1.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians
2.
Riga
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Riga is the capital and the largest city of Latvia. With 696,593 inhabitants, Riga is the largest city in the Baltic states, the city lies on the Gulf of Riga, at the mouth of the Daugava. Rigas territory covers 307.17 square kilometres and lies one and ten metres above sea level, on a flat and sandy plain. Riga was founded in 1201 and is a former Hanseatic League member, Rigas historical centre is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, noted for its Art Nouveau/Jugendstil architecture and 19th century wooden architecture. Riga was the European Capital of Culture during 2014, along with Umeå in Sweden, Riga hosted the 2006 NATO Summit, the Eurovision Song Contest 2003, and the 2006 IIHF Mens World Ice Hockey Championships. It is home to the European Unions office of European Regulators for Electronic Communications, Riga is served by Riga International Airport, the largest airport in the Baltic states. Riga is a member of Eurocities, the Union of the Baltic Cities, another theory could be that Riga was named after Riege, the German name for the River Rīdzene, a tributary of the Daugava. The river Daugava has been a trade route since antiquity, part of the Vikings Dvina-Dnieper navigation route to Byzantium. A sheltered natural harbour 15 km upriver from the mouth of the Daugava — the site of todays Riga — has been recorded, as Duna Urbs and it was settled by the Livs, an ancient Finnic tribe. Riga began to develop as a centre of Viking trade during the early Middle Ages, Rigas inhabitants occupied themselves mainly with fishing, animal husbandry, and trading, later developing crafts. German traders began visiting Riga, establishing a nearby outpost in 1158, along with German traders also arrived the monk Meinhard of Segeberg to convert the Livonian pagans to Christianity. Catholic and Orthodox Christianity had already arrived in Latvia more than a century earlier, Meinhard settled among the Livs, building a castle and church at Ikšķile, upstream from Riga, and established his bishopric there. The Livs, however, continued to practice paganism and Meinhard died in Ikšķile in 1196, in 1198, the Bishop Berthold arrived with a contingent of crusaders and commenced a campaign of forced Christianization. Berthold was killed soon afterwards and his forces defeated, pope Innocent III issued a bull declaring a crusade against the Livonians. Bishop Albert was proclaimed Bishop of Livonia by his uncle Hartwig of Uthlede, Prince-Archbishop of Bremen, Albert landed in Riga in 1200 with 23 ships and 500 Westphalian crusaders. In 1201, he transferred the seat of the Livonian bishopric from Ikšķile to Riga, the year 1201 also marked the first arrival of German merchants in Novgorod, via the Dvina. To defend territory and trade, Albert established the Order of Livonian Brothers of the Sword in 1202, open to nobles, in 1207, Albert started on fortification of the town. Emperor Philip invested Albert with Livonia as a fief and principality of the Holy Roman Empire, until then, it had been customary for crusaders to serve for a year and then return home
3.
Latvia
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Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe, one of the three Baltic states. It is bordered by Estonia to the north, Lithuania to the south, Russia to the east, Latvia has 1,957,200 inhabitants and a territory of 64,589 km2. The country has a seasonal climate. Latvia is a parliamentary republic established in 1918. The capital city is Riga, the European Capital of Culture 2014, Latvia is a unitary state, divided into 119 administrative divisions, of which 110 are municipalities and 9 are cities. Latvians and Livs are the people of Latvia. Latvian and Lithuanian are the two surviving Baltic languages. Despite foreign rule from the 13th to 20th centuries, the Latvian nation maintained its identity throughout the generations via the language, Latvia and Estonia share a long common history. Until World War II, Latvia also had significant minorities of ethnic Germans, Latvia is historically predominantly Protestant Lutheran, except for the Latgale region in the southeast, which has historically been predominantly Roman Catholic. The Russian population has brought a significant portion of Eastern Orthodox Christians. The Republic of Latvia was founded on 18 November 1918, however, its de facto independence was interrupted at the outset of World War II. The peaceful Singing Revolution, starting in 1987, called for Baltic emancipation of Soviet rule and it ended with the Declaration on the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia on 4 May 1990, and restoring de facto independence on 21 August 1991. Latvia is a democratic and developed country and member of the European Union, NATO, the Council of Europe, the United Nations, CBSS, the IMF, NB8, NIB, OECD, OSCE, and WTO. For 2014, Latvia was listed 46th on the Human Development Index and it used the Latvian lats as its currency until it was replaced by the euro on 1 January 2014. The name Latvija is derived from the name of the ancient Latgalians, one of four Indo-European Baltic tribes, henry of Latvia coined the Latinisations of the countrys name, Lettigallia and Lethia, both derived from the Latgalians. The terms inspired the variations on the name in Romance languages from Letonia. Around 3000 BC, the ancestors of the Latvian people settled on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. The Balts established trade routes to Rome and Byzantium, trading local amber for precious metals, by 900 AD, four distinct Baltic tribes inhabited Latvia, Curonians, Latgalians, Selonians, Semigallians, as well as the Livonians speaking a Finnic language
4.
Internet
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The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that use the Internet protocol suite to link devices worldwide. The origins of the Internet date back to research commissioned by the United States federal government in the 1960s to build robust, the primary precursor network, the ARPANET, initially served as a backbone for interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the 1980s. Although the Internet was widely used by academia since the 1980s, Internet use grew rapidly in the West from the mid-1990s and from the late 1990s in the developing world. In the two decades since then, Internet use has grown 100-times, measured for the period of one year, newspaper, book, and other print publishing are adapting to website technology, or are reshaped into blogging, web feeds and online news aggregators. The entertainment industry was initially the fastest growing segment on the Internet, the Internet has enabled and accelerated new forms of personal interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking. Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply chains across entire industries, the Internet has no centralized governance in either technological implementation or policies for access and usage, each constituent network sets its own policies. The term Internet, when used to refer to the global system of interconnected Internet Protocol networks, is a proper noun. In common use and the media, it is not capitalized. Some guides specify that the word should be capitalized when used as a noun, the Internet is also often referred to as the Net, as a short form of network. Historically, as early as 1849, the word internetted was used uncapitalized as an adjective, the designers of early computer networks used internet both as a noun and as a verb in shorthand form of internetwork or internetworking, meaning interconnecting computer networks. The terms Internet and World Wide Web are often used interchangeably in everyday speech, however, the World Wide Web or the Web is only one of a large number of Internet services. The Web is a collection of interconnected documents and other web resources, linked by hyperlinks, the term Interweb is a portmanteau of Internet and World Wide Web typically used sarcastically to parody a technically unsavvy user. The ARPANET project led to the development of protocols for internetworking, the third site was the Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, followed by the University of Utah Graphics Department. In an early sign of growth, fifteen sites were connected to the young ARPANET by the end of 1971. These early years were documented in the 1972 film Computer Networks, early international collaborations on the ARPANET were rare. European developers were concerned with developing the X.25 networks, in December 1974, RFC675, by Vinton Cerf, Yogen Dalal, and Carl Sunshine, used the term internet as a shorthand for internetworking and later RFCs repeated this use. Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the National Science Foundation funded the Computer Science Network, in 1982, the Internet Protocol Suite was standardized, which permitted worldwide proliferation of interconnected networks.5 Mbit/s and 45 Mbit/s. Commercial Internet service providers emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990
5.
KGB
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The KGB, an initialism for Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti, was the main security agency for the Soviet Union from 1954 until its break-up in 1991. Formed in 1954, as a successor of such preceding agencies as the Cheka, NKGB, and MGB. It was the government agency of union-republican jurisdiction, acting as internal security, intelligence. Similar agencies were constituted in each of the republics of the Soviet Union aside from Russia and consisted of ministries, state committees. The KGB was a service and was governed by army laws and regulations. While most of the KGB archives remain classified, two documentary sources are available. After the dissolution of the USSR, the KGB was split into the Federal Security Service, after breaking away from the Republic of Georgia in the early 1990s with Russian help, the self-proclaimed Republic of South Ossetia established its own KGB. A1983 Time magazine article reported that the KGB was the worlds most effective information-gathering organization, at best, the compromised spy was either returned to the Soviet Union or was declared persona non grata and expelled by the government of the target country. The illegal resident spied, unprotected by diplomatic immunity, and worked independently of Soviet diplomatic, in its early history, the KGB valued illegal spies more than legal spies, because illegal spies infiltrated their targets with greater ease. The KGB classified its spies as agents and controllers, the false-identity or legend assumed by a USSR-born illegal spy was elaborate, using the life of either a live double or a dead double. In the 1980s, the glasnost liberalisation of Soviet society provoked KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov to lead the August 1991 Soviet coup détat attempt to depose President Mikhail Gorbachev, the thwarted coup détat ended the KGB on 6 November 1991. The KGBs successors are the police agency FSB and the espionage agency SVR. The GRU recruited the ideological agent Julian Wadleigh, who became a State Department diplomat in 1936, the NKVDs first US operation was establishing the legal residency of Boris Bazarov and the illegal residency of Iskhak Akhmerov in 1934. Throughout, the Communist Party USA and its General Secretary Earl Browder, helped NKVD recruit Americans, working in government, business, moreover, when Whittaker Chambers, formerly Alger Hisss courier, approached the Roosevelt Government—to identify the Soviet spies Duggan, White, and others—he was ignored. To wit, British Manhattan Project team physicist Klaus Fuchs was the agent of the Rosenberg spy ring. In 1944, the New York City residency infiltrated the top secret Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, by recruiting Theodore Hall, the KGB failed to rebuild most of its US illegal resident networks. The aftermath of the Second Red Scare and the crisis in the CPUSA hampered recruitment, the last major illegal resident, Rudolf Abel, was betrayed by his assistant, Reino Häyhänen, in 1957. One notable KGB success occurred in 1967, with the recruitment of US Navy Chief Warrant Officer John Anthony Walker
6.
Alexei Navalny
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Alexei Anatolievich Navalny is a Russian lawyer, political and financial activist, and politician. Since 2009, he has gained prominence in Russia, and in the Russian and international media, as a critic of corruption and of Russian President Vladimir Putin. He has organized large-scale demonstrations promoting democracy and attacking political corruption, Putin, in 2012, The Wall Street Journal described him as the man Vladimir Putin fears most. A self-described nationalist democrat, Navalny is a Russian Opposition Coordination Council member, in September 2013, he ran in the Moscow mayoral election, supported by the RPR-PARNAS party. He came in second, with 27% of the vote, losing to incumbent mayor Sergei Sobyanin, Navalny came to prominence via his blog, hosted on the website LiveJournal, which remains his primary method of communicating with the public. He created Russian Anti-corruption Foundation in 2011, Navalny has been arrested numerous times by Russian authorities, most seriously in 2012, when federal authorities accused him of three instances of embezzlement and fraud, all of which he denied. In July 2013, he was convicted of embezzlement and was sentenced to five years in a corrective labor colony, the cases are widely believed to be fabricated in retaliation for his political activity. The Memorial Human Rights Center recognized Navalny as a political prisoner, Navalny was released from prison a day after sentencing. The prison fine was suspended in October 2013.5 years, Alexei Navalny is of Russian and Ukrainian descent. His father Anatoliy Navalny is from Zalissia, a village in Ivankiv Raion, Kiev Oblast, Navalny grew up in Obninsk about 100 km southwest of Moscow, but spent his childhood summers with his grandmother in Ukraine. Navalny graduated from the Peoples Friendship University of Russia in 1998 with a law degree and he then studied securities and exchanges at the Finance University under the Government of the Russian Federation. In 2008, Navalny spent around 300,000 rubles on stocks of five oil and gas companies, Rosneft, Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, Lukoil, as such, he began to aim at making the financial properties of these companies transparent. This is required by law, but there are allegations that some of the top managers of companies are involved in thefts and are obscuring transparency. Other activities deal with wrongdoings by Russian police, such as Sergei Magnitskys case, improper usage of states budget funds, quality of state services, in November 2010, Navalny published confidential documents about Transnefts auditing. According to Navalnys blog, about four billion dollars were stolen by Transnefts leaders during the construction of the Eastern Siberia – Pacific Ocean oil pipeline. In December 2010, Navalny announced the launch of the RosPil project, the project takes advantage of existing procurement regulation that requires all government requests for tender to be posted online. Information about winning bids must be posted online as well, in May 2011, Navalny launched RosYama, a project that allowed individuals to report potholes and track government responses to complaints. In August 2011, Navalny publicized papers related to a real estate deal between Hungarian and Russian governments
7.
Israelis
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Israelis are citizens or permanent residents of the State of Israel, a multiethnic society that is home to people of different ethnic backgrounds. The largest ethnic groups in Israel are Jews, followed by Arabs, among the Jewish population, hundreds of thousands of Jews born in Israel are descended from both Ashkenazi and Mizrahi Jews. More than 50% of the Jewish population is of at least partial Mizrahi descent, almost 10% of the general population of Israel is estimated to be living abroad. As of 2013, Israels population is 8 million, of which the Israeli civil government records 75. 3% as Jews,20. 7% as non-Jewish Arabs, Israels official census includes Israeli settlers in the occupied territories. 280,000 Israeli settlers live in settlements in the Judea and Samaria Area,190,000 in East Jerusalem, and 20,000 in the Golan Heights. Among Jews,70. 3% were born in Israel, mostly from the second or third generation of their family in the country, and the rest are Jewish immigrants. Of the Jewish immigrants,20. 5% were from Europe and the Americas, and 9. 2% were from Asia, Africa, nearly half of all Israeli Jews are descended from immigrants from the European Jewish diaspora. Approximately the same number are descended from immigrants from Arab countries, Iran, Turkey, over 200,000 are of Ethiopian and Indian-Jewish descent. Defined as non-Jews and non-Arabs, they make up about 3. 5% of Israelis, Israels two official languages are Hebrew and Arabic. Hebrew is the language of government and is spoken by the majority of the population. Arabic is spoken by the Arab minority and by members of the Mizrahi Jewish community. English is studied in school and is spoken by the majority of the population as a second language, other languages spoken in Israel include Russian, Yiddish, Spanish, Ladino, Amharic, Armenian, Romanian, and French. In recent decades, between 650,000 and 1,300,000 Israelis have emigrated, a known in Hebrew as yerida. Emigrants have various reasons for leaving, but there is generally a combination of economic, los Angeles is home to the largest community of Israelis outside Israel. The main Israeli ethnic and religious groups are as follows, The CBS traces the paternal country of origin of Israeli Jews as of 2010 is as follows. A fraction of Palestinians remained within Israels borders following the 1948 Palestinian exodus and are the largest group of Arabic-speaking, the vast majority of the Arab citizens of Israel are Sunni Muslim, while 9% of them are Christian. As of 2013, the Arab population of Israel amounts to 1,658,000, the Arab citizens of Israel also include the Bedouin. In 1999,110,000 Bedouin lived in the Negev,50,000 in the Galilee and 10,000 in the region of Israel
8.
Ukraine
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Ukraine is currently in territorial dispute with Russia over the Crimean Peninsula which Russia annexed in 2014 but which Ukraine and most of the international community recognise as Ukrainian. Including Crimea, Ukraine has an area of 603,628 km2, making it the largest country entirely within Europe and it has a population of about 42.5 million, making it the 32nd most populous country in the world. The territory of modern Ukraine has been inhabited since 32,000 BC, during the Middle Ages, the area was a key centre of East Slavic culture, with the powerful state of Kievan Rus forming the basis of Ukrainian identity. Following its fragmentation in the 13th century, the territory was contested, ruled and divided by a variety of powers, including Lithuania, Poland, the Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. A Cossack republic emerged and prospered during the 17th and 18th centuries, two brief periods of independence occurred during the 20th century, once near the end of World War I and another during World War II. Before its independence, Ukraine was typically referred to in English as The Ukraine, following independence, Ukraine declared itself a neutral state. Nonetheless it formed a limited partnership with the Russian Federation and other CIS countries. In the 2000s, the government began leaning towards NATO, and it was later agreed that the question of joining NATO should be answered by a national referendum at some point in the future. Former President Viktor Yanukovych considered the current level of co-operation between Ukraine and NATO sufficient, and was against Ukraine joining NATO and these events formed the background for the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, and the War in Donbass in April 2014. On 1 January 2016, Ukraine applied the economic part of the Deep, Ukraine has long been a global breadbasket because of its extensive, fertile farmlands and is one of the worlds largest grain exporters. The diversified economy of Ukraine includes a heavy industry sector, particularly in aerospace. Ukraine is a republic under a semi-presidential system with separate powers, legislative, executive. Its capital and largest city is Kiev, taking into account reserves and paramilitary personnel, Ukraine maintains the second-largest military in Europe after that of Russia. Ukrainian is the language and its alphabet is Cyrillic. The dominant religion in the country is Eastern Orthodoxy, which has strongly influenced Ukrainian architecture, literature, there are different hypotheses as to the etymology of the name Ukraine. According to the older and most widespread hypothesis, it means borderland, while more recently some studies claim a different meaning, homeland or region. The Ukraine now implies disregard for the sovereignty, according to U. S. ambassador William Taylor. Neanderthal settlement in Ukraine is seen in the Molodova archaeological sites include a mammoth bone dwelling
9.
War crime
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A war crime is an act that constitutes a serious violation of the law of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility. The concept of war crimes emerged at the turn of the century when the body of customary international law applicable to warfare between sovereign states was codified. Moreover, trials in national courts during this period further helped clarify the law, following the end of World War II, major developments in the law occurred. Numerous trials of Axis war criminals established the Nuremberg principles, such as notion that war crimes constituted crimes defined by international law, additionally, the Geneva Conventions in 1949 defined new war crimes and established that states could exercise universal jurisdiction over such crimes. The trial of Peter von Hagenbach by an ad hoc tribunal of the Holy Roman Empire in 1474 was the first international war crimes trial, and also of command responsibility. He was convicted and beheaded for crimes that he as a knight was deemed to have a duty to prevent, although he had argued that he was only following orders. In 1654 a Major Connaught was tried at Chester Assizes and hanged for his part in the massacre of villagers in the church at the village of Boughton, twelve villagers were smoked out, stripped naked and had their throats cut. He was hanged at the scene of the crime having been convicted of striking a blow to the head of John Fowler with an axe. The Geneva Conventions are four related treaties adopted and continuously expanded from 1864 to 1949 that represent a legal basis, accordingly, states retain different codes and values with regard to wartime conduct. Some signatories have routinely violated the Geneva Conventions in a way which either uses the ambiguities of law or political maneuvering to sidestep the laws formalities and principles. Three conventions were revised and expanded with the one added in 1949, First Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded. Second Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of Wounded, Sick, third Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, Protocol II relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts. Protocol III relating to the Adoption of an Additional Distinctive Emblem, a small number of German military personnel of the First World War were tried in 1921 by the German Supreme Court for alleged war crimes. The modern concept of war crime was further developed under the auspices of the Nuremberg Trials based on the definition in the London Charter that was published on August 8,1945. Along with war crimes the charter also defined crimes against peace and crimes against humanity, on July 1,2002, the International Criminal Court, a treaty-based court located in The Hague, came into being for the prosecution of war crimes committed on or after that date. Several nations, most notably the United States, China, Russia, the United States still participates as an observer. Article 12 of the Rome Statute provides jurisdiction over the citizens of non-contracting states in the event that they are accused of committing crimes in the territory of one of the state parties
10.
Chelyabinsk
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During Pugachevs Rebellion, the fortress withstood a siege by the rebel forces in 1774, but was eventually captured for several months in 1775. In 1782, as a part of Ufa Viceroyalty that was reformed into Orenburg Governorate, Chelyabinsk became a seat of a its own uyezd and finally was granted town status. Until the late 19th century, Chelyabinsk was a provincial town. In 1892, the Samara-Zlatoust Railway was completed which connected it with Moscow, also in 1892, construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway from Chelyabinsk started and in 1896 the city was linked to Ekaterinburg. Chelyabinsk became the hub for relocation to Siberia, for fifteen years more than fifteen million people - a tenth of Russia - passed through Chelyabinsk. Some of them remained in Chelyabinsk, which contributed to its rapid growth, soon Chelyabinsk started turning into a major trade center, its population reached 20,000 inhabitants by 1897,45,000 by 1913, and 70,000 by 1917. For rapid growth at the turn of the 20th century, similar to American cities, during the first Five-Year Plans of the 1930s, Chelyabinsk experienced rapid industrial growth. Several establishments, including the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant and the Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant, were built at this time, during World War II, Joseph Stalin decided to move a large part of Soviet factory production to places out of the way of the advancing German armies in late 1941. This brought new industries and thousands of workers to Chelyabinsk, facilities for the production of T-34 tanks and Katyusha rocket launchers existed in Chelyabinsk. During World War II, it produced 18,000 tanks, in the press of the time Chelyabinsk was informally called Tankograd or Tank City. Kirov Factory no.185 moved here from Leningrad to produce heavy tanks, fragments fell in and around Chelyabinsk. Interior Ministry spokesman Vadim Kolesnikov said 1,100 people had called for medical assistance following the incident, one woman suffered a broken spine. Kolesnikov also said about 600 square meters of a roof at a factory had collapsed. The size has been estimated at 17 meters diameter with a mass of 10,000 or 11,000 metric tons, the power of the explosion was about 500 kilotons of TNT, which is 20–30 times more energy than was released from the atomic bomb exploded in Hiroshima. Luckily, thanks to the altitude of the explosion the city managed to avoid large casualties. Chelyabinsk is the center of the oblast. Within the framework of administrative divisions, it is incorporated as the City of Chelyabinsk—an administrative unit with the equal to that of the districts. As a municipal division, the City of Chelyabinsk is incorporated as Chelyabinsky Urban Okrug, in June 2014, Chelyabinsks seven city districts were granted municipal status
11.
Chicago
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
