1.
Icelanders
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Icelanders are a Germanic ethnic group and nation, native to Iceland. On 17 June 1944, when the Icelandic republic was founded, the language spoken is Icelandic, a North Germanic language, and Lutheranism is the predominant religion. Historical and DNA records indicate that around 60 to 80 percent of the settlers were of Norse origin, Icelanders have had a tumultuous history. Development of the island was due to a lack of interest from the countries controlling it for most of its history, Norway, Denmark–Norway. Through this time, Iceland had relatively little contact with the outside world, the island became independent in union with Denmark in 1918. Since 1944, Iceland has been a republic, and Icelandic society has undergone a modernisation process in the post-independence era. Iceland is a young land mass, having formed an estimated 20 million years ago due to volcanic eruptions on the Mid-Atlantic ridge. The first Viking to sight Iceland was Gardar Svavarsson, who went off due to harsh conditions when sailing from Norway to the Faroe Islands. His reports led to the first efforts to settle the island, flóki Vilgerðarson was the first Norseman to sail to Iceland intentionally. His story is documented in the Landnámabók manuscript, and he is said to have named the island Ísland, the first permanent settler in Iceland is usually considered to have been a Norwegian chieftain named Ingólfur Arnarson. He settled with his family in around 874, at a place he named Bay of Smokes and they traveled 1,000 km in their Viking longships to the island of Iceland. These people were primarily of Norwegian, Irish or Gaelic Scottish origin, about 20-25% of the Icelandic paternal gene pool is of Gaelic origin, with the rest being Nordic. In 930, on the plain near Reykjavík, the chieftains and their families met and established the Alþingi. However, the Alþingi lacked the power to enforce the laws it made, in 1262, struggles between rival chieftains left Iceland so divided that King Haakon IV of Norway was asked to step in as a final arbitrator for all disputes, as part of the Old Covenant. This is known as the Age of the Sturlungs, Iceland was under Norwegian leadership until 1380, when the Royal House of Norway died out. At this point, both Iceland and Norway came under the control of the Danish Crown, with the introduction of absolute monarchy in Denmark, the Icelanders relinquished their autonomy to the crown, including the right to initiate and consent to legislation. In particular, the lack of help in defense led to constant raids by marauding pirates along the Icelandic coasts, unlike Norway, Denmark did not need Icelands fish and homespun wool. This created a deficit in Icelands trade, and no new ships were built as a result
2.
Nobel Prize in Literature
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Though individual works are sometimes cited as being particularly noteworthy, here work refers to an authors work as a whole. The Swedish Academy decides who, if anyone, will receive the prize in any given year, the academy announces the name of the chosen laureate in early October. Although the Nobel Prize in Literature has become the worlds most prestigious literature prize, many authors who have won the prize have fallen into obscurity, while others rejected by the jury remain widely studied and read. The prize has become seen as a political one - a peace prize in literary disguise, whose judges are prejudiced against authors with different political tastes to them. Tim Parks has expressed skepticism that it is possible for Swedish professors, as of 2016,16 of the 113 recipients have been of Scandinavian origin. The Academy has often been alleged to be biased towards European, Nobels vague wording for the criteria for the prize has led to recurrent controversy. In the original Swedish, the word translates as either idealistic or ideal. The Nobel Committees interpretation has varied over the years, in recent years, this means a kind of idealism championing human rights on a broad scale. Though Nobel wrote several wills during his lifetime, the last was written a little over a year before he died, Nobel bequeathed 94% of his total assets,31 million Swedish kronor, to establish and endow the five Nobel Prizes. Due to the level of surrounding the will, it was not until 26 April 1897 that the Storting approved it. The executors of his will were Ragnar Sohlman and Rudolf Lilljequist, the members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee that were to award the Peace Prize were appointed shortly after the will was approved. The prize-awarding organisations followed, the Karolinska Institutet on 7 June, the Swedish Academy on 9 June, the Nobel Foundation then reached an agreement on guidelines for how the Nobel Prize should be awarded. In 1900, the Nobel Foundations newly created statutes were promulgated by King Oscar II, according to Nobels will, the Royal Swedish Academy was to award the Prize in Literature. Each year, the Swedish Academy sends out requests for nominations of candidates for the Nobel Prize in Literature and it is not permitted to nominate oneself. Thousands of requests are sent out each year, and as of 2011 about 220 proposals are returned and these proposals must be received by the Academy by 1 February, after which they are examined by the Nobel Committee. By April, the Academy narrows the field to around twenty candidates, by May, a short list of five names is approved by the Committee. The subsequent four months are spent in reading and reviewing the works of the five candidates. In October, members of the Academy vote and the candidate who receives more than half of the votes is named the Nobel laureate in Literature
3.
August Strindberg
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Johan August Strindberg was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter. From his earliest work, Strindberg developed innovative forms of action, language. He is considered the father of modern Swedish literature and his The Red Room has frequently described as the first modern Swedish novel. In Sweden, Strindberg is known as an essayist, painter, poet, and especially as a novelist and playwright, but in other countries he is known mostly as a playwright. The Royal Theatre rejected his first major play, Master Olof, in 1872, it was not until 1881, at the age of thirty-two, that its première at the New Theatre gave him his theatrical breakthrough. In Miss Julie, characterisation replaces plot as the predominant dramatic element and the role of heredity. During the 1890s he spent significant time abroad engaged in scientific experiments, a series of psychotic attacks between 1894 and 1896 led to his hospitalization and return to Sweden. Under the influence of the ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg, he resolved after his recovery to become the Zola of the Occult, in 1898 he returned to play-writing with To Damascus, which, like The Great Highway, is a dream-play of spiritual pilgrimage. He also returned to writing historical drama, the genre with which he had begun his play-writing career and he helped to run the Intimate Theatre from 1907, a small-scale theatre, modeled on Max Reinhardts Kammerspielhaus, that staged his chamber plays. Strindberg was born on 22 January 1849 in Stockholm, Sweden, in his autobiographical novel The Son of a Servant, Strindberg describes a childhood affected by emotional insecurity, poverty, religious fanaticism and neglect. When he was seven, Strindberg moved to Norrtullsgatan on the northern, a year later the family moved near to Sabbatsberg, where they stayed for three years before returning to Norrtullsgatan. He attended a school in Klara for four years, an experience that haunted him in his adult life. He was moved to the school in Jakob in 1860, which he found far more pleasant, in the autumn of 1861, he was moved to the Stockholm Lyceum, a progressive private school for middle-class boys, where he remained for six years. As a child he had a keen interest in science, photography. His mother, Strindberg recalled later with bitterness, always resented her sons intelligence and she died when he was thirteen, and although his grief lasted for only three months, in later life he came to feel a sense of loss and longing for an idealized maternal figure. Less than a year after her death, his father married the childrens governess, according to his sisters, Strindberg came to regard them as his worst enemies. He passed his exam in May 1867 and enrolled at the Uppsala University. Strindberg spent the few years in Uppsala and Stockholm, alternately studying for exams
4.
Sigmund Freud
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Sigmund Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient and a psychoanalyst. Freud was born to Galician Jewish parents in the Moravian town of Freiberg and he qualified as a doctor of medicine in 1881 at the University of Vienna. Upon completing his habilitation in 1885, he was appointed a docent in neuropathology, Freud lived and worked in Vienna, having set up his clinical practice there in 1886. In 1938 Freud left Austria to escape the Nazis and he died in exile in the United Kingdom in 1939. In creating psychoanalysis, Freud developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association and discovered transference, Freuds redefinition of sexuality to include its infantile forms led him to formulate the Oedipus complex as the central tenet of psychoanalytical theory. His analysis of dreams as wish-fulfillments provided him with models for the analysis of symptom formation. On this basis Freud elaborated his theory of the unconscious and went on to develop a model of psychic structure comprising id, in his later work Freud developed a wide-ranging interpretation and critique of religion and culture. Though in overall decline as a diagnostic and clinical practice, psychoanalysis remains influential within psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy, nonetheless, Freuds work has suffused contemporary Western thought and popular culture. In the words of W. H. Audens 1940 poetic tribute, by the time of Freuds death, Freud was born to Jewish parents in the Moravian town of Freiberg, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the first of eight children. Both of his parents were from Galicia, in modern-day Ukraine and his father, Jakob Freud, a wool merchant, had two sons, Emanuel and Philipp, by his first marriage. Jakobs family were Hasidic Jews, and although Jakob himself had moved away from the tradition and he and Freuds mother, Amalia Nathansohn, who was 20 years younger and his third wife, were married by Rabbi Isaac Noah Mannheimer on 29 July 1855. They were struggling financially and living in a room, in a locksmiths house at Schlossergasse 117 when their son Sigmund was born. He was born with a caul, which his mother saw as an omen for the boys future. In 1859, the Freud family left Freiberg, Freuds half brothers emigrated to Manchester, England, parting him from the inseparable playmate of his early childhood, Emanuels son, John. Jakob Freud took his wife and two children firstly to Leipzig and then in 1860 to Vienna where four sisters and a brother were born, Rosa, Marie, Adolfine, Paula, in 1865, the nine-year-old Freud entered the Leopoldstädter Kommunal-Realgymnasium, a prominent high school. He proved an outstanding pupil and graduated from the Matura in 1873 with honors and he loved literature and was proficient in German, French, Italian, Spanish, English, Hebrew, Latin and Greek. Freud entered the University of Vienna at age 17, in 1876, Freud spent four weeks at Clauss zoological research station in Trieste, dissecting hundreds of eels in an inconclusive search for their male reproductive organs. He graduated with an MD in 1881, in 1882, Freud began his medical career at the Vienna General Hospital
5.
Knut Hamsun
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Knut Hamsun was a major Norwegian writer, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. Hamsuns work spans more than 70 years and shows variation with regard to the subject, perspective and he published more than 20 novels, a collection of poetry, some short stories and plays, a travelogue, and some essays. The young Hamsun objected to realism and naturalism and he argued that the main object of modernist literature should be the intricacies of the human mind, that writers should describe the whisper of blood, and the pleading of bone marrow. Hamsun is considered the leader of the Neo-Romantic revolt at the turn of the 20th century, with such as Hunger, Mysteries, Pan. His later works—in particular his Nordland novels—were influenced by the Norwegian new realism, portraying life in rural Norway and often employing local dialect, irony. Hamsun is considered to be one of the most influential and innovative literary stylists of the past hundred years, isaac Bashevis Singer called Hamsun the father of the modern school of literature in his every aspect—his subjectiveness, his fragmentariness, his use of flashbacks, his lyricism. The whole modern school of fiction in the twentieth century stems from Hamsun, on August 4,2009, the Knut Hamsun Centre was opened in Hamarøy. Since 1916, several of Hamsuns works have been adapted into motion pictures, Knut Hamsun was born as Knud Pedersen in Lom in the Gudbrandsdal valley of Norway. He was the son of Tora Olsdatter and Peder Pedersen. When he was three, the moved to Hamsund, Hamarøy in Nordland. They were poor and an uncle had invited them to farm his land for him, at nine Knut was separated from his family and lived with his uncle Hans Olsen, who needed help with the post office he ran. Olsen used to beat and starve his nephew, and Hamsun later stated that his chronic nervous difficulties were due to the way his uncle treated him. In 1874 he finally escaped back to Lom, for the five years he did any job for money, he was a store clerk, peddler, shoemakers apprentice, sheriffs assistant. At 17 he became an apprentice, at about the same time he started to write. He asked businessman Erasmus Zahl to give him significant monetary support, Hamsun later used Zahl as a model for the character Mack appearing in his novels Pan, Dreamers, and Benoni and Rosa. He spent several years in America, traveling and working at various jobs, working all those odd jobs paid off, and he published his first book about it, Den Gaadefulde, En Kjærlighedshistorie fra Nordland. In his second novel Bjørger, he attempted to imitate Bjørnstjerne Bjørnsons writing style of the Icelandic saga narrative, the melodramatic story follows a poet Bjørger and his love for Laura. This book was published under the pseudonym Knud Pedersen Hamsund and this book later served as the basis for Victoria, En Kærligheds Historie
6.
Sinclair Lewis
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Harry Sinclair Lewis was an American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright. His works are known for their insightful and critical views of American capitalism and materialism between the wars and he is also respected for his strong characterizations of modern working women. H. L. Mencken wrote of him, there was ever a novelist among us with a call to the trade. It is this red-haired tornado from the Minnesota wilds and he has been honored by the U. S. Postal Service with a postage stamp in the Great Americans series. Born February 7,1885, in the village of Sauk Centre, Minnesota, Sinclair Lewis began reading books at a young age and he had two siblings, Fred and Claude. His father, Edwin J. Lewis, was a physician, Lewiss mother, Emma Kermott Lewis, died in 1891. The following year, Edwin Lewis married Isabel Warner, whose company young Lewis apparently enjoyed, throughout his lonely boyhood, the ungainly Lewis—tall, extremely thin, stricken with acne and somewhat pop-eyed—had trouble gaining friends and pined after various local girls. At the age of 13 he unsuccessfully ran away from home, Lewis was also nonreligious and an atheist. In late 1902 Lewis left home for a year at Oberlin Academy to qualify for acceptance by Yale University, while at Oberlin, he developed a religious enthusiasm that waxed and waned for much of his remaining teenage years. Lewiss unprepossessing looks, fresh country manners and seemingly self-important loquacity made it difficult for him to win and keep friends at Oberlin and he did initiate a few relatively long-lived friendships among students and professors, some of whom recognized his promise as a writer. Lewiss earliest published creative work—romantic poetry and short sketches—appeared in the Yale Courant, after graduation Lewis moved from job to job and from place to place in an effort to make ends meet, write fiction for publication and to chase away boredom. While working for newspapers and publishing houses, he developed a facility for turning out shallow and he also earned money by selling plots to Jack London, including one for the latters unfinished novel The Assassination Bureau, Ltd. Lewiss first published book was Hike and the Aeroplane, a Tom Swift-style potboiler that appeared in 1912 under the pseudonym Tom Graham. Sinclair Lewiss first serious novel, Our Mr. Wrenn, The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man, appeared in 1914, followed by The Trail of the Hawk, A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life and The Job. That same year saw the publication of another potboiler, The Innocents, A Story for Lovers. Free Air, another refurbished serial story, was published in 1919, in 1914 Lewis married Grace Livingston Hegger, an editor at Vogue magazine. They had one son, Wells Lewis, named after British author H. G. Wells, Wells Lewis was killed in action while serving in the U. S. Army in World War II during the rescue of the Lost Battalion in the Forêt de Champ in France. On May 14,1928, he married Dorothy Thompson, a newspaper columnist
7.
Upton Sinclair
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Upton Sinclair Jr. was an American writer who wrote nearly 100 books and other works in several genres. Sinclairs work was well-known and popular in the first half of the twentieth century, in 1919, he published The Brass Check, a muckraking exposé of American journalism that publicized the issue of yellow journalism and the limitations of the “free press” in the United States. Four years after publication of The Brass Check, the first code of ethics for journalists was created, Time magazine called him a man with every gift except humor and silence. He is also remembered for the line, It is difficult to get a man to understand something. Many of his novels can be read as historical works, writing during the Progressive Era, Sinclair describes the world of industrialized America from both the working mans point of view and the industrialist. Novels like King Coal, The Coal War, Oil. and The Flivver King describe the conditions of the coal, oil. He attacked J. P. Morgan, whom many regarded as a hero for ending the Panic of 1907, the Flivver King describes the rise of Henry Ford, his wage reform, and the companys Sociological Department to his decline into antisemitism as publisher of The Dearborn Independent. King Coal confronts John D. Rockefeller Jr. and his role in the 1913 Ludlow Massacre in the fields of Colorado. Sinclair was an outspoken socialist and ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a nominee from the Socialist Party, Sinclair was born in Baltimore, Maryland, to Upton Beall Sinclair and Priscilla Harden. His father was a salesman whose alcoholism shadowed his sons childhood. Priscilla Harden Sinclair was a strict Episcopalian who disliked alcohol, tea, as a child, Sinclair slept either on sofas or cross-ways on his parents bed. When his father was out for the night, he would sleep alone in the bed with his mother, Sinclair did not get along with her when he became older because of her strict rules and refusal to allow him independence. His mothers family was affluent, her parents were very prosperous in Baltimore. Sinclair had wealthy maternal grandparents with whom he often stayed and this gave him insight into how both the rich and the poor lived during the late nineteenth century. Living in two social settings affected him and greatly influenced his books, as he was growing up, Uptons family moved frequently as his father was not successful in his career. He developed a love for reading when he was five years old and he read every book his mother owned for a deeper understanding of the world. He did not start school until he was ten years old and he was deficient in math and worked hard to catch up quickly because of his embarrassment. In 1888, the Sinclair family moved to Queens, New York, Upton entered the City College of New York five days before his 14th birthday, on September 15,1892
8.
Bertolt Brecht
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Eugen Bertolt Friedrich Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director of the 20th century. Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht was born in February 1898 in Augsburg, Bavaria, Brechts mother was a devout Protestant and his father a Catholic. The modest house where he was born is preserved as a Brecht Museum. His father worked for a mill, becoming its managing director in 1914. Thanks to his mothers influence, Brecht knew the Bible, a familiarity that would have an effect on his writing. From her, too, came the image of the self-denying woman that recurs in his drama. Brechts home life was comfortably middle class, despite what his occasional attempt to claim peasant origins implied, at school in Augsburg he met Caspar Neher, with whom he formed a lifelong creative partnership. Neher designed many of the sets for Brechts dramas and helped to forge the distinctive visual iconography of their epic theatre, when Brecht was 16, the First World War broke out. Initially enthusiastic, Brecht soon changed his mind on seeing his classmates swallowed by the army and his expulsion was only prevented through the intervention of his religion teacher. On his fathers recommendation, Brecht sought a loophole by registering for a course at Munich University. There he studied drama with Arthur Kutscher, who inspired in the young Brecht an admiration for the iconoclastic dramatist, from July 1916, Brechts newspaper articles began appearing under the new name Bert Brecht. Brecht was drafted into service in the autumn of 1918, only to be posted back to Augsburg as a medical orderly in a military VD clinic. In July 1919, Brecht and Paula Banholzer had a son, some time in either 1920 or 1921, Brecht took a small part in the political cabaret of the Munich comedian Karl Valentin. Brechts diaries for the few years record numerous visits to see Valentin perform. Brecht compared Valentin to Charlie Chaplin, for his virtually complete rejection of mimicry and he did short sketches in which he played refractory employees, orchestral musicians or photographers, who hated their employers and made them look ridiculous. The employer was played by his partner, Liesl Karlstadt, a popular woman comedian who used to pad herself out, anyone can be creative, he quipped, its rewriting other people thats a challenge. Brecht completed his second play, Drums in the Night. Between November 1921 and April 1922 Brecht made acquaintance with many people in the Berlin cultural scene
9.
Ernest Hemingway
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Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style had a influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the mid-1950s, and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954 and he published seven novels, six short story collections, and two non-fiction works. Additional works, including three novels, four short story collections, and three works, were published posthumously. Many of his works are considered classics of American literature, Hemingway was raised in Oak Park, Illinois. After high school, he reported for a few months for The Kansas City Star, in 1918, he was seriously wounded and returned home. His wartime experiences formed the basis for his novel A Farewell to Arms, in 1921, he married Hadley Richardson, the first of his four wives. The couple moved to Paris, where he worked as a correspondent and fell under the influence of the modernist writers. He published his novel, The Sun Also Rises, in 1926. Martha Gellhorn became his wife in 1940, they separated when he met Mary Welsh in London during World War II. He was present at the Normandy landings and the liberation of Paris, Hemingway maintained permanent residences in Key West, Florida, and Cuba, and in 1959, he bought a house in Ketchum, Idaho, where he killed himself in mid-1961. Ernest Miller Hemingway was born on July 21,1899, in Oak Park, Illinois and his father, Clarence Edmonds Hemingway, was a physician, and his mother, Grace Hall Hemingway, was a musician. Both were well-educated and well-respected in Oak Park, a community about which resident Frank Lloyd Wright said. For a short period after their marriage, Clarence and Grace Hemingway lived at first with Graces father, Ernest Hall, their first sons namesake. Later, Ernest Hemingway would say that he disliked his name, the family eventually moved into a seven-bedroom home in a respectable neighborhood with a music studio for Grace and a medical office for Clarence. Hemingways mother frequently performed in concerts around the village, as an adult, Hemingway professed to hate his mother, although biographer Michael S. Reynolds points out that Hemingway mirrored her energy and enthusiasm. The family spent summers at Windemere on Walloon Lake, near Petoskey, from 1913 until 1917, Hemingway attended Oak Park and River Forest High School. He took part in a number of sports—boxing, track and field, water polo and he excelled in English classes, and with his sister Marcelline, performed in the school orchestra for two years
10.
Abbey
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An abbey is a complex of buildings used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. It provides a place for activities, work and housing of Christian monks. The concept of the abbey has developed over centuries from the early monastic ways of religious men and women where they would live isolated from the lay community about them. Religious life in an abbey may be monastic, an abbey may be the home of an enclosed religious order or may be open to visitors. The layout of the church and associated buildings of an abbey often follows a set plan determined by the religious order. Abbeys are often self-sufficient while using any abundance of produce or skill to provide care to the poor and needy, some abbeys offer accommodation to people who are seeking spiritual retreat. There are many famous abbeys across Europe, the earliest known Christian monasteries were groups of huts built near the residence of a famous ascetic or other holy person. Disciples wished to be close to their man or woman in order to study their doctrine or imitate their way of life. In the earliest times of Christian monasticism, ascetics would live in social isolation and they would subsist whilst donating any excess produce to the poor. However, increasing religious fervor about the ways and or persecution of them would drive them further away from their community. For instance, the cells and huts of anchorites have been found in the deserts of Egypt, in 312 AD, Anthony the Great retired to the Thebaid region of Egypt to escape the persecution of the Emperor Maximian. Anthony was the best known of the anchorites of his due to his degree of austerity, sanctity. The deeper he withdrew into the wilderness, the more numerous his disciples became and they refused to be separated from him and built their cells close to him. This became a first true monastic community, Anthony, according to Johann August Wilhelm Neander, inadvertently became the founder of a new mode of living in common, Coenobitism. At Tabennae on the Nile, in Upper Egypt, Saint Pachomius laid the foundations for the life by arranging everything in an organized manner. He built several monasteries, each with about 1,600 separate cells laid out in lines and these cells formed an encampment where the monks slept and performed some of their manual tasks. There were nearby large halls such as the church, refectory, kitchen, infirmary, an enclosure protecting all these buildings gave the settlement the appearance of a walled village. This layout, known as the laurae, became popular throughout Palestine, as well as the laurae, communities known as caenobia developed
11.
Clervaux
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Clervaux is a commune and town in northern Luxembourg, administrative capital of the canton of Clervaux. The towns arms, granted in 1896, show three blackbirds on a ground in the chief of a red shield, as a variation of the arms of the former Lords of Clervaux. The city was the site of fighting during World War II, in the December 1944 Battle of Clervaux. As of 2015, the town of Clervaux, which lies in the south-west of the commune, has a population of 1,309. A U. S. Sherman tank that participated in the battle for Clervaux, the Abbey of St. Maurice and St. Maur is situated close to the town of Clervaux. Notable associations include Halldór Laxness, 1902–1998, the Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic writer, a Roman Catholic mission to Scandinavia has for many years maintained a base at the abbey. The town is home to a parish church, built between 1910 and 1912 in the Rheinisch-Romanesque style, and to an eighteenth century chapel. Media related to Clervaux at Wikimedia Commons http, //www. tourisme-clervaux. lu/
12.
Luxembourg
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Luxembourg /ˈlʌksəmbɜːrɡ/, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east and its culture, people and languages are highly intertwined with its neighbours, making it essentially a mixture of French and Germanic cultures. It comprises two regions, the Oesling in the north as part of the Ardennes massif. With an area of 2,586 square kilometres, it is one of the smallest sovereign states in Europe, Luxembourg had a population of 524,853 in October 2012, ranking it the 8th least-populous country in Europe. As a representative democracy with a monarch, it is headed by a Grand Duke, Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg. Luxembourg is a country, with an advanced economy and the worlds highest GDP per capita. Luxembourg is a member of the European Union, OECD, United Nations, NATO, and Benelux, reflecting its political consensus in favour of economic, political. The city of Luxembourg, which is the capital and largest city, is the seat of several institutions. Luxembourg served on the United Nations Security Council for the years 2013 and 2014, around this fort, a town gradually developed, which became the centre of a state of great strategic value. In the 14th and early 15th centuries, three members of the House of Luxembourg reigned as Holy Roman Emperors, in the following centuries, Luxembourgs fortress was steadily enlarged and strengthened by its successive occupants, the Bourbons, Habsburgs, Hohenzollerns and the French. After the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, Luxembourg was disputed between Prussia and the Netherlands and this arrangement was revised by the 1839 First Treaty of London, from which date Luxembourgs full independence is reckoned. In 1842 Luxembourg joined the German Customs Union, the King of the Netherlands remained Head of State as Grand Duke of Luxembourg, maintaining a personal union between the two countries until 1890. At the death of William III, the throne of the Netherlands passed to his daughter Wilhelmina and this allowed Germany the military advantage of controlling and expanding the railways there. In August 1914, Imperial Germany violated Luxembourgs neutrality in the war by invading it in the war against France and this allowed Germany to use the railway lines, while at the same time denying them to France. Nevertheless, despite the German occupation, Luxembourg was allowed to maintain much of its independence, in 1940, after the outbreak of World War II, Luxembourgs neutrality was again violated when the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany entered the country, entirely without justification. A government in exile based in London supported the Allies, sending a group of volunteers who participated in the Normandy invasion. Luxembourg was liberated in September 1944, and became a member of the United Nations in 1945. Luxembourgs neutral status under the constitution formally ended in 1948, in 2005, a referendum on the EU treaty establishing a constitution for Europe was held
13.
Benedict of Nursia
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Benedict of Nursia is a Christian saint, who is venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Catholic Church, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, the Anglican Communion and Old Catholic Churches. He is a saint of Europe. Benedict founded twelve communities for monks at Subiaco, Lazio in Italy, the Order of Saint Benedict is of later origin and, moreover, not an order as commonly understood but merely a confederation of autonomous congregations. Benedicts main achievement is his Rule of Saint Benedict, containing precepts for his monks and it is heavily influenced by the writings of John Cassian, and shows strong affinity with the Rule of the Master. But it also has a spirit of balance, moderation and reasonableness. As a result, his Rule became one of the most influential religious rules in Western Christendom, for this reason, Benedict is often called the founder of western monasticism. The authenticity of this work has been disputed, especially by Dr Francis Clarke in his two volume work The Pseudo-Gregorian Dialogues. Book Two consists of a prologue and thirty-eight succinct chapters, gregory’s account of this saint’s life is not, however, a biography in the modern sense of the word. It provides instead a spiritual portrait of the gentle, disciplined abbot, in a letter to Bishop Maximilian of Syracuse, Gregory states his intention for his Dialogues, saying they are a kind of floretum of the most striking miracles of Italian holy men. Gregory did not set out to write a chronological, historically anchored story of Saint Benedict, but he did base his anecdotes on direct testimony. These followers, he says, are Constantinus, who succeeded Benedict as Abbot of Monte Cassino, Valentinianus, Simplicius, and Honoratus, who was abbot of Subiaco when St Gregory wrote his Dialogues. Gregory’s Dialogues Book Two, then, a medieval hagiography cast as a conversation between the Pope and his deacon Peter, is designed to teach spiritual lessons. He was the son of a Roman noble of Nursia, the modern Norcia, a tradition which Bede accepts makes him a twin with his sister Scholastica. If 480 is accepted as the year of his birth, the year of his abandonment of his studies, Saint Gregorys narrative makes it impossible to suppose him younger than 19 or 20 at the time. He was at the beginning of life, and he had at his disposal the means to a career as a Roman noble, clearly he was not a child. Benedict does not seem to have left Rome for the purpose of becoming a hermit and he took his old nurse with him as a servant and they settled down to live in Enfide. Enfide, which the tradition of Subiaco identifies with the modern Affile, is in the Simbruini mountains, about forty miles from Rome, a short distance from Enfide is the entrance to a narrow, gloomy valley, penetrating the mountains and leading directly to Subiaco. The cave has a large triangular-shaped opening and is ten feet deep
14.
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
15.
Martyr
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A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, refusing to renounce, or refusing to advocate a belief or cause as demanded by an external party. This refusal to comply with the presented demands results in the punishment or execution of the martyr by the oppressor, originally applied only to those who suffered for their religious beliefs, the term is now often used in connection with people imprisoned or killed for espousing a political cause. Most martyrs are considered holy or are respected by their followers, becoming symbols of exceptional leadership, Martyrs play significant roles in religions. Similarly, martyrs have had effects in secular life, including specific figures such as Socrates, as well as in politics. In its original meaning, the martyr, meaning witness, was used in the secular sphere as well as in the New Testament of the Bible. The term, in this sense, entered the English language as a loanword. The death of a martyr or the value attributed to it is called martyrdom, the early Christians who first began to use the term martyr in its new sense saw Jesus as the first and greatest martyr, on account of his crucifixion. The early Christians appear to have seen Jesus as the archetypal martyr, the word martyr is used in English to describe a wide variety of people. However, the table presents a general outline of common features present in stereotypical martyrdoms. Examples of this are found in the Mahabharata, during the great war which commenced, even Arjuna was brought down with doubts, e. g. attachment, sorrow, fear. This is where Krishna instructs Arjuna how to carry out his duty as a righteous warrior, Martyrdom in Judaism is one of the main examples of Kiddush Hashem, meaning sanctification of Gods name through public dedication to Jewish practice. Religious martyrdom is considered one of the significant contributions of Hellenistic Judaism to Western Civilization. Frend, Judaism was itself a religion of martyrdom and it was this Jewish psychology of martyrdom that inspired Christian martyrdom. In Christianity, a martyr, in accordance with the meaning of the original Greek martys in the New Testament, is one who brings a testimony, in particular, the testimony is that of the Christian Gospel, or more generally, the Word of God. A Christian witness is a biblical witness whether or not death follows, however, over time many Christian testimonies were rejected, and the witnesses put to death, and the word martyr developed its present sense. Where death ensues, the follow the example of Jesus in offering up their lives for truth. The concept of Jesus as a martyr has recently received greater attention, analyses of the Gospel passion narratives have led many scholars to conclude that they are martyrdom accounts in terms of genre and style. Several scholars have concluded that Paul the Apostle understood Jesus death as a martyrdom
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Saint Kilian
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Saint Kilian, also spelled Killian, was an Irish missionary bishop and the Apostle of Franconia, where he began his labours towards the end of the 7th century. There are several biographies of him, the oldest texts which refer to him are an 8th-century necrology at Würzburg and the notice by Hrabanus Maurus in his martyrology. The name has several variations in spelling, in Ireland, the preferred spelling is Cillian, the name appears thus in the Irish liturgical calendar. According to Irish sources, Kilian was born to parents in approximately the year 640 in Cloughballybeg, near Mullagh, County Cavan. Some records state that Kilian served as a monk in the monastery at Hy, Hy being an early name for what was later known as Iona. He began his education in Rosscarbery, County Cork and completed it in Tuosist in County Kerry, in the summer of 686 Kilian, with eleven companions, travelled through Gaul to Rome to receive missionary faculties from the pope, arriving in late autumn and meeting with Pope Conon. From there they traveled to the castle of Würzburg, inhabited by the Thuringian Duke Gozbert, the original group separated — some departing to seek other fields of missionary work, while St. Kilian with two companions, the priest Colmán and the deacon Totnan, remained in Würzburg. Kilian told the Duke that he was in violation of sacred scripture by being married to his brothers widow and their skulls, inlaid with precious stones, have been preserved to this day. On St Kilians day, a case containing the three skulls is removed from a crypt, paraded through the streets before large crowds. Statues of these three saints line the famous Saints Bridge across the River Main, St. Kilian is one of the patron saints for sufferers of rheumatism. Kilian is the saint of the parish of Tuosist, near Kenmare in County Kerry. A church and holy well are named after him and his feast day, July 8, is celebrated with a pattern when crowds visit the well for prayers. He is also the saint of Paderborn, Germany. Kilian is usually portrayed bearing a bishops mitre and wielding a sword, the Kiliani-Volksfest is the main civil and religious festival in the region around Würzburg. St. Kilian’s Heritage Centre, is located in the village of Mullagh in County Cavan, built by the local community in association with the Diocese of Würzburg in southern Germany, the Heritage Centre features many relics and replicas of the saint. The German School in Dublin, Ireland is named after St. Kilian as a tribute to the exchange of education between the two countries of Ireland and Germany. St. Kilians Abbey, Würzburg St. Kilians Church, Heilbronn Kilianstein Moore, london, Smith, Elder & Co. O Riain-Raedel, Dagmar
17.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
18.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
19.
Theology
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Theology is the critical study of the nature of the divine. It is taught as a discipline, typically in universities, seminaries. Augustine of Hippo defined the Latin equivalent, theologia, as reasoning or discussion concerning the Deity, the term can, however, be used for a variety of different disciplines or fields of study. Theologians use various forms of analysis and argument to help understand, explain, test, critique, the English equivalent theology had evolved by 1362. Greek theologia was used with the discourse on god in the fourth century BC by Plato in The Republic, Book ii. Drawing on Greek Stoic sources, the Latin writer Varro distinguished three forms of discourse, mythical, rational and civil. Theologos, closely related to theologia, appears once in some manuscripts, in the heading to the book of Revelation, apokalypsis ioannoy toy theologoy. The Latin author Boethius, writing in the early 6th century, used theologia to denote a subdivision of philosophy as a subject of study, dealing with the motionless. Boethius definition influenced medieval Latin usage, Theology can also now be used in a derived sense to mean a system of theoretical principles, an ideology. They suggest the term is appropriate in religious contexts that are organized differently. Kalam. does not hold the place in Muslim thought that theology does in Christianity. To find an equivalent for theology in the Christian sense it is necessary to have recourse to several disciplines, and to the usul al-fiqh as much as to kalam. Jose Ignacio Cabezon, who argues that the use of theology is appropriate, can only do so, he says, I take theology not to be restricted to its etymological meaning. In that latter sense, Buddhism is of course atheological, rejecting as it does the notion of God, within Hindu philosophy, there is a solid and ancient tradition of philosophical speculation on the nature of the universe, of God and of the Atman. The Sanskrit word for the schools of Hindu philosophy is Darshana. Nevertheless, Jewish theology historically has been active and highly significant for Christian. It is sometimes claimed, however, that the Jewish analogue of Christian theological discussion would more properly be Rabbinical discussion of Jewish law, the history of the study of theology in institutions of higher education is as old as the history of such institutions themselves. Modern Western universities evolved from the institutions and cathedral schools of Western Europe during the High Middle Ages
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Philosophy
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Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. The term was coined by Pythagoras. Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument and systematic presentation, classic philosophical questions include, Is it possible to know anything and to prove it. However, philosophers might also pose more practical and concrete questions such as, is it better to be just or unjust. Historically, philosophy encompassed any body of knowledge, from the time of Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle to the 19th century, natural philosophy encompassed astronomy, medicine and physics. For example, Newtons 1687 Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy later became classified as a book of physics, in the 19th century, the growth of modern research universities led academic philosophy and other disciplines to professionalize and specialize. In the modern era, some investigations that were part of philosophy became separate academic disciplines, including psychology, sociology. Other investigations closely related to art, science, politics, or other pursuits remained part of philosophy, for example, is beauty objective or subjective. Are there many scientific methods or just one, is political utopia a hopeful dream or hopeless fantasy. Major sub-fields of academic philosophy include metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy, logic, philosophy of science, since the 20th century, professional philosophers contribute to society primarily as professors, researchers and writers. Traditionally, the term referred to any body of knowledge. In this sense, philosophy is related to religion, mathematics, natural science, education. This division is not obsolete but has changed, Natural philosophy has split into the various natural sciences, especially astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology and cosmology. Moral philosophy has birthed the social sciences, but still includes value theory, metaphysical philosophy has birthed formal sciences such as logic, mathematics and philosophy of science, but still includes epistemology, cosmology and others. Many philosophical debates that began in ancient times are still debated today, colin McGinn and others claim that no philosophical progress has occurred during that interval. Chalmers and others, by contrast, see progress in philosophy similar to that in science, in one general sense, philosophy is associated with wisdom, intellectual culture and a search for knowledge. In that sense, all cultures and literate societies ask philosophical questions such as how are we to live, a broad and impartial conception of philosophy then, finds a reasoned inquiry into such matters as reality, morality and life in all world civilizations. Socrates was an influential philosopher, who insisted that he possessed no wisdom but was a pursuer of wisdom
21.
Nordic countries
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The Nordic countries or Nordics are a geographical and cultural region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic, where they are most commonly known as Norden. They consist of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, the population of the Nordic countries are mainly Scandinavian or Finnish, with Greenlandic Inuit and the Sami people as minorities. Of todays native languages, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, the non-Germanic languages spoken are Finnish, Greenlandic and several Sami languages. The main religion is Lutheran Christianity, the Nordic countries have much in common in their way of life, history, their use of Scandinavian languages and social structure. Politically, Nordic countries do not form an entity. Especially in English, Scandinavia is sometimes used as a synonym for the Nordic countries, Scandinavian Peninsula on the other hand covers mainland Norway and Sweden as well as the northernmost part of Finland. At 3,425,804 square kilometers, the area of the Nordic countries would form the 7th-largest country in the world. Uninhabitable icecaps and glaciers comprise about half of area, mostly in Greenland. In January 2013, the region had a population of around 26 million people, the Nordic countries cluster near the top in numerous metrics of national performance, including education, economic competitiveness, civil liberties, quality of life, and human development. Although the area is linguistically heterogeneous, with three unrelated groups, the common linguistic heritage is one of the factors making up the Nordic identity. The North Germanic languages Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are considered mutually intelligible and these languages are taught in school throughout the Nordic countries. Swedish, for example, is a subject in Finnish schools. Danish is mandatory in Faroese and Greenlandic schools, as these states are a part of the Danish Realm. Iceland also teaches Danish, since Iceland too was a part of the Danish Realm until 1918, there is a high degree of income redistribution and little social unrest. The Nordic countries consists of historical territories of the Scandinavian countries, areas that share a common history and it is meant unambiguously to refer to this larger group, since the term Scandinavia is narrower and sometimes ambiguous. The Nordic countries are considered to unambiguously refer to Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The term is derived indirectly from the local term Norden, used in the Scandinavian languages, unlike the Nordic countries, the term Norden is in the singular. The demonym is nordbo, literally meaning northern dweller, especially outside of the Nordic region the term Scandinavia is often used incorrectly as a synonym for the Nordic countries
22.
Socialism
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Social ownership may refer to forms of public, collective, or cooperative ownership, to citizen ownership of equity, or to any combination of these. Although there are varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them. Socialist economic systems can be divided into both non-market and market forms, non-market socialism aims to circumvent the inefficiencies and crises traditionally associated with capital accumulation and the profit system. Profits generated by these firms would be controlled directly by the workforce of each firm or accrue to society at large in the form of a social dividend, the feasibility and exact methods of resource allocation and calculation for a socialist system are the subjects of the socialist calculation debate. Core dichotomies associated with these concerns include reformism versus revolutionary socialism, the term is frequently used to draw contrast to the political system of the Soviet Union, which critics argue operated in an authoritarian fashion. By the 1920s, social democracy and communism became the two dominant political tendencies within the international socialist movement, by this time, Socialism emerged as the most influential secular movement of the twentieth century, worldwide. Socialist parties and ideas remain a force with varying degrees of power and influence in all continents. Today, some socialists have also adopted the causes of social movements. The origin of the term socialism may be traced back and attributed to a number of originators, in addition to significant historical shifts in the usage, for Andrew Vincent, The word ‘socialism’ finds its root in the Latin sociare, which means to combine or to share. The related, more technical term in Roman and then medieval law was societas and this latter word could mean companionship and fellowship as well as the more legalistic idea of a consensual contract between freemen. The term socialism was created by Henri de Saint-Simon, one of the founders of what would later be labelled utopian socialism. Simon coined socialism as a contrast to the doctrine of individualism. They presented socialism as an alternative to liberal individualism based on the ownership of resources. The term socialism is attributed to Pierre Leroux, and to Marie Roch Louis Reybaud in France, the term communism also fell out of use during this period, despite earlier distinctions between socialism and communism from the 1840s. An early distinction between socialism and communism was that the former aimed to only socialise production while the latter aimed to socialise both production and consumption. However, by 1888 Marxists employed the term socialism in place of communism, linguistically, the contemporary connotation of the words socialism and communism accorded with the adherents and opponents cultural attitude towards religion. In Christian Europe, of the two, communism was believed to be the atheist way of life, in Protestant England, the word communism was too culturally and aurally close to the Roman Catholic communion rite, hence English atheists denoted themselves socialists. Friedrich Engels argued that in 1848, at the time when the Communist Manifesto was published, socialism was respectable on the continent and this latter branch of socialism produced the communist work of Étienne Cabet in France and Wilhelm Weitling in Germany
23.
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
24.
Cinema of the United States
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The cinema of the United States, often metonymously referred to as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. The dominant style of American cinema is Classical Hollywood Cinema, which developed from 1917-1960, while the French Lumière Brothers are generally credited with the birth of modern cinema, it is American cinema that soon became the most dominant force in an emerging industry. Since the 1920s, the American film industry has grossed more money every year than that of any other country, in 1878, Eadweard Muybridge demonstrated the power of photography to capture motion. In 1894, the worlds first commercial motion picture exhibition was given in New York City, the United States was in the forefront of sound film development in the following decades. Since the early 20th century, the U. S. film industry has largely been based in and around Hollywood, Los Angeles, director D. W. Griffith was central to the development of film grammar. Orson Welless Citizen Kane is frequently cited in critics polls as the greatest film of all time. T, the Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, Titanic, Avatar, The Avengers, Furious 7, Jurassic World, and Star Wars, The Force Awakens. Today, American film studios collectively generate several hundred movies every year, muybridges accomplishment led inventors everywhere to attempt to make similar devices that would capture such motion. In the United States, Thomas Edison was among the first to produce such a device, the history of cinema in the United States can trace its roots to the East Coast where, at one time, Fort Lee, New Jersey was the motion picture capital of America. The industry got its start at the end of the 19th century with the construction of Thomas Edisons Black Maria, in 1909, a forerunner of Universal Studios, the Champion Film Company, built the first studio. They were quickly followed by others who either built new studios or who leased facilities in Fort Lee, such notables as Mary Pickford got their start at Biograph Studios. In New York, the Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, was built during the silent film era, was used by the Marx Brothers, the Edison Studios were located in the Bronx. Chelsea, Manhattan was also frequently used, other major centers of film production also included Chicago, Florida, Texas, California, and Cuba. The film patents wars of the early 20th century led to the spread of film companies across the U. S and they started filming on a vacant lot near Georgia Street in downtown Los Angeles. While there, the decided to explore new territories, traveling several miles north to Hollywood. Griffith then filmed the first movie shot in Hollywood, In Old California, a Biograph melodrama about California in the 19th century. Griffith stayed there for months and made several films before returning to New York, after hearing about Griffiths success in Hollywood, in 1913, many movie-makers headed west to avoid the fees imposed by Thomas Edison, who owned patents on the movie-making process. Nestor Studios of Bayonne, New Jersey, built the first studio in Hollywood in 1911, Californias more hospitable and cost-effective climate led to the eventual shift of virtually all filmmaking to the West Coast by the 1930s. In Los Angeles, the studios and Hollywood grew, before World War I, movies were made in several U. S. cities, but filmmakers gravitated to southern California as the industry developed
25.
Charlie Chaplin
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Sir Charles Spencer Charlie Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame during the era of silent film. Chaplin became an icon through his screen persona the Tramp and is considered one of the most important figures in the history of the film industry. His career spanned more than 75 years, from childhood in the Victorian era until a year before his death in 1977, Chaplins childhood in London was one of poverty and hardship. As his father was absent and his mother struggled financially, he was sent to a workhouse twice before the age of nine, when he was 14, his mother was committed to a mental asylum. Chaplin began performing at an age, touring music halls and later working as a stage actor. At 19 he was signed to the prestigious Fred Karno company, Chaplin was scouted for the film industry, and began appearing in 1914 for Keystone Studios. He soon developed the Tramp persona and formed a fan base. Chaplin directed his own films from a stage, and continued to hone his craft as he moved to the Essanay, Mutual. By 1918, he was one of the best known figures in the world, in 1919, Chaplin co-founded the distribution company United Artists, which gave him complete control over his films. His first feature-length was The Kid, followed by A Woman of Paris, The Gold Rush and he refused to move to sound films in the 1930s, instead producing City Lights and Modern Times without dialogue. Chaplin became increasingly political, and his film, The Great Dictator. The 1940s were a decade marked with controversy for Chaplin, and he was accused of communist sympathies, while his involvement in a paternity suit and marriages to much younger women caused scandal. An FBI investigation was opened, and Chaplin was forced to leave the United States and he abandoned the Tramp in his later films, which include Monsieur Verdoux, Limelight, A King in New York, and A Countess from Hong Kong. Chaplin wrote, directed, produced, edited, starred in and he was a perfectionist, and his financial independence enabled him to spend years on the development and production of a picture. His films are characterised by slapstick combined with pathos, typified in the Tramps struggles against adversity, many contain social and political themes, as well as autobiographical elements. In 1972, as part of an appreciation for his work. He continues to be held in regard, with The Gold Rush, City Lights, Modern Times. Charles Spencer Chaplin was born on 16 April 1889 to Hannah Chaplin, there is no official record of his birth, although Chaplin believed he was born at East Street, Walworth, in South London
26.
City Lights
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City Lights is a 1931 American pre-Code silent romantic comedy film written, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin. The story follows the misadventures of Chaplins Tramp as he falls in love with a blind girl, although sound films were on the rise when Chaplin started developing the script in 1928, he decided to continue working with silent productions. Filming started in December 1928, and ended in September 1930, City Lights marked the first time Chaplin composed the film score to one of his productions, and it was written in six weeks with Arthur Johnston. The main theme, used as a leitmotif for the flower girl, is the song La Violetera from Spanish composer José Padilla. Chaplin lost a lawsuit to Padilla for not crediting him, City Lights was immediately successful upon release on January 30,1931 with positive reviews and box office receipts of $5 million. Today, many consider it not only the highest accomplishment of Chaplins career. In 1991, the Library of Congress selected City Lights for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being culturally, historically, in 2007, the American Film Institute ranked it 11th on its list of the best American films ever made. In 1949, the critic James Agee referred to the scene in the film as the greatest single piece of acting ever committed to celluloid. The Little Tramp first meets the Flower Girl, and discovers she is blind when she find a dropped flower. That evening, the Tramp runs into a millionaire who is attempting suicide on the waterfront. He takes the Tramp back to his mansion and gives him a change of clothes, early the next morning, they return to the mansion and encounter the Flower Girl en route to her vending spot. The Tramp asks The Millionaire for some money, which he uses to buy all the girls flowers, after he leaves, the Flower Girl tells her grandmother about her wealthy acquaintance. When the Tramp returns to the mansion, the Millionaire has sobered-up and does not remember him, later that day, the Millionaire meets the Tramp again while intoxicated and invites him home for a lavish party. The next morning, having sobered again and planning to leave for a cruise, returning to the Flower Girls apartment, the Tramp spies her being attended by a doctor. Deciding to take a job to earn money for her, he becomes a street sweeper, meanwhile, the grandmother receives a notice that she and the girl will be evicted if they cannot pay their back rent by the next day, but she hides it. The Tramp visits the girl on his break and sees a newspaper story about a Viennese doctor who has devised an operation that cures blindness. He then finds the eviction notice and reads it aloud at the girls request and he reassures her that he will pay the rent. But he returns to work late and is fired, as he is walking away, a boxer persuades him to stage a fake fight, promising to split the $50 prize money
27.
Bandwagon effect
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The bandwagon effect is a phenomenon whereby the rate of uptake of beliefs, ideas, fads and trends increases the more that they have already been adopted by others. In other words, the effect is characterized by the probability of individual adoption increasing with respect to the proportion who have already done so. As more people come to believe in something, others also hop on the bandwagon regardless of the underlying evidence, the tendency to follow the actions or beliefs of others can occur because individuals directly prefer to conform, or because individuals derive information from others. Both explanations have been used for evidence of conformity in psychological experiments, for example, social pressure has been used to explain Aschs conformity experiments, and information has been used to explain Sherifs autokinetic experiment. According to this concept, the popularity of a product or phenomenon encourages more people to get on the bandwagon. The bandwagon effect explains why there are fashion trends, cascades explain why behavior is fragile—people understand that they are based on very limited information. As a result, fads form easily but are easily dislodged. Such informational effects have been used to explain political bandwagons, the definition of a bandwagon is a wagon which carries a band during the course of a parade, circus or other entertainment event. As his campaign became more successful, other politicians strove for a seat on the bandwagon, the bandwagon effect occurs in voting, some people vote for those candidates or parties who are likely to succeed, hoping to be on the winners side in the end. The bandwagon effect has been applied to situations involving majority opinion, such as political outcomes, such a shift in opinion can occur because individuals draw inferences from the decisions of others, as in an informational cascade. Because of time zones, election results are broadcast in the parts of the United States while polls are still open in the west. This difference has led to research on how the behavior of voters in western United States is influenced by news about the decisions of voters in time zones. In 1980, NBC News declared Ronald Reagan to be the winner of the race on the basis of the exit polls several hours before the voting booths closed in the west. It is also said to be important in the American presidential primary elections, States all vote at different times, spread over some months, rather than all on one day. Some states have special precedence to go early while others choose to wait until a certain date. This is often said to give undue influence to these states, because of this, other states often try front loading to make their say as influential as they can. In the 2008 presidential primaries two states had all or some of their delegates banned from the convention by the party organizations for voting too early. Several studies have tested this theory of the effect in political decision making
28.
American Civil Liberties Union
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It works through litigation and lobbying. The ACLU has 1,000,000 members and a budget of over $100 million. Local affiliates of the ACLU are active in almost all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the ACLU provides legal assistance in cases when it considers civil liberties to be at risk. In addition to representing persons and organizations in lawsuits, the ACLU lobbies for policy positions that have established by its board of directors. The two organizations share office space and employees, during the 1930s, the ACLU started to engage in work combating police misconduct and supporting Native American rights. Many of the ACLUs cases involved the defense of Communist party members, in 1940, the ACLU leadership voted to exclude Communists from its leadership positions, a decision rescinded in 1968. During World War II, the ACLU defended Japanese-American citizens, unsuccessfully trying to prevent their forcible relocation to internment camps, during the Cold War, the ACLU headquarters was dominated by anti-Communists, but many local affiliates defended members of the Communist Party. By 1964, membership had risen to 80,000, in the 1960s, the ACLU continued its decades-long effort to enforce separation of church and state. It defended several anti-war activists during the Vietnam War, in the 1970s and 1980s, the ACLU ventured into new legal areas, involving the rights of homosexuals, students, prisoners, and the poor. Fundraising and membership spiked after the 2016 election, the ACLUs current membership is more than 1.2 million, the ACLU is led by a president and an executive director, Susan N. Herman and Anthony Romero, respectively, in 2015. The president acts as chairman of the ACLUs board of directors, leads fundraising, the executive director manages the day-to-day operations of the organization. The board of directors consists of 80 persons, including representatives from each state affiliate, the organization has its headquarters in 125 Broad Street, a 40-story skyscraper located in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The leadership of the ACLU does not always agree on policy decisions, in 1937, an internal debate erupted over whether to defend Henry Fords right to distribute anti-union literature. In 1939, a debate took place over whether to prohibit communists from serving in ACLU leadership roles. During the early 1950s and Cold War McCarthyism, the board was divided on whether to defend communists, in 1968, a schism formed over whether to represent Dr. Spocks anti-war activism. In 1973, there was conflict over whether to call for the impeachment of Richard Nixon. In 2005, there was conflict about whether or not a gag rule should be imposed on ACLU employees to prevent publication of internal disputes. Membership dues are treated as donations, members choose the amount they pay annually, in the year ending March 31,2014, the combined expenses of the ACLU and ACLU Foundation were $133.4 million, spent on programs, management, and fundraising
29.
Nobel Prize
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The Nobel Prize is a set of annual international awards bestowed in a number of categories by Swedish and Norwegian institutions in recognition of academic, cultural, or scientific advances. The will of the Swedish inventor Alfred Nobel established the prizes in 1895, the prizes in Chemistry, Literature, Peace, Physics, and Physiology or Medicine were first awarded in 1901. Medals made before 1980 were struck in 23 carat gold, between 1901 and 2016, the Nobel Prizes and the Prize in Economic Sciences were awarded 579 times to 911 people and organisations. With some receiving the Nobel Prize more than once, this makes a total of 23 organisations, the prize ceremonies take place annually in Stockholm, Sweden. Each recipient, or laureate, receives a medal, a diploma. The Nobel Prize is widely regarded as the most prestigious award available in the fields of literature, medicine, physics, chemistry, peace, and economics. The prize is not awarded posthumously, however, if a person is awarded a prize and dies before receiving it, though the average number of laureates per prize increased substantially during the 20th century, a prize may not be shared among more than three people. Alfred Nobel was born on 21 October 1833 in Stockholm, Sweden and he was a chemist, engineer, and inventor. In 1894, Nobel purchased the Bofors iron and steel mill and this invention was a precursor to many smokeless military explosives, especially the British smokeless powder cordite. As a consequence of his patent claims, Nobel was eventually involved in a patent infringement lawsuit over cordite, Nobel amassed a fortune during his lifetime, with most of his wealth from his 355 inventions, of which dynamite is the most famous. In 1888, Nobel was astonished to read his own obituary, titled The merchant of death is dead, as it was Alfreds brother Ludvig who had died, the obituary was eight years premature. The article disconcerted Nobel and made him apprehensive about how he would be remembered and this inspired him to change his will. On 10 December 1896, Alfred Nobel died in his villa in San Remo, Italy, Nobel wrote several wills during his lifetime. He composed the last over a year before he died, signing it at the Swedish–Norwegian Club in Paris on 27 November 1895, Nobel bequeathed 94% of his total assets,31 million SEK, to establish the five Nobel Prizes. Because of skepticism surrounding the will, it was not until 26 April 1897 that it was approved by the Storting in Norway. The executors of Nobels will, Ragnar Sohlman and Rudolf Lilljequist, formed the Nobel Foundation to take care of Nobels fortune, Nobels instructions named a Norwegian Nobel Committee to award the Peace Prize, the members of whom were appointed shortly after the will was approved in April 1897. Soon thereafter, the other prize-awarding organisations were designated or established and these were Karolinska Institutet on 7 June, the Swedish Academy on 9 June, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences on 11 June. The Nobel Foundation reached an agreement on guidelines for how the prizes should be awarded, and, in 1900, in 1905, the personal union between Sweden and Norway was dissolved
30.
London Evening Standard
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The London Evening Standard is a local, free daily newspaper, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant local/regional evening paper for London and the area, with coverage of national and international news. In October 2009, the paper ended a 180-year history of paid circulation and became a free newspaper, the newspaper was founded by barrister Stanley Lees Giffard on 21 May 1827, as the Standard. The early owner of the paper was Charles Baldwin, under the ownership of James Johnstone, The Standard became a morning paper from 29 June 1857. The Evening Standard was published from 11 June 1859, by the end of the 19th century, the evening edition eclipsed its morning counterpart. Both The Standard and the Evening Standard were acquired by C. Arthur Pearson in 1904, in May 1915, Edward Hulton purchased the Evening Standard from Davison Dalziel. Dalziel had purchased both papers in 1910, and closed The Standard, the paper, in 1916. Hulton introduced the gossip column Londoners Diary, originally billed as a written by gentlemen for gentlemen. It became a staunchly Conservative paper, harshly attacking Labour in 1945 in a campaign that backfired. In the 1960s, the paper was now upstaged by The Evening News, during the decade, the paper also began to publish the comic strip Modesty Blaise that bolstered the papers sales throughout the 1970s. In 1987 the Evening News was briefly revived to compete with Robert Maxwells London Daily News, in 1988 it incorporated the byline Incorporating the Evening News, which remained until the papers sale in 2009. A few years earlier,12 percent of the paper was sold to Justin Shaw, Associated News keeps the remaining 24 percent. In November 2009, it was announced that the London Evening Standard would drop its midday News Extra edition from 4 January 2010 with the first edition being the West End Final, previously there were three editions each weekday, excluding Bank holidays. The first, News Extra, went to print at 10,00 am and was available around 11 am in central London, slightly later in more outlying areas. The page changes were indicated by stars in the bottom corner of each page. In January 2010, circulation was increased to 900,000, in May 2009, the newspaper launched a series of poster ads, each of which prominently featured the word Sorry in the papers then-masthead font. These ads offered various apologies for past editorial approaches, such as Sorry for losing touch, none of the posters mentioned the Evening Standard by name, although they featured the papers Eros logo. Ex-editor Veronica Wadley criticised the Pravda-style campaign saying it humiliated the papers staff, the campaign was designed by McCann Erickson
31.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
32.
A Farewell to Arms
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A Farewell to Arms is a novel by Ernest Hemingway set during the Italian campaign of World War I. The book, published in 1929, is an account of American Frederic Henry. The title is taken from a poem by 16th-century English dramatist George Peele, the novel has been adapted for the stage, initially in 1930 and subsequently, for film in 1932 and 1957, and as a television miniseries in 1966. The novel is divided into five books, in the first book, Frederic Henry, an American paramedic serving in the Italian Army is introduced to Catherine Barkley, an English nurse, by his good friend and roommate, Rinaldi, a surgeon. Frederic attempts to seduce her, and their relationship begins, Frederic doesnt want a serious relationship, but his feelings for Catherine slowly start to grow. On the Italian front, Frederic is wounded in the knee by a mortar and sent to a hospital in Milan, the second book shows the growth of Frederic and Catherines relationship as they spend time together in Milan over the summer. Frederic and Catherine fall in love as Frederic slowly heals, after his knee heals, he is diagnosed with jaundice but is soon kicked out of the hospital and sent back to the front after being discovered with alcohol. By the time he is sent back, Catherine is three months pregnant, in the third book, Frederic returns to his unit, and soon discovers morale has severely dropped. Not long afterwards the Austrians break through the Italian lines in the Battle of Caporetto, due to a slow and hectic retreat, Frederic and his men go off trail and quickly get lost, and a frustrated Frederic kills a sergeant for insubordination. However, after seeing and hearing that everyone interrogated has been killed and he heads to Milan to find Catherine only to discover that she has been sent to Stresa. In the fourth book, Catherine and Frederic reunite and spend time in Stresa before Frederic learns he will soon be arrested. He and Catherine then flee to Switzerland in a rowboat, after interrogation by Swiss authorities, they are allowed to stay in Switzerland. In the final book, Frederic and Catherine live a life in the mountains until she goes into labor. After a long and painful birth, their son is stillborn, Catherine begins to hemorrhage and soon dies, leaving Frederic to return to their hotel in the rain. The novel was based on Hemingways own experiences serving in the Italian campaigns during the First World War, the inspiration for Catherine Barkley was Agnes von Kurowsky, a real nurse who cared for Hemingway in a hospital in Milan after he had been wounded. He had planned to marry her but she spurned his love when he returned to America, kitty Cannell, a Paris-based fashion correspondent, became Helen Ferguson. The unnamed priest was based on Don Giuseppe Bianchi, the priest of the 69th and 70th regiments of the Brigata Ancona, although the sources for Rinaldi are unknown, the character had already appeared in In Our Time. Biographer Reynolds, however, writes that Hemingway was not involved in the battles described, because his previous novel, The Sun Also Rises, had been written as a roman à clef, readers assumed A Farewell to Arms to be autobiographical
listen); born Halldór Guðjónsson; 23 April 1902 – 8 February 1998) was an Icelandic writer. He won the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his vivid epic power, which has renewed the great narrative art of Iceland",[2] he is the first and, as of 2017, only Icelandic Nobel laureate.[3] He wrote novels, poetry, newspaper articles, essays, plays, travelogues and short stories. Major influences included August Strindberg, Sigmund Freud, Knut Hamsun, Sinclair Lewis, Upton Sinclair, Bertolt Brecht and Ernest Hemingway.[4]
