The Indus Valley Civilisation was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, in its mature form from 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE. Together with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of three early civilisations of the Near East and South Asia, of the three, the most widespread, its sites spanning an area stretching from northeast Afghanistan, through much of Pakistan, into western and northwestern India, it flourished in the basins of the Indus River, which flows through the length of Pakistan, along a system of perennial monsoon-fed, rivers that once coursed in the vicinity of the seasonal Ghaggar-Hakra river in northwest India and eastern Pakistan. The civilisation's cities were noted for their urban planning, baked brick houses, elaborate drainage systems, water supply systems, clusters of large non-residential buildings, new techniques in handicraft and metallurgy; the large cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa likely grew to containing between 30,000 and 60,000 individuals, the civilisation itself during its florescence may have contained between one and five million individuals.

Gradual drying of the region's soil during the 3rd millennium BCE may have been the initial spur for the urbanisation associated with the civilisation, but also reduced the water supply enough to cause the civilisation's demise, to scatter its population eastward. The Indus civilisation is known as the Harappan Civilisation, after its type site, the first of its sites to be excavated early in the 20th century in what was the Punjab province of British India and now is Pakistan; the discovery of Harappa and soon afterwards Mohenjo-daro was the culmination of work beginning in 1861 with the founding of the Archaeological Survey of India during the British Raj. There were however earlier and cultures called Early Harappan and Late Harappan in the same area. By 2002, over 1,000 Mature Harappan cities and settlements had been reported, of which just under a hundred had been excavated, there are only 5 major urban sites: Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, Ganeriwala in Cholistan, Rakhigarhi; the early Harappan cultures were preceded by local Neolithic agricultural villages, from which the river plains were populated.

The Harappan language is not directly attested, its affiliation is uncertain since the Indus script is still undeciphered. A relationship with the Dravidian or Elamo-Dravidian language family is favoured by a section of scholars; the Indus Valley Civilisation is named after the Indus river system in whose alluvial plains the early sites of the civilisation were identified and excavated. Following a tradition in archaeology, the civilisation is sometimes referred to as the Harappan, after its type site, the first site to be excavated in the 1920s. A section of scholars use the terms "Sarasvati culture", the "Sarasvati Civilisation", the "Indus-Sarasvati Civilisation" or the "Sindhu-Saraswati Civilisation", because they consider the Ghaggar-Hakra river to be the same as the Sarasvati, a river mentioned several times in the Rig Veda, a collection of ancient Sanskrit hymns composed in the second millennium BCE. Recent geophysical research suggests that unlike the Sarasvati, whose descriptions in the Rig Veda are those of a snow-fed river, the Ghaggar-Hakra was a system of perennial monsoon-fed rivers, which became seasonal around the time that the civilisation diminished 4,000 years ago.

In addition, proponents of the Sarasvati nomenclature see a connection between the decline of the Indus civilisation and the rise of the Vedic civilisation on the Gangetic plain. The Indus civilization was contemporary with the other riverine civilisations of the ancient world: Egypt along the Nile, Mesopotamia in the lands watered by the Euphrates and the Tigris, China in the drainage basin of the Yellow River. By the time of its mature phase, the civilisation had spread over an area larger than the others, which included a core of 1,500 kilometres up the alluvial plane of the Indus and its tributaries. In addition, there was a region with disparate flora and habitats, up to ten times as large, shaped culturally and economically by the Indus. Around 6500 BCE, agriculture emerged on the margins of the Indus alluvium. In the following millennia, settled life made inroads into the Indus plains, setting the stage for the growth of rural and urban human settlements; the more organized sedentary life in turn led to a net increase in the birth rate.

The large urban centres of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa likely grew to containing between 30,000 and 60,000 individuals, during the civilization's florescence, the population of the subcontinent grew to between 4–6 million people. During this period the death rate increased as well, for close living conditions of humans and domesticated animals led to an increase in contagious diseases. According to one estimate, the population of the Indus civilization at its peak may have been between one and five million; the Indus Valley Civilisation extended from Pakistan's Balochistan in the west to India's western Uttar Pradesh in the east, from northeastern Afghanistan in the north to India's Gujarat state in the south. The largest number of sites are in Gujarat, Punjab, Rajasthan, U

Albert III, a member of the House of Gorizia, ruled as Count of Gorizia from 1338 until his death. Albert III was a son of Count Albert II of Gorizia and his first wife Elizabeth, a daughter of Landgrave Henry I of Hesse. From 1329 to 1338, he served as governor of Gorizia and Istria for his minor nephew Count John Henry IV. In 1338, he inherited the County of Gorizia upon the early death of John Henry IV. Albert ruled jointly with his younger half-brothers Henry V and Meinhard VI. In 1339, they agreed. Three years he waived his rights to Gorizia and went on to rule in Istria and in the Windic March, including County of Metlika. Albert III married a noblewomen named Helen and in 1353, with Catherine, a daughter of Count Frederick I of Celje. Both marriages were childless. Shortly before his death about 1374, Albert bequested his vast Istrian and Carniolan possessions to the Habsburg duke Rudolf IV of Austria; the remaining Gorizia estates were inherited by his surviving half-brother Meinhard VI, elevated to a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire by Emperor Charles IV

Aluminium Industrie Vaassen BV v Romalpa Aluminium Ltd 1 WLR 676 is a UK insolvency law case, concerning a quasi-security interest in a company's assets and priority of creditors in a company winding up. Aluminium Industrie Vaasen BV was a Dutch supplier of aluminium foil. Romalpa Aluminium Ltd processed it in their factory. In the contract of sale, it said that ownership of the foil would only be transferred to Romalpa when the purchase price had been paid in full and products made from the foil should be kept by the buyers as bailees separately from other stock on AIV’s behalf as ‘surety’ for the rest of the price, but it said Romalpa had the power to sell the manufactured articles in the course of business. When such sales took place, this would be deemed to be as an agent for AIV. Romalpa went insolvent, the receiver and manager of Romalpa's bank, Hume Corporation Ltd, wanted the aluminium to be caught by its floating charge. AlV contended that its contract was effective to retain title to the goods, so it did not need to share them with other creditors in the liquidation.

Mocatta J held. Aluminium Industrie Vaasen was still the owner of the aluminium foil, could trace the price due to them into the proceeds of sale of the finished goods, ahead of Romalpa’s unsecured and secured creditors, he said the following. Roskill LJ, Goff LJ and Megaw LJ upheld the decision, that Aluminium Industrie Vaassen retained title to the unused aluminium foil. Romalpa clause UK insolvency law William Davies. "Romalpa thirty years on — still an enigma?". Hertfordshire Law Journal. University of Hertfordshire. 4: 2–23. Retrieved 12 November 2013. L Sealy and S Worthington and Materials in Company Law 495-496