Gnaeus Julius Agricola was a Gallo-Roman general responsible for much of the Roman conquest of Britain. Written by his son-in-law Tacitus, the De vita et moribus Iulii Agricolae is the primary source for most of what is known about him, along with detailed archaeological evidence from northern Britain. Agricola began his military career in Britain, his subsequent career saw. He supported Vespasian during the Year of the Four Emperors, was given a military command in Britain when the latter became emperor; when his command ended in 73, he was made patrician in Rome and appointed governor of Gallia Aquitania. He was made consul and governor of Britannia in 77. While there, he completed the conquest of what is now Wales and northern England, led his army to the far north of Scotland, establishing forts across much of the Lowlands, he was recalled from Britain in 85 after an unusually lengthy service, thereafter retired from military and public life. Agricola was born in the colonia of Gallia Narbonensis.

Agricola's parents were from noted Gallo-Roman political families of senatorial rank. Both of his grandfathers served as imperial governors, his father, Lucius Julius Graecinus, was a praetor and had become a member of the Roman Senate in the year of his birth. Graecinus had become distinguished by his interest in philosophy. Between August 40 and January 41, the Emperor Caligula ordered his death because he refused to prosecute the Emperor's second cousin Marcus Junius Silanus, his mother was Julia Procilla. The Roman historian Tacitus describes her as "a lady of singular virtue". Tacitus states. Agricola was educated in Massilia, showed what was considered an unhealthy interest in philosophy, he began his career in Roman public life as a military tribune, serving in Britain under Gaius Suetonius Paulinus from 58 to 62. He was attached to the Legio II Augusta, but was chosen to serve on Suetonius's staff and thus certainly participated in the suppression of Boudica's uprising in 61. Returning from Britain to Rome in 62, he married a woman of noble birth.

Their first child was a son. Agricola was appointed as quaestor for 64, which he served in the province of Asia under the corrupt proconsul Lucius Salvius Otho Titianus. While he was there, his daughter, Julia Agricola, was born, he was tribune of the plebs in 66 and praetor in June 68, during which time he was ordered by the Governor of Spain Galba to take an inventory of the temple treasures. During that same, the emperor Nero was declared a public enemy by the Senate and committed suicide, the period of civil war known as the Year of the Four Emperors began. Galba was murdered in early 69 by Otho, who took the throne. Agricola's mother was murdered on her estate in Liguria by Otho's marauding fleet. Hearing of Vespasian's bid for the empire, Agricola gave him his support. Otho meanwhile committed suicide after being defeated by Vitellius. After Vespasian had established himself as emperor, Agricola was appointed to the command of the Legio XX Valeria Victrix, stationed in Britain, in place of Marcus Roscius Coelius, who had stirred up a mutiny against the governor, Marcus Vettius Bolanus.

Britain had revolted during the year of civil war, Bolanus was a mild governor. Agricola helped to consolidate Roman rule. In 71, Bolanus was replaced by a more aggressive governor, Quintus Petillius Cerialis, Agricola was able to display his talents as a commander in campaigns against the Brigantes in northern England; when his command ended in 73, Agricola was enrolled as a patrician and appointed to govern Gallia Aquitania. There he stayed for three years. In 76 or 77, he was recalled to Rome and appointed suffect consul, betrothed his daughter to Tacitus; the following year and Julia married. Arriving in midsummer of 77, Agricola discovered that the Ordovices of north Wales had destroyed the Roman cavalry stationed in their territory, he moved against them and defeated them. He moved north to the island of Mona, which Suetonius Paulinus had failed to subjugate in 60 because of the outbreak of the Boudican rebellion, forced its inhabitants to sue for peace, he established a good reputation as an administrator, as well as a commander, by reforming the corrupt corn levy.

He introduced Romanising measures, encouraging communities to build towns on the Roman model and educating the sons of the native nobility in the Roman manner. Agricola expanded Roman rule north into Caledonia. In the summer of 79, he pushed his armies to the estuary of the river Taus interpreted as the Firth of Tay unchallenged, established some forts. Though their location is left unspecified, the close dating of the fort at Elginhaugh in Midlothian makes it a possible candidate. In 81, Agricola "crossed in the first ship" and defeated peoples unknown to the Romans until then. Tacitus, in Chapter 24 of Agricola, does not tell us what body of water he crossed, although most scholars believe it was the Clyde or Forth, some translators add the name of their preferred river to the text; the text of the Agricola has been amended here to record

Transport in Burkina Faso consists of road and rail transportation. The World Bank classified country's transportation as underdeveloped but noted that Burkina Faso is a natural geographic transportation hub for West Africa. There are a total of 12,506 kilometres of highway in Burkina Faso, of which 2,001 kilometres are paved. In 2000, the Government of Burkina Faso classified 15,000 kilometers of road as part of the national road network managed under the Ministry of Infrastructures Transport and Housing through the Directorate of Roads; this network includes main inter-city roads and access roads for départments' capital cities. Only ten of the network's main roads are partially paved, the paved roads are plagued by dangerous potholes, missing signage, missing barriers and guardrails near roadside hazards, no pavement markings to separate traffic moving in opposite directions; as of May 2011 the country's road infrastructure was rated by the World Bank to be in good condition and noted that country was regional hub with paved roads linking the country to Mali, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Niger.

"trucking cartels and red tape contribute to high transportation costs and diminished international competitiveness." 58% of firms in Burkina Faso identified roads as major business constraint and rehabilitation needs of the main road network are said to be underfunded. There are international airports at numerous smaller airfields. In 2004, the number of airports totaled 23, only 2 of which had paved runways as of 2005. Air Burkina, which began in 1967, is government-run and has a monopoly on domestic service but flies to neighboring countries. Ouagadougou airport handles about 98% percent of all scheduled commercial air traffic in Burkina Faso. Air Burkina and Air France handle about 60% of all scheduled passenger traffic. Between 2005 and 2011, air passenger traffic at Ouagadougou airport grew at an average annual rate of 7.0 percent per annum reaching about 404,726 passengers in 2011 and was estimated to reach 850,000 by 2025. In 2007 Ouagadougou airport was the fifteenth busiest airport in West Africa in passenger volume, just ahead of Port Harcourt and behind Banjul.

The total air cargo at Ouagadougou airport grew 71% from 4,350 tons in 2005 to about 7,448 tons in 2009. The government plans to close the Ouagadougou airport upon construction of the new Ouagadougou-Donsin Airport 35 km northeast of Ouagadougou; the new airport is expected to be completed around 2018 and the government received an $85 million loan from the World Bank to help finance the construction. The government of Burkino Faso believed. There are 622 kilometres of railway in Burkina Faso, of which 517 km run from Ouagadougou to Abidjan, Ivory Coast; as of June 2014 Sitarail operates a passenger train three times a week along the route from Ouagadougou to Abidjan via Banfora, Bobo-Dioulasso and Koudougou. All of the railways in the country are of 1,000 mm metre gauge. Only Ivory Coast is connected to Burkina Faso by rail. Instability in Ivory Coast in 2003 forced a rerouting of rail freight from the Abidjan corridor to ports in Togo and Ghana via the road network. A proposed rail link between Ouagadougou and Pô in Burkina Faso and Kumasi and Boankra in Ghana, has been discussed with Ghanaian officials, feasibility studies are being undertaken to explore this possibility, which would provide rail access to the inland port of Bonakra.

Burkina Faso and Ghana use different rail gauges and this break-of-gauge can be overcome to a greater or lesser extent with a number of methods. In 2006, an Indian proposal surfaced to link the railways in Benin and Togo with landlocked Niger and Burkina Faso. Additionally, a Czech proposal surfaced to link Ghana railways with Burkina Faso; the manganese deposits near Dori are one source of traffic. Burkina Faso would be a participant in the AfricaRail project. In May, 2011 the World Bank reported that Sitarail had recovered well from the political crisis in Ivory Coast but was experiencing financial distress, needed to re-balance its financial structure and find alternative funding for rehabilitation backlog; the following towns of Burkina Faso are served by the country's railways: Banfora Bobo-Dioulasso Koudougou Ouagadougou - national capital Kaya - terminus West Africa Regional Rail Integration This article incorporates public domain material from the CIA World Factbook website https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html.

UN Map of Burkina Faso

Edmund Albert Colson, bushman and pioneer was born in South Australia near Quorn at the southern end of the Flinders Ranges. He achieved recognition as the first person of European descent to cross the Simpson Desert, his father was a farmer of Swedish descent and Colson was the first of eight children. Prior to his 15th birthday in 1896, Colson and his father travelled by sea to Esperance, Western Australia walked 150 miles to the gold-rush district of Norseman. During the next ten years, young Colson gained experience in prospecting, mining and engine driving. In 1904 he married Alice Jane Horne in Kalgoorlie and they remained married until he died, they moved to Victoria in 1917 for construction work, in 1926 he started his own transport business from Healesville to Melbourne. Moving again in 1927 they went to South Australia to work on a new railway line between Oodnadatta and Alice Springs. Over the next four years, Colson travelled extensively in Central Australia and developed a rapport with the aboriginal people of the region.

He was a guide and camel handler for the expeditions to the Petermann and Tomkinson Ranges by Michael Terry in 1930. Colson took up the lease of Bloods Creek station north-west of Oodnadatta in 1931 to run sheep and a local store. Although a number of explorers had probed the Simpson Desert from the mid 1800s, including Charles Sturt and Peter Warburton, none had made a successful crossing on foot. Cecil Madigan had made an aerial reconnaissance in 1929, which proved that the desert was composed of numerous parallel sand dunes, with no evidence of permanent water. In May 1936 after a season of good rains, Colson chose to attempt the crossing from west to east and return using five camels. On 27 May he set off from Mount Etingamba 53 miles north of Bloods Creek with a lone aboriginal companion Eringa Peter, he carried provisions for two months, a compass and maps and travelled due east following the 26th parallel. Facing 140 miles of unknown country, they subsequently traversed over a thousand sand ridges.

He named some hills near the western side after his wife Alice, a dry salt feature Lake Tamblyn after John Tamblyn his school master, the second most influential person in his life after his father. His course took him to Poeppel Corner where the states of Queensland and South Australia meet with the Northern Territory. Colson and Peter reached Birdsville on 11 June, set out for the return journey three days later, he had missed the corner post on the outward trip, but found it on the return journey and took photographs as it was still in good condition after 50 years since its placement. They arrived back at Bloods Creek on 29 June 1936, after 36 days and 600 miles of travel. Colson planned a second crossing in 1938. Following his journey across the Simpson, Colson established the Colson Trading Company at Finke in the Northern Territory, he ran a store and hotel, became well known as a community leader. In 1948 he organised the Finke Amateur Racing Club's first horse race meeting, a resounding success.

Just two years in February 1950 while driving a new motor vehicle home from Adelaide, he collided with a power pole at Balaklava, South Australia and was killed. The Colson Track which runs from the middle of the Simpson Desert to Numery Station near Alice Springs is named after him; the State Library of South Australia has a collection of Colson's papers and maps The Fisher Library at the University of Sydney has a collection of correspondence between Elkin and Colson