Baron Bliss Light
Baron Bliss Lighthouse is a lighthouse in Belize City. Established in 1885, it is painted white and red, it is named after one of Belize's greatest benefactors, Baron Bliss, known to have never set foot on Belizean shores but was impressed with the people's warm hospitality. He was a sailor and fisherman who traveled the world aboard his yacht the "Sea King". On March 9, 1926, Baron Bliss died leaving instructions that he be buried in a granite tomb near the sea, enclosed with an iron fence with a lighthouse built nearby; this is why this monument was constructed and at the location where it stands today. The lighthouse, among its main purpose of serving as a traffic warning for boats travelling nearby, has been used for advertisement purposes as well, it is featured on one of Belikin's most popular alcoholic beverage named "The Lighthouse lager". This in return has placed the lighthouse image on billboards, cups and other promotional items around the country of Belize, it is a major tourist attraction in Belize when it comes to sight seeing and it was listed at #20 of top 53 things to do in Belize on tripadvisor website.
List of lighthouses in Belize Belize Port Authority Belize Brewing Company, 2015. Belikin Beer the Beer of Belize, History. Retrieved from Belikin.com TripAdvisor, 2016. Top things to do in Belize, Retrieved from Tripadvisor.com Respect, Baron Bliss". Amandala. 9 March 2003. Retrieved 8 March 2014. "A real Belize benefactor/lover - Baron Bliss". Krem Radio. 4 March 2011. Retrieved 8 March 2014
Marlow, Buckinghamshire
Marlow is a town and civil parish within Wycombe district in south Buckinghamshire, England. It is located on the River Thames, 4 miles south south-west of High Wycombe, 5 miles west north-west of Maidenhead and 33 miles west of central London; the name is recorded in 1015 as Mere lafan, meaning "Land left after the draining of a pond" in Old English. From Norman times the manor and borough were formally known as Great Marlow, distinguishing them from Little Marlow; the ancient parish was large, including rural areas west of the town. In 1896 the civil parish of Great Marlow, created in the 19th century from the ancient parish, was divided into Great Marlow Urban District and Great Marlow civil parish. In 1897 the urban district was renamed Marlow Urban District, the town has been known as Marlow. Marlow is recorded in the Domesday Book as Merlaue. Magna Britannia includes the following entry for Marlow: "The manor of Marlow, which had belonged to the Earls of Mercia, was given by William the Conqueror, to his Queen Matilda.
Henry the First, bestowed it on his natural son, Robert de Melhent, afterwards Earl of Gloucester, from whom it passed, with that title, to the Clares and Despencers, from the latter, by female heirs, to the Beauchamps and Nevilles, Earls of Warwick. It continued in the crown from the time of Richard III's marriage with Anne Neville, until Queen Mary granted it to William Lord Paget, in whose family it continued more than a century, it is now the property of Sir William Clayton bart. A descendant of the last purchaser". Marlow owed its importance to its location on the River Thames, where the road from Reading to High Wycombe crosses the river, it had its own market by 1227, although the market lapsed before 1600. From 1301 to 1307 the town had its own Member of Parliament, it returned two members from 1624 to 1867. Marlow is adjoined by a mile to the north. Little Marlow is nearby to the east along the A4155 Little Marlow Road and Bourne End is further along the same road. To the south across the Thames are Bisham and Cookham Dean, both in Berkshire, There has been a bridge over the Thames at Marlow since the reign of King Edward III The current bridge is a suspension bridge, designed by William Tierney Clark in 1832, was a prototype for and is twinned with the much larger Széchenyi Chain Bridge across the River Danube in Budapest.
The Junior Wing of the Royal Military College moved to Sandhurst on the borders of Berkshire and Surrey, was once based in West Street, Marlow, at Remnantz, a large house built in the early 18th century which served as the Junior Department of the College from 1801 until 1812. The weather vane on the building may date from that period; the building is now owned by the Bosley family. The Hand & Flowers, the first gastropub to hold two Michelin stars, is located on West Street, it is one of several local pubs serving award-winning beers brewed locally in Marlow Bottom by the Rebellion Beer Company. Marlow is the location of Marlow Lock, originating from the 14th century. Marlow is twinned with Marly-le-Roi, since 1980. Budavár, a district of Budapest, Hungary; the A4155 road runs through Marlow town centre, with the A404 lying one mile to the east, the M40 motorway further to the north, the M4 motorway to the south. Marlow is served by a railway station, the terminus of a single-track branch line from Maidenhead.
The train service is known as the Marlow Donkey, the nickname given to the steam locomotives that once operated on the line. There is a pub with the same name, located close to the railway station. Bus services are provided by Arriva to neighbouring towns, including High Wycombe, Henley-on-Thames and Reading. Education is provided by several schools, including: Great Marlow School Sir William Borlase's Grammar School Burford School Danesfield School Foxes Piece School Holy Trinity Church of England School Marlow Church of England Infant School Spinfield School St Peter's Catholic Primary School Marlow Rowing Club, founded in 1871, is one of Britain's premier rowing clubs and has produced many Olympic oarsmen including Sir Steve Redgrave; the club exercises above and below the lock. The Olympic lightweight men's double-sculls gold medallist at Beijing 2008, Zac Purchase, is a former member of Marlow Rowing Club. Marlow F. C. is the oldest football club in the town playing in Tier 8 Southern Football League Division One Central.
It finished 4th of 22 in the 2016/17 season. Another local football club, Marlow United F. C. plays in Tier 11 Thames Valley Premier League Premier Division and finished 2nd of 14 in the 2016/17 season. Marlow Rugby Club plays at Riverwoods Drive, it was founded in 1947 and runs a range of senior and mini-rugby teams. The England Rugby team had its training base at Marlow RFC until the late 1990s, when it moved to nearby Bisham Abbey. There are two cricket clubs, Marlow Park CC, Marlow Cricket Club, founded in 1829 and is now part of Marlow Sports Club. Marlow Cricket Club plays in the Thames Valley League; the Sports Club caters to field hockey, running, junior football and softball. There are two regattas associated with Marlow. Earliest records indicate a regatta took place annually on the River Th
England
England is a country, part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to Scotland to the north-northwest; the Irish Sea lies west of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south; the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight. The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Palaeolithic period, but takes its name from the Angles, a Germanic tribe deriving its name from the Anglia peninsula, who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in the 10th century, since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century, has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world; the English language, the Anglican Church, English law – the basis for the common law legal systems of many other countries around the world – developed in England, the country's parliamentary system of government has been adopted by other nations.
The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the world's first industrialised nation. England's terrain is chiefly low hills and plains in central and southern England. However, there is upland and mountainous terrain in the west; the capital is London, which has the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. England's population of over 55 million comprises 84% of the population of the United Kingdom concentrated around London, the South East, conurbations in the Midlands, the North West, the North East, Yorkshire, which each developed as major industrial regions during the 19th century; the Kingdom of England – which after 1535 included Wales – ceased being a separate sovereign state on 1 May 1707, when the Acts of Union put into effect the terms agreed in the Treaty of Union the previous year, resulting in a political union with the Kingdom of Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The name "England" is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means "land of the Angles"; the Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages. The Angles came from the Anglia peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea; the earliest recorded use of the term, as "Engla londe", is in the late-ninth-century translation into Old English of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. The term was used in a different sense to the modern one, meaning "the land inhabited by the English", it included English people in what is now south-east Scotland but was part of the English kingdom of Northumbria; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded that the Domesday Book of 1086 covered the whole of England, meaning the English kingdom, but a few years the Chronicle stated that King Malcolm III went "out of Scotlande into Lothian in Englaland", thus using it in the more ancient sense.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its modern spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, in which the Latin word Anglii is used; the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars. How and why a term derived from the name of a tribe, less significant than others, such as the Saxons, came to be used for the entire country and its people is not known, but it seems this is related to the custom of calling the Germanic people in Britain Angli Saxones or English Saxons to distinguish them from continental Saxons of Old Saxony between the Weser and Eider rivers in Northern Germany. In Scottish Gaelic, another language which developed on the island of Great Britain, the Saxon tribe gave their name to the word for England. An alternative name for England is Albion; the name Albion referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus the 4th-century BC De Mundo: "Beyond the Pillars of Hercules is the ocean that flows round the earth.
In it are two large islands called Britannia. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, i.e. it was written in the Graeco-Roman period or afterwards. The word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins, it either derives from a cognate of the Latin albus meaning white, a reference to the white cliffs of Dover or from the phrase the "island of the Albiones" in the now lost Massaliote Periplus, attested through Avienus' Ora Maritima to which the former served as a source. Albion is now applied to England in a more poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England and made popular by its use in Arthurian legend; the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximate
Foodborne illness
Foodborne illness is any illness resulting from the spoilage of contaminated food, pathogenic bacteria, viruses, or parasites that contaminate food, as well as toxins such as poisonous mushrooms and various species of beans that have not been boiled for at least 10 minutes. Symptoms vary depending on the cause, are described below in this article. A few broad generalizations can be made, e.g.: the incubation period ranges from hours to days, depending on the cause and on how much was consumed. The incubation period tends to cause sufferers to not associate the symptoms with the item consumed, so to cause sufferers to attribute the symptoms to gastroenteritis for example. Symptoms include vomiting and aches, may include diarrhea. Bouts of vomiting can be repeated with an extended delay in between, because if infected food was eliminated from the stomach in the first bout, like bacteria, can pass through the stomach into the intestine and begin to multiply; some types of microbes stay in the intestine, some produce a toxin, absorbed into the bloodstream, some can directly invade deeper body tissues.
Foodborne illness arises from improper handling, preparation, or food storage. Good hygiene practices before and after food preparation can reduce the chances of contracting an illness. There is a consensus in the public health community that regular hand-washing is one of the most effective defenses against the spread of foodborne illness; the action of monitoring food to ensure that it will not cause foodborne illness is known as food safety. Foodborne disease can be caused by a large variety of toxins that affect the environment. Furthermore, foodborne illness can be caused by pesticides or medicines in food and natural toxic substances such as poisonous mushrooms or reef fish. Bacteria are a common cause of foodborne illness. In the United Kingdom during 2000, the individual bacteria involved were the following: Campylobacter jejuni 77.3%, Salmonella 20.9%, Escherichia coli O157:H7 1.4%, all others less than 0.56%. In the past, bacterial infections were thought to be more prevalent because few places had the capability to test for norovirus and no active surveillance was being done for this particular agent.
Toxins from bacterial infections are delayed. As a result, symptoms associated with intoxication are not seen until 12–72 hours or more after eating contaminated food. However, in some cases, such as Staphylococcal food poisoning, the onset of illness can be as soon as 30 minutes after ingesting contaminated food. Most common bacterial foodborne pathogens are: Campylobacter jejuni which can lead to secondary Guillain–Barré syndrome and periodontitis Clostridium perfringens, the "cafeteria germ" Salmonella spp. – its S. typhimurium infection is caused by consumption of eggs or poultry that are not adequately cooked or by other interactive human-animal pathogens Escherichia coli O157:H7 enterohemorrhagic which can cause hemolytic-uremic syndromeOther common bacterial foodborne pathogens are: Bacillus cereus Escherichia coli, other virulence properties, such as enteroinvasive, enterotoxigenic, enteroaggregative Listeria monocytogenes Shigella spp. Staphylococcus aureus Staphylococcal enteritis Streptococcus Vibrio cholerae, including O1 and non-O1 Vibrio parahaemolyticus Vibrio vulnificus Yersinia enterocolitica and Yersinia pseudotuberculosisLess common bacterial agents: Brucella spp.
Corynebacterium ulcerans Coxiella burnetii or Q fever Plesiomonas shigelloides In addition to disease caused by direct bacterial infection, some foodborne illnesses are caused by enterotoxins. Enterotoxins can produce illness when the microbes that produced them have been killed. Symptom appearance varies with the toxin but may be rapid in onset, as in the case of enterotoxins of Staphylococcus aureus in which symptoms appear in one to six hours; this causes intense vomiting including or not including diarrhea, staphylococcal enterotoxins are the most reported enterotoxins although cases of poisoning are underestimated. It occurs in cooked and processed foods due to competition with other biota in raw foods, humans are the main cause of contamination as a substantial percentage of humans are persistent carriers of S. aureus. The CDC has estimated about 240,000 cases per year in the United States. Clostridium botulinum Clostridium perfringens Bacillus cereusThe rare but deadly disease botulism occurs when the anaerobic bacterium Clostridium botulinum grows in improperly canned low-acid foods and produces botulin, a powerful paralytic toxin.
Pseudoalteromonas tetraodonis, certain species of Pseudomonas and Vibrio, some other bacteria, produce the lethal tetrodotoxin, present in the tissues of some living animal species rather than being a product of decomposition. Many foodborne illnesses remain poorly understood. Aeromonas hydrophila, Aeromonas caviae, Aeromonas sobria Prevention is the role of the state, through the definition of strict rules of hygiene and a public services of veterinary surveying of animal products in the food chain, from farming to the transformation industry and delivery; this regulation includes: traceability: in a final product, it must be possible to know the origin of the ingredients and where and when it was processed.
Fishing
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, netting and trapping. “Fishing” may include catching aquatic animals other than fish, such as molluscs, cephalopods and echinoderms. The term is not applied to catching farmed fish, or to aquatic mammals, such as whales where the term whaling is more appropriate. In addition to being caught to be eaten, fish are caught as recreational pastimes. Fishing tournaments are held, caught fish are sometimes kept as preserved or living trophies; when bioblitzes occur, fish are caught and released. According to the United Nations FAO statistics, the total number of commercial fishermen and fish farmers is estimated to be 38 million. Fisheries and aquaculture provide direct and indirect employment to over 500 million people in developing countries. In 2005, the worldwide per capita consumption of fish captured from wild fisheries was 14.4 kilograms, with an additional 7.4 kilograms harvested from fish farms.
Fishing is an ancient practice that dates back to at least the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic period about 40,000 years ago. Isotopic analysis of the skeletal remains of Tianyuan man, a 40,000-year-old modern human from eastern Asia, has shown that he consumed freshwater fish. Archaeology features such as shell middens, discarded fish bones, cave paintings show that sea foods were important for survival and consumed in significant quantities. Fishing in Africa is evident early on in human history. Neanderthals were fishing by about 200,000 BC to have a source of food for their families and to trade or sell. People could have developed basketry for fish traps, spinning and early forms of knitting in order to make fishing nets to be able to catch more fish in larger quantities. During this period, most people lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and were, of necessity on the move. However, where there are early examples of permanent settlements such as those at Lepenski Vir, they are always associated with fishing as a major source of food.
The British dogger was an early type of sailing trawler from the 17th century, but the modern fishing trawler was developed in the 19th century, at the English fishing port of Brixham. By the early 19th century, the fishermen at Brixham needed to expand their fishing area further than before due to the ongoing depletion of stocks, occurring in the overfished waters of South Devon; the Brixham trawler that evolved there was of a sleek build and had a tall gaff rig, which gave the vessel sufficient speed to make long distance trips out to the fishing grounds in the ocean. They were sufficiently robust to be able to tow large trawls in deep water; the great trawling fleet that built up at Brixham, earned the village the title of'Mother of Deep-Sea Fisheries'. This revolutionary design made large scale trawling in the ocean possible for the first time, resulting in a massive migration of fishermen from the ports in the South of England, to villages further north, such as Scarborough, Grimsby and Yarmouth, that were points of access to the large fishing grounds in the Atlantic Ocean.
The small village of Grimsby grew to become the largest fishing port in the world by the mid 19th century. An Act of Parliament was first obtained in 1796, which authorised the construction of new quays and dredging of the Haven to make it deeper, it was only in the 1846, with the tremendous expansion in the fishing industry, that the Grimsby Dock Company was formed. The foundation stone for the Royal Dock was laid by Albert the Prince consort in 1849; the dock covered 25 acres and was formally opened by Queen Victoria in 1854 as the first modern fishing port. The elegant Brixham trawler spread across the world. By the end of the 19th century, there were over 3,000 fishing trawlers in commission in Britain, with 1,000 at Grimsby; these trawlers were sold to fishermen including from the Netherlands and Scandinavia. Twelve trawlers went on to form the nucleus of the German fishing fleet; the earliest steam powered fishing boats first appeared in the 1870s and used the trawl system of fishing as well as lines and drift nets.
These were large boats 80–90 feet in length with a beam of around 20 feet. They travelled at 9 -- 11 knots; the earliest purpose built fishing vessels were designed and made by David Allan in Leith, Scotland in March 1875, when he converted a drifter to steam power. In 1877, he built. Steam trawlers were introduced at Hull in the 1880s. In 1890 it was estimated; the steam drifter was not used in the herring fishery until 1897. The last sailing fishing trawler was built in 1925 in Grimsby. Trawler designs adapted as the way they were powered changed from sail to coal-fired steam by World War I to diesel and turbines by the end of World War II. In 1931, the first powered drum was created by Laurie Jarelainen; the drum was a circular device, set to the side of the boat and would draw in the nets. Since World War II, radio navigation aids and fish finders have been used; the first trawlers fished over the side, rather than over the stern. The first purpose built stern trawler was Fairtry built in 1953 at Scotland.
The ship was much larger than any other trawlers in operation and inaugurated the era of the'super trawler'. As the ship pulled its nets over the stern, it could lift out a much greater haul of up to 60 tons; the ship served as a basis for the expansion of'su
Kingdom of Portugal
The Kingdom of Portugal was a monarchy on the Iberian Peninsula and the predecessor of modern Portugal. It was in existence from 1139 until 1910. After 1415, it was known as the Kingdom of Portugal and the Algarves, between 1815 and 1822, it was known as the United Kingdom of Portugal and the Algarves; the name is often applied to the Portuguese Empire, the realm's extensive overseas colonies. The nucleus of the Portuguese state was the County of Portugal, established in the 9th century as part of the Reconquista, by Vímara Peres, a vassal of the King of Asturias; the county became part of the Kingdom of León in 1097, the Counts of Portugal established themselves as rulers of an independent kingdom in the 12th century, following the battle of São Mamede. The kingdom was ruled by the Alfonsine Dynasty until the 1383–85 Crisis, after which the monarchy passed to the House of Aviz. During the 15th and 16th century, Portuguese exploration established a vast colonial empire. From 1580 to 1640, the Kingdom of Portugal was in personal union with Habsburg Spain.
After the Portuguese Restoration War of 1640–1668, the kingdom passed to the House of Braganza and thereafter to the House of Braganza-Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. From this time, the influence of Portugal declined, but it remained a major power due to its most valuable colony, Brazil. After the independence of Brazil, Portugal sought to establish itself in Africa, but was forced to yield to the British interests, leading to the collapse of the monarchy in the 5 October 1910 revolution and the establishment of the First Portuguese Republic. Portugal was a decisive absolute monarchy before 1822, it rotated between absolute and constitutional monarchy from 1822 until 1834, was a decisive constitutional monarchy after 1834. The Kingdom of Portugal finds its origins in the County of Portugal; the Portuguese County was a semi-autonomous county of the Kingdom of León. Independence from León took place in three stages: The first on 26 July 1139 when Afonso Henriques was acclaimed King of the Portuguese internally.
The second was on 5 October 1143, when Alfonso VII of León and Castile recognized Afonso Henriques as king through the Treaty of Zamora. The third, in 1179, was the Papal Bull Manifestis Probatum, in which Portugal's independence was recognized by Pope Alexander III. Once Portugal was independent, D. Afonso I's descendants, members of the Portuguese House of Burgundy, would rule Portugal until 1383. After the change in royal houses, all the monarchs of Portugal were descended from Afonso I, one way or another, through both legitimate and illegitimate links. With the start of the 20th century, Republicanism grew in numbers and support in Lisbon among progressive politicians and the influential press; however a minority with regard to the rest of the country, this height of republicanism would benefit politically from the Lisbon Regicide on 1 February 1908. While returning from the Ducal Palace at Vila Viçosa, King Carlos I and the Prince Royal Luís Filipe were assassinated in the Terreiro do Paço, in Lisbon.
With the death of the King and his heir, Carlos I's second son would become monarch as King Manuel II. Manuel's reign, would be short-lived, ending by force with the 5 October 1910 revolution, sending Manuel into exile in Great Britain and giving way to the Portuguese First Republic. On 19 January 1919, the Monarchy of the North was proclaimed in Porto; the monarchy would be deposed a month and no other monarchist counterrevolution in Portugal has happened since. After the republican revolution in October 1910, the remaining colonies of the empire became overseas provinces of the Portuguese Republic until the late 20th century, when the last overseas territories of Portugal were handed over. Kingdom of Algarve United Kingdom of Portugal and the Algarves List of titles and honours of the Portuguese Crown Portuguese nobility
World War I
World War I known as the First World War or the Great War, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. Contemporaneously described as "the war to end all wars", it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history, it is one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with an estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilian deaths as a direct result of the war, while resulting genocides and the 1918 influenza pandemic caused another 50 to 100 million deaths worldwide. On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb Yugoslav nationalist, assassinated the Austro-Hungarian heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, leading to the July Crisis. In response, on 23 July Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia. Serbia's reply failed to satisfy the Austrians, the two moved to a war footing. A network of interlocking alliances enlarged the crisis from a bilateral issue in the Balkans to one involving most of Europe.
By July 1914, the great powers of Europe were divided into two coalitions: the Triple Entente—consisting of France and Britain—and the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. Russia felt it necessary to back Serbia and, after Austria-Hungary shelled the Serbian capital of Belgrade on the 28th, partial mobilisation was approved. General Russian mobilisation was announced on the evening of 30 July; when Russia failed to comply, Germany declared war on 1 August in support of Austria-Hungary, with Austria-Hungary following suit on 6th. German strategy for a war on two fronts against France and Russia was to concentrate the bulk of its army in the West to defeat France within four weeks shift forces to the East before Russia could mobilise. On 2 August, Germany demanded free passage through Belgium, an essential element in achieving a quick victory over France; when this was refused, German forces invaded Belgium on 3 August and declared war on France the same day. On 12 August and France declared war on Austria-Hungary.
In November 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Alliance, opening fronts in the Caucasus and the Sinai Peninsula. The war was fought in and drew upon each power's colonial empire as well, spreading the conflict to Africa and across the globe; the Entente and its allies would become known as the Allied Powers, while the grouping of Austria-Hungary and their allies would become known as the Central Powers. The German advance into France was halted at the Battle of the Marne and by the end of 1914, the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, marked by a long series of trench lines that changed little until 1917. In 1915, Italy opened a front in the Alps. Bulgaria joined the Central Powers in 1915 and Greece joined the Allies in 1917, expanding the war in the Balkans; the United States remained neutral, although by doing nothing to prevent the Allies from procuring American supplies whilst the Allied blockade prevented the Germans from doing the same the U. S. became an important supplier of war material to the Allies.
After the sinking of American merchant ships by German submarines, the revelation that the Germans were trying to incite Mexico to make war on the United States, the U. S. declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917. Trained American forces would not begin arriving at the front in large numbers until mid-1918, but the American Expeditionary Force would reach some two million troops. Though Serbia was defeated in 1915, Romania joined the Allied Powers in 1916 only to be defeated in 1917, none of the great powers were knocked out of the war until 1918; the 1917 February Revolution in Russia replaced the Tsarist autocracy with the Provisional Government, but continuing discontent at the cost of the war led to the October Revolution, the creation of the Soviet Socialist Republic, the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk by the new government in March 1918, ending Russia's involvement in the war. This allowed the transfer of large numbers of German troops from the East to the Western Front, resulting in the German March 1918 Offensive.
This offensive was successful, but the Allies rallied and drove the Germans back in their Hundred Days Offensive. Bulgaria was the first Central Power to sign an armistice—the Armistice of Salonica on 29 September 1918. On 30 October, the Ottoman Empire capitulated. On 4 November, the Austro-Hungarian empire agreed to the Armistice of Villa Giusti after being decisively defeated by Italy in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto. With its allies defeated, revolution at home, the military no longer willing to fight, Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated on 9 November and Germany signed an armistice on 11 November 1918. World War I was a significant turning point in the political, cultural and social climate of the world; the war and its immediate aftermath sparked numerous uprisings. The Big Four (Britain, the United States, It
