The history of the Philippines is believed to have begun with the arrival of the first humans using rafts or boats at least 67,000 years ago as the 2007 discovery of Callao Man suggested. Negrito groups were the first inhabitants to settle in prehistoric Philippines. After that, groups of Austronesians migrated to the islands. Scholars believe that these social groups developed into various settlements or polities with varying degrees of economic specialization, social stratification, political organization; some of these settlements achieved such a scale of social complexity that some scholars believe they should be considered early states. This includes the predecessors of modern-day population centers such as Maynila, Pangasinan, Panay, Butuan, Cotabato and Sulu as well as some polities, such as Ma-i, whose possible location are still the subject of debate among scholars; these polities were either influenced by the Hindu-Buddhist Indian religion, culture and philosophy from India through many campaigns from India including the South-East Asia campaign of Rajendra Chola I, Islam from Arabia or were Sinified tributary states allied to China.

These small maritime states flourished from the 1st millennium. These kingdoms traded with what are now called China, Japan, Thailand and Indonesia; the remainder of the settlements were independent. These small states alternated from between being part of or being influenced by larger Asian empires like the Ming Dynasty and Brunei or rebelling and waging war against them; the first recorded visit by Europeans is the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan. He sighted Samar Island on March 16, 1521 and landed the next day on Homonhon Island, now part of Guiuan, Eastern Samar. Spanish colonization began with the arrival of Miguel López de Legazpi's expedition on February 13, 1565 from Mexico, he established the first permanent settlement in Cebu. Much of the archipelago came under Spanish rule, creating the first unified political structure known as the Philippines. Spanish colonial rule saw the introduction of Christianity, the code of law and the oldest modern university in Asia; the Philippines was ruled under the Mexico-based Viceroyalty of New Spain.

After which, the colony was directly governed by Spain. Spanish rule ended in 1898 with Spain's defeat in the Spanish–American War; the Philippines became a territory of the United States. U. S forces suppressed a Philippine Revolution led by Emilio Aguinaldo; the United States established the Insular Government to rule the Philippines. In 1907, the elected Philippine Assembly was set up with popular elections; the U. S. promised independence in the Jones Act. The Philippine Commonwealth was established in 1935, as a 10-year interim step prior to full independence. However, in 1942 during World War II, Japan occupied the Philippines; the U. S. military overpowered the Japanese in 1945. The Treaty of Manila in 1946 established an independent Philippine Republic. Discovery in 2018 of stone tools and fossils of butchered animal remains in Rizal, Kalinga has pushed back evidence of early hominins in the country to as early as 709,000 years. Still, the earliest archeological evidence for humans in the archipelago is the 67,000-year-old Callao Man of Cagayan and the Angono Petroglyphs in Rizal, both of whom appear to suggest the presence of human settlement prior to the arrival of the Negritos and Austronesian speaking people.

Continued excavations in Callao Cave revealed 12 bones from three hominin individuals identified as a new species named Homo luzonensis. There are several opposing theories regarding the origins of ancient Filipinos. F. Landa Jocano theorizes. Wilhelm Solheim's Island Origin Theory postulates that the peopling of the archipelago transpired via trade networks originating in the Sundaland area around 48,000 to 5000 BC rather than by wide-scale migration; the Austronesian Expansion Theory states that Malayo-Polynesians coming from Taiwan began migrating to the Philippines around 4000 BC, displacing earlier arrivals. The Negritos were early settlers, but their appearance in the Philippines has not been reliably dated, they were followed by speakers of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, a branch of the Austronesian language family, who began to arrive in successive waves beginning about 4000 BC, displacing the earlier arrivals. Before the expansion out of Taiwan, archaeological and genetic evidence had linked Austronesian speakers in Insular Southeast Asia to cultures such as the Hemudu, its successor the Liangzhu and Dapenkeng in Neolithic China.

During this neolithic period, a "jade culture" is said to have existed as evidenced by tens of thousands of exquisitely crafted jade artifacts found in the Philippines dated to 2000 BC. The jade is said to have originated nearby in Taiwan and is found in many other areas in insular and mainland Southeast Asia; these artifacts are said to be evidence of long range communication between prehistoric Southeast Asian societies. By 1000 BC, the inhabitants of the Philippine archipelago had developed into four distinct kinds of peoples: tribal groups, such as the Aetas, Hanunoo and the Mangyan who depended on hunter-gathering and were concentrated in forests, it was during the first millennium BC that early metallu

Marc Hauser is a professional Swiss skydiver and entrepreneur. He holds the world record for the fastest horizontal free fall. Hauser is the founder of Erfolgswelle AG, a communications agency. Hauser is the founder of a form of skydiving; the goal of the discipline is to achieve the fastest forward speed possible in free fall relative to the ground. Hauser gained his first experience skydiving at the age of 18. At the age of 35 he received specialized training from Thomas Naef and Rolf Kuratle, two members of the Babylon Freefall Skydiving team, in Skydive Empuriabrava, he completed his first speed tracking attempt in 2009. In October 2012, Hauser set the world record for the fastest horizontal free fall in Empuriabrava, Spain. Hauser did not use specialized equipment to accelerate his speed. Marc Hauser is the first human to perform a free fall jump into the jet stream near Forbes, New South Wales, Australia, on 30 June 2018; as skydiving suit he was wearing a thermal protection jumpsuit without wings.

The exit altitude of the jump was at 7,400 m / 24,000 ft above sea level, the temperature at -40° Celsius / -40 °F. At exit altitude the jet stream speed was 137 km/h; the groundspeed / horizontal speed of Marc performing this free fall skydive was at 270 km/h. During his free fall Hauser covered a horizontal distance of 5.9 km / 3.66 miles in total. Hauser opened his parachute at 2,000 m / 6,500 ft altitude above ground; the BBC World News documentary Chasing the Jet Stream covers the free fall jump into the jet stream in three parts, which aired on 2, 8 and 15 December 2018. The documentary highlights both Marc Hauser’s goal to raise awareness for cleantech-pioneering enterprises using airborne wind energy systems, as well as the execution of the preparations that lead to the free fall jump into the jet stream. In 2019, the Guinness World Records honored the parachute jump as the world's first skydive into the jet stream, he created a watch collection with Formex Watch SA, a Swiss watch manufacturer, in October 2013.

Marc Hauser owns a naming agency erfolgswelle® AG Namensagentur and inspires larger audiences as a motivational and keynote speaker. Marc Hauser lives in Switzerland with his two daughters. Tracking Skydive Empuriabrava Jet Stream High-altitude wind power Airborne wind turbine Speed Tracking - Flying in the Jet Stream BBC World News Documentary Chasing The Jet Stream

Ponnur mandal is one of the 57 mandals in Guntur district of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. Narendrakumar Dhulipalla – Telugu Desam Party is the present MLA of the constituency, who won the 2019 Andhra Pradesh Legislative Assembly election from Telugu Desam Party, it is under the administration of Tenali revenue division and the headquarters are located at Ponnur town. The mandal is bounded by Vatticherukuru, Tsundur, Amruthalur, Pittalavanipalem and Bapatla mandals; as of 2011 census, the mandal had a population of 123,417. The total population constitute, 60,953 males and 62,464 females —a sex ratio of 1024 females per 1000 males. 11,134 children are in the age group of 0–6 years, of which 10,939 are boys and 10,394 are girls. The average literacy rate stands at 72.94% with 81,904 literates. The mandal is a part of the Andhra Pradesh Capital Region under the jurisdiction of APCRDA; the mandal is under the control of a tahsildar and the present tahsildar is R. V. Ramana Naik. Ponnur mandal is one of the 3 mandals under Ponnur, which in turn represents Guntur of Andhra Pradesh.

As of 2011 census, the mandal has 19 settlements. It includes 18 villages; the settlements in the mandal are listed below: The mandal plays a major role in education for the rural students of the nearby villages. The primary and secondary school education is imparted by government and private schools, under the School Education Department of the state; as per the school information report for the academic year 2015–16, the mandal has more than 15,055 students enrolled in over 118 schools. List of mandals in Andhra Pradesh Villages in Ponnur mandal