Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a British politician, army officer, writer. He was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945, when he led Britain to victory in the Second World War, again from 1951 to 1955. Churchill represented five constituencies during his career as a Member of Parliament. Ideologically an economic liberal and imperialist, for most of his career he was a member of the Conservative Party, which he led from 1940 to 1955, but from 1904 to 1924 was instead a member of the Liberal Party. Of mixed English and American parentage, Churchill was born in Oxfordshire to a wealthy, aristocratic family. Joining the British Army, he saw action in British India, the Anglo–Sudan War, the Second Boer War, gaining fame as a war correspondent and writing books about his campaigns. Elected an MP in 1900 as a Conservative, he defected to the Liberals in 1904. In H. H. Asquith's Liberal government, Churchill served as President of the Board of Trade, Home Secretary, First Lord of the Admiralty, championing prison reform and workers' social security.
During the First World War, he oversaw the Gallipoli Campaign. In 1917, he returned to government under David Lloyd George as Minister of Munitions, was subsequently Secretary of State for War, Secretary of State for Air Secretary of State for the Colonies. After two years out of Parliament, he served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Stanley Baldwin's Conservative government, returning the pound sterling in 1925 to the gold standard at its pre-war parity, a move seen as creating deflationary pressure on the UK economy. Out of office during the 1930s, Churchill took the lead in calling for British rearmament to counter the growing threat from Nazi Germany. At the outbreak of the Second World War, he was re-appointed First Lord of the Admiralty before replacing Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1940. Churchill oversaw British involvement in the Allied war effort against Germany and the Axis powers, resulting in victory in 1945, his wartime leadership was praised, although acts like the Bombing of Dresden and his wartime response to the Bengal famine generated controversy.
After the Conservatives' defeat in the 1945 general election, he became Leader of the Opposition. Amid the developing Cold War with the Soviet Union, he publicly warned of an "iron curtain" of Soviet influence in Europe and promoted European unity. Re-elected Prime Minister in 1951, his second term was preoccupied with foreign affairs, including the Malayan Emergency, Mau Mau Uprising, Korean War, a UK-backed Iranian coup. Domestically his government developed a nuclear weapon. In declining health, Churchill resigned as prime minister in 1955, although he remained an MP until 1964. Upon his death in 1965, he was given a state funeral. Considered one of the 20th century's most significant figures, Churchill remains popular in the UK and Western world, where he is seen as a victorious wartime leader who played an important role in defending liberal democracy from the spread of fascism. Praised as a social reformer and writer, among his many awards was the Nobel Prize in Literature. Conversely, his imperialist views and comments on race, as well as his sanctioning of human rights abuses in the suppression of anti-imperialist movements seeking independence from the British Empire, have generated considerable controversy.
Churchill was born at the family's ancestral home, Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, on 30 November 1874, at which time the United Kingdom was the dominant world power. A direct descendant of the Dukes of Marlborough, his family were among the highest levels of the British aristocracy, thus he was born into the country's governing elite, his paternal grandfather, John Spencer-Churchill, 7th Duke of Marlborough, had been a Member of Parliament for ten years, a member of the Conservative Party who served in the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. His own father, Lord Randolph Churchill, had been elected Conservative MP for Woodstock in 1873, his mother, Jennie Churchill, was from an American family whose substantial wealth derived from finance. The couple had met in August 1873, were engaged three days marrying at the British Embassy in Paris in April 1874; the couple lived beyond their income and were in debt. In 1876 John Spencer-Churchill was appointed Viceroy of Ireland, with Randolph as his private secretary, resulting in the Churchill family's relocation to Dublin, when the entirety of Ireland was part of the United Kingdom.
It was here that Jennie's second son, was born in 1880. Throughout much of the 1880s Randolph and Jennie were estranged, during which she had many suitors. Churchill had no relationship with his father, his relationship with Jack would be warm, they were close at various points in their lives. In Dublin, he was educated in reading and mathematics by a governess, while he and his brother were cared for by their nanny, Elizabeth Everest. Churchill was devoted to her and nicknamed her "Woomany". Visits home were to Connaught Place in L
Korea
Korea is a region in East Asia. Since 1948, it has been divided between two distinct sovereign states: South Korea. Korea consists of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, several minor islands near the peninsula. Korea is bordered by China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, neighbours Japan to the east by the Korea Strait and the Sea of Japan. During the first half of the 1st millennium, Korea was divided between the three competing states of Baekje and Silla, together known as the "Three Kingdoms of Korea". In the second half of the 1st millennium and Goguryeo were conquered by Silla, leading to the "Unified Silla" period. Meanwhile, Balhae formed in the north following the collapse of Goguryeo. Unified Silla collapsed into three separate states due to civil war, ushering in the Later Three Kingdoms. Toward the end of the 1st millennium Goryeo, a revival of Goguryeo, defeated the two other states and unified the Korean Peninsula as one single state. Around the same time, Balhae collapsed and its last crown prince fled south to Goryeo.
Goryeo, whose name developed into the modern exonym "Korea", was a cultured state that created the world's first metal movable type in 1234. However, multiple invasions by the Mongol Empire during the 13th century weakened the nation, which agreed to become a vassal state after decades of fighting. Following military resistance under King Gongmin which ended Mongol political influence in Goryeo, severe political strife followed, Goryeo fell to a coup led by General Yi Seong-gye, who established Joseon in 1392; the first 200 years of Joseon were marked by relative peace. During this period, the Korean alphabet was created by Sejong the Great in the 15th century and there was increasing influence of Confucianism. During the part of the dynasty, Korea's isolationist policy earned it the Western nickname of the "Hermit Kingdom". By the late 19th century, the country became the object of imperial design by the Empire of Japan. After the First Sino-Japanese War, despite the Korean Empire's effort to modernize, it was annexed by Japan in 1910 and ruled by Imperial Japan until the end of World War II in August 1945.
In 1945, the Soviet Union and the United States agreed on the surrender of Japanese forces in Korea in the aftermath of World War II, leaving Korea partitioned along the 38th parallel. The North was under Soviet occupation and the South under U. S. occupation. These circumstances soon became the basis for the division of Korea by the two superpowers, exacerbated by their inability to agree on the terms of Korean independence; the Communist-inspired government in the North received backing from the Soviet Union in opposition to the pro-Western government in the South, leading to Korea's division into two political entities: North Korea, South Korea. Tensions between the two resulted in the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950. With involvement by foreign troops, the war ended in a stalemate in 1953, but without a formalized peace treaty; this status contributes to the high tensions. Both governments of the two Koreas claim to be the sole legitimate government of the region. "Korea" is the modern spelling of "Corea", a name attested in English as early as 1614.
Korea was transliterated as Cauli in The Travels of Marco Polo, of the Chinese 高麗. This was the Hanja for the Korean kingdom of Goryeo, which ruled most of the Korean peninsula during Marco Polo's time. Korea's introduction to the West resulted from trade and contact with merchants from Arabic lands, with some records dating back as far as the 9th century. Goryeo's name was a continuation of Goguryeo the northernmost of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, known as Goryeo beginning in the 5th century; the original name was a combination of the adjective go with the name of a local Yemaek tribe, whose original name is thought to have been either *Guru or *Gauri. With expanding British and American trade following the opening of Korea in the late 19th century, the spelling "Korea" appeared and grew in popularity; the name Korea is now used in English contexts by both North and South Korea. In South Korea, Korea as a whole is referred to as Hanguk; the name references Samhan, referring to the Three Kingdoms of Korea, not the ancient confederacies in the southern Korean Peninsula.
Although written in Hanja as 韓, 幹, or 刊, this Han has no relation to the Chinese place names or peoples who used those characters but was a phonetic transcription of a native Korean word that seems to have had the meaning "big" or "great" in reference to leaders. It has been tentatively linked with the title khan used by the nomads of Central Asia. In North Korea, China and Japan, Korea as a whole is referred to as. "Great Joseon" was the name of the kingdom ruled by the Joseon dynasty from 1393 until their declaration of the short-lived Great Korean Empire in 1897. King Taejo had named them for the earlier Kojoseon, who ruled northern Korea from its legendary prehistory until their conquest in 108 BC by China's Han Empire; this go is the Hanja 古 and
Alexander Comstock Kirk
Alexander Comstock Kirk was a United States diplomat. Alexander Comstock Kirk was born in Chicago, Illinois, on November 26, 1888, the son of James Alexander Kirk and Clara Comstock, his family lived in Wisconsin. Their wealth derived from one of America's largest soap manufacturing concerns, founded by Kirk's grandfather in Utica, New York, in 1839, relocated to Chicago in 1860, capitalized as James S. Kirk & Co. in 1900. James Alexander Kirk was a director of the company, its 2 national brands were "American Family" for laundry and "Juvenile" for the bath. Kirk enjoyed drawing. At age 9, he attended the Art Institute of Chicago until his family decided he was too young to be drawing nude models, he was sent to work incognito in a soap factory until his identity was discovered. He was tutored at home for half the year by Hughell Fosbroke, future head of the General Theological Seminary of New York, spending the other half traveling in Europe with his mother and sister. Kirk attended the University of Chicago for one year and Yale University, where he excelled in physics and graduated in 1909.
He appeared with the Yale University Dramatic Association in 1908-09. Kirk's father died of a heart attack in 1907, he next spent 2 years at the School of Political Sciences in Paris. In order to fulfill his mother's promise to his late father, he earned his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1914, he was admitted to the Illinois bar. He joined the board of the family business at a salary of $10,000 a year. Kirk had Gertrude 24 years his senior and Margaret his near contemporary, his sister Margaret married Albert Billings Ruddock in New York's Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in March 1912. The couple left for Berlin following the ceremony. Ruddock was Third Secretary of the American Embassy in Berlin in 1913, when Mrs. Kirk visited the couple there. In 1954 Ruddock became Chairman of the Board of Trustees of California Institute of Technology, where an undergraduate residence hall was named for him in 1960. Kirk joined the American Diplomatic Service on March 6, 1915. In 1916, he was transferred from his post as Secretary of the Embassy in Berlin to a position in Constantinople.
Kirk served as private secretary to the Secretary of State during World War I and accompanied him in that position to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. He lived in "a commodious old house in Georgetown with his mother to act as hostess on the occasion of his entertainments," until posted to Peking as Secretary of the Embassy, he managed the State Department budget for a time in the 1920s, said he thought it "an obligation" to spend the entire amount in order to support the argument for additional appropriations. Kirk was Counselor of the U. S. Embassy in Rome in 1932, his mother was presented to Queen Elena of Italy on March 9, 1932. She lived in Rome during his service there, Kirk entertained important guests at her home, the Villa Spada on the Janiculum. In 1930, long before rising to ambassadorial rank, he entertained lavishly, he hosted an opera party for Mrs. William Randolph Hearst on her 1930 tour of Europe. Kirk was assigned to Moscow as Embassy Counselor and consul general effective March 18, 1938, where he was the senior official in the 9-month interim between the service of Ambassadors Davies and Steinhardt.
He served as Chargé d'affaires in Berlin beginning in May 1939 and became the senior officer when the American ambassador, Hugh R. Wilson, was recalled to protest the anti-Jewish attacks of Kristallnacht. Though his status was too low to allow access to important officials in the German government, he communicated with them by staging conversations close to a device the Germans used to eavesdrop on his conversations. Time called him "adroit" in his "uncomfortable post." He developed contacts with Germans who opposed the Nazi regime and became convinced, in spite of Germany's early victories, that the war would end badly for Germany. Discussing with noted dissident Helmuth James von Moltke the need for Germany to suffer complete defeat with no one to blame but its Nazi leaders, he said: "Do you want to know my solution? It's a flood without an ark." During the war, in 1943, Moltke twice tried without success to contact Kirk, whom he trusted as an intermediary between the German opposition and the Allies.
Kirk served as Embassy Counselor in Rome before becoming Minister to Egypt in 1941, when Time magazine described him as "smooth, spare."From March 29, 1941, to March 29, 1944, Kirk served as Ambassador to Egypt, first as head of the U. S. Legation and of the Embassy, he advised the State Department in 1941 that a Jewish state "is incapable of realization in the future unless imposed by force on an unwilling native population." Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles did not share his assessment and did not forward Kirk's views to the White House. Drawing on his experience with Nazi propaganda and antisemitism in Germany, Kirk expanded the embassy's coverage of Arabic-language broadcasts, providing complete translations of what came to be known as the "Axis Broadcasts in Arabic" along with his weekly analysis from 1941 to 1944, which Hull circulated widely, he dissected the Nazi's manipulation of anti-colonial, anti-Jewish, anti-Bolshevik sentiment and their charges that Roosevelt and Churchill were being manipulated by their Jewish supporters.
At the beginning of his Cairo tenure, Kirk focused on the strategic necessity of Allied victory in the Middle East because it would be impossible to counter the Nazi's exploitation of an Axis victory in its propaganda. Once the Allies won control of the region, he stressed political analysis and underscored the critical role of the Egyptian capital in Arab nationalism; as Kirk
Penghu
The Penghu or Pescadores Islands are an archipelago of 90 islands and islets in the Taiwan Strait. The largest city is Magong, located on the largest island, named Magong. Covering an area of 141 square kilometers, the archipelago collectively forms Penghu County of the Republic of China, is the second smallest county, after Lienchiang; the traditional name of the islands, the Pescadores, comes from the Portuguese name Ilhas dos Pescadores. The Modern European Portuguese pronunciation is but, in English, it is closer to Classical Portuguese's:; the islands have been called Pehoe from the Minnan name Phêⁿ-ô·. Pescadores was the name given by the Spanish expedition of Hernando de Grijalva in 1537 to the Micronesian atoll Kapingamarangi. Finds of fine red cord-marked pottery indicate that Penghu was visited by people from southwestern Taiwan around 5,000 years ago, though not settled permanently. Han Chinese from southern Fujian began to establish fishing communities on the islands in the 9th and 10th centuries, representatives were intermittently stationed there by the Southern Song and Yuan governments from around 1170.
Wang Dayuan gave a detailed first-hand account of the islands in his Daoyi Zhilüe. In the 15th century, the Ming ordered the evacuation of the islands as part of their maritime ban; when these restrictions were removed in the late 16th century, legal fishing communities were re-established on the islands. These fishermen worshipped at the Mazu Temple that gave Magong its name and themselves gave rise to the Portuguese and English name Pescadores; the Ming established a military presence in 1603. At this time, the Dutch East India Company was trying to force China to open a port in Fujian to Dutch trade and expel the Portuguese from Macau; when the Dutch were defeated by the Portuguese at the Battle of Macau in 1622, they seized Penghu, built a fort there, threatened raids on Chinese ports and shipping unless the Chinese allowed trading with them on Penghu and that China not trade with Manila. In response, the Chinese governor of Fujian demanded that the Dutch withdraw from Penghu to Taiwan, where the Chinese would permit them to engage in trade.
The Dutch continued to raid the Fujian coast between October 1622 and January 1624 to force their demands, but were unsuccessful. In 1624, the new governor of Fujian sent a fleet of 40–50 warships with 5,000 troops to Penghu and expelled the Dutch, who moved to Fort Zeelandia on Taiwan. For a period in the mid-17th century and the archipelago were ruled by the Koxinga kingdom, overthrown by the Qing dynasty in 1683 after the Battle of Penghu; the Penghu archipelago was captured by the French in March 1885, in the closing weeks of the Sino-French War, evacuated four months later. The Pescadores Campaign was the last campaign of Admiral Amédée Courbet, whose naval victories during the war had made him a national hero in France. Courbet was among several French soldiers and sailors who succumbed to cholera during the French occupation of Penghu, he died aboard his flagship Bayard in Makung harbour on 11 June 1885. Towards the end of the First Sino-Japanese War, having defeated the Qing in northern China, Japan sought to ensure that it obtained Penghu and Taiwan in the final settlement.
In March 1895, the Japanese defeated the Chinese garrison on occupied Makung. The Japanese occupation of Penghu, with its fine harbor, gave the Imperial Japanese Navy an advanced base from which their short-range coal-burning ships could control the Taiwan Straits and thus prevent more Chinese troops from being sent to Taiwan; this action persuaded the Chinese negotiators at Shimonoseki that Japan was determined to annex Taiwan, after Penghu and the Liaodong Peninsula had been ceded to Japan in the Sino-Japanese Treaty of Shimonoseki in April, helped to ensure the success of the Japanese invasion of Taiwan in May. Penghu County was called the Hōko Prefecture by the Japanese government of Taiwan. During World War II, Makō was a major base for the Imperial Japanese Navy and the embarkation point for the invasion of the Philippines. In the Cairo Declaration of 1943, the United States, the United Kingdom and China stated it to be their purpose that "all the territories that Japan has stolen from the Chinese, such as Formosa and The Pescadores, shall be restored to the Republic of China".
On 26 July 1945, the three governments issued the Potsdam Declaration, declaring that "the terms of the Cairo Declaration shall be carried out". However, the United States and the United Kingdom regard the aforementioned documents as wartime statements of intention with no binding force in law. Following the surrender of Japan on 2 September 1945, Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers Douglas MacArthur issued General Order No. 1, which directed Japanese forces to surrender to the Allied Powers and facilitate the occupation of Japanese territories by the Allied Powers. In the Treaty of San Francisco, signed in 1951 and coming into effect in 1952, Japan renounced sovereignty over Taiwan and Penghu, but left their final disposition unsettled; the archipelago has been administered by the Republic of China since 1945. Boat people from Vietnam who were taken in by Taiwan's ships in the South China Sea were sent to the Penghu. On 25 May 2002, China Airlines Flight 611, a Boeing 747-200 aircraft flying from Taipei to Hong Kong and exploded over the Islands.
The wreckage slammed into a couple of miles off the coast. All 225 passengers and crew on board were killed. Penghu County is administered by Penghu County Government headed by Magistrate Lai Feng-wei of the Kuomintang and headquartered at the Penghu County Hall
Tehran
Tehran is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With a population of around 8.7 million in the city and 15 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most populous city in Iran and Western Asia, has the second-largest metropolitan area in the Middle East. It is ranked 24th in the world by the population of its metropolitan area. In the Classical era, part of the territory of present-day Tehran was occupied by Rhages, a prominent Median city, it was subject to destruction through the medieval Arab and Mongol invasions. Its modern-day inheritor remains as an urban area absorbed into the metropolitan area of Greater Tehran. Tehran was first chosen as the capital of Iran by Agha Mohammad Khan of the Qajar dynasty in 1796, in order to remain within close reach of Iran's territories in the Caucasus, before being separated from Iran as a result of the Russo-Iranian Wars, to avoid the vying factions of the ruling Iranian dynasties; the capital has been moved several times throughout the history, Tehran is the 32nd national capital of Iran.
Large scale demolition and rebuilding began in the 1920s, Tehran has been a destination for mass migrations from all over Iran since the 20th century. Tehran is home to many historical collections, including the royal complexes of Golestan, Sa'dabad, Niavaran, where the two last dynasties of the former Imperial State of Iran were seated. Tehran's most famous landmarks include the Azadi Tower, a memorial built under the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1971 to mark the 2,500th year of the foundation of the Imperial State of Iran, the Milad Tower, the world's sixth-tallest self-supporting tower, completed in 2007; the Tabiat Bridge, a newly-built landmark, was completed in 2014. The majority of the population of Tehran are Persian-speaking people, 99% of the population understand and speak Persian, but there are large populations of other ethno-linguistic groups who live in Tehran and speak Persian as a second language. Tehran has an international airport, a domestic airport, a central railway station, the rapid transit system of Tehran Metro, a bus rapid transit system, a large network of highways.
There have been plans to relocate Iran's capital from Tehran to another area, due to air pollution and the city's exposure to earthquakes. To date, no definitive plans have been approved. A 2016 survey of 230 cities by consultant Mercer ranked Tehran 203rd for quality of life. According to the Global Destinations Cities Index in 2016, Tehran is among the top ten fastest growing destinations. October 6 is marked as Tehran Day based on a 2016 decision by members of the City Council, celebrating the day when the city was chosen as the capital of Iran by the Qajar dynasty back in 1907; the origin of the name Tehran is uncertain. Prior to Tehran being the capital of Iran Isfahan was the capital. Isfahan has a significant Armenian Population; the settlement of Tehran dates back over 7,000 years. Tehran is situated within the historical region of Media in northwestern Iran. By the time of the Median Empire, a part of the territory of present-day Tehran was a suburb of the prominent Median city of Rhages.
In the Avesta's Videvdat, Rhages is mentioned as the 12th sacred place created by Ohrmazd. In Old Persian inscriptions, Rhages appears as a province. From Rhages, Darius I sent reinforcements to his father Hystaspes, putting down the rebellion in Parthia. In some Middle Persian texts, Rhages is given as the birthplace of Zoroaster, although modern historians place the birth of Zoroaster in Khorasan. Rhages's modern-day inheritor, Ray, is a city located towards the southern end of Tehran, absorbed into the metropolitan area of Greater Tehran. Mount Damavand, the highest peak of Iran, located near Tehran, is an important location in Ferdowsi's Šāhnāme, the Iranian epic poem, based on the ancient legends of Iran, it appears in the epics as the homeland of the protoplast Keyumars, the birthplace of king Manuchehr, the place where king Freydun binds the dragon fiend Aždahāk, the place where Arash shot his arrow from. During the reign of the Sassanian Empire, in 641, Yazdgerd III issued his last appeal to the nation from Rhages, before fleeing to Khorasan.
Rhages was dominated by the Parthian Mehran family, Siyavakhsh—the son of Mehran the son of Bahram Chobin—who resisted the 7th-century Muslim invasion of Iran. Because of this resistance, when the Arabs captured Rhages, they ordered the town to be destroyed and rebuilt anew by traitor aristocrat Farrukhzad. In the 9th century, Tehran was a well-known village, but less known than the city of Rhages, flourishing nearby. Rhages was described in detail by 10th-century Muslim geographers. Despite the interest that Arabian Baghdad displayed in Rhages, the number of Arabs in the city remained insignificant and the population consisted of Iranians of all classes; the Oghuz Turks invaded Rhages discretely in 1035 and 1042, but the city was recovered under the reigns of the Seljuks and the Khwarezmians. Medieval writer Najm od Din Razi declared the population of Rhages about 500,000 before the Mongol invasion. In the 13th century, the Mongols invaded Rhages, laid the city in ruins, massacred many of its inhabitants.
Following the invasion, many of the city's inhabitants escaped to Tehran. In July 1404, Castilian ambassador Ruy González de Clavijo visited Tehran while on a journey to Samarkand, the capital of Turco-Mongol conqueror Timur, who ruled Iran at the time. In his diary, Tehran was described as an unwalled region. Ital
