1.
Flight
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Flight is the process by which an object moves, through an atmosphere or beyond it, as in the case of spaceflight. This can be achieved by generating lift, propulsive thrust, aerostatically using buoyancy. Many things fly, from natural aviators such as birds, bats and insects to human inventions such as missiles, aircraft such as airplanes, helicopters and balloons, to rockets such as spacecraft. Humans have managed to construct lighter than air vehicles that raise off the ground and fly, an aerostat is a system that remains aloft primarily through the use of buoyancy to give an aircraft the same overall density as air. Aerostats include free balloons, airships, and moored balloons, an aerostats main structural component is its envelope, a lightweight skin that encloses a volume of lifting gas to provide buoyancy, to which other components are attached. Aerostats are so named because they use aerostatic lift, a buoyant force that does not require movement through the surrounding air mass to effect a lifting force. By contrast, aerodynes primarily use aerodynamic lift, which requires the movement of at least some part of the aircraft through the surrounding air mass. Some things that fly do not generate propulsive thrust through the air, for example, some other things can exploit rising air to climb such as raptors and man-made sailplane gliders. However most other birds and all powered aircraft need a source of propulsion to climb, the only groups of living things that use powered flight are birds, insects, and bats, while many groups have evolved gliding. The extinct Pterosaurs, an order of reptiles contemporaneous with the dinosaurs, were very successful flying animals. Each of these groups wings evolved independently, bats are the only mammals capable of sustaining level flight. Flying frogs use greatly enlarged webbed feet for a similar purpose, flying snakes also use mobile ribs to flatten their body into an aerodynamic shape, with a back and forth motion much the same as they use on the ground. Flying fish can glide using enlarged wing-like fins, and have been observed soaring for hundreds of meters and it is thought that this ability was chosen by natural selection because it was an effective means of escape from underwater predators. The longest recorded flight of a fish was 45 seconds. Most birds fly, with some exceptions, the largest birds, the ostrich and the emu, are earthbound, as were the now-extinct dodos and the Phorusrhacids, which were the dominant predators of South America in the Cenozoic era. The non-flying penguins have wings adapted for use under water and use the same wing movements for swimming that most other birds use for flight, most small flightless birds are native to small islands, and lead a lifestyle where flight would offer little advantage. Among living animals that fly, the wandering albatross has the greatest wingspan, up to 3.5 meters, most species of insects can fly as adults. Insect flight makes use of either of two basic models, creating a leading edge vortex, found in most insects, and using clap and fling
2.
Rocket
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A rocket is a missile, spacecraft, aircraft or other vehicle that obtains thrust from a rocket engine. Rocket engine exhaust is formed entirely from propellant carried within the rocket before use, Rocket engines work by action and reaction and push rockets forward simply by expelling their exhaust in the opposite direction at high speed, and can therefore work in the vacuum of space. In fact, rockets work more efficiently in space than in an atmosphere, multistage rockets are capable of attaining escape velocity from Earth and therefore can achieve unlimited maximum altitude. Compared with airbreathing engines, rockets are lightweight and powerful and capable of generating large accelerations. To control their flight, rockets rely on momentum, airfoils, auxiliary engines, gimballed thrust, momentum wheels, deflection of the exhaust stream, propellant flow, spin. Rockets for military and recreational uses date back to at least 13th century China, significant scientific, interplanetary and industrial use did not occur until the 20th century, when rocketry was the enabling technology for the Space Age, including setting foot on the Earths moon. Rockets are now used for fireworks, weaponry, ejection seats, launch vehicles for satellites, human spaceflight. Chemical rockets are the most common type of high power rocket, chemical rockets store a large amount of energy in an easily released form, and can be very dangerous. However, careful design, testing, construction and use minimizes risks, the first gunpowder-powered rockets were developed in Song China, by the 13th century. The Chinese rocket technology was adopted by the Mongols and the invention was spread via the Mongol invasions to the Near East, medieval and early modern rockets were used militarily as incendiary weapons in sieges. An early Chinese text to mention the use of rockets was the Huolongjing, between 1270 and 1280, Hasan al-Rammah wrote al-furusiyyah wa al-manasib al-harbiyya, which included 107 gunpowder recipes,22 of which are for rockets. In Europe, Konrad Kyeser described rockets in his military treatise Bellifortis around 1405. The name Rocket comes from the Italian rocchetta, meaning bobbin or little spindle, the Italian term was adopted into German in the mid 16th century by Leonhard Fronsperger and Conrad Haas, and by the early 17th century into English. Artis Magnae Artilleriae pars prima, an important early work on rocket artillery. The first iron-cased rockets were developed in the late 18th century in the Kingdom of Mysore, in 1814, Francis Scott Key wrote the line rockets red glare while held captive on a British ship that was laying siege to Fort McHenry. The first mathematical treatment of the dynamics of rocket propulsion is due to William Moore, in 1815, Alexander Dmitrievich Zasyadko constructed rocket-launching platforms, which allowed rockets to be fired in salvos, and gun-laying devices. William Hale in 1844 greatly increased the accuracy of rocket artillery, the Congreve rocket was further improved by Edward Mounier Boxer in 1865. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky first speculated on the possibility of manned spaceflight with rocket technology, robert Goddard in 1920 published proposed improvements to rocket technology in A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes
3.
Gun
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A gun is a normally tubular weapon or other device designed to discharge projectiles or other material. The projectile may be solid, liquid, gas or energy and may be free, as bullets and artillery shells, or captive as with Taser probes. Alternatively, acceleration via electromagnetic field generation may be employed in case the tube may be dispensed with. The first devices identified as guns appeared in China around CE1000, by the 12th century the technology was spreading through the rest of Asia, and into Europe by the 13th century. The origin of the English word gun is considered to derive from the given to a particular historical weapon. Domina Gunilda was the given to a remarkably large ballista. This name in turn may have derived from the Old Norse womans proper name Gunnhildr which combines two Norse words referring to battle, in any case the term gonne or gunne was applied to early hand-held firearms by the late 14th or early 15th century. The first device identified as a gun, a tube that used gunpowder to fire a spear. The Chinese had previously invented gunpowder in the 9th century, the earliest depiction of a gunpowder weapon is the illustration of a fire-lance on a mid-10th century silk banner from Dunhuang. The Dean Shoucheng Lu, an account of the siege of Dean in 1132, in due course, the proportion of saltpeter in the propellant was increased to maximise its explosive power. To better withstand that explosive power, the paper and bamboo of which fire-lance barrels were originally made came to be replaced by metal, and to take full advantage of that power, the shrapnel came to be replaced by projectiles whose size and shape filled the barrel more closely. English Privy Wardrobe accounts list ribaldis, a type of cannon, in the 1340s, the earliest surviving firearm in Europe has been found from Otepää, Estonia and it dates to at least 1396. Around the late 14th century in Europe, smaller and portable hand-held cannons were developed, in the late 15th century the Ottoman empire used firearms as part of its regular infantry. The first successful rapid-fire firearm is the Gatling Gun, invented by Richard Gatling, the worlds first sub-machine gun able to be maneuvered by a single soldier is the MP18.1, invented by Theodor Bergmann. It was introduced into service in 1918 by the German Army during World War I as the weapon of the Stosstruppen. The first assault rifle was introduced during World War II by the Germans and it was the first firearm which bridges the gap between long range rifles, machine guns, and short range sub-machine guns. Since the mid-20th century guns that fire beams of energy rather than solid projectiles have been developed, most guns use compressed gas confined by the barrel to propel the bullet up to high speed, though devices operating in other ways are sometimes called guns. In firearms the high-pressure gas is generated by combustion, usually of gunpowder and this principle is similar to that of internal combustion engines, except that the bullet leaves the barrel, while the piston transfers its motion to other parts and returns down the cylinder
4.
Propelling nozzle
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A propelling nozzle converts a gas turbine or gas generator into a jet engine. Energy available in the gas turbine exhaust is converted into a high speed propelling jet by the nozzle, turbofan engines may have an additional and separate propelling nozzle which produces a high speed propelling jet from the energy in the air that has passed through the fan. In addition, the nozzle helps to determine how the gas generator, the internal shape may be convergent or convergent-divergent. C-D nozzles can accelerate the jet to supersonic velocities within the divergent section, when afterburning engines are equipped with a C-D nozzle the throat area is variable. Nozzles for supersonic speeds, at which high nozzle pressure ratios are generated. The role of the nozzle in back-pressuring the engine is explained below, the energy to accelerate the stream comes from the temperature and pressure of the gas. The gas expands adiabatically with low losses and hence high efficiency, the gas accelerates to a final exit velocity which depends on the pressure and temperature at entry to the nozzle, the ambient pressure it exhausts to, and the efficiency of the expansion. The efficiency is a measure of the due to friction. Airbreathing engines create forward thrust on the airframe by imparting a net momentum to the air by producing a jet of exhaust gas which has a speed that exceeds that of the aircraft. The jet may or may not be expanded as described in section Reasons for C-D nozzle underexpansion. On some engines that are equipped with an afterburner the nozzle area is also varied during non-afterburning or dry thrust conditions, typically the nozzle is fully open for starting and at idle. It may then close down as the thrust lever is advanced reaching its minimum area before or at the Military or max dry thrust setting, two examples of this control are the General Electric J-79 and the Tumansky RD-22 in the MIG-29. Reasons for varying the area are explained in section Nozzle area control during dry operation. Convergent nozzles are used on jet engines. Although jet momentum still produces much of the gross thrust, the imbalance between the static pressure and atmospheric pressure still generates some thrust. The supersonic speed of the air flowing into a scramjet allows the use of a simple divergent nozzle, engines capable of supersonic flight have convergent-divergent exhaust duct features to generate supersonic flow. Rocket engines — the extreme case — owe their shape to the very high area ratios of their nozzles. This reduces the thrust producing efficiency of the nozzle by causing much of the expansion to take place downstream of the nozzle itself, consequently, rocket engines and jet engines for supersonic flight incorporate a C-D nozzle which permits further expansion against the inside of the nozzle
5.
Rifling
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In firearms, rifling consists of helical grooves in the internal surface of a guns barrel, which impart a spin to a projectile around its long axis. This spin serves to stabilize the projectile, improving its aerodynamic stability. Rifling is often described by its twist rate, which indicates the distance the rifling takes to complete one revolution, such as 1 turn in 10 inches. A shorter distance indicates a faster twist, meaning that for a given velocity the projectile will be rotating at a spin rate. Barrels intended for long, small-diameter bullets, such as the ultra-low-drag, 80-grain 0.223 inch bullets, extremely long projectiles such as flechettes may require high twist rates, these projectiles must be inherently stable, and are often fired from a smoothbore barrel. Muskets were smoothbore, large caliber weapons using ball-shaped ammunition fired at low velocity. Due to the high cost and great difficulty of manufacturing, and the need to load readily from the muzzle. Consequently, on firing the ball bounced off the sides of the barrel when fired, barrel rifling was invented in Augsburg, Germany in 1498. In 1520 August Kotter, an armourer of Nuremberg, Germany improved upon this work, though true rifling dates from the mid-16th century, it did not become commonplace until the nineteenth century. The most successful weapons using rifling with black powder were breech loaders such as the Queen Anne pistol, the grooves most commonly used in modern rifling have fairly sharp edges. More recently, polygonal rifling, a throwback to the earliest types of rifling, has become popular, polygonal barrels tend to have longer service lives because the reduction of the sharp edges of the land reduces erosion of the barrel. Supporters of polygonal rifling also claim higher velocities and greater accuracy, polygonal rifling is currently seen on pistols from CZ, Heckler & Koch, Glock, Tanfoglio, and Kahr Arms, as well as the Desert Eagle. Such guns have achieved significant increases in velocity and range. Examples include the South African G5 and the German PzH2000, gain-twist rifling begins with very little change in the projectiles angular momentum during the first few inches of bullet travel after ignition during the transition from chamber to throat. This enables the bullet to remain undisturbed and trued to the case mouth. After engaging the rifling the bullet is progressively subjected to accelerated angular momentum as burning powder propels it down the barrel. By only gradually increasing the rate, torque is spread along a much longer section of barrel. Gain-twist rifling was used as early as the American Civil War, colt Army and Navy revolvers both employed gain-twist rifling
6.
Gun barrel
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A gun barrel is a part of firearms and artillery pieces. The hollow interior of the barrel is called the bore, a gun barrel must be able to hold in the expanding gas produced by the propellants to ensure that optimum muzzle velocity is attained by the projectile as it is being pushed out by the expanding gas. Modern small arms barrels are made of known and tested to withstand the pressures involved. Artillery pieces are made by various techniques providing reliably sufficient strength, early firearms were muzzle-loading, with powder, and then shot loaded from the muzzle, capable of only a low rate of fire. During the 19th century effective mechanical locks were invented that sealed a breech-loading weapon against the escape of propellant gases, the early Chinese, the inventors of gunpowder, used bamboo, a naturally tubular stalk, as the first barrels in gunpowder projectile weapons. Early European guns were made of iron, usually with several strengthening bands of the metal wrapped around circular wrought iron rings. The Chinese were the first to master cast-iron cannon barrels, early cannon barrels were very thick for their caliber. Bore evacuator Bore snake Cannon Muzzle Polygonal rifling Rifling Slug barrel Smoothbore
7.
Gravity
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Gravity, or gravitation, is a natural phenomenon by which all things with mass are brought toward one another, including planets, stars and galaxies. Since energy and mass are equivalent, all forms of energy, including light, on Earth, gravity gives weight to physical objects and causes the ocean tides. Gravity has a range, although its effects become increasingly weaker on farther objects. The most extreme example of this curvature of spacetime is a hole, from which nothing can escape once past its event horizon. More gravity results in time dilation, where time lapses more slowly at a lower gravitational potential. Gravity is the weakest of the four fundamental interactions of nature, the gravitational attraction is approximately 1038 times weaker than the strong force,1036 times weaker than the electromagnetic force and 1029 times weaker than the weak force. As a consequence, gravity has an influence on the behavior of subatomic particles. On the other hand, gravity is the dominant interaction at the macroscopic scale, for this reason, in part, pursuit of a theory of everything, the merging of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics into quantum gravity, has become an area of research. While the modern European thinkers are credited with development of gravitational theory, some of the earliest descriptions came from early mathematician-astronomers, such as Aryabhata, who had identified the force of gravity to explain why objects do not fall out when the Earth rotates. Later, the works of Brahmagupta referred to the presence of force, described it as an attractive force. Modern work on gravitational theory began with the work of Galileo Galilei in the late 16th and this was a major departure from Aristotles belief that heavier objects have a higher gravitational acceleration. Galileo postulated air resistance as the reason that objects with less mass may fall slower in an atmosphere, galileos work set the stage for the formulation of Newtons theory of gravity. In 1687, English mathematician Sir Isaac Newton published Principia, which hypothesizes the inverse-square law of universal gravitation. Newtons theory enjoyed its greatest success when it was used to predict the existence of Neptune based on motions of Uranus that could not be accounted for by the actions of the other planets. Calculations by both John Couch Adams and Urbain Le Verrier predicted the position of the planet. A discrepancy in Mercurys orbit pointed out flaws in Newtons theory, the issue was resolved in 1915 by Albert Einsteins new theory of general relativity, which accounted for the small discrepancy in Mercurys orbit. The simplest way to test the equivalence principle is to drop two objects of different masses or compositions in a vacuum and see whether they hit the ground at the same time. Such experiments demonstrate that all objects fall at the rate when other forces are negligible
8.
Missile
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In modern language, a missile is a self-propelled precision-guided munition system, as opposed to an unguided self-propelled munition, referred to as a rocket. Missiles have four components, targeting and/or missile guidance, flight system, engine. Missiles come in types adapted for different purposes, surface-to-surface and air-to-surface missiles, surface-to-air missiles, air-to-air missiles, all known existing missiles are designed to be propelled during powered flight by chemical reactions inside a rocket engine, jet engine, or other type of engine. Non-self-propelled airborne explosive devices are referred to as shells and usually have a shorter range than missiles. In ordinary British-English usage predating guided weapons, a missile is any thrown object, the word missile comes from the Latin verb mittere, meaning to send. In military usage, munitions projected towards a target are broadly categorised as follows, a powered, unguided munition is known as a rocket. Unpowered munitions not fired from a gun are called bombs whether guided or not, munitions that are fired from a gun are known as projectiles whether guided or not. If explosive, they are more specifically as shells or mortar bombs. Powered munitions that travel through water are called torpedoes, hand grenades are not usually classed as missiles. The first missiles to be used operationally were a series of missiles developed by Nazi Germany in World War II, most famous of these are the V-1 flying bomb and V-2 rocket, both of which used a simple mechanical autopilot to keep the missile flying along a pre-chosen route. Less well known were a series of anti-shipping and anti-aircraft missiles, however, these early systems in World War II were only built in small numbers. Guided missiles have a number of different system components, Targeting and/or missile guidance Flight system Engine Warhead Missiles may be targeted in a number of ways. The most common method is to use some form of radiation, such as infrared, lasers or radio waves and this radiation may emanate from the target, it may be provided by the missile itself, or it may be provided by a friendly third party. The first two are known as fire-and-forget as they need no further support or control from the launch vehicle/platform in order to function. Another method is to use a TV guidance—using either visible light or infrared—in order to see the target, the picture may be used either by a human operator who steers the missile onto its target or by a computer doing much the same job. One of the more bizarre guidance methods instead used a pigeon to steer the missile to its target, many missiles use a combination of two or more of the above methods to improve accuracy and the chances of a successful engagement. Another method is to target the missile by knowing the location of the target and using a system such as INS. This guidance system guides the missile by knowing the current position and the position of the target
9.
Cruise missile
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A cruise missile is a guided missile used against terrestrial targets that remains in the atmosphere and flies the major portion of its flight path at approximately constant speed. Cruise missiles are designed to deliver a warhead over long distances with high precision. Modern cruise missiles are capable of travelling at supersonic or high speeds, are self-navigating. The idea of a torpedo was shown in the British 1909 film The Airship Destroyer. In 1916, Lawrence Sperry built and patented an aerial torpedo, a small biplane carrying a TNT charge, a Sperry autopilot, inspired by these experiments, the United States Army developed a similar flying bomb called the Kettering Bug. Germany had also flown trials with remote-controlled aerial gliders built by Siemens-Schuckert beginning in 1916, in the period between the World Wars the United Kingdom developed the Larynx, which underwent a few flight tests in the 1920s. In the Soviet Union, Sergei Korolev headed the GIRD-06 cruise missile project from 1932 to 1939, the 06/III and 06/IV contained gyroscopic guidance systems. The vehicle was designed to boost to 28 km altitude and glide a distance of 280 km, in 1944, Germany deployed the first operational cruise missiles in World War II. The V-1, often called a bomb, contained a gyroscope guidance system and was propelled by a simple pulsejet engine. Accuracy was sufficient only for use against very large targets, while the range of 250 km was significantly lower than that of a bomber carrying the same payload, the main advantages were speed and expendability. The production cost of a V-1 was only a fraction of that of a V-2 supersonic ballistic missile. Unlike the V-2, however, the deployments of the V-1 required stationary launch ramps which were susceptible to bombardment. Immediately after the war the United States Air Force had 21 different guided missile projects, all were cancelled by 1948, except four — the Air Materiel Command BANSHEE, the SM-62 Snark, the SM-64 Navaho, and the MGM-1 Matador. The BANSHEE design was similar to Operation Aphrodite, like Aphrodite, it failed, during the Cold War period both the United States and the Soviet Union experimented further with the concept, deploying early cruise missiles from land, submarines and aircraft. The main outcome of the United States Navy submarine missile project was the SSM-N-8 Regulus missile, the United States Air Forces first operational surface-to-surface missile was the winged, mobile, nuclear-capable MGM-1 Matador, also similar in concept to the V-1. Deployment overseas began in 1954, first to West Germany and later to the Republic of China and this alert was in response to the crisis posed by the Soviet attack on Hungary which suppressed the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Between 1957 and 1961 the United States followed an ambitious and well-funded program to develop a nuclear-powered cruise missile and it was designed to fly below the enemys radar at speeds above Mach 3 and carry a number of hydrogen bombs that it would drop along its path over enemy territory. Although the concept was sound and the 500 megawatt engine finished a successful test run in 1961
10.
Spear-thrower
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A spear-thrower or atlatl is a tool that uses leverage to achieve greater velocity in dart-throwing, and includes a bearing surface which allows the user to store energy during the throw. It may consist of a shaft with a cup or a spur at the end that supports, the spear-thrower is held in one hand, gripped near the end farthest from the cup. The dart is thrown by the action of the upper arm, the throwing arm together with the atlatl acts as a lever. The spear-thrower is a low-mass, fast-moving extension of the throwing arm and this extra length allows the thrower to impart force to the dart over a longer distance, thus imparting more energy and ultimately higher speeds. Common modern ball throwers use the same principle, a spear-thrower is a long-range weapon and can readily impart to a projectile speeds of over 150 km/h. In the United States the Nahuatl word atlatl is often used for revived uses of spear-throwers, the ancient Greeks and Romans used a leather thong or loop, known as an ankule or amentum, as a spear-throwing device. Spear-thrower designs may include such as thong loops to fit the fingers, the use of flexible shafts, stone balance weights. Darts resemble large arrows or thin spears and are typically from 1.2 to 2.7 m in length and 9 to 16 mm in diameter, another important improvement to the spear-throwers design was the introduction of a small weight strapped to its midsection. Some atlatlists maintain that stone weights add mass to the shaft of the device, causing resistance to acceleration when swung and resulting in a more forceful, others claim that spear-thrower weights add only stability to a cast, resulting in greater accuracy. Based on previous work done by William S. Webb, William R, the use of the device would reduce the telltale zip of a swung atlatl to a more subtle woof sound that did not travel as far and was less likely to alert prey. The woomera design is different from most other spear-throwers, in that it has a curved, hollow shape. Several Stone Age spear-throwers are decorated with carvings of animals, the British Museum has a mammoth, many pieces of decorated bone may have belonged to Bâtons de commandement. The Aztec atlatl was often decorated with designs and feathers. Wooden darts were known at least since the Middle Paleolithic, while the spear-thrower is capable of casting a dart well over one hundred meters, it is most accurately used at distances of twenty meters or less. The spearthrower is believed to have been in use by Homo sapiens since the Upper Paleolithic, most stratified European finds come from the Magdalenian. In this period, elaborate pieces, often in the form of animals, are common, the earliest secure data concerning atlatls have come from several caves in France dating to the Upper Paleolithic, about 21,000 to 17,000 years ago. The earliest known example is a 17, 500-year-old Solutrean atlatl made of antler, found at Combe Saunière. In Europe, the spear-thrower was supplemented by the bow and arrow in the Epi-Paleolithic and this allowed for more forgiving flint knapping, dart heads designed for a particular spear thrower tend to differ in mass by only a few percent
11.
South Africa
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South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is the southernmost country in Africa. South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world by land area and it is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere. About 80 percent of South Africans are of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different Bantu languages, the remaining population consists of Africas largest communities of European, Asian, and multiracial ancestry. South Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a variety of cultures, languages. Its pluralistic makeup is reflected in the recognition of 11 official languages. The country is one of the few in Africa never to have had a coup détat, however, the vast majority of black South Africans were not enfranchised until 1994. During the 20th century, the black majority sought to recover its rights from the dominant white minority, with this struggle playing a role in the countrys recent history. The National Party imposed apartheid in 1948, institutionalising previous racial segregation, since 1994, all ethnic and linguistic groups have held political representation in the countrys democracy, which comprises a parliamentary republic and nine provinces. South Africa is often referred to as the Rainbow Nation to describe the multicultural diversity. The World Bank classifies South Africa as an economy. Its economy is the second-largest in Africa, and the 34th-largest in the world, in terms of purchasing power parity, South Africa has the seventh-highest per capita income in Africa. However, poverty and inequality remain widespread, with about a quarter of the population unemployed, nevertheless, South Africa has been identified as a middle power in international affairs, and maintains significant regional influence. The name South Africa is derived from the geographic location at the southern tip of Africa. Upon formation the country was named the Union of South Africa in English, since 1961 the long form name in English has been the Republic of South Africa. In Dutch the country was named Republiek van Zuid-Afrika, replaced in 1983 by the Afrikaans Republiek van Suid-Afrika, since 1994 the Republic has had an official name in each of its 11 official languages. Mzansi, derived from the Xhosa noun umzantsi meaning south, is a name for South Africa. South Africa contains some of the oldest archaeological and human fossil sites in the world, extensive fossil remains have been recovered from a series of caves in Gauteng Province. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage site and has termed the Cradle of Humankind
12.
Hamburg
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Hamburg, officially Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg, is the second largest city in Germany and the eighth largest city in the European Union. It is the second smallest German state by area and its population is over 1.7 million people, and the wider Hamburg Metropolitan Region covers more than 5.1 million inhabitants. The city is situated on the river Elbe, the official long name reflects Hamburgs history as a member of the medieval Hanseatic League, a free imperial city of the Holy Roman Empire, a city-state, and one of the 16 states of Germany. Before the 1871 Unification of Germany, it was a sovereign state. Prior to the changes in 1919, the civic republic was ruled by a class of hereditary grand burghers or Hanseaten. Though repeatedly destroyed by the Great Fire of Hamburg, the floods and military conflicts including WW2 bombing raids, the city managed to recover and emerge wealthier after each catastrophe. On the river Elbe, Hamburg is a port and a global service, media, logistics and industrial hub, with headquarters and facilities of Airbus, Blohm + Voss, Aurubis, Beiersdorf. The radio and television broadcaster NDR, Europes largest printing and publishing firm Gruner + Jahr, Hamburg has been an important financial centre for centuries, and is the seat of Germanys oldest stock exchange and the worlds second oldest bank, Berenberg Bank. The city is a fast expanding tourist destination for domestic and international visitors. It ranked 16th in the world for livability in 2015, the ensemble Speicherstadt and Kontorhausviertel was declared a World Heritage Site by the UNESCO in 2015. Hamburg is a major European science, research and education hub with several universities and institutes and its creative industries and major cultural venues include the renowned Elbphilharmonie and Laeisz concert halls, various art venues, music producers and artists. It is regarded as a haven for artists, gave birth to movements like Hamburger Schule. Hamburg is also known for theatres and a variety of musical shows. St. Paulis Reeperbahn is among the best known European entertainment districts, Hamburg is on the southern point of the Jutland Peninsula, between Continental Europe to the south and Scandinavia to the north, with the North Sea to the west and the Baltic Sea to the north-east. It is on the River Elbe at its confluence with the Alster, the city centre is around the Binnenalster and Außenalster, both formed by damming the River Alster to create lakes. The island of Neuwerk and two neighbouring islands Scharhörn and Nigehörn, in the Hamburg Wadden Sea National Park, are also part of Hamburg. The neighbourhoods of Neuenfelde, Cranz, Francop and Finkenwerder are part of the Altes Land region, neugraben-Fischbek has Hamburgs highest elevation, the Hasselbrack at 116.2 metres AMSL. Hamburg has a climate, influenced by its proximity to the coast
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