1.
Ankara
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Ankara, formerly known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of the Republic of Turkey. With a population of 4,587,558 in the center and 5,150,072 in its province. Ankara was Atatürks headquarters from 1920 and has been the capital of the Republic since its founding in 1923, the government is a prominent employer, but Ankara is also an important commercial and industrial city, located at the center of Turkeys road and railway networks. The city gave its name to the Angora wool shorn from Angora rabbits, the long-haired Angora goat, the area is also known for its pears, honey, and muscat grapes. Ankara is an old city with various Hittite, Phrygian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine. The historical center of town is a hill rising 150 m over the left bank of the Ankara Çayı, a tributary of the Sakarya River. The hill remains crowned by the ruins of the old citadel, as with many ancient cities, Ankara has gone by several names over the ages. It has been identified with the Hittite cult center Ankuwaš, although remains a matter of debate. In classical antiquity and during the period, the city was known as Ánkyra in Greek and Ancyra in Latin. Following its annexation by the Seljuk Turks in 1073, the city known in many European languages as Angora. The form Angora is preserved in the names of breeds of different kinds of animals. The oldest settlements in and around the city center of Ankara belonged to the Hattic civilization which existed during the Bronze Age and was gradually absorbed c, 2000–1700 BC by the Indo-European Hittites. In Phrygian tradition, King Midas was venerated as the founder of Ancyra, but Pausanias mentions that the city was far older. Persian sovereignty lasted until the Persians defeat at the hands of Alexander the Great who conquered the city in 333 BC, Alexander came from Gordion to Ankara and stayed in the city for a short period. After his death at Babylon in 323 BC and the subsequent division of his empire among his generals, Ankara, by that time the city also took its name Ἄγκυρα which, in slightly modified form, provides the modern name of Ankara. Other centers were Pessinos, todays Balhisar, for the Trocmi tribe, the city was then known as Ancyra. The Celtic element was probably relatively small in numbers, an aristocracy which ruled over Phrygian-speaking peasants. However, the Celtic language continued to be spoken in Galatia for many centuries
2.
Wood flooring
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Wood flooring is any product manufactured from timber that is designed for use as flooring, either structural or aesthetic. Wood is a choice as a flooring material and can come in various styles, colors, cuts. Bamboo flooring is often considered a form of wood flooring, although it is made from a rather than a timber. Solid hardwood floors are made of planks milled from a piece of timber. Solid hardwood floors were used for structural purposes, being installed perpendicular to the wooden support beams of a building known as joists or bearers. With the increased use of concrete as a subfloor in some parts of the world, however, solid wood floors are still common and popular. Solid wood floors have a thicker wear surface and can be sanded and finished more times than a wood floor. It is not uncommon for homes in New England, Eastern Canada, solid wood flooring is milled from a single piece of timber that is kiln or air dried before sawing. Depending on the look of the floor, the timber can be cut in three ways, flat-sawn, quarter-sawn, and rift-sawn. The timber is cut to the dimensions and either packed unfinished for a site-finished installation or finished at the factory. The moisture content at time of manufacturing is carefully controlled to ensure the product does not warp during transport, a number of proprietary features for solid wood floors are available. Many solid woods come with grooves cut into the back of the wood that run the length of each plank, often called absorption strips, solid wood floors are mostly manufactured.75 inches thick with a tongue-and-groove for installation. This process involves treating the wood by boiling the log in water, after preparation, the wood is peeled by a blade starting from the outside of the log and working toward the center, thus creating a wood veneer. The veneer is then pressed flat with high pressure and this style of manufacturing tends to have problems with the wood cupping or curling back to its original shape. Rotary-peeled engineered hardwoods tend to have an appearance in the grain. This process begins with the treatment process that the rotary peel method uses. However, instead of being sliced in a fashion, with this technique the wood is sliced from the log in much the same manner that lumber is sawn from a log – straight through. The veneers do not go through the manufacturing process as rotary peeled veneers
3.
Volleyball
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Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to points by grounding a ball on the other teams court under organized rules. It has been a part of the program of the Summer Olympic Games since 1964. The receiving team must not let the ball be grounded within their court, the team may touch the ball up to 3 times but individual players may not touch the ball twice consecutively. The team that wins the rally is awarded a point, the ball is usually played with the hands or arms, but players can legally strike or push the ball with any part of the body. A number of consistent techniques have evolved in volleyball, including spiking and blocking as well as passing, setting, the game took some of its characteristics from tennis and handball. Another indoor sport, basketball, was catching on in the area, having been invented just ten miles away in the city of Springfield, Massachusetts, only four years before. Mintonette was designed to be a sport, less rough than basketball, for older members of the YMCA. The first rules, written down by William G Morgan, called for a net 6 ft 6 in high, a 25 ft ×50 ft court, and any number of players. A match was composed of nine innings with three serves for each team in each inning, and no limit to the number of contacts for each team before sending the ball to the opponents court. In case of an error, a second try was allowed. Hitting the ball into the net was considered a foul —except in the case of the first-try serve, Volleyball rules were slightly modified by the International YMCA Training School and the game spread around the country to various YMCAs. The first official ball used in volleyball is disputed, some say that Spalding created the first official ball in 1896. In 1917, the game was changed from 21 to 15 points, in 1919, about 16,000 volleyballs were distributed by the American Expeditionary Forces to their troops and allies, which sparked the growth of volleyball in new countries. The first country outside the United States to adopt volleyball was Canada in 1900, an international federation, the Fédération Internationale de Volleyball, was founded in 1947, and the first World Championships were held in 1949 for men and 1952 for women. The sport is now popular in Brazil, in Europe, in Russia, and in countries including China. Beach volleyball, a variation of the played on sand. Volleyball is also a sport at the Paralympics managed by the World Organization Volleyball for Disabled, nudists were early adopters of the game with regular organized play in clubs as early as the late 1920s
4.
Turkey
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Turkey, officially the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country in Eurasia, mainly in Anatolia in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan peninsula in Southeast Europe. Turkey is a democratic, secular, unitary, parliamentary republic with a cultural heritage. The country is encircled by seas on three sides, the Aegean Sea is to the west, the Black Sea to the north, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. The Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles, Ankara is the capital while Istanbul is the countrys largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Approximately 70-80% of the countrys citizens identify themselves as ethnic Turks, other ethnic groups include legally recognised and unrecognised minorities. Kurds are the largest ethnic minority group, making up approximately 20% of the population, the area of Turkey has been inhabited since the Paleolithic by various ancient Anatolian civilisations, as well as Assyrians, Greeks, Thracians, Phrygians, Urartians and Armenians. After Alexander the Greats conquest, the area was Hellenized, a process continued under the Roman Empire. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, the empire reached the peak of its power in the 16th century, especially during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. During the war, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian, Assyrian, following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that formerly comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states. Turkey is a member of the UN, an early member of NATO. Turkeys growing economy and diplomatic initiatives have led to its recognition as a regional power while her location has given it geopolitical, the name of Turkey is based on the ethnonym Türk. The first recorded use of the term Türk or Türük as an autonym is contained in the Old Turkic inscriptions of the Göktürks of Central Asia, the English name Turkey first appeared in the late 14th century and is derived from Medieval Latin Turchia. Similarly, the medieval Khazar Empire, a Turkic state on the shores of the Black. The medieval Arabs referred to the Mamluk Sultanate as al-Dawla al-Turkiyya, the Ottoman Empire was sometimes referred to as Turkey or the Turkish Empire among its European contemporaries. The Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world, various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period. Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family, in fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated. The European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has also been inhabited since at least forty years ago. It is the largest and best-preserved Neolithic site found to date, the settlement of Troy started in the Neolithic Age and continued into the Iron Age
5.
Beach volleyball
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Beach volleyball is a team sport played by two teams of two players on a sand court divided by a net. It has been an Olympic discipline since the 1996 Games, as in indoor volleyball, the object of the game is to send the ball over the net and to ground it on the opponents court, and to prevent the same effort by the opponent. A team is allowed up to three touches to return the ball across the net, the ball is put in play with a serve — a hit by the server from behind the rear court boundary over the net to the opponents. The rally continues until the ball is grounded on the court, goes out. The team winning a rally scores a point and serves to start the following rally, the four players serve in the same sequence throughout the match, changing server each time a rally is won by the receiving team. Beach volleyball originated at the Outrigger Canoe Club, on the shores of Waikiki Beach, the true birth of beach volleyball apparently began on the beaches of Waikiki Beach in Hawaii, at the Outrigger Canoe Club in 1915. From the moment that this first recorded game in Hawaii took place, the Outrigger Canoe Club was founded in 1908 by a small group of Honolulu’s business and professional community. The Club’s original mission was to help perpetuate traditional Hawaiian sports and they began so that they could make sure the native and small-boy could doff their duds and mount their surf boards at will as they enjoyed the waves of Waikiki. It became a place where man could commune with the sun, the sand and the sea, along with good fellowship, the Club’s story mirrors that of Waikiki and Hawaii. The 1908 clubhouse was two grass houses purchased from a defunct zoo, the grass houses were moved to leased land, on the beach, next to a lagoon. One was fitted out as a shed for canoes and surfboards, the other shed became the Club’s first bathhouse and dressing room. A sand floor pavilion was built a time later and it became a popular gathering place for members. A new clubhouse was built in 1941 on the same grounds. Then in 1964, when the Waikiki lease was lost, the moved to its present Diamond Head location. The Outrigger Beach and Canoe Club’s historical committee has produced written accounts, the written account is from an Oral History interview that is dated June 9,1978. The interviewer, Kenneth Pratt interviewed Ronald Higgins, an original Outrigger Canoe Club member, mr. Higgins recollects Club member, George David Dad Center, going out and buying a couple of volleyballs and a volleyball net, sometime at the start of 1915. Then Dad, along other members, temporarily put the net up, in the sandy beach area parallel to the tide line. This is where the first recorded game of Beach Volleyball took place and this moment in volleyball is historic, because the games at the Outrigger Club appropriately represent the legitimate birth of the game of Beach volleyball
6.
Underfloor heating
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Underfloor heating and cooling is a form of central heating and cooling which achieves indoor climate control for thermal comfort using conduction, radiation and convection. Underfloor heating has a history back into the Neoglacial and Neolithic periods. The hot smoke heated the floor stones which then radiated into the living spaces and these early forms have evolved into modern systems using fluid filled pipes or electrical cables and mats. Below is an overview of under floor heating from around the world. Modern underfloor heating systems use electrical resistance elements or fluid flowing in pipes to heat the floor. Either type can be installed as the primary, whole-building heating system or as localized floor heating for thermal comfort, electrical resistance can only be used for heating, when space cooling is also required, hydronic systems must be used. A range of heating systems and designs are available to suit different types of flooring. Electric heating elements or hydronic piping can be cast in a floor slab. They can also be placed under the covering or attached directly to a wood sub floor. Some commercial buildings are designed to take advantage of mass which is heated or cooled during off peak hours when utility rates are lower. With the heating/cooling system turned off during the day, the concrete mass, such systems are known as thermally activated building systems or TABS. Hydronic systems use water or a mix of water and anti-freeze such as propylene glycol as the transfer fluid in a closed loop that is recirculated between the floor and the boiler. Various types of pipes are available specifically for hydronic underfloor heating and cooling systems and are made from polyethylene including PEX, PEX-Al-PEX. Older materials such as Polybutylene and copper or steel pipe are used in some locales or for specialized applications. Hydronic systems require skilled designers and tradespeople familiar with boilers, circulators, controls, fluid pressures, hydronic systems can use a single source or combination of energy sources to help manage energy costs. Propane mainly made from oil, less efficient than natural gas by volume, produces more Carbon Dioxide than methane on a b. t. u. basis. Due to their low profile they can be installed in a mass or directly under floor finishes. Large electric systems also require skilled designers and tradespeople but this is less so for small floor warming systems, electric systems use fewer components and are simpler to install and commission than hydronic systems
7.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
8.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
9.
Berlin
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Berlin is the capital and the largest city of Germany as well as one of its constituent 16 states. With a population of approximately 3.5 million, Berlin is the second most populous city proper, due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one-third of the area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers. Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world, following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all-Germany. Berlin is a city of culture, politics, media. Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations. Berlin serves as a hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination, significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction and electronics. Modern Berlin is home to world renowned universities, orchestras, museums and its urban setting has made it a sought-after location for international film productions. The city is known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts. Since 2000 Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene, the name Berlin has its roots in the language of West Slavic inhabitants of the area of todays Berlin, and may be related to the Old Polabian stem berl-/birl-. All German place names ending on -ow, -itz and -in, since the Ber- at the beginning sounds like the German word Bär, a bear appears in the coat of arms of the city. It is therefore a canting arm, the first written records of towns in the area of present-day Berlin date from the late 12th century. Spandau is first mentioned in 1197 and Köpenick in 1209, although these areas did not join Berlin until 1920, the central part of Berlin can be traced back to two towns. Cölln on the Fischerinsel is first mentioned in a 1237 document,1237 is considered the founding date of the city. The two towns over time formed close economic and social ties, and profited from the right on the two important trade routes Via Imperii and from Bruges to Novgorod. In 1307, they formed an alliance with a common external policy, in 1415 Frederick I became the elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which he ruled until 1440. In 1443 Frederick II Irontooth started the construction of a new palace in the twin city Berlin-Cölln
Omsk
Berlin
