1.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
2.
Stone, Kent
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Stone is a village in the Dartford Borough of Kent. It is located east of Dartford, iron Age pottery and artefacts have been found here proving it to be an ancient settlement site. The 13th-century parish church, dedicated to St Mary the Virgin at Stone, was known as the Lantern of Kent from its beacon light known to all sailors on the river. It is one of Kents most dramatic churches and is renowned for its Gothic sculpture made by the masons who built Westminster Abbey, the castle was built almost entirely of flint. The only surviving portion of the medieval castle intact is its large rectangular tower. An adjoining Georgian house was built onto the tower by Sir Richard Wiltshire, in more recent times the property has belonged to the Church of England. Stone Castle is now the office of a large cement manufacturer. The cement works which once stood here have now been demolished, the disused Johns Hole Quarry at Stone was used as a filming location for the mine scenes in the Doctor Who television story The Dalek Invasion of Earth. This was the first of many quarries to be used in the series, Stone Crossing railway station is located on the North Kent Line. Stone has a cricket team that was established in 1888. At the 2001 UK census, the Stone electoral ward had a population of 6,252, the ethnicity was 95. 9% white,0. 9% mixed race,1. 6% Asian,1. 3% black and 0. 3% other. The place of birth of residents was 94. 8% United Kingdom,0. 8% Republic of Ireland,0. 9% other Western European countries, and 3. 5% elsewhere. Religion was recorded as 71% Christian,0. 2% Buddhist,0. 4% Hindu,0. 5% Sikh and 0. 3% Muslim. 17. 4% were recorded as having no religion,0. 2% had a religion and 9. 9% did not state their religion. Of the wards residents aged 16–74, 12% had a higher education qualification or the equivalent, Stone Crossing station serves the area with services to London Charing Cross both via Sidcup and via Woolwich Arsenal station, Gravesend and Gillingham station. The Thames Europort is situated in Stone and this is a ro-ro facility for sea freight traffic
3.
Greenhithe
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Greenhithe is a small town in the Dartford Borough of Kent. It is located east of Dartford and this led in turn to the development of the cement industry at nearby Swanscombe. Greenhithe itself enjoyed a period of popularity during Victorian times as a tourist resort. The social history of Greenhithe is bound up in terms of its revenues and manors until the 20th century with its ecclesiastical parish. It owes a great deal to its situation by the river Thames and expansion to the nearby Watling Street, hence not only the City of London, but the adjacent counties, and even those of Suffolk and Norfolk are supplied with this commodity. In the middle of the 19th century, the need was recognised for pre-sea training for officers in the Royal. This led a group of London shipowners to found the Thames Nautical Training College in 1862, the Admiralty was approached for a ship and allocated the two-decker HMS Worcester. At the time the Royal Navy was starting to replace its fleet of wooden walls with iron-clad vessels and there was a surplus of such wooden vessels, which included the 1473-ton, 50-gun Worcester. She had various berths before finally moving in 1871 to what became a base forever associated with the Worcester – the village of Greenhithe, the clipper Cutty Sark was given to the College in 1938, and was used as a boating station moored off the Greenhithe estate. However, during the war years, the College was evacuated to nearby Foots Cray Place. The Worcester was used as a base by the Royal Navy. Happily, after the war, a replacement ship was found in the form of the Exmouth and she was an unusual vessel, since she was built in 1904 of steel and iron especially for nautical training and had many advantages over the converted hulks previously used. After restoration, she was moved to a permanent dry-dock at Greenwich, the College closed in 1968 and the last Worcester was broken up a few years later. The village of Greenhithe has many Worcester memories such as the sign at the pub. The Ingress Estate was a seat in the hamlet of Greenhithe, in 1363 the manor was endowed upon the Prioress and Abbey of the Dominican Sisters in Dartford by Edward III until the Dissolution of the Monasteries under King Henry VIII of England. In 1820, the Ingress Estate was purchased by barrister James Harman and he gave his architect, Charles Moreing, £120,000 to build the Abbey. The current Tudor-gothic-style mansion, Ingress Abbey, was constructed in 1833, stone from the medieval London Bridge, replaced in the 1830s, is said to have been used in the construction. Greenhithes economy no longer depends on trade, this having been replaced by the M25 motorway, the new High Speed 1 Ebbsfleet International station
4.
Kent
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Kent /ˈkɛnt/ is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south west, the county also shares borders with Essex via the Dartford Crossing and the French department of Pas-de-Calais through the Channel Tunnel. France can be clearly in fine weather from Folkestone and the White Cliffs of Dover. Hills in the form of the North Downs and the Greensand Ridge span the length of the county, because of its relative abundance of fruit-growing and hop gardens, Kent is known as The Garden of England. The title was defended in 2006 when a survey of counties by the UKTV Style Gardens channel put Kent in fifth place, behind North Yorkshire, Devon. Haulage, logistics, and tourism are industries, major industries in north-west Kent include aggregate building materials, printing. Coal mining has played its part in Kents industrial heritage. Large parts of Kent are within the London commuter belt and its transport connections to the capital. Twenty-eight per cent of the county forms part of two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the North Downs and The High Weald, the area has been occupied since the Palaeolithic era, as attested by finds from the quarries at Swanscombe. The Medway megaliths were built during the Neolithic era, There is a rich sequence of Bronze Age, Iron Age, and Roman era occupation, as indicated by finds and features such as the Ringlemere gold cup and the Roman villas of the Darent valley. The modern name of Kent is derived from the Brythonic word Cantus meaning rim or border and this describes the eastern part of the current county area as a border land or coastal district. Julius Caesar had described the area as Cantium, or home of the Cantiaci in 51 BC, the extreme west of the modern county was by the time of Roman Britain occupied by Iron Age tribes, known as the Regnenses. East Kent became a kingdom of the Jutes during the 5th century and was known as Cantia from about 730, the early medieval inhabitants of the county were known as the Cantwara, or Kent people. These people regarded the city of Canterbury as their capital, in 597, Pope Gregory I appointed the religious missionary as the first Archbishop of Canterbury. In the previous year, Augustine successfully converted the pagan King Æthelberht of Kent to Christianity, the Diocese of Canterbury became Britains first Episcopal See with first cathedral and has since remained Englands centre of Christianity. The second designated English cathedral was in Kent at Rochester Cathedral, in the 11th century, the people of Kent adopted the motto Invicta, meaning undefeated. This naming followed the invasion of Britain by William of Normandy, the Kent peoples continued resistance against the Normans led to Kents designation as a semi-autonomous county palatine in 1067. Under the nominal rule of Williams half-brother Odo of Bayeux, the county was granted powers to those granted in the areas bordering Wales
5.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union 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, 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 Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
6.
Prudential plc
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Prudential plc is a British multinational life insurance and financial services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It was founded in London in May 1848 as The Prudential Mutual Assurance Investment and Loan Association to provide loans to professional and its Prudential UK division has around 7 million customers and is a leading provider of life insurance and pensions in the UK. In December 2013 Prudential acquired the Ghanaian life insurance company, Express Life, Prudential subsequently rebranded the business as Prudential Ghana. In September 2014, it purchased Kenyan life insurer Shield Assurance, Prudential has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE100 Index. It had a capitalisation of approximately £41,630 million as of 4 February 2015. Prudential has secondary listings on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange, the company was founded on 30 May 1848 in Hatton Garden in London as The Prudential Mutual Assurance Investment and Loan Association providing loans to professional and working people. The army of premium collection agents was for many years identified with the Prudential as the Man from the Pru and it moved to its traditional home at Holborn Bars in 1879 and converted to a limited company in 1881. The Prudential Assurance Company Limited was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1924, in 1986, Prudential acquired the American insurer Jackson National Life. In 1997, Prudential acquired Scottish Amicable, a business founded in 1826 in Glasgow as the West of Scotland Life Insurance Company, in 1998, Prudential set up Egg, an internet bank within the UK. The subsidiary reached 550,000 customers within nine months but had difficulty achieving profitability, in June 2000 an initial public offering of 21% was made to allow for further growth of the internet business but in February 2006 Prudential decided to repurchase the 21% share of Egg. Egg was subsequently sold to Citibank in January 2007, in 1999, M&G, a UK fund management company, was acquired. In June 2000, the Company was first listed on the New York Stock Exchange to help focus on the US market, in October 2004 Prudential launched a new subsidiary, PruHealth, a joint venture with Discovery Holdings of South Africa selling private medical insurance to the UK market. In April 2008 Prudential outsourced its back office functions to Capita, on 1 March 2010, Prudential announced that it was in advanced talks to purchase the pan-Asian life insurance company of AIG, American International Assurance for approximately £23 billion. The deal later collapsed and AIA ended up raising money in an IPO, in December 2013, Prudential announced the purchase of Ghana’s Express Life Company. Express Life was subsequently rebranded as Prudential Ghana, in September 2014, Prudential purchased Kenyan life insurer Shield Assurance and rebranded it as Prudential Kenya, further expanding the company’s presence in Africa. On 10 March 2015, it was announced that the CEO, Tidjane Thiam, would leave Prudential to become the next CEO of Credit Suisse. On 1 May 2015, it was announced that Mike Wells, head of the companys US business, would succeed Tidjane Thiam as CEO, the Company has four business units, Prudential UK, Europe & Africa, the business offers pensions, annuities, savings and investments. They are particularly known for the sale of with-profit bonds and pensions, corporate pension schemes, bulk annuities
7.
Eric Kuhne
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Eric Robert Kuhne was an American-born British architect based in London. Kuhne was born in San Antonio, Texas of Swiss, Czech, and Swedish heritage and grew up in the Air Force as a son to Major Robert David Kuhne and Thelma Parsons Kuhne. He moved with his sister and brother from one Air Force base to another, living in San Antonio, Houston, Biloxi, Tampa, Tucson, Chicago, the family then moved to New Haven, Indiana and into civilian life. During his childhood, his father taught him perspective drawing when he was seven years old and his parents introduced him to architecture and civil engineering through books in their library. His early employment was with an architect in Fort Wayne, Indiana before beginning work as an assistant to Dr Louis G. Petro. With Louis G Petro & Associates, between the ages of 14 and 16, he learned drafting, project management, and the fundamentals to both architecture and engineering and he worked for Cole Matson & Matott Architects in Fort Wayne in his final year of high school. Graduating from New Haven High School in 1969, he entered William Marsh Rice University in the School of Architecture, there, he completed a Bachelor of Arts Degree with majors in both Art and Architecture in 1973. During this time, he completed a new plan for downtown Fort Wayne. In addition, he restored the farmers back to West Berry Street, designed the Courtyards Project at Wayne and Calhoun Streets. While in Fort Wayne, Kuhne was also appointed to the Board of the Public Transportation Corporation by Mayor Lebamoff and he was appointed to the Allen County Soil & Water Conservation District by the Governor of the State of Indiana. Traveling in Europe in 1974 under the William Ward Watkin Traveling Fellowship, awarded from the Rice University School of Architecture in 1973, Kuhne left Fort Wayne in 1981 to work for the famed post-modernist architect, Michael Graves in Princeton, New Jersey. In the autumn of 1981 Kuhne entered Princetons Graduate School of Architecture, for his work there, he won the Henry Adams Medal from the American Institute of Architects. Kuhne worked and lived in London in Clerkenwell, in December 2009, he became a British citizen and held dual citizenship with the United States of America. Kuhne died suddenly in London on July 25,2016 from an attack, aged 64 and leaves behind his beloved wife. Kuhne conceived his later company CivicArts in 1975 and as five divisions of Research, Concept Design, Professional Architectural Services, Industrial Design & Manufacturing, and Investment. While at Princeton, in 1981 he opened Eric R Kuhne & Associates in his apartment on Nassau Street overlooking the entrance to Princeton University, there he hired several colleagues at the School of Architecture and entered design competitions. He won the Columbus Carscape Competition and three Progressive Architecture Design Awards for Courtyards, Headwaters Park, and River Walk, the office was relocated to New York City in 1985 at 50 Walker Street where it remained until 2005 when it was centred in London. All work has been out of the London Office which was opened in 1994
8.
Anchor store
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In retail, an anchor store, draw tenant, anchor tenant, or key tenant is one of the larger stores in a shopping mall, usually a department store or a major retail chain. Current examples of common anchor stores in the USA include Younkers, Macys, Kohls, Sears, Bergners, Dillards, Carsons, Boscovs, The Bon-Ton, Bloomingdales, Lord & Taylor, and JCPenney. Defunct examples include Montgomery Ward, Mervyns, Eatons, Lazarus, Galyans, Foleys, Marshall Fields, Hechts, Sports Authority, Parisian, anchors generally have their rents heavily discounted, and may even receive cash inducements from the mall to remain open. The regional center typically has two or more anchors, while the superregional typically has three or more, in each case, the anchors account for 50-70% of the malls leasable space. Malls with anchor stores have consistently outperformed those without one, as the anchor helps draw shoppers initially attracted to the anchor to shop at stores in the mall. Early on, grocery stores were a type of anchor store. However, research on consumer behavior revealed that most trips to the store did not result in visits to surrounding shops. Large supermarkets remain common anchor stores within power centers however, the challenges faced by the traditional large department stores have led to a resurgence in the use of supermarkets as anchors
9.
Marks & Spencer
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Marks and Spencer plc is a major British multinational retailer headquartered in the City of Westminster, London. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE100 Index and it specialises in the selling of clothing, home products and luxury food products. M&S was founded in 1884 by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in Leeds, the company also began to sell branded goods like Kelloggs Corn Flakes in November 2008. In recent years its clothing sales have fallen whilst food sales have increased after the axing of St. Michaels naming for their own brand. The company was founded by a partnership between Michael Marks, a Polish Jew from Słonim, and Thomas Spencer, a cashier from the English market town of Skipton in North Yorkshire. On his arrival in England, Marks worked for a company in Leeds, called Barran, in 1884 he met Isaac Jowitt Dewhirst while looking for work. Dewhirst lent Marks £5 which he used to establish his Penny Bazaar on Kirkgate Market, Dewhirst also taught him a little English. Dewhirsts cashier was Tom Spencer, a bookkeeper, whose wife, Agnes. In 1894, when Marks acquired a permanent stall in Leeds covered market, in 1901 Marks moved to the Birkenhead open market where he amalgamated with Spencer. The pair were allocated stall numbers 11 &12 in the aisle in 1903. The company left Birkenhead Market on 24 February 1923 and it also accepted the return of unwanted items, giving a full cash refund if the receipt was shown, no matter how long ago the product was purchased, which was unusual for the time. M&S staff raised £5,000 to pay for a Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft called The Marksman in 1941, by 1950, virtually all goods were sold under the St Michael label. M&S lingerie, womens clothes and girls uniform were branded under the St Margaret label until the whole range of general merchandise became St Michael. Simon Marks, son of Michael Marks, died in 1964, Israel Sieff, the son-in-law of Michael Marks, took over as chairman and in 1968, John Salisse became the company Director. A cautious international expansion began with the introduction of Asian food in 1974, M&S opened stores in continental Europe in 1975 and in Ireland four years later. The company put its emphasis on quality, including a 1957 stocking size measuring system. For most of its history, it also had a reputation for offering fair value for money, when this reputation began to waver, it encountered serious difficulties. Arguably, M&S has historically been an iconic retailer of British Quality Goods, the uncompromising attitude towards customer relations was summarised by the 1953 slogan, The customer is always and completely right
10.
House of Fraser
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House of Fraser is a British department store group with over 60 stores across the United Kingdom and Ireland. It was established in Glasgow, Scotland in 1849 as Arthur, by 1891, it was known as Fraser & Sons. The company grew steadily during the early 20th century, but after the Second World War, between 1936 and 1985 over seventy companies, not including their subsidiaries, were acquired. The companys acquisitions have included numerous household names, some of which are no longer used as part of the companys long-term strategy of re-branding its stores under the House of Fraser name. D H Evans Oxford Street store in London was rebranded as House of Fraser in 2001, House of Frasers largest store is located in Birmingham. The Company was founded by Hugh Fraser and James Arthur in 1849 as a drapery shop on the corner of Argyle Street and Buchanan Street in Glasgow, Scotland trading as Arthur. Hugh Fraser had been apprenticed to Stewart & McDonald Ltd, a Glasgow drapery warehouse where he rose to the position of warehouse manager and from where he brought many of initial customers. James Arthur also owned a drapery business in Paisley, near Glasgow. The Company established a trade in adjoining premises in Argyle Street. In 1856 the wholesale business moved to a site in Miller Street, Glasgow. The retail side of the business expanded into the vacant buildings left by the wholesale side, during the late 1850s and early 1860s the retail business was run by a professional manager – first Thomas Kirkpatrick and then Alexander McLaren. In 1865 the partnership between the partners was dissolved and Fraser assumed control of the business leaving Arthur with the wholesale business. In 1865 Alexander McLaren joined the business and the name was changed to Fraser & McLaren. When the first Hugh Fraser died in 1873, his three eldest sons, James, John and Hugh, acquired stakes in the business, James and John Fraser were initially directors in the business and employed Alexander McLaren and later John Towers to manage it for them. In 1891 Hugh also joined the partnership which by then was called Fraser & Sons and he moved to London in 1878 to set up his own business in Westminster Bridge Road. The store traded under the D H Evans name until 2001, by 1900, Hugh Fraser II was in charge, he incorporated the business as Fraser & Sons Ltd in 1909 and introduced the famous stag’s head. After Hugh Fraser II died in 1927, his son Hugh Fraser III and he opened new departments, enlarged the tearoom, opened a restaurant and also began to look at possible acquisitions. In 1936 he purchased Arnott & Co Ltd and its neighbour Robert Simpson & Sons Ltd in nearby Argyle Street, in 1948 the Company, now named House of Fraser, was first listed on the London Stock Exchange
