1.
Poland
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Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, situated between the Baltic Sea in the north and two mountain ranges in the south. Bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, the total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres, making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe, Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, and its capital and largest city is Warsaw. Other metropolises include Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk and Szczecin, the establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, Poland regained its independence in 1918 at the end of World War I, reconstituting much of its historical territory as the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, followed thereafter by invasion by the Soviet Union. More than six million Polish citizens died in the war, after the war, Polands borders were shifted westwards under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. With the backing of the Soviet Union, a communist puppet government was formed, and after a referendum in 1946. During the Revolutions of 1989 Polands Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy, informally called the Third Polish Republic. Since the early 1990s, when the transition to a primarily market-based economy began, Poland has achieved a high ranking on the Human Development Index. Poland is a country, which was categorised by the World Bank as having a high-income economy. Furthermore, it is visited by approximately 16 million tourists every year, Poland is the eighth largest economy in the European Union and was the 6th fastest growing economy on the continent between 2010 and 2015. According to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is ranked 19th in the list of the safest countries in the world to live in. The origin of the name Poland derives from a West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta River basin of the historic Greater Poland region in the 8th century, the origin of the name Polanie itself derives from the western Slavic word pole. In some foreign languages such as Hungarian, Lithuanian, Persian and Turkish the exonym for Poland is Lechites, historians have postulated that throughout Late Antiquity, many distinct ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland. The most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, the Slavic groups who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the authority of the Roman Church
2.
Voivodeships of Poland
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A województwo is the highest-level administrative subdivision of Poland, corresponding to a province in many other countries. The term województwo has been in use since the 14th century, the word województwo is also rendered as voivodeship or a variant spelling. The Polish local government reforms adopted in 1998, which went into effect on 1 January 1999 and these replaced the 49 former voivodeships that had existed from 1 July 1975. Todays voivodeships are mostly named after historical and geographical regions, while prior to 1998 generally took their names from the cities on which they were centered. The new units range in area from under 10,000 km2 to over 35,000 km2, voivodeships are further divided into powiats and gminas, see Administrative divisions of Poland. Competences and powers at voivodeship level are shared between the voivode, the sejmik and the marshal. In most cases these institutions are all based in one city, but in Kuyavian-Pomeranian and Lubusz Voivodeship the voivodes offices are in a different city from those of the executive, Voivodeship capitals are listed in the table below. The voivode is appointed by the Prime Minister and is the representative of the central government. The voivodes offices collectively are known as the urząd wojewódzki, the sejmik is elected every four years, at the same time as the local authorities at powiat and gmina level. It passes bylaws, including the development strategies and budget. It also elects the marszałek and other members of the executive, the marshals offices are collectively known as the urząd marszałkowski. According to 2014 Eurostat data, the GDP per capita of Polish voivodeships varies notably, Administrative division of Poland between 1979 and 1998 included 49 voivodeships upheld after the establishment of the Third Polish Republic in 1989 for another decade. This reorganization of administrative division of Poland was mainly a result of government reform acts of 1973–1975. In place of the administrative division, a new two-level administrative division was introduced. The three smallest voivodeships – Warsaw, Kraków and Łódź – had the status of municipal voivodeship. After World War II, the new division of the country within the new national borders was based on the prewar one and included 14 voivodeships. The voivodeships in the east that had not been annexed by the Soviet Union had their borders left almost unchanged. The newly acquired territories in the west and north were organized into the new voivodeships of Szczecin, Wrocław and Olsztyn, two cities were granted voivodeship status, Warsaw and Łódź
3.
Opole Voivodeship
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Opole Voivodeship, or Opole Province, is the smallest and least populated voivodeship of Poland. The provinces name derives from that of the capital and largest city. It is part of Upper Silesia, a relatively large German minority lives in the voivodeship, with representatives in the Sejm. Opole Voivodeship is bordered by Lower Silesian Voivodeship to the west, Greater Poland and Łódź Voivodeships to the north, Silesian Voivodeship to the east, and the Czech Republic to the south. Opole Provinces geographic location, economic potential, and its populations level of education make it a business partner for other Polish regions. Formed in 1997, the Praděd/Pradziad Euroregion has facilitated economic, cultural, the voivodeship lies in southwestern Poland, the major part on the Silesian Lowland. To the east, the touches upon the Silesian Upland with the famous Saint Anne Mountain, the Sudetes range. The Oder River cuts across the middle of the voivodeship, the northern part of the voivodeship, along the Mała Panew River, is densely forested, while the southern part consists of arable land. Opole Voivodeship was created on January 1,1999, out of the former Opole Voivodeship and parts of Częstochowa Voivodeship, the solution came in late 1999, when Olesno was, after 24 years apart, finally reunited with the Opole Voivodeship to form the new legally defined region. The Opole Voivodeship is the smallest region in the makeup of the country in terms of both area and population. About 15% of the one million inhabitants of this voivodeship are ethnic Germans, as a result, many areas are officially bilingual in Opolskie, and the German language and culture play a significant role in education in the region. The Opole voivodeship is a region with three large lakes, Turawskie, Nyskie, and Otmuchowskie. The Opawskie Mountains are extremely popular, the region has the warmest climate in the country. The region has four crossings, and direct rail connections to all important Polish cities, as well as to Frankfurt, Munich, Budapest, Kiev. The voivodeship contains 35 cities and towns and these are listed below in descending order of population, Opole Voivodeship is divided into 12 counties,1 city county and 11 land counties. These are further divided into 71 gminas, the counties are listed in the following table. The Opole voivodeship is an industrial as well as an agricultural region, with respect to mineral resources, of major importance are deposits of raw materials for building, limestone, marl, marble, and basalt. The favourable climate, fertile soils, and high farming culture contribute to the development of agriculture, a total of nineteen industries are represented in the voivodeship
4.
Powiat
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A powiat is the second-level unit of local government and administration in Poland, equivalent to a county, district or prefecture in other countries. The term powiat is most often translated into English as county, a powiat is part of a larger unit, the voivodeship or province. A powiat is usually subdivided into gminas, major towns and cities, however, function as separate counties in their own right, without subdivision into gminas. They are termed city counties and have roughly the same status as county boroughs in the UK. The other type of powiats are termed land counties, as of 2008, there were 379 powiat-level entities,314 land counties, and 65 city counties. For a complete listing, see List of Polish counties. For tables of counties by voivodeship, see the articles on the individual voivodeships, the history of Polish powiats goes back to the second half of the 14th century. They remained the basic unit of organization in Poland, then in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. After Poland regained independence in 1918, the powiats were again the territorial units. Powiats were abolished in 1975 in favor of a number of voivodeships. This reform also created 16 larger voivodeships, legislative power within a powiat is vested in an elected council, while local executive power is vested in the starosta, who is elected by that council. The administrative offices headed by the starosta are called the starostwo, however, in city counties these institutions do not exist separately – their powers and functions are exercised by the city council, the directly elected mayor, and the city offices. In some cases a powiat has its seat outside its own territory, for example, Poznań County has its offices in Poznań, although Poznań is itself a city county, and is therefore not part of Poznań County. Powiats have relatively limited powers, since many local and regional matters are dealt with either at gmina or voivodeship level, the Polish the name of an county, in the administrative sense, consists of the word powiat followed by a masculine-gender adjective. In most cases, this is the formed from the name of the town or city where the county has its seat. Thus the county with its seat at the town of Kutno is named powiat kutnowski, if the name of the seat comprises a noun followed by an adjective, as in Maków Mazowiecki, the adjective will generally be formed from the noun only. There are also a few counties whose names are derived from the names of two towns, from the name of a city and an adjective, or a mountain range. There is more one way to render such names into English
5.
Kluczbork County
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Kluczbork County is a unit of territorial administration and local government in Opole Voivodeship, south-western Poland. It came into being on January 1,1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998 and its administrative seat and largest town is Kluczbork, which lies 41 kilometres north-east of the regional capital Opole. The county also contains the towns of Wołczyn, lying 12 km west of Kluczbork, the county covers an area of 851.59 square kilometres. As of 2006 its total population is 70,082, out of which the population of Kluczbork is 25,910, that of Wołczyn is 6,139, that of Byczyna is 3,677, and the rural population is 34,356. Kluczbork County is bordered by Kępno County and Wieruszów County to the north, Olesno County to the south-east, Opole County to the south, the county is subdivided into four gminas. These are listed in the table, in descending order of population
6.
Gmina
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The gmina is the principal unit of the administrative division of Poland, similar to a commune or municipality. As of 2010 there were 2,478 gminy throughout the country, the word gmina derives from the German word Gemeinde, meaning community. The gmina has been the unit of territorial division in Poland since 1974. Some rural gminy have their seat in a town which is outside the gminas division, for example, the rural Gmina Augustów is administered from the town of Augustów, but does not include the town, as Augustów is an urban type gmina in its own right. The legislative and controlling body of each gmina is the municipal council, or in a town. A gmina may create auxiliary units, which play an administrative role. In rural areas these are called sołectwa, in towns they may be dzielnice or osiedla and in an urban-rural gmina, for a complete listing of all the gminy in Poland, see List of Polish gminas. Each gmina carries out two types of tasks, its own tasks and commissioned ones, own tasks are public tasks exercised by self-government, which serve to satisfy the needs of the community. Commissioned tasks cover the remaining public tasks resulting from legitimate needs of the state, the tasks are handed over on the basis of statutory by-laws, charters and regulations, or by way of agreements between the self-government units and central-government administration. Official report from the Central Statistical Office of Poland dated January 1,2006
7.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
8.
German language
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German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol, the German-speaking Community of Belgium and it is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg. Major languages which are most similar to German include other members of the West Germanic language branch, such as Afrikaans, Dutch, English, Luxembourgish and it is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English. One of the languages of the world, German is the first language of about 95 million people worldwide. The German speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of publication of new books. German derives most of its vocabulary from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, a portion of German words are derived from Latin and Greek, and fewer are borrowed from French and English. With slightly different standardized variants, German is a pluricentric language, like English, German is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects, with many unique varieties existing in Europe and also other parts of the world. The history of the German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, when Martin Luther translated the Bible, he based his translation primarily on the standard bureaucratic language used in Saxony, also known as Meißner Deutsch. Copies of Luthers Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region that translated words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Roman Catholics initially rejected Luthers translation, and tried to create their own Catholic standard of the German language – the difference in relation to Protestant German was minimal. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that a widely accepted standard was created, until about 1800, standard German was mainly a written language, in urban northern Germany, the local Low German dialects were spoken. Standard German, which was different, was often learned as a foreign language with uncertain pronunciation. Northern German pronunciation was considered the standard in prescriptive pronunciation guides though, however, German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire, which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe. Until the mid-19th century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of the Empire and its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Some cities, such as Prague and Budapest, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain, others, such as Pozsony, were originally settled during the Habsburg period, and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest and Bratislava as well as cities like Zagreb, the most comprehensive guide to the vocabulary of the German language is found within the Deutsches Wörterbuch. This dictionary was created by the Brothers Grimm and is composed of 16 parts which were issued between 1852 and 1860, in 1872, grammatical and orthographic rules first appeared in the Duden Handbook. In 1901, the 2nd Orthographical Conference ended with a standardization of the German language in its written form
9.
Town
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A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size definition for what constitutes a town varies considerably in different parts of the world, the word town shares an origin with the German word Zaun, the Dutch word tuin, and the Old Norse tun. The German word Zaun comes closest to the meaning of the word. An early borrowing from Celtic *dunom, in English and Dutch, the meaning of the word took on the sense of the space which these fences enclosed. In England, a town was a community that could not afford or was not allowed to build walls or other larger fortifications. In the Netherlands, this space was a garden, more specifically those of the wealthy, in Old Norse tun means a place between farmhouses, and is still used in a similar meaning in modern Norwegian. If there was any distinction between toun and burgh as claimed by some, it did not last in practice as burghs, for example, Edina Burgh or Edinburgh was built around a fort and eventually came to have a defensive wall. In some cases, town is a name for city or village. Sometimes, the town is short for township. A places population size is not a determinant of urban character. In many areas of the world, as in India at least until recent times, in the United Kingdom, there are historical cities that are far smaller than the larger towns. Some forms of settlement, such as temporary mining locations, may be clearly non-rural. Towns often exist as governmental units, with legally defined borders. In the United States these are referred to as incorporated towns, in other cases the town lacks its own governance and is said to be unincorporated. Note that the existence of a town may be legally set forth through other means. In the case of planned communities, the town exists legally in the form of covenants on the properties within the town. Australian geographer Thomas Griffith Taylor proposed a classification of towns based on their age, although there is no official use of the term for any settlement. In Albanian qytezë means small city or new city, while in ancient times small residential center within the walls of a castle
10.
Upper Silesia
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Upper Silesia is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia. In 1742 the bulk of Upper Silesia was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia, after the Second World War it became part of the Republic of Poland, in 1945. Upper Silesia is situated on the upper Oder River, north of the Eastern Sudetes mountain range and the Moravian Gate, within the adjacent Silesian Beskids to the east, the Vistula River rises and turns eastwards, the Biała and Przemsza tributaries mark the eastern border with Lesser Poland. In the north, Upper Silesia borders on Greater Poland, and it is currently split into a larger Polish and the smaller Czech Silesian part, which is located within the Czech regions of Moravia-Silesia and Olomouc. The Polish Upper Silesian territory covers most of the Opole Voivodeship, except for the Lower Silesian counties of Brzeg and Namysłów, divided Cieszyn Silesia as well as former Austrian Silesia are historical parts of Upper Silesia. According to the 9th century Bavarian Geographer, the West Slavic Opolanie tribe had settled on the upper Oder River since the days of the Migration Period, at the time of Prince Svatopluk I, all Silesia was a part of his Great Moravian realm. By 990 the newly installed Piast duke Mieszko I of the Polans had conquered parts of Silesia. Finally in 1137, the Polish prince Bolesław III Wrymouth came to terms with Duke Soběslav I of Bohemia, however, this arrangement fell apart when upon the death of Bolesław III and his testament the fragmentation of Poland began, which decisively enfeebled its central authority. When in 1202 Mieszko Tanglefoot had annexed the Duchy of Opole of his deceased nephew Jarosław, he ruled over all Upper Silesia as Duke of Opole and Racibórz. In the early 13th century the ties of the Silesian Piasts with the neighbouring Holy Roman Empire grew stronger as several dukes married scions of German nobility. The plans to re-unifiy Silesia shattered upon the Mongol invasion of Poland, Upper Silesia further fragmented upon the death of Duke Władysław Opolski in 1281 into the duchies of Bytom, Opole, Racibórz and Cieszyn. About 1269 the Duchy of Opava was established on adjacent Moravian territory, ruled by the Přemyslid duke Nicholas I, as they ruled both duchies in personal union, Opava grew into the Upper Silesian territory. In 1327 the Upper Silesian dukes, like most of their Lower Silesian cousins, had sworn allegiance to King John of Bohemia, by the mid-14th century, the influx of German settlers into Upper Silesia was stopped by the Black Death pandemic. Unlike in Lower Silesia, the Germanization process was halted, still a majority of the population spoke Polish and Silesian as their native language, in the southernmost areas, also Lach dialects were spoken. While Latin, Czech and German language were used as languages in towns and cities. Upper Silesia was hit by the Hussite Wars and in 1469 was conquered by King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary, while the Duchies of Oświęcim, upon the death of the Jagiellonian king Louis II in 1526, the Bohemian crown lands were inherited by the Austrian House of Habsburg. In the 16th century, large parts of Silesia had turned Protestant, after the 1620 Battle of White Mountain, the Catholic Emperors of the Habsburg dynasty forcibly re-introduced Catholicism, led by the Jesuits. Lower Silesia and most of Upper Silesia were occupied by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1742 during the First Silesian War, a small part south of the Opava River remained within the Habsburg-ruled Bohemian Crown as the Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia, colloquially called Austrian Silesia
11.
Battle of Byczyna
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The Battle of Byczyna or Battle of Pitschen was the deciding battle of the 1587–1588 War of the Polish Succession, which erupted after two rival candidates were elected to the Polish throne. Both sides had rough parity in forces, with armies about 6,000 strong, divided roughly into half infantry, besides the commanders, notable participants included Stanisław Stadnicki on the Maximilians side, and Stanisław Żółkiewski on Sigismunds. The army of the Polish-Austrian faction was largely annihilated, the Archduke was captured and he subsequently renounced his claim to the Polish throne. The rivalry between Zamoyski and the Zborowski family dated years past and tensions during the elections ran high, the Zborowski family called for the rokosz and the election ended in chaos, with several killed and many wounded. Neither Sigismund nor Maximilian were present in the Commonwealth at that time, after receiving news of the election, both Sigismund and Maximilan made haste for Poland. Sigismund arrived at Danzig on 28 September and, after two weeks, he had departed to Kraków, where he arrived on 9 December and was crowned on 27 December. Maximilian attempted to resolve the dispute by bringing a force to Poland. After a failed attempt to take Kraków in late 1587, successfully defended by Zamoyski and he also received the kings and royal permission to cross the borders and attack Maximilian in Silesia. Zamoyski divided his army into regiments that were able to march quickly. He reformed his army after a week near Częstochowa, in the meantime, on 22 January 1588, Maximilian crossed the border into his own territory, towards Byczyna. Each side had comparable forces, Maximilan had about 6,500 men and his forces consisted primarily of Silesians, Hungarians and Moravians. With artillery consisting of four heavy and a dozen or so lighter pieces, Zamoyskis forces numbered about 6,000, including 3,700 cavalry,2,300 infantry, and several cannon. Maximilians Polish supporters included 600 cavalry under the command of the devil of Łańcut Stanisław Stadnicki, another of Maximilans notable Polish supporters at the battle was the poet Adam Czahrowski. Overall Maximilans forces held the advantage in infantry, while Zamoyskis was in cavalry, the Poles favored the cavalry, which had supreme mobility and used the effective charging tactics, but also meant that their infantry was geared too much towards cavalry support. On the night of 24 January the Archdukes army took positions east of the town of Byczyna on the royal road leading into Poland. They felt secure in their camp, on the Habsburg side of the border, Zamoyski marshaled his forces into three lines and was able to position them at an angle to the opponents line. The exact position of the Polish Army is unknown, but part of the Polish right flank, moving quietly in the dense mist, after the mist began to clear the Archduke realized his force was being flanked and his retreat to Byczyna was threatened. He ordered an attack, but a miscommunication of his orders confused part of his army, the Polish left wing, under command of future Hetman Stanisław Żółkiewski, dispersed the opposing units
12.
Maximilian III, Archduke of Austria
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Maximilian III of Austria, also known as Maximilian the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights was the Archduke of Further Austria from 1612 until his death. Born in Wiener Neustadt, Maximilian was the son of the emperor Maximilian II. He was a grandson of Anna of Bohemia and Hungary, daughter and heiress of Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary, from 1585 Maximilian became the Grandmaster of the Teutonic Order, thanks to this he was known by the epithet der Deutschmeister for much of his later life. In 1587 Maximilian stood as a candidate for the throne of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, following the death of the previous king, Maximilian attempted to resolve the dispute by bringing a military force to Poland – thereby starting the war of the Polish Succession. His cause had considerable support in Poland, but fewer Poles flocked to his army than to that of his rival. After a failed attempt to storm Kraków in late 1587, he was defeated in January 1588, at the Battle of Byczyna by the supporters of Sigismund III, under the command of Polish hetman Jan Zamojski. Maximilian was taken captive at the battle and was released a year and half later after the intervention of Pope Sixtus V in the aftermath of the Treaty of Bytom. In 1589, he renounced his claim to the Polish crown. The inactivity of his brother, the emperor Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor in this matter contributed to Rudolfs poor reputation, from 1593 to 1595 Maximilian served as regent for his young cousin, Ferdinand, Archduke of Inner Austria. In 1595 he succeeded their uncle Ferdinand II, Archduke of Further Austria in his territories, including Tyrol and he also worked to depose Melchior Khlesl, and to ensure that Archduke Ferdinand of Inner Austria, his former charge, succeed as Holy Roman Emperor. Today, Maximilian is perhaps best remembered for his baroque archducal hat and he died at Vienna in 1618, and is buried in the canopied tomb in Innsbruck Cathedral
13.
Sigismund III Vasa
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He was the son of King John III of Sweden and his first wife, Catherine Jagellonica of Poland. Elected to the throne of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Sigismund sought to create a union between the Commonwealth and Sweden, and succeeded for a time in 1592. After he had deposed in 1599 from the Swedish throne by his uncle, Charles IX of Sweden. Shortly after his victory over his enemies, Sigismund took advantage of a period of civil unrest in Muscovy and invaded Russia. In 1617 the Polish–Swedish conflict, which had been interrupted by an armistice in 1611, while Sigismunds army was also fighting Ottoman forces in Moldavia, King Gustavus II Adolphus of Sweden invaded Sigismunds lands, capturing Riga and seizing almost all of Polish Livonia. Sigismund, who concluded the Truce of Altmark with Sweden in 1629 and his Swedish wars resulted, moreover, in Polands loss of Livonia and in a diminution of the kingdoms international prestige. Sigismund remains a controversial figure in Poland. His long reign coincided with the apex of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealths prestige, power, on the other hand, it was during his reign that the symptoms of decline leading to the Commonwealths eventual demise surfaced. However, the question of whether the Commonwealths decline was caused by Sigismunds decisions or had its roots in historical processes beyond his personal control and he was commemorated in Warsaw with Sigismunds Column, commissioned by his son and successor, Władysław IV. Sigismund was born on 20 June 1566 to Catherine Jagiellon and the Grand Duke John of Finland at Gripsholm and his parents, at the time, were being held prisoner by King Eric XIV, but despite the Protestant domination of Sweden young Sigismund was raised as a Roman Catholic. In 1567 Sigismund and his parents where released from prison, and in 1568 Erik XIV was deposed, from 1568 Sigismund was the crown prince of Sweden. His mother was the daughter of Polish king Sigismund I the Old, in 1587 Sigismund stood for election to the Polish throne after the death of his uncle, King Stephen Bathory. He was supported by his aunt Queen Anna, Hetman Jan Zamoyski and it seemed that the issue of who would be King of Poland had been settled when Maximilian III invaded Poland to claim the crown. Hetman Jan Zamoyski defeated Maximilian at the Battle of Byczyna and took him prisoner, however, at the request of Pope Sixtus V, King Sigismund III released Maximilian, who surrendered his claim to Poland in 1589. King Sigismund also tried to maintain peace with his neighbor by marrying Archduchess Anne Habsburg in 1592. It was always his intention to maintain an alliance with Catholic Austria against the Protestant forces, when his father died King Sigismund III asked the Sejm to be allowed to claim his inheritance as the rightful King of Sweden. When he promised to respect Lutheranism as the religion of Sweden. Sigismund was crowned King of Sweden in 1594 and he appointed his uncle, Duke Charles, to rule as regent on his behalf in Sweden while he remained in Poland, since Sweden and the Commonwealth were only in a personal union, not united in one state
14.
Author
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An author is narrowly defined as the originator of any written work and can thus also be described as a writer. More broadly defined, an author is the person who originated or gave existence to anything, in the copyright laws of various jurisdictions, there is a necessity for little flexibility regarding what constitutes authorship. The United States Copyright Office, for example, defines copyright as a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States to authors of works of authorship. After a fixed amount of time, the copyright expires on intellectual work and it enters the public domain, however, copyright is merely the legal reassurance that one owns his/her work. Technically, someone owns their work from the time its created, an interesting aspect of authorship emerges with copyright in that, in many jurisdictions, it can be passed down to another upon ones death. The person who inherits the copyright is not the author, questions arise as to the application of copyright law. How does it, for example, apply to the issue of fan fiction. If the media responsible for the authorized production allows material from fans, what is the limit before legal constraints from actors, music. Additionally, how does copyright apply to fan-generated stories for books, what powers do the original authors, as well as the publishers, have in regulating or even stopping the fan fiction. In literary theory, critics find complications in the term author beyond what constitutes authorship in a legal setting, in the wake of postmodern literature, critics such as Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault have examined the role and relevance of authorship to the meaning or interpretation of a text. Barthes challenges the idea that a text can be attributed to any single author and he writes, in his essay Death of the Author, that it is language which speaks, not the author. The words and language of a text itself determine and expose meaning for Barthes, with this, the perspective of the author is removed from the text, and the limits formerly imposed by the idea of one authorial voice, one ultimate and universal meaning, are destroyed. The psyche, culture, fanaticism of an author can be disregarded when interpreting a text, because the words are rich enough themselves with all of the traditions of language. To expose meanings in a work without appealing to the celebrity of an author, their tastes, passions, vices, is, to Barthes, to allow language to speak. Michel Foucault argues in his essay What is an author and that all authors are writers, but not all writers are authors. He states that a letter may have a signatory—it does not have an author. For a reader to assign the title of author upon any written work is to certain standards upon the text which. Foucaults author function is the idea that an author exists only as a function of a work, a part of its structure
15.
Gustav Freytag
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Gustav Freytag was a German novelist and playwright. Freytag was born in Kreuzburg in Silesia and he became member of the student corps Borussia zu Breslau. In 1839, he settled in Breslau, as Privatdozent in German language and literature, Freytag helped to conduct it until 1861, and again from 1867 till 1870, when for a short time he edited a new periodical, Im neuen Reich. In 1863 he developed what is known as Freytags pyramid, see Dramatic structure, Freytags literary fame was made universal by the publication in 1855 of his novel, Soll und Haben, which was translated into almost all European languages. It was translated into English by Georgiana Harcourt in 1857 and it was hailed as one of the best German novels and praised for its sturdy but unexaggerated realism. Freytag also claimed that Poles will only become human beings through German rule and colonization. At the dukes request, Freytag was attached to the staff of the Crown Prince of Prussia in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, and was present at the Battles of Wörth and Sedan. Before this, he had published another novel, Die verlorene Handschrift, the hero is a young German professor, who is so wrapped up in his search for a manuscript by Tacitus that he is oblivious to an impending tragedy in his domestic life. The book was, however, less successful than its predecessor, between 1859 and 1867, Freytag published in five volumes Bilder aus der deutschen Vergangenheit, a work on popular lines, illustrating the history and manners of Germany. This series comprises the novels, Ingo und Ingraban Das Nest der Zaunkönige Die Brüder vom deutschen Hause Marcus König Die Geschwister Aus einer kleinen Stadt. Freytags other works include, Die Technik des Dramas, in which he explained a system for dramatic structure, published in an English translation as Freytags Technique of the Drama, An Exposition of Dramatic Composition and Art in 1894. Being a native of a province which in his mind owed everything to the Kingdom of Prussia and his powerful advocacy of this idea in his Grenzboten gained him the friendship of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, whose neighbor he had become, on acquiring the estate of Siebleben near Gotha. Freytags Gesammelte Werke were published in 22 volumes, at Leipzig, his Vermischte Aufsatze have been edited by E. Elster, autobiography mentioned above, the lives by C
16.
Maria Cunitz
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Maria Cunitz or Maria Cunitia was an accomplished German astronomer, and one of the most notable female astronomers of the modern era. She authored a book Urania propitia, in which she provided new tables, new ephemera, the Cunitz crater on Venus is named after her. The minor planet 12624 Mariacunitia is named in her honour, Maria Cunitz was born in Wohlau, as the eldest daughter of a Baltic German, Dr. The family eventually moved to Schweidnitz in Lower Silesia, at an early age Maria married the lawyer David von Gerstmann. After his death in 1626, she married Dr. Elias von Löwen, Elias and Maria had three sons, Elias Theodor, Anton Heinrich and Franz Ludwig. After their return to Silesia, they published, at their own expense, the work was dedicated to Holy Roman emperor Ferdinand III. In 1655, a fire of Pitschen destroyed their scientific papers. This undercut their source of income, Maria became a widow in 1661, and died at Pitzen in 1664. The year of Marias birth is uncertain, no birth, baptism or similar documents have ever been located. The year was speculated about in the first major German-language publication about Maria Cunitz of 1798, Dr. Paul Knötel appears to be the first to give the year 1604 as the year of Marias birth. This date seemed to make sense since her parents married the previous year, other authors later appear to have repeated the same year. The publication of the book Urania propitia gained Cunitz a European reputation and she was acclaimed as the most learned woman in astronomy since Hypatia of Alexandria. Significantly for a publication of that period, her book was written both in Latin and German. Urania propitia was a simplification of the Rudolphine Tables and it provided new tables, new ephemera, and a more elegant solution to Keplers Problem, which is to determine the position of a planet in its orbit as a function of time. Today, her book is credited for its contribution to the development of the German scientific language. Because of her talents and accomplishments, Cunitz was called the Silesian Pallas. In his 1727 book Schlesiens Hoch- und Wohlgelehrtes Frauenzimmer, nebst unterschiedenen Poetinnen, johan Caspar Eberti wrote that Cunicia or Cunitzin was the daughter of the famous Henrici Cunitii. She was a woman, like a queen among the Silesian womanhood
17.
Johann Dzierzon
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Dzierzon came from a Polish family in Silesia. His discoveries and innovations made him world-famous in scientific and bee-keeping circles, Dzierzon himself wrote, As for my nationality, I am, as my name indicates, a Pole by birth, as Polish is spoken in Upper Silesia. But as I came to Breslau as a 10-year-old and pursued my studies there, but science knows no borders or nationality. He used Silesian-Polish in some publications, in his private life. Dr. Jan Dzierzon considered himself a member of the Polish nation, Dzierzons manuscripts, letters, diplomas and original copies of his works were given to a Polish museum by his nephew, Franciszek Dzierżoń. Following the 1939 German invasion of Poland, many connected with Dzierzon were destroyed by German gendarmes on 1 December 1939 in an effort to conceal his Polish roots. The Nazis made strenuous efforts to enforce a view of Dzierżoń as a German, Dzierzon was born on 16 January 1811 in the village of Lowkowitz, near Kreuzburg, where his parents owned a farm. He completed Polish elementary school before he was sent to a Protestant school located a mile from his village, in 1822 he moved to Breslau, where he attended middle school. In 1833 he graduated from the Breslau University Faculty of Catholic Theology, in 1834 he became chaplain in Schalkowitz. In 1835, as an ordained Roman Catholic priest, he took over a parish in Karlsmarkt, in his apiary, Dzierzon studied the social life of honeybees and constructed several experimental beehives. In 1838 he devised the first practical movable-comb beehive, which allowed manipulation of individual honeycombs without destroying the structure of the hive, the correct distance between combs had been described as 1½ inches from the center of one top bar to the center of the next one. In 1848 Dzierzon introduced grooves into the side walls, replacing the strips of wood for moving top bars. The grooves were 8 ×8 mm—the exact average between ¼ and ⅜ inch, which is the called the bee space. His design quickly gained popularity in Europe and North America, on the basis of the aforementioned measurements, August Adolph von Berlepsch in Thuringia and L. L. Langstroth in the United States designed their frame-movable hives. In 1835 Dzierzon discovered that drones are produced from unfertilized eggs and his results caused a revolution in bee crossbreeding and may have influenced Gregor Mendels pioneering genetic research. The theory remained controversial until 1906, the year of Dzierzons death, in 1853 he acquired a colony of Italian bees to use as genetic markers in his research, and sent their progeny to all the countries of Europe, and even to America. In 1854 he discovered the mechanism of secretion of royal jelly, with his discoveries and innovations, Dzierzon became world-famous in his lifetime. He received some hundred honorary memberships and awards from societies and organizations, in 1872 he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Munich
18.
Silesians
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Silesians are the inhabitants of Silesia, a historical region divided by the current national boundaries of Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic. This central European ethno-linguistic group should not be confused with German Silesians, today, Silesians inhabiting Poland are considered to belong to a Polish ethnographic group, and they speak a dialect of Polish. They are of Slavic descent, but because Germany ruled Silesia for a long time, there have been some debates on whether or not the Silesians constitute a distinct nation. In modern history, they have often been pressured to declare themselves to be German, Polish or Czech, nevertheless,847,000 people declared themselves to be of Silesian nationality in the 2011 Polish national census. However, the era was already over, and these divisions reflected only political subdivisions of the Polish realm. Within Poland, from 1177 onward, Silesia was divided into many smaller duchies, in 1178, parts of the Duchy of Kraków around Bytom, Oświęcim, Chrzanów and Siewierz were transferred to the Silesian Piasts, although their population was of Vistulan and not of Silesian descent. Between 1327 and 1348, duchies of Silesia came under suzerainty of the Crown of Bohemia, beginning in the 13th century, Slavic Silesia began to be settled by Germans. This led to changes in the structure of the province. In the Middle Ages, various German dialects of the new settlers became widely used throughout Lower Silesia, however, after the era of German colonization, the Polish language was still predominant in Upper Silesia and parts of Lower and Middle Silesia north of the Odra river. Germans usually dominated large cities, and Poles mostly lived in rural areas and this required the Prussian authorities to issue official documents in Polish, or in German and Polish. In 1742, most of Silesia was seized in the War of the Austrian Succession by King Frederick the Great of Prussia, the remainder of Silesia, known as Cieszyn Silesia, remained in the Austrian Empire. The Prussian part of Silesia constituted the Province of Silesia until 1918, later, the province was split into the Prussian provinces of Upper and Lower Silesia. At the beginning of the century, the fact that Silesians were part of the Polish nation was not questioned. The language and culture of the self-declared Polish Silesians were put under the pressure of the Prussian Kulturkampf policies, the process of Germanisation was never completely successful. The ethnic situation of the region became more complex as the division of Upper Silesia into Polish, World War II and its aftermath amplified this polarization. Three groups took shape within the Silesian population, the Polish group was the strongest, the German group, which was primarily in central Silesia, was clearly less numerous. A third group supported separatism and an independent Silesian nation-state, the separatists were of marginal importance, finding little support among native Silesians. The reasons for these transitions were boundary shifts and population changes that came after World War II
19.
Martin Wilhelm Kutta
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Martin Wilhelm Kutta was a German mathematician. Kutta was born in Pitschen, Upper Silesia and he attended the University of Breslau from 1885 to 1890, and continued his studies in Munich until 1894, where he became the assistant of Walther Franz Anton von Dyck. From 1898, he spent half a year at the University of Cambridge, from 1899 to 1909 he worked again as an assistant of von Dyck in Munich, from 1909 to 1910 he was adjunct professor at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena. He was professor at the RWTH Aachen from 1910 to 1912, Kutta became professor at the University of Stuttgart in 1912, where he stayed until his retirement in 1935. In 1901, he co-developed the Runge-Kutta method, used to solve differential equations numerically. He is also remembered for the Zhukovsky-Kutta aerofoil, the Kutta-Zhukovsky theorem, Kutta died in Fürstenfeldbruck, Germany in 1944. OConnor, John J. Robertson, Edmund F. Martin Wilhelm Kutta, MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, Martin Wilhelm Kutta at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
20.
Kluczbork
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Kluczbork is a town in southwestern Poland with 24,962 inhabitants, situated in the Opole Voivodeship. It is the capital of Kluczbork County and an important railroad junction, in Kluczbork the major rail line from Katowice splits into two directions – westwards to Wrocław and northwards to Poznań. It is also connected with Fosowskie, archaeologists have determined that settlement existed at the location of present-day Kluczbork by 1000–800 BC. The Germanic Scirii and Bastarnae settled in the vicinity and were followed c.100 BC by Celts and various Germanic tribes, including Silingi, the latter left Silesia c.400 and West Slavs came to the region in the 7th century. By 1000 AD Silesian territory was conquered by recently established dukes of Polans, in the 13th century the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star acquired territory near Wrocław, including the villages Młodoszów, Kuniów, and Chocianowice. The Knights build a settlement on November 2,1252, named Cruceburg, it received Magdeburg rights on February 26,1253, the official date of foundation for the town. The Knights adjudicated in the town until 1274, when it was administered by a vogt of local Silesian dukes and juries were introduced, dukes holding sway over the town included Henryk IV Probus, Henry III, Duke of Głogów, and Konrad I of Oleśnica. With the Congress of Visegrád, King Casimir III of Poland renounced his rights to Silesia, with king John I of Bohemia the town was repeatedly pawned during this time period and received the privileges of a salt market in 1426. From 1480 the town was inhabited by a predominantly Polish-speaking populace, after the death of King Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia at the Battle of Mohács in 1526, Silesia was inherited by the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria. The textile industry began to grow in importance in 1553, another great fire destroyed many houses on December 8,1562. On January 25,1588, the day after the Battle of Byczyna, the townspeople accepted the Protestant Reformation in 1656 and converted the local Roman Catholic Church into a Lutheran one. The town passed to the control of the Catholic Habsburgs the following year. The town had a population of one thousand inhabitants in 1681. A fire on April 23,1737 almost completely destroyed the town, leaving only a few houses, several years of rebuilding passed before it reached its previous size. Cruceburg was originally part of the Lower Silesian Duchy of Brieg, citing an inheritance treaty, which was not honored by Habsburg rulers, King Frederick II of Prussia invaded Silesia in 1740 and began the Silesian Wars. Kreuzburg was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1741 and became part of the Province of Silesia, the town became part of the German Empire upon the unification of Germany in 1871. It had a predominantly German-speaking population of 5,238 in 1875, the population grew to 8,750 by 1895 and 10,236 by 1900. Following the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, Kreuzburg was involved in the Upper Silesian referendum in 1921,95. 6% voted to remain within Weimar Germany instead of joining the Second Polish Republic
21.
Duchy of Brzeg
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The Duchy of Brzeg or Duchy of Brieg, was one of the Duchies of Silesia, created in 1311 during the fragmentation of the Duchy of Wrocław. A Bohemian fief from 1329, it was ruled by the Silesian Piasts until their extinction in 1675 and its capital was Brzeg in Lower Silesia. Finally in 1311, Henrys bequests were divided among his sons, Bolesław III the Generous, soon after however, Bolesław insisted on his rights as the firstborn son and ousted his younger brother Władysław from the Duchy of Legnica. He maintained good relations with his brother-in-law, the Luxembourg king John of Bohemia, the duchy was re-united with the Duchy of Legnica in 1419, then fragmented again, and united once more with Legnica under Duke Christian in 1664. In 1537 Duke Frederick II concluded a treaty with Elector Joachim II Hector of Brandenburg and this agreement however was rejected by the Bohemian king Ferdinand I of Habsburg and did not come into effect. Together with Legnica, Brzeg was the last autonomous duchy of Silesia, following the death of the last Piast duke George William in 1675, it was administered directly by the House of Habsburg in dynastys capacity as Kings of Bohemia. However Brandenburg-Prussia also claimed the duchy, referring to the old inheritance treaty of 1537, nevertheless the Habsburg Monarchy again refused to acknowledge the validity of this agreement and annexed the duchies. Several decades later King Frederick II of Prussia used the dispute as a pretext to justify his campaign during the First Silesian War in 1740
22.
Wayback Machine
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The Internet Archive launched the Wayback Machine in October 2001. It was set up by Brewster Kahle and Bruce Gilliat, and is maintained with content from Alexa Internet, the service enables users to see archived versions of web pages across time, which the archive calls a three dimensional index. Since 1996, the Wayback Machine has been archiving cached pages of websites onto its large cluster of Linux nodes and it revisits sites every few weeks or months and archives a new version. Sites can also be captured on the fly by visitors who enter the sites URL into a search box, the intent is to capture and archive content that otherwise would be lost whenever a site is changed or closed down. The overall vision of the machines creators is to archive the entire Internet, the name Wayback Machine was chosen as a reference to the WABAC machine, a time-traveling device used by the characters Mr. Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, an animated cartoon. These crawlers also respect the robots exclusion standard for websites whose owners opt for them not to appear in search results or be cached, to overcome inconsistencies in partially cached websites, Archive-It. Information had been kept on digital tape for five years, with Kahle occasionally allowing researchers, when the archive reached its fifth anniversary, it was unveiled and opened to the public in a ceremony at the University of California, Berkeley. Snapshots usually become more than six months after they are archived or, in some cases, even later. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all tracked website updates are recorded, Sometimes there are intervals of several weeks or years between snapshots. After August 2008 sites had to be listed on the Open Directory in order to be included. As of 2009, the Wayback Machine contained approximately three petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes each month, the growth rate reported in 2003 was 12 terabytes/month, the data is stored on PetaBox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies. In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, in 2011 a new, improved version of the Wayback Machine, with an updated interface and fresher index of archived content, was made available for public testing. The index driving the classic Wayback Machine only has a bit of material past 2008. In January 2013, the company announced a ground-breaking milestone of 240 billion URLs, in October 2013, the company announced the Save a Page feature which allows any Internet user to archive the contents of a URL. This became a threat of abuse by the service for hosting malicious binaries, as of December 2014, the Wayback Machine contained almost nine petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of about 20 terabytes each week. Between October 2013 and March 2015 the websites global Alexa rank changed from 162 to 208, in a 2009 case, Netbula, LLC v. Chordiant Software Inc. defendant Chordiant filed a motion to compel Netbula to disable the robots. Netbula objected to the motion on the ground that defendants were asking to alter Netbulas website, in an October 2004 case, Telewizja Polska USA, Inc. v. Echostar Satellite, No.02 C3293,65 Fed. 673, a litigant attempted to use the Wayback Machine archives as a source of admissible evidence, Telewizja Polska is the provider of TVP Polonia and EchoStar operates the Dish Network
23.
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
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Poland
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