Ashkelon or Ashqelon known as Ascalon, is a coastal city in the Southern District of Israel on the Mediterranean coast, 50 kilometres south of Tel Aviv, 13 kilometres north of the border with the Gaza Strip. The ancient seaport of Ashkelon dates back to the Neolithic Age. In the course of its history, it has been ruled by the Ancient Egyptians, the Canaanites, the Philistines, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Phoenicians, the Hasmoneans, the Romans, the Persians, the Arabs and the Crusaders, until it was destroyed by the Mamluks in 1270; the Arab village of al-Majdal or al-Majdal Asqalan was established a few kilometres inland from the ancient site by the late 15th century, under Ottoman rule. In 1918, it became part of the British Occupied Enemy Territory Administration and in 1920 became part of Mandatory Palestine. Al-Majdal on the eve of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War had 10,000 Arab inhabitants and in October 1948, the city accommodated thousands more refugees from nearby villages.

Al-Majdal was the forward position of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force based in Gaza. The village was conquered by Israeli forces on 5 November 1948, by which time most of the Arab population had fled, leaving some 2,700 inhabitants, of which 500 were deported by Israeli soldiers in December 1948; the town was named Migdal Gaza, Migdal Gad and Migdal Ashkelon by the new Jewish inhabitants. Most of the remaining Arabs were deported by 1950. In 1953, the nearby neighborhood of Afridar was incorporated and the name "Ashkelon" was readopted to the town. By 1961, Ashkelon was ranked 18th among Israeli urban centers with a population of 24,000. In 2018 the population of Ashkelon was 140,968; the name Ashkelon is western Semitic, might be connected to the triliteral root š-q-l attesting to its importance as a center for mercantile activities. Its name appeared in Phoenician and Punic as ŠQLN and ʾŠQLN. Scallion and shallot are derived from the Latin name for Ashkelon. Ashkelon was the oldest and largest seaport in Canaan, part of the pentapolis of the Philistines, north of Gaza and south of Jaffa.

The Neolithic site of Ashkelon is located on 1.5 km north of Tel Ashkelon. It is dated by Radiocarbon dating to c. 7900 bp, to the poorly known Pre-Pottery Neolithic C phase of the Neolithic. It was excavated in 1954 by French archaeologist Jean Perrot. In 1997–1998, a large scale salvage project was conducted at the site by Yosef Garfinkel on behalf of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and nearly 1,000 square metres were examined. A final excavation report was published in 2008. In the site over a hundred fireplaces and hearths were found and numerous pits, but no solid architecture, except for one wall. Various phases of occupation were found, one atop the other, with sterile layers of sea sand between them; this indicates. The main finds were c. 20,000 flint artifacts. At Neolithic sites flints far outnumber animal bones; the bones belong to non-domesticated animals. When all aspects of this site are taken into account, it appears to have been used by pastoral nomads for meat processing; the nearby sea could supply salt necessary for the conservation of meat.

The city was built on a sandstone outcropping and has a good underground water supply. It was large as an ancient city with as many as 15,000 people living inside the walls. Ashkelon was a thriving Middle Bronze Age city of more than 150 acres, its commanding ramparts, measuring 1.5 miles long, 50 feet high and 150 feet thick, as a ruin they stand two stories high. The thickness of the walls was so great that the mudbrick city gate had a stone-lined, 8 feet wide tunnel-like barrel vault, coated with white plaster, to support the superstructure: it is the oldest such vault found. Roman and Islamic fortifications, faced with stone, followed the same footprint, a vast semicircle protecting Ashkelon on the land side. On the sea it was defended by a high natural bluff. A roadway more than 20 feet in width ascended the rampart from the harbor and entered a gate at the top. In 1991 the ruins of a small ceramic tabernacle was found a finely cast bronze statuette of a bull calf silvered, 4 inches long.

Images of calves and bulls were associated with the worship of the Canaanite gods Baal. Ashkelon is mentioned in the Egyptian Execration Texts of the 11th dynasty as "Asqanu." In the Amarna letters, there are seven letters to and from Ashkelon's king Yidya, the Egyptian pharaoh. One letter from the pharaoh to Yidya was discovered in the early 1900s; the Philistines conquered Canaanite Ashkelon about 1150 BCE. Their earliest pottery, types of structures and inscriptions are similar to the early Greek urbanised centre at Mycenae in mainland Greece, adding weight to the hypothesis that the Philistines were one of the populations among the "Sea Peoples" that upset cultures throughout the eastern Mediterranean at that time. Ashkelon became one of the five Philistine cities that were warring with the Israelites and the United Kingdom of Israel and successive Kingdom of Judah. According to Herodotus, its temple of Venus was the oldest of its kind, imitated in Cyprus, he mentions that this temple was pillaged by marauding Scythians during the time of

An areostationary orbit or areosynchronous equatorial orbit is a circular areo­synchronous orbit in the Martian equatorial plane about 17,032 km above the surface, any point on which revolves about Mars in the same direction and with the same period as the Martian surface. Areo­stationary orbit is a concept similar to Earth's geo­stationary orbit; the prefix areo- derives from Ares, the ancient Greek god of war and counterpart to the Roman god Mars, with whom the planet was identified. The modern Greek word for Mars is Άρης. To date, no artificial satellites have been placed in this orbit, but it is of interest to some scientists foreseeing a future tele­communications network for the exploration of Mars. An asteroid or station placed in areostationary orbit could be used to construct a Martian space elevator for use in transfers between the surface of Mars and orbit. Orbital speed is calculated by multiplying the angular speed of the satellite by the orbital radius: R s y n = G T 2 4 π 2 3 G = Gravitational constant m2 = Mass of the celestial body T = rotational period of the bodyBy this formula one can find the geostationary-analogous orbit of an object in relation to a given body, in this case, Mars.

The mass of Mars being 6.4171 × the sidereal period 88,642 seconds. The synchronous orbit thus has a radius of 20,428 km from the centre of mass of Mars, therefore areostationary orbit can be defined as 17,032 km above the surface of the Mars equator. Any satellites in areostationary orbit will suffer from increased orbital station keeping costs, because the Clarke belt of Mars lies between the orbits of the planet's two natural satellites. Phobos has a semi-major axis of 9,376 km, Deimos has a semi-major axis of 23,463 km; the close proximity to Phobos in particular will cause unwanted orbital resonance effects that will shift the orbit of areostationary satellites. Geostationary orbit Areosynchronous orbit List of orbits Mars Network - Marsats - NASA site devoted to future communications infrastructure for Mars exploration Bandwidth available from an areostationary satellite

A History of Philosophy is a history of Western philosophy written by the English Jesuit priest Frederick Charles Copleston published in nine volumes between 1946 and 1975. As is noted by The Encyclopedia Britannica, the work became a "standard introductory philosophy text for thousands of university students in its U. S. paperback edition." Since 2003 it has been marketed as an eleven volume work with two published other works by Copleston being added to the series. The work provides extensive coverage of Western philosophy from the Pre-Socratics through to John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, George Edward Moore, Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Conceived as a three volume work covering ancient and modern philosophy, written to serve as a textbook for use in Catholic ecclesiastical seminaries, the work grew into nine volumes published between 1946 and 1975 and to become a standard work of reference for philosophers and philosophy students, noted for its objectivity. A tenth and eleventh volume were added to the series in 2003 by Continuum.

The tenth volume Russian Philosophy had appeared as Philosophy in Russia in 1986. The eleventh volume Logical Postivism and Existentialism had appeared as the revised 1972 edition of Contemporary Philosophy; the series has been translated into Italian, Spanish, Chinese, Romanian and Persian. The following is a summary of details for the eleven volumes: Originally published in 1946, this volume covers: Pre-Socratic philosophy The Socratic period Plato Aristotle Post-Aristotelian philosophyAs with others in the series, this volume would be made available by Image Books in two parts, the first ending with Plato, the second beginning with Aristotle. Gerard J. Hughes reports that in years Copleston thought the first volume "deplorable" and wished that he had had the time to rewrite it. Published in 1950, this volume, which has borne the subtitle Medieval Philosophy, covers: Pre-mediaeval Influences The Carolingian Renaissance The Tenth and Twelfth Centuries Islamic and Jewish Philosophy The Thirteenth Century Copleston produced a work on Medieval Philosophy which and expanded, became A History of Medieval Philosophy.

This work covered some of the same subjects as the third volumes of his History. Copleston would write Aquinas expanding on his treatment of the thinker in volume 2. Published in 1953, this volume which has borne the subtitle Late Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, covers: The Fourteenth Century Philosophy of the Renaissance Scholasticism of the Renaissance Copleston produced a work on Medieval Philosophy which and expanded, became A History of Medieval Philosophy; this work covered some of the same subjects as the third volumes of his History. Published in 1958, this volume, which has borne the subtitle The Rationalists, covers: René Descartes Blaise Pascal Nicolas Malebranche Baruch Spinoza Gottfried Leibniz Originally published in 1959, this volume, which has borne the subtitle British Philosophy, covers: Thomas Hobbes John Locke Isaac Newton George Berkeley David Hume Originally published in 1960, this volume, which has borne the subtitle The Enlightenment, covers: The French Enlightenment The German Enlightenment The Rise of the Philosophy of History Christian Wolff Immanuel Kant Originally published in 1963, this volume, which has borne the subtitle 18th and 19th Century German Philosophy, covers: Johann Gottlieb Fichte Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Arthur Schopenhauer Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Søren Kierkegaard Friedrich NietzscheCopleston wrote separate works on two of the philosophers treated in this volume: Friedrich Nietzsche: Philosopher of Culture, a work expanded in 1975, Arthur Schopenhauer: Philosopher of Pessimism.

He was interviewed by Bryan Magee on Schopenhauer for BBC Television in 1987. Published in 1966, this volume, which has borne the subtitle Utilitarianism to Early Analytic Philosophy, covers: British Empiricism The Idealist Movement in Great Britain Idealism in America The Pragmatist Movement The Revolt Against Idealism Originally published in 1975, this volume which has borne the subtitle 19th and 20th Century French Philosophy covers: From the French Revolution to Auguste Comte From Auguste Comte to Henri Bergson From Henri Bergson to Jean-Paul Sartre Though a tenth volume of History on Russian philosophy had once been projected, Copleston's work in this area resulted in two books not part of that series: Philosophy in Russia and Russian Religious Philosophy; the former book was added as Volume 10 by Continuum in 2003.. Ivan Kireevsky, Peter Lavrov, other Russian philosophers