1.
System of measurement
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A system of measurement is a collection of units of measurement and rules relating them to each other. Systems of measurement have historically been important, regulated and defined for the purposes of science and commerce, systems of measurement in modern use include the metric system, the imperial system, and United States customary units. The French Revolution gave rise to the system, and this has spread around the world. In most systems, length, mass, and time are base quantities, later science developments showed that either electric charge or electric current could be added to extend the set of base quantities by which many other metrological units could be easily defined. Other quantities, such as power and speed, are derived from the set, for example. Such arrangements were satisfactory in their own contexts, the preference for a more universal and consistent system only gradually spread with the growth of science. Changing a measurement system has substantial financial and cultural costs which must be offset against the advantages to be obtained using a more rational system. However pressure built up, including scientists and engineers for conversion to a more rational. The unifying characteristic is that there was some definition based on some standard, eventually cubits and strides gave way to customary units to met the needs of merchants and scientists. In the metric system and other recent systems, a basic unit is used for each base quantity. Often secondary units are derived from the units by multiplying by powers of ten. Thus the basic unit of length is the metre, a distance of 1.234 m is 1,234 millimetres. Metrication is complete or nearly complete in almost all countries, US customary units are heavily used in the United States and to some degree in Liberia. Traditional Burmese units of measurement are used in Burma, U. S. units are used in limited contexts in Canada due to the large volume of trade, there is also considerable use of Imperial weights and measures, despite de jure Canadian conversion to metric. In the United States, metric units are used almost universally in science, widely in the military, and partially in industry, but customary units predominate in household use. At retail stores, the liter is a used unit for volume, especially on bottles of beverages. Some other standard non-SI units are still in use, such as nautical miles and knots in aviation. Metric systems of units have evolved since the adoption of the first well-defined system in France in 1795, during this evolution the use of these systems has spread throughout the world, first to non-English-speaking countries, and then to English speaking countries
2.
Imperial units
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The system of imperial units or the imperial system is the system of units first defined in the British Weights and Measures Act of 1824, which was later refined and reduced. The Imperial units replaced the Winchester Standards, which were in effect from 1588 to 1825, the system came into official use across the British Empire. The imperial system developed from what were first known as English units, the Weights and Measures Act of 1824 was initially scheduled to go into effect on 1 May 1825. However, the Weights and Measures Act of 1825 pushed back the date to 1 January 1826, the 1824 Act allowed the continued use of pre-imperial units provided that they were customary, widely known, and clearly marked with imperial equivalents. Apothecaries units are mentioned neither in the act of 1824 nor 1825, at the time, apothecaries weights and measures were regulated in England, Wales, and Berwick-upon-Tweed by the London College of Physicians, and in Ireland by the Dublin College of Physicians. In Scotland, apothecaries units were unofficially regulated by the Edinburgh College of Physicians, the three colleges published, at infrequent intervals, pharmacopoeiae, the London and Dublin editions having the force of law. The Medical Act of 1858 transferred to The Crown the right to publish the official pharmacopoeia and to regulate apothecaries weights, Metric equivalents in this article usually assume the latest official definition. Before this date, the most precise measurement of the imperial Standard Yard was 0.914398416 metres, in 1824, the various different gallons in use in the British Empire were replaced by the imperial gallon, a unit close in volume to the ale gallon. It was originally defined as the volume of 10 pounds of distilled water weighed in air with brass weights with the standing at 30 inches of mercury at a temperature of 62 °F. The Weights and Measures Act of 1985 switched to a gallon of exactly 4.54609 l and these measurements were in use from 1826, when the new imperial gallon was defined, but were officially abolished in the United Kingdom on 1 January 1971. In the USA, though no longer recommended, the system is still used occasionally in medicine. The troy pound was made the unit of mass by the 1824 Act, however, its use was abolished in the UK on 1 January 1879, with only the troy ounce. The Weights and Measures Act 1855 made the pound the primary unit of mass. In all the systems, the unit is the pound. For the yard, the length of a pendulum beating seconds at the latitude of Greenwich at Mean Sea Level in vacuo was defined as 39.01393 inches, the imperial system is one of many systems of English units. Although most of the units are defined in more than one system, some units were used to a much greater extent, or for different purposes. The distinctions between these systems are not drawn precisely. One such distinction is that between these systems and older British/English units/systems or newer additions, the US customary system is historically derived from the English units that were in use at the time of settlement
3.
US customary units
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United States customary units are a system of measurements commonly used in the United States. The United States customary system developed from English units which were in use in the British Empire before the US declared its independence, however, the British system of measures was overhauled in 1824 to create the imperial system, changing the definitions of some units. Therefore, while many U. S. units are similar to their Imperial counterparts. The majority of U. S. customary units were redefined in terms of the meter and these definitions were refined by the international yard and pound agreement of 1959. Americans primarily use customary units in commercial activities, as well as for personal and social use, in science, medicine, many sectors of industry and some of government, metric units are used. The International System of Units, the form of the metric system, is preferred for many uses by the U. S. National Institute of Standards. The United States system of units is similar to the British imperial system, both systems are derived from English units, a system which had evolved over the millennia before American independence, and which had its roots in Roman and Anglo-Saxon units. The customary system was championed by the U. S. -based International Institute for Preserving and Perfecting Weights, advocates of the customary system saw the French Revolutionary, or metric, system as atheistic. An auxiliary of the Institute in Ohio published a poem with wording such as down with every metric scheme and A perfect inch, one adherent of the customary system called it a just weight and a just measure, which alone are acceptable to the Lord. The U. S. government passed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975, the legislation states that the federal government has a responsibility to assist industry as it voluntarily converts to the metric system, i. e. metrification. This is most evident in U. S. labeling requirements on food products, according to the CIA Factbook, the United States is one of three nations that have not adopted the metric system as their official system of weights and measures. U. S. customary units are used on consumer products. Metric units are standard in science, medicine, as well as many sectors of industry and government, the metric system also lacks a parallel to the foot. Frequently, however, these units designate quite different sizes, for example, the mile ranged by country from one-half to five U. S. miles, foot and pound also had varying definitions. Historically, a range of non-SI units were used in the U. S. and in Britain. This article deals only with the commonly used or officially defined in the U. S. For measuring length, the U. S. customary system uses the inch, foot, yard, and mile, since July 1,1959, these have been defined on the basis of 1 yard =0.9144 meters except for some applications in surveying. The U. S. the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries agreed on this definition, the NAD27 was replaced in the 1980s by the North American Datum of 1983, which is defined in meters
4.
Length
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In geometric measurements, length is the most extended dimension of an object. In the International System of Quantities, length is any quantity with dimension distance, in other contexts length is the measured dimension of an object. For example, it is possible to cut a length of a wire which is shorter than wire thickness. Length may be distinguished from height, which is vertical extent, and width or breadth, length is a measure of one dimension, whereas area is a measure of two dimensions and volume is a measure of three dimensions. In most systems of measurement, the unit of length is a base unit, measurement has been important ever since humans settled from nomadic lifestyles and started using building materials, occupying land and trading with neighbours. As society has become more technologically oriented, much higher accuracies of measurement are required in a diverse set of fields. One of the oldest units of measurement used in the ancient world was the cubit which was the length of the arm from the tip of the finger to the elbow. This could then be subdivided into shorter units like the foot, hand or finger, the cubit could vary considerably due to the different sizes of people. After Albert Einsteins special relativity, length can no longer be thought of being constant in all reference frames. Thus a ruler that is one meter long in one frame of reference will not be one meter long in a frame that is travelling at a velocity relative to the first frame. This means length of an object is variable depending on the observer, in the physical sciences and engineering, when one speaks of units of length, the word length is synonymous with distance. There are several units that are used to measure length, in the International System of Units, the basic unit of length is the metre and is now defined in terms of the speed of light. The centimetre and the kilometre, derived from the metre, are commonly used units. In U. S. customary units, English or Imperial system of units, commonly used units of length are the inch, the foot, the yard, and the mile. Units used to denote distances in the vastness of space, as in astronomy, are longer than those typically used on Earth and include the astronomical unit, the light-year. Dimension Distance Orders of magnitude Reciprocal length Smoot Unit of length
5.
Yard
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The yard is an English unit of length, in both the British imperial and US customary systems of measurement, that comprises 3 feet or 36 inches. It is by international agreement in 1959 standardized as exactly 0.9144 meters, a metal yardstick originally formed the physical standard from which all other units of length were officially derived in both English systems. In the 19th and 20th centuries, increasingly powerful microscopes and scientific measurement detected variation in these prototype yards which became significant as technology improved. In 1959, the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, the name derives from the Old English gerd, gyrd, &c. which was used for branches, staves, and measuring rods. It is first attested in the late-7th century laws of Ine of Wessex, where the yard of land mentioned is the yardland, an old English unit of tax assessment equal to 1⁄4 hide. Around the same time, the Lindisfarne Gospels account of the messengers from John the Baptist in the Book of Matthew used it for a branch swayed by the wind. In addition to the yardland, Old and Middle English both used their forms of yard to denote the lengths of 15 or 16 1⁄2 ft used in computing acres. A unit of three English feet is attested in a statute of c. 1300 but there it is called an ell, the use of the word yard to describe this length is first attested in Langlands poem on Piers Plowman. The usage seems to derive from the prototype standard rods held by the king, the word yard is a homonym of yard in the sense of an enclosed area of land. This second meaning of yard has a related to the verb to gird and is probably not related. The origin of the measure is uncertain, both the Romans and the Welsh used multiples of a shorter foot, but 2 1⁄2 Roman feet was a step and 3 Welsh feet was a pace. The Proto-Germanic cubit or arms-length has been reconstructed as *alinâ, which developed into the Old English ęln, Middle English elne and this has led some to derive the yard of three English feet from pacing, others from the ell or cubit, others from Henry Is arm standard. Based on the etymology of the yard, others suggest it originally derived from the girth of a persons waist. But the yard was the standard adopted by the early English soverigns. The yard continued till the reign of Henry VII. when the ell was introduced, that being a yard, the ell was borrowed from the Paris drapers. Subsequently, however, Queen Elizabeth re-introduced the yard as the English standard of measure, the earliest record of a prototype measure is the statute II Edgar Cap. 8, which survives in several variant manuscripts, in it, Edgar the Peaceful directed the Witenagemot at Andover that the measure held at Winchester should be observed throughout his realm. The statutes of William I similarly refer to and uphold the measures of his predecessors without naming them
6.
Metric system
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The metric system is an internationally agreed decimal system of measurement. Many sources also cite Liberia and Myanmar as the other countries not to have done so. Although the originators intended to devise a system that was accessible to all. Control of the units of measure was maintained by the French government until 1875, when it was passed to an intergovernmental organisation. From its beginning, the features of the metric system were the standard set of interrelated base units. These base units are used to larger and smaller units that could replace a huge number of other units of measure in existence. Although the system was first developed for use, the development of coherent units of measure made it particularly suitable for science. Although the metric system has changed and developed since its inception, designed for transnational use, it consisted of a basic set of units of measurement, now known as base units. At the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, most countries, the metric system was designed to be universal—in the words of the French philosopher Marquis de Condorcet it was to be for all people for all time. However, these overtures failed and the custody of the metric system remained in the hands of the French government until 1875. In languages where the distinction is made, unit names are common nouns, the concept of using consistent classical names for the prefixes was first proposed in a report by the Commission on Weights and Measures in May 1793. The prefix kilo, for example, is used to multiply the unit by 1000, thus the kilogram and kilometre are a thousand grams and metres respectively, and a milligram and millimetre are one thousandth of a gram and metre respectively. These relations can be written symbolically as,1 mg =0, however,1935 extensions to the prefix system did not follow this convention, the prefixes nano- and micro-, for example have Greek roots. During the 19th century the prefix myria-, derived from the Greek word μύριοι, was used as a multiplier for 10000, prefixes are not usually used to indicate multiples of a second greater than 1, the non-SI units of minute, hour and day are used instead. On the other hand, prefixes are used for multiples of the unit of volume. The base units used in the system must be realisable. Each of the units in SI is accompanied by a mise en pratique published by the BIPM that describes in detail at least one way in which the base unit can be measured. In practice, such realisation is done under the auspices of a mutual acceptance arrangement, in the original version of the metric system the base units could be derived from a specified length and the weight of a specified volume of pure water
7.
International System of Units
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The International System of Units is the modern form of the metric system, and is the most widely used system of measurement. It comprises a coherent system of units of measurement built on seven base units, the system also establishes a set of twenty prefixes to the unit names and unit symbols that may be used when specifying multiples and fractions of the units. The system was published in 1960 as the result of an initiative began in 1948. It is based on the system of units rather than any variant of the centimetre-gram-second system. The motivation for the development of the SI was the diversity of units that had sprung up within the CGS systems, the International System of Units has been adopted by most developed countries, however, the adoption has not been universal in all English-speaking countries. The metric system was first implemented during the French Revolution with just the metre and kilogram as standards of length, in the 1830s Carl Friedrich Gauss laid the foundations for a coherent system based on length, mass, and time. In the 1860s a group working under the auspices of the British Association for the Advancement of Science formulated the requirement for a coherent system of units with base units and derived units. Meanwhile, in 1875, the Treaty of the Metre passed responsibility for verification of the kilogram, in 1921, the Treaty was extended to include all physical quantities including electrical units originally defined in 1893. The units associated with these quantities were the metre, kilogram, second, ampere, kelvin, in 1971, a seventh base quantity, amount of substance represented by the mole, was added to the definition of SI. On 11 July 1792, the proposed the names metre, are, litre and grave for the units of length, area, capacity. The committee also proposed that multiples and submultiples of these units were to be denoted by decimal-based prefixes such as centi for a hundredth, on 10 December 1799, the law by which the metric system was to be definitively adopted in France was passed. Prior to this, the strength of the magnetic field had only been described in relative terms. The technique used by Gauss was to equate the torque induced on a magnet of known mass by the earth’s magnetic field with the torque induced on an equivalent system under gravity. The resultant calculations enabled him to assign dimensions based on mass, length, a French-inspired initiative for international cooperation in metrology led to the signing in 1875 of the Metre Convention. Initially the convention only covered standards for the metre and the kilogram, one of each was selected at random to become the International prototype metre and International prototype kilogram that replaced the mètre des Archives and kilogramme des Archives respectively. Each member state was entitled to one of each of the prototypes to serve as the national prototype for that country. Initially its prime purpose was a periodic recalibration of national prototype metres. The official language of the Metre Convention is French and the version of all official documents published by or on behalf of the CGPM is the French-language version
8.
Metre
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The metre or meter, is the base unit of length in the International System of Units. The metre is defined as the length of the path travelled by light in a vacuum in 1/299792458 seconds, the metre was originally defined in 1793 as one ten-millionth of the distance from the equator to the North Pole. In 1799, it was redefined in terms of a metre bar. In 1960, the metre was redefined in terms of a number of wavelengths of a certain emission line of krypton-86. In 1983, the current definition was adopted, the imperial inch is defined as 0.0254 metres. One metre is about 3 3⁄8 inches longer than a yard, Metre is the standard spelling of the metric unit for length in nearly all English-speaking nations except the United States and the Philippines, which use meter. Measuring devices are spelled -meter in all variants of English, the suffix -meter has the same Greek origin as the unit of length. This range of uses is found in Latin, French, English. Thus calls for measurement and moderation. In 1668 the English cleric and philosopher John Wilkins proposed in an essay a decimal-based unit of length, as a result of the French Revolution, the French Academy of Sciences charged a commission with determining a single scale for all measures. In 1668, Wilkins proposed using Christopher Wrens suggestion of defining the metre using a pendulum with a length which produced a half-period of one second, christiaan Huygens had observed that length to be 38 Rijnland inches or 39.26 English inches. This is the equivalent of what is now known to be 997 mm, no official action was taken regarding this suggestion. In the 18th century, there were two approaches to the definition of the unit of length. One favoured Wilkins approach, to define the metre in terms of the length of a pendulum which produced a half-period of one second. The other approach was to define the metre as one ten-millionth of the length of a quadrant along the Earths meridian, that is, the distance from the Equator to the North Pole. This means that the quadrant would have defined as exactly 10000000 metres at that time. To establish a universally accepted foundation for the definition of the metre, more measurements of this meridian were needed. This portion of the meridian, assumed to be the length as the Paris meridian, was to serve as the basis for the length of the half meridian connecting the North Pole with the Equator
9.
Rod (unit)
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The rod or perch or pole is a surveyors tool and unit of length equal to 5 1⁄2 yards, 16 1⁄2 feet, 1⁄320 of a statute mile or one-fourth of a surveyors chain and 5.0292 meters. The rod is useful as a unit of length because whole number multiples of it can equal one acre of square measure. The perfect acre is an area of 43,560 square feet, bounded by sides 660 feet by 66 feet long, or 220 yards by 22 yards long. Thus, an acre is 160 square rods, since the adoption of the international yard on 1 July 1959, the rod has been equal to exactly 5.0292 meters. Its name derives from the Ancient Roman unit, the pertica, the measure also has a relationship to the military pike of about the same size and both measures date from the sixteenth century, when that weapon was still utilized in national armies. Surveyors rods and chains are still utilized in rough terrains with heavy overgrowth where laser or other measurements are difficult or impossible. In old English, the lug is also used. In England, the perch was officially discouraged in favour of the rod as early as the 15th century, however, local customs maintained its use. In Ireland, a perch was standardized at 21 feet, making an Irish chain, furlong, until English King Henry VIII seized the lands of the Roman Catholic Church in 1536, land measures as we now know them were essentially unknown. Instead a narrative system of landmarks and lists was used, a chain is a larger unit of length measuring 66 feet, or 22 yards, or 100 links, or 4 rods. There are 10 chains or 40 rods in a furlong, and so 80 chains or 320 rods in one statute mile, by the time of the industrial revolution and the quickening of land sales, canal and railway surveys, et al. The rod as a measure was standardized by Edmund Gunter in England in 1607 as one-fourth of a chain. The perch as a measure in Rome was 10 feet. To confuse matters further, by ancient Roman definition, an arpent equalled 120 Roman feet, the related unit of square measure was the scrupulum or decempeda quadrata, equivalent to about 8.76 m2. They were subdivided in different ways, and were of many different lengths. Based on data from the following, N - Niemann, in England, the rod is first defined in law by the Composition of Yards and Perches, one of the statutes of uncertain date from the late 13th to early 14th centuries. The length of the chain was standardized in 1620 by Edmund Gunter at exactly four rods, fields were measured in acres, which were one chain by one furlong. Bars of metal one rod long were used as standards of length when surveying land, the rod was still in use as a common unit of measurement in the mid-19th century, when Henry David Thoreau used it frequently when describing distances in his work, Walden
10.
Goad
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The goad is a traditional farming implement, used to spur or guide livestock, usually oxen, which are pulling a plough or a cart, used also to round up cattle. It is a type of stick with a pointed end. The word is from Middle English gode, from Old English gād, goads in various guises are used as iconographic devices and may be seen in the elephant goad or ankusha in the hand of Ganesha, for example. According to the biblical passage Judges 3,31, Shamgar son of Anath killed six hundred Philistines with an ox goad. Saint Paul, recounting the story of his conversion before King Agrippa, told of a voice he heard saying ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me. It is hard for you to kick against the goads. ’ Some versions of the account of his conversion earlier in the Acts of the Apostles also use the same phrase. In the Latin alphabet, the letter L is derived from the Semitic crook or goad which stood for /l/ and this may originally have been based on an Egyptian hieroglyph that was adapted by Semites for alphabetic purposes. Pollack, in discussing Lamed, Path 22 the path from Gevurah to Tiferet, Justice, in the pathworking of the esoteric Kabbalah, states, We switch sides now and bring the power of Gevurah to the center. Lamed means goad and in particular an ox-goad, as if we use the power of Gevurah to goad that Aleph ox, Lamed begins the Hebrew words for both learn and teach, and so encompasses the most Kabbalist of activities, study. Kabbalah has never been a path of pure sensation, but always has used study to goad us into higher consciousness, Lamed, alone of the Hebrew alphabet, reaches above the height of all the other letters. Through learning we extend ourselves above ordinary awareness
11.
Chain (unit)
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A chain is a unit of length. It measures 66 feet, or 22 yards, or 100 links, there are 10 chains in a furlong, and 80 chains in one statute mile. An acre is the area of 10 square chains, the chain has been used for several centuries in Britain and in some other countries influenced by British practice. By extension, chainage is the distance along a curved or straight line from a fixed commencing point. The chain was used with the mile to indicate land distances. Starting in the 19th century, the chain was used as a subdivision with the mile to show distances between stations, tunnels and bridges. The locally used units were often inconsistent from place to place, a rectangle of land one furlong in length and one chain in width has an area of one acre. His chain had 100 links, and the link is used as a subdivision of the chain as a unit of length, american surveyors sometimes used a longer chain of 100 feet, also of 100 links, known as the engineers chain or Ramsdens chain. The first such was constructed by Jesse Ramsden for the measurement of the Hounslow baseline at the start of the Anglo-French Survey. The term chain in this usually refers to the measuring instrument rather than a unit of length. Also in North America a modern variant of the chain as a tool is used in forestry for traverse surveys and this modern chain is a static cord,50 metres long, marked with a small tag at each metre, and also marked in the first metre every decimetre. When working in dense bush, an axe or hatchet is commonly tied to the end of the chain. Another version used extensively in forestry and surveying is the hip-chain, a hip-chain is a small box containing a string meter, worn on the hip. The user simply ties the spooled string off to a stake or tree and these instruments are available in both feet and meters. In Britain, the chain is no used for practical survey work. However it survives on the railways of the United Kingdom as a location identifier, since railways are entirely linear in topology, the mileage or chainage is sufficient to identify a place uniquely on any given route. Thus a certain bridge may be said to be at 112 mi 63 ch, in the case of the photograph the bridge is near Keynsham, that distance from London Paddington station. On new railway built in the United Kingdom such as High Speed 1
12.
Acre
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The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial and US customary systems. It is defined as the area of 1 chain by 1 furlong, lucia, St. Helena, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Turks and Caicos, the United Kingdom, the United States and the US Virgin Islands. The international symbol of the acre is ac, the most commonly used acre today is the international acre. In the United States both the international acre and the US survey acre are in use, but differ by two parts per million, see below. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land, one international acre is defined as exactly 4,046.8564224 square metres. An acre was defined in the Middle Ages, being the amount of land that could be ploughed in one day with a yoke of oxen. One acre equals 0.0015625 square miles,4,840 square yards,43,560 square feet or about 4,047 square metres. While all modern variants of the acre contain 4,840 square yards, there are definitions of a yard. A square enclosing one acre is approximately 69.57 yards, as a unit of measure, an acre has no prescribed shape, any area of 43,560 square feet is an acre. In the international yard and pound agreement of 1959 the United States, consequently, the international acre is exactly 4,046.8564224 square metres. The US survey acre is about 4,046.872609874252 square metres, its value is based on an inch defined by 1 metre =39.37 inches exactly. Surveyors in the United States use both international and survey feet, and consequently, both varieties of acre. Since the difference between the US survey acre and international acre is only about a quarter of the size of an A4 sheet of paper, areas are seldom measured with sufficient accuracy for the different definitions to be detectable. In India, residential plots are measured in cents or decimal, in Sri Lanka the division of an acre into 160 perches or 4 roods is common. To be more exact, one acre is 90.75 percent of a 100 yards long by 53.33 yards wide American football field, the full field, including the end zones, covers approximately 1.32 acres. For residents of countries, the acre might be envisaged as approximately half of a 105 metres long by 68 metres wide association football pitch. It may also be remembered as 44,000 square feet, in English it was historically spelled aker. The acre was approximately the amount of land tillable by a yoke of oxen in one day and this explains one definition as the area of a rectangle with sides of length one chain and one furlong
13.
Ribbon farm
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Ribbon farms are long, narrow land divisions, usually lined up along a waterway. In some instances, they line a road, the size of ribbon farms can vary from lot to lot and from place to place. In Illinois, these lots could be a mile or more long. Near Detroit, the farms were about 250 feet wide. In Texas, lots could be as small as ten acres in area, farmers of ribbon farms typically, although not universally, built houses on the farm along the river such that the houses on a series of ribbon farms were located near each other. Some sections of the American Southwest, particularly Texas, also had ribbon farms laid out and it is likely that platting farms in ribbon lots arose independently in various parts of the world. However, the ribbon farms scattered through the United States probably derive from the European model, the origin of the ribbon farm in Europe is unclear, but the first recorded appearance of these types of farms was in Germany in the ninth to eleventh century. These early German long lots were cut through forests or marshes, rather than along rivers, from Germany, the pattern spread, notably to western France, where forest, marsh, and river long lots were well-established by the time the French began colonizing the Americas. By the 1630s, the pattern had been imported to the New World. From there, the ribbon farm plan situated along rivers was carried to other parts of the French colonies, in areas where rivers provided the main form of transportation, the ribbon farm layout gave multiple landowners access to the waterway. In addition, the long lots increased variation in soil and drainage within one lot, where farmers lived on their lots, the ribbon farm fostered communication and socialization, with houses clustered at the ends of the lots. Finally, in places in the New World where ribbon farms were platted. One disadvantage was that the land of a single farmer was awkwardly spread out. However, this disadvantage was no more than would have been experienced by peasant farmers living in a central village. Open field system Seigneurial system of New France Strip farming Strip farming in Norway
14.
Oxgang
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An oxgang or bovate is an old land measurement formerly used in Scotland and England. It averaged around 20 English acres, but was based on fertility and cultivation. An oxgang is also known as a bovate, from bovāta, oxen, through the Scottish Gaelic word damh or dabh, also provided the root of the land measurement daugh. As soon as we cross the chain of mountains separating the eastern from the western waters. The ploughgates and oxgangs disappear, and in their place we find dabhachs, the portion of land termed a dabhach is here also called a tirung or ounceland, and each dabhach contains 20 pennylands. In Scotland, oxgang occurs in Oxgangs, a suburb of Edinburgh, and in Oxgang. In England, the oxgang was a unit used in the area conquered by the Vikings which became the Danelaw, for example in Domesday Book. The oxgang represented the amount of land which could be ploughed using one ox, as land was normally ploughed by a team of eight oxen, an oxgang was thus one eighth the size of a ploughland or carucate. Although these areas were not fixed in size and varied from one village to another, an oxgang averaged 15 acres, however in the rest of England a parallel system was used, from which the Danelaw system of carucates and bovates seen in Domesday Book was derived. A peasant occupying or working a bovate might be known as a bovater, Oxgang, Wiktionary Carucate, Wiktionary Wapentake, Wiktionary
15.
Virgate
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The virgate, yardland, or yard of land was an English unit of land. Primarily a measure of tax assessment rather than area, the virgate was reckoned as ¼ hide. It was equivalent to two of the Danelaws oxgangs, the name derives from the Old English gyrd landes, from yards former meaning as a measuring stick employed in reckoning acres. The word is unrelated to the yard of land around a dwelling. Virgate is a much later retronym, anglicizing the yardlands latinized form virgāta after the advent of the yard rendered the original name ambiguous, the virgate was reckoned as the amount of land that a team of two oxen could plough in a single annual season. It was equivalent to a quarter of a hide, so was nominally thirty acres, in some parts of England, it was divided into four nooks. Nooks were occasionally further divided into a farundel, the Danelaw equivalent of a virgate was two oxgangs or ‘bovates’. These were considered to represent the amount of land that could be worked in an annual season by a single ox. As such, the oxgang represented a parallel division of the carucate
16.
Carucate
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The carucate or carrucate was a medieval unit of land area approximating the land a plough team of eight oxen could till in a single annual season. It was known by different regional names and fell under different forms of tax assessment, the carucate was named for the carruca heavy plough that began to appear in England in the 9th century, introduced by the Viking invasions of England. It was also known as a ploughland or plough in the Danelaw usually but not always excluded the lands suitability for winter vegetables, the tax levied on each carucate came to be known as carucage. The Danelaw carucates were subdivided into eighths, oxgangs or bovates based on the area a single ox could till in a year, in the rest of England, the land was reckoned in hides which were divided into four yardlands, later known as virgates. A ploughgate was the Scottish equivalent in the south and east of the country, even more so than in England, the variable land quality in Scotland led to ploughgates of varying sizes, although the area was notionally understood as 100 Scots acres. Many sources say that four ploughgates made up a daugh, as in the Danelaw, ploughgates were subdivided into oxgangs, again usually by eighths
17.
Distance
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Distance is a numerical description of how far apart objects are. In physics or everyday usage, distance may refer to a physical length, in most cases, distance from A to B is interchangeable with distance from B to A. In mathematics, a function or metric is a generalization of the concept of physical distance. A metric is a function that behaves according to a set of rules. The circumference of the wheel is 2π × radius, and assuming the radius to be 1, in engineering ω = 2πƒ is often used, where ƒ is the frequency. Chessboard distance, formalized as Chebyshev distance, is the number of moves a king must make on a chessboard to travel between two squares. Distance measures in cosmology are complicated by the expansion of the universe, the term distance is also used by analogy to measure non-physical entities in certain ways. In computer science, there is the notion of the distance between two strings. For example, the dog and dot, which vary by only one letter, are closer than dog and cat. In this way, many different types of distances can be calculated, such as for traversal of graphs, comparison of distributions and curves, distance cannot be negative, and distance travelled never decreases. Distance is a quantity or a magnitude, whereas displacement is a vector quantity with both magnitude and direction. Directed distance is a positive, zero, or negative scalar quantity, the distance covered by a vehicle, person, animal, or object along a curved path from a point A to a point B should be distinguished from the straight-line distance from A to B. For example, whatever the distance covered during a trip from A to B and back to A. In general the straight-line distance does not equal distance travelled, except for journeys in a straight line, directed distances are distances with a directional sense. They can be determined along straight lines and along curved lines, for instance, just labelling the two endpoints as A and B can indicate the sense, if the ordered sequence is assumed, which implies that A is the starting point. A displacement is a kind of directed distance defined in mechanics. A directed distance is called displacement when it is the distance along a line from A and B. This implies motion of the particle, the distance traveled by a particle must always be greater than or equal to its displacement, with equality occurring only when the particle moves along a straight path
18.
United States customary units
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United States customary units are a system of measurements commonly used in the United States. The United States customary system developed from English units which were in use in the British Empire before the US declared its independence, however, the British system of measures was overhauled in 1824 to create the imperial system, changing the definitions of some units. Therefore, while many U. S. units are similar to their Imperial counterparts. The majority of U. S. customary units were redefined in terms of the meter and these definitions were refined by the international yard and pound agreement of 1959. Americans primarily use customary units in commercial activities, as well as for personal and social use, in science, medicine, many sectors of industry and some of government, metric units are used. The International System of Units, the form of the metric system, is preferred for many uses by the U. S. National Institute of Standards. The United States system of units is similar to the British imperial system, both systems are derived from English units, a system which had evolved over the millennia before American independence, and which had its roots in Roman and Anglo-Saxon units. The customary system was championed by the U. S. -based International Institute for Preserving and Perfecting Weights, advocates of the customary system saw the French Revolutionary, or metric, system as atheistic. An auxiliary of the Institute in Ohio published a poem with wording such as down with every metric scheme and A perfect inch, one adherent of the customary system called it a just weight and a just measure, which alone are acceptable to the Lord. The U. S. government passed the Metric Conversion Act of 1975, the legislation states that the federal government has a responsibility to assist industry as it voluntarily converts to the metric system, i. e. metrification. This is most evident in U. S. labeling requirements on food products, according to the CIA Factbook, the United States is one of three nations that have not adopted the metric system as their official system of weights and measures. U. S. customary units are used on consumer products. Metric units are standard in science, medicine, as well as many sectors of industry and government, the metric system also lacks a parallel to the foot. Frequently, however, these units designate quite different sizes, for example, the mile ranged by country from one-half to five U. S. miles, foot and pound also had varying definitions. Historically, a range of non-SI units were used in the U. S. and in Britain. This article deals only with the commonly used or officially defined in the U. S. For measuring length, the U. S. customary system uses the inch, foot, yard, and mile, since July 1,1959, these have been defined on the basis of 1 yard =0.9144 meters except for some applications in surveying. The U. S. the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries agreed on this definition, the NAD27 was replaced in the 1980s by the North American Datum of 1983, which is defined in meters
19.
Mile
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The mile is an English unit of length of linear measure equal to 5,280 feet, or 1,760 yards, and standardised as exactly 1,609.344 metres by international agreement in 1959. The Romans divided their mile into 5,000 feet but the importance of furlongs in pre-modern England meant that the statute mile was made equivalent to 8 furlongs or 5,280 feet in 1593. This form of the mile then spread to the British-colonized nations who continue to employ the mile, the US Geological Survey now employs the metre for official purposes but legacy data from its 1927 geodetic datum has meant that a separate US survey mile continues to see some use. Derived units such as miles per hour and miles per gallon, however, continue to be abbreviated as mph, mpg. The modern English word mile derives from Middle English myl and Old English mīl, the present international mile is usually what is understood by the unqualified term mile. When this distance needs to be distinguished from the nautical mile, in British English, the statute mile may refer to the present international miles or to any other form of English mile since the 1593 Act of Parliament which set it as a distance of 1,760 yards. Under American law, however, the statute mile refers to the US survey mile, the mile has been variously abbreviated—with and without a trailing period—as m, M, ml, and mi. The American National Institute of Standards and Technology now uses and recommends mi in order to avoid confusion with the SI metre and millilitre. Derived units such as miles per hour and miles per gallon, however, continue to be abbreviated in the United States, United Kingdom, the BBC style holds that There is no acceptable abbreviation for ‘miles’ and so it should be spelt out when used in describing areas. The Roman mile consisted of a thousand paces as measured by every other step—as in the distance of the left foot hitting the ground 1,000 times. The ancient Romans, marching their armies through uncharted territory, would push a carved stick in the ground after each 1000 paces. Well-fed and harshly driven Roman legionaries in good weather thus created longer miles, the distance was indirectly standardised by Agrippas establishment of a standard Roman foot in 29 BC, and the definition of a pace as 5 feet. An Imperial Roman mile thus denoted 5,000 Roman feet, surveyors and specialized equipment such as the decempeda and dioptra then spread its use. In modern times, Agrippas Imperial Roman mile was empirically estimated to have been about 1,481 metres in length, in Hellenic areas of the Empire, the Roman mile was used beside the native Greek units as equivalent to 8 stadia of 600 Greek feet. The mílion continued to be used as a Byzantine unit and was used as the name of the zero mile marker for the Byzantine Empire. The Roman mile also spread throughout Europe, with its local variations giving rise to the different units below, also arising from the Roman mile is the milestone. All roads radiated out from the Roman Forum throughout the Empire –50,000 miles of stone-paved roads, at every mile was placed a shaped stone, on which was carved a Roman numeral, indicating the number of miles from the center of Rome – the Forum. Hence, one knew how far one was from Rome
20.
Foot (unit)
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The foot is a unit of length in the imperial and US customary systems of measurement. Since 1959, both units have been defined by international agreement as equivalent to 0.3048 meters exactly, in both systems, the foot comprises 12 inches and three feet compose a yard. Historically the foot was a part of local systems of units, including the Greek, Roman, Chinese, French. It varied in length from country to country, from city to city and its length was usually between 250 mm and 335 mm and was generally, but not always, subdivided into 12 inches or 16 digits. The United States is the industrialized nation that uses the international foot and the survey foot in preference to the meter in its commercial, engineering. The foot is legally recognized in the United Kingdom, road signs must use imperial units, the measurement of altitude in international aviation is one of the few areas where the foot is widely used outside the English-speaking world. The length of the international foot corresponds to a foot with shoe size of 13,14,15.5 or 46. Historically the human body has been used to provide the basis for units of length. The foot of a male is typically about 15. 3% of his height, giving a person of 160 cm a foot of 245 mm. These figures are less than the used in most cities over time. Archeologists believe that the Egyptians, Ancient Indians and Mesopotamians preferred the cubit while the Romans, under the Harappan linear measures, Indus cities during the Bronze Age used a foot of 13.2 inches and a cubit of 20.8 inches. The Egyptian equivalent of the measure of four palms or 16 digits—was known as the djeser and has been reconstructed as about 30 cm. The Greek foot had a length of 1⁄600 of a stadion, one stadion being about 181.2 m, the standard Roman foot was normally about 295.7 mm, but in the provinces, the pes Drusianus was used, with a length of about 334 mm. Originally both the Greeks and the Romans subdivided the foot into 16 digits, but in later years, after the fall of the Roman Empire, some Roman traditions were continued but others fell into disuse. In AD790 Charlemagne attempted to reform the units of measure in his domains and his units of length were based on the toise and in particular the toise de lÉcritoire, the distance between the fingertips of the outstretched arms of a man. The toise has 6 pieds each of 326.6 mm, at the same time, monastic buildings used the Carolingian foot of 340 mm. The procedure for verification of the foot as described in the 16th century by Jacob Koebel in his book Geometrei, the measures of Iron Age Britain are uncertain and proposed reconstructions such as the Megalithic Yard are controversial. Later Welsh legend credited Dyfnwal Moelmud with the establishment of their units, the Belgic or North German foot of 335 mm was introduced to England either by the Belgic Celts during their invasions prior to the Romans or by the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th & 6th century
21.
Inch
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The inch is a unit of length in the imperial and United States customary systems of measurement now formally equal to 1⁄36 yard but usually understood as 1⁄12 of a foot. Derived from the Roman uncia, inch is also used to translate related units in other measurement systems. The English word inch was a borrowing from Latin uncia not present in other Germanic languages. The vowel change from Latin /u/ to English /ɪ/ is known as umlaut, the consonant change from the Latin /k/ to English /tʃ/ or /ʃ/ is palatalisation. Both were features of Old English phonology, inch is cognate with ounce, whose separate pronunciation and spelling reflect its reborrowing in Middle English from Anglo-Norman unce and ounce. In many other European languages, the word for inch is the same as or derived from the word for thumb, the inch is a commonly used customary unit of length in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. It is also used in Japan for electronic parts, especially display screens, for example, three feet two inches can be written as 3′ 2″. Paragraph LXVII sets out the fine for wounds of various depths, one inch, one shilling, an Anglo-Saxon unit of length was the barleycorn. After 1066,1 inch was equal to 3 barleycorns, which continued to be its legal definition for several centuries, similar definitions are recorded in both English and Welsh medieval law tracts. One, dating from the first half of the 10th century, is contained in the Laws of Hywel Dda which superseded those of Dyfnwal, both definitions, as recorded in Ancient Laws and Institutes of Wales, are that three lengths of a barleycorn is the inch. However, the oldest surviving manuscripts date from the early 14th century, john Bouvier similarly recorded in his 1843 law dictionary that the barleycorn was the fundamental measure. He noted that this process would not perfectly recover the standard, before the adoption of the international yard and pound, various definitions were in use. In the United Kingdom and most countries of the British Commonwealth, the United States adopted the conversion factor 1 metre =39.37 inches by an act in 1866. In 1930, the British Standards Institution adopted an inch of exactly 25.4 mm, the American Standards Association followed suit in 1933. By 1935, industry in 16 countries had adopted the industrial inch as it came to be known, in 1946, the Commonwealth Science Congress recommended a yard of exactly 0.9144 metres for adoption throughout the British Commonwealth. This was adopted by Canada in 1951, the United States on 1 July 1959, Australia in 1961, effective 1 January 1964, and the United Kingdom in 1963, effective on 1 January 1964. The new standards gave an inch of exactly 25.4 mm,1.7 millionths of a longer than the old imperial inch and 2 millionths of an inch shorter than the old US inch. The United States retains the 1/39. 37-metre definition for survey purposes and this is approximately 1/8-inch in a mile
22.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
23.
Kilometre
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The kilometre or kilometer is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one thousand metres. K is occasionally used in some English-speaking countries as an alternative for the kilometre in colloquial writing. A slang term for the kilometre in the US military is klick, there are two common pronunciations for the word. It is generally preferred by the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, many scientists and other users, particularly in countries where the metric system is not widely used, use the pronunciation with stress on the second syllable. The latter pronunciation follows the pattern used for the names of measuring instruments. The problem with this reasoning, however, is that the meter in those usages refers to a measuring device. The contrast is more obvious in countries using the British rather than American spelling of the word metre. When Australia introduced the system in 1975, the first pronunciation was declared official by the governments Metric Conversion Board. However, the Australian prime minister at the time, Gough Whitlam, by the 8 May 1790 decree, the Constituent assembly ordered the French Academy of Sciences to develop a new measurement system. In August 1793, the French National Convention decreed the metre as the length measurement system in the French Republic. The first name of the kilometre was Millaire, although the metre was formally defined in 1799, the myriametre was preferred to the kilometre for everyday use. The term myriamètre appeared a number of times in the text of Develeys book Physique dEmile, ou, Principes de la de la nature. French maps published in 1835 had scales showing myriametres and lieues de Poste, the Dutch, on the other hand, adopted the kilometre in 1817 but gave it the local name of the mijl. It was only in 1867 that the term became the only official unit of measure in the Netherlands to represent 1000 metres. In the US, the National Highway System Designation Act of 1995 prohibits the use of highway funds to convert existing signs or purchase new signs with metric units. Although the State DOTs had the option of using metric measurements or dual units, all of them abandoned metric measurements, the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices since 2000 is published in both metric and American Customary Units. Some sporting disciplines feature 1000 m races in major events, but in other disciplines, even though records are catalogued
24.
Old English
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Old English or Anglo-Saxon is the earliest historical form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers probably in the mid 5th century, Old English developed from a set of Anglo-Frisian or North Sea Germanic dialects originally spoken by Germanic tribes traditionally known as the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. As the Anglo-Saxons became dominant in England, their language replaced the languages of Roman Britain, Common Brittonic, a Celtic language, Old English had four main dialects, associated with particular Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Mercian, Northumbrian, Kentish and West Saxon. It was West Saxon that formed the basis for the standard of the later Old English period, although the dominant forms of Middle. The speech of eastern and northern parts of England was subject to strong Old Norse influence due to Scandinavian rule, Old English is one of the West Germanic languages, and its closest relatives are Old Frisian and Old Saxon. Like other old Germanic languages, it is different from Modern English. Old English grammar is similar to that of modern German, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs have many inflectional endings and forms. The oldest Old English inscriptions were using a runic system. Old English was not static, and its usage covered a period of 700 years, from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain in the 5th century to the late 11th century, some time after the Norman invasion. While indicating that the establishment of dates is a process, Albert Baugh dates Old English from 450 to 1150, a period of full inflections. Perhaps around 85 per cent of Old English words are no longer in use, Old English is a West Germanic language, developing out of Ingvaeonic dialects from the 5th century. It came to be spoken over most of the territory of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms which became the Kingdom of England and this included most of present-day England, as well as part of what is now southeastern Scotland, which for several centuries belonged to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. Other parts of the island – Wales and most of Scotland – continued to use Celtic languages, Norse was also widely spoken in the parts of England which fell under Danish law. Anglo-Saxon literacy developed after Christianisation in the late 7th century, the oldest surviving text of Old English literature is Cædmons Hymn, composed between 658 and 680. There is a corpus of runic inscriptions from the 5th to 7th centuries. The Old English Latin alphabet was introduced around the 9th century, with the unification of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms by Alfred the Great in the later 9th century, the language of government and literature became standardised around the West Saxon dialect. In Old English, typical of the development of literature, poetry arose before prose, a later literary standard, dating from the later 10th century, arose under the influence of Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester, and was followed by such writers as the prolific Ælfric of Eynsham. This form of the language is known as the Winchester standard and it is considered to represent the classical form of Old English
25.
Anglo-Saxons
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The Anglo-Saxons are a people who have inhabited Great Britain from the 5th century. Historically, the Anglo-Saxon period denotes the period in Britain between about 450 and 1066, after their settlement and up until the Norman conquest. The early Anglo-Saxon period includes the creation of an English nation, with many of the aspects that survive today, including government of shires. During this period, Christianity was re-established and there was a flowering of literature, charters and law were also established. The term Anglo-Saxon is popularly used for the language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons in England, in scholarly use, it is more commonly called Old English. The history of the Anglo-Saxons is the history of a cultural identity and it developed from divergent groups in association with the peoples adoption of Christianity, and was integral to the establishment of various kingdoms. Threatened by extended Danish invasions and occupation of eastern England, this identity was re-established, the visible Anglo-Saxon culture can be seen in the material culture of buildings, dress styles, illuminated texts and grave goods. Behind the symbolic nature of these emblems, there are strong elements of tribal. The elite declared themselves as kings who developed burhs, and identified their roles and peoples in Biblical terms, above all, as Helena Hamerow has observed, local and extended kin groups remained. the essential unit of production throughout the Anglo-Saxon period. Use of the term Anglo-Saxon assumes that the words Angles, Saxons or Anglo-Saxon have the meaning in all the sources. Assigning ethnic labels such as Anglo-Saxon is fraught with difficulties and this term began to be used only in the 8th century to distinguish the Germanic groups in Britain from those on the continent. The Old English ethnonym Angul-Seaxan comes from the Latin Angli-Saxones and became the name of the peoples Bede calls Anglorum, Anglo-Saxon is a term that was rarely used by Anglo-Saxons themselves, it is not an autonym. It is likely they identified as ængli, Seaxe or, more probably, also, the use of Anglo-Saxon disguises the extent to which people identified as Anglo-Scandinavian after the Viking age or the conquest of 1016, or as Anglo-Norman after the Norman conquest. The earliest historical references using this term are from outside Britain, referring to piratical Germanic raiders, Saxones who attacked the shores of Britain, procopius states that Britain was settled by three races, the Angiloi, Frisones, and Britons. The term Angli Saxones seems to have first been used in writing of the 8th century. The name therefore seemed to mean English Saxons, the Christian church seems to have used the word Angli, for example in the story of Pope Gregory I and his remark, Non Angli sed angeli. The terms ænglisc and Angelcynn were also used by West Saxon King Alfred to refer to the people, at other times he uses the term rex Anglorum, which presumably meant both Anglo-Saxons and Danes. Alfred the Great used Anglosaxonum Rex, the term Engla cyningc is used by Æthelred
26.
Open-field system
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The open-field system was the prevalent agricultural system in much of Europe during the Middle Ages and lasted into the 20th century in parts of western Europe, Russia, Iran and Turkey. Under the open-field system, each manor or village had two or three fields, usually several hundred acres each, which were divided into many narrow strips of land. The strips or selions were cultivated by individuals or peasant families, the holdings of a manor also included woodland and pasture areas for common usage and fields belonging to the lord of the manor and the church. The farmers customarily lived in houses in a nucleated village with a much larger manor house. The open-field system necessitated co-operation among the inhabitants of the manor, the Lord of the Manor, his officials, and a Manorial court administered the manor and exercised jurisdiction over the peasantry. The Lord levied rents and required the peasantry to work on his personal lands, in medieval times, little land was owned outright. Instead the lord had rights given to him by the king, lords demanded rents, often ruinous, and labour from the tenants, but the tenants had firm user rights to cropland and common land and those rights were passed down from generation to generation. A medieval lord could not evict a tenant nor hire labour to him without legal cause. Most tenants likewise were not free without penalty to depart the manor for other locations or occupations, the rise of capitalism and the concept of land as a commodity to be bought and sold led to the demise of the open-field system. The open-field system was replaced over several centuries by private ownership of land. France, Germany, and other northern European countries had similar to England. Some elements of the system were practised by early settlers in the New England region of the United States. The most visible characteristic of the system was that the arable land belonging to a manor was divided into many long narrow furlongs for cultivation. The fields of cultivated land were unfenced, hence the name open-field system, each tenant of the manor cultivated several strips of land scattered around the manor. The village of Elton, Cambridgeshire is representative of a medieval manor in England. The manor, whose Lord was an abbot from a monastery, had 13 hides of arable land of six virgates each. The acreage of a hide and virgate varied, but at Elton a hide was 144 acres, thus, the total of arable land amounted to 1,872 acres. The abbots demesne land consisted of three hides plus 16 acres of meadow and 3 acres of pasture, the remainder of the land was cultivated by 113 tenants who lived in a village on the manor
27.
Ancient Roman units of measurement
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The ancient Roman units of measurement were largely built on the Hellenic system, which in turn was built upon Egyptian and Mesopotamian influences. The Roman units were comparatively consistent and well documented, the basic unit of Roman linear measurement was the pes or Roman foot. Investigation of its relation to the English foot goes back at least to 1647, an accepted modern value is 296 mm. The Roman foot was sub-divided either like the Greek pous into 16 digiti or fingers, frontinus writes in the 1st century AD that the digitus was used in Campania and most parts of Italy. Columella also gives uncial divisions of the jugerum, tabulated by the translator of the 1745 Millar edition as follows, Both liquid. As no two surviving examples are identical, scholarly opinion ranges from 530 ml to 580 ml. Cardarelli gives a value 549.28 ml. A1952 estimate for its value in Pliny the Elders Natural History estimated it as 500 ml.3 ml, which falls comfortably within the accepted range. The core volume units are, amphora quadrantal – one cubic pes congius – a half-pes cube sextarius – literally 1⁄6, of a congius The units of weight or mass were mostly based on factors of 12. Several of the names were also the names of coins during the Roman Republic and had the same fractional value of a larger base unit, libra for weight. Modern estimates of the range from 322 to 329 g with 5076 grains or 328.9 g an accepted figure. The as was reduced from 12 ounces to 2 after the First Punic War, to 1 during the Second Punic War, the divisions of the libra were, The subdivisions of the uncia were, The complicated Roman calendar was replaced by the Julian calendar in 45 BC. In the Julian calendar, a year is 365 days long. Between 45 BC and AD1, leap years occurred at irregular intervals, starting in AD4, leap years occurred regularly every four years. Year numbers were used, rather, the year was specified by naming the Roman consuls for that year. When a year number was required, the Greek Olympiads were used, or the count of years since the founding of Rome, in the middle ages, the year numbering was changed to the Anno Domini count. The Romans grouped days into a cycle called a nundina. Each astrological day was reckoned to begin at sunrise, the Jews also used a seven-day week, which began Saturday evening. The seventh day of the week they called Sabbath, the days they numbered rather than named, except for Friday
28.
Ancient Greek units of measurement
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Ancient Greek units of measurement varied according to location and epoch. Systems of ancient weights and measures evolved as needs changed, Solon, some units of measurement were found to be convenient for trade within the Mediterranean region and these units became increasingly common to different city states. The calibration and use of measuring devices became more sophisticated, by about 500 BC, Athens had a central depository of official weights and measures, the Tholos, where merchants were required to test their measuring devices against official standards. Some Greek measures of length were named after parts of the body, such as the δάκτυλος or finger, a common unit in both measures throughout historic Greece was the cotyle or cotyla whose absolute value varied from one place to another between 210 ml and 330 ml. The basic unit for both solid and liquid measures was the κύαθος, thus for example the English pound has been both a unit of weight and a unit of currency. Greek weights similarly bear a resemblance to Greek currency yet the origin of the Greek standards of weights is often disputed. The Attic/Euboean standard was based on the barley corn, of which there were supposedly twelve to one obol. However, weights that have been retrieved by historians and archeologists show considerable variations from theoretical standards, a table of standards derived from theory is as follows, Athenians measured the day by sundials and unit fractions. Periods during night or day were measured by a clock that dripped at a steady rate. Whereas the day in the Gregorian calendar commences after midnight, the Greek day began after sunset, Athenians named each year after the Archon Eponymos for that year, and in Hellenistic times years were reckoned in quadrennial epochs according to the Olympiad. In archaic and early classical Greece, months followed the cycle of the Moon which made them not fit exactly into the length of the solar year, thus, if not corrected, the same month would migrate slowly into different seasons of the year. The Athenian year was divided into 12 months, with one month being inserted between the sixth and seventh months every second year. Even with this intercalary month, the Athenian or Attic calendar was still fairly inaccurate, Greek and Roman Weights, Measures and Currency. Archived from the original on 6 August 2007, online Conversion of Ancient Greek Units
29.
King James Version
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The King James Version, also known as Authorized Version or simply King James Bible, is an English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England begun in 1604 and completed in 1611. The books of the King James Version include the 39 books of the Old Testament, a section containing 14 books of the Apocrypha. It was first printed by the Kings Printer Robert Barker and was the translation into English approved by the English Church authorities. The first had been the Great Bible, commissioned in the reign of King Henry VIII, the translation is noted for its majesty of style, and has been described as one of the most important books in English culture. The translation was done by 47 scholars, all of whom were members of the Church of England. In common with most other translations of the period, the New Testament was translated from Greek, the Old Testament from Hebrew and Aramaic, and the Apocrypha from Greek and Latin. In the Book of Common Prayer, the text of the Authorized Version replaced the text of the Great Bible for Epistle and Gospel readings, over the course of the 18th century, the Authorized Version supplanted the Latin Vulgate as the standard version of scripture for English-speaking scholars. Today the unqualified title King James Version usually indicates that this Oxford standard text is meant, the title page carries the words Appointed to be read in Churches, and F. F. For many years it was not to give the translation any specific name. In his Leviathan of 1651, Thomas Hobbes referred to it as the English Translation made in the beginning of the Reign of King James. Similarly, a History of England, whose edition was published in 1775, writes merely that new translation of the Bible, viz. that now in Use, was begun in 1607. King Jamess Bible is used as the name for the 1611 translation in Charles Butlers Horae Biblicae and this name was also found as King James Bible, for example in a book review from 1811. The phrase King Jamess Bible is used as far back as 1715, the use of Authorized Version or Authorised Version, capitalized and used as a name, is found as early as 1814. For some time before this, descriptive phrases such as our present, and only publicly authorised version, our Authorised version, the Oxford English Dictionary records a usage in 1824. In Britain, the 1611 translation is known as the Authorised Version today. As early as 1814, we find King James version, evidently a descriptive phrase, the King James Version is found, unequivocally used as a name, in a letter from 1855. The next year King James Bible, with no possessive, appears as a name in a Scottish source, in the United States, the 1611 translation is generally known as the King James Version today. The followers of John Wycliffe undertook the first complete English translations of the Christian scriptures in the 14th century and these translations were banned in 1409 due to their association with the Lollards
30.
Roman Empire
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Civil wars and executions continued, culminating in the victory of Octavian, Caesars adopted son, over Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC and the annexation of Egypt. Octavians power was then unassailable and in 27 BC the Roman Senate formally granted him overarching power, the imperial period of Rome lasted approximately 1,500 years compared to the 500 years of the Republican era. The first two centuries of the empires existence were a period of unprecedented political stability and prosperity known as the Pax Romana, following Octavians victory, the size of the empire was dramatically increased. After the assassination of Caligula in 41, the senate briefly considered restoring the republic, under Claudius, the empire invaded Britannia, its first major expansion since Augustus. Vespasian emerged triumphant in 69, establishing the Flavian dynasty, before being succeeded by his son Titus and his short reign was followed by the long reign of his brother Domitian, who was eventually assassinated. The senate then appointed the first of the Five Good Emperors, the empire reached its greatest extent under Trajan, the second in this line. A period of increasing trouble and decline began with the reign of Commodus, Commodus assassination in 192 triggered the Year of the Five Emperors, of which Septimius Severus emerged victorious. The assassination of Alexander Severus in 235 led to the Crisis of the Third Century in which 26 men were declared emperor by the Roman Senate over a time span. It was not until the reign of Diocletian that the empire was fully stabilized with the introduction of the Tetrarchy, which saw four emperors rule the empire at once. This arrangement was unsuccessful, leading to a civil war that was finally ended by Constantine I. Constantine subsequently shifted the capital to Byzantium, which was renamed Constantinople in his honour and it remained the capital of the east until its demise. Constantine also adopted Christianity which later became the state religion of the empire. However, Augustulus was never recognized by his Eastern colleague, and separate rule in the Western part of the empire ceased to exist upon the death of Julius Nepos. The Eastern Roman Empire endured for another millennium, eventually falling to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, the Roman Empire was among the most powerful economic, cultural, political and military forces in the world of its time. It was one of the largest empires in world history, at its height under Trajan, it covered 5 million square kilometres. It held sway over an estimated 70 million people, at that time 21% of the entire population. Throughout the European medieval period, attempts were made to establish successors to the Roman Empire, including the Empire of Romania, a Crusader state. Rome had begun expanding shortly after the founding of the republic in the 6th century BC, then, it was an empire long before it had an emperor
31.
Weights and Measures Acts of the United Kingdom
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Weights and measures acts are acts of the British Parliament determining the regulation of weights and measures. It also refers to similar royal and parliamentary acts of the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, the earliest of these were originally untitled but were given descriptive glosses or titles based upon the monarch under whose reign they were promulgated. Several omnibus modern acts are entitled the Weights and Measures Act and are distinguished by the year of their enactment, There have been many laws concerned with weights and measures in the United Kingdom or parts of it over the last 1000 or so years. Modern legislation may, in addition to requirements, set out circumstances under which the incumbent minister may amend the legislation by means of statutory instruments. Prior to the Weights and Measures Act of 1985, weights, the 1985 act, however, had a broader scope, encompassing all aspects covered by the European Economic Community European Commission directive 80/181/EEC. As of 25 April 2012, the current primary legislation in the United Kingdom is the 1985 Act, statutory instruments made under the authority of the Act do not amend the Act per se, but regulate particular areas covered by the Act. The Act is currently enforced by the 200 Trading Standards Offices managed by local authorities around the country, the Weights and Measures Act of 1897 made the provision that metric units could be used in addition to the traditional imperial units for purposes of trade. In practice, the choice of units was restricted by price marking orders which listed packaging sizes. For example, as of April 2012, wine for consumption on premises may only be sold in 125,175, prior to 1973, when the United Kingdom joined the EEC, such specifications were almost all in imperial units. To comply with this directive, the Weights and Measures Act of 1986 extended the scope of Trading Standards responsibilities from just matters related to trade to all aspects of the directive. For example, it was the Trading Standards Office that criticised the use of sub-standard weighing machines in NHS hospitals, the initial intention was to prohibit dual labelling after the end of 1989, with metric units only being allowed after that date. This deadline was extended, first to the end of 1999. Finally, in 2007, the European Union and the EC, confirmed that the UK would be permitted to continue indefinitely to use imperial units such as pints, miles, pounds and ounces as at present. The Gloucestershire County Council Trading Standards Department confirmed the EU ruling that the deadline for ending dual labelling had been abolished. As of 24 April 2012, there are still a few cases where imperial units are required to be used and where metric units are optional within the scope of the Weights and Measures Act. These are, the pint for the sale of beer and cider and of milk in returnable containers, miles and yards for road signs and distances. In addition, British law specifies which non-metric units may be used with dual labelling, since March 2015, all new roadsigns showing height and width restrictions have to be labeled in both imperial and metric. Although the old ones with imperial only may remain until they need replacing, numerous acts of the Saxon kings are known to have been lost
32.
Yangon
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Yangon is a former capital of Myanmar and the capital of Yangon Region. Although Yangons infrastructure is undeveloped compared to that of major cities in southeast Asia. Yangon is a combination of the two words yan and koun, which enemies and run out of, respectively. It is also translated as End of Strife, Rangoon most likely comes from the British imitation of the pronunciation of Yangon in the Arakanese language, which is. Yangon was founded as Dagon in the early 11th century by the Mon, Dagon was a small fishing village centred about the Shwedagon Pagoda. In 1755, King Alaungpaya conquered Dagon, renamed it Yangon, the British captured Yangon during the First Anglo-Burmese War, but returned it to Burmese administration after the war. The city was destroyed by a fire in 1841, the British seized Yangon and all of Lower Burma in the Second Anglo-Burmese War of 1852, and subsequently transformed Yangon into the commercial and political hub of British Burma. Yangon is also the place where the British sent Bahadur Shah II, Yangon became the capital of all British Burma after the British had captured Upper Burma in the Third Anglo-Burmese War of 1885. By the 1890s Yangons increasing population and commerce gave birth to prosperous residential suburbs to the north of Royal Lake, the British also established hospitals including Rangoon General Hospital and colleges including Rangoon University. Colonial Yangon, with its spacious parks and lakes and mix of modern buildings, by the early 20th century, Yangon had public services and infrastructure on par with London. Before World War II, about 55% of Yangons population of 500,000 was Indian or South Asian, karens, the Chinese, the Anglo-Burmese and others made up the rest. After World War I, Yangon became the epicentre of Burmese independence movement, three nationwide strikes against the British Empire in 1920,1936 and 1938 all began in Yangon. Yangon was under Japanese occupation, and incurred heavy damage during World War II, the city was retaken by the Allies in May 1945. Yangon became the capital of Union of Burma on 4 January 1948 when the country regained independence from the British Empire, soon after Burmas independence in 1948, many colonial names of streets and parks were changed to more nationalistic Burmese names. In 1989, the current military junta changed the citys English name to Yangon, since independence, Yangon has expanded outwards. Successive governments have built satellite towns such as Thaketa, North Okkalapa and South Okkalapa in the 1950s to Hlaingthaya, Shwepyitha, today, Greater Yangon encompasses an area covering nearly 600 square kilometres. During Ne Wins isolationist rule, Yangons infrastructure deteriorated through poor maintenance, in the 1990s, the current military governments more open market policies attracted domestic and foreign investment, bringing a modicum of modernity to the citys infrastructure. Some inner city residents were relocated to new satellite towns
33.
Myanmar
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Myanmar, officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and also known as Burma, is a sovereign state in South East Asia bordered by Bangladesh, India, China, Laos and Thailand. About one third of Myanmars total perimeter of 5,876 km, forms an uninterrupted coastline of 1,930 km along the Bay of Bengal, the countrys 2014 census revealed a much lower population than expected, with 51 million people recorded. Myanmar is 676,578 square kilometres in size and its capital city is Naypyidaw and its largest city and former capital city is Yangon. Early civilizations in Myanmar included the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu city-states in Upper Burma, the Pagan Kingdom fell due to the Mongol invasions and several warring states emerged. In the 16th century, reunified by the Taungoo Dynasty, the country was for a period the largest empire in the history of Mainland Southeast Asia. The early 19th century Konbaung Dynasty ruled over an area included modern Myanmar and briefly controlled Manipur. The British invaded Myanmar after three Anglo-Burmese Wars in the 19th century and the became a British colony. Myanmar became an independent nation in 1948, initially as a nation and then, following a coup détat in 1962. For most of its independent years, the country has been engrossed in rampant ethnic strife, during this time, the United Nations and several other organisations have reported consistent and systematic human rights violations in the country. In 2011, the junta was officially dissolved following a 2010 general election. While former military leaders still wield enormous power in the country, there is, however, continuing criticism of the governments treatment of the Muslim Rohingya minority and its poor response to the religious clashes. In the landmark 2015 election, Aung San Suu Kyis party won a majority in both houses, Myanmar is a country rich in jade and gems, oil, natural gas and other mineral resources. In 2013, its GDP stood at US$56.7 billion, the income gap in Myanmar is among the widest in the world, as a large proportion of the economy is controlled by supporters of the former military government. As of 2016, according to the Human Development Index, Myanmar had a level of human development. The renaming remains a contested issue, many political and ethnic opposition groups and countries continue to use Burma because they do not recognise the legitimacy of the ruling military government or its authority to rename the country. The countrys official name is the Republic of the Union of Myanmar. Countries that do not officially recognise that name use the long form Union of Burma instead, in English, the country is popularly known as either Burma or Myanmar /ˈmjɑːnˌmɑːr/. Both these names are derived from the name of the majority Burmese Bamar ethnic group, Myanmar is considered to be the literary form of the name of the group, while Burma is derived from Bamar, the colloquial form of the groups name
34.
Epsom Derby
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The Derby Stakes, popularly known as The Derby, is a Group 1 flat horse race in England open to three-year-old thoroughbred colts and fillies. It is run at Epsom Downs Racecourse in Surrey over a distance of one mile, four furlongs and 10 yards and it is Britains richest horse race, and the most prestigious of the five Classics. It is sometimes referred to as the Blue Riband of the turf, the race serves as the middle leg of the Triple Crown, preceded by the 2000 Guineas and followed by the St Leger, although the feat of winning all three is now rarely attempted. The name Derby has become synonymous with great races all over the world, however, the Epsom Derby is the original. It is one of Britains great national sporting events and has a large worldwide TV audience, in Great Britain the name Derby is pronounced /ˈdɑːrbi/, while in the United States it is /ˈdɜːrbi/, a case of spelling pronunciation. The Derby originated at a following the first running of the Oaks Stakes in 1779. A new race was planned, and it was decided that it should be named either the host of the party. According to legend the decision was made by the toss of a coin, but it is probable that Bunbury, the inaugural running of the Derby was held on Thursday 4 May 1780. It was won by Diomed, a colt owned by Sir Charles Bunbury, the first four runnings were contested over 1 mile, but this was amended to the current distance of 1½ miles in 1784. Lord Derby achieved his first success in the event in 1787, the starting point of the race was moved twice during the 19th century. The first move, suggested by Lord George Bentinck, was in 1848, and it was discovered in 1991 that the exact length of the race was one mile, four furlongs and 10 yards. Initially, the Derby was run on a Thursday in late May or early June depending on when Easter occurred, in 1838 the race was moved to a Wednesday to fit in with the railways timetables but was still run on different dates depending on Easter. In 1995 the day was changed from the first Wednesday in June to the first Saturday, the Derby has been run at Epsom in all years except during the world wars. From 1915 to 1918 and from 1940 to 1945 the Derby was run at Newmarket and these races are known as the New Derby. The Derby has inspired similar events around the world. European variations include the Derby Italiano, the Deutsches Derby, the Irish Derby, other national equivalents include the Australian Derby, the New Zealand Derby and the Tokyo Yūshun. Several races in the United States include the Derby name, including the Kentucky Derby, investec became the sponsor of the Derby in 2009, and the current sponsorship deal runs until 2022. The race was backed by Ever Ready and Vodafone
35.
Horse racing
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Horse racing is an equestrian performance sport, typically involving two or more horses ridden by jockeys or driven over a set distance for competition. Horse races vary widely in format, often, countries have developed their own particular horse racing traditions. Variations include restricting races to particular breeds, running over obstacles, running over different distances, running on different track surfaces, Horse racing has a long and distinguished history and has been practised in civilisations across the world since ancient times. Archaeological records indicate that horse racing occurred in Ancient Greece, Babylon, Syria and it also plays an important part of myth and legend, such as the contest between the steeds of the god Odin and the giant Hrungnir in Norse mythology. Chariot racing was one of the most popular ancient Greek, Roman, both chariot and mounted horse racing were events in the ancient Greek Olympics by 648 BC and were important in the other Panhellenic Games. This was despite the fact that racing was often dangerous to both driver and horse as they frequently suffered serious injury and even death. In the Roman Empire, chariot and mounted horse racing were major industries, fifteen to 20 riderless horses, originally imported from the Barbary Coast of North Africa, ran the length of the Via del Corso, a long, straight city street, in about 2½ minutes. In later times, Thoroughbred racing became, and remains, popular with the aristocrats and royalty of British society, historically, equestrians honed their skills through games and races. Equestrian sports provided entertainment for crowds and honed the excellent horsemanship that was needed in battle, Horse racing of all types evolved from impromptu competitions between riders or drivers. The various forms of competition, requiring demanding and specialized skills from both horse and rider, resulted in the development of specialized breeds and equipment for each sport. The popularity of sports through the centuries has resulted in the preservation of skills that would otherwise have disappeared after horses stopped being used in combat. There are many different types of racing, including, Flat racing. Jump racing, or Jumps racing, also known as Steeplechasing or, in the UK and Ireland, National Hunt racing, Harness racing, where horses trot or pace while pulling a driver in a sulky. Breeds that are used for flat racing include the Thoroughbred, Quarter Horse, Arabian, Paint, Jump racing breeds include the Thoroughbred and AQPS. In harness racing, Standardbreds are used in Australia, New Zealand and North America, light cold blood horses, such as Finnhorses and Scandinavian coldblood trotter are also used in harness racing within their respective geographical areas. There also are races for ponies, both flat and jump and harness racing, Flat racing is the most common form of racing seen worldwide. Track surfaces vary, with turf most common in Europe, dirt more common in North America and Asia, individual flat races are run over distances ranging from 440 yards up to two and a half miles, with distances between five and twelve furlongs being most common. Short races are referred to as sprints, while longer races are known as routes in the United States or staying races in Europe
36.
Canada
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Canada is a country in the northern half of North America. Canadas border with the United States is the worlds longest binational land border, the majority of the country has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer. Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its territory being dominated by forest and tundra. It is highly urbanized with 82 per cent of the 35.15 million people concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, One third of the population lives in the three largest cities, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Its capital is Ottawa, and other urban areas include Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg. Various aboriginal peoples had inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1,1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and this began an accretion of provinces and territories to the mostly self-governing Dominion to the present ten provinces and three territories forming modern Canada. With the Constitution Act 1982, Canada took over authority, removing the last remaining ties of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II being the head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level and it is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Its advanced economy is the eleventh largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources, Canadas long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. Canada is a country and has the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the ninth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, Canada is an influential nation in the world, primarily due to its inclusive values, years of prosperity and stability, stable economy, and efficient military. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the origins of Canada. In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona, from the 16th to the early 18th century Canada referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named The Canadas, until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the name for the new country at the London Conference. The transition away from the use of Dominion was formally reflected in 1982 with the passage of the Canada Act, later that year, the name of national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day
37.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
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Ireland
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Ireland is an island in the North Atlantic. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, Ireland is the second-largest island of the British Isles, the third-largest in Europe, and the twentieth-largest on Earth. Politically, Ireland is divided between the Republic of Ireland, which covers five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, in 2011, the population of Ireland was about 6.4 million, ranking it the second-most populous island in Europe after Great Britain. Just under 4.6 million live in the Republic of Ireland, the islands geography comprises relatively low-lying mountains surrounding a central plain, with several navigable rivers extending inland. The island has lush vegetation, a product of its mild, thick woodlands covered the island until the Middle Ages. As of 2013, the amount of land that is wooded in Ireland is about 11% of the total, there are twenty-six extant mammal species native to Ireland. The Irish climate is moderate and classified as oceanic. As a result, winters are milder than expected for such a northerly area, however, summers are cooler than those in Continental Europe. Rainfall and cloud cover are abundant, the earliest evidence of human presence in Ireland is dated at 10,500 BC. Gaelic Ireland had emerged by the 1st century CE, the island was Christianised from the 5th century onward. Following the Norman invasion in the 12th century, England claimed sovereignty over Ireland, however, English rule did not extend over the whole island until the 16th–17th century Tudor conquest, which led to colonisation by settlers from Britain. In the 1690s, a system of Protestant English rule was designed to materially disadvantage the Catholic majority and Protestant dissenters, with the Acts of Union in 1801, Ireland became a part of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland saw much civil unrest from the late 1960s until the 1990s and this subsided following a political agreement in 1998. In 1973 the Republic of Ireland joined the European Economic Community while the United Kingdom, Irish culture has had a significant influence on other cultures, especially in the fields of literature. Alongside mainstream Western culture, an indigenous culture exists, as expressed through Gaelic games, Irish music. The culture of the island shares many features with that of Great Britain, including the English language, and sports such as association football, rugby, horse racing. The name Ireland derives from Old Irish Eriu and this in turn derives from Proto-Celtic *Iveriu, which is also the source of Latin Hibernia. Iveriu derives from a root meaning fat, prosperous, during the last glacial period, and up until about 9000 years ago, most of Ireland was covered with ice, most of the time
39.
Roads and expressways in Chicago
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Roads and expressways in Chicago summarizes the main thoroughfares and the numbering system used in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs. Chicagos streets were laid out in a grid that grew from the original townsite plan. Streets following the Public Land Survey System section lines later became arterial streets in outlying sections, as new additions to the city were platted, city ordinance required them to be laid out with eight streets to the mile in one direction and 16 in the other direction. A scattering of diagonal streets, many of them originally Indian trails, many additional diagonal streets were recommended in the Plan of Chicago, but only the extension of Ogden Avenue was ever constructed. In the 1950s and 1960s, a network of superhighways was built radiating from the city center, as the city grew and annexed adjacent towns, problems arose with duplicate street names and a confusing numbering system based on the Chicago River. On June 22,1908, the city adopted a system proposed by Edward P. Brennan. The changes were effective September 1,1909 for most of the city, addresses in Chicago and some suburbs are numbered outward from baselines at State Street, which runs north and south, and Madison Street, which runs east and west. A book was published in 1909 by The Chicago Directory Company indexing the old and this volume is available on line in pdf format indexed by initial letter, Plan of Re-Numbering, City of Chicago, August 1909. The downtown area did not conform to this system until April 1,1911, downtown was defined as Lake Michigan on the east, Roosevelt Road on the south, and the Chicago River on the north and west. The addition to downtown was published, and is also on line as a pdf indexed by downtown street name. This additional paragraph explained the changes, The 1909 address change did not affect downtown Chicago. The ordinance was amended June 20,1910 to include the downtown area, the new addresses for the “loop” went into use on April 1,1911. Chicago house numbers are assigned at the rate of 800 to a mile. The only exceptions are from Madison to 31st Street, just south of downtown, South of 31st Street, the pattern of 800 to the mile resumes, with 39th Street the next major street, 47th after that, and so on. Individual house numbers are assigned at the rate of one per 20 feet of frontage. Thus the last two digits of house numbers generally go only as high as 67 before the block number is reached. Higher house numbers are found on streets and have sometimes been assigned by request. South of Madison Street most of the east-west streets are simply numbered, the street numbering is aligned with the house numbering, so that 95th Street is exactly 9500 South
40.
Salt Lake City
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Salt Lake City, often shortened to Salt Lake or SLC, is the capital and the most populous municipality of the U. S. state of Utah. With an estimated population of 190,884 in 2014, the city lies at the core of the Salt Lake City metropolitan area, Salt Lake City is further situated within a larger metropolis known as the Salt Lake City-Ogden-Provo Combined Statistical Area. This region is a corridor of contiguous urban and suburban development stretched along an approximately 120-mile segment of the Wasatch Front and it is one of only two major urban areas in the Great Basin. The city was founded in 1847 by Brigham Young, Isaac Morley, George Washington Bradley and numerous other Mormon followers, who extensively irrigated and cultivated the arid valley. Due to its proximity to the Great Salt Lake, the city was originally named Great Salt Lake City—the word great was dropped from the name in 1868 by the 17th Utah Territorial Legislature. Today, however, less than half the population of Salt Lake City proper are members of the LDS Church. It was traversed by the Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental highway, in 1913, Salt Lake City has since developed a strong outdoor recreation tourist industry based primarily on skiing, and hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics. It is the banking center of the United States. Before Mormon settlement, the Shoshone, Ute, and Paiute had dwelt in the Salt Lake Valley for thousands of years. The land was treated by the United States as public domain, the first U. S. explorer in the Salt Lake area is believed to be Jim Bridger in 1825, although others had been in Utah earlier, some as far north as the nearby Utah Valley. Frémont surveyed the Great Salt Lake and the Salt Lake Valley in 1843 and 1845, the Donner Party, a group of ill-fated pioneers, had traveled through the Great Salt Lake Valley in August 1846. The first permanent settlements in the date to the arrival of the Latter-day Saints on July 24,1847. Upon arrival at the Salt Lake Valley, president of the church Brigham Young is recorded as stating, This is the right place, Brigham Young claimed to have seen the area in a vision prior to the wagon trains arrival. They found the broad valley empty of any human settlement, four days after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham Young designated the building site for the Salt Lake Temple, which would eventually become a famous Mormon and Salt Lake City landmark. The Salt Lake Temple, constructed on the block that would later be called Temple Square, construction started in 1853, and the temple was dedicated on 6 April 1893. The temple has become an icon for the city and serves as its centerpiece, in fact, the southeast corner of Temple Square is the initial point of reference for the Salt Lake Meridian, and for all addresses in the Salt Lake Valley. The Mormon pioneers organized a new state called Deseret and petitioned for its recognition in 1849, the United States Congress rebuffed the settlers in 1850 and established the Utah Territory, vastly reducing its size, and designated Fillmore as its capital city. Great Salt Lake City replaced Fillmore as the capital in 1858
41.
Salt Lake County, Utah
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Salt Lake County is a county located in the U. S. state of Utah. As of the 2010 census, the population was 1,029,655 and its county seat and largest city is Salt Lake City, the state capital. The county was created in 1850, Salt Lake County occupies the Salt Lake Valley, as well as parts of the surrounding mountains, the Oquirrh Mountains to the west and the Wasatch Range to the east. In addition, the section of the county includes part of the Great Salt Lake. The county is noted for its ski resorts, Salt Lake City won the bid to host the 2002 Winter Olympics, Salt Lake County is the central county of the Salt Lake City, UT Metropolitan Statistical Area. This area was occupied for thousands of years by cultures of indigenous peoples, the area that was to become Salt Lake County was settled by European Americans in 1847 when Mormon pioneers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints fled religious persecution in the East. They arrived in the Salt Lake Valley of the Utah Territory after traveling what settlers later called Emigration Canyon, brigham Young, their leader, declared This is the place after seeing the valley. Compared to eastern regions, it seemed arid and unpromising to some of the migrants, settlers used extensive irrigation to develop agriculture and the flourishing, self-sufficient city, Great Salt Lake City. Thousands of Mormons joined them in the several decades. The county was organized on January 31,1850, with slightly more than 11,000 residents recorded. Mormon settlements were scattered across the valley and beyond and they relocated the territorial capital to Great Salt Lake City in 1857, when the name was subsequently shortened to Salt Lake City. They abandoned the valley and the set up Camp Floyd to the south in Utah County. Patrick Edward Connor, the leader of the garrison at Fort Douglas, was openly anti-Mormon and he sent out parties to scout for mineral resources in the nearby mountains, hoping to encourage non-Mormons to settle in the territory. During the late 19th century, mines were established in the Wasatch mountains, exploiting the mineral wealth was difficult until the Utah Central Railroad was constructed and reached this area in 1870. In the Oquirrh Mountains, the Bingham Canyon Mine, which contains vast deposits of copper and silver, was developed as the most productive of the countys mines. The mine, located in the southwest portion of the county, attracted thousands of miners, at its peak, the city of Bingham Canyon contained 20,000 residents, all crowded along the steep walls of the canyon, and natural disasters were a frequent occurrence. By the early 20th century, most of the mines in the county had closed, however, the Bingham Canyon Mine kept on expanding. In the early 21st century, it is among the largest open-pit mines in the world, after the railroad came to the county, the population began to expand more rapidly and non-Mormons began to settle in Salt Lake City
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Logan, Utah
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Logan is a city in Cache County, Utah, United States. As of the 2010 census the population was 48,174, Logan is the county seat of Cache County and the principal city of the Logan, UT-ID Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes Cache County and Franklin County, Idaho. The Logan metropolitan area contained 125,442 people as of the 2010 census, in 2005 and 2007, Morgan Quitno declared the Logan metropolitan area the safest in the United States. Logan is the location of the campus of Utah State University. The town of Logan was founded in 1859 by settlers sent by Brigham Young to survey for the site of a fort near the banks of the Logan River and they named their new community Logan for Ephraim Logan, an early fur trapper in the area. Logan was incorporated on 17 January 1866, Brigham Young College was founded here in 1878, and Utah State University – then called the Agricultural College of Utah – was founded in 1888. Logans growth reflects settlement and post-war booms along with other changes incident to conditions in the West, Logan grew to about 20,000 in the mid-1960s, and according to Census estimates, exceeded 50,000 in 2015. Logan is located in northern Utah,47 miles north of Ogden and it is about 82 miles north of Salt Lake City. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 18.5 square miles, of which 18.0 square miles is land and 0.58 square miles. The city lies near the edge of Cache Valley on the western slopes of the Bear River Mountains. Mount Logan rises to an elevation of 9,710 feet immediately to the east, the Logan River later cut down through these sedimentary deposits following the draining of Lake Bonneville approximately 14,500 years ago. This created an area with very steep slopes that reach into the rest of town. To the west of Logan lie flatlands that contain both farmland and marshes, to the north and south of Logan are rapidly growing residential suburbs. Logan has a continental climate with very warm though usually dry summers. Precipitation tends to be heaviest in the spring months, similar to other areas in northern Utah, during mid-winter high pressure systems often situate themselves over Cache Valley, leading to strong temperature inversions. These temperature inversions trap cold air and pollutants and allow thick smog to accumulate in the valley about three percent of the time and this can result in the worst air-pollution levels in the U. S. reducing air quality to unhealthy level. Logans city grid originates from its Main and Center Street block, with Main Street running north and south, each block north, east, south, or west of the origin accumulates in additions of 100, though some streets have non-numeric names. This street grid is typical of towns and cities that were founded by Latter-day Saints in the Mormon Corridor
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Phoenix, Arizona
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Phoenix is the capital and most populous city of the U. S. state of Arizona. Phoenix is the anchor of the Phoenix metropolitan area, also known as the Valley of the Sun, the metropolitan area is the 12th largest by population in the United States, with approximately 4.3 million people as of 2010. Settled in 1867 as a community near the confluence of the Salt and Gila Rivers. Located in the reaches of the Sonoran Desert, Phoenix has a subtropical desert climate. Despite this, its canal system led to a farming community, many of the original crops remaining important parts of the Phoenix economy for decades, such as alfalfa, cotton, citrus. The city averaged a four percent annual growth rate over a 40-year period from the mid-1960s to the mid-2000s. This growth rate slowed during the Great Recession of 2007–09, and has rebounded slowly, Phoenix is the cultural center of the Valley of the Sun, as well as the entire state. For more than 2,000 years, the Hohokam people occupied the land that would become Phoenix, the Hohokam created roughly 135 miles of irrigation canals, making the desert land arable. Paths of these canals would later used for the modern Arizona Canal, Central Arizona Project Canal. The Hohokam also carried out trade with the nearby Anasazi, Mogollon and Sinagua. It is believed that between 1300 and 1450, periods of drought and severe floods led to the Hohokam civilizations abandonment of the area. After the departure of the Hohokam, groups of Akimel Oodham, Tohono Oodham and Maricopa tribes began to use the area, as well as segments of the Yavapai and Apache. The Oodham were offshoots of the Sobaipuri tribe, who in turn were thought to be the descendants of the formerly urbanized Hohokam and their crops included corn, beans, and squash for food, while cotton and tobacco were also cultivated. Mostly a peaceful group, they did together with the Maricopa for their mutual protection against incursions by both the Yuma and Apache tribes. The Tohono Oodham lived in the region as well, but their concentration was to the south. Living in small settlements, the Oodham were seasonal farmers who took advantage of the rains and they also hunted local game such as deer, rabbit, and javalina for meat. When the Mexican–American War ended in 1848, Mexico ceded its northern zone to the United States, the Phoenix area became part of the New Mexico Territory. In 1863 the mining town of Wickenburg was the first to be established in what is now Maricopa County, at the time Maricopa County had not yet been incorporated, the land was within Yavapai County, which included the major town of Prescott to the north of Wickenburg
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Hoddle Grid
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The Hoddle Grid is the layout of the streets in the centre of the central business district of Melbourne. Named after its designer, Robert Hoddle, the grid was out in 1837. It covers the area from Flinders Street to Queen Victoria Market, while the survey plan has proved, in time, to be far-sighted for public utility, serving Melbourne to this day, at the time Hoddles instructions from Governor Gipps were more prosaic. Land allotments for sale at auction were to be produced as quickly as possible to deliver to the market. Gipps also insisted that all towns laid out during his term of office should have no public squares included within their boundaries, the grid was defined largely by the geography of the area. It was planned to span a gently sloping valley between hills and roughly parallel to the course of the Yarra River. Elizabeth Street, Melbourne in the centre of the grid was built over a gully and has therefore been prone to flooding. In the 1860s, surveys extended the district, incorporating the region of similarly laid out streets bounded by Victoria Street, Dudley Street, all major streets are one and half chains in width, while all blocks are exactly 10 chains square. It is one mile long by half a mile wide, the grids longest axis is oriented 70 degrees clockwise from true north, to align better with the course of the Yarra River. The majority of Melbourne is oriented at 8 degrees clockwise from true north - noting that magnetic north was 8°3 E in 1900, Robert Hoddle also established a separate grid at one mile spacing for sixty miles or so around Melbourne. This cadastral survey determined the orientation of most roads and older subdivisions in the suburbs, the origin of the grid is now marked by a tall blue and yellow pole near where John Batman’s house was on Batmans Hill. The adopted direction for North was to the flagstaff at Flagstaff Gardens which was close to north in 1837. List of streets and roads in Melbourne Australian Roads portal
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Melbourne
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Melbourne is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in Australia and Oceania. The name Melbourne refers to an urban agglomeration spanning 9,900 km2, the metropolis is located on the large natural bay of Port Phillip and expands into the hinterlands towards the Dandenong and Macedon mountain ranges, Mornington Peninsula and Yarra Valley. It has a population of 4,641,636 as of 2016, and its inhabitants are called Melburnians. Founded by free settlers from the British Crown colony of Van Diemens Land on 30 August 1835, in what was then the colony of New South Wales, it was incorporated as a Crown settlement in 1837. It was named Melbourne by the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Richard Bourke, in honour of the British Prime Minister of the day, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne. It was officially declared a city by Queen Victoria, to whom Lord Melbourne was close, in 1847, during the Victorian gold rush of the 1850s, it was transformed into one of the worlds largest and wealthiest cities. After the federation of Australia in 1901, it served as the interim seat of government until 1927. It is a financial centre in the Asia-Pacific region. It is recognised as a UNESCO City of Literature and a centre for street art, music. It was the host city of the 1956 Summer Olympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games, the main passenger airport serving the metropolis and the state is Melbourne Airport, the second busiest in Australia. The Port of Melbourne is Australias busiest seaport for containerised and general cargo, Melbourne has an extensive transport network. The main metropolitan train terminus is Flinders Street Station, and the regional train. Melbourne is also home to Australias most extensive network and has the worlds largest urban tram network. Before the arrival of settlers, humans had occupied the area for an estimated 31,000 to 40,000 years. At the time of European settlement, it was inhabited by under 2000 hunter-gatherers from three indigenous tribes, the Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung and Wathaurong. The area was an important meeting place for the clans of the Kulin nation alliance and it would be 30 years before another settlement was attempted. Batman selected a site on the bank of the Yarra River. Batman then returned to Launceston in Tasmania, in early August 1835 a different group of settlers, including John Pascoe Fawkner, left Launceston on the ship Enterprize
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Ontario
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Ontario, one of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada, is located in east-central Canada. It is Canadas most populous province by a margin, accounting for nearly 40 percent of all Canadians. Ontario is fourth-largest in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and it is home to the nations capital city, Ottawa, and the nations most populous city, Toronto. There is only about 1 km of land made up of portages including Height of Land Portage on the Minnesota border. Ontario is sometimes divided into two regions, Northern Ontario and Southern Ontario. The great majority of Ontarios population and arable land is located in the south, in contrast, the larger, northern part of Ontario is sparsely populated with cold winters and is heavily forested. The province is named after Lake Ontario, a thought to be derived from Ontarí, io, a Huron word meaning great lake, or possibly skanadario. Ontario has about 250,000 freshwater lakes, the province consists of three main geographical regions, The thinly populated Canadian Shield in the northwestern and central portions, which comprises over half the land area of Ontario. Although this area mostly does not support agriculture, it is rich in minerals and in part covered by the Central and Midwestern Canadian Shield forests, studded with lakes, Northern Ontario is subdivided into two sub-regions, Northwestern Ontario and Northeastern Ontario. The virtually unpopulated Hudson Bay Lowlands in the north and northeast, mainly swampy. Southern Ontario which is further sub-divided into four regions, Central Ontario, Eastern Ontario, Golden Horseshoe, the highest point is Ishpatina Ridge at 693 metres above sea level located in Temagami, Northeastern Ontario. In the south, elevations of over 500 m are surpassed near Collingwood, above the Blue Mountains in the Dundalk Highlands, the Carolinian forest zone covers most of the southwestern region of the province. A well-known geographic feature is Niagara Falls, part of the Niagara Escarpment, the Saint Lawrence Seaway allows navigation to and from the Atlantic Ocean as far inland as Thunder Bay in Northwestern Ontario. Northern Ontario occupies roughly 87 percent of the area of the province. Point Pelee is a peninsula of Lake Erie in southwestern Ontario that is the southernmost extent of Canadas mainland, Pelee Island and Middle Island in Lake Erie extend slightly farther. All are south of 42°N – slightly farther south than the border of California. The climate of Ontario varies by season and location, the effects of these major air masses on temperature and precipitation depend mainly on latitude, proximity to major bodies of water and to a small extent, terrain relief. In general, most of Ontarios climate is classified as humid continental, Ontario has three main climatic regions
