1.
City
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A city is a large and permanent human settlement. Cities generally have complex systems for sanitation, utilities, land usage, housing, a big city or metropolis usually has associated suburbs and exurbs. Such cities are associated with metropolitan areas and urban areas. Once a city expands far enough to another city, this region can be deemed a conurbation or megalopolis. Damascus is arguably the oldest city in the world, in terms of population, the largest city proper is Shanghai, while the fastest-growing is Dubai. There is not enough evidence to assert what conditions gave rise to the first cities, some theorists have speculated on what they consider suitable pre-conditions and basic mechanisms that might have been important driving forces. The conventional view holds that cities first formed after the Neolithic revolution, the Neolithic revolution brought agriculture, which made denser human populations possible, thereby supporting city development. The advent of farming encouraged hunter-gatherers to abandon nomadic lifestyles and to settle near others who lived by agricultural production, the increased population density encouraged by farming and the increased output of food per unit of land created conditions that seem more suitable for city-like activities. In his book, Cities and Economic Development, Paul Bairoch takes up position in his argument that agricultural activity appears necessary before true cities can form. According to Vere Gordon Childe, for a settlement to qualify as a city, it must have enough surplus of raw materials to support trade and a relatively large population. To illustrate this point, Bairoch offers an example, Western Europe during the pre-Neolithic, when the cost of transport is taken into account, the figure rises to 200,000 square kilometres. Bairoch noted that this is roughly the size of Great Britain, the urban theorist Jane Jacobs suggests that city formation preceded the birth of agriculture, but this view is not widely accepted. In his book City Economics, Brendan OFlaherty asserts Cities could persist—as they have for thousands of years—only if their advantages offset the disadvantages, OFlaherty illustrates two similar attracting advantages known as increasing returns to scale and economies of scale, which are concepts usually associated with businesses. Their applications are seen in more basic economic systems as well, increasing returns to scale occurs when doubling all inputs more than doubles the output an activity has economies of scale if doubling output less than doubles cost. To offer an example of these concepts, OFlaherty makes use of one of the oldest reasons why cities were built, in this example, the inputs are anything that would be used for protection and the output is the area protected and everything of value contained in it. OFlaherty then asks that we suppose the protected area is square, the advantage is expressed as, O = s 2, where O is the output and s stands for the length of a side. This equation shows that output is proportional to the square of the length of a side, the inputs depend on the length of the perimeter, I =4 s, where I stands for the quantity of inputs. So there are increasing returns to scale, O = I2 /16 and this equation shows that with twice the inputs, you produce quadruple the output
2.
Rhode Island
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Rhode Island, officially the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. Rhode Island is the smallest in area, the eighth least populous, and its official name is also the longest of any state in the Union. Rhode Island is bordered by Connecticut to the west, Massachusetts to the north and east, the state also shares a short maritime border with New York. It boycotted the 1787 convention that drew up the United States Constitution, on May 29,1790, Rhode Island became the 13th and last state to ratify the Constitution. Rhode Islands official nickname is The Ocean State, a reference to the fact that the state has several large bays, Rhode Island covers 1,214 square miles, of which 1,045 square miles are land. Despite its name, most of Rhode Island is located on the mainland of the United States, the official name of the state is State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, which is derived from the merger of four settlements. Rhode Island is now commonly called Aquidneck Island, the largest of several islands in Narragansett Bay, Providence Plantation was the name of the colony founded by Roger Williams in the area now known as the city of Providence. This was adjoined by the settlement of Warwick, hence the plural Providence Plantations and it is unclear how Aquidneck Island came to be known as Rhode Island, although there are two popular theories. Explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano noted the presence of an island near the mouth of Narragansett Bay in 1524, subsequent European explorers were unable to precisely identify the island that Verrazzano had named, but the Pilgrims who later colonized the area assumed that it was Aquidneck. A second theory concerns the fact that Adriaen Block passed by Aquidneck during his expeditions in the 1610s, historians have theorized that this reddish appearance resulted from either red autumn foliage or red clay on portions of the shore. The earliest documented use of the name Rhode Island for Aquidneck was in 1637 by Roger Williams, the name was officially applied to the island in 1644 with these words, Aquethneck shall be henceforth called the Isle of Rodes or Rhode-Island. The name Isle of Rodes is used in a document as late as 1646. Dutch maps as early as 1659 call the island Red Island, Williams was a theologian forced out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Seeking religious and political tolerance, he and others founded Providence Plantation as a proprietary colony. Providence referred to the concept of providence, and plantation was an English term for a colony. State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations is the longest official name of any state in the Union, advocates for excising plantation asserted that the word specifically referred to the British colonial practice of establishing settlements which disenfranchised native people. Advocates for retaining the name argued that plantation was simply an archaic English synonym for colony, the referendum election was held on November 2,2010, and the people voted overwhelmingly to retain the entire original name. It shares a maritime border with New York State between Block Island and Long Island
3.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
4.
Allan Fung
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Elected mayor in 2008, Fung became the first mayor of Chinese ancestry in Rhode Island. Fung previously served as a prosecutor and attorney on legislative. He lost the race in Rhode Island during 2014 to Gina Raimondo. Allan W. Fung, born on February 25,1970 at Providence Lying-In Hospital, Fung is the eldest of Kwong Wen and he earned a B. A. from Rhode Island College in 1992. He received a Juris Doctor law degree from Suffolk University Law School in 1995 and he received the Classical High School Distinguished Alumni Award in 2009. Prior to his municipal leadership career, from 1999 to 2001, Fung served as a prosecutor, acting as Special Assistant, Fung served from 2001 to 2009 as the government relations counsel for Metropolitan Life Insurance Company MetLife. In 2003, he was elected to the Cranston, RI City Council, in 2004, Fung was honored as a Rhode Island Bar Foundation Fellow. He is also a Providence Business News 40 Under Forty honoree, Fung was chairman of the Rhode Island Governor’s Insurance Council from 2005 to 2008. A Republican, he was elected Mayor in November 2008, beating Democrat Cynthia M. Fogarty by 63% to 37% and he is the first Chinese American elected as mayor in the state. He succeeded Michael Napolitano, who defeated him for the position in the 2006 election by 79 votes, Fung was re-elected in 2010 against Richard R. Tomlins by 76% to 24% and in 2012 against only write-in opponents by 97% to 3%. Fung is a member for the Republican National Committees Asian Pacific American Advisory Council. In November 2013, Fung announced his candidacy for Governor of Rhode Island in the 2014 election, on September 9,2014, Fung defeated Ken Block in the Republican primary, with a 55% majority. Soon thereafter, the Republican Governors Association President also endorsed him, Democrat Gina Raimondo would go on to win the election in a three-way split of votes. Fung won re-election to a term as Cranston mayor in November 2016. City of Cranstons website Allan Fung Mayoral campaign website Allan Fung gubernatorial campaign website
5.
Roger Williams
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Williams was the 1638 founder of the First Baptist Church in America, also known as the First Baptist Church of Providence. He is best remembered as the originator of the principle of separation of church and his father James Williams was a merchant tailor in Smithfield, his mother was Alice Pemberton. At an early age, Williams had a conversion of which his father disapproved. As a teen, Williams was apprenticed under Sir Edward Coke, under Cokes patronage, Williams was educated at Charterhouse and also at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He seemed to have a gift for languages and early acquired familiarity with Latin, Hebrew, Greek, Dutch, years later, Williams tutored John Milton in Dutch in exchange for refresher lessons in Hebrew. Williams took holy orders in the Church of England in connection with his studies, after graduating from Cambridge, Williams became the chaplain to Puritan gentleman Sir William Masham. Williams married Mary Barnard on December 15,1629 at the Church of High Laver, Essex and they ultimately had six children, all born in America, Mary, Freeborn, Providence, Mercy, Daniel, and Joseph. Williams knew that Puritan leaders planned to migrate to the New World and he did not join the first wave, but he decided before the year ended that he could not remain in England under Archbishop William Lauds rigorous administration. Williams regarded the Church of England as corrupt and false, by the time that he and his wife boarded the Lyon in early December, however, Williams declined the position on grounds that it was an unseparated church. In addition, Williams asserted that civil magistrates must not punish any sort of breach of the first table, and these three principles became central to Williams subsequent career, separatism, freedom of religion, and separation of state and church. As a separatist, Williams considered the Church of England irredeemably corrupt and his search for the true church eventually carried him out of Congregationalism, the Baptists, and any visible church. From 1639 forward, Williams waited for Christ to send a new apostle to reestablish the church, years later in 1802, Thomas Jefferson used the wall of separation phrase in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association, echoing Roger Williams. Meanwhile, the Salem church was more inclined to Separatism. When the leaders in Boston learned of this, they vigorously protested, as the summer of 1631 ended, Williams moved to Plymouth colony where he was welcomed, and informally assisted the minister there. He regularly preached and, according to Governor Bradford, his teachings were well approved, after a time, Williams decided that the Plymouth church was not sufficiently separated from the Church of England. Furthermore, his contact with Native Americans had caused him to doubt the validity of the colonial charters, Governor Bradford later wrote that Williams fell into some strange opinions which caused some controversy between the church and him. In December 1632, Williams wrote a tract that openly condemned the Kings charters. He even charged that King James had uttered a lie in claiming that he was the first Christian monarch to have discovered the land
6.
William Arnold (settler)
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William Arnold was one of the founding settlers of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and he and his sons were among the wealthiest people in the colony. He was raised and educated in England where he was the warden of St. Marys and he emigrated to New England with family and associates in 1635. He initially settled in Hingham in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and this separation from Providence lasted for 16 years, and Arnold was appointed to keep the peace as the head of the settlement. He died sometime during the turmoil of King Philips War in 1675 or 1676. William Arnold was born in Ilchester, Somerset, England on 24 June 1587 to Nicholas Arnold by his first wife Alice Gully. In about 1610, he married Christian Peak who was baptized 15 February 1584, the daughter of Thomas Peak of Muchelney, Somerset, Arnolds parents lived in the small village of Northover, located across the River Yeo from the town of Ilchester. His father was a tailor, and he evidently was prominent in his work and likely a member of the Tailors Guild, Arnolds mother Alice was the daughter of John Gully and his wife Alice of Northover. She died in 1596 shortly after childbirth when Arnold was eight years old, Joanne eventually married William Hopkins of Yeovilton and died at an early age in England. Her children Frances Man and Thomas Hopkins emigrated to New England with Arnold, Arnold and his siblings were likely educated at the Free Grammar School associated with the parish church in Limington, slightly more than a mile to the east of Ilchester. This ancient school is where Thomas Wolsey was the curate and schoolmaster from 1500 to 1509, Wolsey later became the Lord Cardinal and Primate of England. Only two records for Arnold are known to exist while he lived in England. The first of these was a transcript of baptisms, marriages, and burials that he signed in 1622 as the warden of St. Marys, the other record mentioning his name was the will of his father Nicholas Arnold, dated 18 January 1623. There is no record of Arnold between 1623 and his sailing to New England in 1635. Arnold was a man, he had to be able to read and write as the warden of his parish church. Unknown are his motives for emigrating from England or when he began planning to do so, the exact route of the travelers was not recorded, but a probable path was through Yeovil, Crewkerne, and Axminster to Exeter. From there, the party turned south along the Devonshire coast, traveling through Teignmouth. Fred Arnold provided a perspective of the group in 1921, as prepared to load their ship destined for the New World, While their eyes rested upon these last scenes in the home land. Were perhaps thinking more of the greens of Ilchester and Yeovil
7.
Gristmill
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A gristmill grinds grain into flour. The term can refer to both the mechanism and the building that holds it. The Greek geographer Strabo reports in his Geography a water-powered grain-mill to have existed near the palace of king Mithradates VI Eupator at Cabira, Asia Minor, before 71 BC. The early mills had horizontal paddle wheels, an arrangement which became known as the Norse wheel. The paddle wheel was attached to a shaft which was, in turn, the turning force produced by the water on the paddles was transferred directly to the runner stone, causing it to grind against a stationary bed, a stone of a similar size and shape. This dependence on the volume and speed of flow of the water meant that the speed of rotation of the stone was highly variable. Vertical wheels were in use in the Roman Empire by the end of the first century BC, and these were described by Vitruvius. The peak of Roman technology is probably the Barbegal aqueduct and mill where water with a 19-metre fall drove sixteen water wheels, giving a grinding capacity estimated at 2.4 to 3.2 tonnes per hour. Water mills seem to have remained in use during the post-Roman period, from this time onward, water wheels began to be used for purposes other than grist milling. In England, the number of mills in operation followed population growth, limited extant examples of gristmills can be found in Europe from the High Middle Ages. An extant well-preserved waterwheel and gristmill on the Ebro River in Spain is associated with the Real Monasterio de Nuestra Senora de Rueda, the Cistercians were known for their use of this technology in Western Europe in the period 1100 to 1350. Geared gristmills were built in the medieval Near East and North Africa. Gristmills in the Islamic world were powered by water and wind. The first wind-powered gristmills were built in the 9th and 10th centuries in what are now Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, early mills were almost always built and supported by farming communities and the miller received the millers toll in lieu of wages. Most towns and villages had their own mill so that farmers could easily transport their grain there to be milled. These communities were dependent on their local mill as bread was a part of the diet. Classical mill designs are usually water powered, though some are powered by the wind or by livestock, in a watermill a sluice gate is opened to allow water to flow onto, or under, a water wheel to make it turn. In most watermills the water wheel was mounted vertically, i. e. edge-on, in the water, later designs incorporated horizontal steel or cast iron turbines and these were sometimes refitted into the old wheel mills
8.
Samuel Cranston
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Samuel Cranston was a governor of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations during the first quarter of the 18th century. He held office from 1698 to 1727, being elected to office 30 times, the son of former Rhode Island Governor John Cranston, he was born in Newport and lived there his entire life. Going to sea as a man, he was captured by pirates. Cranston had very little political experience when he was first elected as governor of the colony upon the resignation of Walter Clarke in March 1698. The issues that he dealt with during his first three years in office were so critical, that the existence of the Rhode Island colony was at stake. One of the issues of his early tenure was that of piracy. The crown wanted piracy stopped, while colonists were sympathetic to the pirates. Another ongoing issue was the boundary between the Rhode Island and Connecticut colonies. The Narragansett country was given to both colonies by their respective charters, creating many decades of friction, during Cranstons tenure as governor, the dispute was finally ended, entirely in Rhode Islands favor. The most formidable issue facing the colony began in 1698 with the arrvial of Lord Bellomont as Governor of New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Bellomont took a dislike to the governance of Rhode Island, documenting numerous irregularities in the way it operated. Bellomont wanted the Rhode Island colony to be removed from its charter and he would likely have been successful in his quest, had he not died in 1701. His first wife was Mary Hart, a granddaughter of Roger Williams, Cranston is buried in the Common Burying Ground in Newport, and shares a large marker with his father. The son of former Rhode Island Governor John Cranston, Cranston was born in Newport in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and lived there his entire life. His mother was Mary Clarke, the daughter of an early colonial President, Jeremiah Clarke, the oldest of ten children, he was educated as a youth, and became a merchant as a young adult, with his trade being that of a goldsmith. In 1684, at the age of 24, Cranston became a freeman from Newport, bicknell relates an interesting personal experience Cranston had as a young man. After he was married, he went to sea and was captured by pirates, thinking he was dead, his wife arranged to marry a Mr. Russell of Boston. Cranston managed to gain his freedom and made his way back to Newport and he found his wife before the marriage ceremony, and the event was turned into a celebration for his return, with the groom-to-be surrendering his expected bride with good grace
9.
Scituate, Rhode Island
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Scituate is a town in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 10,329 at the 2010 census, Scituate was first settled in 1710 by emigrants from Scituate, Massachusetts. The original spelling of the name was Satuit, a native Indian word meaning cold brook or cold river. The town was a part of Providence until 1731, scituates first town meeting was held at the Angell Tavern in South Scituate, with Stephen Hopkins elected as the first moderator and Joseph Brown as clerk. Stephen Hopkins later became a governor of Rhode Island and was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and his brother, Esek Hopkins, was Commander in Chief of the Continental Navy beginning in 1776. In 1788 Scituate representative, militia general and Supreme Court Justice William West led an armed anti-federalist mob of farmers into Providence to protest the U. S. Constitution. In 1791 the U. S. Supreme Court decided its first case, West v. Barnes, foster was incorporated as a separate town in 1781, taking the western half of Scituate. In 1915, the Rhode Island General Assembly voted to take 14,800 acres of land in Scituate to create a reservoir to supply water to greater Providence. The hamlets of Kent, Richmond, Rockland, South Scituate, Ashland, Saundersville, Ponaganset and parts of North Scituate, Scituate has played an important role in many of the United States wars. During the Revolutionary War,76 cannons were forged at the Hope Furnace in the village of Hope in southern Scituate, during World War II, a Federal Communications Commission Radio Intelligence Division monitoring facility on Darby Road near Chopmist Hill intercepted German HF communications. Because of this, in 1946, the Chopmist Hill area was considered as a candidate for the location of the headquarters of the United Nations. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has an area of 54.8 square miles. One of the most prominent features of the town is the Scituate Reservoir, the large reservoir spans a large portion of Scituate and has forever changed the face of the town. During construction of the reservoir, numerous villages were flooded along the banks of the Pawtuxet River. Some foundations of the old structures are visible today during times of drought. The reservoir, and a portion of land surrounding it is owned and maintained by the Providence Water Supply Board. The main Scituate reservoir was formed by the construction of a dam across the Pawtuxet River at the village of Kent. The dam, principally of earth, is about 3,200 feet long and 100 feet high, Water storage in the reservoir began on November 10,1925
10.
Pawtuxet River
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The Pawtuxet River is a river in the U. S. state of Rhode Island. It flows 12.3 miles and drains a watershed of 231.6 square miles, there are four dams along the rivers length. The area around the river was occupied by members of the Patuxet tribe, in the native language, the word pawtuxet means little falls. In 1638, Roger Williams purchased the north of the Pawtuxet. In 1642, Samuel Gorton purchased the south of the river. The Pawtuxet River Valley played an important role in the development of the textile industry in New England during the 19th century. The river is formed by the confluence of North and South branches of the river at River Point village in West Warwick, from there the river continues roughly east, through West Warwick, Warwick and Cranston, emptying into the Providence River at Pawtuxet Village. The last three miles of the form the boundary between Cranston and Warwick. Below is a list of all crossings over the Pawtuxet River, the list starts at the headwaters and goes downstream, Three Ponds Brook and the Pocasset River are the Pawtuxet Rivers only named tributaries, though it has many unnamed streams that also feed it. The Pawtuxet River is impacted by cadmium, mercury, pathogens, low dissolved oxygen, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management has issued new discharge permits to the three major municipal wastewater treatment plants that discharge to the River. However, the Pawtuxet River Authority and Watershed Council is working with state and federal partners to evaluate fish passage alternatives for the first dam on the Pawtuxet, the Pawtuxet Falls Dam. Fish passage at this dam will open up 7.5 miles of spawning habitat above the dam on the stem of the river. The Scituate Reservoir on the North Branch of the Pawtuxet River provides over 60% of the supply to the State of Rhode Island. This water is supplied to almost all the other basins in Rhode Island including the Blackstone River, Ten Mile River, Moshassuck River, Woonasquatucket River, Narragansett Bay and the Westport River. About 22% of the public supply withdrawn from the Pawtuxet basin is returned to the basin. Some of the water exported out of the basin for drinking water returns to the Pawtuxet River as wastewater, in October 2005 remnants of Tropical Storm Tammy produced torrential rains over New England.68 feet. On March 15 and March 16,2010, the Pawtuxet River reached a new record flood level after receiving over three inches of rain on the 13th and 14th. The river crested at 15.2 feet in the evening of March 15, the river crested at 20.8 feet in the morning of March 31
11.
1790 United States Census
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The United States Census of 1790 was the first census of the whole United States. It recorded the population of the United States as of Census Day, August 2,1790, as mandated by Article I, Section 2 of the United States Constitution and applicable laws. In the first census, the population of the United States was enumerated to be 3,929,214. The law required that every household be visited, that completed census schedules be posted in two of the most public places within, there to remain for the inspection of all concerned. And that the amount of each description of persons for every district be transmitted to the president. Although the Census was proved statistically factual, based on data collected, almost one third of the original census data have been lost or destroyed since their original documentation. Under the direction of the current Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, marshals collected data from all thirteen states, the census was not conducted in Vermont until 1791, after that states admission to the Union as the 14th state on March 4 of that year. Both Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and President George Washington expressed skepticism over the results, if there was indeed an undercount, possible explanations for it include dispersed population, poor transportation links, limitations of contemporary technology, and individual refusal to participate. Historic US Census data 1790 Census of Population and Housing official reports Population of 24 Urban Places,1790
12.
1890 United States Census
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The Eleventh United States Census was taken beginning June 2,1890. The data was tabulated by machine for the first time, the data reported that the distribution of the population had resulted in the disappearance of the American frontier. Data was entered on a machine readable medium, punched cards, the total population of 62,947,714, the family, or rough, count, was announced after only six weeks of processing. The public reaction to this tabulation was disbelief, as it was believed that the right answer was at least 75,000,000. The United States census of 1890 showed a total of 248,253 Native Americans living in America, down from 400,764 Native Americans identified in the census of 1850. The 1890 census announced that the region of the United States no longer existed. Up to and including the 1880 census, the country had a frontier of settlement, by 1890, isolated bodies of settlement had broken into the unsettled area to the extent that there was hardly a frontier line. This prompted Frederick Jackson Turner to develop his Frontier Thesis, the original data for the 1890 Census is no longer available. Almost all the schedules were damaged in a fire in the basement of the Commerce Building in Washington. Some 25% of the materials were presumed destroyed and another 50% damaged by smoke, the damage to the records led to an outcry for a permanent National Archives. The Librarian was asked by the Bureau to identify any records which should be retained for historical purposes, congress authorized destruction of that list of records on February 21,1933, and the surviving original 1890 census records were destroyed by government order by 1934 or 1935. The other censuses for which information has been lost are the 1800 and 1810 enumerations. Mayo-Smith, Richmond, The Eleventh Census of the United States
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Cranston travel guide from Wikivoyage
