1.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
2.
Order of the British Empire
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There is also the related British Empire Medal, whose recipients are affiliated with, but not members of, the order. Recommendations for appointments to the Order of the British Empire were at first made on the nomination of the United Kingdom, the self-governing Dominions of the Empire, nominations continue today from Commonwealth countries that participate in recommending British honours. Most members are citizens of the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth realms that use the Imperial system of honours and awards. Honorary knighthoods are appointed to citizens of nations where the Queen is not head of state, occasionally, honorary appointees are, incorrectly, referred to as Sir or Dame – Bill Gates or Bob Geldof, for example. In particular, King George V wished to create an Order to honour many thousands of those who had served in a variety of non-combatant roles during the First World War, when first established, the Order had only one division. However, in 1918, soon after its foundation, it was divided into Military. The Orders motto is For God and the Empire, at the foundation of the Order, the Medal of the Order of the British Empire was instituted, to serve as a lower award granting recipients affiliation but not membership. In 1922, this was renamed the British Empire Medal, in addition, the BEM is awarded by the Cook Islands and by some other Commonwealth nations. The British monarch is Sovereign of the Order, and appoints all members of the Order. The next most senior member is the Grand Master, of whom there have been three, Prince Edward, the Prince of Wales, Queen Mary, and the current Grand Master, the Duke of Edinburgh. The Order is limited to 300 Knights and Dames Grand Cross,845 Knights and Dames Commander, and 8,960 Commanders. There are no limits applied to the number of members of the fourth and fifth classes. Foreign recipients, as members, do not contribute to the numbers restricted to the Order as full members do. Though men can be knighted separately from an order of chivalry, women cannot, and so the rank of Knight/Dame Commander of the Order is the lowest rank of damehood, and second-lowest of knighthood. Because of this, Dame Commander is awarded in circumstances in which a man would be created a Knight Bachelor, for example, by convention, female judges of the High Court of Justice are created Dames Commander after appointment, while male judges become Knights Bachelor. The Order has six officials, the Prelate, the Dean, the Secretary, the Registrar, the King of Arms, the Bishop of London, a senior bishop in the Church of England, serves as the Orders Prelate. The Dean of St Pauls is ex officio the Dean of the Order, the Orders King of Arms is not a member of the College of Arms, as are many other heraldic officers. From time to time, individuals are appointed to a higher grade within the Order, thereby ceasing usage of the junior post-nominal letters
3.
Middle East
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The Middle East is a transcontinental region centered on Western Asia and Egypt. The corresponding adjective is Middle-Eastern and the noun is Middle-Easterner. The term has come into usage as a replacement of the term Near East beginning in the early 20th century. Arabs, Turks, Persians, Kurds, and Azeris constitute the largest ethnic groups in the region by population. Indigenous minorities of the Middle East include Jews, Assyrians and other Arameans, Baloch, Berbers, Copts, Druze, Lurs, Mandaeans, Samaritans, Shabaks, Tats, in the Middle East, there is also a Romani community. European ethnic groups form a diaspora in the region include Albanians, Bosniaks, Circassians, Crimean Tatars, Franco-Levantines. Among other migrant populations are Bengalis as well as other Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Indonesians, Pakistanis, the history of the Middle East dates back to ancient times, with the importance of the region being recognized for millennia. Most of the countries border the Persian Gulf have vast reserves of crude oil. The term Middle East may have originated in the 1850s in the British India Office, however, it became more widely known when American naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan used the term in 1902 to designate the area between Arabia and India. During this time the British and Russian Empires were vying for influence in Central Asia, Mahan realized not only the strategic importance of the region, but also of its center, the Persian Gulf. Mahan first used the term in his article The Persian Gulf and International Relations, published in September 1902 in the National Review, a British journal. The Middle East, if I may adopt a term which I have not seen, will some day need its Malta, as well as its Gibraltar, it does not follow that either will be in the Persian Gulf. The British Navy should have the facility to concentrate in force if occasion arise, about Aden, India, mahans article was reprinted in The Times and followed in October by a 20-article series entitled The Middle Eastern Question, written by Sir Ignatius Valentine Chirol. During this series, Sir Ignatius expanded the definition of Middle East to include regions of Asia which extend to the borders of India or command the approaches to India. After the series ended in 1903, The Times removed quotation marks from subsequent uses of the term, in the late 1930s, the British established the Middle East Command, which was based in Cairo, for its military forces in the region. After that time, the term Middle East gained broader usage in Europe, the description Middle has also led to some confusion over changing definitions. Before the First World War, Near East was used in English to refer to the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, while Middle East referred to Iran, the Caucasus, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Turkestan. The first official use of the term Middle East by the United States government was in the 1957 Eisenhower Doctrine, the Associated Press Stylebook says that Near East formerly referred to the farther west countries while Middle East referred to the eastern ones, but that now they are synonymous
4.
Afghanistan
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Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located within South Asia and Central Asia. It has a population of approximately 32 million, making it the 42nd most populous country in the world. It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan in the north and its territory covers 652,000 km2, making it the 41st largest country in the world. The land also served as the source from which the Kushans, Hephthalites, Samanids, Saffarids, Ghaznavids, Ghorids, Khiljis, Mughals, Hotaks, Durranis, the political history of the modern state of Afghanistan began with the Hotak and Durrani dynasties in the 18th century. In the late 19th century, Afghanistan became a state in the Great Game between British India and the Russian Empire. Following the Third Anglo-Afghan War in 1919, King Amanullah unsuccessfully attempted to modernize the country and it remained peaceful during Zahir Shahs forty years of monarchy. A series of coups in the 1970s was followed by a series of wars that devastated much of Afghanistan. The name Afghānistān is believed to be as old as the ethnonym Afghan, the root name Afghan was used historically in reference to a member of the ethnic Pashtuns, and the suffix -stan means place of in Persian. Therefore, Afghanistan translates to land of the Afghans or, more specifically in a historical sense, however, the modern Constitution of Afghanistan states that he word Afghan shall apply to every citizen of Afghanistan. An important site of historical activities, many believe that Afghanistan compares to Egypt in terms of the historical value of its archaeological sites. The country sits at a unique nexus point where numerous civilizations have interacted and it has been home to various peoples through the ages, among them the ancient Iranian peoples who established the dominant role of Indo-Iranian languages in the region. At multiple points, the land has been incorporated within large regional empires, among them the Achaemenid Empire, the Macedonian Empire, the Indian Maurya Empire, and the Islamic Empire. Archaeological exploration done in the 20th century suggests that the area of Afghanistan has been closely connected by culture and trade with its neighbors to the east, west. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, urban civilization is believed to have begun as early as 3000 BCE, and the early city of Mundigak may have been a colony of the nearby Indus Valley Civilization. More recent findings established that the Indus Valley Civilisation stretched up towards modern-day Afghanistan, making the ancient civilisation today part of Pakistan, Afghanistan, in more detail, it extended from what today is northwest Pakistan to northwest India and northeast Afghanistan. An Indus Valley site has found on the Oxus River at Shortugai in northern Afghanistan. There are several smaller IVC colonies to be found in Afghanistan as well, after 2000 BCE, successive waves of semi-nomadic people from Central Asia began moving south into Afghanistan, among them were many Indo-European-speaking Indo-Iranians. These tribes later migrated further into South Asia, Western Asia, the region at the time was referred to as Ariana
5.
Genoa
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Genoa is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015,594,733 people lived within the administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of Genoa, over 1.5 million people live in the wider metropolitan area stretching along the Italian Riviera. Genoa has been nicknamed la Superba due to its glorious past, part of the old town of Genoa was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2006. The citys rich history in notably its art, music. It is the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, Niccolò Paganini, Giuseppe Mazzini, Genoa, which forms the southern corner of the Milan-Turin-Genoa industrial triangle of north-west Italy, is one of the countrys major economic centres. The city has hosted massive shipyards and steelworks since the 19th century, the Bank of Saint George, founded in 1407, is among the oldest in the world and has played an important role in the citys prosperity since the middle of the 15th century. Today a number of leading Italian companies are based in the city, including Fincantieri, Selex ES, Ansaldo Energia, Ansaldo STS, Edoardo Raffinerie Garrone, Piaggio Aerospace, the Genoa area has been inhabited since the fifth or fourth millennium BC. In ancient times this area was frequented and inhabited by Ligures, Phoenicians, Phocaeans, Greeks, and Etruscans. The city cemetery, dating from the 6th and 5th centuries BC, testifies to the occupation of the site by the Greeks, but the fine harbour probably saw use much earlier, perhaps by the Etruscans. In the 5th century BC was founded the first oppidum at the foot of the today called the Castle Hill which now is inside the medieval old town. The ancient Ligurian city was known as Stalia, so referred to by Artemidorus Ephesius and Pomponius Mela, Ligurian Stalia was overshadowed by the powerful Marseille and Vada Sabatia, near modern Savona. Stalia had an alliance with Rome through a foedus aequum in the course of the Second Punic War, the Carthaginians accordingly destroyed it in 209 BC. The town was rebuilt and, after the Carthaginian Wars ended in 146 BC. it received municipal rights, the original castrum thenceforth expanded towards the current areas of Santa Maria di Castello and the San Lorenzo promontory. Trades included skins, wood, and honey, goods were shipped to the mainland, up to major cities like Tortona and Piacenza. Among the archeological remains from the Roman period, an amphitheatre was also found, another theory traces the name to the Etruscan word Kainua which means New City and still another from the Latin word ianua, related to the name of the God Janus, meaning door or passage. The latter is in reference to its position at the centre of the Ligurian coastal arch. The Latin name, oppidum Genua, is recorded by Pliny the Elder as part of the Augustean Regio IX Liguria, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Ostrogoths occupied Genoa
6.
One Thousand and One Nights
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One Thousand and One Nights is a collection of Middle Eastern and South Asian stories and folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the Arabian Nights, from the first English-language edition, the work was collected over many centuries by various authors, translators, and scholars across West, Central, and South Asia and North Africa. The tales themselves trace their roots back to ancient and medieval Arabic, Persian, Mesopotamian, Indian, Jewish, the stories proceed from this original tale, some are framed within other tales, while others begin and end of their own accord. Some editions contain only a few hundred nights, while others include 1,001 or more, the bulk of the text is in prose, although verse is occasionally used for songs and riddles and to express heightened emotion. Most of the poems are single couplets or quatrains, although some are longer, the main frame story concerns Shahryār, whom the narrator calls a Sasanian king ruling in India and China. Shahryār begins to marry a succession of only to execute each one the next morning. Eventually the vizier, whose duty it is to provide them, Scheherazade, the viziers daughter, offers herself as the next bride and her father reluctantly agrees. On the night of their marriage, Scheherazade begins to tell the king a tale, the king, curious about how the story ends, is thus forced to postpone her execution in order to hear the conclusion. The next night, as soon as she finishes the tale, she begins a new one, so it goes on for 1,001 nights. The tales vary widely, they include historical tales, love stories, tragedies, comedies, poems, burlesques, numerous stories depict jinns, ghouls, apes, sorcerers, magicians, and legendary places, which are often intermingled with real people and geography, not always rationally. The different versions have different individually detailed endings but they all end with the giving his wife a pardon. The narrators standards for what constitutes a cliffhanger seem broader than in modern literature, the history of the Nights is extremely complex and modern scholars have made many attempts to untangle the story of how the collection as it currently exists came about. Most scholars agreed that the Nights was a work and that the earliest tales in it came from India and Persia. At some time, probably in the early 8th century, these tales were translated into Arabic under the title Alf Layla and this collection then formed the basis of The Thousand and One Nights. The original core of stories was quite small, then, in Iraq in the 9th or 10th century, this original core had Arab stories added to it – among them some tales about the Caliph Harun al-Rashid. Devices found in Sanskrit literature such as stories and animal fables are seen by some scholars as lying at the root of the conception of the Nights. Indian folklore is represented in the Nights by certain animal stories, the influence of the Panchatantra and Baital Pachisi is particularly notable. The Jataka Tales are a collection of 547 Buddhist stories, which are for the most part moral stories with an ethical purpose
7.
Alexandre Dumas
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Alexandre Dumas, also known as Alexandre Dumas, père, was a French writer. His works have translated into nearly 100 languages, and he is one of the most widely read French authors. His novels have been adapted since the twentieth century for nearly 200 films. Dumas last novel, The Knight of Sainte-Hermine, unfinished at his death, was completed by a scholar and published in 2005 and it was published in English in 2008 as The Last Cavalier. Prolific in several genres, Dumas began his career by writing plays and he also wrote numerous magazine articles and travel books, his published works totalled 100,000 pages. In the 1840s, Dumas founded the Théâtre Historique in Paris and his father, General Thomas-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, was born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue to a French nobleman and an enslaved African woman. At age 14 Thomas-Alexandre was taken by his father to France, Dumas fathers aristocratic rank helped young Alexandre acquire work with Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans. He later began working as a writer, finding early success, decades later, in the election of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte in 1851, Dumas fell from favour and left France for Belgium, where he stayed for several years. Upon leaving Belgium, Dumas moved to Russia for a few years before going to Italy, in 1861, he founded and published the newspaper LIndipendente, which supported the Italian unification effort. In 1864, he returned to Paris, though married, in the tradition of Frenchmen of higher social class, Dumas had numerous affairs. In his lifetime, he was known to have at least four illegitimate or natural children and he acknowledged and assisted his son, Alexandre Dumas, to become a successful novelist and playwright. They are known as Alexandre Dumas père and Alexandre Dumas fils, among his affairs, in 1866, Dumas had one with Adah Isaacs Menken, an American actress then less than half his age and at the height of her career. The English playwright Watts Phillips, who knew Dumas in his life, described him as the most generous. He also was the most delightfully amusing and egotistical creature on the face of the earth and his tongue was like a windmill – once set in motion, you never knew when he would stop, especially if the theme was himself. Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was born in 1802 in Villers-Cotterêts in the department of Aisne, in Picardy and he had two older sisters, Marie-Alexandrine and Louise-Alexandrine. Their parents were Marie-Louise Élisabeth Labouret, the daughter of an innkeeper, at the time of Alexandres birth, his father was impoverished. It is not known whether she was born in Saint-Domingue or in Africa, brought as a boy to France by his father and legally freed there, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Davy was educated in a military school and joined the army as a young man. As an adult, Thomas-Alexandre used his mothers name, Dumas, as his surname after a break with his father, Dumas was promoted to general by the age of 31, the first soldier of Afro-Antilles origin to reach that rank in the French army
8.
SOAS, University of London
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SOAS University of London, is a public research university in London, England, and a constituent college of the University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS was ranked within the top 30 universities in the United Kingdom by The Guardian University Guide 2017, the School is organised into faculties of humanities, languages and social sciences. It is home to the SOAS School of Law, SOAS offers around 350 undergraduate bachelors degree combinations, over 100 one-year masters degrees and PhD programmes in nearly every department. SOAS has produced several heads of states, government ministers, diplomats, Supreme Court judges, the School of Oriental Studies was founded in 1916 at 2 Finsbury Circus, London, the then premises of the London Institution. The school received its charter on 5 June 1916 and admitted its first students on 18 January 1917. The school was inaugurated a month later on 23 February 1917 by King George V. Among those in attendance were Earl Curzon of Kedleston, formerly Viceroy of India, the School of Oriental Studies was founded by the British state as an instrument to strengthen Britains political, commercial and military presence in Asia and Africa. The school immediately became integral in training British administrators, colonial officials, Africa was added to the schools name in 1938. Its move to new premises in Bloomsbury was held up by delays in construction, with the onset of the Second World War, many University of London colleges were evacuated from London in 1939 and billeted on universities all over the provinces. The School was, on the Governments advice, transferred to Christs College, Cambridge. In 1940, when it became apparent that a return to London was possible, in 1942, the War Office joined with the schools Japanese department to help alleviate the shortage in Japanese linguists. State scholarships were offered to select grammar and public school boys to train as military translators, lodged at Dulwich College in south London, the students became affectionately known as the Dulwich boys. The courses were directed by army cryptographer, Col. John Tiltman, the SOAS School of Law was established in 1947 with Professor Vesey-Fitzgerald as its first head. Growth however was curtailed by following years of austerity, and upon Sir Cyril Philips assuming the directorship in 1956. Over his twenty-year stewardship, Phillips transformed the school, raising funds, a college of the University of London, the Schools fields include Law, Social Sciences, Humanities and Languages with special reference to Asia and Africa. The SOAS Library, located in the Philips Building, is the UKs national resource for materials relating to Asia and Africa and is the largest of its kind in the world. The school has grown considerably over the past thirty years, from fewer than 1,000 students in the 1970s to more than 6,000 students today, nearly half of them postgraduates. SOAS is partnered with the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales in Paris which is considered the French equivalent of SOAS
9.
Udine
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Its population was 99,244 in 2016,176,000 with the urban area. Udine was first attested in medieval Latin records as Udene in 983, the origin of the name Udine is unclear. It has been suggested that the name may be of pre-Roman origin. The Slovene name Videm is a hypercorrection of the local Slovene name Vidan, the Slovene linguist Pavle Merkù characterized the Slovene form Videm as an idiotic 19th-century hypercorrection. Udine is the capital of Friuli. The area has been inhabited since the Neolithic age, and was later, most likely and he established the town there, and built a square-shape tower. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the increased in importance after the decline of Aquileia. In AD983 Udine was mentioned for the first time, with the donation of the Utinum castle by emperor Otto II to the Patriarchs of Aquileia, then the main feudal lords of the region. In 1223, with the foundation of the market, the city became finally the most important in the area for economy and trade, in 1420, it was conquered by the Republic of Venice. In 1511, it was the seat of a civil war, which was followed by an earthquake. Udine remained under Venetian control until 1797, being the second largest city in the state, after the short French domination which ensued, it was part of the Austrian-puppet Lombardy-Venetia Kingdom, and was included in the newly formed Kingdom of Italy in 1866. During World War I, before the defeat in the battle of Caporetto, after the battle, it was occupied by Austrians in 1918 until after the Battle of Vittorio Veneto in 1918. After the war it was capital of a short-lived province which included the current provinces of Gorizia. After 8 September 1943, when Italy surrendered to the Allies in World War II, the city was under direct German administration, Udine has a humid subtropical climate. Precipitation is abundant year round with spring and fall being the wettest seasons, the highest temperature recorded was 38.2 °C on July 21,2006 while the lowest temperature recorded was −18.6 °C on December 19,2009. In 2007, there were 97,880 people residing in Udine itself, located in the province of Udine, Friuli Venezia Giulia, minors totalled 14.36 percent of the population compared to pensioners who number 24.27 percent. This compares with the Italian average of 18.06 percent and 19.94 percent, the average age of Udine residents is 47 compared to the Italian average of 42. In the five years between 2002 and 2007, the population of Udine grew by 1.48 percent, while Italy as a whole grew by 3.56 percent
10.
Iran
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Iran, also known as Persia, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a sovereign state in Western Asia. Comprising a land area of 1,648,195 km2, it is the second-largest country in the Middle East, with 82.8 million inhabitants, Iran is the worlds 17th-most-populous country. It is the country with both a Caspian Sea and an Indian Ocean coastline. The countrys central location in Eurasia and Western Asia, and its proximity to the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran is the countrys capital and largest city, as well as its leading economic and cultural center. Iran is the site of to one of the worlds oldest civilizations, the area was first unified by the Iranian Medes in 625 BC, who became the dominant cultural and political power in the region. The empire collapsed in 330 BC following the conquests of Alexander the Great, under the Sassanid Dynasty, Iran again became one of the leading powers in the world for the next four centuries. Beginning in 633 AD, Arabs conquered Iran and largely displaced the indigenous faiths of Manichaeism and Zoroastrianism by Islam, Iran became a major contributor to the Islamic Golden Age that followed, producing many influential scientists, scholars, artists, and thinkers. During the 18th century, Iran reached its greatest territorial extent since the Sassanid Empire, through the late 18th and 19th centuries, a series of conflicts with Russia led to significant territorial losses and the erosion of sovereignty. Popular unrest culminated in the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, which established a monarchy and the countrys first legislative body. Following a coup instigated by the U. K. Growing dissent against foreign influence and political repression led to the 1979 Revolution, Irans rich cultural legacy is reflected in part by its 21 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the third-largest number in Asia and 11th-largest in the world. Iran is a member of the UN, ECO, NAM, OIC. Its political system is based on the 1979 Constitution which combines elements of a democracy with a theocracy governed by Islamic jurists under the concept of a Supreme Leadership. A multicultural country comprising numerous ethnic and linguistic groups, most inhabitants are Shia Muslims, the largest ethnic groups in Iran are the Persians, Azeris, Kurds and Lurs. Historically, Iran has been referred to as Persia by the West, due mainly to the writings of Greek historians who called Iran Persis, meaning land of the Persians. As the most extensive interactions the Ancient Greeks had with any outsider was with the Persians, however, Persis was originally referred to a region settled by Persians in the west shore of Lake Urmia, in the 9th century BC. The settlement was then shifted to the end of the Zagros Mountains. In 1935, Reza Shah requested the international community to refer to the country by its native name, opposition to the name change led to the reversal of the decision, and Professor Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, propagated a move to use Persia and Iran interchangeably
11.
Assassins
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Assassins is a name used to refer to the medieval Nizari Ismailis. Sabbah is typically regarded as the founder of the Assassins, founding the so-called Nizari Ismaili state with Alamut Castle as its headquarters. Asymmetric warfare, psychological warfare, and surgical strikes were often an employed tactic of the hashashin, while Assassins typically refers to the entire medieval Nizari sect, in fact only a class of acolytes known as the fidai actually engaged in assassination work. Under leadership of Imam Rukn-ud-Din Khurshah, the Nizari state declined internally, sources on the history and thought of the Ismailis in this period are therefore lacking and the majority extant are written by their detractors. The Nizari were feared by the Crusaders, who referred to collectively as Assassins. The Crusader stories of the Assassins were further embellished by Marco Polo, the origins of the Assassins can be traced back to just before the First Crusade, around 1080 in Persia, modern Iran. There has been great difficulty finding out information about the origins of the Assassins because most early sources are written by enemies of the order, are based on legends. Most sources dealing with the inner workings were destroyed with the capture of Alamut. However, it is possible to trace the beginnings of the back to its first Grandmaster. A passionate devotee of Ismaili beliefs, Hassan-i Sabbah was well-liked throughout Cairo, Syria and most of the Middle East by other Ismaili, using his fame and popularity, Sabbah founded the Order of the Assassins. While his motives for founding this order are unknown, it was said to be all for his own political and personal gain. Because of the unrest in the Holy Land caused by the Crusades, Hassan-i Sabbah found himself not only fighting for power with other Muslims, but also with the invading Christian forces. After creating the Order, Sabbah searched for a location that would be fit for a sturdy headquarters and it is still disputed whether Sabbah built the fortress himself or if it was already built at the time of his arrival. In either case, Sabbah adapted the fortress to suit his needs not only for defense from hostile forces, spending most of his days at Alamut producing religious works and developing doctrines for his Order, Sabbah would never leave his fortress again in his lifetime. He had established a society of deadly assassins, which was built on a hierarchical structure. Below Sabbah, the Grand Headmaster of the Order, were known as Greater Propagandists, followed by the normal Propagandists, the Rafiqs. It was the Lasiqs who were trained to some of the most feared assassins, or as they were called, Fidai. It is, however, unknown how Hassan-i-Sabbah was able to get his Fidain to perform with such fervent loyalty, one theory, possibly the best known but also the most criticized, comes from the reports of Marco Polo during his travels to the Orient
12.
Royal Geographical Society
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The Royal Geographical Society is the UKs learned society and professional body for geography, founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical sciences. Today, it is the centre for geographers and geographical learning. The Society has over 16,500 members and its work reaches millions of people each year through publications, research groups, the Geographical Society of London was founded in 1830 under the name Geographical Society of London as an institution to promote the advancement of geographical science. It later absorbed the older African Association, which had been founded by Sir Joseph Banks in 1788, as well as the Raleigh Club and the Palestine Association. Like many learned societies, it had started as a club in London. Founding members of the Society included Sir John Barrow, Sir John Franklin, under the patronage of King William IV it later became known as The Royal Geographical Society and was granted its Royal Charter under Queen Victoria in 1859. From 1830 –1840 the RGS met in the rooms of the Horticultural Society in Regent Street, London and from 1854 -1870 at 15 Whitehall Place, London. In 1870, the Society finally found a home when it moved to 1 Savile Row, London – an address that became associated with adventure. The Society also used a lecture theatre in Burlington Gardens, London which was lent to it by the Civil Service Commission, however, the arrangements were thought to be rather cramped and squalid. A new impetus was given to the Societys affairs in 1911, with the election of Earl Curzon, the premises in Savile Row were sold and the present site, Lowther Lodge in Kensington Gore, was purchased for £100,000 and opened for use in April 1913. In the same year the Societys ban on women was lifted, Lowther Lodge was built in 1874 for the Hon William Lowther by Norman Shaw, one of the most outstanding domestic architects of his day. Extensions to the east wing were added in 1929, and included the New Map Room, the extension was formally opened by HRH the Duke of York at the Centenary Celebrations on 21 October 1930. The history of the Society was closely allied for many of its years with colonial exploration in Africa, the Indian subcontinent, the polar regions. It has been a key associate and supporter of many explorers and expeditions, including those of Darwin, Livingstone, Stanley, Scott, Shackleton, Hunt. The early history of the Society is inter-linked with the history of British Geography, exploration, information, maps, charts and knowledge gathered on expeditions was sent to the RGS, making up its now unique geographical collections. The Society published its first journal in 1831 and from 1855, accounts of meetings, in 1893, this was replaced by The Geographical Journal which is still published today. With the advent of a systematic study of geography, the Institute of British Geographers was formed in 1933, by some academic Society fellows. Its activities included organising conferences, field trips, seminars and specialist research groups and publishing the journal, the RGS and IBG co-existed for 60 years until 1992 when a merger was discussed
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