1.
Southern Ocean
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As such, it is regarded as the fourth-largest of the five principal oceanic divisions, smaller than the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans but larger than the Arctic Ocean. This ocean zone is cold, northward flowing waters from the Antarctic mix with warmer subantarctic waters. By way of his voyages in the 1770s, Captain James Cook proved that waters encompassed the southern latitudes of the globe. Since then, geographers have disagreed on the Southern Oceans northern boundary or even existence, considering the part of the Pacific, Atlantic. Others regard the seasonally-fluctuating Antarctic Convergence as the natural boundary, Borders and names for oceans and seas were internationally agreed when the International Hydrographic Bureau, the precusor to the IHO, convened the First International Conference on 24 July 1919. The IHO then published these in its Limits of Oceans and Seas, Australian authorities regard the Southern Ocean as lying immediately south of Australia. Map publishers using the term Southern Ocean on their maps include Hema Maps, Southern Ocean is an obsolete name for the Pacific Ocean or South Pacific, coined by Vasco Núñez de Balboa, the first European to discover it, who approached it from the north. The South Seas is an archaic synonym. A1745 British Act of Parliament established a prize for discovering a Northwest Passage to the Western and Southern Ocean of America, authors using Southern Ocean to name the waters encircling the unknown southern polar regions used varying limits. James Cooks account of his second voyage implies New Caledonia borders it, peacocks 1795 Geographical Dictionary said it lay to the southward of America and Africa, John Payne in 1796 used 40 degrees as the northern limit, the 1827 Edinburgh Gazetteer used 50 degrees. The United Kingdoms South Australia Act 1834 described the waters forming the southern limit of the new colony of South Australia as the Southern Ocean. The Colony of Victorias Legislative Council Act of 1881 delimited part of the division of Bairnsdale as along the New South Wales boundary to the Southern ocean. The limit then followed the west coast of Tasmania southwards to the South East Cape and then went eastwards to Broughton Island, New Zealand, the northern limits of the Southern Ocean were moved southwards in the IHOs 1937 second edition of the Limits of Oceans and Seas. From this edition, much of the northern limit ceased to abut land masses. As is discussed in detail below, prior to the 2002 edition the limits of oceans explicitly excluded the seas lying within each of them. The Great Australian Bight was unnamed in the 1928 edition, and it therefore encompassed former Southern Ocean waters but was technically not inside any of the three adjacent oceans by 1937. To perform direct comparisons of current and former limits of oceans it is necessary to consider, or at least be aware of, the limits of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans have therefore been extended South to the Antarctic Continent. The IHO readdressed the question of the Southern Ocean in a survey in 2000, of its 68 member nations,28 responded, and all responding members except Argentina agreed to redefine the ocean, reflecting the importance placed by oceanographers on ocean currents
2.
French Southern and Antarctic Lands
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The French Southern and Antarctic Lands is an overseas territory of France. It consists of, Kerguelen Islands, a group of islands in the southern Indian Ocean, southeast of Africa. The territory is called the French Southern Lands or French Southern Territories. The latter excludes Adélie Land, where French sovereignty is not widely recognized, the lands are not connected to France Antarctique, a former French colony in Brazil. The territory has no permanent civilian population and those resident consist of visiting military personnel, officials, scientific researchers and support staff. The French Southern and Antarctic Lands have formed a territoire doutre-mer of France since 1955, the territory is divided into five districts, a According to new law 2007-224 of February 21,2007, the Scattered Islands constitute the TAAFs fifth district. The TAAF website does not mention their population, the data are not included in the totals. b The Îles Éparses principal station is on Tromelin. The headquarters of the district chief lies beyond the TAAF, in Saint Pierre on Réunion Island. c The Territorys principal station is Martin-de-Viviès on Île Amsterdam, the capital and headquarters of the Territorial administrator lies beyond the TAAF, in Saint Pierre on Réunion Island. Each district is headed by a chief, who has powers similar to those of a French mayor. Because there is no permanent population, there is no elected assembly, Adélie Land and the islands, totaling 7,781 km2, have no indigenous inhabitants, though in 1997 there were about 100 researchers whose numbers varied from winter to summer. Île Amsterdam and Île Saint-Paul are extinct volcanoes and have been delineated as the Amsterdam, the highest point in the territory is Mont Ross on Île Kerguelen at 1,850 m. There are very few airstrips on the islands, only existing on islands with weather stations, the islands in the Indian Ocean are supplied by the special ship Marion Dufresne sailing out of Le Port in Réunion Island. Terre Adélie is supplied by Astrolabe sailing out of Hobart in Tasmania and this register, however, is to vanish, replaced by the International French Register. The territory contains the land mass that is antipodal to the Contiguous United States. Île Amsterdam and Île Saint-Paul lie antipodal to two areas in south-eastern Colorado, near the cities of Lamar and Cheyenne Wells, respectively. The territorys natural resources are limited to fish and crustaceans, economic activity is limited to servicing meteorological and geophysical research stations and French and other fishing fleets. The main fish resources are Patagonian toothfish and spiny lobster, both are poached by foreign fleets, because of this, the French Navy and occasionally other services patrol the zone and arrest poaching vessels. Such arrests can result in heavy fines and/or the seizure of the ship, France used to sell licenses to foreign fisheries to fish the Patagonian toothfish, because of overfishing, it is now restricted to a small number of fisheries from Réunion Island
3.
President of France
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The President of the French Republic, is the executive head of state of the French Fifth Republic. The powers, functions and duties of prior presidential offices, and their relation with the prime minister, the current President of France is François Hollande, who took office on 15 May 2012. Hollande has announced that he stand down in the upcoming 2017 French presidential election. President Chirac was first elected in 1995 and again in 2002, at that time, there was no limit on the number of terms, so Chirac could have run again, but chose not to. He was succeeded by Nicolas Sarkozy on 16 May 2007, following a further change, the Constitutional law on the Modernisation of the Institutions of the Fifth Republic,2008, a president cannot serve more than two consecutive terms. François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac are the only Presidents to date who have served a two terms. In order to be admitted as a candidate, potential candidates must receive signed nominations from more than 500 elected officials. These officials must be from at least 30 départements or overseas collectivities, furthermore, each official may nominate only one candidate. There are exactly 45,543 elected officials, including 33,872 mayors, spending and financing of campaigns and political parties are highly regulated. There is a cap on spending, at approximately 20 million euros, if the candidate receives less than 5% of the vote, the government funds €8,000,000 to the party. Advertising on TV is forbidden but official time is given to candidates on public TV, an independent agency regulates election and party financing. After the president is elected, he or she goes through an investiture ceremony called a passation des pouvoirs. The French Fifth Republic is a semi-presidential system, unlike many other European presidents, the French President is quite powerful. The president holds the nations most senior office, and outranks all other politicians, the presidents greatest power is his/her ability to choose the prime minister. When the majority of the Assembly has opposite political views to that of the president, when the majority of the Assembly sides with them, the President can take a more active role and may, in effect, direct government policy. The prime minister is then the choice of the President. This device has been used in recent years by François Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac, since 2002, the mandate of the president and the Assembly are both 5 years and the two elections are close to each other. Therefore, the likelihood of a cohabitation is lower, among the powers of the government, The president promulgates laws
4.
Emmanuel Macron
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Emmanuel Macron is a French politician, senior civil servant, and former investment banker. Born in Amiens, he studied Philosophy at Paris Nanterre University and he went on to become an Inspector of Finances in the Inspectorate General of Finances before becoming an investment banker at Rothschild & Cie Banque. He resigned in August 2016 in order to launch a bid in the 2017 presidential election, in November 2016, Macron declared that he would run in the election under the banner of En Marche. A centrist movement he founded in April 2016, born in Amiens, Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron is the son of Jean-Michel Macron, Professor of Neurology at the University of Picardy, and Françoise Macron-Noguès, a physician. He was educated mostly at the Jésuites de la Providence lycée in Amiens before his parents sent him to finish his last year of school at the high school Lycée Henri-IV in Paris. He studied Philosophy at the University of Paris-Ouest Nanterre La Défense and he obtained a Masters degree in Public Affairs at Sciences Po, before training for a senior civil service career at the École nationale dadministration, graduating in 2004. Macron worked as an Inspector of Finances in the French Ministry of Economy between 2004 and 2008, in 2007, he served as deputy rapporteur for the Commission to improve French growth headed by Jacques Attali. While an investment banker, Macron closed a deal between Nestlé and Pfizer, which in part allowed him to amass a small fortune reportedly in the region of €2,800,000. Macron was a member of the Socialist Party from 2006 to 2009, in 2015, he stated that he was no longer a member of the PS and was now an Independent. From 2012 to 2014, he served as deputy secretary-general of the Élysée and he was appointed Minister of Economy, Industry and Digital Data in the second Valls Cabinet on 26 August 2014, replacing Arnaud Montebourg. As Minister of the Economy, Macron was at the forefront of pushing through business-friendly reforms, in February 2015, he pledged that the government would force through reforms despite opposition from the parliament. On 30 August 2016, Macron resigned from the government ahead of the 2017 presidential election and this came shortly after he founded his own progressive political movement, En Marche. An independent political party, for which he was reprimanded by President Hollande, Macron founded En Marche. in Amiens, the city of his birth. On 16 November 2016, Macron formally declared his candidacy for the French presidency after months of speculation, in his announcement speech, Macron called for a democratic revolution and promised to unblock France. He eventually laid out his 150-page formal program on 2 March, publishing it online, as well as numerous others – many of them from the Socialist Party, but also a significant number of centrist and centre-right politicians. Macron has been described by observers as a social liberal. Macron has notably advocated in favor of the market and reducing the public-finances deficit. He first publicly used the term liberal to describe himself in a 2015 interview with Le Monde and he added that he is neither right nor left and that he advocates a collective solidarity
5.
Overseas France
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Overseas France consists of all the French-administered territories outside of the European continent. Their citizens have French nationality and vote for the president of France and they have the right to vote in elections to the European Parliament. From a legal and administrative standpoint, overseas regions are different from overseas collectivities. Overseas regions have exactly the same status as mainland Frances regions, in the French overseas regions, laws cannot be adapted whereas the overseas collectivities are empowered to make their own laws, except in certain areas. The overseas collectivities are governed by elected assemblies and by the French Parliament. Overseas France has an economic zone of 9,821,231 km². Guadeloupe French Guiana Martinique Réunion Mayotte 1976–2003, sui generis overseas territory, 2001–2003, with the designation departmental community, 2003–2011, in the 2009 Mahoran status referendum, Mahorans voted to become an overseas department in 2011, which occurred on March 31,2011. The category of overseas collectivity was created by Frances constitutional reform of March 28,2003, each overseas collectivity has its own statutory laws. French Polynesia In 2004 it was given the designation of overseas country, despite being given the political status of overseas collectivity, Saint Pierre et Miquelon is called collectivité territoriale de Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, literally territorial collectivity. It is still referred to as a territoire. Saint Martin, In 2003, the populations of St. Martin, on February 7,2007, the French Parliament passed a bill granting COM status to both jurisdictions. The new status took effect on February 22,2007 when the law was published in the Journal Officiel and they remain part of the European Union, as stated in the Treaty of Lisbon. It is currently the only overseas territory, according to law 2007-224 of February 21,2007, the Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean constitute the 5th district of TAAF. New Caledonia was classified as an overseas territory beginning in 1946, a New Caledonian citizenship was established, and a gradual transfer of power from the French state to New Caledonia itself was begun, to last from 15 to 20 years. Clipperton Island is a 9 km2 coral atoll located 1,280 km south-west of Acapulco, Mexico and it is held as state private property under the direct authority of the French government, and is administered by Frances Overseas Minister. With 2,691,000 inhabitants in 2013, Overseas France account for 4. 1% of the population of the French Republic and they enjoy a corresponding representation in the two chambers of the French Parliament. In the 13th Legislature, Overseas France is represented by 27 députés in the French National Assembly,2004, Official website Overseas France at DMOZ
6.
Euro
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Outside of Europe, a number of overseas territories of EU members also use the euro as their currency. Additionally,210 million people worldwide as of 2013 use currencies pegged to the euro, the euro is the second largest reserve currency as well as the second most traded currency in the world after the United States dollar. The name euro was adopted on 16 December 1995 in Madrid. The euro was introduced to world markets as an accounting currency on 1 January 1999. While the euro dropped subsequently to US$0.8252 within two years, it has traded above the U. S. dollar since the end of 2002, peaking at US$1.6038 on 18 July 2008. In July 2012, the euro fell below US$1.21 for the first time in two years, following concerns raised over Greek debt and Spains troubled banking sector, as of 26 March 2017, the euro–dollar exchange rate stands at ~ US$1.07. The euro is managed and administered by the Frankfurt-based European Central Bank, as an independent central bank, the ECB has sole authority to set monetary policy. The Eurosystem participates in the printing, minting and distribution of notes and coins in all states. The 1992 Maastricht Treaty obliges most EU member states to adopt the euro upon meeting certain monetary and budgetary convergence criteria, all nations that have joined the EU since 1993 have pledged to adopt the euro in due course. Since 5 January 2002, the central banks and the ECB have issued euro banknotes on a joint basis. Euro banknotes do not show which central bank issued them, Eurosystem NCBs are required to accept euro banknotes put into circulation by other Eurosystem members and these banknotes are not repatriated. The ECB issues 8% of the value of banknotes issued by the Eurosystem. In practice, the ECBs banknotes are put into circulation by the NCBs and these liabilities carry interest at the main refinancing rate of the ECB. The euro is divided into 100 cents, in Community legislative acts the plural forms of euro and cent are spelled without the s, notwithstanding normal English usage. Otherwise, normal English plurals are used, with many local variations such as centime in France. All circulating coins have a side showing the denomination or value. Due to the plurality in the European Union, the Latin alphabet version of euro is used. For the denominations except the 1-, 2- and 5-cent coins, beginning in 2007 or 2008 the old map is being replaced by a map of Europe also showing countries outside the Union like Norway
7.
ISO 4217
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The ISO4217 code list is used in banking and business globally. ISO4217 codes are used on tickets and international train tickets to remove any ambiguity about the price. The first two letters of the code are the two letters of the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes and the third is usually the initial of the currency itself, so Japans currency code is JPY—JP for Japan and Y for yen. This eliminates the problem caused by the dollar, franc, peso and pound being used in dozens of different countries. Also, if a currency is revalued, the currency codes last letter is changed to distinguish it from the old currency. Other changes can be seen, however, the Russian ruble, for example, changed from RUR to RUB and these currency units are denominated as one troy ounce of the specified metal as opposed to USD1 or EUR1. The code XTS is reserved for use in testing, the code XXX is used to denote a transaction involving no currency. There are also codes specifying certain monetary instruments used in international finance, the codes for most supranational currencies, such as the East Caribbean dollar, the CFP franc, the CFA franc BEAC and the CFA franc BCEAO. The predecessor to the euro, the European Currency Unit, had the code XEU, the use of an initial letter X for these purposes is facilitated by the ISO3166 rule that no official country code beginning with X will ever be assigned. Because of this rule ISO4217 can use X codes without risk of clashing with a country code. ISO3166 country codes beginning with X are used for private custom use, consequently, ISO4217 can use X codes for non-country-specific currencies without risk of clashing with future country codes. The inclusion of EU in the ISO 3166-1 reserved codes list, the ISO4217 standard includes a crude mechanism for expressing the relationship between a major currency unit and its corresponding minor currency unit. This mechanism is called the exponent and assumes a base of 10. For example, USD is equal to 100 of its currency unit the cent. So the USD has exponent 2, the code JPY is given the exponent 0, because its minor unit, the sen, although nominally valued at 1/100 of a yen, is of such negligible value that it is no longer used. Usually, as with the USD, the currency unit has a value that is 1/100 of the major unit, but in some cases 1/1000 is used. Mauritania does not use a decimal division of units, setting 1 ouguiya equal to 5 khoums, some currencies do not have any minor currency unit at all and these are given an exponent of 0, as with currencies whose minor units are unused due to negligible value. There is also a code number assigned to each currency
8.
Coordinated Universal Time
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Coordinated Universal Time, abbreviated to UTC, is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about 1 second of mean time at 0° longitude. It is one of closely related successors to Greenwich Mean Time. For most purposes, UTC is considered interchangeable with GMT, the first Coordinated Universal Time was informally adopted on 1 January 1960. This change also adopted leap seconds to simplify future adjustments, a number of proposals have been made to replace UTC with a new system that would eliminate leap seconds, but no consensus has yet been reached. Leap seconds are inserted as necessary to keep UTC within 0.9 seconds of universal time, see the Current number of leap seconds section for the number of leap seconds inserted to date. The official abbreviation for Coordinated Universal Time is UTC and this abbreviation arose from a desire by the International Telecommunication Union and the International Astronomical Union to use the same abbreviation in all languages. English speakers originally proposed CUT, while French speakers proposed TUC, the compromise that emerged was UTC, which conforms to the pattern for the abbreviations of the variants of Universal Time. Time zones around the world are expressed using positive or negative offsets from UTC, the westernmost time zone uses UTC−12, being twelve hours behind UTC, the easternmost time zone, theoretically, uses UTC+12, being twelve hours ahead of UTC. In 1995, the nation of Kiribati moved those of its atolls in the Line Islands from UTC-10 to UTC+14 so that the country would all be on the same day. UTC is used in internet and World Wide Web standards. The Network Time Protocol, designed to synchronise the clocks of computers over the internet, computer servers, online services and other entities that rely on having a universally accepted time use UTC as it is more specific than GMT. If only limited precision is needed, clients can obtain the current UTC from a number of official internet UTC servers, for sub-microsecond precision, clients can obtain the time from satellite signals. UTC is also the standard used in aviation, e. g. for flight plans. Weather forecasts and maps all use UTC to avoid confusion about time zones, the International Space Station also uses UTC as a time standard. Amateur radio operators often schedule their radio contacts in UTC, because transmissions on some frequencies can be picked up by many time zones, UTC is also used in digital tachographs used on large goods vehicles under EU and AETR rules. UTC divides time into days, hours, minutes and seconds, days are conventionally identified using the Gregorian calendar, but Julian day numbers can also be used. Each day contains 24 hours and each hour contains 60 minutes, the number of seconds in a minute is usually 60, but with an occasional leap second, it may be 61 or 59 instead
9.
Telephone numbers in France
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The French telephone numbering plan is not only used for metropolitan France but also for the French overseas departments and some overseas collectivities. 09 Non-geographic number All geographic numbers are dialed in the ten-digit format, the international access code also changed from 19 to the International Telecommunication Unions recommended 00, bringing France into line with many other countries. When calling France from abroad, the leading zero should be omitted, for example, to call a number in Southwest France, French people usually state phone numbers as a sequence of five double-digit numbers, e. g. 0x xx xx xx xx. For numbers in the Île-de-France surrounding Paris, the old codes 3 and 6 joined the old seven digit numbers to become eight digit numbers and were assigned to the Paris area code 1, in 1996, this changed to the present ten-digit system. Following liberalisation in 1998, subscribers could access different carriers by replacing the 0 with another digit, for example, Cegetel required subscribers to dial 7, e. g. Paris 71 xx xx xx xx, instead of 01 xx xx xx xx. Similarly, the access code using Cegetel would be 70 instead of 00. The 09 prefix was introduced in September 2006 and older numbers such as 08 7X XX XX XX are replaced by 09 5X XX XX XX, guadeloupe shares its country code with the collectivities Saint Barthelemy and Saint Martin). Calls between the DOMs and metropolitan France require only the 0 to be dialed. g, on 21 June 1996, Monaco similarly adopted its own country code 377, replacing access from France. Internet in France ARCEP, La numérotation, French official plan French Phone system by Whitepages World Telephone Numbering Guide, France
10.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
11.
Archipelago
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An archipelago, sometimes called an island group or island chain, is a chain, cluster or collection of islands. The word archipelago is derived from the Greek ἄρχι- – arkhi-, in Italian, possibly following a tradition of antiquity, the Archipelago was the proper name for the Aegean Sea and, later, usage shifted to refer to the Aegean Islands. It is now used to refer to any group or, sometimes. Archipelagos may be isolated in large amounts of water or neighbouring a large land mass. For example, Scotland has more than 700 islands surrounding its mainland which form an archipelago, archipelagos are often volcanic, forming along island arcs generated by subduction zones or hotspots, but may also be the result of erosion, deposition, and land elevation. Depending on their origin, islands forming archipelagos can be referred to as oceanic islands, continental fragments. Oceanic islands are mainly of volcanic origin, continental fragments correspond to land masses that have separated from a continental mass due to tectonic displacement. Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, New Zealand, Maldives, the Bahamas, Greece, Hawaii, the largest archipelagic state in the world by area and population is Indonesia. Island arc List of landforms List of archipelagos by number of islands List of archipelagos List of islands Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Archipelago
12.
Kerguelen Plateau
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The Kerguelen Plateau is an oceanic plateau and a large igneous province in the southern Indian Ocean. It is also a microcontinent and submerged continent and it is about 3,000 km to the southwest of Australia and is nearly three times the size of Japan. The plateau extends for more than 2,200 km in a northwest–southeast direction, the plateau was produced by the Kerguelen hotspot, starting with or following the breakup of Gondwana about 130 million years ago. A small portion of the plateau breaks sea level, forming the Kerguelen Islands plus the Heard, intermittent volcanism continues on the Heard and McDonald Islands. To the north of Broken Ridge lies the linear Ninety East Ridge which continues almost due north into the Bay of Bengal and is considered to be a hotspot track. One of the largest LIPs in the world, the Kerguelen Plateau covers an area of 1,250,000 km2, located on the Antarctic Plate, the Kerguelen Plateau is separated from Australia by the Southeast Indian Ridge and from Africa by the Southwest Indian Ridge. These two ridge meet at the Rodriguez Triple Junction and it is separated from Antarctica by Princess Elizabeth Trough and the Cooperation Sea. The eastern margin north of the William Ridge is steep and formed during the breakup between the Kerguelen Plateau and the Broken Ridge, the southern part of the margin is separated from the Australian–Antarctic Basin by the deep Labuan Basin. From the initial opening of the Indian Ocean until present, the Kerguelen hotspot has produced several now widely dispersed large scale structures, the oldest volcanism that can be attributed to the Kerguelen plume are the Bunbury Basalt in southwestern Australia and the Rajmahal Traps in eastern India. The formation of the oldest portion of the Kerguelen LIP and these continental basalts are linked to the opening of the eastern Indian Ocean. The Bunbury Basalt is not of flood basalt dimension which suggest that the underlying the newly formed Kerguelen hotspot was neither significantly hot, wet. In contrast, the magmatism that produced the Australia–India breakup 136–158 Ma created the Wallaby Plateau, the output from the Kerguelen hotspot peaked 120–95 Ma, 12–70 Ma after the India–Antarctica breakup. The peak output of the Kerguelen hotspot coincides with one or several microcontinent formations, parts of the Kerguelen Plateau, the Elan Bank and the SKP, were originally attached to India and are composed of continental lithosphere. One or several ridge jumps transformed the Elan Bank into a microcontinent and dispersed continental fragments in the SKP, the ridge jump that made the Elan Bank a microcontinent occurred after 124 Ma. The development of the Southern Kerguelen Plateau 118–119 Ma contributed to the oceanic anoxic event 1, around 83.5 Ma sea floor spreading between India and Antarctica was asymmetric in the Kerguelen Plateau region with two-thirds of the sea floor created being added to the Antarctic Plate. A ridge jump eventually resulted in parts of the Kerguelen Plateau being transferred from the Indian to the Antarctic Plate, the Kerguelen hotspot produced the 5,000 km long Ninety East Ridge 82–38 Ma, and geochemical evidence suggests that this occurred at or near a spreading ridge. The lack of a structure on the Antarctic Plate, however. As the Antarctic Plate then moved over the Kerguelen hotspot the NKP formed over relatively old oceanic crust, flood basalts in the Kerguelen archipelago formed 30–24 Ma and less voluminous and more recent volcanism occurred until 1 Ma
13.
Extreme points of Earth
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The northernmost point of Earth is the geographic North Pole, in the Arctic Ocean. The northernmost point on land is the tip of Kaffeklubben Island, north of Greenland. Various shifting gravel bars lie farther north, the most famous being Oodaaq, the southernmost point of the world and the southernmost point on land is the geographic South Pole, which is on the continent of Antarctica. The southernmost point of water is a bay on the Filchner-Ronne Ice Shelf at the coast of Antarctica about 100 kilometres south of Berkner Island, the southernmost island of the world. The southernmost point of Ocean is Gould Coast The southernmost open sea is part of Ross Sea, namely Bay of Whales at 78°30S. The westernmost point on land, according to the path of the International Date Line, is Attu Island, the easternmost point on land, according to the path of the International Date Line, is Caroline Island, Kiribati. While measurements of its height vary slightly, the elevation of its peak is given as 8,848 m above sea level. The point farthest from the Earths center is the summit of Chimborazo, in Ecuador and this is due to the Earth being an oblate spheroid rather than a perfect sphere. An oblate spheroid is very much like a sphere except it is wider at the equator and this means that Chimborazo, which is near the equator, is farther away from the center of the Earth than the peak of Mount Everest. The summit of Mount Everest is 2,168 metres closer at 6,382.3 km to the Earths center, perus Huascarán contends closely with Chimborazo, the difference in the mountains heights being 23 m The lowest point underground ever reached was 12,262 m deep. The lowest human-sized point underground is 3,900 m below ground at the TauTona Mine, Carletonville, the lowest artificially made point with open sky may be the Hambach surface mine, Germany,293 m below sea level. The lowest artificially made point with open sky may be the Bingham Canyon open-pit mine, Salt Lake City, the lowest point underwater was the 10,680 m -deep oil and gas well drilled on the Tiber Oil Field located in the Gulf of Mexico. The lowest point underground is more than 2,000 m under the Earths surface, for example, the altitude difference in the Krubera Cave between the entrance and the deepest explored point is 2,191 ±20 m. In 2012, Ukrainian cave diver Gennadiy Samokhin had reached the lowest point, the lowest point on land not covered by liquid water is the valley under Byrd Glacier, which reaches 2,780 m below sea level. It is, however, covered by a layer of ice. See the extremes on Earth page, but the closest point of the dry land is the point at the Karo Hills in the Queen Maud Mountains at the Antarctica. Road, Aucanquilcha, Chile,6,176 m, mining road to summit of volcano, the road is no longer usable. 21. 214°S68. 475°W / -21.214, -68.475 Road, Mana Pass, marsimik La in India,5,582 m and Semo La 5,565 m in Tibet are also contenders depending on the definition of a motorable mountain pass
14.
Heard Island and McDonald Islands
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The groups overall size is 372 square kilometres in area and it has 101.9 km of coastline. Discovered in the century, the islands have been an Australian territory since 1947. The summit of one, Mawson Peak, is higher than any mountain on the Australian mainland, the islands lie on the Kerguelen Plateau in the Indian Ocean. Heard Island, by far the largest of the group, is a 368-square-kilometre bleak and its mountains are covered by 41 glaciers and dominated by Mawson Peak, a 2, 745-metre high complex volcano which forms part of the Big Ben massif. The McDonald Islands are located 44 kilometres to the west of Heard Island at 53°02′20″S 72°36′04″E, the islands are small and rocky. In 1980 they consisted of McDonald Island, Flat Island and Meyer Rock and they totalled approximately 2.5 square kilometres in area, where McDonald Island was 1.13 square kilometres. There is a group of islets and rocks about 10 kilometres north of Heard Island, consisting of Shag Islet, Sail Rock, Morgan Island. They total about 1.1 square kilometres in area, Mawson Peak and McDonald Island are the only two active volcanoes in Australian territory. Mawson Peak is also one of the highest Australian mountains, surpassed only by Mount McClintock range in the Antarctic territory, Mawson Peak has erupted several times in the last decade, the most recent eruption was filmed on 2 February 2016. The volcano on McDonald Island, after being dormant for 75,000 years, became active in 1992 and has erupted several times since, Heard Island and the McDonald Islands have no ports or harbours, ships must anchor offshore. The coastline is 101.9 kilometres, and a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea, the islands have an Antarctic climate, tempered by their maritime setting. The weather is marked by low seasonal and daily temperature ranges, persistent and generally low cloud cover, frequent precipitation and strong winds. Monthly average temperatures at Atlas Cove range from 0.0 to 4.2 °C, with an average range of 3.7 to 5.2 °C in summer. The winds are westerly and persistently strong. At Atlas Cove, monthly average wind speeds range between around 26 to 33.5 km/h, gusts in excess of 180 km/h have been recorded. Annual precipitation at sea level on Heard Island is in the order of 1,300 to 1,900 mm, meteorological records at Heard Island are incomplete. The islands are part of the Southern Indian Ocean Islands tundra ecoregion that includes several subantarctic islands, in this cold climate plant life is mainly limited to grasses, lichens, and mosses. Low plant diversity reflects the islands’ isolation, small size, severe climate, at Heard Island, exposure to salt spray and the presence of breeding and moulting seabirds and seals are particularly strong influences on vegetation composition and structure in coastal areas
15.
Madagascar
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Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, and previously known as the Malagasy Republic, is an island country in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Southeast Africa. The nation comprises the island of Madagascar, and numerous smaller peripheral islands, consequently, Madagascar is a biodiversity hotspot, over 90% of its wildlife is found nowhere else on Earth. The islands diverse ecosystems and unique wildlife are threatened by the encroachment of the growing human population. The first archaeological evidence for human foraging on Madagascar dates to 2000 BC, human settlement of Madagascar occurred between 350 BC and AD550 by Austronesian peoples arriving on outrigger canoes from Borneo. These were joined around AD1000 by Bantu migrants crossing the Mozambique Channel from East Africa, other groups continued to settle on Madagascar over time, each one making lasting contributions to Malagasy cultural life. The Malagasy ethnic group is divided into 18 or more sub-groups of which the largest are the Merina of the central highlands. Until the late 18th century, the island of Madagascar was ruled by an assortment of shifting sociopolitical alliances. Beginning in the early 19th century, most of the island was united and ruled as the Kingdom of Madagascar by a series of Merina nobles, the monarchy collapsed in 1897 when the island was absorbed into the French colonial empire, from which the island gained independence in 1960. The autonomous state of Madagascar has since undergone four major constitutional periods, since 1992, the nation has officially been governed as a constitutional democracy from its capital at Antananarivo. However, in an uprising in 2009, president Marc Ravalomanana was made to resign. Constitutional governance was restored in January 2014, when Hery Rajaonarimampianina was named president following a 2013 election deemed fair, Madagascar is a member of the United Nations, the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie and the Southern African Development Community. Madagascar belongs to the group of least developed countries, according to the United Nations, Malagasy and French are both official languages of the state. The majority of the population adheres to traditional beliefs, Christianity, ecotourism and agriculture, paired with greater investments in education, health, and private enterprise, are key elements of Madagascars development strategy. As of 2017, the economy has been weakened by the 2009-2013 political crisis, in the Malagasy language, the island of Madagascar is called Madagasikara and its people are referred to as Malagasy. The islands appellation Madagascar is not of origin, but rather was popularized in the Middle Ages by Europeans. On St. Laurences Day in 1500, Portuguese explorer Diogo Dias landed on the island, polos name was preferred and popularized on Renaissance maps. At 592,800 square kilometres, Madagascar is the worlds 47th largest country, the country lies mostly between latitudes 12°S and 26°S, and longitudes 43°E and 51°E. Neighboring islands include the French territory of Réunion and the country of Mauritius to the east, as well as the state of Comoros, the nearest mainland state is Mozambique, located to the west
16.
Alfred Faure
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Alfred-Faure or Port Alfred is a permanent French scientific station on Île de la Possession of the subantarctic Crozet Archipelago in the South Indian Ocean. It is located at the end of the island on a plateau 143 m above sea level. Depending on the season, there are between 15-60 personnel working at the base and their scientific work includes meteorological, seismic, biological and geological research. The research station was first established during the summer of 1963-64. It replaced a temporary base that was built in 1961. The new station was named after Alfred Faure who was the leader in the early 1960s. Alfred-Faure is visited a few times a year by the Marion Dufresne, there is a 1.6 km road that connects the research station to the coast. There is also an aerial cableway that runs up from the coast to the station, virtual Map of Ile de la Possession
17.
Crozet Islands
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The Crozet Islands are a sub-antarctic archipelago of small islands in the southern Indian Ocean. They form one of the five districts of the French Southern. The Crozet Islands were discovered on 24 January 1772 by the expedition of French explorer Marc-Joseph Marion du Fresne and his second-in-command Jules Crozet landed on Île de la Possession, claiming the archipelago for France. The expedition continued east and landed at New Zealand, where Captain Marion, Crozet survived the disaster, and successfully led the survivors back to their base at Mauritius. In 1776 Crozet met James Cook at Cape Town, at the onset of Cooks third voyage, Crozet shared the charts of his ill-fated expedition, and as Cook sailed eastward he stopped at the islands, naming the western group Marion and the eastern group Crozet. In the early 19th century, the islands were visited by sealers. Subsequently, whaling was the activity around the islands, especially by the whalers from Massachusetts. In 1841 there were a dozen whaleships around the islands, within a couple of years this had increased to twenty from the United States alone. Such exploitation was short-lived, and the islands were visited for the rest of the century. Shipwrecks occurred frequently at the Crozet Islands, the British sealer, Princess of Wales, sank in 1821, and the survivors spent two years on the islands. The Strathmore was wrecked in 1875, in 1887, the French Tamaris was wrecked and her crew stranded on Île des Cochons. They tied a note to the leg of an albatross, which was seven months later in Fremantle. Because shipwrecks around the islands were so common, for some time the Royal Navy dispatched a ship every few years to look for stranded survivors, the steamship Australasian also checked for survivors en route to Australia. Between 1924 and 1955, France administered the islands as a dependency of Madagascar, Crozet Islands became part of the French Southern Territories in 1955. In 1938, the Crozet Islands were declared a nature reserve, in 1961, a first research station was set up, but it was not until 1963 that the permanent station Alfred Faure opened at Port Alfred on Île de la Possession. The station is staffed by 18 to 30 people and does meteorological, biological, and geological research, maintains a seismograph, not including minor islets or rock reefs etc. the Crozet group consists of six islands. From west to east, Group of two islands and about 20 pinnacle rocks. Previous scientific stations included La Grande Manchotière and La Petite Manchotière, analysis of magnetic anomalies on the sea floor indicates that the Crozet Plateau formed some 50 million years ago
18.
Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean
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They have never had a permanent population. Also in the Mozambique Channel is the Banc du Geyser, a reef under French control claimed by Madagascar since 1976, France and the Comoros view the Banc du Geyser as part of the Glorioso Islands. The islands have been classified as nature reserves, except for Bassas da India, they all support meteorological stations, those on the Glorioso Islands, Juan de Nova, and Europa Island are automated. The station on Tromelin Island, in particular, provides warning of cyclones threatening Madagascar, Réunion, each of the islands, except Bassas da India and Banc du Geyser, has an airstrip of more than 1,000 metres. Mauritius, the Comoros, and Madagascar dispute Frances sovereignty over the islands, Mauritius claims Tromelin and argues that the island, discovered by France in 1722, was not ceded by the treaty of Paris in 1814. The Comoros claims the Glorioso Islands too, as a part of the disputed French region of Mayotte, Madagascar claims Juan de Nova, and Europa and Bassas da India since 1972. Seychelles claimed a part of Scattered Islands too before the France–Seychelles Maritime Boundary Agreement, the Îles Éparses had previously been under the administration of the prefect of Réunion since the independence of Madagascar in 1960. France maintains a garrison of around 14 troops on each of the islands in the Mozambique Channel that are claimed by Madagascar. The Glorioso Islands are also claimed by the Comoros, while Mauritius claims Tromelin Island, there is considerable overlap of the EEZ with the neighbouring states. French overseas departments and territories Administrative divisions of France French Southern and Antarctic Lands Official website Îles Éparses travel guide from Wikivoyage
19.
Philippe Buache
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Philippe Buache was a French geographer. Buache was trained under the geographer Guillaume Delisle, whose daughter he married, Buache was nominated first geographer of the king in 1729. He established the division of the world by seas and river systems and he believed in a southern continent, an hypothesis which was confirmed by later discoveries. In 1754, he published an Atlas physique and his nephew, Jean Nicolas Buache, was also a geographer of the king. Considérations géographiques et physiques sur les découvertes nouvelles dans la grande mer and this contains a chart of the western coast of North America. Le parallèle des fleuves des quatre parties du monde pour servir a la hauteur des montagnes Mémoire sur la traversée de la mer glaciale arctique. This contains his hypothesis of an Alaskan peninsula, considérations géographiques sur les terres australes et antarctiques Wilson, James Grant, Fiske, John, eds. The French West Indies Collection, including geographical writings of cartographer Philippe Buache, are available for use at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania
20.
Abel Tasman
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Abel Janszoon Tasman was a Dutch seafarer, explorer, and merchant, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the Dutch East India Company. In 1633 he sailed from Texel to Batavia in the service of the Dutch East India Company, Tasman took part in a voyage to Seram Island, the locals had sold spices to others than the Dutch. He had a escape from death, when in an incautious landing several of his companions were killed by people of Seram. In August 1637 he was back in Amsterdam, and the year he signed on for another ten years. On 25 March 1638 he tried to sell his property in the Jordaan, in 1639 he was second-in-command of an exploration expedition in the north Pacific under Matthijs Quast. The fleet included the ships Engel and Gracht and reached Fort Zeelandia and this expedition used two small ships, the Heemskerck and the Zeehaen. According to Marco Polo, Locach was a kingdom where gold was “so plentiful that no one who did not see it could believe it”, Beach was in fact a mistranscription of Locach. Locach was Marco Polo’s name for the southern Thai kingdom of Lavo, or Lop Buri, in Chinese, Lavo was pronounced “Lo-huk”, from which Marco Polo took his rendition of the name. In the German cursive script, “Locach” and “Boeach” look similar and they seem to have drawn on the map of the world published in Florence in 1489 by Henricus Martellus, in which provincia boëach appears as the southern neighbour of provincia ciamba. Book III of Marco Polo’s Il Milione described his journey by sea from China to India by way of Champa, Java, Locach, after a chapter describing the kingdom of Champa there follows a chapter describing Java. Locach, located between Champa and Sumatra, was likewise misplaced far to the south of Java, by some geographers on or near an extension of the Terra Australis. Gerard Mercator did just that on his 1541 globe, placing Beach provincia aurifera in the northernmost part of the Terra Australis in accordance with the faulty text of Marco Polo’s Travels. Following Mercator, Abraham Ortelius also showed BEACH and LVCACH in these locations on his map of 1571. Confirmation that land existed where the maps showed Beach to be had come from Dirk Hartog’s landing in October 1616 on its west coast, which he called Eendrachtsland after the name of his ship. In accordance with Visschers directions, Tasman sailed from Batavia on 14 August 1642 and arrived at Mauritius on 5 September 1642, the reason for this was the crew could be fed well on the island, there was plenty of fresh water and timber to repair the ships. Tasman got the assistance of the governor Adriaan van der Stel, because of the prevailing winds Mauritius was chosen as a turning point. After a four-week stay on the island both ships left on 8 October using the Roaring Forties to sail east as fast as possible. On 7 November snow and hail influenced the ships council to alter course to a more north-eastern direction, on 24 November 1642 Abel Tasman reached and sighted the west coast of Tasmania, north of Macquarie Harbour
21.
James Cook
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Captain James Cook FRS RN was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the Royal Navy. Cook joined the British merchant navy as a teenager and joined the Royal Navy in 1755 and he saw action in the Seven Years War, and subsequently surveyed and mapped much of the entrance to the Saint Lawrence River during the siege of Quebec. This helped bring Cook to the attention of the Admiralty and Royal Society, in three voyages Cook sailed thousands of miles across largely uncharted areas of the globe. He mapped lands from New Zealand to Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean in greater detail, as he progressed on his voyages of discovery he surveyed and named features, and recorded islands and coastlines on European maps for the first time. He displayed a combination of seamanship, superior surveying and cartographic skills, physical courage, Cook was attacked and killed while attempting to kidnap the native chief of Hawaii during his third exploratory voyage in the Pacific in 1779. He left a legacy of scientific and geographical knowledge which was to influence his successors well into the 20th century, and numerous memorials worldwide have been dedicated to him. James Cook was born on 7 November 1728 in the village of Marton in Yorkshire and baptised on 14 November in the church of St Cuthbert. He was the second of eight children of James Cook, a Scottish farm labourer from Ednam in Roxburghshire, in 1736, his family moved to Airey Holme farm at Great Ayton, where his fathers employer, Thomas Skottowe, paid for him to attend the local school. In 1741, after five years schooling, he work for his father. For leisure, he would climb a hill, Roseberry Topping, enjoying the opportunity for solitude. Cooks Cottage, his parents last home, which he is likely to have visited, is now in Melbourne, having moved from England and reassembled, brick by brick. In 1745, when he was 16, Cook moved 20 miles to the village of Staithes. Historians have speculated that this is where Cook first felt the lure of the sea while gazing out of the shop window. After 18 months, not proving suitable for work, Cook travelled to the nearby port town of Whitby to be introduced to friends of Sandersons, John. The Walkers, who were Quakers, were prominent local ship-owners in the coal trade and their house is now the Captain Cook Memorial Museum. Cook was taken on as a merchant navy apprentice in their fleet of vessels. His first assignment was aboard the collier Freelove, and he spent several years on this and various other coasters, sailing between the Tyne and London. As part of his apprenticeship, Cook applied himself to the study of algebra, geometry, trigonometry, navigation and his three-year apprenticeship completed, Cook began working on trading ships in the Baltic Sea
22.
Third voyage of James Cook
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HMS Resolution, to be commanded by Cook, and HMS Discovery, commanded by Charles Clerke, were prepared for the voyage which started from Plymouth in 1776. The ships travelled to Cape Town by way of Tenerife then on to New Zealand, Omai was returned to his homeland and the ships sailed onwards, discovering the Hawaiian Archipelago, before reaching the Pacific coast of North America. The two charted the west coast of the continent and passed through the Bering Strait when they were stopped by ice from sailing either east or west, the vessels returned to the Pacific and called briefly at the Aleutians before retiring towards Hawaii for the winter. After a time during which Cook, and his crew were feted and he soon suffered damage to his ship and had to turn back. On his return, conflict arose which resulted in Cooks death, Cooks remains were taken away by the Hawaiians but some were returned to be buried at sea by his crew. The command of the expedition was assumed by Charles Clerke who tried in vain to find the passage before his own death, under the command of John Gore the crews returned to a subdued London in October 1780. Principally, the purpose of the voyage was an attempt to discover the famed Northwest Passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific around the top of North America. Cooks orders from the Admiralty were driven by a 1745 Act which, initially the Admiralty had wanted Charles Clerke to lead the expedition, with Cook, who was in retirement following his exploits in the Pacific, acting as a consultant. However, Cook had researched Berings expeditions, and the Admiralty ultimately placed their faith in the veteran explorer to lead with Clerke accompanying him. The arrangement was to make a two pronged attack, Cook moving from the Bering Strait in the north Pacific with Richard Pickersgill in the frigate Lyon taking the Atlantic approach and they planned to rendezvous in the summer of 1778. He arrived in London in October 1774 and was introduced into society by the naturalist Sir Joseph Banks, ostensibly, the third voyage was planned to return Omai to Tahiti, this is what the general public believed. On his last voyage, Cook once again commanded HMS Resolution. Resolution began her career as the 462 ton North Sea collier Marquis of Granby, launched at Whitby in 1770 and she was 111 feet long and 35 feet abeam. She was originally registered as HMS Drake, after she returned to Britain in 1775 she had been paid off but was then recommissioned in February 1776 for Cooks third voyage. The vessel had on board a quantity of livestock sent by George III as gifts for the South Sea Islanders and these included sheep, cattle, goats and pigs as well as the more usual poultry. She was 27 feet abeam with a depth of 11 feet. Originally a brig, Cook had her changed to a full rigged ship, as his first lieutenant, Cook had John Gore, who had been round the world with him in the Endeavour and with Samuel Wallis in HMS Dolphin. James King was his officer and John Williamson third
23.
George Cooke (painter)
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George Esten Cooke was an itinerant United States painter who specialized in portrait and landscape paintings and was one of the Souths best known painters of the mid nineteenth century. His primary patron was the industrialist Daniel Pratt, who built a gallery in Prattville, born in St. Marys County, Maryland, Cooke abandoned a fledgling career in business at an early age in order to become a full-time artist. After several years of painting portraits for a living, Cooke left for what would become a tour of Europe. His time there was spent learning from and copying the works of the Renaissance master artists. At some time between 1826 and 1830, he made a copy in Paris of The Raft of the Medusa, Cookes smaller version was shown in Boston, Philadelphia, New York and Washington, D. C, to crowds, who knew about the controversy surrounding subject. Reviews favoured the painting, which also stimulated plays, poems, performances, the universitys conservation department undertook restoration of the work. After returning to the U. S. Cooke and his wife spent the next decade traveling and working with no fixed home, in 1844 in New Orleans, Cooke started what would become his most important professional relationship when he met Alabama industrialist Daniel Pratt. Pratt was immediately drawn to Cookes work, and decided to give the artist two floors in one of his warehouses for Cooke to use as a gallery and studio. After a few years, Pratt decided to take the step of adding a separate gallery to his home in Prattville, Alabama. In 1867, Pratt donated Interior of St. Peters Rome to the University of Georgia, where it still hangs today in the Universitys chapel. At 17 by 23.5 feet, the work was said to be the largest framed oil painting in the world at the time of its donation, and it still ranks among the worlds largest. The health of George Cooke had never been good, and in 1849, in New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana, he contracted cholera. Nearly twenty years after his death, the gallery in Pratville was found to be infested with dry rot and had to be torn down to prevent the rot from spreading, as a result, all of Cookes work housed at the gallery wound up being destroyed or dispersed. It was this threat that prompted Daniel Pratt to donate Interior of St. Peters Rome to the University of Georgia, article on Cookes copy of The Raft of the Medusa George Cooke at Find a Grave
24.
Fur seal
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Fur seals are any of nine species of pinnipeds belonging to the Arctocephalinae subfamily in the Otariidae family. They are much more related to sea lions than true seals, and share with them external ears, relatively long and muscular foreflippers. They are marked by their dense underfur, which made them an object of commercial hunting. Recent genetic evidence, however, suggests Callorhinus is more related to some sea lion species. Nonetheless, all fur seals have certain features in common, the fur, generally smaller sizes, farther and longer foraging trips, smaller and more abundant prey items, for these reasons, the distinction remains useful. Fur seals share with other otariids the ability to turn their rear limbs forward, fur seals are generally smaller than sea lions. At under 1 m, the Galápagos fur seal is the smallest of all pinnipeds, however, their flippers tend to be proportionately longer, their pelage tends to be darker, and their vibrissae are more prominent. Males are often more than five times heavier than the females, typically, fur seals gather during the summer in large assemblages at specific beaches or rocky outcrops to give birth and breed. All species are polygynous, meaning dominant males reproduce with more than one female, for most species, total gestation lasts about 11.5 months, including a several-month period of delayed implantation of the embryo. After several continuous days of nursing the newborn pups, females go on extended foraging trips that can last as long as a week, males fast during the reproductive season, unwilling to leave their females or territories. The remainder of the year, fur seals lead a pelagic existence in the open sea. Fur seals feed on moderately sized fish, squid, and krill, several species of the southern fur seal also have sea birds, especially penguins, as part of their diets. The fur seals, in turn, are preyed upon by sharks, killer whales, when fur seals were hunted in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, they hauled out on remote islands where no predators were present. The hunters reported being able to club the unwary animals to one after another, making the hunt profitable. Many fur seal species were exploited by commercial sealers, especially during the 19th century when their fur was highly valued. Many populations, notably the Guadalupe fur seal, northern fur seal, currently, most species are protected and hunting is mostly limited to subsistence harvest. Globally, most populations can be considered healthy, mostly because they often prefer remote habitats that are inaccessible to humans. Nonetheless, environmental degradation, competition with fisheries, and climate change potentially pose threats to some populations
25.
Elephant seal
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Elephant seals are large, oceangoing earless seals in the genus Mirounga. The two species, the elephant seal and the southern elephant seal, were both hunted to the brink of extinction by the end of the 19th century, but the numbers have since recovered. The northern elephant seal, somewhat smaller than its southern relative, the most northerly breeding location on the Pacific Coast is at Race Rocks, at the southern tip of Vancouver Island in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. In southern Chile, there is a colony of 120 animals at Jackson Bay, Admiralty Sound. The oldest known unambiguous elephant seal fossils are fossils of an unnamed member of the tribe Miroungini described from the late Pliocene Petane Formation of New Zealand. Elephant seals breed annually and are faithful to colonies that have established breeding areas. Elephant seals take their name from the proboscis of the adult male. The bulls proboscis is used in producing extraordinarily loud roaring noises, more importantly, however, the nose acts as a sort of rebreather, filled with cavities designed to reabsorb moisture from the animals exhalations. This is important during the season when the seals do not leave the beach to feed. Northern elephant seal bulls reach a length of 4.3 to 4.8 m, elephant seals spend upwards of 80% of their lives in the ocean. They can hold their breath for more than 100 minutes – longer than any other noncetacean mammal, elephant seals dive to 1,550 m beneath the oceans surface. Their stomachs also often contain gastroliths, while excellent swimmers, they are also capable of rapid movement on land. Elephant seals are shielded from cold by their blubber, more so than by fur. The animals hair and outer layers of skin molt in large patches, the skin has to be regrown by blood vessels reaching through the blubber. When molting occurs, the seal is susceptible to the cold, northern males and young adults haul out during June to July to molt, northern females and immature seals during April to May. Elephant seals have a large volume of blood, allowing them to hold a large amount of oxygen for use when diving. They have large sinuses in their abdomens to hold blood and can store oxygen in their muscles with increased myoglobin concentrations in muscle. In addition, they have a proportion of oxygen-carrying red blood cells
26.
Whaling
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Whaling is the hunting of whales for their usable products like meat, oil and blubber. Its earliest forms date to at least circa 3000 BC, various coastal communities have long histories of subsistence whaling and harvesting beached whales. By the late 1930s, more than 50,000 whales were killed annually In 1986, contemporary whaling is subject to intense debate. Pro-whaling countries, notably Japan, Norway, and Iceland, wish to lift the ban on certain whale stocks for hunting, anti-whaling countries and environmental groups oppose lifting the ban. Whaling began in times and was initially confined to coastal waters. Early whaling affected the development of disparate cultures – such as Norway. The Basques were the first to catch whales commercially, and dominated the trade for five centuries, spreading to the far corners of the North Atlantic and even reaching the South Atlantic. Although prehistoric hunting and gathering is considered to have had little ecological impact. Whale oil is used today and modern commercial whaling is primarily done for food. The primary species hunted are the common minke whale and Antarctic minke whale, recent scientific surveys estimate a population of 103,000 in the northeast Atlantic. International cooperation on whaling began in 1931 and culminated in the signing of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling in 1946. Its aim is to, provide for the conservation of whale stocks. The International Whaling Commission was set up under the ICRW to decide hunting quotas, non-member countries are not bound by its regulations and conduct their own management programs. The IWC voted on July 23,1982, to establish a moratorium on commercial whaling beginning in the 1985–86 season. Since 1992, the IWCs Scientific Committee has requested that it be allowed to give proposals for some whale stocks. At the 2010 meeting of the International Whaling Commission in Morocco, Japan, Norway and Iceland have urged the organisation to lift the ban. A coalition of anti-whaling nations has offered a plan that would allow these countries to continue whaling. Their plan would also completely ban whaling in the Southern Ocean, opponents of the compromise plan want to see an end to all commercial whaling, but are willing to allow subsistence-level catches by indigenous peoples
27.
Australians
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Australians, colloquially known as Aussies, are people associated with Australia, sharing a common history, culture, and language. Present-day Australians are citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia, governed by its nationality law, the majority of Australians descend from the peoples of the British Isles. Many early settlements were penal colonies, and transported convicts made up a significant proportion of the population in most colonies, large-scale immigration did not occur until the 1850s, following a series of gold rushes. Prior to British settlement, Australia was inhabited by indigenous peoples – Aboriginal Australians, Aboriginal Tasmanians, and Torres Strait Islanders. A small percentage of present-day Australians descend from these peoples, the development of a separate Australian identity and national character is most often linked with the period surrounding the First World War, which gave rise to the concept of the Anzac spirit. The Eureka Rebellion of 1854 and various events of the Second World War, large-scale immigration occurred after the First and Second World Wars, with many post-World War II migrants coming from Southern and Eastern Europe introducing a variety of elements. Immigration from the Middle East, south and east Asia, Australian culture has diverged significantly since British settlement. Australians are referred to as Aussie and Antipodean, Australians were historically referred to as Colonials, British and British subjects. Australian identity draws on a multicultural, European and British cultural heritage, today, Australians of Anglo and other European descent are the dominant majority in Australia, estimated at 85–92% of the total population. Historically, European immigrants had great influence over Australian history and society, since soon after the beginning of British settlement in 1788, people of European descent have formed the majority of the population in Australia. The majority of Australians are of British – English, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish, or Manx –, although some observers stress Australias convict history, the vast majority of early settlers came of their own free will. Far more Australians are descended from assisted immigrants than from convicts, about 20% of Australians are descendants of convicts. Most of the first Australian settlers came from London, the Midlands and the North of England, anglo-Celtic Australians have been highly influential in shaping the nations culture. By the mid-1840s, the numbers of settlers had overtaken the convict population. In 1888,60 percent of the Australian population had been born in Australia, out of the remaining 40 percent,34 percent had been born in the British Isles, and 6 percent were of European origin, mainly from Germany and Scandinavia. In the 1840s, Scots-born immigrants constituted 12 percent of the Australian population, there were 1.3 million British migrants to Australia in the period from 1861–1914, of which 13.5 percent were Scots. 5.3 percent of the convicts transported to Eastern Australia between 1789 and 1852 were Scots, by 1850, there were 290,000 Aboriginal Australians. The European population grew from 0.3 percent of the population of the continent at 1800 to 58.6 percent at 1850, germans formed the largest non-British community for most of the 19th century
28.
Robinson Pass
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It is part of the glacial divide between Sabazios Glacier to the north and Embree Glacier to the south. Reston, Virginia, US Geological Survey,1961, scale 1,250000 topographic map of Antarctica. Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research, 1993–2016 and this article includes information from the Antarctic Place-names Commission of Bulgaria which is used with permission
29.
Seal hunting
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Seal hunting, or sealing, is the personal or commercial hunting of seals. Seal hunting is practiced in nine countries, Canada, the United States, Namibia, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Russia, Finland. Most of the seal hunting takes place in Canada and Greenland. Canadas largest market for seals is Norway, the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans regulates the seal hunt in Canada. The DFO set harvest quotas of over 90,000 seals in 2007,275,000 in 2008,280,000 in 2009, and 330,000 in 2010. The actual kills in recent years have less than the quotas,82,800 in 2007,217,800 in 2008,72,400 in 2009. In 2007, Norway claimed that 29,000 harp seals were killed in its seal hunt, and Russia and Greenland claimed that 5,476 and 90,000 seals were killed in 2007, respectively. Harp seal populations in the northwest Atlantic declined to approximately 2 million in the late 1960s as a result of Canadas annual kill rates, conservationists demanded reduced rates of killing and stronger regulations to avert the extinction of the harp seal. An endangered seal is the Mediterranean monk seal, in 1971, the Canadian government responded by instituting a quota system. Because it was thought that the competitive element might cause sealers to cut corners, new regulations were introduced that limited the catch to 400 seals per day, a 2007 population survey conducted by the DFO estimated the population at 5.5 million. It is illegal in Canada to hunt newborn harp seals and young hooded seals, when the seal pups begin to molt their downy white fur at the age of 12–14 days, they are called ragged-jacket and can be commercially hunted. After molting, the seals are called beaters, named for the way they beat the water with their flippers, the hunt remains highly controversial, attracting significant media coverage and protests each year. Images from past hunts have become symbols for conservation, animal welfare. In 2009, Russia banned the hunting of harp seals less than one year old, the term seal is used to refer to a diverse group of animals. In science, they are grouped together in the Pinnipeds, which includes the walrus, not popularly thought of as a seal. The fur seal yields a valuable fur, the seal has no fur. Archeological evidence indicates the Native Americans and First Nations People in Canada have been hunting seals for at least 4,000 years, traditionally, when an Inuit boy killed his first seal or caribou, a feast was held. The meat was an important source of fat, protein, vitamin A, vitamin B12 and iron, the Inuit diet is rich in fish, whale, and seal
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Golfe du Morbihan (Kerguelen)
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The Golfe du Morbihan is a bay on the eastern coast of Grande Terre, the largest of the Kerguelen islands. It forms a deep and broad notch in the section of the island. It is a relatively protected maritime space constituting a natural shelter for the ships and on the banks of which were established the stations of Port-Jeanne-dArc, the gulf of Morbihan is strewn with many islands and islets. It was thus so called by Raymond Rallier du Baty at the time of its forwardings of the beginning of the 20th century in the honour of the Gulf of Morbihan in Brittany. Morbihan derives directly from the Breton name which is Ar Morbihan, meaning the little sea, the name of Gulf of Morbihan appears on a chart published in 1922. Previously the place was known as Royal Sound, given by James Cook and this remains in the name of Passe Royale, the entry of the gulf. However the name Baie du Morbihan appears on charts and is often used indifferently even in official writings. The islands of the gulf have been identified by BirdLife International as a 280 km2 Important Bird Area because of their value as breeding sites for seabirds, of the 20 islands and numerous islets included in the IBA, the largest is the 20 km2 Île Australia. Some of the islands are free of introduced species, but others are infested by rats, mice, some islands still have their original subantarctic vegetation, including Kerguelen cabbages, lyallia cushions and Moseleys buttercups. They are of particular interest because of their populations of blue
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Transit of Venus
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A transit of Venus across the Sun takes place when the planet Venus passes directly between the Sun and a superior planet, becoming visible against the solar disk. During a transit, Venus can be seen from Earth as a black disk moving across the face of the Sun. The duration of such transits is usually measured in hours, a transit is similar to a solar eclipse by the Moon. While the diameter of Venus is more than 3 times that of the Moon, Venus appears smaller, Transits of Venus are among the rarest of predictable astronomical phenomena. They occur in a pattern that repeats every 243 years. The periodicity is a reflection of the fact that the periods of Earth. The last transit of Venus was on 5 and 6 June 2012, and was the last Venus transit of the 21st century, the previous pair of transits were in December 1874 and December 1882. The next transits of Venus will be on 10–11 December 2117, Venus transits are historically of great scientific importance as they were used to gain the first realistic estimates of the size of the Solar System. Observations of the 1639 transit, combined with the principle of parallax, the 2012 transit provided scientists with a number of other research opportunities, particularly in the refinement of techniques to be used in the search for exoplanets. Venus, with an orbit inclined by 3. 4° relative to the Earths, although the inclination between these two orbital planes is only 3. 4°, Venus can be as far as 9. 6° from the Sun when viewed from the Earth at inferior conjunction. Since the angular diameter of the Sun is about half a degree, sequences of transits usually repeat every 243 years. After this period of time Venus and Earth have returned to nearly the same point in their respective orbits. During the Earths 243 sidereal orbital periods, which total 88,757.3 days, Venus completes 395 sidereal orbital periods of 224.701 days each and this period of time corresponds to 152 synodic periods of Venus. Prior to 1518, the pattern of transits was 8,113.5 and 121.5 years, the current pattern will continue until 2846, when it will be replaced by a pattern of 105.5,129.5 and 8 years. Thus, the 243-year cycle is relatively stable, but the number of transits, for instance, there is a series which ended in 541 BC, and the series which includes 2117 only started in AD1631. Ancient Indian, Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian and Chinese observers knew of Venus, the early Greek astronomers called Venus by two names—Hesperus the evening star and Phosphorus the morning star. Pythagoras is credited with realizing they were the same planet, there is no evidence that any of these cultures knew of the transits. Venus was important to ancient American civilizations, in particular for the Maya, who called it Noh Ek, the Great Star or Xux Ek, the Wasp Star, they embodied Venus in the form of the god Kukulkán
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George Biddell Airy
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Sir George Biddell Airy KCB PRS was an English mathematician and astronomer, Astronomer Royal from 1835 to 1881. His reputation has been tarnished by allegations that, through his inaction, Airy was born at Alnwick, one of a long line of Airys who traced their descent back to a family of the same name residing at Kentmere, in Westmorland, in the 14th century. The branch to which he belonged, having suffered in the English Civil War, moved to Lincolnshire, Airy was educated first at elementary schools in Hereford, and afterwards at Colchester Royal Grammar School. An introverted child, Airy gained popularity with his schoolmates through his skill in the construction of peashooters. From the age of 13, Airy stayed frequently with his uncle, Arthur Biddell at Playford, Biddell introduced Airy to his friend Thomas Clarkson, the slave trade abolitionist who lived at Playford Hall. As a result, he entered Trinity in 1819, as a sizar, meaning that he paid a reduced fee, here he had a brilliant career, and seems to have been almost immediately recognised as the leading man of his year. In 1822 he was elected scholar of Trinity, and in the year he graduated as senior wrangler. On 1 October 1824 he was elected fellow of Trinity, and this chair he held for little more than a year, being elected in February 1828 Plumian professor of astronomy and director of the new Cambridge Observatory. In 1836 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 1840, in 1859 he became foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. At the Cambridge Observatory Airy soon showed his power of organisation, the only telescope in the establishment when he took charge was the transit instrument, and to this he vigorously devoted himself. Before long a mural circle was installed, and regular observations were instituted with it in 1833, Airys writings during this time are divided between mathematical physics and astronomy. In 1831 the Copley Medal of the Royal Society was awarded to him for these researches. One of the sections of his able and instructive report was devoted to A Comparison of the Progress of Astronomy in England with that in other Countries and this reproach was subsequently to a great extent removed by his own labours. One of the most remarkable of Airys researches was his determination of the density of the Earth. In 1826, the idea occurred to him of attacking this problem by means of experiments at the top. His first attempt, made in the year, at the Dolcoath mine in Cornwall. A second attempt in 1828 was defeated by a flooding of the mine, the experiments eventually took place at the Harton pit near South Shields in 1854.566. The currently accepted value for Earths density is 5.5153 g/cm³, in 1830, Airy calculated the lengths of the polar radius and equatorial radius of the earth using measurements taken in the UK
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Royal Observatory, Greenwich
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The Royal Observatory, Greenwich is an observatory situated on a hill in Greenwich Park, overlooking the River Thames. It played a role in the history of astronomy and navigation. The observatory was commissioned in 1675 by King Charles II, with the stone being laid on 10 August. The site was chosen by Sir Christopher Wren and he appointed John Flamsteed as the first Astronomer Royal. The building was completed in the summer of 1676, the building was often called Flamsteed House, in reference to its first occupant. The scientific work of the observatory was relocated elsewhere in stages in the first half of the 20th century,1675 –22 June, Royal Observatory founded. 1675 –10 August, construction began,1714 Longitude Act established the Board of Longitude and Longitude rewards. The Astronomer Royal was, until the Board was dissolved in 1828,1767 Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne began publication of the Nautical Almanac, based on observations made at the Observatory. 1833 Daily time signals began, marked by dropping a Time ball,1899 The New Physical Observatory was completed. 1924 Hourly time signals from the Royal Observatory were first broadcast on 5 February,1948 Office of the Astronomer Royal was moved to Herstmonceux. 1957 Royal Observatory completed its move to Herstmonceux, becoming the Royal Greenwich Observatory, the Greenwich site is renamed the Old Royal Observatory. Greenwich site is returned to its name, the Royal Observatory. The Ordnance Office was given responsibility for building the Observatory, with Moore providing the key instruments, Moore donated two clocks, built by Thomas Tompion, which were installed in the 20 foot high Octagon Room, the principal room of the building. They were of unusual design, each with a pendulum 13 feet in length mounted above the face, giving a period of four seconds. British astronomers have used the Royal Observatory as a basis for measurement. Four separate meridians have passed through the buildings, defined by successive instruments, subsequently, nations across the world used it as their standard for mapping and timekeeping. When the Airy circle became the reference for the meridian, the difference resulting from the change was considered enough to be neglected. When a new triangulation was done between 1936 and 1962, scientists determined that in the Ordnance Survey system the longitude of the international Greenwich meridian was not 0° and this old astronomical prime meridian has been replaced by a more precise prime meridian
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Stephen Joseph Perry
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Stephen Joseph Perry was an English Jesuit and astronomer, known as a participant in scientific expeditions. He belonged to a well-known Catholic family and his schooling was first at Gifford Hall, and then at the Benedictine College, Douai, where he proceeded to Rome to study for the priesthood. In consequence of his marked bent for mathematics, he was sent to attend the lectures of Augustus De Morgan, in London, and those of Bertrand, Liouville, Delaunay, Cauchy, and Serret, in Paris. In the autumn of 1860 he was recalled to Stonyhurst to teach physics and mathematics, in 1863 he commenced his theological studies at St. Beunos College, North Wales, and was ordained in 1866. He resumed his duties at Stonyhurst, which during the rest of his life were uninterrupted. In company with Father Walter Sidgreaves, he made magnetic surveys, in 1868 of western France, in 1869 of eastern France, and in 1871 of Belgium. In 1870 he was in charge of a government expedition to observe an eclipse at Cadiz, at Carriacou in 1886, in Moscow in 1887. In 1874 he headed a party sent to Kerguelen in the South Indian Ocean. He likewise drew up a Blue-book on the climate of The Isle of Desolation, in 1882 he went again with Sidgreaves to observe a similar transit in Madagascar, and he again took advantage of the occasion for magnetic purposes. In 1874 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society, for observation in illustration of these an ingenious method was devised and patiently pursued. Perry acted as director of the Stonyhurst College Observatory between 1860 and 1863, and again from 1868 until his death in 1889, Father Perry was much in request as a lecturer. He died on an expedition to observe the December 1889 total solar eclipse from the Îles du Salut in French Guiana, Perry fell ill during his preparations for the observations. He managed to observe the eclipse successfully, despite feeling very weak, as soon as it was over, however, his health deteriorated. He returned to the ship HMS Comus, and died at sea five days later on 27 December 1889 and he was buried in the Catholic cemetery at Georgetown, Demerara. List of Roman Catholic scientist-clerics Attribution This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Herbermann, Charles. Notes, An account of his life and scientific works by A. L. Cortie was published by the Catholic Truth Society in 1893
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Erich von Drygalski
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Erich Dagobert von Drygalski was a German geographer, geophysicist and polar scientist, born in Königsberg, Province of Prussia. Between 1882 and 1887, Drygalski studied mathematics and natural science at the University of Königsberg, Bonn, Berlin and he graduated with a doctorate thesis about ice shields in Nordic areas. Between 1888 and 1891, he was an assistant at the Geodetic Institute, Drygalski led two expeditions between 1891 and 1893, which were supplied by the Society for Geoscience of Berlin. One expedition wintered during the winter between 1892 and 1893 in Western Greenland and he habilitated 1889 for geography and geophysics with the collected scientific evidence. In 1898, Drygalski became associate professor and 1899 extraordinary professor for geography, Drygalski led the first German South Polar expedition with the ship Gauss to explore the unknown area of Antarctica lying south of the Kerguelen Islands. The expedition started from Kiel in the summer of 1901, a small party of the expedition was also stationed on the Kerguelen Islands, while the main party proceeded further south. Drygalski also paid a call to Heard Island and provided the first comprehensive scientific information on the islands geology, flora. Despite being trapped by ice for nearly fourteen months until February 1903, the expedition discovered new territory in Antarctica, the expedition arrived back in Kiel in November 1903. Subsequently, Drygalski wrote the narrative of the expedition and edited the scientific data. Between 1905 and 1931, he published twenty volumes and two atlases documenting the expedition and was awarded the 1933 Royal Geographical Societys Patrons Gold Medal. From October 1906 until his retirement, Drygalski was a professor in Munich, in 1910, he also took part in Count Ferdinand von Zeppelins expedition to Spitsbergen and participated in other expeditions to North America and northeastern Asia. Drygalski Island, Drygalski Fjord in South Georgia, and an avenue in the part of Munich were named after him. Two glaciers, including Drygalski Glacier and Drygalski Glacier on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro are also named for him, an archive in the Ludwig Maximilians University remembers his pioneering efforts. He also has a South African spider named after him, Araneus drygalskii, biography Excerpt from Siege of the South Pole, includes picture of Gauss under sail South Polar Expedition, instructions and preparations for the voyage
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Armed merchantman
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Armed merchantman is a term that has come to mean a merchant ship equipped with guns, usually for defensive purposes, either by design or after the fact. In the days of sail, piracy and privateers, many merchantmen would be armed, especially those engaging in long distance. In more modern times, auxiliary cruisers were used offensively to disrupt trade chiefly during both World War I and World War II, particularly by Germany, while armed merchantmen are clearly inferior to regular warships, sometimes they have scored successes in combat against them. East Indiamen of various European countries were heavily armed for their journeys to the Far East. In particularly dangerous times, such as when the countries were at war. However, many East Indiamen also travelled on their own, and therefore were heavily armed in order to defend themselves against pirates and they also defended themselves against warships, scoring signal victories at the Battle of Pulo Aura and the Action of 4 August 1800. The British Royal Navy purchased several that it converted to ships of the line, in 1856, privateering lost international sanction under the Declaration of Paris. From 1861–65 European countries built high speed ships to run the Union Blockade during the American Civil War, some of these were armed and served as Confederate States Navy raiders. Russia purchased three ships in 1878 of 6,000 long tons armed with 6-inch guns for use as auxiliary cruisers for a Russian Volunteer Fleet. Germany and the United Kingdom responded to the precedent by asking their shipping companies to design fast steamers with provision for mounting guns in time of war, in 1892 Russia likewise built two more auxiliary cruisers. In both World Wars, both Germany and the United Kingdom used auxiliary cruisers, while the British used armed passenger liners defensively for protecting their shipping, the German approach was to use them offensively to attack enemy shipping. The armed merchant cruisers of the British Royal Navy were employed for protection against enemy warships. They ultimately proved to have limited value and many, particularly ocean liners, were converted into troopships. Documentary evidence quoted by the BBC researched from the stages of the First World War suggests that the express liners had greater speed than most warships. The downside proved to be their high consumption, and that using them in a purely AMC role would have burned through the Admiralty reserve supplies of steam coal in less than three months. The ships were vulnerable to fire, because they lacked warship armour and they used local control of guns, rather than director fire-control systems. By coincidence, Cap Trafalgar was disguised as Carmania, in World War II, HMS Jervis Bay — the sole escort for convoy HX84 in November 1940 — stood off the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer, when the German ship attacked the convoy. Though she was sunk alonside 5 vessels, this enabled the rest of the convoy to escape and her master, Acting Captain Edward Fegen was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions
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German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis
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Atlantis was sunk on 22 November 1941 by the British cruiser HMS Devonshire. She was commanded by Kapitän zur See Bernhard Rogge, who received the Oak Leaves to the Knights Cross of the Iron Cross. Commerce raiders do not seek to engage warships, but rather attack enemy merchant shipping, Atlantis was second only to Pinguin in tonnage destroyed, and had the longest raiding career of any German commerce raider in either world war. She had a significant effect on the war in the Far East as a result of her capture of highly significant secret documents from SS Automedon, a version of the story of Atlantis is told in the film Under Ten Flags with Van Heflin appearing as Captain Rogge. Built by Bremer Vulkan in 1937, she began her career as the cargo ship Goldenfels, owned and operated by DDG Hansa, Goldenfels was powered by two 12-cylinder Single Cycle Double Action diesel engines, built by Bremer Vulkan. She was allocated the Code Letters DOTP, in late 1939 she was requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine and converted into a warship by DeSchiMAG, Bremen. In November 1939, she was commissioned as the commerce raider Atlantis, Atlantis was 155 m long and displaced 17,600 t. She had a funnel amidships. She had a crew of 349 and a Scottish terrier, Ferry, the cruiser carried a dummy funnel and variable-height masts, and was well supplied with paint, canvas, and materials for further altering her appearance, including costumes for the crew and flags. Atlantis was capable of being modified to twenty-six different silhouettes, a phony crane and deckhouse on the aft section hid two of the 150 mm guns, the other four guns were concealed via flaps in the side that were raised when action was imminent. Atlantis also had four torpedo tubes, and a 92-mine compartment. This gave her the power, and more importantly the fire control. The ship also carried two Heinkel He-114C seaplanes in one of its holds, one of these was fully assembled, the Heinkel was later replaced at sea with the smaller and faster Arado Ar 196. Atlantis had two 6-cylinder diesel engines, which powered a single propeller, top speed was 17.5 knots and a range of 60,000 miles at 10 knots. Diesel engines allowed her to drift when convenient to conserve fuel, in 1939, she became the command of Kapitän Bernhard Rogge. Commissioned in mid-December, she was the first of nine or ten merchant ships armed by the Third Reich for the purposes of seeking out and engaging enemy cargo vessels. Atlantis was delayed by ice until 31 March 1940, when the former battleship Hessen was sent to act as an icebreaker, clearing the way for Atlantis, Orion, and Widder. Weather information was supplied to Atlantis by the weather ships WBS3 Fritz Homann, WBS4 Hinrich Freese, Atlantis headed past the North Sea minefields, between Norway and Britain, across the Arctic Circle, between Iceland and Greenland, and headed south
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World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
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