1.
St Giles-without-Cripplegate
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St Giles-without-Cripplegate is a Church of England church in the City of London, located on Fore Street within the modern Barbican complex. When built it stood without the city wall, near the Cripplegate, the church is dedicated to St Giles, patron saint of beggars and the handicapped. It is one of the few churches left in the City of London. There had been a Saxon church on the site in the 11th century, in 1394 it was rebuilt in the perpendicular gothic style. The stone tower was added in 1682, the church has been badly damaged by fire on three occasions, In 1545, in 1897 and during an air raid of the Blitz of the Second World War on the night of 24 August 1940. German bombs completely gutted the church but it was restored using the plans of the reconstruction of 1545, a new ring of twelve bells was cast by Mears and Stainbank in 1954, and this was augmented with a sharp second bell cast in 2006 by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950, John Field, curate of the church, c.1570 John Foxe, author of the Book of Martyrs, surrogate for Crowley c. Jack Nitzsche, composer, pianist, recorded St. Giles Cripplegate with the London Symphony Orchestra in 1972, John Milton buried here in 1674 The altar from St. Lukes, Old Street, which was dismantled in the 1960s due to subsidence. Designed by the Nicholson Studios, following the pattern of the original medieval window, sedilia and piscina of the medieval church. Display cabinet containing the historic treasures of Cripplegate, John Foxe, author of The Book of Martyrs is buried here. Plaque commemorating Sir Martin Frobisher, explorer and sea Captain, Bust of John Speed, map maker and historian. Statue of John Milton by Horace Montford The organ, from St. Lukes, Old Street Bust of Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe and John Milton. Busts of Oliver Cromwell and John Bunyan, author of Pilgrims Progress, portrait of Dr. William Nicholls, the first Rector of St. Lukes Church and Vicar of St. Giles. The West Window – shows the coats of arms of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the font – from St. Lukes Church. The Cripplegate Window which celebrates the centenary of the charity The Cripplegate Foundation, Bust of Sir William Staines, Lord Mayor of London in 1801. List of buildings survived the Great Fire of London List of churches
2.
Farndon, Cheshire
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Farndon is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It is located on the banks of the River Dee, south of Chester, at the 2001 Census, the village had a population of 1,517, increasing to 1,653 at the 2011 Census. Edward the Elder, King of the Anglo-Saxons, died in the ancient parish of Farndon in AD924, shortly after quelling a revolt of an alliance of Mercians and Welshmen. This involved Edward successfully taking Chester from the occupying Mercians and Welshmen, and then re-garrisoning it, up to the 14th century, Farndon also included the chapelry of Holt in Denbighshire, Wales. Some historians believe that Farndon was the location of the first ever competitive horse race with riders, nearby Chester Racecourse is said to be the oldest racecourse in Britain. During the English Civil War, Farndon was the scene of fighting over the Bridge that was controlling access to Chester from Wales. There is also a memorial window in the parish church to the Civil War Royalists. The village was at one time renowned for its strawberries, which were grown in the surrounding fields and this is no longer the case. The nearest fields are now in Holt, Farndon is very close to the border between England and Wales Consequently, Farndon has a Welsh name, Rhedynfre. The village was an important place historically and has been a site of conflict, the border moved numerous times during the following centuries, placing Farndon alternately in Wales and England. An electoral ward in the name exists. This ward stretches from Saighton in the north to Church Shocklach in the south, the total population of this ward at the 2011 census was 4,011. Farndon Bridge spans the Dee connecting Farndon to the nearby Welsh village of Holt on higher ground, the bridge, made of sandstone and originally of Medieval construction, is said to be haunted. Holt Castle is located on the side of the river. The castle fell to the forces of Oliver Cromwell in 1647, next to Farndon Bridge is a small picnic area beside the river. At the entrance to the area are Farndon Cliffs. This area has been classed as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, the sandstone cliffs contain interesting rock formations. St Chads is the old church in Farndon
3.
Cartography
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Cartography is the study and practice of making maps. Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively, the fundamental problems of traditional cartography are to, Set the maps agenda and select traits of the object to be mapped. This is the concern of map editing, traits may be physical, such as roads or land masses, or may be abstract, such as toponyms or political boundaries. Represent the terrain of the object on flat media. This is the concern of map projections, eliminate characteristics of the mapped object that are not relevant to the maps purpose. This is the concern of generalization, reduce the complexity of the characteristics that will be mapped. This is also the concern of generalization, orchestrate the elements of the map to best convey its message to its audience. This is the concern of map design, modern cartography constitutes many theoretical and practical foundations of geographic information systems. The earliest known map is a matter of debate, both because the term map isnt well-defined and because some artifacts that might be maps might actually be something else. A wall painting that might depict the ancient Anatolian city of Çatalhöyük has been dated to the late 7th millennium BCE, the oldest surviving world maps are from 9th century BCE Babylonia. One shows Babylon on the Euphrates, surrounded by Assyria, Urartu and several cities, all, in turn, another depicts Babylon as being north of the world center. The ancient Greeks and Romans created maps since Anaximander in the 6th century BCE, in the 2nd century AD, Ptolemy wrote his treatise on cartography, Geographia. This contained Ptolemys world map – the world known to Western society. As early as the 8th century, Arab scholars were translating the works of the Greek geographers into Arabic, in ancient China, geographical literature dates to the 5th century BCE. The oldest extant Chinese maps come from the State of Qin, dated back to the 4th century BCE, in the book of the Xin Yi Xiang Fa Yao, published in 1092 by the Chinese scientist Su Song, a star map on the equidistant cylindrical projection. Early forms of cartography of India included depictions of the pole star and these charts may have been used for navigation. Mappa mundi are the Medieval European maps of the world, approximately 1,100 mappae mundi are known to have survived from the Middle Ages. Of these, some 900 are found illustrating manuscripts and the remainder exist as stand-alone documents, the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi produced his medieval atlas Tabula Rogeriana in 1154
4.
Stuart period
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The Stuart period of British history usually refers to the period between 1603 and 1714 and sometimes from 1731 in Scotland. This coincides with the rule of the House of Stuart, whose first monarch of Scotland was Robert II, the period ended with the death of Queen Anne and the accession of George I from the House of Hanover. The Stuart period was plagued by internal and religious strife, the English Civil War took place during the reign of Charles I, the second Stuart monarch. The war ended in victory for the Parliamentarians, after this conflict, the line of Stuart monarchs was temporarily displaced by the Commonwealth of England. Their rule lasted from 1649 to 1660, oliver Cromwell ruled directly from 1653 to 1658. After Cromwells death the Commonwealth fell apart, the Convention Parliament welcomed Charles II, son of Charles I, to return from war and become king. This event was known as the English Restoration, Stuart England was consumed with internal affairs. During 1600-1650 the king made repeated efforts to colonize Guiana in South America and they all failed and the lands were ceded to the Dutch in 1667. James Is foreign policy placed much higher priority on European affairs, the Anglo-Dutch Wars were a series of three wars which took place between the English and the Dutch from 1652 to 1674. The causes included political disputes and increasing competition from merchant shipping, religion was not a factor, since both sides were Protestant. The British in the first war had the advantage with larger numbers of more powerful ships of the line which were well suited to the naval tactics of the era. The British also captured numerous Dutch merchant ships, in the second war Dutch naval victories followed. This second war cost London ten times more than it had planned on, and it ended the fights over mercantilism Meanwhile, the French were building up fleets that threatened both the Netherlands and Great Britain. In third war, The British counted on a new alliance with France, the Dutch gained domination of sea trading routes until 1713. The British gained the colony of New Netherland, and renamed it New York. Historians have long regarded the overthrow of King James II in 1688 as a break in English history. Pincus argues that this revolution was the first modern revolution, it was violent, popular and he rejects older theories to the effect that it was an aristocratic coup or a Dutch invasion. Instead, Pincus argues it was a supported and decisive rejection of James II
5.
Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke
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Greville was granted Warwick Castle in 1604, making numerous improvements. Fulke Greville, born 3 October 1554, at Beauchamp Court, near Alcester, Warwickshire, was the son of Sir Fulke Greville and Anne Neville. He was educated at Shrewsbury School before enrolling at Jesus College, Cambridge in 1568, there, Greville became a great favourite with the Queen, who valued his sober character and administrative skills. In 1581, he was elected in a by-election as Member of Parliament for Southampton, Queen Elizabeth made him secretary to the principality of Wales in 1583. However he was put out of more than once for leaving the country against her wishes. Philip Sidney, who took part in the campaign, was killed on 17 October 1586, Greville memorialized his beloved friend in his Life of the Renowned Sir Philip Sidney. Greville participated in the Battle of Coutras in 1587, about 1591 Greville served further for a short time in Normandy under King Henry III of Navarre in the French Wars of Religion. This was his last experience of war, Greville represented Warwickshire in parliament in 1592-1593,1597,1601 and 1621. In 1598 he was made Treasurer of the Navy, and he retained the office through the years of the reign of James I. Greville was granted Warwick Castle—situated on a bend of the River Avon in Warwickshire—by King James I in 1604, dilapidated when he took possession of the castle, he spent £20,000 to restore it to former glory. In 1614 he became chancellor and under-treasurer of the exchequer, and throughout the reign he was a supporter of James I. In 1618 he became commissioner of the treasury, and in 1621 he was raised to the peerage with the title of Baron Brooke, in 1628 Greville was stabbed inside Warwick Castle by Ralph Heywood, a servant who believed that he had been cheated in his masters will. Heywood then turned the knife on himself, Greville has numerous streets named after him in the Hatton Garden area of Holborn, London. Greville is best known by his biography of Sidney, the title of which expresses the scope of the work. He includes some autobiographical matter in what amounts to a treatise on government, Grevilles poetry consists of closet tragedies, sonnets, and poems on political and moral subjects. His style is grave and sententious, Poetry and Drama of Fulke Greville, edited by Geoffrey Bullough, was published in 1938. The Prose Works of Fulke Greville, edited by John Gouws, were published in 1986, the Selected Poems of Fulke Greville edited by Thom Gunn, with an afterword by Bradin Cormack, was published in 2009 The Tragedy of Mustapha. The Remains of Sir Fvlk Grevill Lord Brooke, Being Poems of Monarchy and Religion, Never Before Printed --comprises A Treatise of Monarchy and A Treatise of Religion
6.
Elizabeth I of England
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Elizabeth I was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, his second wife, who was executed two and a half years after Elizabeths birth. Annes marriage to Henry VIII was annulled, and Elizabeth was declared illegitimate, edwards will was set aside and Mary became queen, deposing Lady Jane Grey. During Marys reign, Elizabeth was imprisoned for nearly a year on suspicion of supporting Protestant rebels, in 1558, Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister to the throne and set out to rule by good counsel. She depended heavily on a group of trusted advisers, led by William Cecil, one of her first actions as queen was the establishment of an English Protestant church, of which she became the Supreme Governor. This Elizabethan Religious Settlement was to evolve into the Church of England and it was expected that Elizabeth would marry and produce an heir to continue the Tudor line. She never did, despite numerous courtships, as she grew older, Elizabeth became famous for her virginity. A cult grew around her which was celebrated in the portraits, pageants, in government, Elizabeth was more moderate than her father and half-siblings had been. One of her mottoes was video et taceo, in religion, she was relatively tolerant and avoided systematic persecution. Elizabeth was cautious in foreign affairs, manoeuvring between the powers of France and Spain. She only half-heartedly supported a number of ineffective, poorly resourced military campaigns in the Netherlands, France, by the mid-1580s, England could no longer avoid war with Spain. Englands defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 associated Elizabeth with one of the greatest military victories in English history, Elizabeths reign is known as the Elizabethan era. Some historians depict Elizabeth as a short-tempered, sometimes indecisive ruler, towards the end of her reign, a series of economic and military problems weakened her popularity. Such was the case with Elizabeths rival, Mary, Queen of Scots, after the short reigns of Elizabeths half-siblings, her 44 years on the throne provided welcome stability for the kingdom and helped forge a sense of national identity. Elizabeth was born at Greenwich Palace and was named after both her grandmothers, Elizabeth of York and Elizabeth Howard and she was the second child of Henry VIII of England born in wedlock to survive infancy. Her mother was Henrys second wife, Anne Boleyn, at birth, Elizabeth was the heir presumptive to the throne of England. She was baptised on 10 September, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the Marquess of Exeter, the Duchess of Norfolk, Elizabeth was two years and eight months old when her mother was beheaded on 19 May 1536, four months after Catherine of Aragons death from natural causes. Elizabeth was declared illegitimate and deprived of her place in the royal succession, eleven days after Anne Boleyns execution, Henry married Jane Seymour, who died shortly after the birth of their son, Prince Edward, in 1537
7.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
8.
Doctorate
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There are a variety of doctoral degrees, with the most common being the Doctor of Philosophy, which is awarded in many different fields, ranging from the humanities to the scientific disciplines. The term doctor derives from the Latin docere meaning to teach, the doctorate appeared in medieval Europe as a license to teach Latin at a university. Its roots can be traced to the church in which the term doctor referred to the Apostles, church fathers. The right to grant a licentia docendi was originally reserved to the Catholic church, the Third Council of the Lateran of 1179 guaranteed the access—at that time largely free of charge—of all able applicants. This right remained a bone of contention between the authorities and universities that were slowly distancing themselves from the Church. The right was granted by the pope to the University of Paris in 1213 where it became a universal license to teach, according to Keith Allan Noble, the first doctoral degree was awarded in medieval Paris around 1150. The so-called professional, vocational, or technical curriculum of the Middle Ages included only theology, law, the doctorate of philosophy developed in Germany in the 17th century. The term philosophy does not refer solely to the field or academic discipline of philosophy, but is used in a sense in accordance with its original Greek meaning. In most of Europe, all fields were traditionally known as philosophy, the doctorate of philosophy adheres to this historic convention, even though the degrees are not always for the study of philosophy. D. University doctoral training was a form of apprenticeship to a guild, the traditional term of study before new teachers were admitted to the guild of Masters of Arts was seven years, matching the apprenticeship term for other occupations. Originally the terms master and doctor were synonymous, but over time the doctorate came to be regarded as a higher qualification than the masters degree, University degrees, including doctorates, were originally restricted to men. The use and meaning of the doctorate has changed over time, for instance, until the early 20th century few academic staff or professors in English-speaking universities held doctorates, except for very senior scholars and those in holy orders. After that time the German practice of requiring lecturers to have completed a research doctorate spread, universities shift to research-oriented education increased the doctorates importance. Today, a doctorate or its equivalent is generally a prerequisite for an academic career. Professional doctorates developed in the United States from the 19th century onward, the first professional doctorate to be offered in the United States was the M. D. The MD became the standard first degree in medicine during the 19th century, the MD, as the standard qualifying degree in medicine, gave that profession the ability to set and raise standards for entry into professional practice. The modern research degree, in the shape of the German-style Ph. D. was first awarded in the U. S. in 1861, in the UK, research doctorates initially took the form of higher doctorates, introduced from 1882 onwards. The PhD spread to the UK from the US via Canada, following the MD, the next professional doctorate, the Juris Doctor, was established by Chicago University in 1902
9.
Canaan
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Canaan was a Semitic-speaking region in the Ancient Near East during the late 2nd millennium BC. The name Canaan occurs commonly in the Hebrew Bible, in particular, the references in Genesis 10 and Numbers 34 define the Land of Canaan as extending from Lebanon southward to the Brook of Egypt and eastward to the Jordan River Valley. References to Canaan in the Bible are usually backward-looking, referring to a region that had something else. The term Canaanites serves as an ethnic catch-all term covering various indigenous populations—both settled, the Amarna Letters and other cuneiform documents use Kinaḫḫu, while other sources of the Egyptian New Kingdom mention numerous military campaigns conducted in Ka-na-na. Canaan had significant geopolitical importance in the Late Bronze Age Amarna period as the area where the spheres of interest of the Egyptian, Hittite, Mitanni and Assyrian Empires converged. Much of the knowledge about Canaan stems from archaeological excavation in this area at sites such as Tel Hazor, Tel Megiddo. The English term Canaan comes from the Hebrew כנען, via Greek Χαναάν Khanaan and it appears as KUR ki-na-ah-na in the Amarna letters, and knʿn is found on coins from Phoenicia in the last half of the 1st millennium. It first occurs in Greek in the writings of Hecataeus as Khna, scholars connect the name Canaan with knʿn, Kanaan, the general Northwest Semitic name for this region. An early explanation derives the term from the Semitic root knʿ to be low, humble, purple cloth became a renowned Canaanite export commodity which is mentioned in Exodus. The dyes may have named after their place of origin. The purple cloth of Tyre in Phoenicia was well known far, however, according to Robert Drews, Speisers proposal has generally been abandoned. The Late Bronze Age state of Ugarit is considered quintessentially Canaanite archaeologically, Jonathan Tubb states that the term ga-na-na may provide a third millennium reference to Canaanite while at the same time stating that the first certain reference is in the 18th century BC. See Ebla-Biblical controversy for further details, Mari letters A letter from Mutu-bisir to Shamshi-Adad I of the Old Assyrian Empire has been translated, It is in Rahisum that the brigands and the Canaanites are situated. It was found in 1973 in the ruins of Mari, an Assyrian outpost at that time in Syria, additional unpublished references to Kinahnum in the Mari letters refer to the same episode. Alalakh texts A reference to Ammiya being in the land of Canaan is found on the Statue of Idrimi from Alalakh in modern Syria. After a popular uprising against his rule, Idrimi was forced into exile with his mothers relatives to seek refuge in the land of Canaan, the other references in the Alalakh texts are, AT154 AT181, A list of Apiru people with their origins. All are towns, except for Canaan AT188, A list of Muskenu people with their origins, the letters are written in the official and diplomatic East Semitic Akkadian language of Assyria and Babylonia, though Canaanitish words and idioms are also in evidence. May the king ask Yanhamu about these matters, may the king ask his commissioner, who is familiar with Canaan EA151, Letter from Abimilku to the Pharaoh, The king, my lord wrote to me, write to me what you have heard from Canaan
10.
Fore Street, London
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Fore Street is a street in the City of London near the Barbican Centre. It runs from Wood Street to Fore Street Avenue and is joined by Moor Lane on its north side, the street was extensively damaged by Nazi bombing during World War II and, following later development, nothing now remains of its original buildings. Fore Street was created outside the London city walls, and thereby got its name, in 1654, a postern gate was built at the northern end of Aldermanbury or the larger Cripplegate and Fore Street soon became an important shopping street until the middle of the nineteenth century. Before bombing during the Second World War, the street extended from Redcross Street to Finsbury Pavement. Fore Street, on 25 August 1940, was the first place in the City of London to be hit by a German bomb during the Second World War, a plaque in the wall of Roman House, on the corner with Wood Street, marks the spot. Up to the 1970s a Post Office telephone exchange stood between Moor Lane and Fore Street Avenue with a Post Office on the corner between Fore Street and Fore Street Avenue, St Giles-without-Cripplegate, a Church of England church, is located in Fore Street. When built in the 11th century it stood without the city wall, the church is dedicated to St Giles, patron saint of beggars and cripples. Oliver Cromwell married Elizabeth Bourchier there in 1620, martin Frobisher, John Speed and John Milton were all buried there. Salters Hall, home of The Worshipful Company of Salters, is at 4 Fore Street and it was designed by architect Basil Spence. Novelist Daniel Defoe was born in Fore Street in around 1660, the exact date and house are not known. His father, James Foe, was a tallow chandler. In 1850, Ebenezer Howard, originator of the garden city movement, Fore Street Hearth Tax, City of London 1666, St Giles Cripplegate, Fore Street. Tokens of Thomas White in Fore Street, Cripplegate Without
11.
Barbican Estate
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The Barbican Complex is a prominent example of British brutalist architecture and is Grade II listed as a whole with the exception of the late Milton Court. The main fort of Roman London was built between 90 and 120 AD southeast of where the Museum of London now stands at the corner of London Wall and Aldersgate Street. Around 200 AD walls were built around the city incorporated the old fort. The Normans called it the Basse-cour or Base Court, synonymous with the modern word bailey and still applied to the outer courtyard of Hampton Court Palace. The Base Court continued to serve a military function during the reign of Edward I, by the 16th century it had passed to Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. The original Base court seems to have destroyed and the large building that replaced it was called Willoughby House. During World War II, the City suffered serious damage and loss of life, the Cripplegate ward was virtually demolished and by 1951 the resident population of the City stood at 5,324 of whom 48 lived in Cripplegate. Discussions began in 1952 about the future of the site, the estate was built between 1965 and 1976, on a 35-acre site that had been bombed in World War II. The complex was designed by architects Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, the estate of 40 acres was officially opened in 1969 and is now home to around 4,000 people living in 2,014 flats. The flats reflect the use in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s of concrete as the visible face of the building. The Minister for the Arts, Tessa Blackstone, announced in September 2001 that the Barbican complex was to be Grade II listed and it has been designated a site of special architectural interest for its scale, its cohesion and the ambition of the project. The complex is important as it is one of Londons principal examples of concrete brutalist architecture. The residential estate consists of three blocks,13 terrace blocks, two mews and The Postern, Wallside and Milton Court. These are grouped around a lake and green squares, the main buildings rise up to seven floors above a podium level, which links all the facilities in the Barbican, providing a pedestrian route above street level. Some maisonettes are built into the podium structure, there is no vehicular access within the estate, but there are some car parks at the periphery of the estate. Public car parks are located within the Barbican Centre, the top two or three floors of each block comprise three penthouse flats. Once the tallest residential towers in London, they were surpassed by the Pan Peninsula development on the Isle of Dogs. The Barbican Estate also contains the Barbican Centre, the Barbican public library, the City of London School for Girls, the Museum of London, a YMCA building was constructed between 1965 and 1971 to link the Barbican and Golden Lane Estate, it is also listed
12.
The Blitz
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By September 1940—two months into the battle—faulty German intelligence suggested that the Royal Air Force was close to defeat at the hands of the Luftwaffe. The German air fleets were ordered to attack London, thereby drawing up the last remnants of RAF Fighter Command into a battle of annihilation, Adolf Hitler and commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, sanctioned the change in emphasis on 6 September 1940. From 7 September 1940, one year into the war, London was systematically bombed by the Luftwaffe for 56 out of the following 57 days, on 15 September 1940, a large daylight attack against London was repulsed with significant German losses. Thereafter, the Luftwaffe gradually decreased daylight operations in favour of nocturnal attacks, ports and industrial centres outside London were also attacked. The main Atlantic sea port of Liverpool was bombed, the North Sea port of Hull, a convenient and easily found target or secondary target for bombers unable to locate their primary targets, was subjected to raids in the Hull Blitz during the war. More than one million London houses were destroyed or damaged and more than 40,000 civilians were killed, by May 1941, the threat of an invasion of Britain had ended, and Hitlers attention turned to Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. The bombing failed to demoralise the British into surrender or significantly damage the war economy, the eight months of bombing never seriously hampered British production and the war industries continued to operate and expand. The German offensives greatest effect was forcing the dispersal of aircraft production, British wartime studies concluded that cities generally took 10 to 15 days to recover when hit severely but exceptions like Birmingham took three months. The German air offensive failed for several reasons, discussions in OKL revolved around tactics rather than strategy. Poor intelligence on British industry and economic efficiency was also a factor, in the 1920s and 1930s, air power theorists Giulio Douhet and Billy Mitchell espoused the idea that air forces could win wars, without a need for land and sea fighting. It was thought there was no defence against air attack, particularly at night, enemy industry, seats of government, factories and communications could be destroyed, taking away their means to resist. It was also thought the bombing of residential centres would cause a collapse of civilian will, democracies, where the populace was allowed to show overt disapproval of the state, were thought particularly vulnerable. This thinking was prevalent in both the RAF and the United States Army Air Corps, the policy of RAF Bomber Command became an attempt to achieve victory through the destruction of civilian will, communications and industry. In the Luftwaffe, there was a view of strategic bombing. OKL did not believe that air power alone could be decisive, contrary to popular belief, evidence suggests that the Luftwaffe did not adopt an official bombing policy in which civilians became the primary target until 1942. The vital industries and transport centres that would be targeted for shutdown were valid military targets and it could be claimed civilians were not to be targeted directly, but the breakdown of production would affect their morale and will to fight. German legal scholars of the 1930s carefully worked out guidelines for what type of bombing was permissible under international law. Wever outlined five points of air strategy, To destroy the air force by bombing its bases and aircraft factories
13.
Burrell Collection
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The Burrell Collection is an art collection in the city of Glasgow, Scotland. It is situated in Pollok Country Park on the side of the city. The museum closed for refurbishment on 23 October 2016 and is expected to reopen in 2020, the eclectic collection was acquired over many years by Sir William Burrell, a wealthy Glaswegian shipping magnate and art collector, who then gave it to the city of Glasgow Corporation in 1944. The trustees spent over 20 years trying to find a home for the collection, one which met all the criteria set out in the Trust Deed. Galleries on two house various smaller artefacts, over a basement storage level, and at the lower level a restaurant gives views over the lawn to the south. The museum was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1983, and was named as Scotlands second greatest post-war building in a poll of architects by Prospect magazine in 2005. The building was awarded A-listed status by Historic Scotland in February 2013 in recognition of its position as one of the country’s finest examples of 1970s architectural design, there are over 8,000 objects in the collection. Artworks from five centuries are found in the collection, Burrell started collecting Chinese antiques around 1910. The museum is home to one of the greatest assemblies of medieval stained glass in the world, there are more than 700 stained glass panels from across Europe in the collection, including many examples of Gothic, Renaissance and Romanesque styles. Much of the glass has heraldic motifs, in 2013 a project was commenced to conserve and research the museums collection of stained glass from the Carmelite church at Boppard-am-Rhein, Germany. The 34 panels that make up the Burrell collection of Boppard windows have a surface area of 14 square metres. The museum has a collection of art from the medieval period. This includes wood and stone sculptures, wooden church furnishings and architectural fragments, one of these items is the Temple Pyx. The nearest railway station to the Burrell Collection is Pollokshaws West, Pollok House, administered by the National Trust for Scotland, is also situated in Pollok Country Park. Hansard Blog following the ongoing Boppard Conservation Project Morrison, Richard, stained Glass in the Burrell Collection. Carpets and Tapestries from the Burrell Collection, the Burrell Collection, Gothic Tapestries, A Selection. Western Asiatic antiquities, the Burrell Collection
14.
Glasgow
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Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland, and third largest in the United Kingdom. Historically part of Lanarkshire, it is now one of the 32 council areas of Scotland and it is situated on the River Clyde in the countrys West Central Lowlands. Inhabitants of the city are referred to as Glaswegians, Glasgow grew from a small rural settlement on the River Clyde to become the largest seaport in Britain. From the 18th century the city grew as one of Great Britains main hubs of transatlantic trade with North America. Glasgow was the Second City of the British Empire for much of the Victorian era and Edwardian period, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries Glasgow grew in population, reaching a peak of 1,128,473 in 1939. The entire region surrounding the conurbation covers about 2.3 million people, at the 2011 census, Glasgow had a population density of 8, 790/sq mi, the highest of any Scottish city. Glasgow hosted the 2014 Commonwealth Games and is well known in the sporting world for the football rivalry of the Old Firm between Celtic and Rangers. Glasgow is also known for Glasgow patter, a dialect that is noted for being difficult to understand by those from outside the city. Glasgow is the form of the ancient Cumbric name Glas Cau. Possibly referring to the area of Molendinar Burn where Glasgow Cathedral now stands, the later Gaelic name Baile Glas Chu, town of the grey dog, is purely a folk-etymology. The present site of Glasgow has been settled since prehistoric times, it is for settlement, being the furthest downstream fording point of the River Clyde, the origins of Glasgow as an established city derive ultimately from its medieval position as Scotlands second largest bishopric. Glasgow increased in importance during the 10th and 11th centuries as the site of this bishopric, reorganised by King David I of Scotland and John, there had been an earlier religious site established by Saint Mungo in the 6th century. The bishopric became one of the largest and wealthiest in the Kingdom of Scotland, bringing wealth, sometime between 1189 and 1195 this status was supplemented by an annual fair, which survives as the Glasgow Fair. Glasgow grew over the following centuries, the first bridge over the River Clyde at Glasgow was recorded from around 1285, giving its name to the Briggait area of the city, forming the main North-South route over the river via Glasgow Cross. The founding of the University of Glasgow in 1451 and elevation of the bishopric to become the Archdiocese of Glasgow in 1492 increased the towns religious and educational status and landed wealth. Its early trade was in agriculture, brewing and fishing, with cured salmon and herring being exported to Europe, Glasgow was subsequently raised to the status of Royal Burgh in 1611. The citys Tobacco Lords created a water port at Port Glasgow on the Firth of Clyde. By the late 18th century more than half of the British tobacco trade was concentrated on Glasgows River Clyde, at the time, Glasgow held a commercial importance as the city participated in the trade of sugar, tobacco and later cotton
15.
Middle Ages
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In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or Medieval Period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance, the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history, classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is subdivided into the Early, High. Population decline, counterurbanisation, invasion, and movement of peoples, the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the seventh century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete. The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire survived in the east and remained a major power, the empires law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or Code of Justinian, was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became widely admired later in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions, monasteries were founded as campaigns to Christianise pagan Europe continued. The Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty, briefly established the Carolingian Empire during the later 8th, the Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation states, reducing crime and violence, intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, and by the founding of universities. Controversy, heresy, and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the conflict, civil strife. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages, the Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history, classical civilisation, or Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Period. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the Six Ages or the Four Empires, when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being modern. In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua, leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People. Bruni and later argued that Italy had recovered since Petrarchs time. The Middle Ages first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or middle season, in early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or middle age, first recorded in 1604, and media saecula, or middle ages, first recorded in 1625. The alternative term medieval derives from medium aevum, tripartite periodisation became standard after the German 17th-century historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods, Ancient, Medieval, and Modern. The most commonly given starting point for the Middle Ages is 476, for Europe as a whole,1500 is often considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. English historians often use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period
16.
William Camden
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His father Sampson Camden was a member of The Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers. He attended Christs Hospital and St Pauls School, and in 1566 entered Oxford, at Christ Church, he became acquainted with Philip Sidney, who encouraged Camdens antiquarian interests. He returned to London in 1571 without a degree, in 1575, he became Usher of Westminster School, a position that gave him the freedom to travel and pursue his antiquarian researches during school vacations. In 1577, with the encouragement of Abraham Ortelius, Camden began his great work Britannia and his stated intention was to restore antiquity to Britaine, and Britain to his antiquity. The first edition, written in Latin, was published in 1586 and it proved very popular, and ran through five further editions, of 1587,1590,1594,1600 and 1607, each greatly enlarged from its predecessor in both textual content and illustrations. The 1607 edition included for the first time a set of English county maps, based on the surveys of Christopher Saxton and John Norden. The first English language edition, translated by Philemon Holland, appeared in 1610, Britannia is a county-by-county description of Great Britain and Ireland. It is a work of chorography, a study that relates landscape, geography, antiquarianism, and history. Rather than write a history, Camden wanted to describe in detail the Great Britain of the present, by this method, he produced the first coherent picture of Roman Britain. He continued to collect materials and to revise and expand Britannia throughout his life and he drew on the published and unpublished work of John Leland and William Lambarde, among others, and received the assistance of a large network of correspondents with similar interests. His fieldwork and firsthand research set new standards for the time and he even learned Welsh and Old English for the task, his tutor in Old English was Laurence Nowell. In 1593 Camden became headmaster of Westminster School and he held the post for four years, but left when he was appointed Clarenceux King of Arms. The College of Arms at that time was not only a centre of genealogical and heraldic study, the appointment, however, roused the jealousy of Ralph Brooke, York Herald, who, in retaliation, published an attack on Britannia, charging Camden with inaccuracy and plagiarism. Camden successfully defended himself against the charges in subsequent editions of the work, Britannia was recognised as an important work of Renaissance scholarship, not only in England, but across the European Republic of Letters. In 1612 parts were condemned by the Spanish Inquisition, an abridgement was published in Amsterdam in 1617 and reprinted in 1639, and versions of the text were also included in Joan Blaeus Theatrum Orbis Terrarum and in Jan Janssoniuss Novus Atlas. In 1597, Lord Burghley suggested that Camden write a history of Queen Elizabeths reign, Camden began his work in 1607. The first part of the Annales Rerum Gestarum Angliae et Hiberniae Regnate Elizabetha, covering the reign up to 1597, the second part was completed in 1617, but was not published until 1625, and 1627, following Camdens death. The first translation into English appeared in 1625, the Annales were not written in a continuous narrative, but in the style of earlier annals, giving the events of each year in a separate entry
17.
Christopher Saxton
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Christopher Saxton was an English cartographer who produced the first county maps of England and Wales. Saxton was probably born in Sowood, Ossett in the parish of Dewsbury and his family subsequently moved to the hamlet of Dunningley near Tingley in the parish of Woodkirk where the Saxton name is recorded in 1567. It is most likely that John Rudd, the vicar of Dewsbury and Thornhill, Saxton married and had three children. Robert, born in 1585 was his fathers assistant in 1601, robert was commissioned to survey Sandal Magna in 1607. Christopher Saxton died in either 1610 or 1611, map making became increasingly common in the reign of Elizabeth I made possible by advances in surveying technology and printing from engraved copper plates. Accurate mapping of the country became increasingly important. Lord Burghley was instrumental in ensuring that an official, Thomas Seckford of Woodbridge, Suffolk. In 1574 Saxton began the survey of England, in consideration of the expenses involved, Queen Elizabeth granted him a lease on lands at Grigstone Manor in Suffolk. The Welsh survey began in 1577, surveying the country was a significant undertaking but the first plates were engraved by 1574 and in 1578 the survey was complete. As the task was finished in a short timespan is possible that Saxton used some of John Rudds earlier work, individual county sheets were issued before the completed survey was issued as an atlas in 1579. The proofs were presented to Lord Burghley who compiled them into an atlas of his own, the maps were produced in the Atlas of the Counties of England and Wales published in 1579, the first atlas of any country. It contained 35 maps, each bearing the arms of Elizabeth I and Thomas Seckford, the maps show hills and mountains but do not provide precise information as to their location or altitude. A variety of show buildings and settlements. All the maps are dated except for Northumberland, five counties, Cornwall, Essex, Hertfordshire, The Suffolk and Norfolk maps show the division into hundreds. The atlas was a success, prompting other cartographers including John Speed, John Norton. The engravers were of Dutch or Flemish origin, there is no evidence on the maps that Saxton engraved them himself, but according to one account, he engraved those of the Welsh counties and Herefordshire. Saxton obtained a license to sell the maps for a term of ten years, John Dee, warden of the Manchesters collegiate church employed Saxton to survey Manchesters parish boundaries in 1596 but no copy has survived. Chethams Library in Manchester has a copy of the atlas, as does the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, notes Bibliography Christopher Saxton, William Ravenhill, Christopher Saxtons 16th Century Maps, Chatsworth Library ISBN 1-85310-354-3 ISBN 1-85310-724-7
18.
John Norden
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John Norden was an English cartographer, chorographer and antiquary. He planned a series of county maps and accompanying county histories of England and he was also a prolific writer of devotional works. Norden is known to have born in Somerset, to a genteel family. He entered Hart Hall, Oxford, in 1564, and graduated BA in 1568 and he was married and had at least two sons, John Norden junior, and Josias. The first instalment of Nordens chorographical project was published in 1593 as the Speculum Britanniae, the First Parte, the manuscript in the British Library has corrections in Lord Burleighs handwriting. In 1595 he wrote a manuscript Chorographical Description of Middlesex, Essex, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire, Wight, Guernsey and Jersey, dedicated, in 1596 he published his Preparative to the Speculum Britanniae, dedicated to Burleigh. In 1598 there appeared the other part of the project to reach print in his lifetime, Speculi Britaniae Pars. He also completed accounts of five counties in manuscript. In 1608 he was occupied with the surveying of crown woods, especially in Surrey, Berkshire and Devon. Commission concerning new forests, to which he added in 1613 his Observations concerning Crown Lands and Woods, in the last of these the roads are indicated for the first time in English cartography. Several important cartographical works are lost and these include Nordens Map. of Battles fought in England from. 1604–6, and View of London Bridge, published in 1624. An earlier View of London by Norden, and an 1804 reprint of the View of London Bridge, are held in the Crace collection at the British Library. A map of Surrey by Norden, said to have been copied by Speed, Norden frequently experienced difficulty in finding patronage for his cartographical and chorographical work. A steadier source of income was his writing, of which he published twenty-four volumes between 1582 and his death. A Pensive Mans Practise, first published in 1584, reached more than forty editions in his lifetime and this denial has caused historians some difficulty, but Frank Kitchen has established beyond doubt that there was only one John Norden. John Norden, estate surveyor, topographer, county mapmaker and devotional writer, Speculum Britanniae, regional study, antiquarianism and science in Britain to 1700. John Norden and his maps of Cornwall and its nine hundreds, John Norden and his colleagues, surveyors of the Crown Lands
19.
Urban planning
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Urban planning is also referred to as urban and regional planning, regional planning, town planning, city planning, rural planning or some combination in various areas worldwide. It takes many forms and it can share perspectives and practices with urban design, urban planning guides orderly development in urban, suburban and rural areas. Practitioners of urban planning are concerned with research and analysis, strategic thinking, architecture, urban design, public consultation, policy recommendations, implementation and management. Urban planners work with the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, civil engineering. Early urban planners were often members of these cognate fields, today urban planning is a separate, independent professional discipline. The discipline is the category that includes different sub-fields such as land-use planning, zoning, economic development, environmental planning. There is evidence of planning and designed communities dating back to the Mesopotamian, Indus Valley, Minoan. Archeologists studying the ruins of cities in these areas find paved streets that were out at right angles in a grid pattern. The idea of a planned out urban area evolved as different civilizations adopted it, beginning in the 8th century BCE, Greek city states were primarily centered on orthogonal plans. The ancient Romans, inspired by the Greeks, also used orthogonal plans for their cities, city planning in the Roman world was developed for military defense and public convenience. The spread of the Roman Empire subsequently spread the ideas of urban planning, as the Roman Empire declined, these ideas slowly disappeared. However, many cities in Europe still held onto the planned Roman city center, cities in Europe from the 9th to 14th centuries, often grew organically and sometimes chaotically. But many hundreds of new towns were built according to preconceived plans. Most of these were realized from the 12th to 14th centuries, from the 15th century on, much more is recorded of urban design and the people that were involved. In this period, theoretical treatises on architecture and urban planning start to appear in which questions are addressed and designs of towns. During the Enlightenment period, several European rulers ambitiously attempted to redesign capital cities, during the Second French Republic, Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann, under the direction of Napoleon III, redesigned the city of Paris into a more modern capital, with long, straight, wide boulevards. Planning and architecture went through a shift at the turn of the 20th century. The industrialized cities of the 19th century grew at a tremendous rate, the pace and style of this industrial construction was largely dictated by the concerns of private business
20.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
21.
Wales
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Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, and it had a population in 2011 of 3,063,456 and has a total area of 20,779 km2. Wales has over 1,680 miles of coastline and is mountainous, with its higher peaks in the north and central areas, including Snowdon. The country lies within the temperate zone and has a changeable. Welsh national identity emerged among the Celtic Britons after the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century, Llywelyn ap Gruffudds death in 1282 marked the completion of Edward I of Englands conquest of Wales, though Owain Glyndŵr briefly restored independence to Wales in the early 15th century. The whole of Wales was annexed by England and incorporated within the English legal system under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542, distinctive Welsh politics developed in the 19th century. Welsh Liberalism, exemplified in the early 20th century by Lloyd George, was displaced by the growth of socialism, Welsh national feeling grew over the century, Plaid Cymru was formed in 1925 and the Welsh Language Society in 1962. Established under the Government of Wales Act 1998, the National Assembly for Wales holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters, two-thirds of the population live in south Wales, mainly in and around Cardiff, Swansea and Newport, and in the nearby valleys. Now that the countrys traditional extractive and heavy industries have gone or are in decline, Wales economy depends on the sector, light and service industries. Wales 2010 gross value added was £45.5 billion, over 560,000 Welsh language speakers live in Wales, and the language is spoken by a majority of the population in parts of the north and west. From the late 19th century onwards, Wales acquired its popular image as the land of song, Rugby union is seen as a symbol of Welsh identity and an expression of national consciousness. The Old English-speaking Anglo-Saxons came to use the term Wælisc when referring to the Celtic Britons in particular, the modern names for some Continental European lands and peoples have a similar etymology. The modern Welsh name for themselves is Cymry, and Cymru is the Welsh name for Wales and these words are descended from the Brythonic word combrogi, meaning fellow-countrymen. The use of the word Cymry as a self-designation derives from the location in the post-Roman Era of the Welsh people in modern Wales as well as in northern England and southern Scotland. It emphasised that the Welsh in modern Wales and in the Hen Ogledd were one people, in particular, the term was not applied to the Cornish or the Breton peoples, who are of similar heritage, culture, and language to the Welsh. The word came into use as a self-description probably before the 7th century and it is attested in a praise poem to Cadwallon ap Cadfan c. 633. Thereafter Cymry prevailed as a reference to the Welsh, until c.1560 the word was spelt Kymry or Cymry, regardless of whether it referred to the people or their homeland. The Latinised forms of names, Cambrian, Cambric and Cambria, survive as lesser-used alternative names for Wales, Welsh
22.
Ireland
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Ireland is an island in the North Atlantic. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel, the Irish Sea, Ireland is the second-largest island of the British Isles, the third-largest in Europe, and the twentieth-largest on Earth. Politically, Ireland is divided between the Republic of Ireland, which covers five-sixths of the island, and Northern Ireland, in 2011, the population of Ireland was about 6.4 million, ranking it the second-most populous island in Europe after Great Britain. Just under 4.6 million live in the Republic of Ireland, the islands geography comprises relatively low-lying mountains surrounding a central plain, with several navigable rivers extending inland. The island has lush vegetation, a product of its mild, thick woodlands covered the island until the Middle Ages. As of 2013, the amount of land that is wooded in Ireland is about 11% of the total, there are twenty-six extant mammal species native to Ireland. The Irish climate is moderate and classified as oceanic. As a result, winters are milder than expected for such a northerly area, however, summers are cooler than those in Continental Europe. Rainfall and cloud cover are abundant, the earliest evidence of human presence in Ireland is dated at 10,500 BC. Gaelic Ireland had emerged by the 1st century CE, the island was Christianised from the 5th century onward. Following the Norman invasion in the 12th century, England claimed sovereignty over Ireland, however, English rule did not extend over the whole island until the 16th–17th century Tudor conquest, which led to colonisation by settlers from Britain. In the 1690s, a system of Protestant English rule was designed to materially disadvantage the Catholic majority and Protestant dissenters, with the Acts of Union in 1801, Ireland became a part of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland saw much civil unrest from the late 1960s until the 1990s and this subsided following a political agreement in 1998. In 1973 the Republic of Ireland joined the European Economic Community while the United Kingdom, Irish culture has had a significant influence on other cultures, especially in the fields of literature. Alongside mainstream Western culture, an indigenous culture exists, as expressed through Gaelic games, Irish music. The culture of the island shares many features with that of Great Britain, including the English language, and sports such as association football, rugby, horse racing. The name Ireland derives from Old Irish Eriu and this in turn derives from Proto-Celtic *Iveriu, which is also the source of Latin Hibernia. Iveriu derives from a root meaning fat, prosperous, during the last glacial period, and up until about 9000 years ago, most of Ireland was covered with ice, most of the time
23.
Scotland
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Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and covers the northern third of the island of Great Britain. It shares a border with England to the south, and is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east. In addition to the mainland, the country is made up of more than 790 islands, including the Northern Isles, the Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain. The union also created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles, titles, the legal system within Scotland has also remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland, Scotland constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in both public and private law. Glasgow, Scotlands largest city, was one of the worlds leading industrial cities. Other major urban areas are Aberdeen and Dundee, Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. This has given Aberdeen, the third-largest city in Scotland, the title of Europes oil capital, following a referendum in 1997, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, in the form of a devolved unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, having authority over many areas of domestic policy. Scotland is represented in the UK Parliament by 59 MPs and in the European Parliament by 6 MEPs, Scotland is also a member nation of the British–Irish Council, and the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Scotland comes from Scoti, the Latin name for the Gaels, the Late Latin word Scotia was initially used to refer to Ireland. By the 11th century at the latest, Scotia was being used to refer to Scotland north of the River Forth, alongside Albania or Albany, the use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass all of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages. Repeated glaciations, which covered the land mass of modern Scotland. It is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, the groups of settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, and the first villages around 6,000 years ago. The well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period and it contains the remains of an early Bronze Age ruler laid out on white quartz pebbles and birch bark. It was also discovered for the first time that early Bronze Age people placed flowers in their graves, in the winter of 1850, a severe storm hit Scotland, causing widespread damage and over 200 deaths. In the Bay of Skaill, the storm stripped the earth from a large irregular knoll, when the storm cleared, local villagers found the outline of a village, consisting of a number of small houses without roofs. William Watt of Skaill, the laird, began an amateur excavation of the site, but after uncovering four houses
24.
Copper
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Copper is a chemical element with symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of copper has a reddish-orange color. Copper is one of the few metals that occur in nature in directly usable metallic form as opposed to needing extraction from an ore and this led to very early human use, from c.8000 BC. Copper used in buildings, usually for roofing, oxidizes to form a green verdigris, Copper is sometimes used in decorative art, both in its elemental metal form and in compounds as pigments. Copper compounds are used as agents, fungicides, and wood preservatives. Copper is essential to all living organisms as a trace dietary mineral because it is a key constituent of the enzyme complex cytochrome c oxidase. In molluscs and crustaceans, copper is a constituent of the blood pigment hemocyanin, replaced by the hemoglobin in fish. In humans, copper is found mainly in the liver, muscle, the adult body contains between 1.4 and 2.1 mg of copper per kilogram of body weight. The filled d-shells in these elements contribute little to interatomic interactions, unlike metals with incomplete d-shells, metallic bonds in copper are lacking a covalent character and are relatively weak. This observation explains the low hardness and high ductility of single crystals of copper, at the macroscopic scale, introduction of extended defects to the crystal lattice, such as grain boundaries, hinders flow of the material under applied stress, thereby increasing its hardness. For this reason, copper is supplied in a fine-grained polycrystalline form. The softness of copper partly explains its high conductivity and high thermal conductivity. The maximum permissible current density of copper in open air is approximately 3. 1×106 A/m2 of cross-sectional area, Copper is one of a few metallic elements with a natural color other than gray or silver. Pure copper is orange-red and acquires a reddish tarnish when exposed to air, as with other metals, if copper is put in contact with another metal, galvanic corrosion will occur. A green layer of verdigris can often be seen on old structures, such as the roofing of many older buildings. Copper tarnishes when exposed to sulfur compounds, with which it reacts to form various copper sulfides. There are 29 isotopes of copper, 63Cu and 65Cu are stable, with 63Cu comprising approximately 69% of naturally occurring copper, both have a spin of 3⁄2
25.
James VI and I
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James VI and I was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until his death. The kingdoms of Scotland and England were individual sovereign states, with their own parliaments, judiciary, and laws, though both were ruled by James in personal union. James was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, James succeeded to the Scottish throne at the age of thirteen months, after his mother Mary was compelled to abdicate in his favour. Four different regents governed during his minority, which ended officially in 1578, in 1603, he succeeded the last Tudor monarch of England and Ireland, Elizabeth I, who died without issue. He continued to reign in all three kingdoms for 22 years, a period known after him as the Jacobean era, until his death in 1625 at the age of 58. After the Union of the Crowns, he based himself in England from 1603, only returning to Scotland once in 1617 and he was a major advocate of a single parliament for England and Scotland. In his reign, the Plantation of Ulster and British colonization of the Americas began, at 57 years and 246 days, Jamess reign in Scotland was longer than those of any of his predecessors. He achieved most of his aims in Scotland but faced difficulties in England, including the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. James himself was a scholar, the author of works such as Daemonologie, The True Law of Free Monarchies. He sponsored the translation of the Bible that would later be named after him, Sir Anthony Weldon claimed that James had been termed the wisest fool in Christendom, an epithet associated with his character ever since. Since the latter half of the 20th century, historians have tended to revise Jamess reputation and treat him as a serious, James was the only son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Both Mary and Darnley were great-grandchildren of Henry VII of England through Margaret Tudor, Marys rule over Scotland was insecure, and she and her husband, being Roman Catholics, faced a rebellion by Protestant noblemen. James was born on 19 June 1566 at Edinburgh Castle, and as the eldest son and heir apparent of the monarch automatically became Duke of Rothesay and Prince and he was baptised Charles James or James Charles on 17 December 1566 in a Catholic ceremony held at Stirling Castle. His godparents were Charles IX of France, Elizabeth I of England, Mary refused to let the Archbishop of St Andrews, whom she referred to as a pocky priest, spit in the childs mouth, as was then the custom. The subsequent entertainment, devised by Frenchman Bastian Pagez, featured men dressed as satyrs and sporting tails, Jamess father, Darnley, was murdered on 10 February 1567 at Kirk o Field, Edinburgh, perhaps in revenge for Rizzios death. James inherited his fathers titles of Duke of Albany and Earl of Ross, Mary was already unpopular, and her marriage on 15 May 1567 to James Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, who was widely suspected of murdering Darnley, heightened widespread bad feeling towards her. In June 1567, Protestant rebels arrested Mary and imprisoned her in Loch Leven Castle and she was forced to abdicate on 24 July 1567 in favour of the infant James and to appoint her illegitimate half-brother, James Stewart, Earl of Moray, as regent. The care of James was entrusted to the Earl and Countess of Mar, to be conserved, nursed, and upbrought in the security of Stirling Castle
26.
British Library
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The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and the second largest library in the world by number of items catalogued. It holds well over 150 million items from many countries, as a legal deposit library, the British Library receives copies of all books produced in the United Kingdom and Ireland, including a significant proportion of overseas titles distributed in the UK. The Library is a public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media. The Librarys collections include around 14 million books, along with holdings of manuscripts. In addition to receiving a copy of every publication produced in the UK and Ireland, the Library adds some three million items every year occupying 9.6 kilometres of new shelf space. Prior to 1973, the Library was part of the British Museum, the Euston Road building is classified as a Grade I listed building, of exceptional interest for its architecture and history. The British Library was created on 1 July 1973 as a result of the British Library Act 1972. Prior to this, the library was part of the British Museum. In 1983, the Library absorbed the National Sound Archive, which holds many sound and video recordings, with over a million discs, the core of the Librarys historical collections is based on a series of donations and acquisitions from the 18th century, known as the foundation collections. From 1997 to 2009 the main collection was housed in this new building. Construction work on the Newspaper Storage Building was completed in 2013, the collection has now been split between the St Pancras and Boston Spa sites. The British Library Document Supply Service and the Librarys Document Supply Collection is based on the site in Boston Spa. Collections housed in Yorkshire, comprising low-use material and the newspaper and Document Supply collections, the Library previously had a book storage depot in Woolwich, south-east London, which is no longer in use. The new library was designed specially for the purpose by the architect Colin St John Wilson, facing Euston Road is a large piazza that includes pieces of public art, such as large sculptures by Eduardo Paolozzi and Antony Gormley. It is the largest public building constructed in the United Kingdom in the 20th century, in December 2009 a new storage building at Boston Spa was opened by Rosie Winterton. The building was Grade I listed on 1 August 2015, in England, Legal Deposit can be traced back to at least 1610. The other five libraries are, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, the University Library at Cambridge, the Trinity College Library at Dublin, in 2003 the Ipswich MP Chris Mole introduced a Private Members Bill which became the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003. The Act extends United Kingdom legal deposit requirements to electronic documents, such as CD-ROMs, the Library also holds the Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections which include the India Office Records and materials in the languages of Asia and of north and north-east Africa
27.
Bedfordshire
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Bedfordshire is a county in the East of England. It is a county and a historic county, covered by three unitary authorities, Bedford, Central Bedfordshire, and Luton. Bedfordshire is bordered by Cambridgeshire to the east/northeast, Northamptonshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the east/southeast. It is the fourteenth most densely populated county of England, with half the population of the county living in the two largest built-up areas, Luton and the county town, Bedford. The highest elevation point is 243 metres on Dunstable Downs in the Chilterns, the traditional nickname for people from Bedfordshire is Clangers, deriving from a local dish comprising a suet crust pastry filled with meat in one end and jam in the other. The first recorded use of the name in 1011 was Bedanfordscir, meaning the shire or county of Bedford, which itself means Bedas ford. Bedfordshire was historically divided into nine hundreds, Barford, Biggleswade, Clifton, Flitt, Manshead, Redbournestoke, Stodden, Willey, Wixamtree, along with the liberty and borough of Bedford. There have been changes to the county boundary, for example, in 1897 Kensworth. The southern end of the county is on the ridge known as the Chiltern Hills. The remainder is part of the drainage basin of the River Great Ouse. Most of Bedfordshires rocks are clays and sandstones from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, local clay has been used for brick-making of Fletton style bricks in the Marston Vale. The Greensand Ridge is an escarpment across the county from near Leighton Buzzard to near Gamlingay in Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire is relatively dry, being situated in the east of England. Average annual rainfall is 597.6 millimetres at Bedford, october is the wettest month with 62.5 millimetres, February the driest with 36.7 millimetres. While there is little difference from month to month there are more wet days in autumn and winter but often heavier individual falls in spring and summer, of note were the 1998 Easter floods. Average temperatures in Bedford range from a low of 0.8 °C overnight in February to a high of 22.1 °C during the day in July, in the last 20 years the highest temperature recorded was 35.9 °C. The lowest temperature on record in Bedfordshire is −20.6 °C at Woburn on 25 February 1947, the Bedfordshire Police and Crime Commissioner is Kathryn Holloway who is a member of the Conservative Party. For local government purposes, Bedfordshire is divided into three authorities, the boroughs of Bedford and Luton, and the District of Central Bedfordshire. Bedfordshire County Council was abolished on 1 April 2009, although the three continue to form a county for ceremonial functions such as lieutenancy and High Sheriff
28.
Norfolk
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Norfolk /ˈnɔːrfək/ is a county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the west and north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea and, to the north-west, The Wash. With an area of 2,074 square miles and a population of 859,400, of the countys population, 40% live in four major built up areas, Norwich, Great Yarmouth, Kings Lynn and Thetford. The Broads is a network of rivers and lakes in the east of the county, the area is not a National Park although it is marketed as such. It has similar status to a park, and is protected by the Broads Authority. Norfolk was settled in times, with camps along the higher land in the west. A Brythonic tribe, the Iceni, inhabited the county from the 1st century BC to the end of the 1st century AD, the Iceni revolted against the Roman invasion in AD47, and again in 60 led by Boudica. The crushing of the second opened the county to the Romans. During the Roman era roads and ports were constructed throughout the county, situated on the east coast, Norfolk was vulnerable to invasions from Scandinavia and Northern Europe, and forts were built to defend against the Angles and Saxons. Norfolk, Suffolk and several adjacent areas became the kingdom of East Anglia, the influence of the Early English settlers can be seen in the many place names ending in -ton and -ham. Endings such as -by and -thorpe are also common, indicating Danish place names, in the 9th century the region came under attack. In the centuries before the Norman Conquest the wetlands of the east of the county began to be converted to farmland, and settlements grew in these areas. Migration into East Anglia must have high, by the time of the Domesday Book survey it was one of the most densely populated parts of the British Isles. During the high and late Middle Ages the county developed arable agriculture, the economy was in decline by the time of the Black Death, which dramatically reduced the population in 1349. During the English Civil War Norfolk was largely Parliamentarian, the economy and agriculture of the region declined somewhat. During the Industrial Revolution Norfolk developed little industry except in Norwich which was an addition to the railway network. In the 20th century the county developed a role in aviation, during the Second World War agriculture rapidly intensified, and it has remained very intensive since, with the establishment of large fields for growing cereals and oilseed rape. Norfolks low-lying land and easily eroded cliffs, many of which are chalk and clay, make it vulnerable to the sea, the low-lying section of coast between Kelling and Lowestoft Ness in Suffolk is currently managed by the Environment Agency to protect the Broads from sea flooding
29.
Shilling
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The shilling is a unit of currency formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, United States, and other British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, a term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times, and from there back to Old Norse. Slang terms for the old shilling coins include bob and hog, while the derivation of bob is uncertain, John Camden Hotten in his 1864 Slang Dictionary says the original version was bobstick and wonders if it is connected with Sir Robert Walpole. One abbreviation for shilling is s, often it was represented by a solidus symbol, which may have originally stood for a long s or ſ, thus 1/9 would be one shilling and ninepence. A price with no pence was sometimes written with a slash, the solidus symbol is still used for the shilling currency unit in former British East Africa, rather than sh. During the Great Recoinage of 1816, the mint was instructed to coin one troy pound of silver into 66 shillings. This set the weight of the shilling, and its subsequent decimal replacement 5 new pence coin, at 87.2727 grains or 5.655 grams from 1816 until 1990, in the past, the English world has had various myths about the shilling. One myth was that it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere, a shilling was a coin used in England from the reign of Henry VII. The term shilling was in use in Scotland from early medieval times, the common currency created in 1707 by Article 16 of the Articles of Union continued in use until decimalisation in 1971. In the traditional pounds, shillings and pence system, there were 20 shillings per pound and 12 pence per shilling, three coins denominated in multiple shillings were also in circulation at this time. In the Irish Free State and Republic of Ireland the shilling was issued as scilling in Irish and it was worth 1/20th of an Irish pound, and was interchangeable at the same value to the British coin, which continued to be used in Northern Ireland. The coin featured a bull on the reverse side, the first minting, from 1928 until 1941, contained 75% silver, more than the equivalent British coin. The original Irish shilling coin ) was withdrawn from circulation on 1 January 1993, Australian shillings, twenty of which made up one Australian pound, were first issued in 1910, with the Australian coat of arms on the reverse and King Edward VII on the face. The coat of arms design was retained through the reign of King George V until a new head design was introduced for the coins of King George VI. This design continued until the last year of issue in 1963, in 1966, Australias currency was decimalised and the shilling was replaced by a ten cent coin, where 10 shillings made up one Australian dollar. The slang term for a coin in Australia was deener. The slang term for a shilling as currency unit was bob, after 1966, shillings continued to circulate, as they were replaced by 10-cent coins of the same size and weight. New Zealand shillings, twenty of which made up one New Zealand pound, were first issued in 1933, in 1967, New Zealands currency was decimalised and the shilling was replaced by a ten cent coin of the same size and weight
30.
Amsterdam
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Amsterdam is the capital and most populous municipality of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its status as the capital is mandated by the Constitution of the Netherlands, although it is not the seat of the government, which is The Hague. Amsterdam has a population of 851,373 within the city proper,1,351,587 in the urban area, the city is located in the province of North Holland in the west of the country. The metropolitan area comprises much of the part of the Randstad, one of the larger conurbations in Europe. Amsterdams name derives from Amstelredamme, indicative of the citys origin around a dam in the river Amstel, during that time, the city was the leading centre for finance and diamonds. In the 19th and 20th centuries the city expanded, and many new neighborhoods and suburbs were planned, the 17th-century canals of Amsterdam and the 19–20th century Defence Line of Amsterdam are on the UNESCO World Heritage List. As the commercial capital of the Netherlands and one of the top financial centres in Europe, Amsterdam is considered a world city by the Globalization. The city is also the capital of the Netherlands. Many large Dutch institutions have their headquarters there, and seven of the worlds 500 largest companies, including Philips and ING, are based in the city. In 2012, Amsterdam was ranked the second best city to live in by the Economist Intelligence Unit and 12th globally on quality of living for environment, the city was ranked 3rd in innovation by Australian innovation agency 2thinknow in their Innovation Cities Index 2009. The Amsterdam seaport to this day remains the second in the country, famous Amsterdam residents include the diarist Anne Frank, artists Rembrandt van Rijn and Vincent van Gogh, and philosopher Baruch Spinoza. The Amsterdam Stock Exchange, the oldest stock exchange in the world, is located in the city center. After the floods of 1170 and 1173, locals near the river Amstel built a bridge over the river, the earliest recorded use of that name is in a document dated October 27,1275, which exempted inhabitants of the village from paying bridge tolls to Count Floris V. This allowed the inhabitants of the village of Aemstelredamme to travel freely through the County of Holland, paying no tolls at bridges, locks, the certificate describes the inhabitants as homines manentes apud Amestelledamme. By 1327, the name had developed into Aemsterdam, Amsterdam is much younger than Dutch cities such as Nijmegen, Rotterdam, and Utrecht. In October 2008, historical geographer Chris de Bont suggested that the land around Amsterdam was being reclaimed as early as the late 10th century. This does not necessarily mean there was already a settlement then, since reclamation of land may not have been for farming—it may have been for peat. Amsterdam was granted city rights in either 1300 or 1306, from the 14th century on, Amsterdam flourished, largely from trade with the Hanseatic League
31.
Jodocus Hondius
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Jodocus Hondius was a Flemish/Dutch/Netherlandish engraver and cartographer. He is sometimes called Jodocus Hondius the Elder to distinguish him from his son Jodocus Hondius II, Hondius is best known for his early maps of the New World and Europe, for re-establishing the reputation of the work of Gerard Mercator, and for his portraits of Francis Drake. One of the representatives in the Golden Age of Dutch/Netherlandish cartography. Hondius was born in Wakken and grew up in Ghent, in his early years he established himself as an engraver, instrument maker and globe maker. In 1584 he moved to London to escape religious difficulties in Flanders, while in England, Hondius was instrumental in publicizing the work of Francis Drake, who had made a circumnavigation of the world in the late 1570s. In particular, in 1589 Hondius produced a now famous map of the bay of New Albion, Hondius is also thought to be the artist of several well-known portraits of Drake that are now in the National Portrait Gallery in London. In 1593 he moved to Amsterdam, where he remained until the end of his life, in co-operation with the Amsterdam publisher Cornelis Claesz. in 1604 he purchased the plates of Gerard Mercators Atlas from Mercators grandson. Mercators work had languished in comparison to the rival Theatrum Orbis Terrarum by Ortelius, Hondius republished Mercators work with 36 additional maps, including several which he himself had produced. Despite the addition of his own contributions, Hondius gave Mercator full credit as the author of the work, hondiuss new edition of Mercators work was a great success, selling out after a year. Hondius later published an edition, as well as a pocket version Atlas Minor. The maps have become known as the Mercator/Hondius series. In the French edition of the Atlas Minor we find one of the first instances of a map using map symbols. This is a map entitled Designatio orbis christiani showing the dispersion of major religions, between 1605 and 1610 he was employed by John Speed to engrave the plates for Speeds The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine. Hondius died, aged 48, in Amsterdam, eventually, starting with the first 1606 edition in Latin, about 50 editions of the Atlas were released in the main European languages. In the Islamic world, the atlas was partially translated by the Turkish scholar Kâtip Çelebi, the series is sometimes called the Mercator/Hondius/Janssonius series because of Janssoniuss later contributions. Hondiuss Mappa Aestivarum Insularum, alias Barmudas dictarum. is a map of Bermuda. Shortly afterwards the Bermudas were granted to the Virginia Company, hence references to the Company on the map including the distance to the Roanoke Colony in Virginia. The miniature map with its own scale, top left, shows the position relative to the Virginian coast
32.
Nobility
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The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be largely honorary, and vary from country to country and era to era. There is often a variety of ranks within the noble class. g, san Marino and the Vatican City in Europe. Hereditary titles often distinguish nobles from non-nobles, although in many nations most of the nobility have been un-titled, some countries have had non-hereditary nobility, such as the Empire of Brazil. The term derives from Latin nobilitas, the noun of the adjective nobilis. In modern usage, nobility is applied to the highest social class in pre-modern societies and it rapidly came to be seen as a hereditary caste, sometimes associated with a right to bear a hereditary title and, for example in pre-revolutionary France, enjoying fiscal and other privileges. Nobility is a historical, social and often legal notion, differing from high socio-economic status in that the latter is based on income. Being wealthy or influential cannot, ipso facto, make one noble, various republics, including former Iron Curtain countries, Greece, Mexico, and Austria have expressly abolished the conferral and use of titles of nobility for their citizens. Not all of the benefits of nobility derived from noble status per se, usually privileges were granted or recognised by the monarch in association with possession of a specific title, office or estate. Most nobles wealth derived from one or more estates, large or small and it also included infrastructure such as castle, well and mill to which local peasants were allowed some access, although often at a price. Nobles were expected to live nobly, that is, from the proceeds of these possessions, work involving manual labour or subordination to those of lower rank was either forbidden or frowned upon socially. In some countries, the lord could impose restrictions on such a commoners movements. Nobles exclusively enjoyed the privilege of hunting, in France, nobles were exempt from paying the taille, the major direct tax. In some parts of Europe the right of war long remained the privilege of every noble. During the early Renaissance, duelling established the status of a respectable gentleman, Nobility came to be associated with social rather than legal privilege, expressed in a general expectation of deference from those of lower rank. By the 21st century even that deference had become increasingly minimised, in France, a seigneurie might include one or more manors surrounded by land and villages subject to a nobles prerogatives and disposition. Seigneuries could be bought, sold or mortgaged, if erected by the crown into, e. g. a barony or countship, it became legally entailed for a specific family, which could use it as their title. Yet most French nobles were untitled, in other parts of Europe, sovereign rulers arrogated to themselves the exclusive prerogative to act as fons honorum within their realms. Nobility might be inherited or conferred by a fons honorum
33.
Channel Islands
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The Channel Islands are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They are considered the remnants of the Duchy of Normandy, and although they are not part of the United Kingdom, it is responsible for the defence, the Crown dependencies are not members of the Commonwealth of Nations nor of the European Union. They have a population of about 168,000. The total area of the islands is 198 km2, the two bailiwicks have been administered separately since the late 13th century, each has its own independent laws, elections, and representative bodies. Any institution common to both is the rather than the rule. The Bailiwick of Guernsey is divided into three jurisdictions – Guernsey, Alderney and Sark – each with its own legislature, the term Channel Islands began to be used around 1830, possibly first by the Royal Navy as a collective name for the islands. The permanently inhabited islands of the Channel Islands are, Jersey Guernsey Alderney Sark Herm Jethou Brecqhou There are also several uninhabited islets and they are an incorporated part of the commune of Granville. While they are popular with visitors from France, Channel Islanders rarely visit them as there are no transport links from the other islands. Chausey is referred to as an Île normande, Îles Normandes and Archipel Normand have also, historically, been used in Channel Island French to refer to the islands as a whole. The lowest point is the Atlantic Ocean, the earliest evidence of human occupation of the Channel Islands has been dated to 250,000 years ago when they were attached to the landmass of continental Europe. The islands became detached by rising sea levels in the Neolithic period, hoards of Armorican coins have been excavated, providing evidence of trade and contact in the Iron Age period. Evidence for Roman settlement is sparse, although evidently the islands were visited by Roman officials, the Roman name for the Channel Islands was I. Lenuri and is included in the Peutinger Table The traditional Latin names used for the islands derive from the Antonine Itinerary, gallo-Roman culture was adopted to an unknown extent in the islands. In the sixth century, Christian missionaries visited the islands, samson of Dol, Helier, Marculf and Magloire are among saints associated with the islands. In the sixth century, they were included in the diocese of Coutances where they remained until reformation. The islands were inhabited by Britons, who also inhabited Wales, south west England, from the beginning of the ninth century, Norse raiders appeared on the coasts. Norse settlement succeeded initial attacks, and it is from this period that many names of Norse origin appear. In 933, the islands were granted to William I Longsword by Raoul King of Western Francia, in 1066, William II of Normandy invaded and conquered England, becoming William I of England, also known as William the Conqueror
34.
Poland
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Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, situated between the Baltic Sea in the north and two mountain ranges in the south. Bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, the total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres, making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe, Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, and its capital and largest city is Warsaw. Other metropolises include Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk and Szczecin, the establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, Poland regained its independence in 1918 at the end of World War I, reconstituting much of its historical territory as the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, followed thereafter by invasion by the Soviet Union. More than six million Polish citizens died in the war, after the war, Polands borders were shifted westwards under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. With the backing of the Soviet Union, a communist puppet government was formed, and after a referendum in 1946. During the Revolutions of 1989 Polands Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy, informally called the Third Polish Republic. Since the early 1990s, when the transition to a primarily market-based economy began, Poland has achieved a high ranking on the Human Development Index. Poland is a country, which was categorised by the World Bank as having a high-income economy. Furthermore, it is visited by approximately 16 million tourists every year, Poland is the eighth largest economy in the European Union and was the 6th fastest growing economy on the continent between 2010 and 2015. According to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is ranked 19th in the list of the safest countries in the world to live in. The origin of the name Poland derives from a West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta River basin of the historic Greater Poland region in the 8th century, the origin of the name Polanie itself derives from the western Slavic word pole. In some foreign languages such as Hungarian, Lithuanian, Persian and Turkish the exonym for Poland is Lechites, historians have postulated that throughout Late Antiquity, many distinct ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland. The most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, the Slavic groups who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the authority of the Roman Church
35.
Americas
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The Americas, also collectively called America, encompass the totality of the continents of North America and South America. Together they make up most of the land in Earths western hemisphere, along with their associated islands, they cover 8% of Earths total surface area and 28. 4% of its land area. The topography is dominated by the American Cordillera, a chain of mountains that runs the length of the west coast. The flatter eastern side of the Americas is dominated by river basins, such as the Amazon, St. Lawrence River / Great Lakes basin, Mississippi. Humans first settled the Americas from Asia between 42,000 and 17,000 years ago, a second migration of Na-Dene speakers followed later from Asia. The subsequent migration of the Inuit into the neoarctic around 3500 BCE completed what is regarded as the settlement by the indigenous peoples of the Americas. The first known European settlement in the Americas was by the Norse explorer Leif Ericson, however, the colonization never became permanent and was later abandoned. The voyages of Christopher Columbus from 1492 to 1502 resulted in permanent contact with European powers, diseases introduced from Europe and Africa devastated the indigenous peoples, and the European powers colonized the Americas. Mass emigration from Europe, including numbers of indentured servants. Decolonization of the Americas began with the American Revolution in 1776, the population is over 1 billion, with over 65% of them living in one of the three most populous countries. As of the beginning of the 2010s, the most populous urban agglomerations are Mexico City, New York, Sao Paulo, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, all of them megacities. The name America was first recorded in 1507 in the Cosmographiae Introductio, apparently written by Matthias Ringmann and it first applied to both North and South America by Gerardus Mercator in 1538. Amerigen means land of Amerigo and derives from Amerigo and gen, America accorded with the feminine names of Asia, Africa, and Europa. When conceived as a continent, the form is generally the continent of America in the singular. However, without a context, singular America in English commonly refers to the United States of America. In some countries of the world, America is considered a continent encompassing the North America and South America subcontinents, the first inhabitants migrated into the Americas from Asia. Habitation sites are known in Alaska and the Yukon from at least 20,000 years ago, beyond that, the specifics of the Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the dates and routes traveled, are subject to ongoing research and discussion. Widespread habitation of the Americas occurred during the glacial maximum
36.
Great Britain
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Great Britain, also known as Britain, is a large island in the north Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of 209,331 km2, Great Britain is the largest European island, in 2011 the island had a population of about 61 million people, making it the worlds third-most populous island after Java in Indonesia and Honshu in Japan. The island of Ireland is situated to the west of it, the island is dominated by a maritime climate with quite narrow temperature differences between seasons. Politically, the island is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, most of England, Scotland, and Wales are on the island. The term Great Britain often extends to surrounding islands that form part of England, Scotland, and Wales. A single Kingdom of Great Britain resulted from the union of the Kingdom of England, the archipelago has been referred to by a single name for over 2000 years, the term British Isles derives from terms used by classical geographers to describe this island group. By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a name for the British Isles. However, with the Roman conquest of Britain the Latin term Britannia was used for the island of Great Britain, the oldest mention of terms related to Great Britain was by Aristotle, or possibly by Pseudo-Aristotle, in his text On the Universe, Vol. III. To quote his works, There are two large islands in it, called the British Isles, Albion and Ierne. The name Britain descends from the Latin name for Britain, Britannia or Brittānia, Old French Bretaigne and Middle English Bretayne, Breteyne. The French form replaced the Old English Breoton, Breoten, Bryten, Breten, Britannia was used by the Romans from the 1st century BC for the British Isles taken together. It is derived from the writings of the Pytheas around 320 BC. Marcian of Heraclea, in his Periplus maris exteri, described the group as αἱ Πρεττανικαὶ νῆσοι. The peoples of these islands of Prettanike were called the Πρεττανοί, Priteni is the source of the Welsh language term Prydain, Britain, which has the same source as the Goidelic term Cruithne used to refer to the early Brythonic-speaking inhabitants of Ireland. The latter were later called Picts or Caledonians by the Romans, the Greco-Egyptian scientist Ptolemy referred to the larger island as great Britain and to Ireland as little Britain in his work Almagest. The name Albion appears to have out of use sometime after the Roman conquest of Britain. After the Anglo-Saxon period, Britain was used as a term only. It was used again in 1604, when King James VI and I styled himself King of Great Brittaine, France, Great Britain refers geographically to the island of Great Britain, politically to England, Scotland and Wales in combination
37.
William Shakespeare
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William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the worlds pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called Englands national poet, and the Bard of Avon and his extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 38 plays,154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright, Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children, Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Sometime between 1585 and 1592, he began a career in London as an actor, writer. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613, at age 49, Shakespeare produced most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and histories, which are regarded as some of the best work ever produced in these genres. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1608, including Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, in his last phase, he wrote tragicomedies, also known as romances, and collaborated with other playwrights. Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and it was prefaced with a poem by Ben Jonson, in which Shakespeare is hailed, presciently, as not of an age, but for all time. In the 20th and 21st centuries, his works have been adapted and rediscovered by new movements in scholarship. His plays remain highly popular and are studied, performed. William Shakespeare was the son of John Shakespeare, an alderman and a successful glover originally from Snitterfield, and Mary Arden and he was born in Stratford-upon-Avon and baptised there on 26 April 1564. His actual date of birth unknown, but is traditionally observed on 23 April. This date, which can be traced back to an 18th-century scholars mistake, has proved appealing to biographers because Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616 and he was the third child of eight and the eldest surviving son. At the age of 18, Shakespeare married 26-year-old Anne Hathaway, the consistory court of the Diocese of Worcester issued a marriage licence on 27 November 1582. The next day, two of Hathaways neighbours posted bonds guaranteeing that no lawful claims impeded the marriage, twins, son Hamnet and daughter Judith, followed almost two years later and were baptised 2 February 1585. Hamnet died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried 11 August 1596, after the birth of the twins, Shakespeare left few historical traces until he is mentioned as part of the London theatre scene in 1592. The exception is the appearance of his name in the bill of a law case before the Queens Bench court at Westminster dated Michaelmas Term 1588 and 9 October 1589
38.
Chester
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Chester is a walled city in Cheshire, England, on the River Dee, close to the border with Wales. With a population of 81,340 in 2014, it is the most populous settlement of Cheshire West and Chester, Chester was granted city status in 1541. Chester was founded as a castrum or Roman fort with the name Deva Victrix in the reign of the Emperor Vespasian in 79 AD, one of the main army camps in Roman Britain, Deva later became a major civilian settlement. Chester was one of the last cities in England to fall to the Normans, william the Conqueror ordered the construction of a castle, to dominate the town and the nearby Welsh border. Chester is one of the best preserved walled cities in Britain and it has a number of medieval buildings, but some of the black-and-white buildings within the city centre are Victorian restorations. Apart from a 100-metre section, the listed Grade I walls are almost complete, the Roman Legio II Adiutrix during the reign of the Emperor Vespasian founded Chester in AD79, as a castrum or Roman fort with the name Deva Victrix. The victrix part of the name was taken from the title of the Legio XX Valeria Victrix which was based at Deva, Central Chesters four main roads, Eastgate, Northgate, Watergate and Bridgegate, follow routes laid out at this time. A civilian settlement grew around the base, probably originating from trade with the fortress. The civilian amphitheatre, which was built in the 1st century and it is the largest known military amphitheatre in Britain, and is also a Scheduled Monument. The Minerva Shrine in the Roman quarry is the rock cut Roman shrine still in situ in Britain. The fortress was garrisoned by the legion until at least the late 4th century, after the Roman troops withdrew, the Romano-British established a number of petty kingdoms. Chester is thought to have part of Powys. Deverdoeu was a Welsh name for Chester as late as the 12th century, another, attested in the 9th century History of the Britons traditionally attributed to Nennius, is Cair Legion, this later developed into Caerlleon and then the modern Welsh Caer. King Arthur is said to have fought his ninth battle at the city of the legions and later St Augustine came to the city to try to unite the church, and held his synod with the Welsh Bishops. In 616, Æthelfrith of Northumbria defeated a Welsh army at the brutal and decisive Battle of Chester and her name is still remembered in St Werburghs Street which passes alongside the cathedral, and near the city walls. It was Alfreds daughter Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, that built the new Saxon burh, a new Church dedicated to St Peter alone was founded in AD907 by the Lady Æthelfleda at what was to become the Cross. Taking the helm of a barge, he was rowed the short distance up the River Dee from Edgars Field to the great Minster Church of St John the Baptist by six tributary kings called reguli. In 1071 he made Hugh dAvranches, who built Chester Castle, from the 14th century to the 18th century the citys prominent position in North West England meant that it was commonly also known as Westchester
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Welsh independence
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This ideology is promoted mainly by the Welsh nationalist party, Plaid Cymru and the non-party YesCymru campaign. Wales became distinct culturally and politically from other Brythonic groups during the Early Middle Ages, following the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the Normans penetrated into Wales and gradually established control over parts of the country. The death of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in 1282 led to the conquest of the last independent Welsh kingdom by Edward I of England, the Welsh revolted against English rule several times over the next years, with the last significant attempt being the Glyndŵr Rising of 1400–15. In the 16th century Henry VIII, himself of Welsh extraction, according to the Encyclopaedia of Wales, the belief that Wales should form an independent nation state originated in the mid 19th century. The Sunday Closing Act of 1881 was the first legislation to acknowledge that Wales had a separate character from the rest of the English state. In 1886 Joseph Chamberlain proposed Home Rule All Round the United Kingdom, there was little mainstream political interest in Home Rule following the First World War. The focus of Welsh nationalist politics moved to the newly founded Plaid Cymru from 1925, a succession of non-Welsh Conservative Secretaries of State after 1987 was portrayed by opponents as colonial and indicative of a democratic deficit. The proposed assembly won a majority in the 1997 referendum. The political climate was different from that of 1979, with a new generation of Welsh MPs in Westminster. However, political commentator Denis Balsom notes public sentiment that devolution may have been following the election of a progressive Labour Government. These conflicting sentiments were reflected in the low turnout at the referendum. Since 1997, there is evidence of increased support for, and trust in, following the the announcement of plans to hold a second referendum on Scottish independence, Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood said there needed to be a national debate on Welsh independence. Surveys regarding support for independence have yielded different results, though often find that between 10 and 15% of Welsh desire independence from the United Kingdom. A2001 survey for the Institute of Welsh Affairs found that 11% of people polled favoured independence, a 2007 survey by the Institute of Welsh Politics at the University of Wales found that 12% of those questioned supported independence, down slightly from 14% in 1997. A poll taken by BBC Wales Newsnight in 2007 found that 20% of Welsh questioned favoured independence, a 2006 poll taken by Wales on Sunday found the number to be as high as 52%, although the poll mostly interviewed people in North Wales where support for independence is strongest. However, a Yougov/ITV Wales Poll in September 2014, showed an increase in support for Welsh independence having risen to 17%. In February 2014, an ICM poll for BBC Wales found that 5% of people wanted to see an independent Wales, the same poll found that there had been a significant increase in support for more powers for the Welsh Government. It had been suggested before the UKs referendum on EU membership that Wales might vote by a majority for Remain while the UK as a whole voted for Leave, which would increase support for independence
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Chesapeake Bay
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It is the largest estuary in North America. With its northern portion in Maryland and the part in Virginia. More than 150 major rivers and streams flow into the bays 64, 299-square-mile drainage basin, the bay is approximately 200 miles long from its northern headwaters in the Susquehanna River to its outlet in the Atlantic Ocean. It is 2.8 miles wide at its narrowest and 30 miles at its widest, total shoreline including tributaries is 11,684 miles, circumnavigating a surface area of 4,479 square miles. Average depth is 21 feet, reaching a maximum of 174 feet, the bay is spanned twice, in Maryland by the Chesapeake Bay Bridge from Sandy Point to Kent Island and in Virginia by the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel connecting Virginia Beach to Cape Charles. Known for both its beauty and bounty, the bay became emptier, with crabs, oysters. Recent restoration efforts begun in the 1990s have been ongoing and show potential for growth of the oyster population. The health of the Chesapeake Bay improved in 2015, marking three years of gains over the past four years, according to a new report by the University of Maryland, the word Chesepiooc is an Algonquian word referring to a village at a big river. It is the seventh oldest surviving English place-name in the U. S. first applied as Chesepiook by explorers heading north from the Roanoke Colony into a Chesapeake tributary in 1585 or 1586. The name may refer to the Chesepian or Chesapeake people. They occupied an area which is now the Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, in 2005, Algonquian linguist Blair Rudes helped to dispel one of the areas most widely held beliefs, that Chesapeake means something like great shellfish bay. The name might actually have meant something like great water, or it might have just referred to a location at the bays mouth. In addition, the name is almost always prefixed by the in usage by local residents, The Chesapeake, The Chesapeake Bay, the Chesapeake Bay is an estuary to the North Atlantic, lying between the Delmarva Peninsula to the east and the North American mainland to the west. It is the ria, or drowned valley, of the Susquehanna River and it is not a fjord, because the Laurentide Ice Sheet never reached as far south as the northernmost point on the bay. The large rivers entering the bay from the west have broad mouths and are extensions of the ria for miles up the course of each river. The bay was formed starting about 10,000 years ago when rising sea levels at the end of the last ice age flooded the Susquehanna River valley. Parts of the bay, especially the Calvert County, Maryland and these cliffs, generally known as Calvert Cliffs, are famous for their fossils, especially fossilized shark teeth which are commonly found washed up on the beaches next to the cliffs. Scientists Cliffs is a community in Calvert County named for the desire to create a retreat for scientists when the community was founded in 1935
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Virginia
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Virginia is a state located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, as well as in the historic Southeast. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, the capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond, Virginia Beach is the most populous city, and Fairfax County is the most populous political subdivision. The Commonwealths estimated population as of 2014 is over 8.3 million, the areas history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607 the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent New World English colony, slave labor and the land acquired from displaced Native American tribes each played a significant role in the colonys early politics and plantation economy. Although the Commonwealth was under one-party rule for nearly a century following Reconstruction, the Virginia General Assembly is the oldest continuous law-making body in the New World. The state government was ranked most effective by the Pew Center on the States in both 2005 and 2008 and it is unique in how it treats cities and counties equally, manages local roads, and prohibits its governors from serving consecutive terms. Virginias economy changed from agricultural to industrial during the 1960s and 1970s. Virginia has an area of 42,774.2 square miles, including 3,180.13 square miles of water. Virginias boundary with Maryland and Washington, D. C. extends to the mark of the south shore of the Potomac River. The southern border is defined as the 36° 30′ parallel north, the border with Tennessee was not settled until 1893, when their dispute was brought to the U. S. Supreme Court. The Chesapeake Bay separates the portion of the Commonwealth from the two-county peninsula of Virginias Eastern Shore. The bay was formed from the river valleys of the Susquehanna River. Many of Virginias rivers flow into the Chesapeake Bay, including the Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James, the Tidewater is a coastal plain between the Atlantic coast and the fall line. It includes the Eastern Shore and major estuaries of Chesapeake Bay, the Piedmont is a series of sedimentary and igneous rock-based foothills east of the mountains which were formed in the Mesozoic era. The region, known for its clay soil, includes the Southwest Mountains around Charlottesville. The Blue Ridge Mountains are a province of the Appalachian Mountains with the highest points in the state. The Ridge and Valley region is west of the mountains and includes the Great Appalachian Valley, the region is carbonate rock based and includes Massanutten Mountain. The Cumberland Plateau and the Cumberland Mountains are in the southwest corner of Virginia, in this region, rivers flow northwest, with a dendritic drainage system, into the Ohio River basin
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Maryland
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The states largest city is Baltimore, and its capital is Annapolis. Among its occasional nicknames are Old Line State, the Free State, the state is named after Henrietta Maria of France, the wife of Charles I of England. George Calvert was the first Lord of Baltimore and the first English proprietor of the colonial grant. Maryland was the state to ratify the United States Constitution. Maryland is one of the smallest U. S. states in terms of area, as well as one of the most densely populated, Maryland has an area of 12,406.68 square miles and is comparable in overall area with Belgium. It is the 42nd largest and 9th smallest state and is closest in size to the state of Hawaii, the next largest state, its neighbor West Virginia, is almost twice the size of Maryland. Maryland possesses a variety of topography within its borders, contributing to its nickname America in Miniature. The mid-portion of this border is interrupted by Washington, D. C. which sits on land that was part of Montgomery and Prince Georges counties and including the town of Georgetown. This land was ceded to the United States Federal Government in 1790 to form the District of Columbia, the Chesapeake Bay nearly bisects the state and the counties east of the bay are known collectively as the Eastern Shore. Close to the town of Hancock, in western Maryland, about two-thirds of the way across the state. This geographical curiosity makes Maryland the narrowest state, bordered by the Mason–Dixon line to the north, portions of Maryland are included in various official and unofficial geographic regions. Much of the Baltimore–Washington corridor lies just south of the Piedmont in the Coastal Plain, earthquakes in Maryland are infrequent and small due to the states distance from seismic/earthquake zones. The M5.8 Virginia earthquake in 2011 was felt moderately throughout Maryland, buildings in the state are not well-designed for earthquakes and can suffer damage easily. The lack of any glacial history accounts for the scarcity of Marylands natural lakes, laurel Oxbow Lake is an over one-hundred-year-old 55-acre natural lake two miles north of Maryland City and adjacent to Russett. Chews Lake is a natural lake two miles south-southeast of Upper Marlboro. There are numerous lakes, the largest of them being the Deep Creek Lake. Maryland has shale formations containing natural gas, where fracking is theoretically possible, as is typical of states on the East Coast, Marylands plant life is abundant and healthy. Middle Atlantic coastal forests, typical of the southeastern Atlantic coastal plain, grow around Chesapeake Bay, moving west, a mixture of Northeastern coastal forests and Southeastern mixed forests cover the central part of the state
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East Indies
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The East Indies or Indies are the lands of South and Southeast Asia. In a more restricted sense, the Indies can be used to refer to the islands of Southeast Asia, the name Indies is derived from the river Indus and is used to connote parts of Asia that came under Indian cultural influence. The East Indies may also include the former French-held Indochina, former British territories Brunei and Singapore and it does not, however, include the former Dutch New Guinea western New Guinea, which is geographically considered to be part of Melanesia. In colonial times they were just natives, however, the peoples of the East Indies comprise a wide variety of cultural diversity, and the inhabitants do not consider themselves as belonging to a single ethnic group. The major languages in this area draw from a variety of language families, and should not be confused with the term Indic. The extensive East Indies are subdivided into two sections, archaically called Hither India and Further India, the first is the former British India, the second is Southeast Asia. Historically, the king of Abyssinia was identified with Prester John of the Indies, exploration of these regions by European powers first began in the late 15th century and early 16th century led by the Portuguese explorers. The Portuguese described the region they discovered as the Indies. Eventually, the region would be broken up into a series of Indies, the East Indies, which was also called Old Indies or Great Indies, consisting of India, and the West Indies, also called New Indies or Little Indies, consisting of the Americas. The New World was initially thought to be the easternmost part of the Indies by explorer Christopher Columbus, later, to avoid confusion, the New World came to be called the West Indies, while the original Indies came to be called the East Indies. Greater India History of the Americas Indian Spanish West Indies
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Russian Empire
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The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until it was overthrown by the short-lived February Revolution in 1917. One of the largest empires in history, stretching over three continents, the Russian Empire was surpassed in landmass only by the British and Mongol empires. The rise of the Russian Empire happened in association with the decline of neighboring powers, the Swedish Empire, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, Persia. It played a role in 1812–14 in defeating Napoleons ambitions to control Europe. The House of Romanov ruled the Russian Empire from 1721 until 1762, and its German-descended cadet branch, with 125.6 million subjects registered by the 1897 census, it had the third-largest population in the world at the time, after Qing China and India. Like all empires, it included a large disparity in terms of economics, ethnicity, there were numerous dissident elements, who launched numerous rebellions and assassination attempts, they were closely watched by the secret police, with thousands exiled to Siberia. Economically, the empire had an agricultural base, with low productivity on large estates worked by serfs. The economy slowly industrialized with the help of foreign investments in railways, the land was ruled by a nobility from the 10th through the 17th centuries, and subsequently by an emperor. Tsar Ivan III laid the groundwork for the empire that later emerged and he tripled the territory of his state, ended the dominance of the Golden Horde, renovated the Moscow Kremlin, and laid the foundations of the Russian state. Tsar Peter the Great fought numerous wars and expanded an already huge empire into a major European power, Catherine the Great presided over a golden age. She expanded the state by conquest, colonization and diplomacy, continuing Peter the Greats policy of modernisation along West European lines, Tsar Alexander II promoted numerous reforms, most dramatically the emancipation of all 23 million serfs in 1861. His policy in Eastern Europe involved protecting the Orthodox Christians under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and that connection by 1914 led to Russias entry into the First World War on the side of France, Britain, and Serbia, against the German, Austrian and Ottoman empires. The Russian Empire functioned as a monarchy until the Revolution of 1905. The empire collapsed during the February Revolution of 1917, largely as a result of failures in its participation in the First World War. Perhaps the latter was done to make Europe recognize Russia as more of a European country, Poland was divided in the 1790-1815 era, with much of the land and population going to Russia. Most of the 19th century growth came from adding territory in Asia, Peter I the Great introduced autocracy in Russia and played a major role in introducing his country to the European state system. However, this vast land had a population of 14 million, grain yields trailed behind those of agriculture in the West, compelling nearly the entire population to farm. Only a small percentage lived in towns, the class of kholops, close to the one of slavery, remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter I converted household kholops into house serfs, thus including them in poll taxation
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Peter the Great
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Peter the Great, Peter I or Peter Alexeyevich ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from 7 May 1682 until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his elder half-brother, Ivan V. Through a number of successful wars he expanded the Tsardom into a larger empire that became a major European power. He led a revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with ones that were modern, scientific, westernized. Peters reforms made an impact on Russia and many institutions of Russian government trace their origins to his reign. From an early age, Peters education was put in the hands of tutors, most notably Nikita Zotov, Patrick Gordon. On 29 January 1676, Tsar Alexis died, leaving the sovereignty to Peters elder half-brother and this position changed when Feodor died in 1682. As Feodor did not leave any children, a dispute arose between the Miloslavsky family and Naryshkin family over who should inherit the throne, Peters other half-brother, Ivan V, was next in line for the throne, but he was chronically ill and of infirm mind. Consequently, the Boyar Duma chose the 10-year-old Peter to become Tsar with his mother as regent and this arrangement was brought before the people of Moscow, as ancient tradition demanded, and was ratified. Sophia Alekseyevna, one of Alexis daughters from his first marriage, in the subsequent conflict some of Peters relatives and friends were murdered, including Matveev, and Peter witnessed some of these acts of political violence. The Streltsy made it possible for Sophia, the Miloslavskys and their allies, to insist that Peter and Ivan be proclaimed joint Tsars, Sophia acted as regent during the minority of the sovereigns and exercised all power. For seven years, she ruled as an autocrat, a large hole was cut in the back of the dual-seated throne used by Ivan and Peter. Sophia would sit behind the throne and listen as Peter conversed with nobles, while feeding him information and giving him responses to questions and this throne can be seen in the Kremlin Armoury in Moscow. Peter was not particularly concerned that others ruled in his name and he engaged in such pastimes as shipbuilding and sailing, as well as mock battles with his toy army. Peters mother sought to force him to adopt a conventional approach. The marriage was a failure, and ten years later Peter forced his wife to become a nun, by the summer of 1689, Peter planned to take power from his half-sister Sophia, whose position had been weakened by two unsuccessful Crimean campaigns. When she learned of his designs, Sophia conspired with the leaders of the Streltsy, Sophia was eventually overthrown, with Peter I and Ivan V continuing to act as co-tsars. Peter forced Sophia to enter a convent, where she gave up her name, still, Peter could not acquire actual control over Russian affairs. Power was instead exercised by his mother, Natalya Naryshkina and it was only when Nataliya died in 1694 that Peter became an independent sovereign
46.
Jamaica
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Jamaica is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea, consisting of the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles. The island,10,990 square kilometres in area, lies about 145 kilometres south of Cuba, Jamaica is the fourth-largest island country in the Caribbean, by area. Inhabited by the indigenous Arawak and Taíno peoples, the island came under Spanish rule following the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1494, Many of the indigenous people died of disease, and the Spanish imported African slaves as labourers. Named Santiago, the island remained a possession of Spain until 1655, under British colonial rule Jamaica became a leading sugar exporter, with its plantation economy highly dependent on slaves imported from Africa. The British fully emancipated all slaves in 1838, and many chose to have subsistence farms rather than to work on plantations. Beginning in the 1840s, the British imported Chinese and Indian indentured labour to work on plantations, the island achieved independence from the United Kingdom on 6 August 1962. With 2.8 million people, Jamaica is the third-most populous Anglophone country in the Americas, Kingston is the countrys capital and largest city, with a population of 937,700. Jamaicans predominately have African ancestry, with significant European, Chinese, Hakka, Indian, due to a high rate of emigration for work since the 1960s, Jamaica has a large diaspora around the world, particularly in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Jamaica is a Commonwealth realm, with Queen Elizabeth II as its monarch and her appointed representative in the country is the Governor-General of Jamaica, an office held by Sir Patrick Allen since 2009. Andrew Holness has served as the head of government and Prime Minister of Jamaica from March 2016, the indigenous people, the Taíno, called it Xaymaca in Arawakan, meaning the Land of Wood and Water or the Land of Springs. Colloquially Jamaicans refer to their island as the Rock. Slang names such as Jamrock, Jamdown, or briefly Ja, have derived from this, the Arawak and Taíno indigenous people, originating in South America, settled on the island between 4000 and 1000 BC. When Christopher Columbus arrived in 1494, there were more than 200 villages ruled by caciques, the south coast of Jamaica was the most populated, especially around the area now known as Old Harbour. The Taino still inhabited Jamaica when the English took control of the island in 1655, the Jamaican National Heritage Trust is attempting to locate and document any evidence of the Taino/Arawak. Christopher Columbus claimed Jamaica for Spain after landing there in 1494 and his probable landing point was Dry Harbour, now called Discovery Bay, although there is some debate that it might have been St. Anns Bay. St. Anns Bay was named Saint Gloria by Columbus, as the first sighting of the land, the capital was moved to Spanish Town, then called St. Jago de la Vega, around 1534. Spanish Town has the oldest cathedral of the British colonies in the Caribbean, the Spanish were forcibly evicted by the English at Ocho Rios in St. Ann. In 1655, the English, led by Sir William Penn and General Robert Venables, the English continued to import African slaves as labourers
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Barbados
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Barbados is a sovereign island country in the Lesser Antilles, in the Americas. It is 34 kilometres in length and up to 23 km in width, Barbados is outside of the principal Atlantic hurricane belt. Inhabited by Kalinago people since the 13th century, and prior to that by other Amerindians, Barbados was visited by Spanish navigators in the late 15th century and it first appeared in a Spanish map in 1511. The Portuguese visited the island in 1536, but they left it unclaimed, an English ship, the Olive Blossom, arrived in Barbados in 1625, its men took possession of it in the name of King James I. In 1627, the first permanent settlers arrived from England, and it became an English, in 1966, Barbados became an independent state and Commonwealth realm with the British Monarch as hereditary head of state. It has a population of 280,121 people, predominantly of African descent, despite being classified as an Atlantic island, Barbados is considered to be a part of the Caribbean, where it is ranked as a leading tourist destination. Forty percent of the come from the UK, with the US. In 2014, Transparency Internationals Corruption Perceptions Index ranked Barbados joint second in the Americas, the name Barbados is either the Portuguese word Barbados or the Spanish equivalent los Barbados, both meaning the bearded ones. In 1519, a map produced by the Genoese mapmaker Visconte Maggiolo showed and named Barbados in its correct position, furthermore, the island of Barbuda in the Leewards is very similar in name and was once named Las Barbudas by the Spanish. It is uncertain which European nation arrived first in Barbados, one lesser known source points to earlier-revealed works predating contemporary sources indicating it could have been the Spanish. Others believe the Portuguese, en route to Brazil, were the first Europeans to come upon the island, colloquially Barbadians refer to their home island as Bim or other nicknames associated with Barbados includes Bimshire. The origin is uncertain but several theories exist, the name could have arisen due to the relatively large percentage of enslaved Igbo people from modern-day southeastern Nigeria arriving in Barbados in the 18th century. The words Bim and Bimshire are recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary, another possible source for Bim is reported to be in the Agricultural Reporter of 25 April 1868, where the Rev. N. Greenidge suggested the listing of Bimshire as a county of England. Expressly named were Wiltshire, Hampshire, Berkshire and Bimshire, lastly, in the Daily Argosy of 1652 there is a reference to Bim as a possible corruption of Byam, the name of a Royalist leader against the Parliamentarians. That source suggested the followers of Byam became known as Bims, amerindian settlement of Barbados dates to about the 4th to 7th centuries AD, by a group known as the Saladoid-Barrancoid. In the 13th century, the Kalinago arrived from South America, the Spanish and Portuguese briefly claimed Barbados from the late 16th to the 17th centuries. The Arawaks are believed to have fled to neighbouring islands, apart from possibly displacing the Caribs, the Spanish and Portuguese made little impact and left the island uninhabited. Some Arawaks migrated from British Guiana in the 19th century and continue to live in Barbados, during the Cromwellian era this included a large number of prisoners-of-war, vagrants and people who were illicitly kidnapped, who were forcibly transported to the island and sold as servants
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"Speed, John". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
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