1.
Western Sahara
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Its surface area amounts to 266,000 square kilometres. It is one of the most sparsely populated territories in the world, the population is estimated at just over 500,000, of which nearly 40% live in Laayoune, the largest city in Western Sahara. Occupied by Spain until the late 20th century, Western Sahara has been on the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories since 1963 after a Moroccan demand and it is the most populous territory on that list, and by far the largest in area. In 1965, the UN General Assembly adopted its first resolution on Western Sahara, one year later, a new resolution was passed by the General Assembly requesting that a referendum be held by Spain on self-determination. In 1975, Spain relinquished the control of the territory to a joint administration by Morocco. A war erupted between those countries and a Sahrawi nationalist movement, the Polisario Front, which proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic with a government in exile in Tindouf, Algeria. Mauritania withdrew its claims in 1979, and Morocco eventually secured de facto control of most of the territory, including all the major cities and natural resources. The United Nations considers the Polisario Front to be the representative of the Sahrawi people. As of 2017, no member state of the United Nations has ever recognized Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara. However, a number of countries have expressed their support for a recognition of the Moroccan annexation of the territory as an autonomous part of the Kingdom. Overall, the annexation has not garnered as much attention in the community as many other disputed annexations. Internationally, countries such as Russia have taken a generally ambiguous and neutral position on each sides claims, both Morocco and Polisario have sought to boost their claims by accumulating formal recognition, essentially from African, Asian, and Latin American states in the developing world. The Polisario Front has won recognition for SADR from 37 states. Morocco has won recognition or support for its position from several African governments and from most of the Muslim world, in both instances, recognitions have, over the past two decades, been extended and withdrawn according to changing international trends. Western Sahara is located in Northern Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean and it also borders Algeria to the northeast. The land is some of the most arid and inhospitable on the planet, the land along the coast is low, flat desert and rises, especially in the north, to small mountains reaching up to 600 metres on the eastern side. While the area can experience flash flooding in the spring, there are no permanent streams, at times a cool off-shore current can produce fog and heavy dew. The earliest known inhabitants of Western Sahara were the Gaetuli, depending on the century, Roman-era sources describe the area as inhabited by Gaetulian Autololes or the Gaetulian Daradae tribes
2.
Kingdom of Morocco
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Morocco, officially known as the Kingdom of Morocco, is a sovereign country located in the Maghreb region of North Africa. Geographically, Morocco is characterized by a mountainous interior, large tracts of desert. Morocco has a population of over 33.8 million and an area of 446,550 km2 and its capital is Rabat, and the largest city is Casablanca. Other major cities include Marrakesh, Tangier, Tetouan, Salé, Fes, Agadir, Meknes, Oujda, Kenitra, a historically prominent regional power, Morocco has a history of independence not shared by its neighbours. Marinid and Saadi dynasties continued the struggle against foreign domination, the Alaouite dynasty, the current ruling dynasty, seized power in 1666. In 1912 Morocco was divided into French and Spanish protectorates, with a zone in Tangier. Moroccan culture is a blend of Arab, indigenous Berber, Sub-Saharan African, Morocco claims the non-self-governing territory of Western Sahara as its Southern Provinces. Morocco annexed the territory in 1975, leading to a war with indigenous forces until a cease-fire in 1991. Peace processes have thus far failed to break the political deadlock, Morocco is a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament. The King of Morocco holds vast executive and legislative powers, especially over the military, foreign policy, the king can issue decrees called dahirs which have the force of law. He can also dissolve the parliament after consulting the Prime Minister, Moroccos predominant religion is Islam, and the official languages are Arabic and Tamazight. The Moroccan dialect, referred to as Darija, and French are also widely spoken, Morocco is a member of the Arab League, the Union for the Mediterranean, and the African Union. It has the fifth largest economy of Africa, the full Arabic name al-Mamlakah al-Maghribiyyah translates to Kingdom of the West, although the West in Arabic is الغرب Al-Gharb. The basis of Moroccos English name is Marrakesh, its capital under the Almoravid dynasty, the origin of the name Marrakesh is disputed, but is most likely from the Berber words amur akush or Land of God. The modern Berber name for Marrakesh is Mṛṛakc, in Turkish, Morocco is known as Fas, a name derived from its ancient capital of Fes. The English name Morocco is an anglicisation of the Spanish Marruecos, the area of present-day Morocco has been inhabited since Paleolithic times, sometime between 190,000 and 90,000 BC. During the Upper Paleolithic, the Maghreb was more fertile than it is today, twenty-two thousand years ago, the Aterian was succeeded by the Iberomaurusian culture, which shared similarities with Iberian cultures. Skeletal similarities have been suggested between the Iberomaurusian Mechta-Afalou burials and European Cro-Magnon remains, the Iberomaurusian was succeeded by the Beaker culture in Morocco
3.
Morocco
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Morocco, officially known as the Kingdom of Morocco, is a sovereign country located in the Maghreb region of North Africa. Geographically, Morocco is characterized by a mountainous interior, large tracts of desert. Morocco has a population of over 33.8 million and an area of 446,550 km2 and its capital is Rabat, and the largest city is Casablanca. Other major cities include Marrakesh, Tangier, Tetouan, Salé, Fes, Agadir, Meknes, Oujda, Kenitra, a historically prominent regional power, Morocco has a history of independence not shared by its neighbours. Marinid and Saadi dynasties continued the struggle against foreign domination, the Alaouite dynasty, the current ruling dynasty, seized power in 1666. In 1912 Morocco was divided into French and Spanish protectorates, with a zone in Tangier. Moroccan culture is a blend of Arab, indigenous Berber, Sub-Saharan African, Morocco claims the non-self-governing territory of Western Sahara as its Southern Provinces. Morocco annexed the territory in 1975, leading to a war with indigenous forces until a cease-fire in 1991. Peace processes have thus far failed to break the political deadlock, Morocco is a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament. The King of Morocco holds vast executive and legislative powers, especially over the military, foreign policy, the king can issue decrees called dahirs which have the force of law. He can also dissolve the parliament after consulting the Prime Minister, Moroccos predominant religion is Islam, and the official languages are Arabic and Tamazight. The Moroccan dialect, referred to as Darija, and French are also widely spoken, Morocco is a member of the Arab League, the Union for the Mediterranean, and the African Union. It has the fifth largest economy of Africa, the full Arabic name al-Mamlakah al-Maghribiyyah translates to Kingdom of the West, although the West in Arabic is الغرب Al-Gharb. The basis of Moroccos English name is Marrakesh, its capital under the Almoravid dynasty, the origin of the name Marrakesh is disputed, but is most likely from the Berber words amur akush or Land of God. The modern Berber name for Marrakesh is Mṛṛakc, in Turkish, Morocco is known as Fas, a name derived from its ancient capital of Fes. The English name Morocco is an anglicisation of the Spanish Marruecos, the area of present-day Morocco has been inhabited since Paleolithic times, sometime between 190,000 and 90,000 BC. During the Upper Paleolithic, the Maghreb was more fertile than it is today, twenty-two thousand years ago, the Aterian was succeeded by the Iberomaurusian culture, which shared similarities with Iberian cultures. Skeletal similarities have been suggested between the Iberomaurusian Mechta-Afalou burials and European Cro-Magnon remains, the Iberomaurusian was succeeded by the Beaker culture in Morocco
4.
Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic
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SADR was proclaimed by the Polisario Front on February 27,1976, in Bir Lehlou, Western Sahara, a former communist liberation force which has since reformed its ideological and political views. The SADR government controls about 20–25% of the territory it claims and it calls the territories under its control the Liberated Territories or the Free Zone. Morocco controls and administers the rest of the territory and calls these lands its Southern Provinces. The SADR government considers the Moroccan-held territory to be occupied territory, the claimed capital of the SADR is El-Aaiún, while the temporary capital has been moved from Bir Lehlou to Tifariti. The Sahrawi Republic maintains diplomatic relations with 40 UN states, and is a member of the African Union. On 26 February 1976, Spain informed the United Nations that as of date it had terminated its presence in Western Sahara and relinquished its responsibilities. Neither Morocco nor Mauritania gained international recognition, and war ensued with the independence-seeking Polisario Front, on February 27,2008, the provisional capital was formally moved to Tifariti. Day-to-day business, however, is conducted in the Tindouf refugee camps in Algeria, the broad guidelines laid down for an eventual Western Saharan state in the constitution include eventual multi-party democracy with a market economy. The constitution also defines Sahrawis as a Muslim, African and Arab people, the Constitution also declares a commitment to the principles of human rights and to the concept of a Greater Maghreb, as a regional variant of Pan-Arabism. The SADRs government structure consists of a Council of Ministers, a judicial branch, since its inception in 1976, the various constitutional revisions have transformed the republic from an ad hoc managerial structure into something approaching an actual governing apparatus. Its various ministries are responsible for a variety of services and functions, the judiciary, complete with trial courts, appeals courts and a supreme court, operates in the same areas. As a government-in-exile, many branches of government do not fully function, among other things, it has added a ban on the death penalty to the constitution, and brought down the government in 1999 through a vote of no-confidence. The composition of the Sahrawi National Council is as follows, The SADR acted as a government administration in the Sahrawi refugee camps located in the Tindouf Province of western Algeria. The government of the SADR claims sovereignty over all of the Western Sahara territory, several foreign aid agencies, including the UN High Commission for Refugees, and nongovernmental organizations are continually active in the camps. As of 2016, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic has been recognized by 85 states, of these,37 have since frozen or withdrawn recognition for a number of reasons. A total of 40 UN states maintain diplomatic relations with the SADR, Sahrawi embassies exist in 18 states. Although it is not recognised by the United Nations, the SADR has held membership of the African Union since 1982. The SADR participates as guest on meetings of the Non-Aligned Movement or the New Asian–African Strategic Partnership, on the other hand, Moroccos claim to Western Sahara is supported by the Arab League
5.
Daylight saving time
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Daylight saving time is the practice of advancing clocks during summer months by one hour so that evening daylight lasts an hour longer, while sacrificing normal sunrise times. Typically, regions that use Daylight Savings Time adjust clocks forward one hour close to the start of spring, American inventor and politician Benjamin Franklin proposed a form of daylight time in 1784. New Zealander George Hudson proposed the idea of saving in 1895. The German Empire and Austria-Hungary organized the first nationwide implementation, starting on April 30,1916, many countries have used it at various times since then, particularly since the energy crisis of the 1970s. The practice has both advocates and critics, DST clock shifts sometimes complicate timekeeping and can disrupt travel, billing, record keeping, medical devices, heavy equipment, and sleep patterns. Computer software often adjusts clocks automatically, but policy changes by various jurisdictions of DST dates, industrialized societies generally follow a clock-based schedule for daily activities that do not change throughout the course of the year. The time of day that individuals begin and end work or school, North and south of the tropics daylight lasts longer in summer and shorter in winter, with the effect becoming greater as one moves away from the tropics. However, they will have one hour of daylight at the start of each day. Supporters have also argued that DST decreases energy consumption by reducing the need for lighting and heating, DST is also of little use for locations near the equator, because these regions see only a small variation in daylight in the course of the year. After ancient times, equal-length civil hours eventually supplanted unequal, so civil time no longer varies by season, unequal hours are still used in a few traditional settings, such as some monasteries of Mount Athos and all Jewish ceremonies. This 1784 satire proposed taxing window shutters, rationing candles, and waking the public by ringing church bells, despite common misconception, Franklin did not actually propose DST, 18th-century Europe did not even keep precise schedules. However, this changed as rail transport and communication networks came to require a standardization of time unknown in Franklins day. Modern DST was first proposed by the New Zealand entomologist George Hudson, whose shift work job gave him time to collect insects. An avid golfer, he also disliked cutting short his round at dusk and his solution was to advance the clock during the summer months, a proposal he published two years later. The proposal was taken up by the Liberal Member of Parliament Robert Pearce, a select committee was set up to examine the issue, but Pearces bill did not become law, and several other bills failed in the following years. Willett lobbied for the proposal in the UK until his death in 1915, william Sword Frost, mayor of Orillia, Ontario, introduced daylight saving time in the municipality during his tenure from 1911 to 1912. Starting on April 30,1916, the German Empire and its World War I ally Austria-Hungary were the first to use DST as a way to conserve coal during wartime, Britain, most of its allies, and many European neutrals soon followed suit. Russia and a few other countries waited until the year
6.
Arabic
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Arabic is a Central Semitic language that was first spoken in Iron Age northwestern Arabia and is now the lingua franca of the Arab world. Arabic is also the language of 1.7 billion Muslims. It is one of six languages of the United Nations. The modern written language is derived from the language of the Quran and it is widely taught in schools and universities, and is used to varying degrees in workplaces, government, and the media. The two formal varieties are grouped together as Literary Arabic, which is the language of 26 states. Modern Standard Arabic largely follows the standards of Quranic Arabic. Much of the new vocabulary is used to denote concepts that have arisen in the post-Quranic era, Arabic has influenced many languages around the globe throughout its history. During the Middle Ages, Literary Arabic was a vehicle of culture in Europe, especially in science, mathematics. As a result, many European languages have borrowed many words from it. Many words of Arabic origin are found in ancient languages like Latin. Balkan languages, including Greek, have acquired a significant number of Arabic words through contact with Ottoman Turkish. Arabic has also borrowed words from languages including Greek and Persian in medieval times. Arabic is a Central Semitic language, closely related to the Northwest Semitic languages, the Ancient South Arabian languages, the Semitic languages changed a great deal between Proto-Semitic and the establishment of the Central Semitic languages, particularly in grammar. Innovations of the Central Semitic languages—all maintained in Arabic—include, The conversion of the suffix-conjugated stative formation into a past tense, the conversion of the prefix-conjugated preterite-tense formation into a present tense. The elimination of other prefix-conjugated mood/aspect forms in favor of new moods formed by endings attached to the prefix-conjugation forms, the development of an internal passive. These features are evidence of descent from a hypothetical ancestor. In the southwest, various Central Semitic languages both belonging to and outside of the Ancient South Arabian family were spoken and it is also believed that the ancestors of the Modern South Arabian languages were also spoken in southern Arabia at this time. To the north, in the oases of northern Hijaz, Dadanitic and Taymanitic held some prestige as inscriptional languages, in Najd and parts of western Arabia, a language known to scholars as Thamudic C is attested
7.
Berber languages
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Berber or the Berber languages or the Amazigh language are a family of similar and closely related languages and dialects indigenous to North Africa. Large Berber-speaking migrant communities, numbering today about 4 million, have been living in Western Europe, about half of this population was born in Europe. Berber constitutes a branch of the Afroasiatic language family, and has been attested since ancient times, the number of Berbers is much higher than the number of Berber speakers. The bulk of the populations of the Maghreb countries are considered to have Berber ancestors, in Algeria, for example, a majority of the population consists of Arabized Berbers. There is a cultural and political movement among speakers of the closely related varieties of Northern Berber to promote and unify them under a standard language, called. The name Tamaziɣt is the current native name of the Berber language in the Moroccan Middle-Atlas region, the Rif regions, in other Berber-speaking area this name was lost. There is historical evidence, from medieval Berber manusctipts, that all native North Africans from Libya to Morocco have called their language, Tamaziɣt. The name Tamaziɣt is currently being used by educated Berbers to refer to the written Berber language. Around 90 percent of the Berber-speaking population speak one of six major varieties of Berber and they are, in the order of demographic weight, Tashelhit, Kabyle, Atlas Tamazight, Riffian, Shawi and Tuareg. The Berber languages and dialects have had a tradition, on and off, for about 2,500 years, although the tradition has been frequently disrupted by cultural shifts. They were first written in the Libyco-Berber and Tifinagh abjad, still used by the Tuareg, the oldest dated inscription is from about 200 BCE. The Berber Latin alphabet was used by most European and Berber linguists during the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 19th and 20th century European and native Berber linguists, a modernized form of the Tifinagh alphabet, called Neo-Tifinagh, was adopted in Morocco in 2003 for writing Berber, but many Moroccan Berber publications still use the Berber Latin alphabet. Algerians mostly use the Berber Latin alphabet in Berber language education at public schools, Mali and Niger recognize a Tuareg-Berber Latin alphabet customized to the Tuareg phonological system. However, traditional Tifinagh is still used in those countries, the term Berber has been used in Europe since at least the 17th century, and is still used today. It was borrowed from Latin Barbari, the Latin word is also found in the Arabic designation for these populations, البربر, al-Barbar, see names of the Berber people. Etymologically, the Berber root Mazigh means free man, noble man, the feminine Tamazight traditionally referred specifically to the Riffian and Central Atlas Tamazight languages. European languages distinguish between the words Berber and barbaric, while Arabic has the same word al-barbari for both meanings, some other Berber writers, especially in Morocco, prefer to refer to Berber with Amazigh when writing about it in French or English
8.
Spanish language
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Spanish —also called Castilian —is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain, with hundreds of millions of native speakers around the world. It is usually considered the worlds second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese and it is one of the few languages to use inverted question and exclamation marks. Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. Beginning in the early 16th century, Spanish was taken to the colonies of the Spanish Empire, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa, Oceania, around 75% of modern Spanish is derived from Latin. Greek has also contributed substantially to Spanish vocabulary, especially through Latin, Spanish vocabulary has been in contact from an early date with Arabic, having developed during the Al-Andalus era in the Iberian Peninsula. With around 8% of its vocabulary being Arabic in origin, this language is the second most important influence after Latin and it has also been influenced by Basque as well as by neighboring Ibero-Romance languages. It also adopted words from languages such as Gothic language from the Visigoths in which many Spanish names and surnames have a Visigothic origin. Spanish is one of the six languages of the United Nations. It is the language in the world by the number of people who speak it as a mother tongue, after Mandarin Chinese. It is estimated more than 437 million people speak Spanish as a native language. Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, speakers in the Americas total some 418 million. In the European Union, Spanish is the tongue of 8% of the population. Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States, in 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over,38 million speak Spanish at home. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the language of the whole Spanish State in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas. Article III reads as follows, El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado, las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas. Castilian is the official Spanish language of the State, the other Spanish languages as well shall be official in their respective Autonomous Communities. The Spanish Royal Academy, on the hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. Two etymologies for español have been suggested, the Spanish Royal Academy Dictionary derives the term from the Provençal word espaignol, and that in turn from the Medieval Latin word Hispaniolus, from—or pertaining to—Hispania
9.
Regions of Morocco
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Regions are currently the highest administrative divisions in Morocco. Since 2015 Morocco officially administers 12 regions, including one that lies completely within the territory of Western Sahara. The regions are subdivided into a total of 75 second-order administrative divisions, a region is governed by a directly elected regional council. The president of the council is responsible for carrying out the councils decisions, the commission published provisional names and numbers for the new regions, and their names were officially fixed in the Bulletin Officiel dated 5 March 2015. The new regional councils elected their presidents on 14 September 2015, a. ^ Lies partially or completely within the disputed territory of Western Sahara. Between 1997 and 2010, Morocco had 16 regions, the entirety of Oued Ed-Dahab-Lagouira, the vast majority of Laâyoune-Boujdour-Sakia El Hamra, and part of Guelmim-Es Semara were situated within the disputed territory of Western Sahara. The sovereignty of Western Sahara is disputed between Morocco and the Polisario Front which claims the territory as the independent Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, most of the region is administered by Morocco as its Southern Provinces. The Polisario Front, based in headquarters at Tindouf in south western Algeria, before 1997, Morocco was divided into 7 regions, Central, Eastern, North-Central, Northwestern, South-Central, Southern, Tansift. Administrative divisions of Morocco Administrative divisions of Morocco ISO 3166-2, MA ISO 3166-2, EH
10.
Dakhla-Oued Ed-Dahab
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Dakhla-Oued Ed-Dahab is one of the twelve regions of Morocco. Before September 2015 it was known as Oued Ed-Dahab-Lagouira and it is situated in the disputed territory of Western Sahara, considered by Morocco to be the southern part of the country. The Polisario Front and other independence-seeking Sahrawis consider this to be a part of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, the United Nations and most countries do not recognize either Moroccan sovereignty over the area, or the self-declared Sahrawi republic. The region covers an area of 50,880 km² and had a population of 142,955 according to the 2014 census, the capital is the coastal city of Dakhla, formerly known as Villa Cisneros. The region comprises two provinces, Aousserd Province Oued Ed-Dahab Province Portail officiel de Oued Ed-Dahab-Lagouira
11.
Peninsula
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A peninsula is a piece of land surrounded by water on the majority of its border, while being connected to a mainland from which it extends out. Examples include the upper and lower peninsulas of the state of Michigan, the surrounding water is usually understood to be continuous, though not necessarily named as a single body of water. Peninsulas are not always named as such, one can also be a headland, cape, island promontory, bill, point, a point is generally considered a tapering piece of land projecting into a body of water that is less prominent than a cape. A river which courses through a very tight meander is also said to form a peninsula within the loop of water. In English, the plural of peninsula is peninsulas or, less commonly, peninsulas can be found on coastlines and in smaller bodies of water throughout the world, ranging in scale from square meters to millions of square kilometers. Theres the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe, and in Southern Europe theres the Iberian Peninsula, the Italian Peninsula, south America has the Brunswick Peninsula, and Antarctica has the Antarctic Peninsula. In Africa, theres the Horn of Africa, and in Australia, asia has the 3 largest peninsulas in the world, the Arabian Peninsula, the Indian Peninsula, and the Indochinese Peninsula
12.
Atlantic Ocean
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The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the worlds oceans with a total area of about 106,460,000 square kilometres. It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earths surface and about 29 percent of its surface area. It separates the Old World from the New World, the Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Eurasia and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. The Equatorial Counter Current subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean, in contrast, the term Atlantic originally referred specifically to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and the sea off the Strait of Gibraltar and the North African coast. The Greek word thalassa has been reused by scientists for the huge Panthalassa ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea hundreds of years ago. The term Aethiopian Ocean, derived from Ancient Ethiopia, was applied to the Southern Atlantic as late as the mid-19th century, many Irish or British people refer to the United States and Canada as across the pond, and vice versa. The Black Atlantic refers to the role of ocean in shaping black peoples history. Irish migration to the US is meant when the term The Green Atlantic is used, the term Red Atlantic has been used in reference to the Marxian concept of an Atlantic working class, as well as to the Atlantic experience of indigenous Americans. Correspondingly, the extent and number of oceans and seas varies, the Atlantic Ocean is bounded on the west by North and South America. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea, to the east, the boundaries of the ocean proper are Europe, the Strait of Gibraltar and Africa. In the southeast, the Atlantic merges into the Indian Ocean, the 20° East meridian, running south from Cape Agulhas to Antarctica defines its border. In the 1953 definition it extends south to Antarctica, while in later maps it is bounded at the 60° parallel by the Southern Ocean, the Atlantic has irregular coasts indented by numerous bays, gulfs, and seas. Including these marginal seas the coast line of the Atlantic measures 111,866 km compared to 135,663 km for the Pacific. Including its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers an area of 106,460,000 km2 or 23. 5% of the ocean and has a volume of 310,410,900 km3 or 23. 3%. Excluding its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers 81,760,000 km2 and has a volume of 305,811,900 km3, the North Atlantic covers 41,490,000 km2 and the South Atlantic 40,270,000 km2. The average depth is 3,646 m and the maximum depth, the bathymetry of the Atlantic is dominated by a submarine mountain range called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It runs from 87°N or 300 km south of the North Pole to the subantarctic Bouvet Island at 42°S, the MAR divides the Atlantic longitudinally into two halves, in each of which a series of basins are delimited by secondary, transverse ridges. The MAR reaches above 2000 m along most of its length, the MAR is a barrier for bottom water, but at these two transform faults deep water currents can pass from one side to the other
13.
Laayoune
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Laayoune is the largest city of the disputed territory of Western Sahara. The modern city is thought to have founded by the Spanish colonizer Antonio de Oro in 1938. In 1940, Spain designated it as the capital of the Spanish Sahara, laâyoune is the capital of the Laâyoune-Sakia El Hamra region administered by Morocco under the supervision of the UN peace-keeping mission in Western Sahara. The town is divided in two by the dry river of Saguia el Hamra, on the south side is the old lower town, constructed by Spanish colonists. A cathedral from that era is still active, its priests serve this city, laâyoune orEl Aaiún are respectively the French and Spanish transliterations of the Maghrebi Arabic name Layoun which means the water springs. Laâyoune has a desert climate, moderated by the Canary Current with an average annual temperature of 20 °C. The city has a population of 196,331 and is the largest city in Western Sahara and it is a growing economic hub. The city is a hub for fishing and for mining in the region. In 2010 that country was negotiating a new fishing agreement with Europe over offshore fishing, the football club of the city is Jeunesse Massira. The club plays in the Moroccan Premier League, the highest football league in the country, Jeunesse Massira uses Stade Sheikh Mohamed Laghdaf in training and games. Laâyoune is served by Hassan I Airport, there is a Spanish international school, Colegio Español La Paz, owned by the Spanish government
14.
Berbers
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Berbers or Amazighen are an ethnic group indigenous to North Africa. They are distributed in an area stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Siwa Oasis in Egypt, historically, they spoke Berber languages, which together form the Berber branch of the Afro-Asiatic family. The majority of Berbers are predominantly Sunni Muslim, the Berber identity is usually wider than language and ethnicity, and encompasses the entire history and geography of North Africa. Berbers are not an entirely homogeneous ethnicity and they encompass a range of phenotypes, societies and ancestries, the unifying forces for the Berber people may be their shared language, or a collective identification with Berber heritage and history. There are some twenty-five to thirty million Berber speakers in North Africa, the number of ethnic Berbers is far greater, as a large part of the Berbers have acquired other languages over the course of many decades or centuries, and no longer speak Berber today. The majority of North Africas population is believed to be Berber in origin, Berbers call themselves some variant of the word i-Mazigh-en, possibly meaning free people or noble men. The name likely had its ancient parallel in the Roman and Greek names for Berbers, dihya or Kahina was a religious and military leader who led a fierce Berber resistance against the Arab-Muslim expansion in Northwest Africa. Kusaila was a leader of the Awraba tribe of the Berber people. A history by a Roman consul in Africa made the first reference of the barbarian to describe Numidia. The use of the term Berber spread in the following the arrival of the Vandals during their major invasions. The English term was introduced in the 19th century, replacing the earlier Barbary, for the historian Abraham Isaac Laredo the name Amazigh could be derived from the name of the ancestor Mezeg which is the translation of biblical ancestor Dedan son of Sheba in the Targum. According to Leo Africanus, Amazigh meant free man, though this has been disputed, further, it also has a cognate in the Tuareg word Amajegh, meaning noble. The Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines mentioned various tribes with similar names living in Greater Libya in the areas where Berbers were later found, later tribal names differ from the classical sources, but are probably still related to the modern Amazigh. The Meshwesh tribe among them represents the first thus identified from the field, all those names are similar and perhaps foreign renditions of the name used by the Berbers in general for themselves, Imazighen. The Maghreb region in northwestern Africa is believed to have been inhabited by Berbers from at least 10,000 BC, local cave paintings, which have been dated to twelve millennia before present, have been found in the Tassili nAjjer region of southern Algeria. Other rock art has been observed in Tadrart Acacus in the Libyan desert, a Neolithic society, marked by domestication and subsistence agriculture, developed in the Saharan and Mediterranean region of northern Africa between 6000 and 2000 BC. This type of life, richly depicted in the Tassili nAjjer cave paintings of southeastern Algeria, prehistorical Tifinagh scripts were also found in the Oran region. During the pre-Roman era, several independent states existed before the king Masinissa unified the people of Numidia
15.
Himyarite Kingdom
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The Ḥimyarite Kingdom or Ḥimyar, historically referred to as the Homerite Kingdom by the Greeks and the Romans, was a kingdom in ancient Yemen. Established in 110 BCE, it took as its capital the ancient city of Zafar, the kingdom conquered neighbouring Saba in c.25 BCE, Qataban in c.200 CE, and Haḍramaut c.300 CE. Its political fortunes relative to Saba changed frequently until it conquered the Sabaean Kingdom around 280. Himyar then endured until it fell to invaders from the Kingdom of Aksum in 525. The Ḥimyarite Kingdom was the dominant polity in Arabia until 525 and its economy was based on agriculture, and foreign trade centered on the export of frankincense and myrrh. For many years, the kingdom was also the major intermediary linking East Africa and this trade largely consisted of exporting ivory from Africa to be sold in the Roman Empire. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea describes the empire of Himyar and its ruler Charibael. During this period, the Kingdom of Ḥimyar conquered the kingdoms of Saba and Qataban and took Raydan/Zafar for its capital instead of Marib, therefore, zafars ruins still lie on Mudawwar Mountain near the town of Yarim. During this period, they began to decline and fall, thanks to the three above-mentioned factors, families of Qaḥṭān were disunited and scattered about all over Arabia. This date marks the end of an era in which numerous inscriptions record the names and deeds of kings, from the 380s, temples were abandoned and dedications to the old gods ceased, replaced by references to Rahmanan, the Lord of Heaven or Lord of Heaven and Earth. One of the first Jewish kings, Tuba Abu Kariba Asad, is believed to have converted following an expedition into northern Arabia in an effort to eliminate Byzantine influence. The Byzantine emperors had long eyed the Arabian Peninsula and sought to control the spice trade. The Byzantines hoped to establish a protectorate by converting the inhabitants to Christianity, some progress had been made in northern Arabia but with little success in Ḥimyar. Abu-Karibas forces reached Yathrib and, meeting no resistance, they passed through the city, Abu-Kariba soon received news that the people of Yathrib had killed his son. He turned back in order to wreak vengeance on the city, after cutting down the palm trees from which the inhabitants derived their main income, he laid siege to the city. The Jews of Yathrib fought side by side with their pagan neighbors, during the siege Abu-Kariba fell severely ill. Two Jewish scholars in Yathrib, Kaab and Asad by name, called on the king in his camp, while attending the king, they pleaded with him to lift the siege and make peace. The sages appeal is said to have persuaded Abu-Kariba, he called off his attack, at his insistence, the two Jewish scholars accompanied the Ḥimyarite king back to his capital, where he demanded that all his people convert to Judaism
16.
Yemen
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Yemen, officially known as the Republic of Yemen, is an Arab country in Western Asia, occupying South Arabia, the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. Yemen is the second-largest country in the peninsula, occupying 527,970 km2, the coastline stretches for about 2,000 km. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, the Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea to the south, although Yemens constitutionally stated capital is the city of Sanaa, the city has been under rebel control since February 2015. Because of this, Yemens capital has been relocated to the port city of Aden. Yemens territory includes more than 200 islands, the largest of these is Socotra, Yemen was the home of the Sabaeans, a trading state that flourished for over a thousand years and probably also included parts of modern-day Ethiopia and Eritrea. In 275 AD, the region came under the rule of the later Jewish-influenced Himyarite Kingdom, Christianity arrived in the fourth century, whereas Judaism and local paganism were already established. Islam spread quickly in the century and Yemenite troops were crucial in the expansion of the early Islamic conquests. Administration of Yemen has long been notoriously difficult, several dynasties emerged from the ninth to 16th centuries, the Rasulid dynasty being the strongest and most prosperous. The country was divided between the Ottoman and British empires in the twentieth century. The Zaydi Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen was established after World War I in North Yemen before the creation of the Yemen Arab Republic in 1962, South Yemen remained a British protectorate known as the Aden Protectorate until 1967 when it became an independent state and later, a Marxist state. The two Yemeni states united to form the modern republic of Yemen in 1990, Yemen is a developing country, and the poorest country in the Middle East. Under the rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen was described as a kleptocracy, according to the 2009 international corruption Perception Index by Transparency International, Yemen ranked 164 out of 182 countries surveyed. President Saleh stepped down and the powers of the presidency were transferred to Vice President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, the transitional process was disrupted by conflicts between the Houthis and al-Islah, as well as the al-Qaeda insurgency. In September 2014, the Houthis took over Sanaa, later declaring themselves in control of the government in a coup détat, since then, a Saudi-led intervention has taken place, however, it could not stop the civil war. Instead, the Saudis and the others have destroyed some hospitals, schools and homes, Yemen was mentioned in Old South Arabian inscriptions as Yamnat. In Arabic literature, the term includes much greater territory than that of the republic of Yemen. It stretches from the northern Asir Region in southwestern Saudi Arabia to Dhofar Governorate in southern Oman, one etymology derives Yemen from yumn, meaning felicity, as much of the country is fertile. The Romans called it Arabia Felix, as opposed to Arabia Deserta, al-Yaman significantly plays on the notion of the land to the right, when in Mecca facing the dawn, complementary to Al-Sham, the Land to the Left, referring to the Levant
17.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
18.
Spanish Empire
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The Spanish Empire was one of the largest empires in history. The Spanish Empire became the foremost global power of its time and was the first to be called the empire on which the sun never sets, the Spanish Empire originated during the Age of Discovery after the voyages of Christopher Columbus. Following the Spanish–American War of 1898, Spain ceded its last colonies in the Caribbean and its last African colonies were granted independence or abandoned during Decolonisation of Africa finishing in 1976. The unity did not mean uniformity, nevertheless, some historians assert that Portugal was part of the Spanish monarchy at the time, while others draw a clear distinction between the Portuguese and Spanish empires. During the 15th century, Castile and Portugal became territorial and commercial rivals in the western Atlantic. The conquest was completed with the campaigns of the armies of the Crown of Castile between 1478 and 1496, when the islands of Gran Canaria, La Palma, and Tenerife were subjugated. The Portuguese tried in vain to keep secret their discovery of the Gold Coast in the Gulf of Guinea, chronicler Pulgar wrote that the fame of the treasures of Guinea spread around the ports of Andalusia in such way that everybody tried to go there. Worthless trinkets, Moorish textiles, and above all, shells from the Canary and Cape Verde islands were exchanged for gold, slaves, ivory and Guinea pepper. The Crown officially organized this trade with Guinea, every caravel had to get a government license, the treaty delimited the spheres of influence of the two countries, establishing the principle of the Mare clausum. It was confirmed in 1481 by the Pope Sixtus IV, in the papal bull Æterni regis, thus, the limitations imposed by the Alcáçovas treaty were overcome and a new and more balanced worlds division would be reached at Tordesillas between both emerging maritime powers. Seven months before the treaty of Alcaçovas, King John II of Aragon died, Ferdinand and Isabella drove the last Moorish king out of Granada in 1492 after a ten-year war. The Catholic Monarchs then negotiated with Christopher Columbus, a Genoese sailor attempting to reach Cipangu by sailing west, Castile was already engaged in a race of exploration with Portugal to reach the Far East by sea when Columbus made his bold proposal to Isabella. Columbus discoveries inaugurated the Spanish colonization of the Americas and these actions gave Spain exclusive rights to establish colonies in all of the New World from north to south, as well as the easternmost parts of Asia. The treaty of Tordesillas was confirmed by Pope Julius II in the bull Ea quae pro bono pacis on 24 January 1506, Spains expansion and colonization was driven by economic influences, a yearning to improve national prestige, and a desire to spread Catholicism into the New World. The Catholic Monarchs had developed a strategy of marriages for their children in order to isolate their long-time enemy, the Spanish princes married the heirs of Portugal, England and the House of Habsburg. Following the same strategy, the Catholic Monarchs decided to support the Catalan-Aragonese house of Naples against Charles VIII of France in the Italian Wars beginning in 1494. As King of Aragon, Ferdinand had been involved in the struggle against France and Venice for control of Italy, these conflicts became the center of Ferdinands foreign policy as king. Only a year later, Ferdinand became part of the Holy League against France and this war was less of a success than the war against Venice, and in 1516, France agreed to a truce that left Milan in its control and recognized Spanish control of Upper Navarre
19.
Canary Islands
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The Canary Islands, also known as the Canaries, are an archipelago and autonomous community of Spain located on the Atlantic Ocean,100 kilometres west of Morocco. The Canaries are among the outermost regions of the European Union proper and it is also one of the eight regions with special consideration of historical nationality recognized as such by the Spanish Government. The main islands are Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, La Palma, La Gomera, the archipelago also includes a number of islands and islets, La Graciosa, Alegranza, Isla de Lobos, Montaña Clara, Roque del Oeste and Roque del Este. In ancient times, the chain was often referred to as the Fortunate Isles. The Canary Islands is the most southerly region of Spain and the largest and most populated archipelago of the Macaronesia region, the islands have a subtropical climate, with long hot summers and moderately warm winters. The precipitation levels and the level of maritime moderation varies depending on location and elevation, green areas as well as desert exist on the archipelago. Due to their location above the inversion layer, the high mountains of these islands are ideal for astronomical observation. For this reason, two professional observatories, Teide Observatory on the island of Tenerife and Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma, have built on the islands. Las Palmas de Gran Canaria has been the largest city in the Canaries since 1768, between the 1833 territorial division of Spain and 1927 Santa Cruz de Tenerife was the sole capital of the Canary Islands. In 1927 a decree ordered that the capital of the Canary Islands be shared, the third largest city of the Canary Islands is San Cristóbal de La Laguna on Tenerife. This city is home to the Consejo Consultivo de Canarias. During the time of the Spanish Empire, the Canaries were the main stopover for Spanish galleons on their way to the Americas, who came south to catch the prevailing northeasterly trade winds. The name Islas Canarias is likely derived from the Latin name Canariae Insulae, meaning Islands of the Dogs, according to the historian Pliny the Elder, the Mauretanian king Juba II named the island Canaria because it contained vast multitudes of dogs of very large size. Another speculation is that the dogs were actually a species of monk seal, critically endangered. The dense population of seals may have been the characteristic that most struck the few ancient Romans who established contact with these islands by sea. Alternatively, it is said that the inhabitants of the island, Guanches, used to worship dogs, mummified them. The ancient Greeks also knew about a people, living far to the west, who are the dog-headed ones, who worshipped dogs on an island. Some hypothesize that the Canary Islands dog-worship and the ancient Egyptian cult of the god, Anubis are closely connected
20.
Barbary pirates
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This area was known in Europe as the Barbary Coast, a term derived from the name of its Berber inhabitants. The main purpose of their attacks was to capture Christian slaves for the Ottoman slave trade as well as the general Muslim slavery market in North Africa and the Middle East. In that period Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli came under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire, similar raids were undertaken from Salé and other ports in Morocco. Corsairs captured thousands of ships and repeatedly raided coastal towns, as a result, residents abandoned their former villages of long stretches of coast in Spain and Italy. The raids were such a problem coastal settlements were seldom undertaken until the 19th century, from the 16th to 19th century, corsairs captured an estimated 800,000 to 1.25 million people as slaves. Some corsairs were European outcasts and converts such as John Ward, Hayreddin Barbarossa and Oruç Reis, Turkish Barbarossa Brothers, who took control of Algiers on behalf of the Ottomans in the early 16th century, were also notorious corsairs. The European pirates brought advanced sailing and shipbuilding techniques to the Barbary Coast around 1600, the effects of the Barbary raids peaked in the early to mid-17th century. However, the ships and coasts of Christian states without such effective protection continued to suffer until the early 19th century. Following the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15, European powers agreed upon the need to suppress the Barbary corsairs entirely and the threat was largely subdued. Occasional incidents occurred, including two Barbary wars between the United States and the Barbary States, until terminated by the French conquest of Algiers in 1830. Piracy by Muslim populations had been known in the Mediterranean since at least the 9th century, in the 14th century Tunisian corsairs became enough of a threat to provoke a Franco-Genoese attack on Mahdia in 1390, also known as the Barbary Crusade. The Barbary pirates had long attacked English and other European shipping along the North Coast of Africa and they had been attacking English merchant and passengers ships since the 1600s. Regular fundraising for ransoms was undertaken generally by families and local church groups, the government did not ransom ordinary persons. The English became familiar with captivity narratives written by Barbary pirates prisoners and ransomed captives, during the American Revolution the pirates attacked American ships. The Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship stands as the U. S. s oldest non-broken friendship treaty with a foreign power, in 1778 Morocco became the first nation to recognize the new United States. As late as 1798, an islet near Sardinia was attacked by the Tunisians, throughout history, geography was on the pirates side on the Northern coast of Africa. The coast was ideal for their wants and needs, with natural harbours often backed by lagoons, it provided a haven for guerrilla warfare, such as attacks on shipping vessels venturing through their territory. On the coast, mountainous areas provided ample reconnaissance for the corsairs as well, ships were spotted from afar, the pirates had time to prepare their attacks and surprise the ships
21.
Ras Nouadhibou
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Ras Nouadhibou is a 40-mile peninsula or headland divided between Mauritania and Western Sahara on the African coast of the Atlantic Ocean. It is internationally known as Cabo Blanco in Spanish or Cap Blanc in French, Cabo Blanco, in the Atlantic Ocean, is the only place in the world where Mediterranean monk seals form a true colony. In 1997, two-thirds of the colony died off, but there has been gradual recovery since, the headland forms the western limit of Dakhlet Nouadhibou Bay. This thin stretch of land is divided between Mauritania and Western Sahara, on the western side lies the ghost town of La Guera, on the eastern side, less than a mile from the border, lies Mauritanias Nouadhibou. The Tropic of Cancer runs through the peninsula, portuguese sailing explorers first reached the location they called Cabo Branco in 1441. The Spanish interest in Western Africa, in the desert coast of the Sahara, resulted from fishing activities carried out from the Canary Islands by Spanish fishermen, who also hunted and traded seal. These fishing activities have had a impact on wildlife and caused the disappearance or endangerment of many species of marine mammals. The Spanish originally claimed the land from 20°51 N to 26°8 N in 1885 and this protectorate was governed from the Canary Islands in 1887. France would later claim the Western Sahara, at a joint convention held in 1900, the French and Spanish settled the boundary, dividing the area between Spanish Sahara and French West Africa. Today, the border separates Western Sahara from Mauretania. However, the side is currently policed by Mauritania, as neither Morocco nor the Polisario Front occupies the area. A lighthouse was constructed on the cape in 1910. as far west as the Azores, vagrants could be found as far south as Gambia and the Cape Verde islands, and as far north as continental Portugal and Atlantic France. Today, the hosts the largest surviving single population of the species. In the summer of 1997, two-thirds of its population were wiped out within two months, extremely compromising the species viable population. While opinions on the causes of this epidemic remain divided the mass die-off emphasized the precarious status of a species already regarded as critically endangered throughout its range. While still far below the early 1997 count, numbers in this all-important location have started a slow-paced recovery ever since, currently, the population in this location is estimated at 270 individuals, down from some 310 in 1997, but still the largest single colony by far. The threat of an incident that could wipe out the entire population remains. Captain James Rileys captivity memoir, Sufferings in Africa, recounts his and his mens experiences after beaching their ship at what is thought to be Cabo Blanco, robert Adamss Narrative recounts a similar experience
22.
Humpback whale
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The humpback whale is a species of baleen whale. One of the larger species, adults range in length from 12–16 m. The humpback has a body shape, with long pectoral fins. It is known for breaching and other distinctive surface behaviors, making it popular with whale watchers, males produce a complex song lasting 10 to 20 minutes, which they repeat for hours at a time. Its purpose is not clear, though it may have a role in mating, found in oceans and seas around the world, humpback whales typically migrate up to 25,000 km each year. Humpbacks feed in polar waters, and migrate to tropical or subtropical waters to breed and give birth when they fast and their diet consists mostly of krill and small fish. Humpbacks have a repertoire of feeding methods, including the bubble net technique. Like other large whales, the humpback was a target for the whaling industry, once hunted to the brink of extinction, its population fell by an estimated 90% before a 1966 moratorium. While stocks have partially recovered, entanglement in fishing gear, collisions with ships, the rorquals are believed to have diverged from the other families of the suborder Mysticeti as long ago as the middle Miocene. However, it is not known when the members of these families diverged from each other, though clearly related to the giant whales of the genus Balaenoptera, the humpback is the sole member of its genus. The humpback was first identified as de la Nouvelle Angleterre by Mathurin Jacques Brisson in his Regnum Animale of 1756. In 1781, Georg Heinrich Borowski described the species, converting Brissons name to its Latin equivalent, in 1804, Lacépède shifted the humpback from the family Balaenidae, renaming it B. jubartes. In 1846, John Edward Gray created the genus Megaptera, classifying the humpback as Megaptera longipinna, the common name is derived from the curving of their backs when diving. The generic name Megaptera from the Greek mega-/μεγα- giant and ptera/πτερα wing, the specific name means New Englander and was probably given by Brisson due to regular sightings of humpbacks off the coast of New England. Some biologists believe that these should be regarded as separate subspecies, humpbacks can easily be identified by their stocky body, obvious hump, black dorsal coloring and elongated pectoral fins. The head and lower jaw are covered with knobs called tubercles, the fluked tail, which typically rises above the surface when diving, has wavy trailing edges. Humpbacks have 270 to 400 darkly colored baleen plates on each side of their mouths, the plates measure from 18 in in the front to about 3 ft in the back, behind the hinge. Ventral grooves run from the jaw to the umbilicus, about halfway along the underside of the body
23.
Cape Verde
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Located 570 kilometres off the coast of West Africa, the islands cover a combined area of slightly over 4,000 square kilometres. The Cape Verde archipelago was uninhabited until the 15th century, when Portuguese explorers discovered and colonized the islands, ideally located for the Atlantic slave trade, the islands grew prosperous throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, attracting merchants, privateers, and pirates. The end of slavery in the 19th century led to economic decline, Cape Verde gradually recovered as an important commercial center and stopover for shipping routes. Incorporated as a department of Portugal in 1951, the islands continued to agitate for independence. Since the early 1990s, Cape Verde has been a representative democracy. Lacking natural resources, its economy is mostly service-oriented, with a growing focus on tourism. Its population of around 512,000 is mostly of mixed European and sub-Saharan African heritage, a sizeable diaspora community exists across the world, slightly outnumbering inhabitants on the islands. Historically, the name Cape Verde has been used in English for the archipelago and, since independence in 1975, for the country. In 2013, the Cape Verdean government determined that the Portuguese designation Cabo Verde would henceforth be used for official purposes, such as at the United Nations, Cape Verde is a member of the African Union. The name of the stems from the nearby Cap-Vert, on the Senegalese coast. In 1444 Portuguese explorers had named that landmark as Cabo Verde, on 24 October 2013, the countrys delegation announced at the United Nations that the official name should no longer be translated into other languages. Instead of Cape Verde, the designation Republic of Cabo Verde is to be used, before the arrival of Europeans, the Cape Verde Islands were uninhabited. The islands of the Cape Verde archipelago were discovered by Genoese and Portuguese navigators around 1456, according to Portuguese official records, the first discoveries were made by Genoa-born António de Noli, who was afterwards appointed governor of Cape Verde by Portuguese King Afonso V. Other navigators mentioned as contributing to discoveries in the Cape Verde archipelago are Diogo Gomes, Diogo Dias, Diogo Afonso, in 1462, Portuguese settlers arrived at Santiago and founded a settlement they called Ribeira Grande. Ribeira Grande was the first permanent European settlement in the tropics, in the 16th century, the archipelago prospered from the Atlantic slave trade. Pirates occasionally attacked the Portuguese settlements, sir Francis Drake, an English corsair privateering under a letter of marque granted by the English crown, twice sacked the capital Ribeira Grande in 1585 when it was a part of the Iberian Union. After a French attack in 1712, the town declined in relative to nearby Praia. Decline in the trade in the 19th century resulted in an economic crisis
24.
Marine mammal
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Marine mammals are aquatic mammals that rely on the ocean and other marine ecosystems for their existence. They include animals such as seals, whales, manatees, sea otters and they do not represent a distinct taxon or systematic grouping, but rather have a polyphyletic relation due to convergent evolution. They are also unified by their reliance on the environment for feeding. Marine mammal adaptation to an aquatic lifestyle vary considerably between species, both cetaceans and sirenians are fully aquatic and therefore are obligate water dwellers. Seals and sea-lions are semiaquatic, they spend the majority of their time in the water, in contrast, both otters and the polar bear are much less adapted to aquatic living. Their diet varies considerably as well, some may eat zooplankton, others may eat fish, squid, shellfish, sea-grass and this role in maintaining ecosystems makes them of particular concern as 23% of marine mammal species are currently threatened. Marine mammals were first hunted by aboriginal peoples for food and other resources, many were also the target for commercial industry, leading to a sharp decline in all populations of exploited species, such as whales and seals. Commercial hunting lead to the extinction of †Stellers sea cow and the monk seal. Other than hunting, marine mammals can be killed as bycatch from fisheries, increased ocean traffic causes collisions between fast ocean vessels and large marine mammals. Habitat degradation also threatens marine mammals and their ability to find, noise pollution, for example, may adversely affect echolocating mammals, and the ongoing effects of global warming degrade arctic environments. Marine mammals form a group of 129 species that rely on the ocean for their existence. They do not represent a taxon or systematic grouping. They are also unified by their reliance on the environment for feeding. The level of dependence on the environment for existence varies considerably with species. For example, dolphins and whales are completely dependent on the environment for all stages of their life, seals feed in the ocean but breed on land. Twenty three percent of mammal species are threatened. Five of these lineages are extinct, despite the diversity in morphology seen between groups, improving foraging efficiency has been the main driver in the evolution in these lineages. Today, fully aquatic marine mammals belong to one of two orders, Cetartiodactyla or Sirenia, based on molecular and morphological research, the cetaceans genetically and morphologically fall firmly within the Artiodactyla
25.
Wharf
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A wharf, quay, staith or staithe is a structure on the shore of a harbor or on the bank of a river or canal where ships may dock to load and unload cargo or passengers. Such a structure includes one or more berths, and may also include piers, warehouses, a wharf commonly comprises a fixed platform, often on pilings. Commercial ports may have warehouses that serve as storage areas. A pier, raised over the rather than within it, is commonly used for cases where the weight or volume of cargos will be low. Smaller and more modern wharves are sometimes built on devices to keep them at the same level as the ship. In some contexts wharf and quay may be used to mean pier, berth, in old ports such as London many old wharves have been converted to residential or office use. Certain early railways in England referred to goods loading points as wharves, the term was carried over from marine usage. The person who was resident in charge of the wharf was referred to as a wharfinger. The word wharf comes from the Old English hwearf, meaning bank or shore, wharfage also refers to a fee charged by ports for the cargo handled there. Originally, werf or werva in Old Dutch simply referred to inhabited ground that was not yet built on and this could explain the name Ministry Wharf located at Saunderton, just outside High Wycombe, which is nowhere near any body of water. In support of this explanation is the fact that places in England with wharf in their names are in areas with a high Dutch influence. In the northeast and east of England the term staith or staithe is also used, both originally referred to staithes in the sense of jetties or wharves. However, the term staith may also be used to only to loading chutes or ramps used for bulk commodities like coal in loading ships. Quay, on the hand, has its origin in the Proto-Celtic language. Before it changed to its current form under influence of the modern French quai, its Middle English spelling was key and this in turn also came from the Old North French cai, both roughly meaning sand bank. The Old French term came from Gaulish caium, ultimately tracing back to the Proto-Celtic *kagio- to encompass, modern cognates include Welsh cae fence, hedge and Cornish ke hedge. Canal basin Dock Port Safeguarded wharf The dictionary definition of wharf at Wiktionary The dictionary definition of quay at Wiktionary
26.
Papal bull
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A Papal bull is a specific kind of public decree, letters patent, or charter issued by a pope of the Roman Catholic Church. It is named after the seal that was traditionally appended to the end in order to authenticate it. Papal bulls have been in use at least since the 6th century, but the phrase was not used until around the end of the 13th century, and then only internally for unofficial administrative purposes. However, it had become official by the 15th century, when one of the offices of the Apostolic Chancery was named the register of bulls, by the accession of Pope Leo IX in 1048, a clear distinction developed between two classes of bulls of greater and less solemnity. The majority of the bulls now in existence are in the nature of confirmations of property or charters of protection accorded to monasteries. In an epoch when there was much fabrication of such documents, a Papal confirmation, under certain conditions, could be pleaded as itself constituting sufficient evidence of title in cases where the original deed had been lost or destroyed. Since the 12th century, Papal bulls have carried a seal with the heads of the Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul on one side. Papal bulls were issued by the Pope for many kinds of communication of a public nature. Papyrus seems to have used almost uniformly as the material for these documents until the early years of the eleventh century. Popularly, the name is used for any Papal document that contains a metal seal, today, the bull is the only written communication in which the Pope will refer to himself as Episcopus Servus Servorum Dei. For example, when Pope Benedict XVI issued a decree in bull form, while Papal bulls always used to bear a metal seal, they now do so only on the most solemn occasions. A Papal bull is today the most formal type of public decree or letters patent issued by the Vatican Chancery in the name of the Pope, the body of the text had no specific conventions for its formatting, it was often very simple in layout. For the most solemn bulls, the Pope signed the document himself, following the signature in this case would be an elaborate monogram, the signatures of any witnesses, and then the seal. Nowadays, a member of the Roman Curia signs the document on behalf of the Pope, usually the Cardinal Secretary of State, and thus the monogram is omitted. The most distinctive characteristic of a bull was the seal, which was usually made of lead. On the obverse it depicted, originally somewhat crudely, the early Fathers of the Church of Rome, the Apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul, identified by the letters Sanctus PAulus and Sanctus PEtrus. Each head was surrounded by a circle of globetti, and the rim of the seal was surrounded by a ring of such beads. On the reverse was the name of the issuing Pope in the nominative Latin form, with the letters PP, for Pastor Pastorum
27.
Azores
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Its main industries are agriculture, dairy farming, livestock, fishing, and tourism, which is becoming the major service activity in the region. In addition, the government of the Azores employs a large percentage of the population directly or indirectly in the service, the main settlement of the Azores is Ponta Delgada. There are nine major Azorean islands and a cluster, in three main groups. These are Flores and Corvo, to the west, Graciosa, Terceira, São Jorge, Pico, and Faial in the centre, and São Miguel, Santa Maria, and they extend for more than 600 km and lie in a northwest-southeast direction. All the islands have volcanic origins, although some, such as Santa Maria, have had no recorded activity since the islands were settled, mount Pico, on the island of Pico, is the highest point in Portugal, at 2,351 m. The Azores are actually some of the tallest mountains on the planet, measured from their base at the bottom of the ocean to their peaks, which thrust high above the surface of the Atlantic. The climate of the Azores is very mild for such a location, being influenced by its distance to continents. Due to the influence, temperatures remain mild year-round. Daytime temperatures normally fluctuate between 16 °C and 25 °C depending on season, temperatures above 30 °C or below 3 °C are unknown in the major population centres. It is also generally wet and cloudy, the culture, dialect, cuisine, and traditions of the Azorean islands vary considerably, because these once-uninhabited and remote islands were settled sporadically over a span of two centuries. However, these kinds of structures have always used in the Azores to store cereals. Detailed examination and dating to authenticate the validity of these speculations is lacking and it is unclear whether these structures are natural or man-made and whether they predate the 15th-century Portuguese colonization of the Azores. Solid confirmation of a human presence in the archipelago has not yet been published. The islands were known in the century and parts of them appear in the Atlas Catalan. In 1427, a captain sailing for Henry the Navigator, possibly Gonçalo Velho, rediscovered the Azores, but this is not certain. In Thomas Ashes 1813 work, A History of the Azores, the author identified a Fleming, Joshua Vander Berg of Bruges and he stated that the Portuguese explored the area and claimed it for Portugal. Other stories note the discovery of the first islands by sailors in the service of Henry the Navigator, although there are few documents to support the claims. Although it is said that the archipelago received its name from the goshawk
28.
Cape Bojador
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Cape Bojador is a headland on the northern coast of Western Sahara, at 26°07 37N, 14°29 57W. as well as the name of the large nearby town with a population of 41,178. The name of the province also derives its name from the cape. It is shown on charts with the original Portuguese name Cabo Bojador. It is said that it is known as the Bulging Cape. The Capes name in Arabic is Abu Khatar, meaning the father of danger, the cape is not prominent on maps but may be located by looking 220 km due south of the south-western point of the hook of Fuerteventura, Canary Islands. Eanes had made an attempt in 1433 which resulted in failure, but tried again under orders of Prince Henry the Navigator. He was successful after the second expedition, the disappearance of numerous European vessels that had made prior attempts to round the Cape despite its violent seas, led some to suggest the presence of sea monsters. The regions coastal areas became a very important area for Portuguese traders. The mythic importance of the cape for Portugal was captured in Fernando Pessoas early 20th century work Mensagem, in famous stanzas from this longer poem Pessoa wrote of the enormous costs of the Portuguese explorations to the nation. Capturing the symbolic importance to the nation of rounding Cape Bojador, Pessoa wrote, Who wants to pass beyond Bojador and they thought the ocean was burning past cape Bojador but Henrys men went past Bojador. A rocky patch, with a least depth of 8m, lies about 2 miles W of the cape, the coast between Cabo Falso Bojador and Cabo Bojador,10 miles SW, consists of a sandy beach fringed by rocks. Clumps of scrub top the sand dunes which stand about 0.5 mile inland of this beach, heavy breakers have been observed along this coast at all times. Cabo Bojador, a low point, is located 9.5 miles SW of Cabo Falso Bojador and is bordered on the S side by black rocks. From the N, the cape appears as a mass of red sand with a slope towards the sea. From the W, the cape is difficult to identify, and it is here that the winds start to blow strongly from the northeast at all seasons. In the end it was discovered that by sailing well out to out of sight of land—a more favorable wind could be picked up. This tragedy is recounted in the Skeletons on the Zahara, by Dean King, Dean reports that any coastal map of Western Sahara is inaccurate because of the ever-changing physical features, due to the harsh conditions of the Sahara. It also mentions that the depth of the water surrounding Cape Bojador is deceptively shallow, the cape had a fearsome reputation among mariners even prior to the wreck of the Commerce, as there had been at least thirty known shipwrecks between 1790 and 1806
29.
Prelate
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A prelate is a high-ranking member of the clergy who is an ordinary or who ranks in precedence with ordinaries. The word derives from the Latin prælatus, the past participle of præferre, which means carry before, be set above or over or prefer, hence, the archetypal prelate is a bishop, whose prelature is his particular church. All other prelates, including the regular prelates such as abbots and it equally applies to Cardinals and certain Superior Prelates of the Offices of the Roman Curia who are not bishops, such as the auditors of the Holy Roman Rota and Protonotaries Apostolic. All these enjoy the title of monsignor. ”, at present, the only Personal Prelature in the Catholic Church is that of Opus Dei, founded by St. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer in 1928 and raised to the status of a personal prelature in 1982. In the Armenian Apostolic Church, prelate refers to a diocesan bishop, a territorial prelature is, in Roman Catholic usage, a prelate whose geographic jurisdiction, called territorial prelature, does not belong to any diocese. As of 2013, there were 44 territorial prelatures, all in the Latin Church, the term also is used in a generic sense, in which case it may equally refer to an apostolic prefecture, an apostolic vicariate or a territorial abbacy. The institution was later reaffirmed in the 1983 Code of Canon Law, such a prelature is an institution having clergy and lay members which would carry out specific pastoral activities. Personal prelatures are fundamentally secular organizations operating in the world, whereas religious institutes are religious organizations operating out of the world, the first personal prelature is Opus Dei, which was elevated to a personal prelature by Pope John Paul II in 1982 through the Apostolic constitution Ut sit. Catholic Church hierarchy § Equivalents of diocesan bishops in law Ordinariate for the faithful of eastern rite Personal ordinariate
30.
Grand Inquisitor
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Grand Inquisitor was the lead official of the Inquisition. The title usually refers to the inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. Secretaries-general of the Roman Inquisition were often styled as Grand Inquisitor but the role, the most famous Inquisitor General was the Spanish Dominican Tomás de Torquemada, who spearheaded the Spanish Inquisition. Council of Inquisition, List of Grand Inquisitors
31.
Spanish Inquisition
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The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition, was established in 1478 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms and to replace the Medieval Inquisition and it became the most substantive of the three different manifestations of the wider Christian Inquisition along with the Roman Inquisition and Portuguese Inquisition. The Inquisition was originally intended primarily to ensure the orthodoxy of those who converted from Judaism, the regulation of the faith of the newly converted was intensified after the royal decrees issued in 1492 and 1502 ordering Jews and Muslims to convert or leave Spain. The Inquisition was not definitively abolished until 1834, during the reign of Isabella II, the Spanish Inquisition is often stated in popular literature and history as an example of Catholic intolerance and repression. Modern historians have tended to question earlier accounts concerning the severity of the Inquisition, Henry Kamen asserts that the myth of the all-powerful, torture-mad inquisition is largely an invention of nineteenth century Protestant authors with an agenda to discredit the Papacy. Although records are incomplete, about 150,000 persons were charged with crimes by the Inquisition and about 3,000 were executed. The Inquisition was created through papal bull, Ad Abolendam, issued at the end of the century by Pope Lucius III as a way to combat the Albigensian heresy in southern France. There were a number of tribunals of the Papal Inquisition in various European kingdoms during the Middle Ages. In the Kingdom of Aragon, a tribunal of the Papal Inquisition was established by the statute of Excommunicamus of Pope Gregory IX, in 1232, during the era of the Albigensian heresy. With time, its importance was diluted, and, by the middle of the fifteenth century, there was never a tribunal of the Papal Inquisition in Castile. Members of the episcopate were charged with surveillance of the faithful, during the Middle Ages, in Castile, little attention was paid to heresy by the Catholic ruling class. Jews and Muslims were tolerated and generally allowed to follow their traditional laws, however, by law, they were considered inferior to Catholics and were subject to discriminatory legislation. The Spanish Inquisition can be seen as an answer to the nature of Spanish society following the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslim Moors. After invading in 711, large areas of the Iberian Peninsula were ruled by Muslims until 1250, when they were restricted to Granada, which fell in 1492. However, the Reconquista did not result in the expulsion of Muslims from Spain, since they. The Jews, who had previously thrived under Muslim rule, now suffered similar maltreatment, however, as Henry Kamen notes, so-called convivencia was always a relationship between unequals. Despite their legal inequality, there was a tradition of Jewish service to the crown of Aragon and Jews occupied many important posts. Castile itself had an unofficial rabbi, ferdinands father John II named the Jewish Abiathar Crescas to be Court Astronomer
32.
Ali Bey el Abbassi
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Domingo Francisco Jorge Badía y Leblich, better known by his pseudonym and nom de plume Ali Bey el Abbassi, was a Spanish explorer, soldier, and spy in the early 19th century. He supported the French occupation of Spain and worked for the Bonapartist administration, but he is known for his travels in North Africa. He witnessed the Saudi conquest of Mecca in 1807, Badía y Leblich was born in Barcelona on April 1,1767. After receiving an education, he devoted particular attention to the Arabic language, which he learned in Vera, Almería, where his father was a military accountant. He also made a study of the manners and customs of Arabian lands. Under the assumed name of Ali Bey el Abbassi, Badía y Leblich spent the two years from 1803 to 1805 in Morocco, entertained by its king while pretending to be a descendant of the Abbasid caliphs. He then went to Mecca—then under the possession of the Wahabites—in order to perform the hajj, on his way, he stopped in Tripoli, Cyprus, and Egypt. By pretending to be a Muslim, he was able to enter places forbidden to others, such as Mecca, on his way back, he visited Jerusalem and Syria before reaching Constantinople in the autumn of 1807. There, he was for the first time suspected of not being a real Muslim, returned home in 1807, he declared his support for King José I. He was appointed intendant of Segovia and then Cordoba, on the abdication of King José following the French defeat at Vitoria in 1813, Badía y Leblich fled to France. In 1814, he published a French account of his travels in three volumes, an English translation was published in 1816. There was much mystery about Ali Bey, since the account was written from his persona, bankes, writing in 1830, roundly asserted that he was a Jew, and many later writers have thought that he was a genuine Muslim of Moroccan origin but of Spanish education. He set out on a journey in 1818 under the assumed name of Ali Othman. He was said to have acting as a French agent and. He was denied an Islamic burial because a cross was found in his vest, carrer Ali Bei, a street in Barcelona, is named after him. French Campaign in Egypt and Syria Badía y Leblich, D. F. J. Voyages dAli Bey el Abbassi en Afrique et en Asie pendant les Années 1803,1804,1805,1806, et 1807, Vol. I, II, & III, Paris, P. Didot lAiné. Travels of Ali Bey in Morocco, Tripoli, Cyprus, Egypt, Arabia, Syria, I & II, London, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown
33.
Berlin Conference
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The conference ushered in a period of heightened colonial activity by European powers, which eliminated or overrode most existing forms of African autonomy and self-governance. Before the conference, European diplomacy treated African indigenous people in the manner as the New World natives. By the mid-19th century, Europeans considered Africa to be disputed territory ripe for exploration, trade, with the exception of trading posts along the coasts, the continent was essentially ignored. In 1876, King Leopold II of Belgium, who had founded the International African Society in 1876. In 1878, the International Congo Society was also formed, with more economic goals, Léopold secretly bought off the foreign investors in the Congo Society, which was turned to imperialistic goals, with the African Society serving primarily as a philanthropic front. From 1878 to 1885, Stanley returned to the Congo, not as a reporter, French intelligence had discovered Leopolds plans, and France quickly engaged in its own colonial exploration. Finally, Portugal, which already had a long, but essentially abandoned colonial Empire in the area through the mostly defunct proxy state Kongo Empire and its claims were based on old treaties with Spain and the Roman Catholic Church. It quickly made a treaty on 26 February 1884 with its former ally, stanleys charting of the Congo River Basin removed the last terra incognita from European maps of the continent, and delineating the areas of British, Portuguese, French, and Belgian control. The powers raced to push these rough boundaries to their furthest limits, France moved to take over Tunisia, one of the last of the Barbary Pirate states, under the pretext of another piracy incident. French claims by Pierre de Brazza were quickly solidified with French taking control of todays Republic of the Congo in 1881, Italy became part of the Triple Alliance, upsetting Bismarcks carefully laid plans with the state and forcing Germany to become involved in Africa. Through it, the UK also ruled over the Sudan and what would later become British Somaliland, owing to the European race for colonies, Germany started launching expeditions of its own, which frightened both British and French statesmen. Hoping to quickly soothe this brewing conflict, King Leopold II convinced France, the conference was convened on Saturday, November 15,1884 at Bismarcks official residence on Wilhelmstrasse. The British representative was Sir Edward Malet, Henry Morton Stanley attended as a U. S. delegate. The General Act fixed the following points, To gain public acceptance, thus, an international prohibition of the slave trade throughout their respected spheres was signed by the European members. Because of this point the writer Joseph Conrad sarcastically referred to the conference as the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs in his novella Heart of Darkness. The Congo Free State was confirmed as the property of the Congo Society. The territory of todays Democratic Republic of the Congo, some two square kilometers, was confirmed by the European powers as essentially the property of Léopold II. The 14 signatory powers would have free trade throughout the Congo Basin as well as Lake Malawi, the Niger and Congo rivers were made free for ship traffic
34.
History of Western Sahara
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The history of Western Sahara can be traced back to the times of Carthaginian explorer Hanno the Navigator in the 5th century BC. The Western Sahara has never been a nation in the sense of the word. It was home to Phoenician colonies, but those disappeared with no trace. Islam arrived in the region in the 8th century, but the region, beset with desertification, from the 11th to the 19th centuries, Western Sahara was one of the links between Sub-Sahara and North Africa regions. During the 11th century, the Sanhaja tribal confederation allied with the Lamtuna tribe to found the Almoravid dynasty, the conquests of the Almoravids extended over present-day Morocco, Western Algeria and the Iberian peninsula to the north and Mauritania and Mali to the south reaching the Ghana Empire. By the 16th century, the Arab Saadi dynasty conquered the Songhai Empire based on the Niger River, some Trans-Saharan trade routes also traversed Western Sahara. In 1884, Spain claimed a protectorate over the coast from Cape Bojador to Cape Blanc, in 1958 Spain combined separate districts together to form the province of Spanish Sahara. As a result of pressure from France, the US and the UK, Spain abandoned Western Sahara on November 14,1975, Morocco later virtually annexed the northern two-thirds of Western Sahara in 1976, and the rest of the territory in 1979, following Mauritanias withdrawal. As part of the 1991 peace accords, a referendum was to be held among indigenous people, to date the referendum has not been held because of questions over who is eligible to vote. Phoenician/Carthaginian colonies established or reinforced by Hanno the Navigator in the 5th century BC have vanished with no trace. The camel was used as a beast of burden, people walked beside them. Also camel meat, milk, and skin were important, the horse, not the camel, was the animal used in warfare in the period 1000–1500 AD. What is now Western Sahara was a dry savanna area during classical antiquity, where independent tribes like the Pharusii, romans made explorations toward this area and probably reached, with Suetonius Paulinus, the area of Adrar. There is evidence of Roman commerce in Akjoujt and Tamkartkart near Tichit, some Berber tribes moved to Mauritania in the third and fourth century, and after the 13th century some Arabs entered the region as conquerors. Islam arrived in the 8th century AD between the Berber population who inhabited the western part of the Sahara, the Berbers increasingly used the traditional trade routes of the Sahara. Caravans transported salt, gold and slaves between North Africa and West Africa, and the control of trade became a major ingredient in the constant power struggle between various tribes. On more than one occasion, the Berber tribes of the Western Sahara would unite behind religious leaders to sweep the ruling leaders from power, an important role was played by the zawiyas. As centres of Islamic education under the supervision of an Islamic scholar, in many tribal groups we see a split when a part of their members distanced themselves from the traditional leading group and formed a zawiya, following the Islamic example
35.
Spanish Sahara
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Spanish Sahara was the name used for the modern territory of Western Sahara when it was occupied and ruled as a territory by Spain between 1884 and 1975. It had been one of the most recent acquisitions of the Spanish Empire, as well as one of its last remaining holdings, Spain gave up its Saharan possession following Moroccan demands and international pressure, mainly from United Nations resolutions regarding decolonisation. There was internal pressure from the native Sahrawi population and the claims of Morocco, Mauritania also claimed the territory for a number of years based on its history, and then dropped all claims. In 1991 the UN negotiated a ceasefire, and has tried to arrange negotiations, Morocco controls the entire Atlantic coast and most of the landmass, population, and natural resources of Western Sahara. Before and during the Spanish occupation, the territory was inhabited by Saharan Arabs who lived in many oases and they worked mainly in fishing and camel herding. They speak Hassaniya language, a Bedouin Arabic dialect, there is some dispute and ambiguity about whether the territory was under Moroccan royal sovereignty at the time when the Spanish claimed it in 1884. It officially informed the other powers in writing on 14 January 1885 and it began establishing trading posts and a military presence. In July 1885, the king appointed Emilio Bonelli commissioner of the Río de Oro with civil, on 6 April 1887, it was incorporated into the Captaincy General of the Canary Islands for military purposes. At the time, geographers had not mapped the territory and its features were not widely known and their trek is considered the first scientific expedition in that part of the Sahara. In 1886, Spain signed the Treaty of Idjil by which the emirate of Adrar ceded the land of the colony to Spain, the borders of the territory were not clearly defined until treaties between Spain and France in the early 20th century. Spanish Sahara was created from the Spanish territories of Río de Oro and it was not part of the areas known as Spanish Morocco and was administered separately from them. On entering the territory in 1884, Spain was immediately challenged by stiff resistance from the indigenous Sahrawi tribes, a 1904 rebellion led by the powerful Smara-based marabout, Shaykh Ma al-Aynayn, was put down by France in 1910, which ruled neighboring Algeria. This was followed by a wave of uprisings under Ma al-Aynayns sons, grandsons, tribal uprisings meant that Spain found it difficult to control parts of the territorys large hinterland until 1934. After gaining independence in 1956, Morocco laid claim on Spanish Sahara as part of its historic pre-colonial territory, in 1957, the Moroccan Army of Liberation nearly occupied the small territory of Sidi-Ifni, north of Spanish Sahara, during the Ifni War. The Spanish sent a regiment of paratroopers from the nearby Canary Islands and were able to repel the attacks, with the assistance of the French, Spain soon re-established control in the area through Operaciones Teide-Ecoubillon. It tried to suppress resistance politically and it forced some of the previously nomadic inhabitants of Spanish Sahara to settle in certain areas, and the rate of urbanization was increased. In the same year, Spain united the territories of Saguia el Hamra and Río de Oro to form the province of Spanish Sahara, while ceding the provinces of Tarfaya, in the 1960s, Morocco continued to claim Spanish Sahara. It gained agreement by the United Nations to add the territory to the list of territories to be decolonized, in 1969, Spain returned Ifni to Morocco, but continued to retain Spanish Sahara
36.
Catholicism
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The use of terms catholicism and catholicity is closely related to the use of term Catholic Church. The earliest evidence of the use of term is the Letter to the Smyrnaeans that Ignatius of Antioch wrote in about 108 to Christians in Smyrna. In 380, Emperor Theodosius I limited use of the term Catholic Christian exclusively to those who followed the faith as Pope Damasus I of Rome. Numerous other early writers including Cyril of Jerusalem, Augustine of Hippo further developed the use of the term catholic in relation to Christianity. In Christian theology, and specially in ecclesiology, terms Catholicism, when used with small c, terms catholicism and catholicity generally designate theological doctrine of the catholicity of the Church without denominational connotations. A common belief in Catholicism is institutional continuity with the early Christian church founded by Jesus Christ, many churches or communions of churches identify singularly or collectively as the authentic church. The Bishop of Rome was also considered to have the right to convene ecumenical councils, when the Imperial capital moved to Constantinople, Romes influence was sometimes challenged. The first great rupture in the Church followed this Council and they are often called Ancient Oriental Churches. The next major break was after the Council of Chalcedon and this Council repudiated Eutychian Monophysitism which stated that the divine nature completely subsumed the human nature in Christ. This Council declared that Christ, though one person, exhibited two natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation and thus is both fully God and fully human, the next great rift within Christianity was in the 11th century. This division between the Western Church and the Eastern Church is called the East–West Schism, several eastern churches reunited, constituting some of the Eastern Catholic Churches. Liturgical and canonical practices vary between all these particular Churches constituting the Roman and Eastern Catholic Churches, in all these cases the beliefs and practices of Catholicism would be identical with the beliefs and practices of the Church in question. However, in Roman Catholicism, the term catholic is understood as to cover those who recognize and are in standing with the Magisterium. The sense given to the word by those who use it to distinguish their position from a Calvinistic or Puritan form of Protestantism. It is then meaningful to attempt to draw up a list of common characteristic beliefs, the Roman Catholic Church includes the 23 rites who recognize the Magisterium. Belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the belief that Christ is made manifest in the elements of Holy Communion, possession of the threefold ordained ministry of Bishops, Priests and Deacons. Belief that the Church is the vessel and deposit of the fullness of the teachings of Jesus and this teaching is preserved in both written scripture and in unwritten tradition, neither being independent of the other. A belief in the necessity and efficacy of sacraments, liturgical and personal use of the Sign of the Cross The use of sacred images, candles, vestments and music, and often incense and water, in worship
37.
Spanish Civil War
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Ultimately, the Nationalists won, and Franco then ruled Spain for the next 36 years, from April 1939 until his death in November 1975. Sanjurjo was killed in an accident while attempting to return from exile in Portugal. The coup was supported by units in the Spanish protectorate in Morocco, Pamplona, Burgos, Zaragoza, Valladolid, Cádiz, Córdoba. However, rebelling units in some important cities—such as Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao, and Málaga—did not gain control, Spain was thus left militarily and politically divided. The Nationalists and the Republican government fought for control of the country, the Nationalist forces received munitions and soldiers from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, while the Republican side received support from the Communist Soviet Union and leftist populist Mexico. Other countries, such as the United Kingdom and France, operated a policy of non-intervention. The Nationalists advanced from their strongholds in the south and west and they also besieged Madrid and the area to its south and west for much of the war. Those associated with the losing Republicans were persecuted by the victorious Nationalists, with the establishment of a dictatorship led by General Franco in the aftermath of the war, all right-wing parties were fused into the structure of the Franco regime. The war became notable for the passion and political division it inspired, organized purges occurred in territory captured by Francos forces to consolidate the future regime. A significant number of killings took place in areas controlled by the Republicans, the extent to which Republican authorities took part in killings in Republican territory varied. The 19th century was a turbulent time for Spain and those in favour of reforming Spains government vied for political power with conservatives, who tried to prevent reforms from taking place. Some liberals, in a tradition that had started with the Spanish Constitution of 1812, sought to limit the power of the monarchy of Spain, the reforms of 1812 did not last after King Ferdinand VII dissolved the Constitution and ended the Trienio Liberal government. Twelve successful coups were carried out between 1814 and 1874, until the 1850s, the economy of Spain was primarily based on agriculture. There was little development of an industrial or commercial class. The land-based oligarchy remained powerful, a number of people held large estates called latifundia as well as all the important government positions. In 1868 popular uprisings led to the overthrow of Queen Isabella II of the House of Bourbon, two distinct factors led to the uprisings, a series of urban riots and a liberal movement within the middle classes and the military concerned with the ultra-conservatism of the monarchy. In 1873 Isabellas replacement, King Amadeo I of the House of Savoy, abdicated owing to increasing pressure. After the restoration of the Bourbons in December 1874, Carlists and Anarchists emerged in opposition to the monarchy, alejandro Lerroux, Spanish politician and leader of the Radical Republican Party, helped bring republicanism to the fore in Catalonia, where poverty was particularly acute
38.
Francoist Spain
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It is the opinion of several historians that during the Spanish Civil War, Francos goal was to turn Spain into a totalitarian state based on fascism like Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Franco was also able to take advantage of the resources of the Axis Powers, Francos regime evolved into a more classic autocratic regime. The Spanish Civil War started as a coup by the Spanish military on the peninsula, the coup escalated into a civil war lasting for three years once Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany agreed to support Franco, starting with airlifting of the africanistas onto the mainland. However, the Falange remained the party throughout Francos regime and its ideology, National Syndicalism. At the end of the Spanish Civil War, according to the regimes own figures, there were more than 270,000 men and women held in prisons, large numbers of those captured were returned to Spain or interned in Nazi concentration camps as stateless enemies. Between six and seven thousand exiles from Spain died in Mauthausen and it has been estimated that more than 200,000 Spaniards died in the first years of the dictatorship, from 1940–42, as a result of political repression, hunger, and disease related to the conflict. This changed with the Cold War that soon followed the end of hostilities in 1945, independent political parties and trade unions were banned throughout the duration of the dictatorship. On July 26,1947 Spain was declared a kingdom, Franco was to be succeeded by his Prime Minister Luis Carrero Blanco as head of government with the intention of continuing the Francoist regime, but those hopes ended with his 1973 assassination. With the death of Franco on 20 November 1975, Juan Carlos became the King of Spain and he initiated the countrys subsequent transition to democracy, ending with Spain becoming a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament. After Francos victory in 1939, the Falange was declared the legal party in Spain. The Organic Law made the government ultimately responsible for passing all laws, as all ministers were appointed and dismissed by Franco as the Chief of state and government, he was effectively the only source of legislation. The law of national referendums, passed in 1945 approved for all laws to be approved by a popular referendum. Local municipal councils were appointed similarly by heads of families and local corporations through elections, however, Carrero Blanco was assassinated on the same year and Franco named a civilian, Carlos Arias Navarro as the countrys new Prime Minister. Concerns about the situation, Spains possible entry into World War II. The army maintained a strength of about 400,000 men until the end of the war, Spain attempted to retain control of the last remnants of its colonial empire throughout Francos rule. During the Algerian War, Madrid became the base of the Organisation armée secrète right-wing French Army group which sought to preserve French Algeria, despite this, Franco was forced to make some concessions. Henceforth, when French Morocco became independent in 1956, he surrendered Spanish Morocco to Mohammed V, the year after, Mohammed V invaded Spanish Sahara during the Ifni War. Only in 1975, with the Green March and the military occupation, in 1968, under United Nations pressure, Franco granted Spains colony of Equatorial Guinea its independence, and the next year, ceded the exclave of Ifni to Morocco
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Kingdom of Morocco,
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