Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War referred to in France as the War of 1870, was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Third French Republic, the German states of the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia. Lasting from 19 July 1870 to 28 January 1871, the conflict was caused by Prussian ambitions to extend German unification and French fears of the shift in the European balance of power that would result if the Prussians succeeded; some historians argue that the Prussian chancellor Otto von Bismarck deliberately provoked the French into declaring war on Prussia in order to draw the independent southern German states—Baden, Württemberg and Hesse-Darmstadt—into an alliance with the North German Confederation dominated by Prussia, while others contend that Bismarck did not plan anything and exploited the circumstances as they unfolded. None, dispute the fact that Bismarck must have recognized the potential for new German alliances, given the situation as a whole.
On 16 July 1870, the French parliament voted to declare war on Prussia and hostilities began three days when French forces invaded German territory. The German coalition mobilised its troops much more than the French and invaded northeastern France; the German forces were superior in numbers, had better training and leadership and made more effective use of modern technology railroads and artillery. A series of swift Prussian and German victories in eastern France, culminating in the Siege of Metz and the Battle of Sedan, saw French Emperor Napoleon III captured and the army of the Second Empire decisively defeated. A Government of National Defence declared the Third French Republic in Paris on 4 September and continued the war for another five months. Following the Siege of Paris, the capital fell on 28 January 1871, a revolutionary uprising called the Paris Commune seized power in the city and held it for two months, until it was bloodily suppressed by the regular French army at the end of May 1871.
The German states proclaimed their union as the German Empire under the Prussian king Wilhelm I uniting Germany as a nation-state. The Treaty of Frankfurt of 10 May 1871 gave Germany most of Alsace and some parts of Lorraine, which became the Imperial territory of Alsace-Lorraine; the German conquest of France and the unification of Germany upset the European balance of power that had existed since the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Otto von Bismarck maintained great authority in international affairs for two decades. French determination to regain Alsace-Lorraine and fear of another Franco-German war, along with British apprehension about the balance of power, became factors in the causes of World War I; the causes of the Franco-Prussian War are rooted in the events surrounding the unification of Germany. In the aftermath of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Prussia had annexed numerous territories and formed the North German Confederation; this new power destabilized the European balance of power established by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 after the Napoleonic Wars.
Napoleon III the emperor of France, demanded compensations in Belgium and on the left bank of the Rhine to secure France's strategic position, which the Prussian chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, flatly refused. Prussia turned its attention towards the south of Germany, where it sought to incorporate the southern German kingdoms, Bavaria, Württemberg and Hesse-Darmstadt, into a unified Prussia-dominated Germany. France was opposed to any further alliance of German states, which would have strengthened the Prussian military. In Prussia, some officials considered a war against France both inevitable and necessary to arouse German nationalism in those states that would allow the unification of a great German empire; this aim was epitomized by Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck's statement: "I did not doubt that a Franco-German war must take place before the construction of a United Germany could be realised." Bismarck knew that France should be the aggressor in the conflict to bring the southern German states to side with Prussia, hence giving Germans numerical superiority.
He was convinced that France would not find any allies in her war against Germany for the simple reason that "France, the victor, would be a danger to everybody – Prussia to nobody," and he added, "That is our strong point." Many Germans viewed the French as the traditional destabilizer of Europe, sought to weaken France to prevent further breaches of the peace. The immediate cause of the war resided in the candidacy of Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a Prussian prince, to the throne of Spain. France feared encirclement by an alliance between Spain; the Hohenzollern prince's candidacy was withdrawn under French diplomatic pressure, but Otto von Bismarck goaded the French into declaring war by releasing an altered summary of the Ems Dispatch, a telegram sent by William I rejecting French demands that Prussia never again support a Hohenzollern candidacy. Bismarck's summary, as mistranslated by the French press Havas, made it sound as if the king had treated the French envoy in a demeaning fashion, which inflamed public opinion in France.
French historians François Roth and Pierre Milza argue that Napoleon III was pressured by a bellicose press and public opinion and thus sought war in response to France's diplomatic failures to obtain any territorial gains following the Austro-Prussian War. Napoleon III believed. Many in his court, such as Empress Eugénie wanted a
United States
The United States of America known as the United States or America, is a country composed of 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U. S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D. C. and the largest city by population is New York City. Forty-eight states and the capital's federal district are contiguous 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 and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west. The State of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean; the U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea, stretching across nine official time zones. The diverse geography and wildlife of the United States make it one of the world's 17 megadiverse countries.
Paleo-Indians migrated from Siberia to the North American mainland at least 12,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century; the United States emerged from the thirteen British colonies established along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the French and Indian War led to the American Revolution, which began in 1775, the subsequent Declaration of Independence in 1776; the war ended in 1783 with the United States becoming the first country to gain independence from a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, with the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, being ratified in 1791 to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties; the United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century, acquiring new territories, displacing Native American tribes, admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848. During the second half of the 19th century, the Civil War led to the abolition of slavery.
By the end of the century, the United States had extended into the Pacific Ocean, its economy, driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution, began to soar. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the country's status as a global military power; the United States emerged from World War II as a global superpower, the first country to develop nuclear weapons, the only country to use them in warfare, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Sweeping civil rights legislation, notably the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, outlawed discrimination based on race or color. During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in the Space Race, culminating with the 1969 U. S. Moon landing; the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world's sole superpower. The United States is the world's oldest surviving federation, it is a representative democracy.
The United States is a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States, other international organizations. The United States is a developed country, with the world's largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP, accounting for a quarter of global GDP; the U. S. economy is post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge-based activities, although the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world. The United States is the world's largest importer and the second largest exporter of goods, by value. Although its population is only 4.3% of the world total, the U. S. holds 31% of the total wealth in the world, the largest share of global wealth concentrated in a single country. Despite wide income and wealth disparities, the United States continues to rank high in measures of socioeconomic performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP, worker productivity.
The United States is the foremost military power in the world, making up a third of global military spending, is a leading political and scientific force internationally. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America in honor of the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci; the first documentary evidence of the phrase "United States of America" is from a letter dated January 2, 1776, written by Stephen Moylan, Esq. to George Washington's aide-de-camp and Muster-Master General of the Continental Army, Lt. Col. Joseph Reed. Moylan expressed his wish to go "with full and ample powers from the United States of America to Spain" to seek assistance in the revolutionary war effort; the first known publication of the phrase "United States of America" was in an anonymous essay in The Virginia Gazette newspaper in Williamsburg, Virginia, on April 6, 1776. The second draft of the Articles of Confederation, prepared by John Dickinson and completed by June 17, 1776, at the latest, declared "The name of this Confederation shall be the'United States of America'".
The final version of the Articles sent to the states for ratification in late 1777 contains the sentence "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be'The United States of America'". In June 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the phrase "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA" in all capitalized letters in the headline of his "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of Independence; this draft of the document did not surface unti
Jeep
Jeep is a brand of American automobiles, a division of FCA US LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Italian-American corporation Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Jeep has been a part of Chrysler since 1987, when Chrysler acquired the Jeep brand, along with remaining assets, from its previous owner: American Motors Corporation. Jeep's current product range consists of sport utility vehicles and off-road vehicles, but has included pickup trucks and roadsters in the past; some of Jeep's vehicles—such as the Grand Cherokee—reach into the luxury SUV segment, a market segment the Wagoneer is considered to have created. Jeep sold 1.4 million SUVs globally in 2016, up from 500,000 in 2008, two-thirds of which in North America, was Fiat-Chrysler's best selling brand in the U. S. during the first half of 2017. In the U. S. alone, over 2400 dealerships hold franchise rights to sell Jeep-branded vehicles, if Jeep were spun off into a separate company, it is estimated to be worth between $22 and $33.5 billion—slightly more than all of FCA.
Prior to 1940 the term "jeep" had been used as U. S. Army slang for new recruits or vehicles, but the World War II "jeep" that went into production in 1941 tied the name to this light military 4x4, arguably making them the oldest four-wheel drive mass-production vehicles now known as SUVs; the Jeep became the primary light 4-wheel-drive vehicle of the United States Army and the Allies during World War II, as well as the postwar period. The term became common worldwide in the wake of the war. Doug Stewart noted: "The spartan and unstintingly functional jeep became the ubiquitous World War II four-wheeled personification of Yankee ingenuity and cocky, can-do determination." The Jeep marque has been headquartered in Toledo, Ohio since Willys-Overland launched production of the first CJ or Civilian Jeep branded models there in 1945. Its replacement, the conceptually consistent Jeep Wrangler series, remains in production since 1986. With its solid axles and open top, the Wrangler has been called the Jeep model, as central to the brand’s identity as the rear-engined 911 is to Porsche.
At least two Jeep models enjoyed extraordinary three-decade production runs of a single body generation. Jeeps have since the war inspired a number such as the Land Rover. Many Jeep variants serving similar military and civilian roles have since been designed in other nations. In lowercase, the term "jeep" continues to be used as a generic term for vehicles inspired by the Jeep that are suitable for use on rough terrain; when it became clear that the United States would be involved in the European theater of World War II, the Army contacted 135 companies to create working prototypes of a four-wheel drive reconnaissance car. Only two companies responded: American Bantam Car Company and Willys-Overland; the Army set a impossible deadline of 49 days to supply a working prototype. Willys was refused; the Bantam Car Company had only a skeleton staff left on the payroll and solicited Karl Probst, a talented freelance designer from Detroit. After turning down Bantam's initial request, Probst responded to an Army request and began work on July 17, 1940 without salary.
Probst laid out full plans in just two days for the Bantam prototype known as the BRC or Bantam Reconnaissance Car, working up a cost estimate the next day. Bantam's bid was submitted on July 22, complete with blueprints. Much of the vehicle could be assembled from off-the-shelf automotive parts, custom four-wheel drivetrain components were to be supplied by Spicer; the hand-built prototype was completed in Butler and driven to Camp Holabird, Maryland on September 23 for Army testing. The vehicle met all the Army's criteria except engine torque; the Army thought that the Bantam company was too small to supply the required number of vehicles, so it supplied the Bantam design to Willys and Ford, encouraged them to modify the design. The resulting Ford "Pygmy" and Willys "Quad" prototypes looked similar to the Bantam BRC prototype, Spicer supplied similar four-wheel drivetrain components to all three manufacturers.1,500 of each model were built and extensively field-tested. After the weight specification was revised from 1,275 lb to a maximum of 2,450 lb including oil and water, Willys-Overland's chief engineer Delmar "Barney" Roos modified the design in order to use Willys's heavy but powerful "Go Devil" engine, won the initial production contract.
The Willys version became the standard Jeep design, designated the model MB and was built at their plant in Toledo, Ohio. The familiar pressed-metal Jeep grille was a Ford design feature and incorporated in the final design by the Army; because the US War Department required a large number of vehicles in a short time, Willys-Overland granted the US Government a non-exclusive license to allow another company to manufacture vehicles using Willys' specifications. The Army chose Ford as a second supplier. Willys supplied Ford with a complete set of specifications. American Bantam, the creators of the first Jeep, built 2,700 of them to the BRC-40 design, but spent the rest of the war building heavy-duty trailers for the Army. Final production version Jeeps built by Willys-Overland were the Model MB, while those built by Ford were the Model GPW. There were subtle differences between the two; the versions produced by Ford had every component marked with an "F". Willys al
Hotchkiss (car)
Hotchkiss were luxury cars made between 1903 and 1955 by the French company Hotchkiss et Cie in Saint-Denis, Paris. The badge for the marque showed a pair of crossed cannons, evoking the company's history as an arms manufacturer; the company's first entry into car making came from orders for engine components such as crankshafts which were supplied to Panhard et Levassor, De Dion-Bouton and other pioneering companies and in 1903 they went on to make complete engines. Encouraged by two major car distributors, Mann & Overton of London and Fournier of Paris, Hotchkiss decided to start making their own range of cars and purchased a Mercedes Simplex for inspiration and Georges Terasse of Mors, was taken on as designer; the first Hotchkiss car, a 17 CV four-cylinder model, appeared in 1903. The engine of the 20 CV type C was based on the Mercedes Simplex except that wherever possible it used ball bearings rather than plain ones and except the Hotchkiss drive. Six-cylinder models, the types L and O followed in 1907.
The ball bearing engines lasted until the 30CV type X of 1910. In that same year Hotchkiss moved into a smaller car market with the 2212cc type Z. With the outbreak of World War I, the factory turned to war production and a subsidiary plant was opened in Coventry, England. Car production resumed in France 1919 with the pre war types AD, AD6, AF and AG. During World War I, they tested them from the factory roof. After an attempt to enter the luxury market with the AK, which did not get beyond the prototype stage, the company decided on a one model policy and introduced the Coventry designed AM in 1923; that year the Coventry plant was sold to Morris. Henry Mann Ainsworth and Alfred Herbert Wilde who had run it, moved to Paris to become general manager and chief engineer of the car division respectively. In 1926 construction of the new factory in the Boulevard Ornano was completed and in 1929 Hotchkiss got hold of a steel press allowing in-house manufacture of steel bodies; the one model policy lasted until 1929 when the six-cylinder AM80 models were announced.
"73" and "80" stood for the bore of the engines used, a naming theme picked up again in 1936 after a brief hiatus. Although most cars had bodies that were factory built, Hotchkiss still was a luxury car brand, so coachbuilder Veth and Sons built a small number of bodies for the AM80; the AM models were replaced by a new range in 1933 with a new naming system. The 411 was an 11CV model with four-cylinder engine, the 413 a 13CV four and the 615, 617 and 620 were similar six-cylinder types; the 1936 686, which replaced the 620, was available as the high-performance Grand Sport and 1937 Paris-Nice with twin carburettors and these allowed Hotchkiss to win the Monte Carlo Rally in 1932, 1933, 1934, 1939, 1949 and 1950. The new naming scheme introduced in 1936 consisted of the number of cylinders, followed by the bore of the engine; the armament side of the company and the body stamping plant were nationalised in 1936 by the Front Populaire government. The car company in 1937 took over Amilcar. With re-armament speeding up they started making military vehicles and light tanks.
When France declared war, in September 1939, Hotchkiss were sitting on an army order for 1,900 H35 and H39 tanks powered by six-cylinder motors of 3.5 and 6 litres capacity, at the time of the German invasion in May 1940 they were still working through the order. However, as the military situation deteriorated the decision was taken, on 20 May 1940, to abandon the Saint-Denis plant which by now was concentrated on war production. There was a disorderly evacuation towards Auxerre and Moulins and further towards the south, as employees tried to keep information on the military production out of the hands of the Germans. However, the national capitulation implicit in the signing of the armistice on 22 June left these efforts looking somewhat irrelevant, most of the employees drifted back in the ensuing weeks. Two exceptions were the Commercial Director, Jacques Jacobsen and the English born General Director, Henry Ainsworth, both of whom managed to avoid capture and to leave France. During the war, like many businesses in the occupied zone, the company was obliged to work for the occupiers and was engaged in the repair of military vehicles.
In 1941 François Lehideux a leading member of the government’s economic team, called Jean-Pierre Peugeot and his General Director Maurice Jordan to a meeting, invited them to study the possibility of taking a controlling share in the Hotchkiss business. The suggestion from Lehideux derived from a German law dated 18 October 1940 authorising the confiscation of businesses controlled by Jews; the Peugeot business itself had been operating, under overall German control since the summer of 1940. In any event, in July 1942 Peugeot took a controlling share in the Hotchkiss business and towards the end of 1942 the names of Peugeot and Jordan were listed as members of the Hotchkiss board. There is no evidence of any attempt to combine the operations of the two businesses, however: after the war Peugeot would in due course relinquish their holding in Hotchkiss. With liberation in 1944, Ainsworth returned and production restarted in 1946 with the pre-war cars, a light truck and a tractor. After the war, car production resumed only with fewer than 100 cars produced in each of 1946 and 1947, but by 1948 things were moving a little more with 460 Hotchkiss cars produced that year.
This volume of output was wholly insufficient to carry the company, although truck production was a little more successful with more than 2,300 produced in 1948, it was support from the truc
World War I
World War I known as the First World War or the Great War, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. Contemporaneously described as "the war to end all wars", it led to the mobilisation of more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, making it one of the largest wars in history, it is one of the deadliest conflicts in history, with an estimated nine million combatants and seven million civilian deaths as a direct result of the war, while resulting genocides and the 1918 influenza pandemic caused another 50 to 100 million deaths worldwide. On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb Yugoslav nationalist, assassinated the Austro-Hungarian heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, leading to the July Crisis. In response, on 23 July Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia. Serbia's reply failed to satisfy the Austrians, the two moved to a war footing. A network of interlocking alliances enlarged the crisis from a bilateral issue in the Balkans to one involving most of Europe.
By July 1914, the great powers of Europe were divided into two coalitions: the Triple Entente—consisting of France and Britain—and the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. Russia felt it necessary to back Serbia and, after Austria-Hungary shelled the Serbian capital of Belgrade on the 28th, partial mobilisation was approved. General Russian mobilisation was announced on the evening of 30 July; when Russia failed to comply, Germany declared war on 1 August in support of Austria-Hungary, with Austria-Hungary following suit on 6th. German strategy for a war on two fronts against France and Russia was to concentrate the bulk of its army in the West to defeat France within four weeks shift forces to the East before Russia could mobilise. On 2 August, Germany demanded free passage through Belgium, an essential element in achieving a quick victory over France; when this was refused, German forces invaded Belgium on 3 August and declared war on France the same day. On 12 August and France declared war on Austria-Hungary.
In November 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Alliance, opening fronts in the Caucasus and the Sinai Peninsula. The war was fought in and drew upon each power's colonial empire as well, spreading the conflict to Africa and across the globe; the Entente and its allies would become known as the Allied Powers, while the grouping of Austria-Hungary and their allies would become known as the Central Powers. The German advance into France was halted at the Battle of the Marne and by the end of 1914, the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, marked by a long series of trench lines that changed little until 1917. In 1915, Italy opened a front in the Alps. Bulgaria joined the Central Powers in 1915 and Greece joined the Allies in 1917, expanding the war in the Balkans; the United States remained neutral, although by doing nothing to prevent the Allies from procuring American supplies whilst the Allied blockade prevented the Germans from doing the same the U. S. became an important supplier of war material to the Allies.
After the sinking of American merchant ships by German submarines, the revelation that the Germans were trying to incite Mexico to make war on the United States, the U. S. declared war on Germany on 6 April 1917. Trained American forces would not begin arriving at the front in large numbers until mid-1918, but the American Expeditionary Force would reach some two million troops. Though Serbia was defeated in 1915, Romania joined the Allied Powers in 1916 only to be defeated in 1917, none of the great powers were knocked out of the war until 1918; the 1917 February Revolution in Russia replaced the Tsarist autocracy with the Provisional Government, but continuing discontent at the cost of the war led to the October Revolution, the creation of the Soviet Socialist Republic, the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk by the new government in March 1918, ending Russia's involvement in the war. This allowed the transfer of large numbers of German troops from the East to the Western Front, resulting in the German March 1918 Offensive.
This offensive was successful, but the Allies rallied and drove the Germans back in their Hundred Days Offensive. Bulgaria was the first Central Power to sign an armistice—the Armistice of Salonica on 29 September 1918. On 30 October, the Ottoman Empire capitulated. On 4 November, the Austro-Hungarian empire agreed to the Armistice of Villa Giusti after being decisively defeated by Italy in the Battle of Vittorio Veneto. With its allies defeated, revolution at home, the military no longer willing to fight, Kaiser Wilhelm abdicated on 9 November and Germany signed an armistice on 11 November 1918. World War I was a significant turning point in the political, cultural and social climate of the world; the war and its immediate aftermath sparked numerous uprisings. The Big Four (Britain, the United States, It
Rodez
Rodez is a small city and commune in the South of France, about 150 km northeast of Toulouse. It is the prefecture of the department of Aveyron in the region of Occitanie. Rodez is the seat of the Communauté d'agglomération du Grand Rodez, of the First Constituency of Aveyron as well as of the general Council of Aveyron. Former capital of the Rouergue, the city is seat of the Diocese of Vabres, its inhabitants are called Ruthénois, from the name of the Ruteni, a Gallic tribe which once occupied the territory, the former demonym of "Rodanois" having given way to this scholarly form. Located in the south of France, in the heart of the triangle formed by Toulouse, Clermont-Ferrand and Montpellier, in the western foothills of the Massif Central, the Rodez landscape is organised between the valleys and high plateaus of Grands Causses and the moist hills of Ségala, it extends into Grand Rodez, with the communes of Onet-le-Château, Sainte-Radegonde, Le Monastère, Olemps and Luc-la-Primaube, which forms an agglomeration of 83,000 habitants adjoining the city of Rodez.
The territory of Rodez is packed with geological diversity. It straddles on the ancient base of Ségala composed of acidic siliceous earths of Les Rougiers to soil consisting of red argillite, causses composed of limestones and marls; the city was built on a conical isolated terrain, locally called Le Piton, spread to the surrounding slopes. It is located in other words at a low level; the commune is crossed, below, by the Aveyron, an important place for fishing or walks through green spaces proposed for the Layoule Quarter, the Auterne stream. The climate of Rodez is part of the supra-Mediterranean level. Rodez has a Mediterranean climate, is cold city compared to other cities in the south of France. Winters are sharp and the summers very hot and sunny. During winter, Rodez has occasional snowfall due to its low altitude of 550 metres in contrast to other towns in the north of the department, which are closer of the Aubrac plateau and therefore higher. In 2011, with nearly 2,400 hours per year of sun and 304 days of sunshine per year, Rodez was ranked 2,407th of cities in terms of sunshine in France.
This is above the national average. Events based on the data of Météo-France at Millau Soulobres station, from 1965: On 28 January 2006, Rodez experienced an important snow episode. A metre of powdery snow, adherent, fell on the agglomeration, crippling the economy for several days and the life of Le Piton. Rodez is growing day by day and has affirmed its leading place in the Midi-Pyrénées since the early 2000s; the city and the metropolitan area is located at the foot of the RN 88, the Toulouse-Lyon axis, an essential route for its economic and tourist development and which plays a complementary role to the main cities of the region, Toulouse and Castres, with which it is developing collaborations. As of 2005, the Aveyron department continued its opening up in terms of communication tools; the ring road of Rodez, surrounding the agglomeration of Grand Rodez and converted into a dual carriageway urban boulevard, to serve the strategic locations of the Rodez settlement. Continuity of a dual carriageway on the entire ring road should emerge on the horizon in 2018 as part of the 2014-2018 plan.
Indeed, three grade separated roundabouts are planned as part of this dual carriageway urban boulevard project: Moutiers, La Gineste and Saint-Marc. The principle of a large bypass has not been excluded. In 2009, the Rodez-Aveyron Airport experienced changes with the expansion of its terminal and the opening of new international scheduled destinations. Once in town, options for getting around include the local bus system, or on foot; the pedestrian city centre is paved in cobblestone streets, which are lined with buildings that are hundreds of years old. Rodez is at the centre of a railway formed by lines going to Capdenac, Albi along the Castelnaudary to Rodez line and Sévérac-le-Château; the rail network has undergone numerous restructurings, including through its plan rail Midi-Pyrénées. Between 2009 and 2013, the complete change of the rails, the rehabilitation of the structures, replacing the systems of information and operation of traffic on the lines in Rodez-Toulouse and Rodez-Paris have resulted in an improvement of the network.
In addition, the region was equipped in 2013 with new TER trains and comfortable. Rodez is situated to the foot of the RN88, transformed in the Rodez area into an urban boulevard to allow the flow of traffic totalling 35,000 vehicles per day. Counting loops are buried to assess traffic for transcription by real-time traffic maps; the portion of this highway, declared a national priority in 1993 between Rodez and Albi, is in the process of restructuring with the doubling of the carriageways, after decades of studies and that since 18 October 2010, date of the official launch of this vast site. A portion of the RN88 road between Rodez and Carmaux should be converted into a dual carriageway expressway and put into service in 2018, thus allowing a seamless dual carriageway journey between Rodez and Toulouse. Indeed, the A68 has been in service between Toulouse for several years; as of 2018, the RN88, an extension of the A68 will almost all be dual carriageway, thu
Willys
Willys was a brand name used by Willys–Overland Motors, an American automobile company best known for its design and production of military Jeeps and civilian versions during the 20th century. In 1908, John Willys bought the Overland Automotive Division of Standard Wheel Company and in 1912 renamed it Willys–Overland Motor Company. From 1912 to 1918, Willys was the second-largest producer of automobiles in the United States after Ford Motor Company. In 1913, Willys acquired a license to build the Charles Knight's sleeve-valve engine which it used in cars bearing the Willys–Knight nameplate. In the mid-1920s, Willys acquired the F. B. Stearns Company of Cleveland and assumed continued production of the Stearns-Knight luxury car, as well. John Willys acquired the Electric Auto-Lite Company in 1914 and in 1917 formed the Willys Corporation to act as his holding company. In 1916, it acquired the Russell Motor Car Company of Toronto, Ontario, by 1917, New Process Gear, in 1919 acquired the Duesenberg Motors Company plant in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
The New Jersey plant was replaced by a new, larger facility in Indianapolis, was to be the site of production for a new Willys Six at an adjacent site, but the depression of 1920–21 brought the Willys Corporation to its knees. The bankers hired Walter P. Chrysler to sort out the mess and the first model to go was the Willys Six, deemed an engineering disaster. Chrysler had three auto engineers: Owen Skelton, Carl Breer, Fred Zeder begin work on a new car referred to as the Chrysler Six. To raise cash needed to pay off debts, many of the Willys Corporation assets were put on the auction block; the Elizabeth plant and the Chrysler Six prototype were sold to William C. Durant in the process of building a new, third empire; the plant built Durant's low-priced Star, while the Chrysler Six prototype was reworked to become the 1923 Flint. Walter Chrysler and the three engineers, working on the Chrysler Six all moved on to Maxwell-Chalmers where they continued their work launching the six-cylinder Chrysler in January 1924.
In 1926, Willys–Overland introduced a new line of small cars named Willys–Overland Whippet. In the economic depression of the 1930s, a number of Willys automotive brands faltered. Stearns-Knight was liquidated in 1929. Whippet production ended in 1931. Production of the Willys-Knight ended in 1933. In 1932, Ward M. Canaday, who beginning in 1916 had done advertising for the company before becoming a full-time employee, had taken on the role of chairman, he helped guide the company through its current receivership. At this time, Willys decided to clear the boards and produce two new models – the 4-cylinder Willys 77 and the 6-cylinder Willys 99 – but since the firm was once again on the verge of bankruptcy, only the 77 went into production, it was forced to sell its Canadian subsidiary, itself in weak financial shape, started a massive reorganization. Only the main assembly plant and some smaller factories remained the property of Willys–Overland; the other assets were sold off to a new holding company that leased some of the properties back to W-O.
The parent company was thus able to ride out the storm. In 1936, the Willys–Overland Motor Company was reorganized as Willys–Overland Motors. In 1937, Willys redesigned the 4-cylinder model, it gained a semistreamlined body with a slanted windshield, headlamps integrally embedded into the fenders, a one-piece, rounded hood transversely hinged at the rear. For 1939, the Model 39 featured Lockheed hydraulic brakes, a two-inch increase in wheelbase to 102 inches and an improved 134 DID four-cylinder engine with power increased from 48 to 61 hp; the Model 39 was marketed as an Overland and as a Willys–Overland rather than as a Willys. In 1929, the company built a factory that built vehicles located at what is now 6201 Randolph Street, Commerce City, California. During the war, the factory built aircraft assemblies for Hudson Bombers; when the war ended, the factory resumed automobile production and was one of two locations to build the first CJ2A, as well as the Willys Aero. The factory was closed in 1954.
The location is now occupied by Prologis Eaves Distribution Center. Willys–Overland was one of several bidders when the War Department sought an automaker that could begin rapid production of a lightweight truck based on a design by American Bantam. In 1938, Joseph W. Frazer had joined Willys from Chrysler as chief executive, he saw a need to improve the firm's 4-cylinder engine to handle the abuse to which the Jeep would be subjected. This objective was brilliantly achieved by ex-Studebaker chief engineer Delmar "Barney" Roos, who wantedan engine that could develop 15 horsepower at 4,400 r.p.m. and run for 150 hours without failure. What he started with was an engine that developed 48 horsepower at 3,400 r.p.m. and could run continuously for only two to four hours... It took Barney Roos two years to perfect his engine, by a whole complex of revisions that included closer tolerances, tougher alloys, aluminum pistons, a flywheel reduced in weight from fifty-seven to thirty-one pounds. Production of the Willys MB, better known as Jeep, began in 1941, shared between Willys and American Bantam.
8,598 units were produced that year and 359,851 units before the end of World War II. Willys–Overland ranked 48th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts. In total, 653,568 military Jeeps were manufactured; the origin of the name "Jeep" has been debated for many years. Some people believe "Jeep" is a phonetic pronunciation of the abbreviation GP, from "General Purpose", used as part of the of
