1.
Historic districts in the United States
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Buildings, structures, objects and sites within a historic district are normally divided into two categories, contributing and non-contributing. Districts greatly vary in size, some have hundreds of structures, the U. S. federal government designates historic districts through the United States Department of Interior under the auspices of the National Park Service. Federally designated historic districts are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, state-level historic districts may follow similar criteria or may require adherence to certain historic rehabilitation standards. Local historic district designation offers, by far, the most legal protection for historic properties because most land use decisions are made at the local level, local districts are generally administered by the county or municipal government. The first U. S. historic district was established in Charleston, South Carolina in 1931, Charleston city government designated an Old and Historic District by local ordinance and created a board of architectural review to oversee it. New Orleans followed in 1937, establishing the Vieux Carré Commission, other localities picked up on the concept, with the city of Philadelphia enacting its historic preservation ordinance in 1955. The Supreme Court case validated the protection of resources as an entirely permissible governmental goal. In 1966 the federal government created the National Register of Historic Places, conference of Mayors had stated Americans suffered from rootlessness. By the 1980s there were thousands of federally designated historic districts, Historic districts are generally two types of properties, contributing and non-contributing. In general, contributing properties are integral parts of the historic context, in addition to the two types of classification within historic districts, properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places are classified into five broad categories. They are, building, structure, site, district and object, all but the eponymous district category are also applied to historic districts listed on the National Register. A listing on the National Register of Historic Places is governmental acknowledgment of a historic district, however, the Register is an honorary status with some federal financial incentives. The National Register of Historic Places defines a historic district per U. S. federal law, a district may also comprise individual elements separated geographically but linked by association or history. Districts established under U. S. federal guidelines generally begin the process of designation through a nomination to the National Register of Historic Places, the National Register is the official recognition by the U. S. government of cultural resources worthy of preservation. While designation through the National Register does offer a district or property some protections, if the federal government is not involved, then the listing on the National Register provides the site, property or district no protections. If, however, company A was under federal contract the Smith House would be protected, a federal designation is little more than recognition by the government that the resource is worthy of preservation. Usually, the National Register does not list religious structures, moved structures, reconstructed structures, however, if a property falls into one of those categories and are integral parts of districts that do meet the criteria then an exception allowing their listing will be made. Historic district listings, like all National Register nominations, can be rejected on the basis of owner disapproval, in the case of historic districts, a majority of owners must object in order to nullify a nomination to the National Register of Historic Places
2.
Contributing property
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Government agencies, at the state, national, and local level in the United States, have differing definitions of what constitutes a contributing property but there are common characteristics. Local laws often regulate the changes that can be made to contributing structures within designated historic districts, the first local ordinances dealing with the alteration of buildings within historic districts was in Charleston, South Carolina in 1931. Properties within a district fall into one of two types of property, contributing and non-contributing. A contributing property, such as a 19th Century mansion, helps make a historic district historic, while a non-contributing property, such as a medical clinic. The contributing properties are key to a districts historic associations, historic architectural qualities. A property can change from contributing to non-contributing and vice versa if significant alterations take place, the ordinance declared that buildings in the district could not have changes made to their architectural features visible from the street. By the mid-1930s, other U. S. cities followed Charlestons lead, an amendment to the Louisiana Constitution led to the 1937 creation of the Vieux Carre Commission, which was charged with protecting and preserving the French Quarter in the city of New Orleans. The city then passed an ordinance that set standards regulating changes within the quarter. Other sources, such as the Columbia Law Review in 1963, the Columbia Law Review gave dates of 1925 for the New Orleans laws and 1924 for Charleston. The same publication claimed that two cities were the only cities with historic district zoning until Alexandria, Virginia adopted an ordinance in 1946. The National Park Service appears to refute this, in 1939, the city of San Antonio, Texas, enacted an ordinance that protected the area of La Villita, which was the citys original Mexican village marketplace. In 1941 the authority of local controls on buildings within historic districts was being challenged in court. In City of New Orleans vs Pergament Louisiana state appellate courts ruled that the design, beginning in the mid-1950s, controls that once applied to only historic districts were extended to individual landmark structures. The United States Congress adopted legislation that declared the Georgetown neighborhood in Washington, by 1965,51 American communities had adopted preservation ordinances. By 1998, more than 2,300 U. S. towns, contributing properties are defined through historic district or historic preservation zoning laws, usually at the local level. Zoning ordinances pertaining to historic districts are designed to maintain a historic character by controlling demolition and alteration to existing properties. It can be any property, structure or object that adds to the integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic district, either local or federal. Definitions vary but, in general, they maintain the same characteristics, another key aspect of a contributing property is historic integrity
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Joseph Evans Sperry
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Architect Joseph Evans Sperry was born in 1854 in Georgetown, South Carolina. He later relocated to Baltimore, Maryland, where he partnered with James Bosley Noel Wyatt to form the architectural firm Wyatt and their affiliation lasted from 1878 to 1887. The two probably became acquainted while working in the office of Architect, E. Francis Baldwin, with Wyatt, he designed a number of buildings around Baltimore before breaking off on his own. Sperry became one of Baltimores leading architects, designing public buildings, including churches, hospitals. In 1914 he was named an AIA Fellow, Sperry also designed several buildings at Johns Hopkins University and one building at West Virginia University. Sperrys most famous building is probably the Emerson Bromo-Seltzer Tower in Baltimore, sperrys buildings were designed in a variety of styles, but overall were eclectic. Sperry practiced architecture independently from 1888 until he died in 1930. 1891, Equitable Building, Baltimore, Maryland 1892, The Eutaw Place Temple of congregation Oheb Shalom 1896, Brewers Exchange, Baltimore, Maryland 1897, St. A. I. A. biographical Dictionary of American Architects,565. Biography of Joseph Evans Sperry, Baltimore Architecture Foundation Baltimore Architecture Foundation Baltimore Dead Architects Society Biography of James Bosley Noel Wyatt
5.
Bolton Hill, Baltimore
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Bolton Hill is a neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland, with 20 blocks of mostly preserved buildings from the late 19th century. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, preserved as a Baltimore City Historic District, the neighborhood is bounded by North Avenue, Mount Royal Avenue, Cathedral Street, Dolphin Street, and Eutaw Place. Bolton Hill is a residential neighborhood with three-story row houses with red brick, white marble steps. There are also more ornate originally single-family houses, many houses of worship, parks, monuments. Many significant residents have lived in the neighborhood, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Woodrow Wilson, the Cone sisters, Bolton Hill is within easy walking distance of the State Center station on the Baltimore Metro Subway and the University of Baltimore/Mt. Royal and Cultural Center stations on the Baltimore Light Rail, as of the 2010 Census, there were 4,974 people residing within the Bolton Hill neighborhood boundaries. The racial makeup of Bolton Hill, as found in the 2010 census, was 56. 4% White,31. 8% African American,7. 3% Asian,0. 2% Native American,1. 1% Other Races, and 3. 2% Two or more Races. 65. 8% of housing units were renter-occupied, 24% were owner occupied, Bolton Hill is named after the estate of George Grundy, who named his estate house after Bolton le Moors, which was located at the site of the current Fifth Regiment Armory. This grid was constructed by Thomas Poppleton to follow now Pennsylvania Avenue, early row houses featured plain brick facades with decorative cornices, door surrounds, and window lintels. Later row houses features more ornate designs, construction of row houses continued until the end of the 19th century, but a few large apartments were constructed at the beginning of the 20th century. Although socially segregated, many African-American servants for the mansions of wealthy Bolton Hill residents lived in the houses of Bolton Hill. At the end of the 19th century, Baltimores German Jewish community moved to Bolton Hill, furthermore, two large temples were built within Bolton hill. Eutaw Place Temple was built by Temple Oheb Shalom on Eutaw Place in 1892, at the beginning of the 20th century, white residents of Bolton Hill began to fear the expanding African-American community to the west of the neighborhood, eventually leading to white flight. The Mount Royal Improvement Association in 1928 and pushed for covenants against African-American residency in the neighborhood, in the early 1960s, federal urban renewal funds were used to demolish houses on the western edge of the neighborhood, which were considered slums and targeted for stabilization. Several large new developments were built in their place, in 1967, Bolton Hill became a Baltimore City historic district, and in 1971 it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. As a result, the majority of the neighborhood was largely preserved, james M. Cain, Author of The Postman Always Rings Twice. Claribel and Etta Cone, art collectors, early patrons of Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, F. Scott Fitzgerald, American author who published Tender is the Night while living in Bolton Hill from 1933 to 1935. Daniel Coit Gilman, first president of Johns Hopkins University and first director of Johns Hopkins Hospital, edith Hamilton, Classicist author, first Headmistress of the Bryn Mawr School
6.
Baltimore
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Baltimore is the largest city in the U. S. state of Maryland, and the 29th-most populous city in the country. It was established by the Constitution of Maryland and is not part of any county, thus, it is the largest independent city in the United States, with a population of 621,849 as of 2015. As of 2010, the population of the Baltimore Metropolitan Area was 2.7 million, founded in 1729, Baltimore is the second largest seaport in the Mid-Atlantic. Baltimores Inner Harbor was once the leading port of entry for immigrants to the United States. With hundreds of identified districts, Baltimore has been dubbed a city of neighborhoods, in the War of 1812, Francis Scott Key wrote The Star-Spangled Banner, later the American national anthem, in Baltimore. More than 65,000 properties, or roughly one in three buildings in the city, are listed on the National Register, more than any city in the nation. The city has 289 properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the historical records of the government of Baltimore are located at the Baltimore City Archives. The city is named after Cecil Calvert, second Lord Baltimore, of the Irish House of Lords, Baltimore Manor was the name of the estate in County Longford on which the Calvert family lived in Ireland. Baltimore is an anglicization of the Irish name Baile an Tí Mhóir, in 1608, Captain John Smith traveled 210 miles from Jamestown to the uppermost Chesapeake Bay, leading the first European expedition to the Patapsco River. The name Patapsco is derived from pota-psk-ut, which translates to backwater or tide covered with froth in Algonquian dialect, a quarter century after John Smiths voyage, English colonists began to settle in Maryland. The area constituting the modern City of Baltimore and its area was first settled by David Jones in 1661. He claimed the area today as Harbor East on the east bank of the Jones Falls stream. In the early 1600s, the immediate Baltimore vicinity was populated, if at all. The Baltimore area had been inhabited by Native Americans since at least the 10th millennium BC, one Paleo-Indian site and several Archaic period and Woodland period archaeological sites have been identified in Baltimore, including four from the Late Woodland period. During the Late Woodland period, the culture that is called the Potomac Creek complex resided in the area from Baltimore to the Rappahannock River in Virginia. It was located on the Bush River on land that in 1773 became part of Harford County, in 1674, the General Assembly passed An Act for erecting a Court-house and Prison in each County within this Province. The site of the house and jail for Baltimore County was evidently Old Baltimore near the Bush River. In 1683, the General Assembly passed An Act for Advancement of Trade to establish towns, ports, one of the towns established by the act in Baltimore County was on Bush River, on Town Land, near the Court-House
7.
History of the Jews in Germany
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Jewish settlers founded the Ashkenazi Jewish community in the Early and High Middle Ages. The community survived under Charlemagne, but suffered during the Crusades, accusations of well poisoning during the Black Death led to mass slaughter of German Jews, and they fled in large numbers to Poland. The Jewish communities of the cities of Mainz, Speyer, and this was a golden age as area bishops protected the Jews resulting in increased trade and prosperity. The First Crusade began an era of persecution of Jews in Germany, Entire communities, like those of Trier, Worms, Mainz, and Cologne, were murdered. The war upon the Hussite heretics became the signal for renewed persecution of Jews, the end of the 15th century was a period of religious hatred that ascribed to Jews all possible evils. The atrocities during the Khmelnytsky Uprising committed by Khmelnytskyis Cossacks drove the Polish Jews back into western Germany, with Napoleons fall in 1815, growing nationalism resulted in increasing repression. From August to October 1819, pogroms that came to be known as the Hep-Hep riots took place throughout Germany, during this time, many German states stripped Jews of their civil rights. As a result, many German Jews began to emigrate, from the time of Moses Mendelssohn until the 20th century, the community gradually achieved emancipation, and then prospered. In January 1933, some 522,000 Jews lived in Germany, however, following the growth of Nazism and its antisemitic ideology and policies, the Jewish community was severely persecuted. Over half emigrated during the first six years of the Nazi dictatorship, in 1933, persecution of the Jews became an active Nazi policy. In 1935 and 1936, the pace of persecution of the Jews increased, in 1936, Jews were banned from all professional jobs, effectively preventing them from exerting any influence in education, politics, higher education, and industry. The SS ordered the Night of Broken Glass to be carried out the night of November 9–10,1938, the storefronts of Jewish shops and offices were smashed and vandalized, and many synagogues were destroyed by fire. Increasing antisemitism prompted a wave of a Jewish mass emigration from Germany throughout the 1930s, only roughly 214,000 Jews were left in Germany proper on the eve of World War II. Beginning in late 1941, the community was subjected to systematic deportations to ghettos. In May 1943, Germany was declared judenrein, by the end of the war, an estimated 160,000 to 180,000 German Jews had been killed under the Nazi regime, by the Germans and their collaborators. A total of about 6 million European Jews were murdered under the direction of the Nazis, after the war, the Jewish community in Germany started to slowly grow again. Currently in Germany, denial of the Holocaust or that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust is a criminal act, violations can be punished with up to five years of prison. In 2007, the Interior Minister of Germany, Wolfgang Schäuble, pointed out the policy of Germany, We will not tolerate any form of extremism, xenophobia
8.
Synagogue
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A synagogue, also spelled synagog, is a Jewish house of prayer. Synagogues have a hall for prayer, and may also have smaller rooms for study and sometimes a social hall. Some have a room for Torah study, called the beith midrash beis medrash —בית מדרש. Synagogues are consecrated spaces used for the purpose of prayer, Tanakh reading, study and assembly, halakha holds that communal Jewish worship can be carried out wherever ten Jews assemble. Worship can also be carried out alone or with fewer than ten people assembled together, however, halakha considers certain prayers as communal prayers and therefore they may be recited only by a minyan. The synagogue does not replace the long-since destroyed Temple in Jerusalem, israelis use the Hebrew term beyt knesset. Jews of Ashkenazi descent have traditionally used the Yiddish term shul in everyday speech, Sephardi Jews and Romaniote Jews generally use the term kal. Spanish Jews call the synagogue a sinagoga and Portuguese Jews call it an esnoga, persian Jews and some Karaite Jews also use the non-Hebrew term kenesa, which is derived from Aramaic, and some Arab Jews use kenis. Reform and some Conservative Jews use the word temple, the Greek word synagogue is used in English, to cover the preceding possibilities. The all-day Yom Kippur service, in fact, was an event in which the congregation both observed the movements of the kohen gadol as he offered the days sacrifices and prayed for his success. During the Babylonian captivity the Men of the Great Assembly formalized and standardized the language of the Jewish prayers, prior to that people prayed as they saw fit, with each individual praying in his or her own way, and there were no standard prayers that were recited. Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, one of the leaders at the end of the Second Temple era and this contributed to the continuity of the Jewish people by maintaining a unique identity and a portable way of worship despite the destruction of the Temple, according to many historians. A synagogue dating from between 75 and 50 BCE has been uncovered at a Hasmonean-era winter palace near Jericho, more than a dozen Second Temple era synagogues have been identified by archaeologists. Any Jew or group of Jews can build a synagogue, there is no set blueprint for synagogues and the architectural shapes and interior designs of synagogues vary greatly. In fact, the influence from local religious buildings can often be seen in synagogue arches, domes. Historically, synagogues were built in the architectural style of their time. Thus, the synagogue in Kaifeng, China looked very like Chinese temples of that region and era, with its outer wall, the styles of the earliest synagogues resembled the temples of other sects of the eastern Roman Empire. The surviving synagogues of medieval Spain are embellished with mudéjar plasterwork, the surviving medieval synagogues in Budapest and Prague are typical Gothic structures
9.
Prince Hall Freemasonry
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Prince Hall Freemasonry is a branch of North American Freemasonry founded by Prince Hall in the 18th century and composed predominantly of African Americans. Prior to the American Revolutionary War, Prince Hall and fourteen other free black men petitioned for admittance to the white Boston St. John’s Lodge, the Masonic fraternity was attractive to some free blacks like Prince Hall because freemasonry was founded upon ideals of liberty, equality and peace. Having been rejected by colonial Freemasonry, Hall and 14 others sought and were initiated into Masonry through Lodge No.441 of the Grand Lodge of Ireland on March 6,1775, the military lodge was attached to the 38th Foot in 1782. The Lodge was attached to the British forces stationed in Boston, Hall and other freedmen founded African Lodge No.1 and he was named Grand Master. When black men wished to become Masons in the new nation the white members of the Lodge had to vote to accept a petitioner to receive Masonic degrees. If one white person voted against the petitioner that person would be rejected, in a letter by General Albert Pike to his brother in 1875 he said, I am not inclined to mettle in the matter. I took my obligations to white men, not to Negroes, when I have to accept Negroes as brothers or leave Masonry, I shall leave it. Masonic and Grand Lodges generally excluded African Americans, since the votes were anonymous, it was impossible to identify the member who had voted against accepting a black member. The effect was the men who had legitimately been made Masons in integrated jurisdictions could be rejected. Racial segregation existed until the 1960s and still persists in some jurisdictions, the black Masons therefore had limited power. Unable to create a charter, they applied to the Grand Lodge of England, the Grand Master of the Mother Grand Lodge of England, H. R. H. The Duke of Cumberland, issued a charter for the African Lodge No.1 later renamed African Lodge no.459 September 20,1784, the lodge was the countrys first African Masonic lodge. Due to the African Lodges popularity and Prince Halls leadership, the Grand Lodge of England made Hall a Provincial Grand Master on January 27,1791 and his responsibilities included reporting on the condition of lodges in the Boston area. Six years later, on March 22,1797 Prince Hall organized a lodge in Philadelphia, called African Lodge #459 and they later received their own charter. On June 25,1797 he organized African Lodge at Providence, within that movement they asserted emotional, mythical, and genealogical links to the continent of Africa and its peoples. In 1788 John Marrant became the chaplain of the African Masonic Lodge, the lodge met in the “Golden Fleece”, located near Boston Harbor, during the 1780s and 1790s. They later met at Kirby Street Temple in Boston, by 1797 there were at least thirty-four members in the Boston black lodge, but still the lodge was overlooked by mainstream Boston Masons. Integration with the American white Masons was not imminent and that it had received its charter from the English Grand Lodge and was thus entitled to all Masonic rights such as intervisitation between black and white lodges without prejudice
