Verviers
Verviers is a Walloon city and municipality located in the Belgian province of Liège. The Verviers municipality includes the old communes of Ensival, Petit-Rechain, Water has played an important role in the towns economy, notably in the development first of its textile and tourist industries. As a result, many fountains have been built in Verviers, the seats of the two Walloon public institutions for water distribution and water treatment are located in the town. Various flint and bone fragments, as well as Roman coins, were found in this area, in the 4th century, the Romans had to deal with a constant push of Germanic tribes coming from the east. Successful at first at containing them, they finally had to concede defeat, the Verviers area was covered with forests and became a hunting ground for the Merovingian kings, who maintained a vicus in neighbouring Theux. It was slowly Christianized by the monks of the nearby Abbey of Stavelot, in the 10th century, Charles the Simple ceded the Marquisate of Franchimont to the prince-bishop of Liège, just before the creation of the Prince-Bishopric.
Liège took direct control of the marquisate in 1014, an act which was confirmed by emperor Frederick Barbarossa, the first mention of a textile industry in this area dates from the 15th century. One century later, the industry took the place of the older metallurgical works, thanks in part to the Eighty Years War raging in the neighbouring Netherlands. The size of the town, remained relatively modest and it was only in 1651 that the expansion of the fulleries led to Verviers being recognized as one of the prince-bishoprics bonnes villes. The end of the 18th century was troubled by the French Revolution, the annexation of Liège to France in 1795 caused a steep economic decline and unprecedented poverty. The citys fortunes rose again after the Battle of Waterloo, Verviers was at the eastern end of the sillon industriel, the industrial backbone of Wallonia. Industrialist William Cockerill used British know-how to start a new era in Verviers textile industry, roads were paved, gas lighting was installed, and the city doubled in size thanks to the Industrial Revolution.
After World War I, Verviers could share with Bradford the title of Wool Capital of the World, Verviers was home to a thriving wool and textile industry that was renowned for its quality and contributed greatly to the growth of the town. However, as of the 1950s, the factories could not face international competition. The economy has been recovering since the mid-1990s but remains fragile. Several commercial complexes have opened in recent years in an attempt to revitalize the most affected areas, Verviers counts several museums, including the Wool and Fashion Tourist Centre, housed in a former factory with a Neoclassical-style façade. The Grand Theatre, known as La Bonbonnière, was built in the style at the end of the 19th century. The city has a number of interesting fountains and thematic strolling paths
Forest
A forest is a large area dominated by trees. Hundreds of more precise definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as density, tree height, land use, legal standing. According to the widely used Food and Agriculture Organization definition, forests covered four billion hectares or approximately 30 percent of the land area in 2006. Forests are the dominant terrestrial ecosystem of Earth, and are distributed across the globe, Forests account for 75% of the gross primary productivity of the Earths biosphere, and contain 80% of the Earths plant biomass. Forests at different latitudes and elevations form distinctly different ecozones, boreal forests near the poles, tropical forests near the equator, higher elevation areas tend to support forests similar to those at higher latitudes, and amount of precipitation affects forest composition. Human society and forests influence each other in both positive and negative ways, Forests provide ecosystem services to humans and serve as tourist attractions.
Forests can affect peoples health, human activities, including harvesting forest resources, can negatively affect forest ecosystems. Although forest is a term of common parlance, there is no universally recognised precise definition, there are three broad categories of forest definitions in use, land use, and land cover. Land use definitions are based upon the purpose that the land serves. For example, a forest may be defined as any land that is used primarily for production of timber, land cover definitions define forests based upon the type and density of vegetation growing on the land. Such definitions typically define a forest as an area growing trees above some threshold and these thresholds are typically the number of trees per area, the area of ground under the tree canopy or the section of land that is occupied by the cross-section of tree trunks. Under such land cover definitions, and area of land only be defined as forest if it is growing trees, areas that fail to meet the land cover definition may be still included under while immature trees are establishing if they are expected to meet the definition at maturity.
Under land use definitions, there is variation on where the cutoff points are between a forest and savanna. Under some definitions, forests require high levels of tree canopy cover, from 60% to 100%, excluding savannas. Other definitions consider savannas to be a type of forest, the term was not endemic to Romance languages, and cognates in Romance languages, such as Italian foresta and Portuguese floresta, etc. are all ultimately borrowings of the French word. The exact origin of Medieval Latin foresta is obscure, uses of the word forest in English to denote any uninhabited area of non-enclosure are now considered archaic. The word was introduced by the Norman rulers of England as a term denoting an uncultivated area legally set aside for hunting by feudal nobility. These hunting forests were not necessarily wooded much, if at all, however, as hunting forests did often include considerable areas of woodland, the word forest eventually came to mean wooded land more generally
Battle of France
The Battle of France, known as the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France and the Low Countries in 1940 during the Second World War. Italy entered the war on 10 June 1940 and attempted an invasion of France, the German plan for the invasion of France consisted of two main operations. After the withdrawal of the BEF, the German forces began Fall Rot on 5 June, the sixty remaining French divisions made a determined resistance but were unable to overcome the German air superiority and armoured mobility. German tanks outflanked the Maginot Line and pushed deep into France, German forces occupied Paris unopposed on 14 June after a chaotic period of flight of the French government that led to a collapse of the French army. German commanders met with French officials on 18 June with the goal of forcing the new French government to accept an armistice that amounted to surrender and this led to the end of the French Third Republic. France was not liberated until the summer of 1944, in 1939, Britain and France offered military support to Poland in the likely case of a German invasion.
In the dawn of 1 September 1939, the German Invasion of Poland began and the United Kingdom declared war on 3 September, after an ultimatum for German forces to immediately withdraw their forces from Poland was met without reply. Following this, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada, on 7 September, in accordance with their alliance with Poland, France began the Saar Offensive with an advance from the Maginot Line 5 km into the Saar. France had mobilised 98 divisions and 2,500 tanks against a German force consisting of 43 divisions, the French advanced until they met the thin and undermanned Siegfried Line. On 17 September, the French supreme commander, Maurice Gamelin gave the order to withdraw French troops to their starting positions, following the Saar Offensive, a period of inaction called the Phoney War set in between the belligerents. Adolf Hitler had hoped that France and Britain would acquiesce in the conquest of Poland, on 6 October, he made a peace offer to both Western powers. On 9 October, Hitler issued a new Führer-Directive Number 6, the plan was based on the seemingly more realistic assumption that German military strength would have to be built up for several years.
For the moment only limited objectives could be envisaged and were aimed at improving Germanys ability to survive a long war in the west. Hitler ordered a conquest of the Low Countries to be executed at the shortest possible notice to forestall the French and it would provide the basis for a long-term air and sea campaign against Britain. On 10 October 1939, Britain refused Hitlers offer of peace and on 12 October, colonel-General Franz Halder, presented the first plan for Fall Gelb on 19 October. This was the codename of plans for a campaign in the Low Countries. Halders plan has been compared to the Schlieffen Plan, the given to the German strategy of 1914 in the First World War. It was similar in both plans entailed an advance through the middle of Belgium
Eupen
Eupen is a city and municipality in the Belgian province of Liège,15 kilometres from the German border, from the Dutch border and from the High Fens nature reserve. The town is the capital of the Euroregion Meuse-Rhine, in 1919, after the First World War, the Treaty of Versailles transferred Eupen and the nearby municipality of Malmedy from Germany to Belgium. German remains the language in Eupen, and the city serves as the capital for Belgiums German-speaking Community. The city has a university, the Autonome Hochschule in der deutschsprachigen Gemeinschaft, offering bachelors degrees in Education. In 2010, Eupens association football team, K. A. S, became the first club from the German-speaking Community to play in the Belgian Pro League. On 1 January 2006 Eupen had a population of 18,248. The total area is 103.74 km2 which gives a density of 175.90 inhabitants per km2. Eupen is considered in Belgium to be a Roman Catholic region with strongly conservative views and the St. Nikolaus Chapel were first mentioned in 1213 as part of the Duchy of Limburg.
In 1288, after the Battle of Worringen, the Duchy of Limburg was annexed by John I of Brabant and Limburg were conquered by Burgundy in 1387, and Eupen was burnt to the ground during the war against the Guelders. Burgundy was dissolved in 1477 by the Austrian Habsburgs who inherited Eupen after gaining both Limburg and Brabant, habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Charles V granted Eupen the privilege to conduct two markets per year in 1544. In 1555, both Brabant and Limburg were passed to the Spanish branch of the Habsburgs, ten years later, Protestantism was mentioned for the first time in the town. In 1582, during the Dutch Revolt against the Spanish Habsburgs, rebels burnt Eupen, bubonic plague reached Eupen in 1635, with devastataing consequences. Eupen obtained its own court of law in 1648, and in 1674 received city rights, giving it greater recognition, six years later, textile manufacture was introduced to the city. In 1713, with the Treaty of Utrecht and Limburg were returned to the Austrian Habsburgs, revolutionary France took the city in 1794, incorporating it into the Département Ourthe, préfecture Liège and sous-préfecture Malmedy.
Following the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Eupen became part of the Prussian Rhine Province, all Prussian possessions became part of the German Empire in 1870, while Eupen itself enjoyed its popularity as a spa town. Records show that a weaver named Schunck was established as early as 1776 and his eldest son, Nikolaus Severin Schunck, had six sons, of whom the third oldest, would found the firm in Heerlen. The youngest son, remained at the weaving mill, the company became the famous Schunck. After the First World War, the 1919 Treaty of Versailles transferred Eupen, the effect led to the formation of extreme right-wing Nazi-like groups in Eupen
Departments of France
In the administrative divisions of France, the department is one of the three levels of government below the national level, between the administrative regions and the commune. There are 96 departments in metropolitan France and 5 overseas departments, each department is administered by an elected body called a departmental council. From 1800 to April 2015, they were called general councils, the departments were created in 1791 as a rational replacement of Ancien Régime provinces with a view to strengthen national unity, the title department is used to mean a part of a larger whole. Almost all of them were named after geographical features rather than after historical or cultural territories which could have their own loyalties. The earliest known suggestion of it is from 1764 in the writings of dArgenson and they have inspired similar divisions in many countries, some of them former French colonies. Most French departments are assigned a number, the Official Geographical Code. Some overseas departments have a three-digit number, the number is used, for example, in the postal code, and was until recently used for all vehicle registration plates.
For example, inhabitants of Loiret might refer to their department as the 45 and this reform project has since been abandoned. The first French territorial departments were proposed in 1665 by Marc-René dArgenson to serve as administrative areas purely for the Ponts et Chaussées infrastructure administration, before the French Revolution, France gained territory gradually through the annexation of a mosaic of independent entities. By the close of the Ancien Régime, it was organised into provinces, during the period of the Revolution, these were dissolved, partly in order to weaken old loyalties. Their boundaries served two purposes, Boundaries were chosen to break up Frances historical regions in an attempt to erase cultural differences, Boundaries were set so that every settlement in the country was within a days ride of the capital of the department. This was a security measure, intended to keep the national territory under close control. This measure was directly inspired by the Great Terror, during which the government had lost control of rural areas far from any centre of government.
The old nomenclature was carefully avoided in naming the new departments, most were named after an areas principal river or other physical features. Even Paris was in the department of Seine, the number of departments, initially 83, was increased to 130 by 1809 with the territorial gains of the Republic and of the First French Empire. Following Napoleons defeats in 1814-1815, the Congress of Vienna returned France to its pre-war size, in 1860, France acquired the County of Nice and Savoy, which led to the creation of three new departments. Two were added from the new Savoyard territory, while the department of Alpes-Maritimes was created from Nice, the 89 departments were given numbers based on their alphabetical order. The department of Bas-Rhin and parts of Meurthe, Moselle and Haut-Rhin were ceded to the German Empire in 1871, following Frances defeat in the Franco-Prussian War
Belgium
Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a sovereign state in Western Europe bordered by France, the Netherlands, Germany and the North Sea. It is a small, densely populated country which covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres and has a population of about 11 million people. Additionally, there is a group of German-speakers who live in the East Cantons located around the High Fens area. Historically, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were known as the Low Countries, the region was called Belgica in Latin, after the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, Belgium is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. It is divided into three regions and three communities, that exist next to each other and its two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia, Belgiums linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its political history and complex system of governance, made up of six different governments.
Upon its independence, declared in 1830, Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Belgium is a member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD and WTO. Its capital, hosts several of the EUs official seats as well as the headquarters of major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium is a part of the Schengen Area, Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy and is categorized as very high in the Human Development Index. A gradual immigration by Germanic Frankish tribes during the 5th century brought the area under the rule of the Merovingian kings, a gradual shift of power during the 8th century led the kingdom of the Franks to evolve into the Carolingian Empire. Many of these fiefdoms were united in the Burgundian Netherlands of the 14th and 15th centuries, the Eighty Years War divided the Low Countries into the northern United Provinces and the Southern Netherlands.
The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish and the Austrian Habsburgs and this was the theatre of most Franco-Spanish and Franco-Austrian wars during the 17th and 18th centuries. The reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1815, although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 and for women in 1949. The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party, French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie
France
France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lille, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established.
The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity.
In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
Bastogne
Bastogne is a Walloon municipality of Belgium located in the province of Luxembourg in the Ardennes. The municipality of Bastogne includes the old communes of Longvilly, Villers-la-Bonne-Eau, the town is situated on a ridge in the Ardennes at an elevation of 510 metres. At the time of the Roman conquest the region of Bastogne was inhabited by the Treveri, a form of the name Bastogne was first mentioned only much later, in 634, when the local lord ceded these territories to the St Maximins Abbey, near Trier. A century later, the Bastogne area went to the nearby Prüm Abbey, the town of Bastogne and its marketplace are again mentioned in an 887 document. By the 13th century, Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1332, John the Blind, his son, granted the city its charter and had it encircled by defensive walls, part of which, the current Porte de Trèves, still exists. The city’s walls were quite effective at protecting it during the times that followed. The city’s economy actually flourished thanks to the renown of its agricultural, the walls repelled a Dutch attack successfully in 1602.
In 1688, they were dismantled by order of King Louis XIV when the town was occupied by French forces during the Nine Years War, the 19th century and Belgiums independence were favourable to Bastogne, as its forest products and cattle fairs became better known abroad. Several railway lines were built to link it to the neighbouring towns and this all came to an end with the German occupation during World War I. Liberated by the Allies in September 1944, Bastogne was attacked by German forces a few months later. Hitlers idea was to control of the Ardennes, splitting British from American forces, advance to and reoccupy the strategic port of Antwerp. On December 16, taking advantage of cold and fog, German artillery initiated the Battle of the Bulge attacking the American divisions deployed sparsely around Bastogne. On December 22, German emissaries asked for the American surrender, to which the General answered tersely, “Nuts. ”The next day the skies cleared, allowing Allied air forces to retaliate and to much needed food, medicine.
On December 26, the Third U. S. Army under the command of General Patton arrived, the official end of the Battle of Bastogne occurred three weeks later, when all fighting in the area ceased. Bastogne is the terminus of the Liberty Road, the way that marks the path of liberating Allied forces. The municipality of Bastogne comprises five sections which were separate municipalities before a merger in 1977, each contains a number of villages. The 101st Airborne Museum includes dioramas and more about the experiences of soldiers, the Bastogne Barracks museum is free and operated by the Belgian Army. It is located in the used as the headquarters of the U. S
Devonian
The Devonian is a geologic period and system of the Paleozoic, spanning 60 million years from the end of the Silurian,419.2 million years ago, to the beginning of the Carboniferous,358.9 Mya. It is named after Devon, where rocks from this period were first studied, the first significant adaptive radiation of life on dry land occurred during the Devonian. Free-sporing vascular plants began to spread across dry land, forming extensive forests which covered the continents, by the middle of the Devonian, several groups of plants had evolved leaves and true roots, and by the end of the period the first seed-bearing plants appeared. Various terrestrial arthropods became well-established, Fish reached substantial diversity during this time, leading the Devonian to often be dubbed the Age of Fish. The first ray-finned and lobe-finned bony fish appeared, while the placodermi began dominating almost every aquatic environment. The ancestors of all four-limbed vertebrates began adapting to walking on land, as their strong pectoral, in the oceans, primitive sharks became more numerous than in the Silurian and Late Ordovician.
The first ammonites, species of molluscs, trilobites, the mollusk-like brachiopods and the great coral reefs, were still common. The Late Devonian extinction which started about 375 million years ago severely affected marine life, killing off all placodermi, and all trilobites, save for a few species of the order Proetida. The palaeogeography was dominated by the supercontinent of Gondwana to the south, the continent of Siberia to the north, while the rock beds that define the start and end of the Devonian period are well identified, the exact dates are uncertain. According to the International Commission on Stratigraphy, the Devonian extends from the end of the Silurian 419.2 Mya, another common term is Age of the Fishes, referring to the evolution of several major groups of fish that took place during the period. Older literature on the Anglo-Welsh basin divides it into the Downtonian, Dittonian and Farlovian stages, in the Late Devonian, by contrast, arid conditions were less prevalent across the world and temperate climates were more common.
The Devonian Period is formally broken into Early and Late subdivisions, the rocks corresponding to those epochs are referred to as belonging to the Lower and Upper parts of the Devonian System. Early Devonian The Early Devonian lasted from 419.2 ±2.8 to 393.3 ±2.5 and began with the Lochkovian stage, which lasted until the Pragian. It spanned from 410.8 ±2.8 to 407.6 ±2.5, and was followed by the Emsian, which lasted until the Middle Devonian began,393. 3±2.7 million years ago. Middle Devonian The Middle Devonian comprised two subdivisions, first the Eifelian, which gave way to the Givetian 387. 7±2.7 million years ago. Late Devonian Finally, the Late Devonian started with the Frasnian,382.7 ±2.8 to 372.2 ±2.5, during which the first forests took shape on land. The first tetrapods appeared in the record in the ensuing Famennian subdivision. This lasted until the end of the Devonian,358. 9±2.5 million years ago, the Devonian was a relatively warm period, and probably lacked any glaciers
Baraque Michel
The Baraque Michel is a locality in the municipality Jalhay, in the High Fens, eastern Belgium. Before the annexation of the Eastern Cantons by Belgium in 1919, now it is the third highest point at 674 metres, after the nearby Signal de Botrange and the Weißer Stein. The Baraque itself is an inn and the point of many excursions. The establishment was used as relay for the mail coaches. The direct connection was partly through Belgian territory, along the current N68 road, several rivers of Belgium, part of the basin of Vesdre, take their source in the vicinity. The principal ones are Gileppe, Hoëgne and Helle, media related to Baraque Michel at Wikimedia Commons
Semois
The Semois is a river flowing from the Ardennes uplands of Belgium and France towards the River Meuse, of which it is a right tributary. The source of the Semois is in Arlon, in the Belgian province of Luxembourg, flowing in a roughly westerly direction, it enters France after passing through the Belgian village of Bohan-sur-Semois and joins the Meuse some 10 kilometres further downstream in Monthermé. The total length of the river is 210 kilometres, other places on the banks of the Semois are Chiny, Herbeumont and Vresse-sur-Semois. The earliest documentation of the name, as SESMARA, is dated from the 2nd century AD and that was before that region was influenced by significant Germanic immigration. Medieval forms include Sesomirs, Sesmarus and Semoir, the river has given its name to a variety of tobacco grown in the area. Http, //www. geoportail. fr The Semois at the Sandre database
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