Africa Squadron, one battle that Kane fought in was at Nopalucan on January 6,1848. At Napoluca, he captured, befriended and saved the life of Mexican General Antonio Gaona, during this expedition, the crew discovered Sir John Franklins first winter camp. Kane then organized and headed the Second Grinnell expedition which sailed from New York on May 31,1853, in 1852, Kane met the Fox sisters, famous for their spirit rapping séances, and he became enamored with the middle sister, Margaret. Kane was convinced that the sisters were frauds, and sought to reform Margaret and she would later claim that they were secretly married in 1856—she changed her name to Margaret Fox Kane—and engaged the family in lawsuits over his will. Kane finally abandoned the icebound brig Advance on May 20,1855, the party, carrying the invalids, lost only one man. Kane and his men were saved by a sailing ship, Kane returned to New York on October 11,1855 and the following year published his two-volume Arctic Explorations. He died there on February 16,1857, Dr. Kane received medals from Congress, the Royal Geographical Society, and the Société de Géographie. Elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1855, the destroyer USS Kane was named for him, as was a later oceanographic research ship, the USNS Kane. Kane was a member of Holland Lodge No.8 F&AM, a prominent Masonic lodge in New York City was renamed the Kane Lodge. The crater Kane on the Moon was also named for him, on May 28,1986, the United States Postal Service issued a 22 cent postage stamp in his honor, depicting his route to the Arctic. The Anoatok historic home at Kane, Pennsylvania was named to allude to his Arctic adventures, the Geographical Society of Philadelphia created the Elisha Kent Kane Medal in his honor. The United States Grinnell Expedition in Search of Sir John Franklin, A personal narrative, Philadelphia, Childs & Peterson,1856, at the Making of America Project. Arctic explorations, The second Grinnell expedition in search of Sir John Franklin,1853,54,55, Philadelphia, Childs & Peterson,1857, attribution Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Kane, Elisha Kent. The Royal Navy in Polar Exploration from Franklin to Scott, E C Coleman 2006 Corner, George W. Doctor Kane of the Arctic Seas Edinger, love and Ice, The Tragic Obsessions of Dr. Elijah Kent Kane, Arctic Explorer
36.
Isaac Israel Hayes
–
Isaac Israel Hayes was an Arctic explorer, physician and politician. Hayes was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, after completing his medical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Hayes signed on as ships surgeon for an 1853-5 expedition led by Elisha Kent Kane to search for John Franklin. His 1854 exploration of the east coast of Ellesmere Island north of 79° North resulted in new, Hayes was apparently the first non-aboriginal explorer of Ellesmere. Hayes led his own expedition 1860-1 which claimed to have reached the farthest north land ever, on the Ellesmere Island coast at 81°35 North, 70°30 West. It is hard to explain how else he could have produced a latitude too high by one, hayess 1861 farthest was at Cape Collinson, less than 10 miles north of 80° north, longitude 70°30′ west. Hayes returned to the United States in 1861 claiming also to have seen the fictional Open Polar Sea reported by Elisha Kent Kane in 1855, the Civil War, however, had come to preoccupy Americans and diminished public interest in Hayes reports of discovery. Hayess expedition was memorialized in Frederic Edwin Churchs painting Aurora Borealis, during the American Civil War, Hayes commanded Satterlee Hospital, a sprawling Union army 4, 500-bed hospital in Philadelphia. Hayes was a Republican member of the New York State Assembly in 1876,1877,1878,1879,1880 and 1881, the United States Range on Canadas Ellesmere Island is named after his ship. Ostrov Kheysa, an island in Franz Josef Land is named after Isaac I, robert E. Johnson, HAYES, ISAAC ISRAEL in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 11, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed February 16,2015, http, michael Robinson, The Coldest Crucible, Arctic Exploration and American Culture Douglas W. Wamsley, Polar Hayes, The Life and Contributions of Isaac Israel Hayes, M. I
37.
Polaris expedition
–
The Polaris expedition was led by the American Charles Francis Hall, who intended it to be the first expedition to reach the North Pole. Sponsored by the United States government, it was one of the first serious attempts at the Pole, after that of British naval officer William Edward Parry, the expedition failed at its main objective, having been troubled throughout by insubordination, incompetence, and poor leadership. Under Halls command, the Polaris departed from New York City in June 1871, by October, the men were wintering on the shore of northern Greenland, making preparations for the trip to the Pole. Hall returned to the ship from an exploratory sledging journey, before he died, he accused members of the crew of poisoning him. An exhumation of his body in 1968 revealed that he had ingested a large quantity of arsenic in the last two weeks of his life, the expeditions notable achievement was reaching 82°29N latitude by ship, a record at the time. On the way southward, nineteen members of the expedition became separated from the ship, the damaged Polaris was run aground and wrecked near Etah, Greenland, in October 1872. The remaining men were able to survive the winter, and were rescued the following summer, a naval board of inquiry investigated Halls death, but no charges were ever laid. In 1827, William Edward Parry led a British Royal Navy expedition with the aim to be the first men to reach the North Pole, Hall had no special academic background or sailing experience, but he was a voracious reader with an obsession for the Arctic. After John Franklins 1845 expedition was lost, Halls focus was directed toward the Arctic and he was able to launch two expeditions in search of Franklin and his crew, one in 1860–63, and a second in 1864–69. These experiences established him as a seasoned Arctic explorer, and gave him valuable contacts among the Inuit people, the renown he gained eventually allowed him to convince the United States government to fund his third expedition, an attempt on the North Pole. In 1870, a bill was introduced in the Senate called the Arctic Resolution and he secured the U. S. Navy tugboat Periwinkle, a 387-ton screw-propelled steamer. At the Washington Navy Yard the ship was fitted as a topsail schooner. She was prepared for Arctic service by the addition of oak timber all over her hull. A new engine was added, and one of the boilers was retrofitted to burn seal or whale oil, the ship was also outfitted with four whaleboats,20 feet long and 4 feet wide, and a flat-bottomed scow. During his previous Arctic expeditions, Hall came to admire the Inuit umiak, food packed on board consisted of tinned ham, salted beef, bread and sailors biscuit. The men intended to supplement their diet with fresh muskox, seal and polar bear, in the spring of 1871, U. S. President Ulysses S. Grant had named Hall as overall commander of the expedition, and he was being referred to as Captain. Though Hall had abundant Arctic experience, he had no sailing experience, in selecting the officers and seamen, Hall relied heavily on whalers with experience in the Arctic. This was markedly different from the expeditions of the British Admiralty
38.
USS Periwinkle (1864)
–
USS Periwinkle was a steamer procured by the Union Navy during the final months of the American Civil War. She served the Union Navy’s struggle against the Confederate States of America as a patrol gunship, the two-masted, schooner-rigged, white oak tug joined the Potomac Flotilla 15 January 1865 as a gunboat, and operated primarily in the Rappahannock River. The Flotilla also interrupted contraband business between lower Maryland and Virginia, and cleared the rivers of mines, and fought guerillas ashore, after the Civil War ended, Periwinkle continued to serve with the flotilla until June 1865. Next, ordered to Norfolk, Virginia, she operated out of the Norfolk Navy Yard until placed in ordinary during 1867, late in 1870, she was selected for service with Charles Francis Halls North Polar Expedition, and was sent to the Washington Navy Yard for repairs. Renamed Polaris early in 1871, she arrived at New York Navy Yard 9 June 1871 to complete loading of stores and she sailed from the New York Navy Yard in July 1871, Charles F. Hall in command. Aiming for the North Pole, she reached 82’1 11’ N. latitude, Polaris was caught in the ice on the homeward voyage in October 1872, and carried for some distance before being crushed. Her crew was rescued, including a party of 18 men led by William F. C. Nindemann, who had debarked to land provisions after the hull of the Polaris had begun to leak, the lost party floated for 196 days and were subsequently rescued separately from the vessel. Union Blockade United States Navy List of United States Navy ships William F. C, nindemann, a seaman on the voyage of the Polaris. This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, the entry can be found here
39.
Charles Francis Hall
–
Charles Francis Hall was an American Arctic explorer. Little is known of Halls early life and he was born in the state of Vermont, but while he was still a child his family moved to Rochester, New Hampshire, where, as a boy, he was apprenticed to a blacksmith. In the 1840s he married and drifted westward, arriving in Cincinnati, Ohio, there he went into business making seals and engraving plates, and later began to publish two small newspapers, The Cincinnati Occasional and The Daily Press. He got as far as Baffin Island, where the George Henry was forced to winter over, the Inuit told Hall of surviving relics from Martin Frobishers mining venture at Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island. Hall soon travelled there to see them first-hand, drawing upon the assistance of his newly found Inuit guides Ebierbing. Hall also learned what he interpreted as evidence that members of Franklins lost expedition might still be alive. On his return to New York, Hall arranged for Harper Brothers to publish his account of the expedition Arctic Researches and it was edited by a British mariner and writer William Parker Snow, who was also obsessed with the fate of Franklin. The two men fell out, and amongst other things Parker Snow later claimed Hall had used his ideas for the search for Franklin without giving him due credit. During 1863 Hall planned an expedition to seek more clues on the fate of Franklin. Finally, in July 1864 a very much smaller expedition departed in the whaler Monticello, during this second expedition to King William Island, he found remains and artifacts from the Franklin expedition, and made more inquiries about their fate from natives living there. Hall eventually realized that the stories of survivors had become garbled and unreliable and he also became disillusioned with the Inuit by the discovery that the remnants of Franklins expedition had deliberately been left to starve. He failed to consider that it would have impossible for the local population to support such a large group of supernumeraries. Halls third expedition was of a different character. He received a grant of $50,000 from the U. S. Congress to command an expedition to the North Pole in the ship Polaris. The party of 25 also included Halls old friend Budington as sailing master, George Tyson as navigator, and Dr. Emil Bessels, the expedition was troubled from the start as the party split into rival factions. Halls authority over the expedition was resented by a portion of the party. Polaris sailed into Thank God Harbor on September 10,1871 and that fall, upon returning to the ship from a sledging expedition with an Inuit guide, Hall suddenly fell ill after drinking a cup of coffee. He collapsed in what was described as a fit, for the next week he suffered from vomiting and delirium, then seemed to improve for a few days
40.
British Arctic Expedition
–
The British Arctic Expedition of 1875-1876, led by Sir George Strong Nares, was sent by the British Admiralty to attempt to reach the North Pole via Smith Sound. Two ships, HMS Alert and HMS Discovery, sailed from Portsmouth on 29 May 1875, although the expedition failed to reach the North Pole, the coasts of Greenland and Ellesmere Island were extensively explored and large amounts of scientific data were collected. On this expedition, Nares became the first explorer to take his ships all the way north through the channel between Greenland and Ellesmere Island to the Lincoln Sea. Up to this time, it had been a theory that this route would lead to the supposed Open Polar Sea, an ice-free region surrounding the pole. A sledging party under Commander Albert Hastings Markham set a new record Farthest North of 83°20 26N, the men suffered badly from scurvy and were hampered by inappropriate clothing and equipment. Realising that his men could not survive another winter in the ice, the expedition included Petty Officer Adam Ayles, after whom both the Ayles Ice Shelf and Mount Ayles are named. Other features named after the expedition include the Markham Ice Shelf, Nares Strait and Alert, Nunavut, pelham Aldrich was a lieutenant on the expedition and commanded the Western Sledge Party to Ellesmere Island, where Cape Aldrich was named in his honour. Archives are held at Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, the RGS and the British Arctic Expedition, 1875-76. The Geographical Journal 143, pp. 200–210, project Naming, the identification of Inuit portrayed in photographic collections at Library and Archives Canada
41.
HMS Alert (1856)
–
HMS Alert was a 17-gun wooden screw sloop of the Cruizer class of the Royal Navy, launched in 1856 and broken up in 1894. She was the ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name. Alert briefly served with the United States Navy, and ended her career with the Canadian Marine Service as a lighthouse tender, ordered together with her sister-ship Falcon on 2 April 1853, she was laid down at the Royal Dockyard, Pembroke in January 1855.8 knots. The class was given a barque-rig sail plan, All the ships of the class were provided with one 32-pounder long gun on a pivot mount and sixteen 32-pounder carriage guns in a broadside arrangement. When converted for Arctic exploration in 1874, her armament was reduced to an outfit of four Armstrong breech-loaders. Alert spent the first 11 years of her life on the Pacific Station, based at Esquimalt at the tip of Vancouver Island. During this period she returned to Plymouth between October 1861 and May 1863 for a refit and her service on the Pacific station was the type of work for which her class had been designed—the policing of Britains far-flung maritime empire. In 1874, Alert was taken in hand for conversion to the role of arctic exploration, above the waterline she was sheathed with teak, and below it, Canadian elm and pitch-pine. The modifications caused her displacement to increase to 1,240 tons, the British Arctic Expedition was commanded by Captain George Strong Nares, and comprised Alert and Discovery. The expedition aimed to reach the North Pole via Smith Sound, contemporary geographers proposed that there could be an Open Polar Sea, and that if the thick layer of ice surrounding it were overcome, access to the North Pole by sea might be possible. Ever since Edward Augustus Inglefield had penetrated Smith Sound in 1852, despite finding heavier-than-expected ice, the expedition pressed on. Leaving Discovery to winter at Lady Franklin Bay, Alert pressed on a further 50 nautical miles through the Robeson Channel, establishing her winter quarters at Floeberg Beach. Spring 1876 saw considerable activity by sledge, charting the coasts of Ellesmere Island and Greenland, on 3 April the second-in-command of Alert, Albert Hastings Markham, took a party north to attempt the Pole. By 11 May, having made progress, they reached their greatest latitude at 83°20 26N. Suffering from snow blindness, scurvy and exhaustion, they turned back, the expedition was rewarded on its return, Nares was knighted, Markham was promoted to captain. The geography of northern Canada and Greenland is dotted with the names of those connected with the expedition, Nares Strait, Nares Lake, Markham Ice Shelf, Ayles Ice Shelf, and Mount Ayles. The northernmost permanently inhabited place on earth, the settlement of Alert at the point of Ellesmere Island, was named for the ship. Alert recommissioned at Chatham on 20 August 1878 under the command of Captain Sir George Strong Nares for a survey of the Strait of Magellan, on 12 March 1879 Captain John Fiot Lee Pearse Maclear took command, and under him she went to Australia Station and the Pacific
42.
George Nares
–
Vice-Admiral Sir George Strong Nares KCB FRS was a British naval officer and Arctic explorer. He commanded the first ship to pass through the Suez Canal, the Challenger Expedition and he was highly thought of as a leader and scientific explorer. In later life he worked for the Board of Trade and as Acting Conservator of the River Mersey, and died in 1915 aged 83. He was born on 24 April 1831, the son and sixth child of Commander William Henry Nares, a British naval officer. He was baptised at the church of St Bridget, Llansanffraid on 22 May and he married Mary Grant, the eldest daughter of a Portsmouth banker, on 22 June 1858. They had four sons and six daughters and his two youngest sons, George Edward Nares and John Dodd Nares entered the Royal Navy. He was educated at the Royal Naval School in New Cross, and in 1845 joined the Royal Navy aboard Canopus, an old battleship captured from the French. Following a posting to Havannah on the Australian station in 1848 during which he served as midshipman and mate, he returned in 1851 and passed his lieutenants exam in 1852. Nares was accepted as the mate of Resolute, and thus gained valuable early experience of the Arctic during the 1852-1854 expedition. In 1854 Nares received his promotion to lieutenant and specialised as a gunnery officer and he joined the new battleship Conqueror in 1854, including service in the Mediterranean during the Crimean War. During this time he was loaned to the Aetna-class ironclad floating battery Glatton under the command of Captain Arthur Cumming, Glatton arrived in the Black Sea too late to see action. He served as a lieutenant in charge of training cadets in Illustrious, during this time he wrote the best-selling book The Naval Cadets Guide, which was also republished under the title Seamanship, and was regarded as the best manual of its day. He was promoted to commander in 1862 and took command of the training ship Boscawen in September 1863 and his next ship was the ageing 4-gun wooden paddle sloop Salamander, which he commanded from 1865. His duties involved keeping the communications between Sydney and Cape York in the furthest north point of Queensland open, on the long journeys between he conducted surveys of the Great Barrier Reef. The county of Nares in Queensland was named after him, on the night before the canal was due to open, Nares navigated his vessel, in total darkness and without lights, through the mass of waiting ships until it was in front of LAigle. When dawn broke the French were horrified to find that the Royal Navy was now first in line, Nares received both an official reprimand and an unofficial vote of thanks from the Admiralty for his actions in promoting British interests and for demonstrating such superb seamanship. In recognition of his work in the Gulf of Suez, Nares was promoted to the rank of captain in 1869, Charles Wyville Thomson and the Royal Society of London obtained the corvette Challenger from the Royal Navy for a 3-year expedition of scientific discovery. Although much of the world was well charted, this only to the coastlines
43.
HMS Discovery (1874)
–
HMS Discovery was a wooden screw storeship, formerly the whaling ship Bloodhound. She was purchased in 1874 for the British Arctic Expedition of 1875–1876 and was sold in 1902, built in Dundee by Stephens & Sons as the whaler Bloodhound in 1873, she was ideally suited to Arctic exploration. She was purchased by the Admiralty on 5 December 1874 and converted for exploration and she carried a barque-rig and her Greenock Foundry Company steam engine generated an indicated 312 horsepower. Contemporary geographers proposed that there could be an Open Polar Sea, ever since Edward Augustus Inglefield had penetrated Smith Sound in 1852, it had been a likely route to the North. Nares commanded the converted sloop HMS Alert, and with him went Discovery, HMS Valorous carried extra stores and accompanied the expedition as far as Godhavn. Despite finding heavier-than-expected ice, the expedition pressed on, leaving Discovery to winter at Lady Franklin Bay, Alert carried on a further 50 nautical miles through the Robeson Channel, establishing her winter quarters at Floeberg Beach. Spring 1876 saw considerable activity by sledge, charting the coasts of Ellesmere Island and Greenland, on 3 April the second-in-command of Alert, Albert Hastings Markham, took a party north to attempt the Pole. By 11 May, having made progress, they reached their greatest latitude at 83°20 26N. Suffering from snow blindness, scurvy and exhaustion, they turned back, the expedition returned to the UK in Autumn 1876 and was well rewarded, Nares was knighted, Markham was promoted to Captain. The geography of northern Canada and Greenland is littered with the names of those connected with the expedition, the Discovery saw no further seagoing service after her return from the Arctic. She was employed as a storeship in Portsmouth Harbour from 1880, Discovery was sold to D Murray in February 1902. The 1901 research vessel, built for the British National Antarctic Expedition, incorporated many of the features of Discovery, RRS Discovery was commanded by Robert Falcon Scott and took part in the Discovery Investigations from 1924 to 1931. She is now on permanent display at Dundee, subsequent Royal Research Ships, launched in 1929 and 1962, have also borne the name, as has Space Shuttle Discovery. Narrative of a voyage to the Polar Sea during 1875–76 in H. M. ships ‘Alert’ and ‘Discovery’, by Captain George Strong Nares, in two volumes, London 1878, online book Volume 1 & Volume 2
44.
Henry Frederick Stephenson
–
Admiral Sir Henry Frederick Stephenson GCVO KCB was a Royal Navy officer, courtier, and Arctic explorer. Stephenson was the son of Henry Frederick Stephenson MP and Lady Mary Keppel and his eldest brother, Sir Augustus Keppel Stephenson, was a Treasury Solicitor, and the second person to hold the office of Director of Public Prosecutions in England and Wales. On 18 December 1855 Stephenson joined the Royal Navy, becoming a Naval Cadet in HMS St Jean dAcre, commanded by his uncle Henry Keppel, and serving in the Black Sea during the Crimean War. In June 1857 he served as a Midshipman in HMS Pearl, serving with Pearls Naval Brigade during the Indian Mutiny of 1857, in June 1861 he was promoted lieutenant in HMS Emerald, serving in the Channel Squadron. From 18 January 1867 to 26 April 1868 he served as a lieutenant in HMS Rodney, commanded by Algernon C. F. Heneage, the flagship of Vice-Admiral Henry Keppel, serving in China. Following the death of Commander John T. Swann, Keppel promoted Stephenson to commander on 26 April 1868, the promotion was confirmed by the Admiralty on 7 July 1868. He was appointed Equerry-in-waiting to the Prince of Wales on 5 July 1878 he held this post from time to time until 4 April 1893, on 15 September 1880 he became captain of HMS Carysfort. He participated in the recapture of Ismaïlia, and was awarded the 3rd Class Order of Osmanieh by the Khedive of Egypt in 1883 and he was appointed Aide-de-camp to the Queen on 1 January 1888. He was additionally appointed CB in the division on 23 May 1889. On 4 August 1890 Stephenson was promoted rear admiral, serving as Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Station from 4 May 1893 to 19 June 1896 and he was promoted vice admiral on 10 October 1896, serving from 7 June 1897 to 20 December 1898 as Commander-in-Chief of the Channel Squadron. He retired on 16 September 1904 with the rank of admiral, Stephenson was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order on 9 November 1902. On 24 July 1904 Stephenson was appointed Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod and he was appointed an Extra Equerry to George V of the United Kingdom on 10 June 1910. He married the Hon. Charlotte Elizabeth Eleanor Fraser on 5 December 1903 and she died in 1923 and Stephenson died at home in London on 16 December 1919 aged 77
