Euro banknotes
Banknotes of the euro, the currency of the euro area and institutions, have been in circulation since the first series was issued in 2002. They are issued by the national central banks of the European Central Bank. In 1999 the euro was introduced and in 2002 notes and coins began to circulate; the euro took over from the former national currencies and expanded around the European Union. Denominations of the notes range from €5 to €500 and, unlike euro coins, the design is identical across the whole of the Eurozone, although they are issued and printed in various member states; the euro banknotes are pure cotton fibre, which improves their durability as well as giving the banknotes a distinctive feel. They measure from 120 by 62 millimetres to 160 by 82 millimetres and have a variety of colour schemes; the euro notes contain many complex security features such as watermarks, invisible ink and microprinting that document their authenticity. While euro coins have a national side indicating the country of issue, euro notes lack this.
Instead, this information is shown by the first character of each note's serial number. According to European Central Bank estimates, in August 2018, there were about 21.737 billion banknotes in circulation around the Eurozone, with a total value of about €1.193 trillion. On 8 November 2012, the European Central Bank announced that the first series of notes would be replaced by the Europa series, starting with the 5 euro note on 2 May 2013. Estimates suggest that the average life of a euro banknote is about three years before it is replaced due to wear, but individual lifespans vary depending on denomination, from less than a year for €5 banknote to over 30 years for €500 banknote. High denomination banknotes last longer; the Europa series is designed to last longer than the previous one. The euro came into existence on 1 January 1999; the euro's creation had been a goal of its predecessors since the 1960s. The Maastricht Treaty entered into force in 1993 with the goal of creating economic and monetary union by 1999 for all EU states except the UK and Denmark.
In 1999, the currency was born and in 2002 notes and coins began to circulate. It took over from the former national currencies and expanded around the rest of the EU. In 2009, the Lisbon Treaty formalised the Euro's political authority, the Euro Group, alongside the European Central Bank. Slovenia joined the Eurozone in 2007, Cyprus and Malta in 2008, Slovakia in 2009, Estonia in 2011, Latvia in 2014 and Lithuania in 2015. There are seven different denominations of the euro banknotes: €5, €10, €20, €50, €100, €200 and €500; each has a distinctive size. The designs for each of them have a common theme of European architecture in various artistic eras; the obverse of the banknote features windows or gateways while the reverse bears different types of bridges. The architectural examples are stylised not representations of existing monuments. All the notes of the initial series of euro notes bear the European flag, a map of the continent on the reverse, the name "euro" in both Latin and Greek script and the signature of a president of the ECB, depending on when the banknote was printed.
The 12 stars from the flag are incorporated into every note. The notes carry the acronyms of the name of the European Central Bank in five linguistic variants, covering all official languages of the EU in 2002, now 19 out of 24 official languages of the EU28, in the following order: BCE ECB EZB ΕΚΤ EKP The order is determined by the EU country listing order, with BCE ahead of ECB because of the national precedence of Belgium's two main languages, followed by the remaining languages of Germany and Finland, in that order; the euro banknote initial designs were chosen from 44 proposals in a design competition, launched by the Council of the European Monetary Institute on 12 February 1996. The winning entry, created by Robert Kalina from the Oesterreichische Nationalbank, was selected on 3 December 1996; the euro banknotes are pure cotton fibre, which improves their durability as well as giving the banknotes a distinctive feel. In the first and Europa series, the Azores, French Guiana, Madeira, Martinique, Réunion, the Canary Islands, overseas territories of the eurozone member states, which use the euro, are shown under the map in separate boxes.
Cyprus and Malta were not shown on the first series because they were not in the EU in 2002, when the banknotes were issued though they joined the Eurozone in 2008. The map did not stretch as far east as Cyprus, while Malta was too small to be depicted.2. However, both Cyprus and Malta are depicted on the Europa series note; the Europa series banknotes to the first series, bear the European flag, a map of the continent on the reverse and the signature of Mario Draghi, since 1 November 2011 president of the ECB. The 12 stars from the flag are incorporated into the notes. On 4 May 2016 the European Central Bank decided not to issue a 500 euro banknote for the Europa series; the banknote has the name "euro", but in three scripts: Lat
Signature
A signature is a handwritten depiction of someone's name, nickname, or a simple "X" or other mark that a person writes on documents as a proof of identity and intent. The writer of a signature is a signer. Similar to a handwritten signature, a signature work describes the work as identifying its creator. A signature may be confused with an autograph, chiefly an artistic signature; this can lead to confusion when people have both an autograph and signature and as such some people in the public eye keep their signatures private whilst publishing their autograph. The traditional function of a signature is to permanently affix to a document a person’s uniquely personal, undeniable self-identification as physical evidence of that person's personal witness and certification of the content of all, or a specified part, of the document. For example, the role of a signature in many consumer contracts is not to provide evidence of the identity of the contracting party, but to provide evidence of deliberation and informed consent.
In many countries, signatures may be witnessed and recorded in the presence of a notary public to carry additional legal force. On legal documents, an illiterate signatory can make a "mark", so long as the document is countersigned by a literate witness. In some countries, illiterate people place a thumbprint on legal documents in lieu of a written signature. In the United States, signatures encompass marks and actions of all sorts that are indicative of identity and intent; the legal rule is that unless a statute prescribes a particular method of making a signature it may be made in any number of ways. These include by a mechanical or rubber stamp facsimile. A signature may be made by the purported signatory. Many individuals have much more fanciful signatures than their normal cursive writing, including elaborate ascenders and exotic flourishes, much as one would find in calligraphic writing; as an example, the final "k" in John Hancock's famous signature on the US Declaration of Independence loops back to underline his name.
This kind of flourish is known as a paraph. Paraphe is a term meaning initial or signature in French; the paraph is used in graphology analyses. Several cultures whose languages use writing systems other than alphabets do not share the Western notion of signatures per se: the "signing" of one's name results in a written product no different from the result of "writing" one's name in the standard way. For these languages, to write or to sign involves the same written characters. See Calligraphy. Special signature machines, called autopens, are capable of automatically reproducing an individual's signature; these are used by people required to sign a lot of printed matter, such as celebrities, heads of state or CEOs. More Members of Congress in the United States have begun having their signature made into a TrueType font file; this allows staff members in the Congressman's office to reproduce it on correspondence and official documents. In the East Asian languages of Chinese and Korean, people traditionally use stamp-like objects known as name-seals with the name carved in tensho script in lieu of a handwritten signature.
Some government agencies require that professional persons or official reviewers sign originals and all copies of originals to authenticate that they viewed the content. In the United States this is prevalent with architectural and construction plans, its intent is to prevent mistakes or fraud but the practice is not known to be effective. In e-mail and newsgroup usage, another type of signature exists, independent of one's language. Users can set one or more lines of custom text known as a signature block to be automatically appended to their messages; this text includes a name, contact information, sometimes quotations and ASCII art. A shortened form of a signature block, only including one's name with some distinguishing prefix, can be used to indicate the end of a post or response; some web sites allow graphics to be used. Note, that this type of signature is not related to electronic signatures or digital signatures, which are more technical in nature and not directly understandable by humans.
On Wikipedia, an online wiki-based encyclopedia edited by volunteers, the contributors "sign" their comments on talk pages with their username. The signature on a painting or other work of art has always been an important item in the assessment of art. Fake signatures are sometimes added to enhance the value of a painting, or are added to a fake painting to support its authenticity. A notorious case was the signature of Johannes Vermeer on the fake "Supper at Emmaus" made by the art-forger Han van Meegeren. However, the fact that painters' signatures vary over time might complicate the issue; the signatures of some painters take on an artistic form that may be of less value in determining forgeries. The term "signature" is used to mean the characteristics that give an object, or a piece of information, its identity—for example, the shape of a Coca-Cola bottle. In rock music and heavy metal music, electric guitarists develop a unique tone and sound using particular settings on their guitar amp, effects units and modifications to their guitar pickups, called their "signature sound".
In wrestling such as WWE, wrestlers are
Vienna
Vienna is the federal capital and largest city of Austria, one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primate city, with a population of about 1.9 million, its cultural and political centre. It is the 7th-largest city by population within city limits in the European Union; until the beginning of the 20th century, it was the largest German-speaking city in the world, before the splitting of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in World War I, the city had 2 million inhabitants. Today, it has the second largest number of German speakers after Berlin. Vienna is host to many major international organizations, including the United Nations and OPEC; the city is located in the eastern part of Austria and is close to the borders of the Czech Republic and Hungary. These regions work together in a European Centrope border region. Along with nearby Bratislava, Vienna forms a metropolitan region with 3 million inhabitants. In 2001, the city centre was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In July 2017 it was moved to the list of World Heritage in Danger.
Apart from being regarded as the City of Music because of its musical legacy, Vienna is said to be "The City of Dreams" because it was home to the world's first psychoanalyst – Sigmund Freud. The city's roots lie in early Celtic and Roman settlements that transformed into a Medieval and Baroque city, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it is well known for having played an essential role as a leading European music centre, from the great age of Viennese Classicism through the early part of the 20th century. The historic centre of Vienna is rich in architectural ensembles, including Baroque castles and gardens, the late-19th-century Ringstraße lined with grand buildings and parks. Vienna is known for its high quality of life. In a 2005 study of 127 world cities, the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked the city first for the world's most liveable cities. Between 2011 and 2015, Vienna was ranked second, behind Melbourne. In 2018, it replaced Melbourne as the number one spot. For ten consecutive years, the human-resource-consulting firm Mercer ranked Vienna first in its annual "Quality of Living" survey of hundreds of cities around the world.
Monocle's 2015 "Quality of Life Survey" ranked Vienna second on a list of the top 25 cities in the world "to make a base within."The UN-Habitat classified Vienna as the most prosperous city in the world in 2012/2013. The city was ranked 1st globally for its culture of innovation in 2007 and 2008, sixth globally in the 2014 Innovation Cities Index, which analyzed 162 indicators in covering three areas: culture and markets. Vienna hosts urban planning conferences and is used as a case study by urban planners. Between 2005 and 2010, Vienna was the world's number-one destination for international congresses and conventions, it attracts over 6.8 million tourists a year. The English name Vienna is borrowed from the homonymous Italian version of the city's name or the French Vienne; the etymology of the city's name is still subject to scholarly dispute. Some claim that the name comes from Vedunia, meaning "forest stream", which subsequently produced the Old High German Uuenia, the New High German Wien and its dialectal variant Wean.
Others believe that the name comes from the Roman settlement name of Celtic extraction Vindobona meaning "fair village, white settlement" from Celtic roots, vindo-, meaning "bright" or "fair" – as in the Irish fionn and the Welsh gwyn –, -bona "village, settlement". The Celtic word Vindos may reflect a widespread prehistorical cult of a Celtic God. A variant of this Celtic name could be preserved in the Czech and Polish names of the city and in that of the city's district Wieden; the name of the city in Hungarian, Serbo-Croatian and Ottoman Turkish has a different Slavonic origin, referred to an Avar fort in the area. Slovene-speakers call the city Dunaj, which in other Central European Slavic languages means the Danube River, on which the city stands. Evidence has been found of continuous habitation in the Vienna area since 500 BC, when Celts settled the site on the Danube River. In 15 BC the Romans fortified the frontier city they called Vindobona to guard the empire against Germanic tribes to the north.
Close ties with other Celtic peoples continued through the ages. The Irish monk Saint Colman is buried in Melk Abbey and Saint Fergil served as Bishop of Salzburg for forty years. Irish Benedictines founded twelfth-century monastic settlements. Evidence of these ties persists in the form of Vienna's great Schottenstift monastery, once home to many Irish monks. In 976 Leopold I of Babenberg became count of the Eastern March, a 60-mile district centering on the Danube on the eastern frontier of Bavaria; this initial district grew into the duchy of Austria. Each succeeding Babenberg ruler expanded the march east along the Danube encompassing Vienna and the lands east. In 1145 Duke Henry II Jasomirgott moved the Babenberg family residence from Klosterneuburg in Lower Austria to Vienna. From that time, Vienna remained the center of the Babenberg dynasty. In 1440 Vienna became the resident city of the Habsburg dynasty, it grew to become the de facto capital of the Holy Roman Empire in 1437 and a cultural centre for arts and science and fine cuisine.
Hungary occupied the city between 1485 and 1490. In the 16th and 1
Austria
Austria the Republic of Austria, is a country in Central Europe comprising 9 federated states. Its capital, largest city and one of nine states is Vienna. Austria has an area of 83,879 km2, a population of nearly 9 million people and a nominal GDP of $477 billion, it is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north and Slovakia to the east and Italy to the south, Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The terrain is mountainous, lying within the Alps; the majority of the population speaks local Bavarian dialects as their native language, German in its standard form is the country's official language. Other regional languages are Hungarian, Burgenland Croatian, Slovene. Austria played a central role in European History from the late 18th to the early 20th century, it emerged as a margraviate around 976 and developed into a duchy and archduchy. In the 16th century, Austria started serving as the heart of the Habsburg Monarchy and the junior branch of the House of Habsburg – one of the most influential royal houses in history.
As archduchy, it was a major component and administrative centre of the Holy Roman Empire. Following the Holy Roman Empire's dissolution, Austria founded its own empire in the 19th century, which became a great power and the leading force of the German Confederation. Subsequent to the Austro-Prussian War and the establishment of a union with Hungary, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was created. Austria was involved in both world wars. Austria is a parliamentary representative democracy with a President as head of state and a Chancellor as head of government. Major urban areas of Austria include Graz, Linz and Innsbruck. Austria is ranked as one of the richest countries in the world by per capita GDP terms; the country has developed a high standard of living and in 2018 was ranked 20th in the world for its Human Development Index. The republic declared its perpetual neutrality in foreign political affairs in 1955. Austria has been a member of the United Nations since 1955 and joined the European Union in 1995.
It is a founding member of the OECD and Interpol. Austria signed the Schengen Agreement in 1995, adopted the euro currency in 1999; the German name for Austria, Österreich, derives from the Old High German Ostarrîchi, which meant "eastern realm" and which first appeared in the "Ostarrîchi document" of 996. This word is a translation of Medieval Latin Marchia orientalis into a local dialect. Another theory says that this name comes from the local name of the mountain whose original Slovenian name is "Ostravica" - because it is steep on both sides. Austria was a prefecture of Bavaria created in 976; the word "Austria" was first recorded in the 12th century. At the time, the Danube basin of Austria was the easternmost extent of Bavaria; the Central European land, now Austria was settled in pre-Roman times by various Celtic tribes. The Celtic kingdom of Noricum was claimed by the Roman Empire and made a province. Present-day Petronell-Carnuntum in eastern Austria was an important army camp turned capital city in what became known as the Upper Pannonia province.
Carnuntum was home for 50,000 people for nearly 400 years. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the area was invaded by Bavarians and Avars. Charlemagne, King of the Franks, conquered the area in AD 788, encouraged colonization, introduced Christianity; as part of Eastern Francia, the core areas that now encompass Austria were bequeathed to the house of Babenberg. The area was known as the marchia Orientalis and was given to Leopold of Babenberg in 976; the first record showing the name Austria is from 996, where it is written as Ostarrîchi, referring to the territory of the Babenberg March. In 1156, the Privilegium Minus elevated Austria to the status of a duchy. In 1192, the Babenbergs acquired the Duchy of Styria. With the death of Frederick II in 1246, the line of the Babenbergs was extinguished; as a result, Ottokar II of Bohemia assumed control of the duchies of Austria and Carinthia. His reign came to an end with his defeat at Dürnkrut at the hands of Rudolph I of Germany in 1278. Thereafter, until World War I, Austria's history was that of its ruling dynasty, the Habsburgs.
In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Habsburgs began to accumulate other provinces in the vicinity of the Duchy of Austria. In 1438, Duke Albert V of Austria was chosen as the successor to his father-in-law, Emperor Sigismund. Although Albert himself only reigned for a year, henceforth every emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was a Habsburg, with only one exception; the Habsburgs began to accumulate territory far from the hereditary lands. In 1477, Archduke Maximilian, only son of Emperor Frederick III, married the heiress Maria of Burgundy, thus acquiring most of the Netherlands for the family. In 1496, his son Philip the Fair married Joanna the Mad, the heiress of Castile and Aragon, thus acquiring Spain and its Italian and New World appendages for the Habsburgs. In 1526, following the Battle of Mohács, Bohemia and the part of Hungary not occupied by the Ottomans came under Austrian rule. Ottoman expansion into Hungary led to frequent conflicts between the two empires evident in the Long War of 1593 to 1606.
The Turks made incursions into Styria nearly 20 times, of which some are c
Austrian Mint
The Austrian Mint is located in Vienna and is responsible for minting Austrian coins. Since 1989 it has been a public limited company and a subsidiary of Austria's central bank Oesterreichische Nationalbank, which has its headquarters in Vienna; the Austrian Mint carries out both the design and stamping of the coins it produces. Until 2002 it was only responsible for minting the coins of the Austrian schilling; the mint produces other coins, such as gold bullion coins, as well as commemorative issues: the Vienna Philharmonic coins and the Maria Theresa thaler are produced by the Austrian mint, for example. The mint supplies circulation coins and blanks to many other countries across the world. In 1194, Duke Leopold V of Austria was paid 15 tonnes of silver by Richard the Lionheart. On his way back from the crusades Richard had been captured and imprisoned by the Duke in retaliation for a previous insult. Leopold decided to strike coins from the silver, marking the beginning of the history of minting in Vienna.
The mint was located near the Hoher Markt relocated to the Wollzeile. Subsequently, it was housed in Prince Eugene’s winter palace in Himmelpfortgasse, before moving to its present home at Heumarkt, central Vienna, in the 19th century. Though other mints were established across Austria in the past, the Vienna Principal Mint became the sole mint when the Republic of Austria was formed in 1919; the mint changed its name to Münze Österreich as it became a subsidiary of Oesterreichische Nationalbank in 1989. Austrian schilling Euro coins Euro gold and silver commemorative coins Vienna Philharmonic Oesterreichische Nationalbank Official website
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature. Since March 1901, it has been awarded annually to those who have "done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses". Per Alfred Nobel's will, the recipient is selected by the Norwegian Nobel Committee, a five-member committee appointed by the Parliament of Norway. Since 1990, the prize is awarded on 10 December in Oslo City Hall each year; the prize was awarded in the Atrium of the University of Oslo Faculty of Law, the Norwegian Nobel Institute, the Parliament. Due to its political nature, the Nobel Peace Prize has, for most of its history, been the subject of numerous controversies. According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who in the preceding year "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses".
Alfred Nobel's will further specified that the prize be awarded by a committee of five people chosen by the Norwegian Parliament. Nobel died in 1896 and he did not leave an explanation for choosing peace as a prize category; as he was a trained chemical engineer, the categories for chemistry and physics were obvious choices. The reasoning behind the peace prize is less clear. According to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, his friendship with Bertha von Suttner, a peace activist and recipient of the prize, profoundly influenced his decision to include peace as a category; some Nobel scholars suggest. His inventions included dynamite and ballistite, both of which were used violently during his lifetime. Ballistite was used in war and the Irish Republican Brotherhood, an Irish nationalist organization, carried out dynamite attacks in the 1880s. Nobel was instrumental in turning Bofors from an iron and steel producer into an armaments company, it is unclear why Nobel wished the Peace Prize to be administered in Norway, ruled in union with Sweden at the time of Nobel's death.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee speculates that Nobel may have considered Norway better suited to awarding the prize, as it did not have the same militaristic traditions as Sweden. It notes that at the end of the 19th century, the Norwegian parliament had become involved in the Inter-Parliamentary Union's efforts to resolve conflicts through mediation and arbitration; the Norwegian Parliament appoints the Norwegian Nobel Committee, which selects the Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Each year, the Norwegian Nobel Committee invites qualified people to submit nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize; the statutes of the Nobel Foundation specify categories of individuals who are eligible to make nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize. These nominators are: Members of national assemblies and governments and members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union Members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and the International Court of Justice at the Hague Members of Institut de Droit International University professors of history, social sciences, philosophy and theology, university presidents, directors of peace research and international affairs institutes Former recipients, including board members of organizations that have received the prize Present and past members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Former permanent advisers to the Norwegian Nobel Institute Nominations must be submitted to the Committee by the beginning of February in the award year.
Nominations by committee members can be submitted up to the date of the first Committee meeting after this deadline. In 2009, a record 205 nominations were received, but the record was broken again in 2010 with 237 nominations; the statutes of the Nobel Foundation do not allow information about nominations, considerations, or investigations relating to awarding the prize to be made public for at least 50 years after a prize has been awarded. Over time, many individuals have become known as "Nobel Peace Prize Nominees", but this designation has no official standing, means only that one of the thousands of eligible nominators suggested the person's name for consideration. Indeed, in 1939, Adolf Hitler received a satirical nomination from a member of the Swedish parliament, mocking the nomination of Neville Chamberlain. Nominations from 1901 to 1956, have been released in a database. Nominations are considered by the Nobel Committee at a meeting where a short list of candidates for further review is created.
This short list is considered by permanent advisers to the Nobel institute, which consists of the Institute's Director and the Research Director and a small number of Norwegian academics with expertise in subject areas relating to the prize. Advisers have some months to complete reports, which are considered by the Committee to select the laureate; the Committee seeks to achieve a unanimous decision. The Nobel Committee comes to a conclusion in mid-September, but the final decision has not been made until the last meeting before the official announcement at the beginning of October; the Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee presents the Nobel Peace Prize in the presence of the King of Norway on 10 December each year. The Peace Pri
Primula
Primula is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants in the family Primulaceae. They include the familiar wildflower of the primrose. Other common species are P. veris and P. elatior. These species and many others are valued for their ornamental flowers, they have been extensively cultivated and hybridised - in the case of the primrose, for many hundreds of years. Primula are native to the temperate northern hemisphere, south into tropical mountains in Ethiopia and New Guinea, in temperate southern South America. Half of the known species are from the Himalayas. Primula has about 500 species in traditional treatments, more if certain related genera are included within its circumscription. Primula is a complex and varied genus, with a range of habitats from alpine slopes to boggy meadows. Plants bloom during the spring, with flowers appearing in spherical umbels on stout stems arising from basal rosettes of leaves; some species show a white mealy bloom on various parts of the plant. Many species are adapted to alpine climates.
The word primula is the Latin feminine diminutive of primus, meaning first, applied to flowers that are among the first to open in spring. Primulas are used as a food plant by the Duke of Burgundy butterfly. Primula species have been extensively cultivated and hybridised derived from P. elatior, P. juliae, P. veris and P. vulgaris. Polyanthus is one such group of plants, which has produced a large variety of strains in all colours grown as annuals or biennials and available as seeds or young plants; the following hybrid varieties and cultivars have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit:- The genus Dodecatheon originated from within Primula, so some authorities include the 14 species of Dodecatheon in Primula. The classification of the genus Primula has been investigated by botanists for over a century; as the genus is both large and diverse, botanists have organized the species in various sub-generic groups. The most common is division into a series of thirty sections.
Some of these sections contain many species. Species include: Primula × kewensis = P. floribunda × P. verticillata Primula × polyantha = P. veris × P. vulgaris Primula × pubescens = P. hirsuta × P. auricula Data related to Primula at Wikispecies Armeniapedia: Medicinal Uses of Primula American Primrose Society
