1.
Battle of Trafalgar
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The Franco-Spanish fleet lost twenty-two ships, without a single British vessel being lost. It was the most decisive battle of the war, conclusively ending French plans to invade England. Nelson instead divided his force into two columns directed perpendicularly against the enemy fleet, with decisive results. Nelson was shot by a French musketeer during the battle and died shortly after, Villeneuve was captured along with his ship Bucentaure. Admiral Federico Gravina, the senior Spanish flag officer, escaped with the remnant of the fleet, Villeneuve attended Nelsons funeral while a captive on parole in Britain. In 1805, the First French Empire, under Napoleon Bonaparte, was the dominant military power on the European continent. During the course of the war, the British imposed a blockade on France. When the Third Coalition declared war on France, after the short-lived Peace of Amiens, to do so, he needed to ensure that the Royal Navy would be unable to disrupt the invasion flotilla, which would require control of the English Channel. The main French fleets were at Brest in Brittany and at Toulon on the Mediterranean coast, other ports on the French Atlantic coast harboured smaller squadrons. France and Spain were allied, so the Spanish fleet based in Cádiz, the British possessed an experienced and well-trained corps of naval officers. By contrast, some of the best officers in the French navy had either been executed or had left the service during the part of the French Revolution. Vice-Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve had taken command of the French Mediterranean fleet following the death of Latouche Treville, there had been more competent officers but they had either been employed elsewhere or had fallen from Napoleons favour. Villeneuve had shown a lack of enthusiasm for facing Nelson. Napoleons naval plan in 1805 was for the French and Spanish fleets in the Mediterranean and Cádiz to break through the blockade and join forces in the Caribbean. They would then return, assist the fleet in Brest to emerge from the blockade, early in 1805, Vice Admiral Lord Nelson commanded the British fleet blockading Toulon. Unlike William Cornwallis, who maintained a blockade off Brest with the Channel Fleet. However, Villeneuves fleet successfully evaded Nelsons when the British were blown off station by storms, Nelson commenced a search of the Mediterranean, erroneously supposing that the French intended to make for Egypt. However, Villeneuve took his fleet through the Strait of Gibraltar, rendezvoused with the Spanish fleet, once Nelson realised that the French had crossed the Atlantic Ocean, he set off in pursuit
2.
Yacht racing
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Yacht racing is a form of sport involving yachts and larger sailboats, as distinguished from dinghy racing. It is composed of multiple yachts, in competition, racing around a course marked by buoys or other fixed navigational devices or racing longer distances across open water from point-to-point. It can involve a series of races when buoy racing or multiple legs when point-to-point racing, the sporting element in the word lies in the derivation of jaght from the root jaghen, which means to hunt, chase or pursue…. The formal racing of boats is believed to have started with sailboats in the Netherlands some time in the 17th century, soon, in England, custom-built racing yachts began to emerge and the Royal Yacht Squadron was established in 1815. In 1661 John Evelyn recorded a competition between Katherine and Anne, two large royal sailing vessels both of English design, …the wager 100-1, the race from Greenwich to Gravesend and back. One of the vessels was owned, and sometimes steered, by Charles II, in 1782 the Cumberland Fleet, a class of sailing vessel known for its ability to sail close to the wind, were painted racing up the Thames River with spectators viewing from a bridge. Much like today, this obsession with sailing close to the wind with speed, in the nineteenth century most yacht races were started by allotting starting positions to the competitors. Buoys were laid in a line, to which the competitors attached their yachts by means of spring ropes. The yachts were required to all the sails forward of the main mast on deck until the starting signal was given. The Yacht Racing Association was founded in 1875 by Prince Batthyany-Strattman, Captain J. W. Hughes, the Y. R. A. wrote standardised yacht racing rules which included the Flying Start used today. Bringing yacht racing to the forefront of life, the Americas Cup was first raced in 1851 between the New York Yacht Club and the Royal Yacht Squadron. Subsequently, the Cup races were conducted, usually every 3–4 years, based on an issued by one club to the current Cup holder. As yacht racing became more prevalent, and yacht design more diverse, it was necessary to establish systems of measurements and time allowances due to the differences in boat design. Longer yachts are inherently faster than shorter ones, therefore, in the interests of fairness, as a result, both ratings and “one-design” competition were developed. Ratings systems rely upon some formulaic analysis of very specific yacht-design parameters such as length, sail area, displacement. During the 1920s and through the 1970s the Cruising Club of America established a formula by which most racing/cruising boats were designed during that period, most popular family-oriented cruising sailboats will have a rating filed with a local chapter of the PHRF. The most prevalent handicap rating systems today are the ORC, ORR, IRC, and the PHRF. Many countries organise their own handicap systems which do not take account the size, weight, or sail area of the yacht
3.
NATO
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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party, three NATO members are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and are officially nuclear-weapon states. NATOs headquarters are located in Haren, Brussels, Belgium, while the headquarters of Allied Command Operations is near Mons. NATO is an Alliance that consists of 28 independent member countries across North America and Europe, an additional 22 countries participate in NATOs Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the global total, Members defence spending is supposed to amount to 2% of GDP. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, politically, the organization sought better relations with former Warsaw Pact countries, several of which joined the alliance in 1999 and 2004. N. The Treaty of Brussels, signed on 17 March 1948 by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, the treaty and the Soviet Berlin Blockade led to the creation of the Western European Unions Defence Organization in September 1948. However, participation of the United States was thought necessary both to counter the power of the USSR and to prevent the revival of nationalist militarism. He got a hearing, especially considering American anxiety over Italy. In 1948 European leaders met with U. S. defense, military and diplomatic officials at the Pentagon, marshalls orders, exploring a framework for a new and unprecedented association. Talks for a new military alliance resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty and it included the five Treaty of Brussels states plus the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, stated in 1949 that the goal was to keep the Russians out, the Americans in. Popular support for the Treaty was not unanimous, and some Icelanders participated in a pro-neutrality, the creation of NATO can be seen as the primary institutional consequence of a school of thought called Atlanticism which stressed the importance of trans-Atlantic cooperation. The members agreed that an attack against any one of them in Europe or North America would be considered an attack against them all. The treaty does not require members to respond with military action against an aggressor, although obliged to respond, they maintain the freedom to choose the method by which they do so. This differs from Article IV of the Treaty of Brussels, which states that the response will be military in nature. It is nonetheless assumed that NATO members will aid the attacked member militarily, the treaty was later clarified to include both the members territory and their vessels, forces or aircraft above the Tropic of Cancer, including some Overseas departments of France. The creation of NATO brought about some standardization of allied military terminology, procedures, and technology, the roughly 1300 Standardization Agreements codified many of the common practices that NATO has achieved
4.
Allied-occupied Germany
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The four powers divided Germany into four occupation zones for administrative purposes, into what is collectively known now as Allied-occupied Germany. This division was ratified at the Potsdam Conference, in Autumn 1944 the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union had agreed on the zones by the London Protocol. The Final German Peace Treaty would result in the westward of Polands borders back to approximately as they were before 1722. In the closing weeks of fighting in Europe, United States forces had pushed beyond the boundaries for the future zones of occupation. The so-called line of contact between Soviet and American forces at the end of hostilities, mostly lying eastward of the July 1945-established inner German border was temporary. After two months in which they had areas that had been assigned to the Soviet zone. All territories annexed by Germany before the war from Austria and Czechoslovakia were returned to these countries, the Memel Territory, annexed by Germany from Lithuania before the war, was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1945 and transferred to the Lithuanian SSR. All territories annexed by Germany during the war from Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Poland, the American zone consisted of Bavaria and Hesse in Southern Germany, and the northern portions of the present-day German state of Baden-Württemberg. The ports of Bremen and Bremerhaven were also placed under American control because of the American request to have certain toeholds in Northern Germany, the headquarters of the American military government was the former IG Farben Building in Frankfurt am Main. Beginning in May 1945, many of the American combat troops and airmen in, Army, the Army Air Forces, and the U. S. Navy upon their return home. The Canadian Army was tied down in surrounding the Netherlands until the Germans there surrendered on 5 May 1945 – just two days before the surrender of the Wehrmacht in Western Europe to U. S. Then in July 1945, the British Army withdrew from small slices of Germany that had previously agreed to be occupied by the Soviet Army. Within the British Zone of Occupation, the CCG/BE re-established the German state of Hamburg, also in 1947, the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen became an exclave of the American Zone of Occupation located within the British Zone. In 1946, the Norwegian Brigade Group in Germany had 4,000 soldiers in Hanover, despite its being one of the Allied Powers, the French Republic was at first not granted an occupation zone in Germany. This created a French zone of occupation in the westernmost part of Germany and it consisted of two barely contiguous areas of Germany along the French border that met at just a single point along the Rhine River. It included the Saargebiet, which was disentangled from it on 16 February 1946, by 18 December 1946 customs controls were established between the Saar area and allied occupied Germany. The French zone ceded further adjacent municipalities to the Saar, included in the French zone was the town of Büsingen am Hochrhein, a German exclave separated from the rest of the country by a narrow strip of neutral Swiss territory. The Swiss government agreed to limited numbers of French troops to pass through its territory in order to maintain law
5.
History of the Ryukyu Islands
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This article is about the history of the Ryukyu Islands southwest of the main islands of Japan. The name Ryūkyū originates from Chinese writings, the earliest references to Ryūkyū write the name as 琉虬 and 流求 in the Chinese history Book of Sui in 607. It is a name, meaning glazed horn-dragon. The origin of the term Okinawa remains unclear, although Okinawa as a term was used in Okinawa, there was also a divine woman named Uchinaa in the book Omoro Sōshi, a compilation of ancient poems and songs from Okinawa Island. This suggests the presence of a place named Okinawa. The Chinese monk Jianzhen, who traveled to Japan in the mid-8th century CE to promote Buddhism, the Japanese map series Ryukyu Kuniezu labeled the island as 悪鬼納 in 1644. The current Chinese characters for Okinawa were first written in the 1702 version of Ryukyu Kuniezu, the ancestry of the modern-day Ryukyuan people is disputed. The time when human beings appeared in Okinawa remains unknown, the earliest human bones were those of Yamashita Cave Man, about 32 000 years ago, followed by Pinza-Abu Cave Man, Miyakojima, about 26 000 years ago and Minatogawa Man, about 18 000 years ago. Of them, perfect bodies were excavated of the Minatogawa man and they probably came through China and were once considered to be the direct ancestors of those living in Okinawa. No stone tools were discovered with them, for the following 12 000 years, no trace of archaeological sites was discovered after the Minatogawa man site. However, the use of Jōmon and Yayoi of Japan is questionable in Okinawa, in the former, it was a hunter-gatherer society, with wave-like opening Jōmon pottery. In the latter part of Jomon period, archaeological sites moved near the seashore, in Okinawa, rice was not cultivated during the Yayoi period but began during the latter period of shell-heap age. Shell rings for arms made of shells obtained in the Sakishima Islands, in these islands, the presence of shell axes,2500 years ago, suggests the influence of a southeastern-Pacific culture. The first history of Ryukyu was written in Chūzan Seikan, which was compiled by Shō Shōken, the Ryukyuan creation myth is told, which includes the establishment of Tenson as the first king of the islands and the creation of the Noro, female priestesses of the Ryukyuan religion. The throne was usurped from one of Tensons descendants by a man named Riyu, Chūzan Seikan then tells the story of a Japanese samurai, Minamoto no Tametomo, who fought in the Hogen Rebellion of 1156 and fled first to Izu Island and then to Okinawa. He had relations with the sister of the Aji of Ōzato and sired Shunten, most historians, however, discount the Tametomo story as a revisionist history that is intended to legitimize Japanese domination over Okinawa. Shuntens dynasty ended in the third generation when his grandson, Gihon, abdicated, went into exile, and was succeeded by Eiso, the Eiso dynasty continued for five generations. Gusuku is the used for the distinctive Okinawan form of castles or fortresses
6.
Occupation of Japan
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The Allied occupation of Japan at the end of World War II was led by General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers, with support from the British Commonwealth. Unlike in the occupation of Germany, the Soviet Union was allowed little to no influence over Japan and this foreign presence marked the only time in Japans history that it had been occupied by a foreign power. It transformed the country into a democracy that recalled New Deal priorities of the 1930s politics by Roosevelt. Japan surrendered to the Allies on August 14,1945, when the Japanese government notified the Allies that it had accepted the Potsdam Declaration. At Yalta, Stalin made sure Roosevelt was clear on the promise he had made that urged assistance from the USSR on intervening in the war in Japan with the U. S, (On the following day, Emperor Hirohito announced Japans unconditional surrender on the radio. The announcement was the emperors first ever planned radio broadcast and the first time most citizens of Japan ever heard their sovereigns voice. This date is known as Victory over Japan, or V-J Day, and marked the end of World War II, Japanese officials left for Manila, Philippines on August 19 to meet MacArthur and to be briefed on his plans for the occupation. On August 28,1945,150 US personnel flew to Atsugi and they were followed by USS Missouri, whose accompanying vessels landed the 4th Marine Division on the southern coast of Kanagawa. MacArthur arrived in Tokyo on August 30, and immediately decreed several laws, No Allied personnel were to assault Japanese people. No Allied personnel were to eat the scarce Japanese food, flying the Hinomaru or Rising Sun flag was initially severely restricted. This restriction was lifted in 1948 and completely lifted the following year. On September 2,1945, Japan formally surrendered with the signing of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, on September 6, US President Truman approved a document titled US Initial Post-Surrender Policy for Japan. The document set two main objectives for the occupation, eliminating Japans war potential and turning Japan into a nation with pro-United Nations orientation. At the head of the Occupation administration was General MacArthur, who was supposed to defer to an advisory council set up by the Allied powers. Looking back to his work in Japan, MacArthur described the Japanese reactions as acting similar to a boy of twelve and were at odds of putting away their troubled past. On V-J Day, US President Harry Truman appointed General Douglas MacArthur as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, during the war, the Allied Powers had planned to divide Japan amongst themselves for the purposes of occupation, as was done for the occupation of Germany. The Soviet Union had some intentions of occupying Hokkaidō, had this occurred, there might have eventually been a communist state in the Soviet zone of occupation. However, unlike the Soviet occupations of East Germany and North Korea, even with these measures, millions of people were still on the brink of starvation for several years after the surrender
7.
Flag of Germany
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The flag of Germany is a tricolour consisting of three equal horizontal bands displaying the national colours of Germany, black, red, and gold. The flag was first adopted as the flag of modern Germany in 1919. Germany has two competing traditions of national colours, black-red-gold and black-white-red, which have played an important role in the history of Germany. The black-red-gold tricolour first appeared in the early 19th century and achieved prominence during the 1848 Revolutions, the short-lived Frankfurt Parliament of 1848–1850 proposed the tricolour as a flag for a united and democratic German state. With the formation of the Weimar Republic after World War I, following World War II, the tricolour was designated as the flag of both West and East Germany in 1949. The two flags were identical until 1959, when the East German flag was augmented with the coat of arms of East Germany, since reunification on 3 October 1990, the black-red-gold tricolour has become the flag of reunified Germany. After the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, the Prussian-dominated North German Confederation adopted a tricolour of black-white-red as its flag and this flag later became the flag of the German Empire, formed following the unification of Germany in 1871, and was used until 1918. The colours of the flag are associated with the republican democracy formed after World War I. There are many theories in regarding the origins of the colour scheme used in the 1848 flag. Another claim goes back to the uniforms of the Lützow Free Corps, comprising mostly university students, the German national flag or Bundesflagge, containing only the black-red-gold tricolour, was introduced as part of the German constitution in 1949. Following the creation of government and military flags in later years. The government flag of Germany is officially known as the Dienstflagge der Bundesbehörden or Bundesdienstflagge for short, introduced in 1950, the government flag is the civil flag defaced with the Bundesschild, which overlaps with up to one fifth of the black and gold bands. The government flag may only be used by government authorities and its use by others is an offence. However, public use of similar to the Bundesdienstflagge is tolerated. In addition to the horizontal format, many public buildings in Germany use vertical flags. Most town halls fly their town flag together with the flag in this way. The proportions of these flags are not specified. When hung like a banner or draped, the band should be on the left
8.
Scuba diving
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Scuba diving is a mode of underwater diving in which the scuba diver uses a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus which is completely independent of surface supply, to breathe underwater. They may include additional cylinders for decompression gas or emergency breathing gas, closed-circuit or semi-closed circuit rebreather scuba systems allow recycling of exhaled gases. The volume of gas used is reduced compared to that of open circuit, therefore, scuba divers engaged in armed forces covert operations may be referred to as frogmen, combat divers or attack swimmers. A scuba diver primarily moves underwater by using fins attached to the feet, scuba divers are trained in the procedures and skills appropriate to their level of certification by instructors affiliated to the diver certification organisations which issue these certifications. A minimum level of fitness and health is required by most training organisations, the closed-circuit rebreathers were first developed for escape and rescue purposes, and were modified for military use, due to their stealth advantages, as they produce very few bubbles. The first commercially successful closed-circuit scuba was designed and built by English diving engineer, Henry Fleuss in 1878, while working for Siebe Gorman in London. Sir Robert Davis, head of Siebe Gorman, improved the oxygen rebreather in 1910 with his invention of the Davis Submerged Escape Apparatus, rebreathers have been increasingly used by civilians for recreation, especially since the end of the Cold War. This reduced the risk of attack by Communist Bloc forces. After that, the armed forces had less reason to requisition civilian rebreather patents. The single hose two stage scuba regulators trace their origins to Australia, where Ted Eldred developed the first example of type of regulator. This was developed because patents protected the Aqualungs twin hose design, the single hose regulator separates the demand valve from the cylinder, giving the diver air at the ambient pressure at the mouth, rather than ambient pressure at the cylinder valve. The term SCUBA originally referred to United States combat frogmens oxygen rebreathers, SCUBA was originally an acronym, but is now generally used as a common noun or adjective, scuba. It has become acceptable to refer to equipment or scuba apparatus—examples of the linguistic RAS syndrome. Scuba diving may be performed for a number of reasons, both personal and professional, recreational diving is done purely for enjoyment and has a number of technical disciplines to increase interest underwater, such as cave diving, wreck diving, ice diving and deep diving. Divers may be employed professionally to perform tasks underwater, some of these tasks are suitable for scuba. There are divers who work, full or part-time, in the diving community as instructors, assistant instructors, divemasters. Other specialist areas of diving include military diving, with a long history of military frogmen in various roles. Their roles include direct combat, infiltration behind enemy lines, placing mines or using a manned torpedo, in some cases diver rescue teams may also be part of a fire department, paramedical service or lifeguard unit, and may be classed as public service diving
9.
Royal Navy
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The Royal Navy is the United Kingdoms naval warfare force. Although warships were used by the English kings from the medieval period. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century, from the middle decades of the 17th century and through the 18th century, the Royal Navy vied with the Dutch Navy and later with the French Navy for maritime supremacy. From the mid 18th century it was the worlds most powerful navy until surpassed by the United States Navy during the Second World War. The Royal Navy played a key part in establishing the British Empire as the world power during the 19th. Due to this historical prominence, it is common, even among non-Britons, following World War I, the Royal Navy was significantly reduced in size, although at the onset of the Second World War it was still the worlds largest. By the end of the war, however, the United States Navy had emerged as the worlds largest, during the Cold War, the Royal Navy transformed into a primarily anti-submarine force, hunting for Soviet submarines, mostly active in the GIUK gap. The Royal Navy is part of Her Majestys Naval Service, which includes the Royal Marines. The professional head of the Naval Service is the First Sea Lord, the Defence Council delegates management of the Naval Service to the Admiralty Board, chaired by the Secretary of State for Defence. The strength of the fleet of the Kingdom of England was an important element in the power in the 10th century. English naval power declined as a result of the Norman conquest. Medieval fleets, in England as elsewhere, were almost entirely composed of merchant ships enlisted into service in time of war. Englands naval organisation was haphazard and the mobilisation of fleets when war broke out was slow, early in the war French plans for an invasion of England failed when Edward III of England destroyed the French fleet in the Battle of Sluys in 1340. Major fighting was confined to French soil and Englands naval capabilities sufficed to transport armies and supplies safely to their continental destinations. Such raids halted finally only with the occupation of northern France by Henry V. Henry VII deserves a large share of credit in the establishment of a standing navy and he embarked on a program of building ships larger than heretofore. He also invested in dockyards, and commissioned the oldest surviving dry dock in 1495 at Portsmouth, a standing Navy Royal, with its own secretariat, dockyards and a permanent core of purpose-built warships, emerged during the reign of Henry VIII. Under Elizabeth I England became involved in a war with Spain, the new regimes introduction of Navigation Acts, providing that all merchant shipping to and from England or her colonies should be carried out by English ships, led to war with the Dutch Republic. In the early stages of this First Anglo-Dutch War, the superiority of the large, heavily armed English ships was offset by superior Dutch tactical organisation and the fighting was inconclusive
10.
Magnetic declination
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Magnetic declination or variation is the angle on the horizontal plane between magnetic north and true north. This angle varies depending on position on the Earths surface, and changes over time. The angle between magnetic and grid meridians is called grid magnetic angle, grid variation, or grivation. ”By convention, declination is positive when magnetic north is east of true north, and negative when it is to the west. Isogonic lines are lines on the Earths surface along which the declination has the constant value. The lowercase Greek letter δ is frequently used as the symbol for magnetic declination, Magnetic declination varies both from place to place and with the passage of time. As a traveller cruises the east coast of the United States, for example, the declination at London, UK is one degree 7 minutes west, and as the country is quite small that figure is fairly good for the whole of the country. It is reducing, and scientists predict that in about 2050 it will be zero, similarly, secular changes to these flows result in slow changes to the field strength and direction at the same point on the Earth. The magnetic declination in an area may change slowly over time, possibly as little as 2–2.5 degrees every hundred years or so. For a location closer to the pole like Ivujivik, the declination may change by 1 degree every three years and this may be insignificant to most travellers, but can be important if using magnetic bearings from old charts or metes in old deeds for locating places with any precision. As an example of how variation changes over time, see the two charts of the area, below, surveyed 124 years apart. The 1884 chart shows a variation of 8 degrees,20 minutes West, the 2008 chart shows 13 degrees,15 minutes West. The instrument used to perform this measurement is known as a declinometer, the approximate position of the north celestial pole is indicated by Polaris. In the northern hemisphere, declination can therefore be determined as the difference between the magnetic bearing and a visual bearing on Polaris. Polaris currently traces a circle 0. 75° in radius around the celestial pole. At high latitudes a plumb-bob is helpful to sight Polaris against an object close to the horizon. A rough estimate of the local declination can be determined from a general isogonic chart of the world or a continent, isogonic lines are also shown on aeronautical and nautical charts. Larger-scale local maps may indicate current local declination, often with the aid of a schematic diagram, unless the area depicted is very small, declination may vary measurably over the extent of the map, so the data may be referred to a specific location on the map. The current rate and direction of change may also be shown, the same diagram may show the angle of grid north, which may differ from true north
