1.
Ostend
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Ostend is a Belgian coastal city and municipality, located in the province of West Flanders. It comprises the boroughs of Mariakerke, Raversijde, Stene and Zandvoorde, in earlier times, Ostend was a small village built on the east-end of an island between the North Sea and a beach lake. Although small, the rose to the status of town around 1265 when the inhabitants were allowed to hold a market. The major source of income for the inhabitants was fishing, the North Sea coastline has always been rather unstable and in 1395 the inhabitants decided to build a new Ostend behind large dikes and further away from the always-threatening sea. The strategic position on the North Sea coast had major advantages for Ostend as a harbour, the town was frequently taken, ravaged, ransacked and destroyed by conquering armies. The Dutch rebels, the Gueuzen, took control of the town and this shocking event set in motion negotiations that led to a truce several years later. When the truce broke down, it became a Dunkirker base, after this era, Ostend was turned into a harbour of some importance. In 1722, the Dutch again closed off the entrance to the worlds biggest harbour of Antwerp, therefore, Ostend rose in importance because the town provided an alternative exit to the sea. The Belgium Austriacum had become part of the Austrian Empire, the Austrian Emperor Charles VI granted the town the trade monopoly with Africa and the Far-East. The Oostendse Compagnie was allowed to found colonies overseas, however, in 1727 the Oostendse Compagnie was forced to stop its activities because of Dutch and British pressure. The Netherlands and Britain would not allow competitors on the trade level. Both nations regarded international trade as their privilege, on 19 September 1826 the local artillery magazine exploded. At least 20 people were killed and a further 200 injured, the affluent quarter of dHargras was levelled and scarcely a building in the city escaped damage. Disease followed the leading to further deaths. The harbour of Ostend continued to expand because the harbour dock, in 1838, a railway connection with Brussels was constructed. Ostend became a harbour to England in 1846 when the first ferry sailed to Dover. Very important for the image of the town was the attention it started to receive from the Belgian kings Leopold I, both liked to spend their holidays in Ostend. Important monuments and villas were built to please the Royal Family, including the Hippodrome Wellington horse racing track, the rest of aristocratic Belgium followed and soon Ostend became known as The Queen of the Belgian sea-side resorts
2.
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was established as a sovereign state on 1 January 1801 by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland. The growing desire for an Irish Republic led to the Irish War of Independence, Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom, and the state was consequently renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Britain financed the European coalition that defeated France in 1815 in the Napoleonic Wars, the British Empire thereby became the foremost world power for the next century. The Crimean War with Russia and the Boer wars were relatively small operations in a largely peaceful century, rapid industrialisation that began in the decades prior to the states formation continued up until the mid-19th century. A devastating famine, exacerbated by government inaction in the century, led to demographic collapse in much of Ireland. It was an era of economic modernization and growth of industry, trade and finance. Outward migration was heavy to the colonies and to the United States. Britain also built up a large British Empire in Africa and Asia, India, by far the most important possession, saw a short-lived revolt in 1857. In foreign policy Britain favoured free trade, which enabled its financiers and merchants to operate successfully in many otherwise independent countries, as in South America. Britain formed no permanent military alliances until the early 20th century, when it began to cooperate with Japan, France and Russia, and moved closer to the United States. A brief period of limited independence for Ireland came to an end following the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the British governments fear of an independent Ireland siding against them with the French resulted in the decision to unite the two countries. This was brought about by legislation in the parliaments of both kingdoms and came into effect on 1 January 1801, however, King George III was bitterly opposed to any such Emancipation and succeeded in defeating his governments attempts to introduce it. When the Treaty of Amiens ended the war, Britain agreed to return most of the territories it had seized, in May 1803, war was declared again. In 1806, Napoleon issued the series of Berlin Decrees, which brought into effect the Continental System and this policy aimed to eliminate the threat from the British by closing French-controlled territory to foreign trade. Frances population and agricultural capacity far outstripped that of the British Isles, Napoleon expected that cutting Britain off from the European mainland would end its economic hegemony. The Spanish uprising in 1808 at last permitted Britain to gain a foothold on the Continent, after Napoleons surrender and exile to the island of Elba, peace appeared to have returned. The Allies united and the armies of Wellington and Blucher defeated Napoleon once, simultaneous with the Napoleonic Wars, trade disputes, arming hostile Indians and British impressment of American sailors led to the War of 1812 with the United States. The war was little noticed in Britain, which could devote few resources to the conflict until the fall of Napoleon in 1814, American frigates inflicted a series of defeats on the Royal Navy, which was short on manpower due to the conflict in Europe
3.
Sailor
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A sailor, seaman, mariner, or seafarer is a person who navigates waterborne vessels or assists as a crewmember in their operation and maintenance. The term bluejacket may be used for British or US Navy enlisted sailors, the Bluejackets Manual is the basic handbook for United States Navy personnel. 700,000 of the worlds mariners come from the Philippines, the term seaman is frequently used in the particular sense of a sailor who is not an officer. Seafarers hold a variety of professions and ranks, each of which carries unique responsibilities which are integral to the operation of an ocean-going vessel. A ships crew can generally be divided into four categories, the deck department, the engineering department, the stewards department. Officer positions in the department include but are not limited to, master and his chief, second. The official classifications for unlicensed members of the department are able seaman. With some variation, the mate is most often charged with the duties of cargo mate. Second Mates are charged with being the officer in case of medical emergency. All three mates each do four-hour morning and afternoon shifts on the bridge, when underway at sea, Marine engineering staff also deal with the hotel facilities on board, notably the sewage, lighting, air conditioning and water systems. Engineering staff manage bulk fuel transfers, from a barge in port. When underway at sea, the second and third engineers will often be occupied with oil transfers from storage tanks, cleaning of oil purifiers is another regular task. Engineering staff are required to have training in firefighting and first aid, additional duties include maintaining the ships boats and performing other nautical tasks. Engineers play a key role in cargo loading/discharging gear and safety systems, though the specific cargo discharge function remains the responsibility of deck officers, other possible positions include motorman, machinist, electrician, refrigeration engineer and tankerman. A typical stewards department for a ship is a chief steward, a chief cook. All three positions are filled by unlicensed personnel. The chief steward also plans menus, compiles supply, overtime, the steward may requisition or purchase stores and equipment. A chief stewards duties may overlap with those of the assistant, the chief cook
4.
Navigator
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A navigator is the person on board a ship or aircraft responsible for its navigation. The navigators primary responsibility is to be aware of ship or aircraft position at all times, responsibilities include planning the journey, advising the ships captain or aircraft commander of estimated timing to destinations while en route, and ensuring hazards are avoided. U. S. Coast Guard officers that are shipboard navigators are normally cutter qualified at an analogous to the USN officers previously mentioned. Quartermasters are the navigators enlisted assistants and perform most of the technical navigation duties, aboard ships in the Merchant Marine and Merchant Navy, the second mate is generally the navigator. Navigators are sometimes called air navigators or flight navigators. Modern electronic navigation systems made the civil aviation navigators redundant by the early 1980s, in military aviation, navigators are still actively trained and licensed in some present day air forces, as electronic navigation aids cannot be assumed to be operational during wartime. In the worlds air forces, modern navigators are frequently tasked with weapon systems employment and co-pilot type duties depending on the type, model, a naval ships navigator is responsible for buying and maintaining its nautical charts. A nautical chart, or simply chart, is a representation of a maritime or flight region. Nautical charts are essential tools for marine navigation, many countries require vessels, especially commercial ships, Nautical charting may take the form of charts printed on paper or computerised electronic navigational charts. The nature of a waterway depicted by a chart changes regularly, every producer of navigational charts also provides a system to inform mariners and aviators of changes that affect the chart. Radio broadcasts give advance notice of urgent corrections, a convenient way to keep track of corrections is with a chart and publication correction record card system. When the time comes to use the chart, he pulls the chart and charts card and this system ensures that every chart is properly corrected prior to use. British merchant vessels receive weekly Notices to Mariners issued by the Admiralty, when corrections are received all charts are corrected in the ships folio and recorded in NP133A. This system ensures that all charts are corrected and up to date, in a deep sea vessel with a folio of over three thousand charts this can be a laborious and time-consuming task for the. Various and diverse methods exist for the correction of electronic navigational charts, the nature of waterways described by any given nautical publication changes regularly, and a mariner navigating by use of an old or uncorrected publication is courting disaster. Every producer of nautical publications also provides a system to inform mariners of changes that affect the chart, radio broadcasts give advance notice of urgent corrections. For ensuring that all publications are fully up-to-date, similar methods are employed as for nautical charts, various and diverse methods exist for the correction of electronic nautical publications. The navigator focuses on creating the ships passage plans, before each voyage begins, the navigator should develop a detailed mental model of how the entire voyage will proceed
5.
Seal hunting
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Seal hunting, or sealing, is the personal or commercial hunting of seals. Seal hunting is practiced in nine countries, Canada, the United States, Namibia, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Finland. Most of the seal hunting takes place in Canada and Greenland. Canadas largest market for seals is Norway, the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans regulates the seal hunt in Canada. The DFO set harvest quotas of over 90,000 seals in 2007,275,000 in 2008,280,000 in 2009, and 330,000 in 2010. The actual kills in recent years have less than the quotas,82,800 in 2007,217,800 in 2008,72,400 in 2009. In 2007, Norway claimed that 29,000 harp seals were killed in its seal hunt, and Russia and Greenland claimed that 5,476 and 90,000 seals were killed in 2007, respectively. Harp seal populations in the northwest Atlantic declined to approximately 2 million in the late 1960s as a result of Canadas annual kill rates, conservationists demanded reduced rates of killing and stronger regulations to avert the extinction of the harp seal. An endangered seal is the Mediterranean monk seal, in 1971, the Canadian government responded by instituting a quota system. Because it was thought that the competitive element might cause sealers to cut corners, new regulations were introduced that limited the catch to 400 seals per day, a 2007 population survey conducted by the DFO estimated the population at 5.5 million. It is illegal in Canada to hunt newborn harp seals and young hooded seals, when the seal pups begin to molt their downy white fur at the age of 12–14 days, they are called ragged-jacket and can be commercially hunted. After molting, the seals are called beaters, named for the way they beat the water with their flippers, the hunt remains highly controversial, attracting significant media coverage and protests each year. Images from past hunts have become symbols for conservation, animal welfare. In 2009, Russia banned the hunting of harp seals less than one year old, the term seal is used to refer to a diverse group of animals. In science, they are grouped together in the Pinnipeds, which includes the walrus, not popularly thought of as a seal. The fur seal yields a valuable fur, the seal has no fur. Archeological evidence indicates the Native Americans and First Nations People in Canada have been hunting seals for at least 4,000 years, traditionally, when an Inuit boy killed his first seal or caribou, a feast was held. The meat was an important source of fat, protein, vitamin A, vitamin B12 and iron, the Inuit diet is rich in fish, whale, and seal
6.
Mile
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The mile is an English unit of length of linear measure equal to 5,280 feet, or 1,760 yards, and standardised as exactly 1,609.344 metres by international agreement in 1959. The Romans divided their mile into 5,000 feet but the importance of furlongs in pre-modern England meant that the statute mile was made equivalent to 8 furlongs or 5,280 feet in 1593. This form of the mile then spread to the British-colonized nations who continue to employ the mile, the US Geological Survey now employs the metre for official purposes but legacy data from its 1927 geodetic datum has meant that a separate US survey mile continues to see some use. Derived units such as miles per hour and miles per gallon, however, continue to be abbreviated as mph, mpg. The modern English word mile derives from Middle English myl and Old English mīl, the present international mile is usually what is understood by the unqualified term mile. When this distance needs to be distinguished from the nautical mile, in British English, the statute mile may refer to the present international miles or to any other form of English mile since the 1593 Act of Parliament which set it as a distance of 1,760 yards. Under American law, however, the statute mile refers to the US survey mile, the mile has been variously abbreviated—with and without a trailing period—as m, M, ml, and mi. The American National Institute of Standards and Technology now uses and recommends mi in order to avoid confusion with the SI metre and millilitre. Derived units such as miles per hour and miles per gallon, however, continue to be abbreviated in the United States, United Kingdom, the BBC style holds that There is no acceptable abbreviation for ‘miles’ and so it should be spelt out when used in describing areas. The Roman mile consisted of a thousand paces as measured by every other step—as in the distance of the left foot hitting the ground 1,000 times. The ancient Romans, marching their armies through uncharted territory, would push a carved stick in the ground after each 1000 paces. Well-fed and harshly driven Roman legionaries in good weather thus created longer miles, the distance was indirectly standardised by Agrippas establishment of a standard Roman foot in 29 BC, and the definition of a pace as 5 feet. An Imperial Roman mile thus denoted 5,000 Roman feet, surveyors and specialized equipment such as the decempeda and dioptra then spread its use. In modern times, Agrippas Imperial Roman mile was empirically estimated to have been about 1,481 metres in length, in Hellenic areas of the Empire, the Roman mile was used beside the native Greek units as equivalent to 8 stadia of 600 Greek feet. The mílion continued to be used as a Byzantine unit and was used as the name of the zero mile marker for the Byzantine Empire. The Roman mile also spread throughout Europe, with its local variations giving rise to the different units below, also arising from the Roman mile is the milestone. All roads radiated out from the Roman Forum throughout the Empire –50,000 miles of stone-paved roads, at every mile was placed a shaped stone, on which was carved a Roman numeral, indicating the number of miles from the center of Rome – the Forum. Hence, one knew how far one was from Rome
7.
Antarctic Circle
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The Antarctic Circle is the most southerly of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. The region south of this circle is known as the Antarctic, the position of the Antarctic Circle is not fixed, as of 9 April 2017, it runs 66°33′46. 6″ south of the Equator. Its latitude depends on the Earths axial tilt, which fluctuates within a margin of 2° over a 40, 000-year period, consequently, the Antarctic Circle is currently drifting southwards at a speed of about 15 m per year. Directly on the Antarctic Circle these events occur, in principle, exactly once per year, at the December and June solstices, respectively. That is true at sea level, those limits increase with elevation above sea level, in previous centuries some semi-permanent whaling stations were established on the continent, and some whalers would live there for a year or more. At least three children have been born in Antarctica, albeit in stations north of the Antarctic Circle, the Antarctic Circle is roughly 17,662 kilometres long. The area south of the Circle is about 20,000,000 km2, the continent of Antarctica covers much of the area within the Antarctic Circle
8.
Southern Ocean
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As such, it is regarded as the fourth-largest of the five principal oceanic divisions, smaller than the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans but larger than the Arctic Ocean. This ocean zone is cold, northward flowing waters from the Antarctic mix with warmer subantarctic waters. By way of his voyages in the 1770s, Captain James Cook proved that waters encompassed the southern latitudes of the globe. Since then, geographers have disagreed on the Southern Oceans northern boundary or even existence, considering the part of the Pacific, Atlantic. Others regard the seasonally-fluctuating Antarctic Convergence as the natural boundary, Borders and names for oceans and seas were internationally agreed when the International Hydrographic Bureau, the precusor to the IHO, convened the First International Conference on 24 July 1919. The IHO then published these in its Limits of Oceans and Seas, Australian authorities regard the Southern Ocean as lying immediately south of Australia. Map publishers using the term Southern Ocean on their maps include Hema Maps, Southern Ocean is an obsolete name for the Pacific Ocean or South Pacific, coined by Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the first European to discover it, who approached it from the north. The South Seas is an archaic synonym. A1745 British Act of Parliament established a prize for discovering a Northwest Passage to the Western and Southern Ocean of America, authors using Southern Ocean to name the waters encircling the unknown southern polar regions used varying limits. James Cooks account of his second voyage implies New Caledonia borders it, peacocks 1795 Geographical Dictionary said it lay to the southward of America and Africa, John Payne in 1796 used 40 degrees as the northern limit, the 1827 Edinburgh Gazetteer used 50 degrees. The United Kingdoms South Australia Act 1834 described the waters forming the southern limit of the new colony of South Australia as the Southern Ocean. The Colony of Victorias Legislative Council Act of 1881 delimited part of the division of Bairnsdale as along the New South Wales boundary to the Southern ocean. The limit then followed the west coast of Tasmania southwards to the South East Cape and then went eastwards to Broughton Island, New Zealand, the northern limits of the Southern Ocean were moved southwards in the IHOs 1937 second edition of the Limits of Oceans and Seas. From this edition, much of the northern limit ceased to abut land masses. As is discussed in detail below, prior to the 2002 edition the limits of oceans explicitly excluded the seas lying within each of them. The Great Australian Bight was unnamed in the 1928 edition, and it therefore encompassed former Southern Ocean waters but was technically not inside any of the three adjacent oceans by 1937. To perform direct comparisons of current and former limits of oceans it is necessary to consider, or at least be aware of, the limits of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans have therefore been extended South to the Antarctic Continent. The IHO readdressed the question of the Southern Ocean in a survey in 2000, of its 68 member nations,28 responded, and all responding members except Argentina agreed to redefine the ocean, reflecting the importance placed by oceanographers on ocean currents
9.
Weddell Sea
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The Weddell Sea is part of the Southern Ocean and contains the Weddell Gyre. Its land boundaries are defined by the bay formed from the coasts of Coats Land, the easternmost point is Cape Norvegia at Princess Martha Coast, Queen Maud Land. To the east of Cape Norvegia is the King Haakon VII Sea, much of the southern part of the sea is covered by a permanent, massive ice shelf field, the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf. The sea is contained within the two overlapping Antarctic territorial claims of Argentina, and Britain, and also partially within the territorial claim of Chile. At its widest the sea is around 2,000 kilometres across, various ice shelves, including the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, fringe the Weddell sea. Whilst a dramatic event, the area that disappeared was far smaller than the area of ice shelf that remains. The Weddell Sea has been deemed by scientists to have the clearest water of any sea, the Ross Sea is relatively peaceful, predictable, and safe. The sea is named after the Scottish sailor James Weddell, who entered the sea in 1823 and originally named it after King George IV, also in 1823, the American sealing captain Benjamin Morrell claimed to have seen land some 10–12° east of the seas actual eastern boundary. He called this New South Greenland, but its existence was disproved when the sea was more fully explored in the early 20th century. Weddell got as far south as 74°S, the furthest southern penetration since Weddell, the Weddell Sea is an important area of deep water mass formation through cabbeling, the main driving force of the thermohaline circulation. Deep water masses are formed through cabbeling in the North Atlantic and are caused by differences in temperature. In the Weddell sea this is brought mainly by brine exclusion. In 1823, British sailor James Weddell discovered the Weddell Sea, Otto Nordenskiöld, leader of the 1901-1904 Swedish Antarctic Expedition, spent a winter at Snow Hill with a team of four men when the relief ship became beset in ice and was finally crushed. The crew managed to reach Paulet Island where they wintered in a primitive hut, Nordenskiöld and the others finally were picked up by the Argentine Navy at Hope Bay. The Antarctic Sound is named after the ship of Otto Nordenskiöld. The sound that separates the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula from Dundee Island is also named “Iceberg Alley”, Snowhill Island, located east of the Antarctic Peninsula. It is almost completely snow-capped, hence its name, Swedish Antarctic Expedition under Otto Nordenskiöld built a cabin on the island in 1902 where Nordenskiöld and three members of the expedition had to spend two winters. In 1915, Ernest Shackleton’s ship, the Endurance got trapped and was crushed by ice in this sea, after 15 months on the pack-ice Shackleton and his men managed to reach Elephant Island and finally safely returned
10.
Newcastle upon Tyne
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Newcastle is the most populous city in the North East and forms the core of the Tyneside conurbation, the eighth most populous urban area in the United Kingdom. Newcastle is a member of the English Core Cities Group and is a member of the Eurocities network of European cities. Newcastle was part of the county of Northumberland until 1400, when it became a county of itself, the regional nickname and dialect for people from Newcastle and the surrounding area is Geordie. Newcastle also houses Newcastle University, a member of the Russell Group, the city developed around the Roman settlement Pons Aelius and was named after the castle built in 1080 by Robert Curthose, William the Conquerors eldest son. The city grew as an important centre for the trade in the 14th century. The port developed in the 16th century and, along with the lower down the River Tyne, was amongst the worlds largest shipbuilding and ship-repairing centres. Newcastles economy includes corporate headquarters, learning, digital technology, retail, tourism and cultural centres, among its icons are Newcastle United football club and the Tyne Bridge. Since 1981 the city has hosted the Great North Run, a marathon which attracts over 57,000 runners each year. The first recorded settlement in what is now Newcastle was Pons Aelius and it was given the family name of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, who founded it in the 2nd century AD. This rare honour suggests Hadrian may have visited the site and instituted the bridge on his tour of Britain, Pons Aelius population at this period was estimated at 2,000. Fragments of Hadrians Wall are visible in parts of Newcastle, particularly along the West Road, the course of the Roman Wall can be traced eastwards to the Segedunum Roman fort in Wallsend—the walls end—and to the supply fort Arbeia in South Shields. After the Roman departure from Britain, completed in 410, Newcastle became part of the powerful Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria, conflicts with the Danes in 876 left the river Tyne and its settlements in ruin. After the conflicts with the Danes, and following the 1088 rebellion against the Normans, Monkchester was all, because of its strategic position, Robert Curthose, son of William the Conqueror, erected a wooden castle there in the year 1080. The town was known as Novum Castellum or New Castle. The wooden structure was replaced by a castle in 1087. The castle was again in 1172 during the reign of Henry II. Much of the keep which can be seen in the city dates from this period. Throughout the Middle Ages, Newcastle was Englands northern fortress, incorporated first by Henry II, the city had a new charter granted by Elizabeth in 1589
11.
Collier (ship)
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A collier is a bulk cargo ship designed to carry coal, especially for naval use by coal-fired warships. Coaling at sea was critical to navies and speed of transfer was an important metric of naval efficiency. In 1883, forty tons an hour was considered fast and it would take twelve hours to restock half the bunkers of a typical ship. Sir Charles Palmer pioneered the construction of iron-hulled steam colliers at his Jarrow shipyard, the iron colliers had ballast tanks which meant water could simply be pumped in, greatly reducing the turnaround time as the sand no longer needed to be loaded and unloaded. Coal was also exported to Europe, and wooden colliers returned with such as roofing tiles in their holds. The first Palmer-built iron hulled steam collier was SS John Bowes of 1852, there had been an earlier iron hull screw propelled collier, the short-lived SS Bedlington of 1841 built in South Shields. A notable incident involving a collier occurred not long after the opening of the Victoria Tunnel in Newcastle, the hemp rope which controlled the speed of wagons descending the tunnel to the river from Spital Tongues Colliery snapped, and the wagons landed in the Tyne. The wagons were recovered at low tide, the rope was repaired, six months later, the rope snapped again, and the wagons landed in the hold of a waiting collier and sank it. After this, it was decided a wire rope would be a better option and this is probably the only recorded incident of a train having sunk a ship. Some had spouts used for unscreened or small coal, others known as drops had steep inclines at the end, down which a wagon would be lowered directly into the hold, some had both drops and spouts. The drops and spouts could be raised and lowered with the tide, later, elevators began to be introduced, such as those at Bates Staithes in Blyth, Northumberland and Harton Low Staithes in South Shields. The largely intact Dunston Staithes on the Tyne are an example of this type. In Scotland, a system was common where wagons would be placed on a cradle and lifted into the hold of the ship, the men who worked at the staithes were known as teemers and trimmers. The trimmers worked in the hold, spreading and levelling the coal with shovels and this was a dangerous job, as the holds could fill with firedamp given off by the coal, resulting in an explosion. More modern systems are designed to be able to distribute the coal without the need for men working in the holds of the ships. The wharf at Battersea Power Station is still extant, and the used for unloading the coal can be seen on the riverfront. These are fitted with buckets and in operation loaded a hopper. The modern equivalent can be seen at the Tyne Coal Terminal, USS Langley, the first aircraft carrier in the United States Navy, was a converted collier
12.
West Indies
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Indigenous peoples were the first inhabitants of the West Indies. In 1492, Christopher Columbus became the first European to arrive at the islands, after the first of the voyages of Christopher Columbus to the Americas, Europeans began to use the term West Indies to distinguish the region from the East Indies of South Asia and Southeast Asia. In the late century, French, English and Dutch merchants and privateers began their operations in the Caribbean Sea, attacking Spanish and Portuguese shipping. These African slaves wrought a demographic revolution, replacing or joining with either the indigenous Caribs or the European settlers who were there as indentured servants. The Dutch, allied with the Caribs of the Orinoco would eventually carry the struggles deep into South America, first along the Orinoco and these interconnected commercial and diplomatic relations made up the Western Caribbean Zone which was in place in the early eighteenth century. In 1916, Denmark sold the Danish West Indies to the United States for US$25 million in gold, the Danish West Indies became an insular area of the US, called the United States Virgin Islands. Between 1958 and 1962, the United Kingdom re-organised all their West Indies island territories into the West Indies Federation and they hoped that the Federation would coalesce into a single, independent nation. West Indian is the term used by the U. S. government to refer to people of the West Indies. Tulane University professor Rosanne Adderly says he phrase West Indies distinguished the territories encountered by Columbus, … The term West Indies was eventually used by all European nations to describe their own acquired territories in the Americas. Despite the collapse of the Federation … the West Indies continues to field a joint cricket team for international competition, the West Indies cricket team includes participants from Guyana, which is geographically located in South America. More than Slaves and Sugar, Recent Historiography of the Trans-imperial Caribbean, a Concise History of the Caribbean. Martin, Tony, Caribbean History, From Pre-colonial Origins to the Present
13.
English Channel
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The English Channel, also called simply the Channel, is the body of water that separates southern England from northern France, and links the southern part of the North Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. It is about 560 km long and varies in width from 240 km at its widest to 33.3 km in the Strait of Dover and it is the smallest of the shallow seas around the continental shelf of Europe, covering an area of some 75,000 km2. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the English Channel as follows, a line joining Isle Vierge to Lands End. The southwestern limit of the North Sea, the IHO defines the southwestern limit of the North Sea as a line joining the Walde Lighthouse and Leathercoat Point. The Walde Lighthouse is 6 km east of Calais, and Leathercoat Point is at the end of St Margarets Bay. The Strait of Dover, at the Channels eastern end, is its narrowest point and it is relatively shallow, with an average depth of about 120 m at its widest part, reducing to a depth of about 45 m between Dover and Calais. Eastwards from there the adjoining North Sea reduces to about 26 m in the Broad Fourteens where it lies over the watershed of the land bridge between East Anglia and the Low Countries. It reaches a depth of 180 m in the submerged valley of Hurds Deep,48 km west-northwest of Guernsey. The eastern region along the French coast between Cherbourg and the mouth of the Seine river at Le Havre is frequently referred to as the Bay of the Seine. There are several islands in the Channel, the most notable being the Isle of Wight off the English coast. The coastline, particularly on the French shore, is indented, several small islands close to the coastline, including Chausey. The Cotentin Peninsula in France juts out into the Channel, whilst on the English side there is a parallel channel known as the Solent between the Isle of Wight and the mainland. The Celtic Sea is to the west of the Channel, the time difference of about six hours between high water at the eastern and western limits of the Channel is indicative of the tidal range being amplified further by resonance. It was never defined as a border and the names were more or less descriptive. It was not considered as the property of a nation, strangely, before the development of the modern nations, British scholars very often referred to it as Gaulish and the French one as British or English. The name English Channel has been used since the early 18th century. In modern Dutch, however, it is known as Het Kanaal, later, it has also been known as the British Channel or the British Sea having been called the Oceanus Britannicus by the 2nd-century geographer Ptolemy. The same name is used on an Italian map of about 1450, the Anglo-Saxon texts often call it Sūð-sǣ as opposed to Norð-sǣ
14.
Privateer
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A privateer was a private person or ship that engaged in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Captured ships were subject to condemnation and sale under prize law, a percentage share usually went to the issuer of the commission. Since robbery under arms was common to trade, all merchant ships were already armed. During war, naval resources were auxiliary to operations on land so privateering was a way of subsidizing state power by mobilizing armed ships, the letter of marque of a privateer would typically limit activity to one particular ship, and specified officers. Typically, the owners or captain would be required to post a performance bond, in the United Kingdom, letters of marque were revoked for various offences. Some crews were treated as harshly as naval crews of the time, some crews were made up of professional merchant seamen, others of pirates, debtors, and convicts. Some privateers ended up becoming pirates, not just in the eyes of their enemies, william Kidd, for instance, began as a legitimate British privateer but was later hanged for piracy. The investors would arm the vessels and recruit large crews, much larger than a merchantman or a vessel would carry. Privateers generally cruised independently, but it was not unknown for them to form squadrons, a number of privateers were part of the English fleet that opposed the Spanish Armada in 1588. Privateers generally avoided encounters with warships, as such encounters would be at best unprofitable, for instance, in 1815 Chasseur encountered HMS St Lawrence, herself a former American privateer, mistaking her for a merchantman until too late, in this instance, however, the privateer prevailed. The United States used mixed squadrons of frigates and privateers in the American Revolutionary War, the practice dated to at least the 13th century but the word itself was coined sometime in the mid-17th century. England, and later the United Kingdom, used privateers to great effect and these privately owned merchant ships, licensed by the crown, could legitimately take vessels that were deemed pirates. The increase in competition for crews on armed merchant vessels and privateers was due, in a large part, because of the chance for a considerable payoff. Whereas a seaman who shipped on a vessel was paid a wage and provided with victuals. This proved to be a far more attractive prospect and privateering flourished as a result, during Queen Elizabeths reign, she encouraged the development of this supplementary navy. Over the course of her rule, she had allowed Anglo-Spanish relations to deteriorate to the point where one could argue that a war with the Spanish was inevitable. By using privateers, if the Spanish were to take offense at the plundering of their ships, some of the most famous privateers that later fought in the Anglo-Spanish War included the Sea Dogs. In the late 16th century, English ships cruised in the Caribbean and off the coast of Spain, at this early stage the idea of a regular navy was not present, so there is little to distinguish the activity of English privateers from regular naval warfare
15.
Napoleonic War
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The wars resulted from the unresolved disputes associated with the French Revolution and the Revolutionary Wars, which had raged on for years before concluding with the Treaty of Amiens in 1802. Napoleon became the First Consul of France in 1799, then Emperor five years later, inheriting the political and military struggles of the Revolution, he created a state with stable finances, a strong central bureaucracy, and a well-trained army. The British frequently financed the European coalitions intended to thwart French ambitions, by 1805, they had managed to convince the Austrians and the Russians to wage another war against France. At sea, the Royal Navy destroyed a combined Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar in October 1805, Prussian worries about increasing French power led to the formation of the Fourth Coalition in 1806. France then forced the defeated nations of the Fourth Coalition to sign the Treaties of Tilsit in July, although Tilsit signified the high watermark of the French Empire, it did not bring a lasting peace for Europe. Hoping to extend the Continental System and choke off British trade with the European mainland, Napoleon invaded Iberia, the Spanish and the Portuguese revolted with British support. The Peninsular War lasted six years, featured extensive guerrilla warfare, the Continental System caused recurring diplomatic conflicts between France and its client states, especially Russia. Unwilling to bear the consequences of reduced trade, the Russians routinely violated the Continental System. The French launched an invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. The resulting campaign witnessed the collapse and retreat of the Grand Army along with the destruction of Russian lands. In 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russian forces in a Sixth Coalition against France, a lengthy military campaign culminated in a large Allied army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813. The Allies then invaded France and captured Paris in the spring of 1814 and he was exiled to the island of Elba near Rome and the Bourbons were restored to power. However, Napoleon escaped from Elba in February 1815 and took control of France once again, the Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition, which defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in June. The Congress of Vienna, which started in 1814 and concluded in 1815, established the new borders of Europe and laid out the terms, Napoleon seized power in 1799, creating a de facto military dictatorship. The Napoleonic Wars began with the War of the Third Coalition, Kagan argues that Britain was irritated in particular by Napoleons assertion of control over Switzerland. Furthermore, Britons felt insulted when Napoleon stated that their country deserved no voice in European affairs, for its part, Russia decided that the intervention in Switzerland indicated that Napoleon was not looking toward a peaceful resolution of his differences with the other European powers. The British quickly enforced a blockade of France to starve it of resources. Napoleon responded with economic embargoes against Britain, and sought to eliminate Britains Continental allies to break the coalitions arrayed against him, the so-called Continental System formed a league of armed neutrality to disrupt the blockade and enforce free trade with France
16.
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
17.
Leith
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Leith /ˈliːθ/, Scottish Gaelic, Lìte, is a district to the north of the city of Edinburgh at the mouth of the Water of Leith. The earliest surviving references are in the royal charter authorising the construction of Holyrood Abbey in 1128. The medieval settlements of Leith had grown into a burgh by 1833, historically part of Midlothian, Leith is sited on the coast of the Firth of Forth and lies within the council area of the City of Edinburgh. The port remains one of its most valuable enterprises, handling over 1.5 million tonnes of cargo a year in 2003, previous to the bridge being built in the late 15th century, Leith had settlements on either side of the river, lacking an easy crossing. South Leith was larger and was controlled by the lairds of Restalrig and it was based on trade and had many merchants houses and warehouses. This was where ships offloaded their cargoes at The Shore where they were collected by Edinburgh merchants, leithers were explicitly forbidden by statute to participate directly in the trade at the port, to ensure that landed goods were not sold elsewhere. North Leith was smaller but proportionately richer, coming under the jurisdiction of Holyrood Abbey and it was effectively a fishing village consisting of one street, now Sandport Street and Quayside Lane. Burgage plots ran down to the river from each house and this has traditionally been the shipbuilding side of Leith with several wet and dry docks built over time. The first dry dock in Scotland was built here in 1720, a small peninsula of land on the east bank also came under the same jurisdiction on what is now Sheriff Brae/Sheriff Bank. The first bridge to both banks of the river was built in 1493 by Abbot Bellenden, who controlled the church at North Leith. The bridge was a bridge, the revenue supplementing the churchs income. Reputedly Leiths oldest building, it was demolished in 1780 to allow ships to sail further upstream, the earliest evidence of settlement in Leith comes from several archaeological digs undertaken in the Shore area in the late 20th century. Amongst the finds were medieval wharf edges from the 12th century and this date fits with the earliest documentary evidence of settlement in Leith - the foundation charter of Holyrood Abbey. Leith has played a long and prominent role in Scottish history, as the major port serving Edinburgh, it has been the stage on which many significant events in Scottish history have taken place. Mary of Guise ruled Scotland from Leith in 1560 as Regent while her daughter, Mary, Mary of Guise moved the Scottish Court to Leith, to a site that is now Parliament Street, off Coalhill. According to the 18th-century historian William Maitland, her palace was situated on Rotten Row, now Water Street. Artifacts from the residence are held by the National Museum of Scotland. In June 1560, Mary of Guise died, and the Siege of Leith ended with the departure of the French troops in accordance with the Treaty of Leith, also known as the Treaty of Edinburgh
18.
Brig
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A brig is a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts. During the Age of Sail, brigs were seen as fast and they were especially popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Brigs fell out of use with the arrival of the ship because they required a relatively large crew for their small size and were difficult to sail into the wind. They are not to be confused with a brigantine, which has different rigging, in sailing, a full-rigged brig is a vessel with two square rigged masts. The main mast of a brig is the aft one, to improve maneuverability, the mainmast carries a small fore-and-aft sail. Behind the main sail there is a small fore-and-aft sail called the spanker or boom mainsail, on the foremast is a similar sail, called the trysail. Attached to the yards of square-rigged ships are smaller spars. These are called studding sails, and are used with fair, the wings are named after the sails to which they are fastened, i. e. the main studding sails, main top studding sails, and the main top gallant studding sails, etc. The brig’s foremast is smaller than the main mast, the fore mast holds a fore sail, fore top sail, fore top gallant sail, and fore royal. Between the fore mast and the bowsprit are the fore staysail, jib, all the yards are manipulated by a complicated arrangement of cordage named the running rigging. This is opposed to the rigging which is fixed, and keeps mast. A brig is generally built on a scale than a schooner. Brigs vary in length between 75 and 165 ft with tonnages up to 480, a notable exception being the famous designer Colin Mudies Little Brigs, which are only 10m long and weigh only 8 tonnes. Historically, most brigs were made of wood, although some later brigs were built with hulls, a brig made of pine in the 19th century was designed to last for about twenty years. The word brig has been used in the past as an abbreviation of brigantine, the brig actually developed as a variant of the brigantine. Re-rigging a brigantine with two square-rigged masts instead of one gave it greater sailing power, the square-rigged brigs advantage over the fore-and-aft rigged brigantine was that the sails, being smaller and more numerous, are more easily managed, and require fewer men or hands to work them. The variant was so popular that the term came to exclusively signify a ship with this type of rigging. By the 17th century the British Royal Navy defined brig as having two square rigged masts, Brigs were used as small warships carrying about 10 to 18 guns
19.
South Shetland Islands
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The South Shetland Islands are a group of Antarctic islands, lying about 120 kilometres north of the Antarctic Peninsula, with a total area of 3,687 square kilometres. By the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, the islands sovereignty is neither recognized nor disputed by the signatories, the islands have been claimed by the United Kingdom since 1908 and have been part of the British Antarctic Territory since 1962. They are also claimed by the governments of Chile and by Argentina, several countries maintain research stations on the islands. Most of them are situated on King George Island, benefitting from the airfield of the Chilean base Eduardo Frei, there are sixteen research stations to date in different parts of the islands, with Chilean stations being the greatest in number. Research is often a shared duty of nations, with the Chilean-United States Shirreff Base being one example, the Dutchman Dirck Gerritsz in 1599, or the Spaniard Gabriel de Castilla in 1603, supposedly sailed south of the Drake Passage in the South Shetland Islands area. In 1818 Juan Pedro de Aguirre obtained permission from the Buenos Aires authorities to establish a base for sealing on some of the islands near the South Pole. Thus Livingston Island became the first land discovered south of the 60th southern latitude. Smith revisited the South Shetlands, landed on King George Island on 16 October 1819, meanwhile, the Spanish Navy ship San Telmo sank in September 1819 whilst trying to go through the Drake Passage. Parts of her wreckage were found months later by sealers on the north coast of Livingston Island. From December 1819 to January 1820, the islands were surveyed and mapped by Lieutenant Edward Bransfield on board the Williams, the discovery of the islands attracted British and American sealers. The first sealing ship to operate in the area was the brig Espirito Santo, the ship arrived at Rugged Island off Livingston Island, where its British crew landed on Christmas Day 1819, and claimed the islands for King George III. A narrative of the events was published by the master, Joseph Herring. The Espirito Santo was followed from the Falkland Islands by the American brig Hersilia, commanded by Captain James Sheffield, having circumnavigated the Antarctic continent, the Russian Antarctic expedition of Fabian von Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev arrived at the South Shetlands in January 1821. The Russians surveyed the islands and named them, landing on both King George Island and Elephant Island, the name New South Britain was used briefly, but was soon changed to South Shetland Islands. The name South Shetland Islands is now established in international usage, both island groups lie at a similar distance from the South Pole and North Pole respectively, but the South Shetlands are much colder. Seal hunting and whaling was conducted on the islands during the 19th, from 1908 the islands were governed as part of the Falkland Islands Dependency, but they have only been occupied since the establishment of a scientific research station in 1944. The archipelago, together with the nearby Antarctic Peninsula and South Georgia, is a popular tourist destination during the austral summer. As a group of islands, the South Shetland Islands are located at 62°0′S 58°0′W and they are within the region 61° 00–63°37 South, 53° 83–62°83 West
20.
Falkland Islands
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The Falkland Islands are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about 300 miles east of South Americas southern Patagonian coast, the archipelago, with an area of 4,700 square miles, comprises East Falkland, West Falkland and 776 smaller islands. As a British overseas territory, the Falklands have internal self-governance, the islands capital is Stanley on East Falkland. Controversy exists over the Falklands discovery and subsequent colonisation by Europeans, at various times, the islands have had French, British, Spanish, and Argentine settlements. Britain reasserted its rule in 1833, although Argentina maintains its claim to the islands, in April 1982, Argentine forces temporarily occupied the islands. British administration was restored two months later at the end of the Falklands War, most Falklanders favour the archipelago remaining a UK overseas territory, but its sovereignty status is part of an ongoing dispute between Argentina and the United Kingdom. The population primarily consists of native-born Falkland Islanders, the majority of British descent, other ethnicities include French, Gibraltarian and Scandinavian. Immigration from the United Kingdom, the South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, under the British Nationality Act 1983, Falkland Islanders are British citizens. The islands lie on the boundary of the oceanic and tundra climate zones. They are home to bird populations, although many no longer breed on the main islands because of competition from introduced species. Major economic activities include fishing, tourism and sheep farming, with an emphasis on high-quality wool exports, oil exploration, licensed by the Falkland Islands Government, remains controversial as a result of maritime disputes with Argentina. The Falkland Islands take their name from the Falkland Sound, a strait separating the two main islands. The name Falkland was applied to the channel by John Strong, Strong named the strait in honour of Anthony Cary, 5th Viscount of Falkland, the Treasurer of the Navy who sponsored their journey. The name Falklands was not applied to the islands until 1765, the term Falklands is a standard abbreviation used to refer to the islands. The Spanish name for the archipelago, Islas Malvinas, derives from the French Îles Malouines — the name given to the islands by French explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville in 1764, Bougainville, who founded the islands first settlement, named the area after the port of Saint-Malo. The port, located in the Brittany region of western France, was in turn named after St. Malo, in Spanish, the territory was designated as Islas Malvinas. The nomenclature used by the United Nations for statistical processing purposes is Falkland Islands, although Fuegians from Patagonia may have visited the Falkland Islands in prehistoric times, the islands were uninhabited at the time of their discovery by Europeans. Claims of discovery date back to the 16th century, but no consensus exists on whether these early explorers discovered the Falklands or other islands in the South Atlantic, whether or not the settlements were aware of each others existence is debated by historians
21.
Seal (mammal)
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Pinnipeds, commonly known as seals, are a widely distributed and diverse clade of carnivorous, fin-footed, semiaquatic marine mammals. They comprise the extant families Odobenidae, Otariidae, and Phocidae, there are 33 extant species of pinnipeds, and more than 50 extinct species have been described from fossils. While seals were historically thought to have descended from two lines, molecular evidence supports them as a monophyletic lineage. Pinnipeds belong to the order Carnivora and their closest living relatives are bears and musteloids, Seals range in size from the 1 m and 45 kg Baikal seal to the 5 m and 3,200 kg southern elephant seal, which is also the largest carnivoran. They have streamlined bodies and four limbs that are modified into flippers, though not as fast in the water as dolphins, seals are more flexible and agile. Otariids use their front limbs primarily to themselves through the water, while phocids. Otariids and walruses have hind limbs that can be pulled under the body, by comparison, terrestrial locomotion by phocids is more cumbersome. Otariids have visible ears, while phocids and walruses lack these. Pinnipeds have well-developed senses—their eyesight and hearing are adapted for both air and water, and they have a tactile system in their whiskers or vibrissae. Some species are adapted for diving to great depths. They have a layer of fat, or blubber, under the skin to keep warm in the cold water, although pinnipeds are widespread, most species prefer the colder waters of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. They spend most of their lives in the water, but come ashore to mate, give birth, molt or escape predators, like sharks. They feed largely on fish and marine invertebrates, but a few, like the seal, feed on large vertebrates, such as penguins. Walruses are specialized for feeding on bottom-dwelling mollusks, male pinnipeds typically mate with more than one female, although the degree of polygyny varies with the species. The males of land-breeding species tend to mate with a number of females than those of ice- or water-breeding species. Male pinniped strategies for reproductive success vary between defending females, defending territories that attract females and performing ritual displays or lek mating, pups are typically born in the spring and summer months and females bear almost all the responsibility for raising them. Mothers of some species fast and nurse their young for a short period of time while others take foraging trips at sea between nursing bouts. Walruses are known to nurse their young while at sea, Seals produce a number of vocalizations, notably the barks of California sea lions, the gong-like calls of walruses and the complex songs of Weddell seals
22.
South Orkney Islands
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The South Orkney Islands are a group of islands in the Southern Ocean, about 604 kilometres north-east of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. They have an area of about 620 square kilometres. The islands are claimed both by Britain, and by Argentina as part of Argentine Antarctica, under the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, sovereignty claims are held in abeyance. Britain and Argentina both maintain bases on the islands, the Argentinian base, Orcadas, established 1904, is sited on Laurie Island. The 11 buildings of the Argentinian station house up to 45 people during the summer, the British Antarctic Survey base, Signy Research Station, is located on Signy Island and was established in 1947. Initially operated year-round, since 1995/6 the Signy Research Station has been only from November to April each year. Apart from personnel at the bases, there are no permanent inhabitants on the islands, the South Orkney Islands were discovered in 1821 by two sealers, the American Nathaniel Brown Palmer and the British George Powell. The Islands were originally named Powells Group, with the island named Coronation Island as it was the year of the coronation of King George IV. In 1823, James Weddell visited the Islands, gave the archipelago its present name, the South Orkney Islands are located at roughly the same latitude south as the Orkney Islands are north, although it is not known if this was a factor behind the naming of the islands. Bruce surveyed the islands, reverted some of Weddells name changes, and established a meteorological station and this base, renamed Orcadas in 1951, is still in operation today and is thus the oldest research station continuously staffed in the Antarctic. The Islands were subsequently administered as part of the Falkland Islands Dependencies, in 1962, the islands became part of the newly established British Antarctic Territory. The Argentinian claim to the dates from 1925. It was originally justified by the Argentinian occupation of the Laurie Island base, the islands are situated at latitudes about 60°30 to 60°83 S and longitudes 44°25 to 46°25 W in the Southern Ocean. As a group of islands, the South Orkney Islands are at approximately 60°35′S 045°30′W, the archipelago comprises four main islands. Coronation Island is the largest, measuring about 30 miles long, Laurie Island is the easternmost of the islands. The other main islands are Powell and Signy, smaller islands in the group include Robertson Islands, the Saddle Islands, and Acuña Island. The total area of the archipelago is about 240 square miles, the Inaccessible Islands about 15 nmi to the west are considered part of the South Orkneys. The climate of the South Orkneys is generally cold, wet, summers are short and cold when the average temperatures reach about 3.5 °C and fall to about −12.8 °C in July
23.
Nathaniel Palmer
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Nathaniel Brown Palmer was an American seal hunter, explorer, sailing captain, and ship designer. He was born in Stonington, Connecticut and was a descendant of Walter Palmer, during the 1810s the hides of Antarctic Ocean seals were highly valued as items for trade with China. Palmer served as mate on board the first voyage of the Hersilia. As a skilled and fearless hunter, Palmer achieved his first command at the early age of 21. His vessel, a sloop named the Hero, was only 47 feet in length. Palmer steered southward in the Hero at the beginning of the Antarctic summer of 1820–1821, aggressively searching for new seal rookeries south of Cape Horn, on 17 November 1820, Palmer and his men became the first Americans and the third group of people to discover the Antarctic Peninsula. Larger ships skippered by Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen and Edward Bransfield had reported sighting land earlier in 1820, along with English sealer George Powell, Palmer also co-discovered the nearby South Orkney Islands archipelago. After concluding a successful sealing career, Palmer, still in the prime of life, in 1843, Captain Palmer took command of the Paul Jones on her maiden voyage from Boston to Hong Kong, arriving in 111 days. In this new role, the Connecticut captain traveled many of the worlds principal sailing routes, observing the strengths and weaknesses of the ocean-going sailing ships of his time, Palmer suggested and designed improvements to their hulls and rigging. The improvements made Palmer a co-developer of the mid-19th century clipper ship, between 1852 and 1854 he built his home in Stonington which is today known as the Capt. The house is of a style combining elements of the Greek revival. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1996 and is now headquarters of the Stonington Historical Society, Palmer closed his sailing career and established himself in his hometown of Stonington as a successful owner of clipper ships sailed by others. He died in 1877, at the age of 77, Palmer Land, part of the Antarctic Peninsula, as well as the Palmer Archipelago, were named in his honor. The Antarctic science and research program operated by the U. S. government continues to recall Palmers role in the exploration of the Antarctic area, Palmer Station, located in the seal islands that Palmer explored, the clipper ship N. B. Palmer and the Antarctic icebreaker RV Nathaniel B. Palmer are named after Captain Palmer, Hero Bay, in the South Shetland Islands, is named for Captain Palmers sloop Hero, one of the vessels of the Pendleton sealing fleet from Stonington which visited the islands in 1820-21. Also named after Palmers sloop Hero is Hero Rupes, an escarpment which was discovered in the hemisphere of the planet Mercury in 1973. On 14 Sept 1988 the U. S. Postal Service issued a stamp honoring Nathaniel Palmer and his home in Stonington, the Capt. Nathaniel B. Palmer House, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1996, history of Antarctica Houqua, innovative early clipper ship which Capt. Nat helped design Paul Jones, ship which N. B
24.
Matthew Brisbane
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Matthew Brisbane was an Antarctic explorer, sealer and a notable figure in the early history of the Falkland Islands. A compatriot of famous explorers such as Weddell, Ross and Fitzroy, Brisbane entered Falkland Islands history when he accepted a position with Vernet as his deputy. Little is known of Brisbanes early life and he was born in Perth, Tayside in 1787 but his exact birth date is unknown. It appears that he was a merchant sailor during the Napoleonic Wars and his brother was the master of a brig that traded between Liverpool and Quebec. Brisbane first rose to public attention though his association with James Weddell, Brisbane was the commander of the small cutter Beaufoy with a crew of thirteen, the Beaufoy being owned by Weddell. Weddell in the Jane and Brisbane in the Beaufoy left England on 17 September 1822, Weddell initially sailed for Madeira for provisions for the Antarctic voyage, whilst Brisbane headed for Bonavista in the Cape Verde islands for a cargo of salt with which to cure seal skins. In December, they met up at Port St Elena in what is now Chile, Brisbane sailed south to hunt for seals arranging to rendezvous with Weddell at Penguin Island on the Patagonian coast. On New Years Day 1823, they met up again before sailing south to the South Orkney Islands. Discovered by Nathaniel Brown Palmer and George Powell in 1821, little was known at the time about the islands and Weddell intended to explore them for seals and they arrived in the islands on 12 January 1823 and began sealing but with little success. Brisbane conducted a survey of the southern coasts of the islands. By 27 January they had reached 64°58 S, where the decision was made to sail north to look for islands between the South Orkney and South Sandwich Islands. Finding none, the pair headed south again and on 20 February 1823 reached 74°15 S setting a record for the furthest voyage south that lasted till James Clark Ross voyage of 1842. During the voyage around the South Orkney Islands the expedition had tried sealing, in February, with the season drawing short, Weddell made the decision to head North toward South Georgia. After spending a month there, the two sailed to the Falkland Islands to spend the winter. Whilst the Jane was prepared for winter gales, the Beaufoy was used to scout for fur seals, in October, the decision was made to sail south again to the South Orkney Islands but found the conditions were terrible with both vessels damaged by ice and the men frostbitten. Both set sail North for Tierra del Fuego and continued sealing along the Patagonian coast, the ships them split up, with Brisbane sailing for the Falkland Islands and South Georgia in January. The two intended to rendezvous in March off the coast of Patagonia but, having missed each other, Brisbane in the Beaufoy arrived there on 20 June 1824, some two weeks before Weddell. On 23 August 1824, Brisbane set sail in the Beaufoy for another sealing voyage along the Patagonian coast, on 15 January 1826, the Beaufoy set sail to return to England arriving on 29 March 1826
25.
Latitude
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In geography, latitude is a geographic coordinate that specifies the north–south position of a point on the Earths surface. Latitude is an angle which ranges from 0° at the Equator to 90° at the poles, lines of constant latitude, or parallels, run east–west as circles parallel to the equator. Latitude is used together with longitude to specify the location of features on the surface of the Earth. Without qualification the term latitude should be taken to be the latitude as defined in the following sections. Also defined are six auxiliary latitudes which are used in special applications, there is a separate article on the History of latitude measurements. Two levels of abstraction are employed in the definition of latitude and longitude, in the first step the physical surface is modelled by the geoid, a surface which approximates the mean sea level over the oceans and its continuation under the land masses. The second step is to approximate the geoid by a mathematically simpler reference surface, the simplest choice for the reference surface is a sphere, but the geoid is more accurately modelled by an ellipsoid. The definitions of latitude and longitude on such surfaces are detailed in the following sections. Lines of constant latitude and longitude together constitute a graticule on the reference surface, latitude and longitude together with some specification of height constitute a geographic coordinate system as defined in the specification of the ISO19111 standard. This is of importance in accurate applications, such as a Global Positioning System, but in common usage, where high accuracy is not required. In English texts the latitude angle, defined below, is denoted by the Greek lower-case letter phi. It is measured in degrees, minutes and seconds or decimal degrees, the precise measurement of latitude requires an understanding of the gravitational field of the Earth, either to set up theodolites or to determine GPS satellite orbits. The study of the figure of the Earth together with its field is the science of geodesy. These topics are not discussed in this article and this article relates to coordinate systems for the Earth, it may be extended to cover the Moon, planets and other celestial objects by a simple change of nomenclature. The primary reference points are the poles where the axis of rotation of the Earth intersects the reference surface, the plane through the centre of the Earth and perpendicular to the rotation axis intersects the surface at a great circle called the Equator. Planes parallel to the plane intersect the surface in circles of constant latitude. The Equator has a latitude of 0°, the North Pole has a latitude of 90° North, the latitude of an arbitrary point is the angle between the equatorial plane and the radius to that point. The latitude, as defined in this way for the sphere, is termed the spherical latitude
26.
Grog
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Grog is any of a variety of alcoholic beverages. The word originally referred to a made with water and rum. Vernon wore a coat of grogram cloth and was nicknamed Old Grogram or Old Grog, merriam Websters Collegiate Dictionary, which agrees with this story of the words origin, states that the word grog was first used in this sense in 1770, though other sources cite 1749. In modern times the term grog has had a variety of meanings in a number of different cultures, modern versions of the drink are often made with hot or boiling water, and sometimes include lemon juice, lime juice, cinnamon, or sugar to improve the taste. Additionally in the United States, apple cider is sometimes substituted for water, Rum with water, sugar, and nutmeg was known as bumbo and was more popular with pirates and merchantmen. By contrast, in Australia and New Zealand, the word has come to any alcoholic drink. The difference between the Swedish definition of grog and long drinks, mixed drinks or punches is the number of ingredients, the number of ingredients in drinks may vary, but grog typically has just one kind of liquor and one kind of a non-alcoholic beverage. Grosshandlargrogg refers to a mix of Eau de vie and Trocadero, in some parts of Europe, notably Belgium and France, grog is used for a hot drink, basically made of black tea, lemon juice, honey and a splash of rum. It is a winter drink, said to have a medicinal effect when having a cold. In Fiji, the term refers to a drink made by pounding sun-dried kava root into a fine powder. Traditionally, grog is drunk from the shorn half-shell of a coconut, Grog has also been used as a metaphoric term for a persons vices, as in the old Irish song All For Me Grog. Sailors require significant quantities of water on extended voyages. Since desalinating sea water was not practical, fresh water was taken on board in casks but quickly developed algae, stagnant water was sweetened with beer or wine to make it palatable, which involved more casks and was subject to spoilage. As longer voyages became more common, the task of stowage became more and more difficult, following Englands conquest of Jamaica in 1655, a half pint or 2 gills of rum gradually replaced beer and brandy as the drink of choice. Given to the straight, this caused additional problems, as some sailors saved the rum rations for several days to drink all at once. Due to the subsequent illness and disciplinary problems, the rum was mixed with water and this both diluted its effects and accelerated its spoilage, preventing hoarding of the allowance. This gives a ratio of 4,1 and it seems unlikely that many men would have spent their meagre pay on such a thing. Standard medical remedies focussed on gingering up the system by imbibing a variety of fizzy or fermenting drinks
27.
Wilhelm Filchner
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Wilhelm Filchner was a German explorer. At the age of 21, he participated in his first expedition, two years later, he travelled alone and on horseback through the Pamir Mountains, from Osh to Murgabh to the upper Wakhan to Tashkurgan and back. From 1903 to 1905 he led an expedition through China to Tibet, following his return from Tibet, he was tasked with organizing a German expedition to map Antarctica. After a training expedition to Spitzbergen, they set off with their ship Deutschland on 4 May 1911, the expedition entered the Weddell Sea and discovered Luitpold Coast and the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, which Filchner had originally named after the German emperor Wilhelm II. They were the first expedition to enter further into Weddell Sea than James Weddell some 80 years before, the ship overwintered in the pack ice after attempts to set up a base on the ice shelf had failed because of an iceberg calving. It was not until September 1912 that the Deutschland was free again, during its drift in the Weddell Sea ice Filchner investigated the existence of New South Greenland, an alleged coastline seen by Captain Bejamin Morrell in 1823, during a sealing voyage. He found no trace, and concluded that Morrell had seen a mirage, Filchner never returned to Antarctica, but went on many journeys through Nepal and Tibet, including a geographic survey of Nepal in 1939. Adolf Hitler awarded him the German National Prize for Art and Science as an acknowledgement of his achievements in exploration, later on he lived in Poona in the Maharashtra state of India. Filchner died at the age of 79 in Zurich, Switzerland, German Exploration of the Polar World, a History, 1870–1940. London, Great Britain and Lincoln, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press,2002
28.
Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf
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The Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf, also known as Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf, is an Antarctic ice shelf bordering the Weddell Sea. The seaward side of the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf is divided into Eastern 79°00′S 40°00′W, the whole ice shelf covers some 430,000 km², making it the second largest ice shelf in Antarctica, after the Ross Ice Shelf. It grows perpetually due to a flow of ice sheets. From time to time, when the stresses exceed the strength of the ice, cracks form and large parts of the ice sheet separate from the ice shelf. The Ronne ice shelf is the larger and western part of the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf and it is bounded on the west by the base of the Antarctic Peninsula and Ellsworth Land. He named it the Lassiter Shelf Ice and gave the name Edith Ronne Land to the presumed to lie south of it. The shelf is named for Edith Ronne, the wife of Finn Ronne. The Filchner ice shelf is the part of the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf. It is bounded on the west by Berkner Island and on the east by Coats Land, the east part of this shelf was discovered in January–February 1912 by the German Antarctic Expedition under Wilhelm Filchner. Filchner named the feature for Kaiser Wilhelm, but the Emperor requested it be named for its discoverer, the shelf is nourished primarily by the Slessor Glacier, the Recovery Glacier, and the Support Force Glacier, all located east of Berkner Island. In October 1998, the iceberg A-38 broke off the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf and it had a size of roughly 150 by 50 km and was thus larger than Delaware. It later broke up into three parts, a large group of small icebergs, were seen off the southeast coast of the island, with one of them drifting close enough to shore to be visible from the hills above the city of Dunedin. If these were indeed the remnants of this calving, then over the course of five and a half years they had travelled north and also east around over half the globe. From January 12 and January 13,2010, an area of sea ice larger than the state of Rhode Island broke away from the Ronne-Filchner Ice Shelf, the Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites captured this event in this series of photo-like images. The ice of the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf can be as thick as 600 m, the international Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf Programme was initiated in 1973 to study the ice shelf.4 mm of rise of sea level each year. Belgrano I Base Ellsworth Station Weddell Gyre Satellite image/map of Ronne, national Snow and Ice Data Center. National Snow and Ice Data Center, big Antarctic ice sheet appears doomed, Warming climate predicted to trigger collapse of Filchner-Ronne shelf by 2100 June 2nd,2012, Vol.181 #11 Science News. This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Geological Survey document Filchner Ice Shelf
29.
South Georgia Island
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South Georgia is an island in the South Atlantic that is part of the British Overseas territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. South Georgia is 167.4 kilometres long and 1.4 to 37 km wide. The Island of South Georgia is said to have been first sighted in 1675 by Anthony de la Roché, a London merchant and it was sighted by a commercial Spanish ship named León operating out of Saint-Malo on 28 June or 29 June 1756
30.
Weddell seal
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The Weddell seal, Leptonychotes weddellii, is a relatively large and abundant true seal with a circumpolar distribution surrounding Antarctica. Weddell seals have the most southerly distribution of any mammal, with a habitat that extends as far south as McMurdo Sound. It is the species in the genus Leptonychotes, and the only member of the Antarctic tribe of lobodontine seals to prefer in-shore habitats on shore-fast ice over free-floating pack ice. Genetic evidence suggests that Weddell seal population numbers may have increased during the Pleistocene, because of its abundance, relative accessibility, and ease of approach by humans, it is the best-studied of the Antarctic seals. An estimated 800,000 individuals remain today, Weddell seal pups leave their mothers at a few months of age. In those months, they are fed by their mothers warming and they leave when they are ready to hunt and are fat enough to survive in the harsh weather. The Weddell seal was discovered and named in the 1820s during expeditions led by James Weddell, however, it is found in relatively uniform densities around the entire Antarctic continent. The Weddell seal shares a recent ancestor with the other Antarctic seals. These include the seal, the Ross seal, and the leopard seal. These species share teeth adaptations including lobes and cusps useful for straining smaller prey items out of the water, Weddell seals measure about 2. 5-3.5 m long and weigh 400–600 kg. Males weigh less than females, usually about 500 kg or less, male and female Weddell seals are generally about the same length, though females can be slightly larger. However, the male tends to have a thicker neck. A molecular genetic based technique has been established to confirm the sex of individuals in the laboratory, the Weddell seal face has been compared to that of a cat due to a short mouth line and similarities in the structure of the nose and whiskers. Their upturned mouths give them the appearance of smiling, the Weddell seal grows a thin fur coat around its whole body except for small areas around the flippers. The colour and pattern of the varies, often fading to a duller colour as the seal ages. This coat moults around the beginning of summer, adults are generally brown, with lighter ventral pelage. They are mottled with darker and lighter patches, those on the belly being silvery white. Adult males usually bear scars, most of them around the genital region, young Weddell seals have gray pelage for the first 3 to 4 weeks, later, they turn a darker color
31.
James Cook
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Captain James Cook FRS RN was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy. Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager and joined the Royal Navy in 1755 and he saw action in the Seven Years War, and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege of Quebec. This helped bring Cook to the attention of the Admiralty and Royal Society, in three voyages Cook sailed thousands of miles across largely uncharted areas of the globe. He mapped lands from New Zealand to Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean in greater detail, as he progressed on his voyages of discovery he surveyed and named features, and recorded islands and coastlines on European maps for the first time. He displayed a combination of seamanship, superior surveying and cartographic skills, physical courage, Cook was attacked and killed while attempting to kidnap the native chief of Hawaii during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific in 1779. He left a legacy of scientific and geographical knowledge which was to influence his successors well into the 20th century, and numerous memorials worldwide have been dedicated to him. James Cook was born on 7 November 1728 in the village of Marton in Yorkshire and baptised on 14 November in the church of St Cuthbert. He was the second of eight children of James Cook, a Scottish farm labourer from Ednam in Roxburghshire, in 1736, his family moved to Airey Holme farm at Great Ayton, where his fathers employer, Thomas Skottowe, paid for him to attend the local school. In 1741, after five years schooling, he work for his father. For leisure, he would climb a hill, Roseberry Topping, enjoying the opportunity for solitude. Cooks Cottage, his parents last home, which he is likely to have visited, is now in Melbourne, having moved from England and reassembled, brick by brick. In 1745, when he was 16, Cook moved 20 miles to the village of Staithes. Historians have speculated that this is where Cook first felt the lure of the sea while gazing out of the shop window. After 18 months, not proving suitable for work, Cook travelled to the nearby port town of Whitby to be introduced to friends of Sandersons, John. The Walkers, who were Quakers, were prominent local ship-owners in the coal trade and their house is now the Captain Cook Memorial Museum. Cook was taken on as a merchant navy apprentice in their fleet of vessels. His first assignment was aboard the collier Freelove, and he spent several years on this and various other coasters, sailing between the Tyne and London. As part of his apprenticeship, Cook applied himself to the study of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, navigation and his three-year apprenticeship completed, Cook began working on trading ships in the Baltic Sea
32.
National Archives of Scotland
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The National Archives of Scotland are the national archives of Scotland, based in Edinburgh. The NAS claims to have one of the most varied collection of archives in Europe and it is the main archive for sources of the history of Scotland as an independent state, her role in the British Isles and the links between Scotland and many other countries over the centuries. The Agency is responsible to the Scottish Minister for Europe, External Affairs and its antecedents date back to the 13th century. It is responsible for selecting, preserving, and promoting and making available the national archives of Scotland and it also has a role in records management more generally. Access to the archives is open to members of the public, on 1 April 2011 it was merged with the General Register Office for Scotland to form National Records of Scotland. The early history of the archives of Scotland reflects Scotlands own troubled history. Many records were lost as a result of being out of the country first in the 13th century by Edward I during the Wars of Independence. As a result, the earliest surviving Scottish public record is the Quitclaim of Canterbury of 1189, the first reference to a government official responsible for looking after the records dates from 1286. William of Dumfries was a clerk of the rolls of the chapel or chancery. This office was later to develop into that of Lord Clerk Register, the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton ended the first War of Independence in 1329 and provided for the return of the records to Scotland. But they remained in London, many disappeared, and when their remnants were sent back to Scotland in 1948, only about 200 documents remained. During the reign of Robert I, the Bruce, and with the settled nature of the country after the battle of Bannockburn in 1314. Records accumulated over the centuries and by the century it became necessary to build a special register house in Edinburgh Castle to house them. The archives remained safe in the Castle until its capture by Cromwells army in December 1650, the Scots were allowed to remove the archives and they were deposited in Stirling Castle. When that too fell to the English in August 1651, some of the records were carried off by the garrison, some were rescued by the clerks and their removal proved very inconvenient, so in 1657 the legal registers were returned to Scotland. It was not until the restoration of Charles II in 1660 that the records were sent back. One of the two carrying the archives, the Elizabeth, sank in a storm off the Northumbrian coast with the loss of all the papers. Those records which had survived the voyage north were deposited again in Edinburgh Castle, but in 1662 the legal registers were transferred to the Laigh Hall below the Parliament Hall on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, where parliamentary and other records from the Castle joined them in 1689
33.
Walter Scott
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Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet, FRSE was a Scottish historical novelist, playwright and poet. Many of his works remain classics of both English-language literature and of Scottish literature, famous titles include Ivanhoe, Rob Roy, Old Mortality, The Lady of the Lake, Waverley, The Heart of Midlothian and The Bride of Lammermoor. A prominent member of the Tory establishment in Edinburgh, Scott was an member of the Highland Society. He survived a bout of polio in 1773 that left him lame. To cure his lameness he was sent in 1773 to live in the rural Scottish Borders at his grandparents farm at Sandyknowe, adjacent to the ruin of Smailholm Tower. Here he was taught to read by his aunt Jenny, and learned from her the speech patterns and many of the tales and legends that characterised much of his work. In January 1775 he returned to Edinburgh, and that went with his aunt Jenny to take spa treatment at Bath in England. In the winter of 1776 he went back to Sandyknowe, with another attempt at a cure at Prestonpans during the following summer. In 1778, Scott returned to Edinburgh for private education to him for school. In October 1779 he began at the Royal High School of Edinburgh and he was now well able to walk and explore the city and the surrounding countryside. His reading included chivalric romances, poems, history and travel books and he was given private tuition by James Mitchell in arithmetic and writing, and learned from him the history of the Church of Scotland with emphasis on the Covenanters. Scott began studying classics at the University of Edinburgh in November 1783, at the age of 12, in March 1786 he began an apprenticeship in his fathers office to become a Writer to the Signet. While at the university Scott had become a friend of Adam Ferguson, Scott met the blind poet Thomas Blacklock, who lent him books and introduced him to James Macphersons Ossian cycle of poems. During the winter of 1786–87 the 15-year-old Scott saw Robert Burns at one of these salons, for what was to be their only meeting. When Burns noticed a print illustrating the poem The Justice of the Peace and asked who had written the poem, only Scott knew that it was by John Langhorne, and was thanked by Burns. When it was decided that he would become a lawyer, he returned to the university to study law, first taking classes in Moral Philosophy, after completing his studies in law, he became a lawyer in Edinburgh. As a lawyers clerk he made his first visit to the Scottish Highlands directing an eviction and he was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1792. He had an unsuccessful love suit with Williamina Belsches of Fettercairn, as a boy, youth and young man, Scott was fascinated by the oral traditions of the Scottish Borders
34.
Admiralty
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The new Admiralty Board meets only twice a year, and the day-to-day running of the Royal Navy is controlled by a Navy Board. It is common for the authorities now in charge of the Royal Navy to be referred to as simply The Admiralty. The title of Lord High Admiral of the United Kingdom was vested in the monarch from 1964 to 2011, the title was awarded to Philip, Duke of Edinburgh by Queen Elizabeth II on his 90th birthday. There also continues to be a Vice-Admiral of the United Kingdom, the office of Admiral of England was created around 1400 although there had already been Admirals of the Northern and Western Seas. In 1546, King Henry VIII established the Council of the Marine, later to become the Navy Board, operational control of the Royal Navy remained the responsibility of the Lord High Admiral, who was one of the nine Great Officers of State. In 1628, Charles I put the office of Lord High Admiral into commission, the office of Lord High Admiral passed a number of times in and out of commission until 1709 after which the office was almost permanently in commission. In 1831, the first Navy Board was abolished as a separate entity, in 1964, the Admiralty along with the War Office and the Air Ministry as separate departments of state were abolished, and re-emerged under one single new Ministry of Defence. Within the expanded Ministry of Defence are the new Admiralty Board which has a separate Navy Board responsible for the running of the Royal Navy. The Army Board and the Air Force Board, each headed by the Secretary of State for Defence, the Board of Admiralty consisted of a number of Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. The Lords Commissioners were always a mixture of admirals, known as Naval Lords or Sea Lords and Civil Lords, the quorum of the Board was two commissioners and a secretary. The president of the Board was known as the First Lord of the Admiralty, after 1806, the First Lord of the Admiralty was always a civilian while the professional head of the navy came to be known as the First Sea Lord. The first real concerted effort to organise the Admiralty was started by Henry VIII. Between 1860 and 1908 there was no study of strategy and of staff work conducted within the naval service. All the navys talent flowed to the great technical universitys and it was perceived by officials within the Admiralty at this time that the running of war was quite a simple matter for any flag officer who required no formal training. The new War Staff had hardly found its feet and it struggled with the opposition to its existence by senior officers they were categorically opposed to a staff. The deficiencies of the system within this department of state could be seen in the conduct of the Dardanelles campaign, there was no mechanisms in place to answer the big strategic questions in 1914 a Trade Division was created. In 1916, Sir John Jellicoe came to the Admiralty, he organized the staff as following, Chief of War Staff, Operations, Intelligence, Signal Section, Mobilization, Trade. This for the first time gave the naval staff direct representation on the Board, the would direct all operations and movements of the fleet, while the would be responsible for mercantile movements and anti-submarine operations
35.
Buenos Aires
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Buenos Aires is the capital and most populous city of Argentina. The city is located on the shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata. The city of Buenos Aires is neither part of Buenos Aires Province nor the Provinces capital, rather, in 1880, after decades of political infighting, Buenos Aires was federalized and removed from Buenos Aires Province. The city limits were enlarged to include the towns of Belgrano and Flores, the 1994 constitutional amendment granted the city autonomy, hence its formal name, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires. Its citizens first elected a chief of government in 1996, previously, Buenos Aires is considered an alpha city by the study GaWC5. Buenos Aires quality of life was ranked 81st in the world and one of the best in Latin America in 2012 and it is the most visited city in South America, and the second-most visited city of Latin America. Buenos Aires is a top tourist destination, and is known for its preserved Spanish/European-style architecture, Buenos Aires held the 1st Pan American Games in 1951 as well as hosting two venues in the 1978 FIFA World Cup. Buenos Aires will host the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics and the 2018 G20 summit, Buenos Aires is a multicultural city, being home to multiple ethnic and religious groups. Several languages are spoken in the city in addition to Spanish, contributing to its culture, the hill was known to them as Buen Ayre, as it was free of the foul smell prevalent in the old city, which is adjacent to swampland. During the siege of Cagliari, the Aragonese built a sanctuary to the Virgin Mary on top of the hill, in 1335, King Alfonso the Gentle donated the church to the Mercedarians, who built an abbey that stands to this day. In the years after that, a story circulated, claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary was retrieved from the sea after it miraculously helped to calm a storm in the Mediterranean Sea, the statue was placed in the abbey. Spanish sailors, especially Andalusians, venerated this image and frequently invoked the Fair Winds to aid them in their navigation, a sanctuary to the Virgin of Buen Ayre would be later erected in Seville. Pedro de Mendoza called the city Holy Mary of the Fair Winds, mendoza’s settlement soon came under attack by indigenous people, and was abandoned in 1541. For many years, the name was attributed to a Sancho del Campo, a second settlement was established in 1580 by Juan de Garay, who sailed down the Paraná River from Asunción. Garay preserved the name chosen by Mendoza, calling the city Ciudad de la Santísima Trinidad y Puerto de Santa María del Buen Aire. The short form Buenos Aires became the common usage during the 17th century, the usual abbreviation for Buenos Aires in Spanish is Bs. As. It is common as well to refer to it as B. A. or BA /ˌbiːˈeɪ/ bee-AY), while BA is used more by expats residing in the city, the locals more often use the abbreviation Baires, in one word. Seaman Juan Díaz de Solís, navigating in the name of Spain, was the first European to reach the Río de la Plata in 1516 and his expedition was cut short when he was killed during an attack by the native Charrúa tribe in what is now Uruguay
36.
Gibraltar
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Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula. It has an area of 6.7 km2 and shares its border with Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the landmark of the region. At its foot is a populated city area, home to over 30,000 Gibraltarians. An Anglo-Dutch force captured Gibraltar from Spain in 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession on behalf of the Habsburg claim to the Spanish throne, the territory was subsequently ceded to Great Britain in perpetuity under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Today Gibraltars economy is based largely on tourism, online gambling, financial services, the sovereignty of Gibraltar is a major point of contention in Anglo-Spanish relations as Spain asserts a claim to the territory. Gibraltarians overwhelmingly rejected proposals for Spanish sovereignty in a 1967 referendum, under the Gibraltar constitution of 2006, Gibraltar governs its own affairs, though some powers, such as defence and foreign relations, remain the responsibility of the British government. The name Gibraltar is the Spanish derivation of the Arabic name Jabal Ṭāriq, earlier, it was known as Mons Calpe, a name of Phoenician origin and one of the Pillars of Hercules. The pronunciation of the name in modern Spanish is, evidence of Neanderthal habitation in Gibraltar between 28,000 and 24,000 BP has been discovered at Gorhams Cave, making Gibraltar possibly the last known holdout of the Neanderthals. Within recorded history, the first inhabitants were the Phoenicians, around 950 BC, subsequently, Gibraltar became known as one of the Pillars of Hercules, after the Greek legend of the creation of the Strait of Gibraltar by Heracles. The Carthaginians and Romans also established semi-permanent settlements, after the collapse of the Roman Empire, Gibraltar came briefly under the control of the Vandals. The area later formed part of the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania from 414 AD until the Islamic conquest of Iberia in 711 AD, in 1160, the Almohad Sultan Abd al-Mumin ordered that a permanent settlement, including a castle, be built. It received the name of Medinat al-Fath, on completion of the works in the town, the Sultan crossed the Strait to look at the works and stayed in Gibraltar for two months. The Tower of Homage of the Moorish Castle remains standing today, from 1274 onwards, the town was fought over and captured by the Nasrids of Granada, the Marinids of Morocco and the kings of Castile. In 1462, Gibraltar was finally captured by Juan Alonso de Guzmán, after the conquest, King Henry IV of Castile assumed the additional title of King of Gibraltar, establishing it as part of the comarca of the Campo Llano de Gibraltar. In 1501, Gibraltar passed back to the Spanish Crown, the occupation of the town by Alliance forces caused the exodus of the population to the surrounding area of the Campo de Gibraltar. As the Alliances campaign faltered, the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht was negotiated and ceded control of Gibraltar to Britain to secure Britains withdrawal from the war. Unsuccessful attempts by Spanish monarchs to regain Gibraltar were made with the siege of 1727 and again with the Great Siege of Gibraltar, during the American War of Independence
37.
Azores
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Its main industries are agriculture, dairy farming, livestock, fishing, and tourism, which is becoming the major service activity in the region. In addition, the government of the Azores employs a large percentage of the population directly or indirectly in the service, the main settlement of the Azores is Ponta Delgada. There are nine major Azorean islands and a cluster, in three main groups. These are Flores and Corvo, to the west, Graciosa, Terceira, São Jorge, Pico, and Faial in the centre, and São Miguel, Santa Maria, and they extend for more than 600 km and lie in a northwest-southeast direction. All the islands have volcanic origins, although some, such as Santa Maria, have had no recorded activity since the islands were settled, mount Pico, on the island of Pico, is the highest point in Portugal, at 2,351 m. The Azores are actually some of the tallest mountains on the planet, measured from their base at the bottom of the ocean to their peaks, which thrust high above the surface of the Atlantic. The climate of the Azores is very mild for such a location, being influenced by its distance to continents. Due to the influence, temperatures remain mild year-round. Daytime temperatures normally fluctuate between 16 °C and 25 °C depending on season, temperatures above 30 °C or below 3 °C are unknown in the major population centres. It is also generally wet and cloudy, the culture, dialect, cuisine, and traditions of the Azorean islands vary considerably, because these once-uninhabited and remote islands were settled sporadically over a span of two centuries. However, these kinds of structures have always used in the Azores to store cereals. Detailed examination and dating to authenticate the validity of these speculations is lacking and it is unclear whether these structures are natural or man-made and whether they predate the 15th-century Portuguese colonization of the Azores. Solid confirmation of a human presence in the archipelago has not yet been published. The islands were known in the century and parts of them appear in the Atlas Catalan. In 1427, a captain sailing for Henry the Navigator, possibly Gonçalo Velho, rediscovered the Azores, but this is not certain. In Thomas Ashes 1813 work, A History of the Azores, the author identified a Fleming, Joshua Vander Berg of Bruges and he stated that the Portuguese explored the area and claimed it for Portugal. Other stories note the discovery of the first islands by sailors in the service of Henry the Navigator, although there are few documents to support the claims. Although it is said that the archipelago received its name from the goshawk
38.
Pico Island
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Pico Island, is an island in the Central Group of the Portuguese Azores. The landscape features a volcano, Ponta do Pico, which is the highest mountain in Portugal, the Azores. After depositing herds on the island in the first half of the 15th century and its first Captain-Donatário was Álvaro de Ornelas, but he never took up his role on the island, as it was incorporated into Captaincy of Faial. Lajes was its first entitled village, closely followed by São Roque in 1542 and its settlers were initially occupied with wheat cultivation in addition to the exploration of the woad industry, and heavily influenced by export industries of its island neighbor, Faial. Quickly, the industry, helped by the rich soils. In 1723, Madalena was elevated to the status of town, confirming its importance to the island. Picos famous verdelho, for more than two centuries, was appreciated in many countries, but, the spread of powdery mildew and phylloxera during the middle of the 19th century destroyed many of the vineyards, creating a crisis on the island that lasted until the 20th century. Whaling became the industry around the island until the 1970s. The island is 17.5 km south of São Jorge and just 7 km east of Faial, in the Central Group of islands, an area that is colloquially known as o Triangulo. Along the central plain of volcano cones to the eastern coast, the landscape is pitted with the remnants of craters and lake-filled cones, along its flanks are diverse lava and spatter cones that are formed along radial fractures and faults. Generally, the island of Picos tectonic structures are oriented along a west-northwest to east-southeast, the main axis controls the main structures, especially the main mountain of Pico, while the secondary axises affect the radial fractures and faults along the central plain and eastern volcano. The last volcanic eruption occurred in 1963, in a submarine eruption off the northwest coast. Prior to this, major activity was evident in lava fields generated in only the areas of Prainha, Santa Luzia, São João. The paths of the flows are still visible, those in the 16th century and 1718 were particularly substantial. Today, the visible evidence of active volcanism appears on the summit of Pico, in the base and interior of the Piqueninho. Additionally, there are emissions on the eastern flanks between 1500 and 2000 meters altitude. There have also been areas of de-gasification along the fault associated with the Lagoa do Capitão and another in the Topo Volcano. Pico, much like the islands, is susceptible to seismic events
39.
Swan River Colony
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The Swan River Colony was a British colony established in 1829 on the Swan River, in Western Australia. The name was a pars pro toto for Western Australia, in 1832 the colony was renamed the Colony of Western Australia, when the colonys founding Lieutenant-Governor, Captain James Stirling, belatedly received his commission. However, the name Swan River Colony remained in use for many years afterwards. The first recorded Europeans to sight land where the city of Perth is now located were Dutch sailors, most likely the first visitor to the Swan River area was Frederick de Houtman on 19 July 1619, travelling on the ships Dordrecht and Amsterdam. His records indicate he first reached the Western Australian coast at latitude 32°20 which would equate to Rottnest or just south of there and he did not land because of heavy surf, and so proceeded northwards without much investigation. On 28 April 1656, the Vergulde Draeck en route to Batavia was shipwrecked 107 km north of the Swan River near Ledge Point, of the 193 on board, only 75 made it to shore. A small boat that survived the wreckage then sailed to Batavia for help, the wreck was rediscovered in 1963. In 1658, three Dutch Republic ships, also searching for the Vergulde Draeck visited the area. They then travelled north and subsequently found the wreck of the Vergulde Draeck and they gave an unfavourable opinion of the area partly due to the dangerous reefs. The Dutch captain Willem de Vlamingh was the next European in the area, commanding three ships, the Geelvink, Nyptangh and the Wezeltje, he arrived at and named Rottnest on 29 December 1696, and on 10 January 1697 discovered and named the Swan River. His ships could not sail up the river because of a bar at its mouth. They sailed until reaching mud flats probably near Heirisson Island and they saw some Aborigines but were not able to meet any close up. Vlamingh was also not impressed with the area, and this was probably the reason for a lack of Dutch exploration from then on, in 1801, the French ships Geographe captained by Nicolas Baudin and Naturaliste captained by Emmanuel Hamelin visited the area from the south. While the Geographe continued northwards, the Naturaliste remained for a few weeks, a small expedition dragged longboats over the sand bar and explored the Swan River. They also gave unfavourable descriptions regarding any potential settlement due to mud flats upstream. Later in March 1803, the Geographe with another ship Casuarina passed by Rottnest on their way back to France. The next visit to the area was the first Australian-born maritime explorer, King was also the son of former Governor Philip Gidley King of New South Wales. However, King also was not impressed with the area, the founding father of modern Western Australia was Captain James Stirling who, in 1827, explored the Swan River area in HMS Success which first anchored off Rottnest, and later in Cockburn Sound
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Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
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Tasmania
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Tasmania is an island state of the Commonwealth of Australia. It is located 240 km to the south of the Australian mainland, the state encompasses the main island of Tasmania, the 26th-largest island in the world, and the surrounding 334 islands. The state has a population of around 519,100, just over forty percent of which resides in the Greater Hobart precinct, Tasmanias area is 68,401 km2, of which the main island covers 64,519 km2. Though an island state, due to an error the state shares a land border with Victoria at its northernmost terrestrial point, Boundary Islet. The Bishop and Clerk Islets, about 37 km south of Macquarie Island, are the southernmost terrestrial point of the state of Tasmania, the island is believed to have been occupied by Aboriginals for 40,000 years before British colonisation. It is thought Tasmanian Aboriginals were separated from the mainland Aboriginal groups about 10,000 years ago when the sea rose to form Bass Strait. The conflict, which peaked between 1825 and 1831 and led to more than three years of law, cost the lives of almost 1100 Aboriginals and settlers. The near-destruction of Tasmanias Aboriginal population has been described by historians as an act of genocide by the British. The island was part of the Colony of New South Wales. In 1854 the present Constitution of Tasmania was passed and the year the state received permission to change its name to Tasmania. In 1901 it became a state through the process of the Federation of Australia, the state is named after Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who made the first reported European sighting of the island on 24 November 1642. Tasman named the island Anthony van Diemens Land after his sponsor Anthony van Diemen, the name was later shortened to Van Diemens Land by the British. It was officially renamed Tasmania in honour of its first European discoverer on 1 January 1856, Tasmania was sometimes referred to as Dervon, as mentioned in the Jerilderie Letter written by the notorious Australian bushranger Ned Kelly in 1879. The colloquial expression for the state is Tassie, Tasmania is also colloquially shortened to Tas, especially when used in business names and website addresses. TAS is also the Australia Post abbreviation for the state, the reconstructed Palawa kani language name for Tasmania is Lutriwita. The island was adjoined to the mainland of Australia until the end of the last glacial period about 10,000 years ago, much of the island is composed of Jurassic dolerite intrusions through other rock types, sometimes forming large columnar joints. Tasmania has the worlds largest areas of dolerite, with many distinctive mountains, the central plateau and the southeast portions of the island are mostly dolerite. Mount Wellington above Hobart is an example, showing distinct columns known as the Organ Pipes
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St Clement Danes
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St Clement Danes is an Anglican church in the City of Westminster, London. It is situated outside the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand, although the first church on the site was reputedly founded in the 9th century by the Danes, the current building was completed in 1682 by Sir Christopher Wren. Wrens building was gutted during the Blitz and not restored until 1958, the church is sometimes claimed to be the one featured in the nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons and the bells do indeed play that tune. However, St Clement Eastcheap, in the City of London, St Clement Danes is known as one of the two Island Churches, the other being St Mary-le-Strand. There are several theories as to the connection between the Danes and the origins of the church. A popular theory is that in the 9th century the Danes colonized the village of Aldwych on the river between the City of London and the site of Westminster. This was at a time half of England was Danish. At Aldwych the Danes founded a church, hence the part of its name. Alternatively, after Alfred the Great had driven the Danes out of the City of London and they had been required to accept Christianity, in either case, being a seafaring people, the Danes named the church they built after St Clement, patron saint of mariners. Also possible is that the Danish connection was reinforced by a massacre recorded in the Jómsvíkinga saga when a group of unarmed Danes who had gathered for a service were killed. The 12th century historian William of Malmesbury wrote that the Danes burnt the church on the site of St Clement Danes before they were slain in the vicinity. The church was first rebuilt by William the Conqueror, and then again in the Middle Ages. A new chancel was built part of the churchyard in 1608, at a cost of more than £1,000. Shortly after the Great Fire, further repairs to the steeple were attempted, but these were found impractical, soon afterwards it was decided that the rest of the church was in such a poor state that it too should be completely rebuilt. St Clements was rebuilt between 1680 and 1682 to a design by Sir Christopher Wren, incorporating the tower which was reclad. The new church was constructed from Portland Stone, with an apse at the east end, a steeple was added to the tower in 1719 by James Gibbs. The interior has galleries on three sides supported by pillars, continued above gallery level as Corinthian columns, supporting, in turn. Wren used the scheme again at St Jamess Church, Piccadilly
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Strand, London
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Strand is a major thoroughfare in the City of Westminster, Central London. The roads name comes from the Old English strond, meaning the edge of a river, the street was popular with the British upper classes between the 12th and 17th centuries, with many historically important mansions being built between the Strand and the river. These included Essex House, Arundel House, Somerset House, Savoy Palace, Durham House, the aristocracy moved to the West End over the 17th century, following which the Strand became well known for coffee shops, restaurants and taverns. The street was a point for theatre and music hall during the 19th century. At the east end of the street are two churches, St Mary le Strand and St Clement Danes. Several authors, poets and philosophers have lived on or near the Strand, including Charles Dickens, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the street has been commemorated in the song Lets All Go Down the Strand, now recognised as a typical piece of Cockney music hall. The street is the link between the two cities of Westminster and London. It runs eastward from Trafalgar Square, parallel to the River Thames, traffic travelling eastbound follows a short crescent around Aldwych, connected at both ends to the Strand. The road marks the boundary of the Covent Garden district. The name was first recorded in 1002 as strondway, then in 1185 as Stronde and it is formed from the Old English word strond, meaning the edge of a river. Initially it referred to the bank of the once much wider Thames. The name was applied to the road itself. In the 13th century it was known as Densemanestret or street of the Danes, Strand Bridge was the name given to Waterloo Bridge during its construction, it was renamed for its official opening on the second anniversary of the coalition victory in the Battle of Waterloo. London Bus routes 6,23,139 and 176 all run along the Strand, as do numerous night bus services. During Roman Britain, what is now the Strand was part of the route to Silchester, known as Iter VIII on the Antonine Itinerary, and it was briefly part of a trading town called Lundenwic that developed around 600 AD, and stretched from Trafalgar Square to Aldwych. Alfred the Great gradually moved the settlement into the old Roman town of Londinium from around 886 AD onwards, leaving no mark of the old town, and the area returned to fields. In the Middle Ages, the Strand became the route between the separate settlements of the City of London and the royal Palace of Westminster. The landmark Eleanors Cross was built in the 13th century at the end of the Strand at Charing Cross by Edward I commemorating his wife Eleanor of Castile
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Weddell Island
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Weddell Island is the third largest of the Falkland Islands. Weddell Island is located to the west of West Falkland and is 265.8 square kilometres in area, the length of the coastline is 175.7 km. Until the late 19th century, it was known as Swan Island, the name Weddell Island comes from James Weddell, an English navigator and explorer who visited the Falklands in the early 19th century. He was well known for his voyages to the Antarctic, the small population of the island lives in Weddell Settlement on the east coast, the remainder of the island being run as a sheep farm. Like many of the Falkland Islands, Weddell Island is known for its wildlife, exotic wildlife, including skunks, rheas, parrots and guanacos were introduced in the 1930s, along with Patagonian foxes, which can still be found. Stonehouse, B Encyclopedia of Antarctica and the Southern Oceans Weddell Island Official Website Weddell Island from space at the Wayback Machine Weddell Island
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Arctic
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The Arctic is a polar region located at the northernmost part of Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean, adjacent seas, and parts of Alaska, Canada, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, land within the Arctic region has seasonally varying snow and ice cover, with predominantly treeless permafrost-containing tundra. Arctic seas contain seasonal sea ice in many places, the Arctic region is a unique area among Earths ecosystems. For example, the cultures in the region and the Arctic indigenous peoples have adapted to its cold, in recent years, Arctic sea ice decline has been caused by global warming. Life in the Arctic includes organisms living in the ice, zooplankton and phytoplankton, fish and marine mammals, birds, land animals, plants, Arctic land is bordered by the subarctic. The word Arctic comes from the Greek word ἀρκτικός, near the Bear, northern, there are a number of definitions of what area is contained within the Arctic. The area can be defined as north of the Arctic Circle, the southern limit of the midnight sun. The Arctics climate is characterized by cold winters and cool summers and its precipitation mostly comes in the form of snow and is low, with most of the area receiving less than 50 cm. High winds often stir up snow, creating the illusion of continuous snowfall, average winter temperatures can be as low as −40 °C, and the coldest recorded temperature is approximately −68 °C. Coastal Arctic climates are moderated by oceanic influences, having generally warmer temperatures, the Arctic is affected by current global warming, leading to Arctic sea ice shrinkage, diminished ice in the Greenland ice sheet, and Arctic methane release as the permafrost thaws. Due to the migration of the planets isotherms, the Arctic region is currently shrinking. Perhaps the most spectacular result of Arctic shrinkage is sea ice loss, there is a large variance in predictions of Arctic sea ice loss, with models showing near-complete to complete loss in September from 2040 to some time well beyond 2100. About half of the models show near-complete to complete sea ice loss in September by the year 2100. Arctic life is characterized by adaptation to short growing seasons with long periods of sunlight, Arctic vegetation is composed of plants such as dwarf shrubs, graminoids, herbs, lichens and mosses, which all grow relatively close to the ground, forming tundra. As one moves northward, the amount of available for plant growth decreases considerably. Colder summer temperatures cause the size, abundance, productivity and variety of plants to decrease, trees cannot grow in the Arctic, but in its warmest parts, shrubs are common and can reach 2 m in height, sedges, mosses and lichens can form thick layers. In the coldest parts of the Arctic, much of the ground is bare, non-vascular plants such as lichens and mosses predominate, along with a few scattered grasses, herbivores on the tundra include the Arctic hare, lemming, muskox, and caribou. They are preyed on by the owl, Arctic fox, Grizzly bear
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Arctic Ocean
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The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the worlds five major oceans. Alternatively, the Arctic Ocean can be seen as the northernmost part of the all-encompassing World Ocean, located mostly in the Arctic north polar region in the middle of the Northern Hemisphere, the Arctic Ocean is almost completely surrounded by Eurasia and North America. It is partly covered by sea ice throughout the year and almost completely in winter, the summer shrinking of the ice has been quoted at 50%. The US National Snow and Ice Data Center uses satellite data to provide a record of Arctic sea ice cover. The Arctic may become ice free for the first time in human history within a few years or by 2040, for much of European history, the north polar regions remained largely unexplored and their geography conjectural. He was probably describing loose sea ice known today as growlers or bergy bits, his Thule was probably Norway, early cartographers were unsure whether to draw the region around the North Pole as land or water. The makers of navigational charts, more conservative than some of the more fanciful cartographers, tended to leave the region blank and this lack of knowledge of what lay north of the shifting barrier of ice gave rise to a number of conjectures. In England and other European nations, the myth of an Open Polar Sea was persistent, john Barrow, longtime Second Secretary of the British Admiralty, promoted exploration of the region from 1818 to 1845 in search of this. In the United States in the 1850s and 1860s, the explorers Elisha Kane, even quite late in the century, the eminent authority Matthew Fontaine Maury included a description of the Open Polar Sea in his textbook The Physical Geography of the Sea. Nevertheless, as all the explorers who travelled closer and closer to the reported, the polar ice cap is quite thick. Fridtjof Nansen was the first to make a crossing of the Arctic Ocean. The first surface crossing of the ocean was led by Wally Herbert in 1969, in a dog sled expedition from Alaska to Svalbard, with air support. The first nautical transit of the pole was made in 1958 by the submarine USS Nautilus. Since 1937, Soviet and Russian manned drifting ice stations have extensively monitored the Arctic Ocean, scientific settlements were established on the drift ice and carried thousands of kilometres by ice floes. In World War II, the European region of the Arctic Ocean was heavily contested, the Arctic Ocean occupies a roughly circular basin and covers an area of about 14,056,000 km2, almost the size of Antarctica. The coastline is 45,390 km long and it is surrounded by the land masses of Eurasia, North America, Greenland, and by several islands. It is connected to the Pacific Ocean by the Bering Strait and to the Atlantic Ocean through the Greenland Sea, countries bordering the Arctic Ocean are, Russia, Norway, Iceland, Greenland, Canada and the United States. There are several ports and harbours around the Arctic Ocean In Alaska, in Canada, ships may anchor at Churchill in Manitoba, Nanisivik in Nunavut, Tuktoyaktuk or Inuvik in the Northwest territories
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Arctic exploration
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Arctic exploration is the physical exploration of the Arctic region of the Earth. It refers to the period during which mankind has explored the region north of the Arctic Circle. Dangerous oceans and poor weather conditions often fetter explorers attempting to reach polar regions and journeying through these perils by sight, boat, sailing past the Pillars of Hercules, he reached Brittany and even Cornwall, eventually circumnavigating the British Isles. From the local population, he heard news of the land of Thule. After six days of sailing, he reached land at the edge of a sea, and described what is believed to be the aurora. While no one knows exactly how far Pytheas sailed, he may have crossed the Arctic Circle, nevertheless, his tales were regarded as fantasy by later Greek and Roman authorities, such as the geographer Strabo. It was impossible, according to their perception of the world, the first Viking to sight Iceland was Gardar Svavarsson, who went off course due to harsh conditions when sailing from Norway to the Faroe Islands. This quickly led to a wave of colonization, not all the settlers were successful however in the attempts to reach the island. In the 10th century, Gunnbjörn Ulfsson got lost in a storm and his report spurred Erik the Red, an outlawed chieftain, to establish a settlement there in 985. While they flourished initially, these settlements eventually foundered due to changing climatic conditions and they are believed to have survived until around 1450. Greenlands early settlers sailed westward, in search of better pasturage, modern scholars debate the precise location of the new lands of Vinland, Markland, and Helluland that they discovered. The Scandinavian peoples also pushed north into their own peninsula by land. As early as 880, the Viking Ohthere of Hålogaland rounded the Scandinavian Peninsula and sailed to the Kola Peninsula and they also explored north by boat, discovering the Northern Sea Route, as well as penetrating to the trans-Ural areas of northern Siberia. They then founded the settlement of Mangazeya east of the Yamal Peninsula in the early 16th century, in 1648 the Cossack Semyon Dezhnyov opened the now famous Bering Strait between America and Asia. Russian settlers and traders on the coasts of the White Sea, by the 17th century they established a continuous sea route from Arkhangelsk as far east as the mouth of Yenisey. This route, known as Mangazeya seaway, after its eastern terminus, Exploration above the Arctic Circle in the Renaissance was driven by the rediscovery of Classical learning and the national quests for commercial expansion. This exploration was hampered by limits in maritime technology of the age, lack of food supplies. A seminal event in Arctic exploration occurred in 1409, when Ptolemys Geographia was translated into Latin, navigators were better able to chart their positions, and the European race to China, sparked by interest in the writings of Marco Polo, commenced
