Hora Sfakion
Hóra Sfakíon or Sfakia is a town on the south coast of Crete, Greece. It is the capital of the remote and mountainous region of Sfakiá, is a small town of just 265 inhabitants, it lies on the south coast near the end of the Imbros Gorge, 74 km south of Chania. It has two small harbours, where the ferry boats from Agia Roumeli dock, which in the summer bring the hikers from the Samaria Gorge to take buses back to the northern coast. From Hóra Sfakíon ferries go to the nearby coastal town of Loutro and the island Gavdos. Hóra Sfakíon is a small village with a main harbourfront of tavernas, two minimarkets, a butcher, a bakery. There is a quiet local beach west of the village, several pebbly beaches nearby. Hóra Sfakíon has a variety of tourist accommodations: rooms and apartments; the local economy is based on tourism, olive-oil production, sheep and goat herding. Hóra Sfakíon prospered during the Venetian and Turkish occupations and up to the 18th century carried on a flourishing trade with its own small fleet.
It was said to have had a hundred churches, but it suffered badly from wartime bombardment during the Battle of Crete and the Allied evacuation that followed. Hóra Sfakíon is famous as one of the centers of resistance against the occupying forces of both the Venetians and the Turks; the impenetrable White Mountains to the north combined with the rocky beaches on the south helped the locals fight off all invaders. Anopolis, a village near Hóra Sfakíon, is the birthplace of one of the most celebrated Cretan revolutionaries, Daskalogiannis. Battle of Crete Sfakians Portal site about the region of Sfakiá Live webcam from the village of Hóra Sfakíon, Sfakiá Live beach webcam from the village of Hóra Sfakíon, Sfakiá Local guide to Sfakiá More than 1,000 pictures of Sfakia - from the 1960s until nowadays University of Lausanne history of Sfakiá
Radiation
In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or through a material medium. This includes: electromagnetic radiation, such as radio waves, infrared, visible light, ultraviolet, x-rays, gamma radiation particle radiation, such as alpha radiation, beta radiation, neutron radiation acoustic radiation, such as ultrasound and seismic waves gravitational radiation, radiation that takes the form of gravitational waves, or ripples in the curvature of spacetime. Radiation is categorized as either ionizing or non-ionizing depending on the energy of the radiated particles. Ionizing radiation carries more than 10 eV, enough to ionize atoms and molecules, break chemical bonds; this is an important distinction due to the large difference in harmfulness to living organisms. A common source of ionizing radiation is radioactive materials that emit α, β, or γ radiation, consisting of helium nuclei, electrons or positrons, photons, respectively.
Other sources include X-rays from medical radiography examinations and muons, positrons and other particles that constitute the secondary cosmic rays that are produced after primary cosmic rays interact with Earth's atmosphere. Gamma rays, X-rays and the higher energy range of ultraviolet light constitute the ionizing part of the electromagnetic spectrum; the word "ionize" refers to the breaking of one or more electrons away from an atom, an action that requires the high energies that these electromagnetic waves supply. Further down the spectrum, the non-ionizing lower energies of the lower ultraviolet spectrum cannot ionize atoms, but can disrupt the inter-atomic bonds which form molecules, thereby breaking down molecules rather than atoms; the waves of longer wavelength than UV in visible light and microwave frequencies cannot break bonds but can cause vibrations in the bonds which are sensed as heat. Radio wavelengths and below are not regarded as harmful to biological systems; these are not sharp delineations of the energies.
The word radiation arises from the phenomenon of waves radiating from a source. This aspect leads to a system of measurements and physical units that are applicable to all types of radiation; because such radiation expands as it passes through space, as its energy is conserved, the intensity of all types of radiation from a point source follows an inverse-square law in relation to the distance from its source. Like any ideal law, the inverse-square law approximates a measured radiation intensity to the extent that the source approximates a geometric point. Radiation with sufficiently high energy can ionize atoms. Ionization occurs when an electron is stripped from an electron shell of the atom, which leaves the atom with a net positive charge; because living cells and, more the DNA in those cells can be damaged by this ionization, exposure to ionizing radiation is considered to increase the risk of cancer. Thus "ionizing radiation" is somewhat artificially separated from particle radiation and electromagnetic radiation due to its great potential for biological damage.
While an individual cell is made of trillions of atoms, only a small fraction of those will be ionized at low to moderate radiation powers. The probability of ionizing radiation causing cancer is dependent upon the absorbed dose of the radiation, is a function of the damaging tendency of the type of radiation and the sensitivity of the irradiated organism or tissue. If the source of the ionizing radiation is a radioactive material or a nuclear process such as fission or fusion, there is particle radiation to consider. Particle radiation is subatomic particle accelerated to relativistic speeds by nuclear reactions; because of their momenta they are quite capable of knocking out electrons and ionizing materials, but since most have an electrical charge, they don't have the penetrating power of ionizing radiation. The exception is neutron particles. There are several different kinds of these particles, but the majority are alpha particles, beta particles and protons. Speaking and particles with energies above about 10 electron volts are ionizing.
Particle radiation from radioactive material or cosmic rays invariably carries enough energy to be ionizing. Most ionizing radiation originates from radioactive materials and space, as such is present in the environment, since most rocks and soil have small concentrations of radioactive materials. Since this radiation is invisible and not directly detectable by human senses, instruments such as Geiger counters are required to detect its presence. In some cases, it may lead to secondary emission of visible light upon its interaction with matter, as in the case of Cherenkov radiation and radio-luminescence. Ionizing radiation has many practical uses in medicine and construction, but presents a health hazard if used improperly. Exposure to radiation causes damage to living tissue.
Natural arch
A natural arch, natural bridge, or rock arch is a natural rock formation where an arch has formed with an opening underneath. Natural arches form where inland cliffs, coastal cliffs, fins or stacks are subject to erosion from the sea, rivers or weathering. Most natural arches are formed from narrow fins and sea stacks composed of sandstone or limestone with steep vertical, cliff faces; the formations become narrower due to erosion over geologic time scales. The softer rock stratum erodes away creating rock shelters, or alcoves, on opposite sides of the formation beneath the harder stratum, or caprock, above it; the alcoves erode further into the formation meeting underneath the harder caprock layer, thus creating an arch. The erosional processes exploit weaknesses in the softer rock layers making cracks larger and removing material more than the caprock; the choice between bridge and arch is somewhat arbitrary. The Natural Arch and Bridge Society identifies a bridge as a subtype of arch, water-formed.
By contrast, the Dictionary of Geological Terms defines a natural bridge as a "natural arch that spans a valley of erosion."The largest natural arch, by a significant margin, is the Xianren Bridge in China, with a span of 122 ± 5 meters. On coasts two different types of arches can form depending on the geology. On discordant coastlines rock types run at 90° to the coast. Wave refraction concentrates the wave energy on the headland, an arch forms when caves break through the headland. Two examples of this type of arch are London Arch—previously known as London Bridge—in Victoria and Neill Island in the Andaman Islands, India; when these arches collapse, they form stacks and stumps. On concordant coastlines rock types run parallel to the coastline, with weak rock such as shale protected by stronger rock such as limestone; the wave action along concordant coastlines breaks through the strong rock and erodes the weak rock quickly. Good examples of this type of arch are the Durdle Door and Stair Hole near Lulworth Cove on Dorset's Jurassic Coast in south England.
When Stair Hole collapses it will form a cove. Weather-eroded arches begin their formation as deep cracks. Erosion occurring within the cracks wears away exposed rock layers and enlarges the surface cracks isolating narrow sandstone walls which are called fins. Alternating frosts and thawing cause crumbling and flaking of the porous sandstone and cut through some of the fins; the resulting holes become weathering. The arches collapse leaving only buttresses that in time will erode. Many weather-eroded arches are found in Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, all located in southern Utah, United States; some natural bridges may look like arches, but they form in the path of streams that wear away and penetrate the rock. Pothole arches form by chemical weathering as water collects in natural depressions and cuts through to the layer below. Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah protects the area surrounding three large natural bridges, all of which were formed by streams running through canyons, the largest of, named Sipapu Bridge with a span of 225 feet.
The Rainbow Bridge National Monument's namesake was formed by flowing water which created the largest known natural bridge in the Western Hemisphere with a span of 234 feet, based on a laser measurement made in 2007. Xianren Bridge known as Fairy Bridge, in Guangxi, China is the world's largest known natural bridge with a span recorded at 400 feet by the Natural Arch and Bridge Society in October 2010, with a precision of ±15 feet. Natural bridges can form from natural limestone caves, where paired sinkholes collapse and a ridge of stone is left standing in between, with the cave passageway connecting from sinkhole to sinkhole. Like all rock formations, natural bridges are subject to continued erosion, will collapse and disappear. One example of this was the double-arched Victorian coastal rock formation, London Bridge, which lost an arch after storms increased erosion. Moon Hill in Yangshuo, Guizhou Province, China, is an example of an arch formed by the remnant of a karst limestone cave. In a few places in the world, natural arches are utilized by humans as transportation bridges with highways or railroads running across them.
In Virginia, US Route 11 traverses Natural Bridge. Two additional natural arch roadways are found in Kentucky; the first arch, a cave erosion arch made of limestone, is located in Carter Caves State Resort Park and it has a paved road on top. The second arch, a weather-eroded sandstone arch with a dirt road on top, is located on the edge of Natural Bridge State Park in Kentucky; the latter arch is called White's Branch Arch and the road going over it is referred to as the Narrows Road. In Europe, the Romanian village of Ponoarele has a road 60 m long and 13 m wide, passing over a stone arch 4 m thick, 20 m high, with a 9 m span; the arch is called God's Bridge. In South America, the railroad from Lima, Peru crosses the Rio Yauli on a natural bridge near kilometer 214.2 as it approaches the city of La Oroya, Peru. Aloba Arch, Chad Boatswain Bird Island, Ascension Island Bogenfels, Namibia Goedehoop natural rock bridge, South Africa Hole-in-the-Wall, Eastern Cape, South Africa Tassili n'Ajjer and Tadrart Rouge, two mountain ranges with many arches, Algeria Tukuyu natural bridge, Ta
Malta
Malta known as the Republic of Malta, is a Southern European island country consisting of an archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea. It lies 80 km south of Italy, 284 km east of Tunisia, 333 km north of Libya. With a population of about 475,000 over an area of 316 km2, Malta is the world's tenth smallest and fifth most densely populated country, its capital is Valletta, the smallest national capital in the European Union by area at 0.8 km.2 The official languages are Maltese and English, with Maltese recognised as the national language and the only Semitic language in the European Union. Malta has been inhabited since 5900 BC, its location in the centre of the Mediterranean has given it great strategic importance as a naval base, with a succession of powers having contested and ruled the islands, including the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, Greeks, Normans, Knights of St. John and British. Most of these foreign influences have left some sort of mark on the country's ancient culture. Malta became a British colony in 1815, serving as a way station for ships and the headquarters for the British Mediterranean Fleet.
It played an important role in the Allied war effort during the Second World War, was subsequently awarded the George Cross for its bravery in the face of an Axis siege, the George Cross appears on Malta's national flag. The British Parliament passed the Malta Independence Act in 1964, giving Malta independence from the United Kingdom as the State of Malta, with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state and queen; the country became a republic in 1974. It has been a member state of the Commonwealth of Nations and the United Nations since independence, joined the European Union in 2004. Malta has a long Christian legacy and its Archdiocese is claimed to be an apostolic see because Paul the Apostle was shipwrecked on "Melita", according to Acts of the Apostles, now taken to be Malta. While Catholicism is the official religion in Malta, Article 40 of the Constitution states that "all persons in Malta shall have full freedom of conscience and enjoy the free exercise of their respective mode of religious worship."Malta is a popular tourist destination with its warm climate, numerous recreational areas, architectural and historical monuments, including three UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Hypogeum of Ħal-Saflieni and seven megalithic temples which are some of the oldest free-standing structures in the world.
The origin of the name Malta is uncertain, the modern-day variation is derived from the Maltese language. The most common etymology is that the word Malta is derived from the Greek word μέλι, meli, "honey"; the ancient Greeks called the island Μελίτη meaning "honey-sweet" for Malta's unique production of honey. The Romans called the island Melita, which can be considered either a latinisation of the Greek Μελίτη or the adaptation of the Doric Greek pronunciation of the same word Μελίτα; this spelling is found in the New Testament. Another conjecture suggests that the word Malta comes from the Phoenician word Maleth, "a haven", or'port' in reference to Malta's many bays and coves. Few other etymological mentions appear in classical literature, with the term Malta appearing in its present form in the Antonine Itinerary. Malta has been inhabited from around 5900 BC, since the arrival of settlers from the island of Sicily. A significant prehistoric Neolithic culture marked by Megalithic structures, which date back to c. 3600 BC, existed on the islands, as evidenced by the temples of Mnajdra and others.
The Phoenicians colonised Malta between 800 -- 700 BC, bringing their Semitic culture. They used the islands as an outpost from which they expanded sea explorations and trade in the Mediterranean until their successors, the Carthaginians, were ousted by the Romans in 216 BC with the help of the Maltese inhabitants, under whom Malta became a municipium. After a period of Byzantine rule and a probable sack by the Vandals, the islands were invaded by the Aghlabids in AD 870; the fate of the population after the Arab invasion is unclear but it seems the islands may have been depopulated and were to have been repopulated in the beginning of the second millennium by settlers from Arab-ruled Sicily who spoke Siculo-Arabic. The Muslim rule was ended by the Normans who conquered the island in 1091; the islands were re-Christianised by 1249. The islands were part of the Kingdom of Sicily until 1530, were controlled by the Capetian House of Anjou. In 1530 Charles I of Spain gave the Maltese islands to the Order of Knights of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem in perpetual lease.
The French under Napoleon took hold of the Maltese islands in 1798, although with the aid of the British the Maltese were able to oust French control two years later. The inhabitants subsequently asked Britain to assume sovereignty over the islands under the conditions laid out in a Declaration of Rights, stating that "his Majesty has no right to cede these Islands to any power...if he chooses to withdraw his protection, abandon his sovereignty, the right of electing another sovereign, or of the governing of these Islands, belongs to us, the inhabitants and aborigines alone, without control." As part of the Treaty of Paris in 1814, Malta became a British colony rejecting an attempted integration with the United Kingdom in 1956. Malta became independent on 21 September 1964. Under its 1964 constitution
Greece
Greece the Hellenic Republic, self-identified and known as Hellas, is a country located in Southern and Southeast Europe, with a population of 11 million as of 2016. Athens is largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is located at the crossroads of Europe and Africa. Situated on the southern tip of the Balkan Peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, Turkey to the northeast; the Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a large number of islands, of which 227 are inhabited. Eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres; the country consists of nine geographic regions: Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Thrace and the Ionian Islands.
Greece is considered the cradle of Western civilisation, being the birthplace of democracy, Western philosophy, Western literature, political science, major scientific and mathematical principles, Western drama and notably the Olympic Games. From the eighth century BC, the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as poleis, which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Philip of Macedon united most of the Greek mainland in the fourth century BC, with his son Alexander the Great conquering much of the ancient world, from the eastern Mediterranean to India. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC, becoming an integral part of the Roman Empire and its successor, the Byzantine Empire, in which Greek language and culture were dominant. Rooted in the first century A. D. the Greek Orthodox Church helped shape modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World. Falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence.
Greece's rich historical legacy is reflected by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The sovereign state of Greece is a unitary parliamentary republic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, a high standard of living. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the tenth member to join the European Communities and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001, it is a member of numerous other international institutions, including the Council of Europe, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. Greece's unique cultural heritage, large tourism industry, prominent shipping sector and geostrategic importance classify it as a middle power, it is the largest economy in the Balkans. The names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages and cultures.
The Greek name of the country is Hellas or Ellada, its official name is the Hellenic Republic. In English, the country is called Greece, which comes from Latin Graecia and means'the land of the Greeks'; the earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona cave, in the Greek province of Macedonia. All three stages of the stone age are represented for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries, as Greece lies on the route via which farming spread from the Near East to Europe. Greece is home to the first advanced civilizations in Europe and is considered the birthplace of Western civilisation, beginning with the Cycladic civilization on the islands of the Aegean Sea at around 3200 BC, the Minoan civilization in Crete, the Mycenaean civilization on the mainland; these civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script known as Linear A, the Mycenaeans in Linear B, an early form of Greek.
The Mycenaeans absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC, during a time of regional upheaval known as the Bronze Age collapse. This ushered from which written records are absent. Though the unearthed Linear B texts are too fragmentary for the reconstruction of the political landscape and can't support the existence of a larger state contemporary Hittite and Egyptian records suggest the presence of a single state under a "Great King" based in mainland Greece; the end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to the year of the first Olympic Games. The Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, which spread to the shores of the Black Sea, So
Acts 27
Acts 27 is the twenty-seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It records the journey of Paul from Caesarea heading to Rome; the book containing this chapter is anonymous but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that Luke composed this book as well as the Gospel of Luke. The original text is written in Koine Greek and is divided into 44 verses; some most ancient manuscripts containing this chapter are: Codex Vaticanus Codex Sinaiticus Codex Bezae Codex Alexandrinus Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus This chapter mentions or alludes to the following places: And when it was decided that we should sail to Italy, they delivered Paul and some other prisoners to one named Julius, a centurion of the Augustan Regiment. In verses 21–26 Paul encourages and comforts those men on board though they had ignored his advice about sailing that he gave in verse 10; the meteorological and nautical evidence demonstrates, in rather spectacular fashion, that these events must have occurred just as Luke records them.
The most important piece of evidence is the exact compass bearing of the gale. This bearing can be established by means of three separate calculations. First, Luke states. In other words, the ship must have been less than halfway to their intended destination at Phoenix, they must have been somewhere between Cape Matala and a point seventeen miles W. N. W. of the Cape when the gale struck. Second, there is the relation of the island of Clauda to this start point. Cape Matala is on a bearing of east 7 degrees north from the eastern edge of Clauda, while the halfway point to Phoenix is east 40 degrees north. For the ship to get behind Clauda, Euraquilo must have been blowing from a point somewhere between these two bearings; the point midway between these two figures is east 25 degrees north. This can not be more than a half off the actual direction of the wind. Third, Luke states that when they got behind Clauda, the sailors were afraid that they would be blown onto the Syrtis sandbanks of north Africa.
However, for them to have been blown onto those banks from Clauda, Euraquilo would have had to have been blowing from a point somewhere between east 18 degrees north and east 37 degrees north. The point midway between these figures is east 27 degrees north; this figure is only 1/4 point off the mean figure of the previous calculation. These three calculations establish that the direction from which the wind was blowing could not have been more than a point off the designation E. N. E. 1/2 N. As the ship drifted west from Clauda, it would have been pointed due north, because it could not have been pointed directly into the wind without capsizing. In other words, it had to have been pointed north, just off the direction from which the wind was coming. Using this information, with some precision both the direction and rate of the ship’s drift to the west can be calculated. Ancient records reveal that Egyptian grain ships were the largest vessels of the time, being about the size of an early nineteenth century sailing vessel.
This size is implicitly confirmed by Luke's statement. Since their ship was pointed due north, while the wind was from the northeast, the azimuth, or direction, of the ship’s lateral – or sideways – drift from Clauda would have been west eight degrees north; the island of Malta is not directly west of Clauda. Instead, Malta’s bearing from Clauda is west eight degrees north; this brings to yet another piece of evidence. Luke states; the distance from Clauda to the easternmost point of Malta is 476.6 miles. To calculate the westward rate of drift of their ship, it is necessary to know two things: the size of the ship and the force of the gale; as the approximate size of the ship is known, it is possible to establish the mean intensity of the gale. An average rate of drift for Paul’s vessel can be calculated; this calculation reveals an average westward drift of one half miles per hour. Thus it would take Paul’s ship about thirteen days to drift to Malta. Luke records; this nautical and meteorological evidence provides confirmation of the historical accuracy of Luke's narrative.
Bob Cornuke and Graham Hutt claim that the location of the shipwreck was at St. Thomas Bay on the southeast of Malta on a sandbar called Muxnar Reef; however the traditional location is called St. Paul's Bay. Four Roman era anchors from this location are in the maritime museum at Valletta. Valletta hosts a church named Collegiate Parish Church of St Paul's Shipwreck, yet another theory is that the shipwreck was outside Salina Bay. A number of anchor stocks have been found in the area. Matthew Henry draws out several points from this chapter to apply to lives of Christians. From verses 1–11 he draws an analogy with those that do not make any headway in life, they fail to take advantage of favourable conditions if they resist being driven backwards. Many complain of the great effort just to stay in one place, but fail to take advantage of good advice to advance in life. Not all fair havens are safe havens. On verses 12-10 it states. Blessing of the world can turn out to be an unwanted burden, may have to be discarded, just as things were thrown off the ship in the storm.
It is better to make a shipwreck of one's goods than of one's life. But some do the reverse. In the same way that the efforts of the sailors proved useless to saving the ship, safety only resu
