1.
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks. It was founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital library, most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books. The project tries to make these as free as possible, in long-lasting, as of 3 October 2015, Project Gutenberg reached 50,000 items in its collection. The releases are available in plain text but, wherever possible, other formats are included, such as HTML, PDF, EPUB, MOBI, most releases are in the English language, but many non-English works are available. There are multiple affiliated projects that are providing additional content, including regional, Project Gutenberg is closely affiliated with Distributed Proofreaders, an Internet-based community for proofreading scanned texts. Project Gutenberg was started by Michael Hart in 1971 with the digitization of the United States Declaration of Independence, Hart, a student at the University of Illinois, obtained access to a Xerox Sigma V mainframe computer in the universitys Materials Research Lab.
Through friendly operators, he received an account with an unlimited amount of computer time. Hart has said he wanted to back this gift by doing something that could be considered to be of great value. His initial goal was to make the 10,000 most consulted books available to the public at little or no charge and this particular computer was one of the 15 nodes on ARPANET, the computer network that would become the Internet. Hart believed that computers would one day be accessible to the general public and he used a copy of the United States Declaration of Independence in his backpack, and this became the first Project Gutenberg e-text. He named the project after Johannes Gutenberg, the fifteenth century German printer who propelled the movable type printing press revolution, by the mid-1990s, Hart was running Project Gutenberg from Illinois Benedictine College. More volunteers had joined the effort, all of the text was entered manually until 1989 when image scanners and optical character recognition software improved and became more widely available, which made book scanning more feasible.
Hart came to an arrangement with Carnegie Mellon University, which agreed to administer Project Gutenbergs finances, as the volume of e-texts increased, volunteers began to take over the projects day-to-day operations that Hart had run. Starting in 2004, an online catalog made Project Gutenberg content easier to browse, access. Project Gutenberg is now hosted by ibiblio at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Italian volunteer Pietro Di Miceli developed and administered the first Project Gutenberg website and started the development of the Project online Catalog. In his ten years in this role, the Project web pages won a number of awards, often being featured in best of the Web listings, Hart died on 6 September 2011 at his home in Urbana, Illinois at the age of 64. In 2000, a corporation, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Long-time Project Gutenberg volunteer Gregory Newby became the foundations first CEO, in 2000, Charles Franks founded Distributed Proofreaders, which allowed the proofreading of scanned texts to be distributed among many volunteers over the Internet
2.
Minnesota State University, Mankato
Minnesota State University, known as Minnesota State, is a public comprehensive university located in Mankato, Minnesota. The university sits atop the bluff of the Blue Earth River valley, founded as Mankato Normal School in 1868, it is the second oldest member of the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System. It is the secord largest public university in the state and it is the most comprehensive of the seven universities and is referred to as the flagship of the Minnesota State Universities and Colleges system. It is an important part of the economy of South-Central Minnesota as it more than $452 million to the economy of Minnesota annually. Minnesota State offers 130 undergraduate programs of study,75 graduate programs and 4 doctoral programs, students are served by 750 full-time faculty members creating a 21,1 student to faculty ratio. In addition to the campus, it operates two satellite campuses, one in the Twin Cities suburb of Edina and the other in Owatonna. Through the College of Extended Learning it provides bachelors degrees at the Normandale Partnership Center, the State Legislature recognized the need for an education center in southern Minnesota by 1858.
In 1866 it authorized the development of a state run normal school, the first classes were held in 1868 with an enrollment of 27 students. The institutions original mission was to train and educate teachers for schools in southern Minnesota. During this early period, Mankato Normal School provided educational certificates, in relation to this focus on womens education, Mankato Normal School is noted as the first public college in the United States to be headed by a woman, suffragette Julia Sears, in 1872. By 1921, the school had grown significantly to the point that it began to offer 4 year bachelors degrees, as a result, it was renamed the Mankato State Teachers College. Enrollment dipped during World War II and the college refocused its extension programs on providing education to members of the Works Progress Administration, during the post World War II period, student enrollment expanded greatly. The original university buildings were located in what was known as the Wilson Campus. It was located geographically down the hill in lower Mankato, the size and footprint of the Wilson Campus could not sustain the space needed to handle the growing student body.
By the late 1950s work began on constructing an entirely new, a new experimental elementary school was built on the Highland Campus to research and apply new teaching methods. By 1957, the mission of the institution had broadened to comprehensive 4-year college education, the following years saw additional enrollment growth. The Wilson Campus was eventually sold to a developer and the Highland Campus grew in size. In 1975, the college was renamed to Mankato State University and this change reflected a further 40% growth in the student body to 12,000 students by 1972
3.
Ilulissat
Ilulissat, formerly Jakobshavn or Jacobshaven, is a town in the Qaasuitsup municipality in western Greenland, located approximately 350 km north of the Arctic Circle. With the population of 4,541 as of 2013, it is the third-largest city in Greenland, after Nuuk, the city is home to almost as many sled-dogs. In direct translation, Ilulissat is the Kalaallisut word for Icebergs, the nearby Ilulissat Icefjord is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and has made Ilulissat the most popular tourist destination in Greenland. Tourism is now the principal industry. The city neighbours the Ilulissat Icefjord, where there are enormous icebergs from the most productive glacier in the northern hemisphere. These white giants are a source of astonishment for both residents and visitors, when the gaze drifts to the wide Disco Bay and when you close to the fjord. The town was established as a trading post by Jacob Severins company in 1741 and was named in his honor, the Zion Church was built in the late 18th century, and was the largest man-made structure in Greenland at the time.
The final resident of nearby Sermermiut moved to Ilulissat in 1850, the town was the site of the Arctic Ocean Conference in May 2008. The Ilulissat Declaration arose from the conference and it said that it remained committed to this legal framework and to the orderly settlement of any possible overlapping claims. With this existing legal framework, providing a foundation for responsible management. The states involved, would keep abreast of the developments in the Arctic Ocean, the Ilulissat Icefjord southeast of Ilulissat was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2004. Ilulissat is the largest town in the Qaasuitsup municipality, the population increased over 8% relative to 1990 levels but has remained steady since around 2003. Air Ilulissat Airport is located 2.8 km to the northeast of the center and was built in 1983. It serves Ilulissat with connections to towns in northwestern and midwestern Greenland via Air Greenland, service to Reykjavík, began in April 2011 via Air Iceland. Sea The Arctic Umiaq ferry links Ilulissat with Sisimiut, the town is home to Nagdlunguaq-48 who play in the Greenlandic Mens Football Championship, Greenlands top soccer competition.
Nagdlunguaq-48, who all their league games in Nuuk, have won the championship ten times. Knud Rasmussen, noted explorer and anthropologist, referred to as the father of Eskimology. Born in Ilulissat, Rasmussen was the first man to cross the Northwest Passage via dog sled and he remains well known in Greenland and among Canadian Inuit
4.
Cape York (Greenland)
Cape York is a cape on the northwestern coast of Greenland, in northern Baffin Bay. Cape York is an important geographical landmark that delimits the northwestern end of Melville Bay, with the other end commonly defined as Wilcox Head, a chain of small coastal islands stretches between Cape York and Cape Melville to the east, the largest of which is Meteorite Island. The cape is located 37 km west-south-west of the Savissivik settlement on Meteorite Island, the cape was the one of many places visited in 1894 by Admiral Robert Peary during his second expedition to the Arctic. The area of Cape York was the site of discovery of the Cape York Meteorite, the meteorite is estimated to have weighed 100 tonnes before it exploded. The iron from the meteorite attracted migrating Inuit from Arctic Canada
5.
Tasiilaq
Tasiilaq, formerly Ammassalik and Angmagssalik, is a town in the Sermersooq municipality in southeastern Greenland. With 2,017 inhabitants as of 2013, it is the most populous community on the eastern coast, the Sermilik Station, dedicated to the research of the nearby Mittivakkat Glacier, is located near the town. The people of Saqqaq culture were the first to reach eastern Greenland, arriving from the north, through what is now known as Peary Land and Independence Fjord, thule migrations passed through the area in the fifteenth century, finding the southeastern coast uninhabited. Population increased however from the 1880s, dispersing over several villages in the area, the permanent settlement was founded in 1894 as a Danish trading station. The town was known as Ammassalik. The official name took place in 1997. The fjord is an inlet of the long Ammassalik Fjord emptying into the North Atlantic to the east of the town, the large Sermilik Fjord lies further to the west. With 2,017 inhabitants as of 2013, Tasiilaq is one of the towns in Greenland, with migrants from the smaller towns.
Together with Nuuk, it is the town in the Sermersooq municipality exhibiting stable growth patterns over the last two decades. The population increased by over 37% relative to the 1990 levels, Tasiilaq is the main location where East Greenlandic is spoken. There are no roads far outside Tasiilaq, the longest is a 3 km narrow gravel road to the hydro power plant. Transport to further places is by helicopter or boat, Air Greenland operates helicopter services from Tasiilaq Heliport to neighboring Kulusuk Airport, which offers connections to Nuuk, Ittoqqortoormiit via Nerlerit Inaat Airport, and to Iceland. The heliport serves as a local helicopter hub with flights to villages in the region, Kuummiit, Sermiligaaq. In the summer, the boats of Royal Arctic Line connect Tasiilaq with Kulusuk. - Kópavogur, Iceland Tasiilaq has a climate, with long and snowy winters and short. From time to time, Tasiilaq is affected by piteraqs, on February 6,1970 the worst documented piteraq ever hit Tasiilaq, causing heavy damage and nearly ruining the town
6.
Nome, Alaska
Nome is a city in the Nome Census Area in the Unorganized Borough of the U. S. state of Alaska. The city is located on the southern Seward Peninsula coast on Norton Sound of the Bering Sea, according to the 2010 Census, the city population was 3,598. The 2014 population estimate was 3,788, suggesting a slight increase, Nome was incorporated on April 9,1901, and was once the most populous city in Alaska. Nome lies within the region of the Bering Straits Native Corporation, the city of Nome claims to be home to the worlds largest gold pan, although this claim has been disputed by the Canadian city of Quesnel, British Columbia. In the winter of 1925, a diphtheria epidemic raged among Alaska Natives in the Nome area, fierce territory-wide blizzard conditions prevented delivery of a life-saving serum by airplane from Anchorage. A relay of dog sled teams was organized to deliver the serum, the origin of the citys name Nome is debated, there are three theories. The first is that the name was given by Nomes founder, Jafet Lindeberg, within trekking distance of his home in Kvænangen, Norway.
Name next to the unnamed cape, the mapmaker misread the annotation as C. Nome, or Cape Nome, and used that name on his own chart, the third proposed origin of the name is from a misunderstanding of the local Inupiaq word for Where at. The United States Post Office in Nome refused to accept the change, fearing a move of the post office to Nome City, a mining camp on the Nome River, the merchants unhappily agreed to change the name of Anvil City back to Nome. Nome is located at 64°30′14″N 165°23′58″W, according to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 21.6 square miles, of which 12.5 square miles is land and 9.1 square miles is water. Nome has a climate, with long, very cold winters. However, conditions in winter and summer are moderated by the citys coastal location, winters are less severe than in the Interior. For example, Fairbanks at a similar parallel quite far inland has much greater temperature swings with both very warm and cold temperatures throughout the year, the coldest month is January, averaging 5.
Average highs stay below freezing from late October until late April, and the average first and last dates of freezing lows are August 30 and June 9, respectively, a freeze-free period of 81 days. The warmest month is July, with an average of 52.2 °F, Snow averages 76 inches per season, with the average first and last dates of measurable snowfall being October 4 and May 16, accumulating snow has not been officially observed in July or August. Precipitation is greatest in the months, and averages 16.8 inches per year. The annual average temperature is 27.35 °F, extreme temperatures range from −54 °F on January 27–28,1989 up to 86 °F on June 19,2013 and July 31,1977
7.
University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen is the oldest university and research institution in Denmark. Founded in 1479 as a studium generale, it is the second oldest institution for education in Scandinavia after Uppsala University. The university has 23,473 undergraduate students,17,398 postgraduate students,2,968 doctoral students, the university has four campuses located in and around Copenhagen, with the headquarters located in central Copenhagen. Most courses are taught in Danish, many courses are offered in English. The university has several thousands of students, about half of whom come from Nordic countries. The university has had 8 alumni become Nobel laureates and has produced one Turing Award recipient, the rector, the prorector and the director of the university is appointed by the university board. The rector in turn appoints directors of the different parts of the central administration, the deans appoint heads of 50 departments. There is no faculty senate and faculty is not involved in the appointment of rector, hence the university has no faculty governance, although there are elected Academic Boards at faculty level who advise the deans.
The governing body manages a budget of about BDKK8.3. The University is organized into six faculties and about 100 departments, the University employs about 5,600 academic staff and 4,400 technical and administrative staff. The total number of enrolled students is about 40,000 annually, UCPH has established an international graduate talent program which provides grants for international Ph. D, students and a tenure track carrier system. UCPH operates about fifty master’s programmes taught in English, and has arranged about 150 exchange agreements with institutions and 800 Erasmus agreements. Each year there are about 1,700 incoming exchange students,2,000 outbound exchange students and 4,000 international degree-seeking students, about 3,000 Ph. D. students study there each year. South Campus – houses the Faculty of Humanities and a proportion of the Faculty of Science. In the winter of 2016–2017, the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Theology will move to South Campus, frederiksberg Campus – home to sections of the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences.
The Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences and the Faculty of Science use the Taastrup Campus, the Faculty of Science has facilities in Helsingør, Hørsholm and Nødebo. The University of Copenhagen was founded in 1479 and is the oldest university in Denmark, between the closing of the Studium Generale in Lund in 1536 and the establishment of the University of Aarhus in the late 1920s, it was the only university in Denmark. The university became a centre of Roman Catholic theological learning, but had faculties for the study of law, between 1675 and 1788, the university introduced the concept of degree examinations
8.
Inuit
Inuit are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Greenland and Alaska. Inuit is a noun, the singular is Inuk. The Inuit languages are part of the Eskimo-Aleut family, Inuit Sign Language is a critically endangered language isolate spoken in Nunavut. In the United States and Canada, the term Eskimo was commonly used to describe the Inuit and Alaskas Yupik, Inuit is not accepted as a term for the Yupik, and Eskimo is the only term that includes Yupik, Iñupiat and Inuit. However, aboriginal peoples in Canada and Greenlandic Inuit view Eskimo as pejorative, in Canada, sections 25 and 35 of the Constitution Act of 1982 classified the Inuit as a distinctive group of Aboriginal Canadians who are not included under either the First Nations or the Métis. These areas are known in Inuktitut as the Inuit Nunangat, in the United States, the Iñupiat live primarily on the Alaska North Slope and on Little Diomede Island. The Greenlandic Inuit are descendants of migrations from Canada.
In the 21st century they are citizens of Denmark, although not of the European Union, Inuit are the descendants of what anthropologists call the Thule culture, who emerged from western Alaska around 1000 CE. They had split from the related Aleut group about 4,000 years ago and from northeastern Siberian migrants, possibly related to the Chukchi language group and they spread eastwards across the Arctic. They displaced the related Dorset culture, the last major Paleo-Eskimo culture, Inuit legends speak of the Tuniit as giants, people who were taller and stronger than the Inuit. Less frequently, the legends refer to the Dorset as dwarfs, researchers believe that the Dorset culture lacked the dogs, larger weapons and other technologies of the Inuit society, which gave the latter an advantage. By 1300, Inuit migrants had reached west Greenland, where they settled, faced with population pressures from the Thule and other surrounding groups, such as the Algonquian and Siouan to the south, the Tuniit gradually receded.
They were thought to have become extinct as a people by about 1400 or 1500. But, in the mid-1950s, researcher Henry B. Collins determined that, based on the ruins found at Native Point, the Sadlermiut population survived up until winter 1902–03, when exposure to new infectious diseases brought by contact with Europeans led to their extinction as a people. In the early 21st century, mitochondrial DNA research has supported the theory of continuity between the Tuniit and the Sadlermiut peoples and it provided evidence that a population displacement did not occur within the Aleutian Islands between the Dorset and Thule transition. In contrast to other Tuniit populations, the Aleut and Sadlermiut benefited from both geographical isolation and their ability to adopt certain Thule technologies, in Canada and Greenland, Inuit circulated almost exclusively north of the Arctic tree line, the effective southern border of Inuit society. The most southern officially recognized Inuit community in the world is Rigolet in Nunatsiavut, south of Nunatsiavut, the descendants of the southern Labrador Inuit in NunatuKavut continued their traditional transhumant semi-nomadic way of life until the mid-1900s.
The Nunatukavummuit people usually moved among islands and bays on a seasonal basis and they did not establish stationary communities
9.
Peary Land
Peary Land is a peninsula in northern Greenland, extending into the Arctic Ocean. Peary Land is bounded by Lincoln Sea and Wandel Sea of the Arctic Ocean in the north, oodaaq island, the northernmost point of land of the world, lies off the north coast. Frederick E. Hyde Fjord, which cuts into Peary Land from the east 150 km deep, divides it into Northern Peary Land, the coastline is deeply indented by smaller fjords. Peary Land is not part of any municipality, but is part of the Northeast Greenland National Park, the size of the region is about 375 km east-west and 200 km north-south, with an estimated area of 57000 km2. It is only a bit more than 700 km south of the North Pole and it is free of Greenlands inland ice cap. Being mostly north of the 82°N parallel, it contains the most northerly ice-free region of the world, precipitation levels are so low that it is called a polar desert. It was not covered by glaciers during the most recent ice age, however, in its western part, there is a local icecap, Hans Tausen Icecap, with ice at least 344 m thick.
However, there are unnamed elevations reaching up to 1,950 m in the heavily glaciated Roosevelt Range, Peary Land was believed to be an island, separated from the main island by Peary Channel, an assumed connection between Victoria Fjord and Independence Fjord. Caribou and musk oxen are supported by the vegetation, which covers only about 5% of the surface. Other fauna includes Arctic fox, polar wolf, polar bear, one to two million years ago, when climates were warmer, trees such as larch, black spruce, birch and thuja grew in the northernmost Peary Land. Peary, who first explored it during his expedition of 1891 to 1892, there are two Arctic research stations on Jørgen Brønlund Fjord, Brønlundhus and Kap Harald Moltke. Both stations were built on initiative of Eigil Knuth, and have been the basis for scientific expeditions. Kap Harald Moltke station was in connection with use of the natural runway east of Jørgen Brønlund Fjord mouth. The stations located 10 km from each other on side of the fjord, with Brønlundhus on the western side.
Since the death of Eigil Knuth, the stations are administered by Peary Land Foundation, today, Brønlundhus can be characterised as a museum, with a collection of artefacts from polar explorations
10.
Gold Medal (RGS)
The Gold Medal presented by the Royal Geographical Society consists of two separate awards, the Founders Medal 1830 and the Patrons Medal 1838. Together they form the most prestigious of the societys awards and they are given for the encouragement and promotion of geographical science and discovery. Royal approval is required before an award can be made, the awards originated as an annual gift of fifty guineas from King William IV, first made in 1831, to constitute a premium for the encouragement and promotion of geographical science and discovery. The Royal Geographical Society decided in 1839 to change this monetary award into the two gold medals, prior to 1902 the Patrons Medal was alternatively known as the Victoria Medal. List of medals Gold medal awards List of Past Gold Medal Winners
11.
Peter Freuchen
Lorenz Peter Elfred Freuchen was a Danish explorer, author and anthropologist. He is notable for his role in Arctic exploration, especially the Thule Expeditions, Freuchen was born in Nykøbing Falster, the son of Anne Petrine Frederikke and Lorentz Benzon Freuchen. First, in 1911, to Navarana Mequpaluk, an Inuit woman who died in the Spanish Flu epidemic after bearing two children and his second marriage, in 1924, to Magdalene Vang Lauridsen was dissolved in 1944. Lastly, in 1945, he married Dagmar Cohn, freuchens Danish island estate was named Enehoje. He spent many years in Thule, living with the Polar Inuit and he worked with Knud Rasmussen, crossing the Greenland icecap with him. In 1935, Freuchen visited South Africa, and by the end of the decade, in 1910, Knud Rasmussen and Peter Freuchen established the Thule Trading Station at Cape York, Greenland, as a trading base. The name Thule was chosen because it was the most northerly trading post in the world, Thule Trading Station became the home base for a series of seven expeditions, known as the Thule Expeditions, between 1912 and 1933.
The First Thule Expedition aimed to test Robert Pearys claim that a channel divided Peary Land from Greenland and they proved this was not the case in a 1,000 km journey across the inland ice that almost killed them. Clements Markham, president of the Royal Geographical Society, called the journey the finest ever performed by dogs, Freuchen wrote personal accounts of this journey in Vagrant Viking and I Sailed with Rasmussen. He states in Vagrant Viking that only one other dogsled trip across Greenland was ever successful, when he got stuck under a blizzard, he used his own feces and fashioned a dagger from it with which he freed himself. While in Denmark Freuchen and Rasmussen held a series of lectures about their expeditions, freuchens first wife, who took the name Navarana, accompanied him on several expeditions. When she died he wanted her buried in the old graveyard in Upernavik. The church refused to perform the burial, because Navarana was not baptized, Knud Rasmussen used the name Navarana for the lead role in the movie Palos Brudefærd which was filmed in East Greenland in 1933.
Freuchen strongly criticized the Christian church which sent missionaries among the Inuit without understanding their culture, when Freuchen returned to Denmark in the 1920s he joined the Social Democrats and contributed with articles in the newspaper Politiken. From 1926 to 1932 he served as the editor-in-chief of a magazine, Ude og Hjemme and he was the leader of a movie company. In 1932 Freuchen returned to Greenland and this time the expedition was financed by the American Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film-studios. In 1956, he won $64,000 on The $64,000 Question, in 1938 he founded The Adventurers Club, which still exists. They honoured his memory by planting an oak tree and creating an Eskimo cairn near the place, during World War II, Freuchen was actively involved with the Danish resistance movement against the Germans, despite having lost a leg to frostbite in 1926
