Monaco
Monaco the Principality of Monaco, is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera in Western Europe. France borders the country on three sides. Monaco has an area of 2.020 km2, making it the second-smallest country in the world after the Vatican. Its population was about 38,400 based on the last census of 2016. With 19,009 inhabitants per km², it is the most densely-populated sovereign state in the world. Monaco has a land border of 5.47 km, a coastline of 3.83 km, a width that varies between 1,700 and 349 m. The highest point in the country is a narrow pathway named Chemin des Révoires on the slopes of Mont Agel, in the Les Révoires Ward, 161 metres above sea level. Monaco's most populous Quartier is Monte Carlo and the most populous Ward is Larvotto/Bas Moulins. Through land reclamation, Monaco's land mass has expanded by 20 percent. Monaco is known as a playground for the famous, due to its tax laws. In 2014, it was noted. Monaco is a principality governed under a form of constitutional monarchy, with Prince Albert II as head of state.
Although Prince Albert II is a constitutional monarch, he wields immense political power. The House of Grimaldi has ruled Monaco, with brief interruptions, since 1297; the official language is French, but Monégasque and English are spoken and understood. The state's sovereignty was recognized by the Franco-Monegasque Treaty of 1861, with Monaco becoming a full United Nations voting member in 1993. Despite Monaco's independence and separate foreign policy, its defense is the responsibility of France. However, Monaco does maintain two small military units. Economic development was spurred in the late 19th century with the opening of the country's first casino, Monte Carlo, a railway connection to Paris. Since Monaco's mild climate and gambling facilities have contributed to the principality's status as a tourist destination and recreation centre for the rich. In more recent years, Monaco has become a major banking centre and has sought to diversify its economy into the services sector and small, high-value-added, non-polluting industries.
The state has no income tax, low business taxes, is well known for being a tax haven. It is the host of the annual street circuit motor race Monaco Grand Prix, one of the original Grands Prix of Formula One; the principality has a club football team. Monaco is not formally a part of the European Union, but it participates in certain EU policies, including customs and border controls. Through its relationship with France, Monaco uses the euro as its sole currency. Monaco joined the Council of Europe in 2004, it is a member of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. Monaco's name comes from the nearby 6th-century BC Phocaean Greek colony. Referred to by the Ligurians as Monoikos, from the Greek "μόνοικος", "single house", from "μόνος" "alone, single" + "οἶκος" "house", which bears the sense of a people either settled in a "single habitation" or of "living apart" from others. According to an ancient myth, Hercules passed through the Monaco area and turned away the previous gods; as a result, a temple was constructed there, the temple of Hercules Monoikos.
Because the only temple of this area was the "House" of Hercules, the city was called Monoikos. It ended up in the hands of the Holy Roman Empire. An ousted branch of a Genoese family, the Grimaldi, contested it for a hundred years before gaining control. Though the Republic of Genoa would last until the 19th century, they allowed the Grimaldi family to keep Monaco, both France and Spain left it alone for hundreds of years. France did not annex it until the French Revolution, but after the defeat of Napoleon it was put under the care of the Kingdom of Sardinia. In the 19th century, when Sardinia became a part of Italy, the region came under French influence again but France allowed it to remain independent. Like France, Monaco was overrun by the Axis powers during the Second World War and for a short time was administered by Italy the Third Reich, before being liberated. Although the occupation lasted for just a short time, it meant the deportation of the Jewish population and execution of several resistance members from Monaco.
Since Monaco has been independent. It has taken some steps towards integration with the European Union. Following a land grant from Emperor Henry VI in 1191, Monaco was refounded in 1215 as a colony of Genoa. Monaco was first ruled by a member of the House of Grimaldi in 1297, when Francesco Grimaldi, known as "Il Malizia", his men captured the fortress protecting the Rock of Monaco while dressed as Franciscan monks—a monaco in Italian, although this is a coincidence as the area was known by this name. Francesco, was evicted only a few years afterwards by the Genoese forces, the struggle over "the Rock" continued for another century; the Grimaldi family was Genoese and the struggle was something of a family feud. However, the Genoese became engaged in other conflicts, in the late 1300s Genoa became involved in a conflict with the Crown of Aragon over Corsica; the Crown of Aragon became a part of Spain through marriage and other parts drifted into various pieces of other
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and of the 20th century, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, his eidetic memory, he was at various times the music director of La Scala in Milan, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the New York Philharmonic. In his career he was appointed the first music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra, this led to his becoming a household name through his radio and television broadcasts and many recordings of the operatic and symphonic repertoire. Toscanini was born in Parma, Emilia-Romagna, won a scholarship to the local music conservatory, where he studied the cello. Living conditions at the conservatory were harsh. For example, his diet consisted completely of fish; when he became successful, he never ate anything. He joined the orchestra of an opera company, with which he toured South America in 1886. While presenting Aida in Rio de Janeiro on June 25, Leopoldo Miguez, the locally hired conductor, reached the summit of a two-month escalating conflict with the performers due to his rather poor command of the work, to the point that the singers went on strike and forced the company's general manager to seek a substitute conductor.
Carlo Superti and Aristide Venturi tried unsuccessfully to finish the work. In desperation, the singers suggested the name of their assistant Chorus Master, who knew the whole opera from memory. Although he had no conducting experience, Toscanini was persuaded by the musicians to take up the baton at 9:15 pm, led a performance of the two-and-a-half hour opera from memory; the public was taken by surprise, at first by the youth and sheer aplomb of this unknown conductor by his solid mastery. The result was astounding acclaim. For the rest of that season, Toscanini conducted all with absolute success, thus began his career as a conductor, at age 19. Upon returning to Italy, Toscanini set out on a dual path, he continued to conduct, his first appearance in Italy being at the Teatro Carignano in Turin, on November 4, 1886, in the world premiere of the revised version of Alfredo Catalani's Edmea. This was championing of Catalani, he returned to his chair in the cello section, participated as cellist in the world premiere of Verdi's Otello under the composer's supervision.
Verdi, who habitually complained that conductors never seemed interested in directing his scores the way he had written them, was impressed by reports from Arrigo Boito about Toscanini's ability to interpret his scores. The composer was impressed when Toscanini consulted him about Verdi's Te Deum, suggesting an allargando where it was not set out in the score. Verdi said that he had left it out for fear that "certain interpreters would have exaggerated the marking". Toscanini's reputation as an operatic conductor of unusual authority and skill supplanted his cello career. In the following decade, he consolidated his career in Italy, entrusted with the world premieres of Puccini's La bohème and Leoncavallo's Pagliacci. In 1896, Toscanini conducted his first symphonic concert, he exhibited a considerable capacity for hard work, conducting 43 concerts in Turin in 1898. By 1898, Toscanini was Principal Conductor at La Scala, where he remained until 1908, returning as Music Director, from 1921–1929.
During this time he collaborated with Alfredo Antonini – a young pianist and organist in La Scala Orchestra. He brought the La Scala Orchestra to the United States on a concert tour in 1920/21, during which he made his first recordings. Outside Europe, Toscanini conducted at the Metropolitan Opera in New York as well as the New York Philharmonic. At the end of his season with the Metropolitan Opera in May 1915 Toscanini was set to return to Europe aboard the doomed RMS Lusitania, but instead cut his concert schedule short and left a week early aboard the Italian liner Duca degli Abruzzi, he toured Europe with the New York Philharmonic in 1930. At each performance, he and the orchestra were acclaimed by audiences. Toscanini was the first non-German conductor to appear at Bayreuth, the New York Philharmonic was the first non-German orchestra to play there. In the 1930s, he conducted at the Salzburg Festival, as well as the 1936 inaugural concert of the Palestine Orchestra in Tel Aviv conducting them in Jerusalem, Haifa and Alexandria.
During his engagement with the New York Philharmonic, Hans Lange, the son of the last Master of the Sultan's Music in Istanbul, who became conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the founder of the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra as a professional ensemble, was his concert master. During his career, Toscanini collaborated with such artists as Enrico Caruso, Feodor Chaliapin, Ezio Pinza, Jussi Björling, Geraldine Farrar and Lauritz Melchior. In 1919, Toscanini unsuccessfully ran as a Fascist parliamentary candidate in Milan, he had been called "the greatest conductor in the world" by Fascist leader Benito Mussolini. Toscanini had become disillusioned with fascism before the October 1922 March on Rome and defied the Italian dictator, he refused to display Musso
Classical music
Classical music is art music produced or rooted in the traditions of Western culture, including both liturgical and secular music. While a more precise term is used to refer to the period from 1750 to 1820, this article is about the broad span of time from before the 6th century AD to the present day, which includes the Classical period and various other periods; the central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, known as the common-practice period. The major time divisions of Western art music are as follows: the ancient music period, before 500 AD the early music period, which includes the Medieval including the ars antiqua the ars nova the ars subtilior the Renaissance eras. Baroque the galant music period the common-practice period, which includes Baroque the galant music period Classical Romantic eras the 20th and 21st centuries which includes: the modern that overlaps from the late-19th century, impressionism that overlaps from the late-19th century neoclassicism, predominantly in the inter-war period the high modern the postmodern eras the experimental contemporary European art music is distinguished from many other non-European classical and some popular musical forms by its system of staff notation, in use since about the 11th century.
Catholic monks developed the first forms of modern European musical notation in order to standardize liturgy throughout the worldwide Church. Western staff notation is used by composers to indicate to the performer the pitches, tempo and rhythms for a piece of music; this can leave less room for practices such as improvisation and ad libitum ornamentation, which are heard in non-European art music and in popular-music styles such as jazz and blues. Another difference is that whereas most popular styles adopt the song form or a derivation of this form, classical music has been noted for its development of sophisticated forms of instrumental music such as the symphony, fugue and mixed vocal and instrumental styles such as opera and mass; the term "classical music" did not appear until the early 19th century, in an attempt to distinctly canonize the period from Johann Sebastian Bach to Ludwig van Beethoven as a golden age. The earliest reference to "classical music" recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is from about 1829.
Given the wide range of styles in European classical music, from Medieval plainchant sung by monks to Classical and Romantic symphonies for orchestra from the 1700s and 1800s to avant-garde atonal compositions for solo piano from the 1900s, it is difficult to list characteristics that can be attributed to all works of that type. However, there are characteristics that classical music contains that few or no other genres of music contain, such as the use of music notation and the performance of complex forms of solo instrumental works. Furthermore, while the symphony did not exist prior to the late 18th century, the symphony ensemble—and the works written for it—have become a defining feature of classical music; the key characteristic of European classical music that distinguishes it from popular music and folk music is that the repertoire tends to be written down in musical notation, creating a musical part or score. This score determines details of rhythm, and, where two or more musicians are involved, how the various parts are coordinated.
The written quality of the music has enabled a high level of complexity within them: fugues, for instance, achieve a remarkable marriage of boldly distinctive melodic lines weaving in counterpoint yet creating a coherent harmonic logic that would be difficult to achieve in the heat of live improvisation. The use of written notation preserves a record of the works and enables Classical musicians to perform music from many centuries ago. Musical notation enables 2000s-era performers to sing a choral work from the 1300s Renaissance era or a 1700s Baroque concerto with many of the features of the music being reproduced; that said, the score does allow the interpreter to make choices on. For example, if the tempo is written with an Italian instruction, it is not known how fast the piece should be played; as well, in the Baroque era, many works that were designed for basso continuo accompaniment do not specify which instruments should play the accompaniment or how the chordal instrument should play the chords, which are not notated in the part.
The performer and the conductor have a range of options for musical expression and interpretation of a scored piece, including the phrasing of melodies, the time taken during fermatas or pauses, the use of effects such as vibrato or glissando. Although Classical music in the 2000s has lost most of its tradition for musical improvisation, from the Baroque era to the Romantic era, there are examples of performers who could improvise in the style of their era. In the Baroque era, organ performers would improvise preludes, keyboard performers playing harpsichord would improvise chords from the figured bass symbols beneath the bass notes of the basso continuo part and b
Montreux
Montreux is a municipality in the district of Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland. It is located on Lake Geneva shoreline at the foot of the Alps and has a population, as of December 2017, of 26,574 and nearly 90,000 in the agglomeration; the earliest settlement was a Late Bronze Age village at Baugy. Montreux lies on the north east shore of Lake Geneva at the fork in the Roman road from Italy over the Simplon Pass, where the roads to the Roman capital of Aventicum and the road into Gaul through Besançon separated; this made it an important settlement in the Roman era. A Roman villa from the 2nd-4th centuries and a 6th–7th century cemetery have been discovered. In the 12th century, viticulture was introduced to the region, the sunny slopes of the lake from Lavaux to Montreux became an important wine-growing region. Montreux is first mentioned in 1215 as Mustruel. In 1295, the Bishop of Sion sold the parish of Montreux to Girard of Oron. In 1317, it was split between the Lords of Oron and the Counts of Savoy.
A Brotherhood of the Holy Spirit administered estates and a hospital in Montreux starting in about 1309. The region was subject to various princes, most notably the princes of Savoy from the south side of the lake, they unified the territory which comprises the present canton of Vaud and were popular sovereigns. After the Burgundian Wars in the 15th century, the Swiss in Bern occupied the region without resistance, an indication of the weakness of the princes of Savoy. Under Bernese rule it belonged to the Bailiwick of Chillon; the Reformation made the region around Montreux and Vevey an attractive haven for Huguenots from Italy, who brought their artisanal skills and set up workshops and businesses. The abbey of Les Echarpes blanches was founded in 1626. In 1798, Napoleon liberated the region from the Bernese. In the 19th century, the tourist industry became a major commercial outlet, with the grand hotels of Montreux attracting the rich and cultured from Europe and America. Starting in the 19th century there were three independent municipalities that shared a central authority.
This county council was made up of four deputies from Le Châtelard, two from Les Planches and one from Veytaux. The church, the market hall of La Rouvenaz, the secondary school and the slaughter-house were all owned by the county council; each municipality had a mayor. In 1962, the municipalities of Le Châtelard and Les Planches merged, while Veytaux remained independent. Montreux has an area, as of 2009, of 33.4 km2. Of this area, 8.47 km2 or 25.4% is used for agricultural purposes, while 16.93 km2 or 50.7% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 6.37 km2 or 19.1% is settled, 0.08 km2 or 0.2% is either rivers or lakes and 1.59 km2 or 4.8% is unproductive land. Of the built up area and buildings made up 10.9% and transportation infrastructure made up 6.3%. Out of the forested land, 47.0% of the total land area is forested and 3.1% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees. Of the agricultural land, 0.4% is used for growing crops and 8.8% is pastures, while 1.6% is used for orchards or vine crops and 14.7% is used for alpine pastures.
All the water in the municipality is flowing water. The municipality was part of the Vevey District until it was dissolved on 31 August 2006, Montreux became part of the new district of Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut; the municipality stretches from Lake Geneva to the foothills of the Swiss Alps. It includes the former municipalities of Montreux-Le Châtelard, it was formed in 1962 with the merger of the two former municipalities. The Köppen Climate Classification subtype for Montreux's climate is "Cfb". Montreux has a population of 26,574; as of 2008, 44.2% of the population are resident foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has changed at a rate of 14.7%. It has changed at a rate of -0.8 % due to births and deaths. Most of the population speaks French as their first language, with German being second most common and Italian being third. There are 9 people; the age distribution, as of 2009, in Montreux is. Of the adult population, 4,216 people or 17.0 % of the population are between 29 years old.
3,016 people or 12.2% are between 30 and 39, 3,552 people or 14.4% are between 40 and 49, 3,048 people or 12.3% are between 50 and 59. The senior population distribution is 2,565 people or 10.4% of the population are between 60 and 69 years old, 1,795 people or 7.3% are between 70 and 79, there are 1,206 people or 4.9% who are between 80 and 89, there are 263 people or 1.1% who are 90 and older. As of 2000, there were 9,380 people who never married in the municipality. There were 9,758 married individuals, 1,631 widows or widowers and 1,685 individuals who are divorced; as of 2000, there were 9,823 private households in the municipality, an average of 2 persons per household. There were 4,198 households that consist of only one person and 402 households with five or more people. Out of a total of 10,236 households that answered this question, 41.0% were households made up of just one person and there were 53 adults who lived with their parents. Of the rest of the households, th
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write and perform their own musical material, including lyrics and melodies. The genre began with the folk-acoustic tradition. Singer-songwriters provide the sole accompaniment to an entire composition or song using a guitar or piano. "Singer-songwriter" is used to define popular music artists who write and perform their own material, self-accompanied on acoustic guitar or piano. Such an artist performs the roles of composer, vocalist, sometimes instrumentalist, self-manager. According to AllMusic, singer-songwriters' lyrics are personal but veiled by elaborate metaphors and vague imagery, their creative concern is to place emphasis on the song rather than their performance of it. Most records by such artists have a straightforward and spare sound that placed emphasis on the song itself; the term has been used to describe songwriters in the rock, folk and pop music genres including Henry Russell, Aristide Bruant, Hank Williams, Buddy Holly. It came into popular usage in the 1960s onwards to describe songwriters who followed particular stylistic and thematic conventions lyrical introspection, confessional songwriting, mild musical arrangements, an understated performing style.
According to writer Larry David Smith, because it merged the roles of composer and singer, the popularity of the singer-songwriter reintroduced the Medieval troubadour tradition of "songs with public personalities" after the Tin Pan Alley era in American popular music. Song topics include political protest, as in the case of the Almanac Singers, Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie; the concept of a singer-songwriter can be traced to ancient bardic oral tradition, which has existed in various forms throughout the world. Poems would be performed as chant or song, sometimes accompanied by a harp or other similar instrument. After the invention of printing, songs would be performed by ballad sellers; these would be versions of existing tunes and lyrics, which were evolving. This developed into the singer-songwriting traditions of folk culture. Traveling performers existed throughout Europe. Thus, the folklorist Anatole Le Braz gives a detailed account of one ballad singer, Yann Ar Minouz, who wrote and performed songs traveling through Brittany in the late nineteenth century and selling printed versions.
In large towns it was possible to make a living performing in public venues, with the invention of phonographic recording, early singer-songwriters like Théodore Botrel, George M. Cohan and Hank Williams became celebrities. During the period from the 1940s through the 1960s, sparked by the American folk music revival, young performers inspired by traditional folk music and groups like the Almanac Singers and the Weavers began writing and performing their own original material and creating their own musical arrangements; the term "singer-songwriter" in North America can be traced back to singers who developed works in the blues and folk music style. Early to mid-20th century American singer-songwriters include Lead Belly, Jimmie Rodgers, Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker, Blind Willie McTell, Lightnin' Hopkins, Son House, Robert Johnson. In the 1940s and 1950s country singer-songwriters like Hank Williams became well known, as well as Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, along with Ronnie Gilbert and Lee Hays and other members of the Weavers who performed their topical works to an ever-growing wider audience.
These proto-singer-songwriters were less concerned than today's singer-songwriters with the unadulterated originality of their music and lyrics, would lift parts from other songs and play covers without hesitation. The tradition of writing topical songs was established by this group of musicians. Singers like Seeger and Guthrie would attend rallies for labor unions, so wrote many songs concerning the life of the working classes, social protest; this focus on social issues has influenced the singer-songwriter genre. Additionally in the 1930s through the 1950s several jazz and blues singer-songwriters emerged like Hoagy Carmichael, Billie Holiday, Ray Charles, Harry Gibson, Nina Simone, as well as in the rock n' roll genre from which emerged influential singer-songwriters Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Roy Orbison, Sam Cooke, Ritchie Valens, Paul Anka. In the country music field, singer-songwriters like Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Roger Miller, Billy Edd Wheeler, others emerged from the 1940s through the 1960s writing compelling songs about love relationships and other subjects.
The first popular recognition of the singer-songwriter in English-speaking North America and the United Kingdom occurred in the 1960s and early 1970s when a series of blues and country-influenced musicians rose to prominence and popularity. These singer-songwriters included Bob Dylan, Neil Young, John Lennon, Van Morrison, Willie Nelson, Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell. Artists, songwriters, notably Carole King, Townes Van Zandt, Neil Diamond began releasing work as performers. In contrast to the storytelling approach of most prior country and folk music, these performers wrote songs from a personal, introspective point of
Martinique
Martinique is an insular region of France located in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of 1,128 square kilometres and a population of 376,480 inhabitants as of January 2016. Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. One of the Windward Islands, it is directly north of Saint Lucia, southeast of Greater Antilles, northwest of Barbados, south of Dominica; as with the other overseas departments, Martinique is one of the eighteen regions of France and an integral part of the French Republic. As part of France, Martinique is part of the European Union, its currency is the euro; the official language is French, the entire population speaks Antillean Creole. Christopher Columbus landed on 15 June 1502, after a 21-day trade wind passage, his fastest ocean voyage, he spent three days there refilling his water casks and washing laundry. The island was called "Jouanacaëra-Matinino", which came from a mythical island described by the Taínos of Hispaniola.
According to historian Sydney Daney, the island was called "Jouanacaëra" by the Caribs, which means "the island of iguanas". When Columbus landed on the island in 1502, he christened the island as Martinica; the island is called "Madinina" by the locals. The island was occupied first by Arawaks by Caribs; the Carib people had migrated from the mainland to the islands about 1201 CE, according to carbon dating of artifacts. They were displaced and assimilated by the Taino, who were resident on the island in the 1490s. Martinique was charted by Columbus in 1493. On 15 September 1635, Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc, French governor of the island of St. Kitts, landed in the harbor of St. Pierre with 150 French settlers after being driven off St. Kitts by the English. D'Esnambuc claimed Martinique for the French King Louis XIII and the French "Compagnie des Îles de l'Amérique", established the first European settlement at Fort Saint-Pierre. D'Esnambuc died in 1636, leaving the company and Martinique in the hands of his nephew, Jacques Dyel du Parquet, who in 1637, became governor of the island.
In 1636, the indigenous Caribs rose against the settlers to drive them off the island in the first of many skirmishes. The French repelled the natives and forced them to retreat to the eastern part of the island, on the Caravelle Peninsula in the region known as the Capesterre; when the Carib revolted against French rule in 1658, the Governor Charles Houël du Petit Pré retaliated with war against them. Many were killed; some Carib had fled to St. Vincent, where the French agreed to leave them at peace; because there were few Catholic priests in the French Antilles, many of the earliest French settlers were Huguenots who sought greater religious freedom than what they could experience in mainland France. They became quite prosperous. Although edicts from King Louis XIV's court came to the islands to suppress the Protestant "heretics", these were ignored by island authorities until Louis XIV's Edict of Revocation in 1685. From September 1686 to early 1688, the French crown used Martinique as a threat and a dumping ground for mainland Huguenots who refused to reconvert to Catholicism.
Over 1,000 Huguenots were transported to Martinique during this period under miserable and crowded ship conditions that caused many of them to die en route. Those that survived the trip were distributed to the island planters as Engagés under the system of serf peonage that prevailed in the French Antilles at the time; as many of the planters on Martinique were themselves Huguenot, who were sharing in the suffering under the harsh strictures of the Revocation, they began plotting to emigrate from Martinique with many of their arrived brethren. Many of them were encouraged by their Catholic brethren who looked forward to the departure of the heretics and seizing their property for themselves. By 1688, nearly all of Martinique's French Protestant population had escaped to the British American colonies or Protestant countries back home; the policy decimated the population of Martinique and the rest of the French Antilles and set back their colonization by decades, causing the French king to relax his policies in the islands yet leaving the islands susceptible to British occupation over the next century.
Under Governor of the Antilles Charles de Courbon, comte de Blénac, Martinique served as a home port for French pirates including Captain Crapeau, Etienne de Montauban, Mathurin Desmarestz. In years pirate Bartholomew Roberts styled his jolly roger as a black flag depicting a pirate standing on two skulls labeled "ABH" and "AMH" for "A Barbadian's Head" and "A Martinican's Head", after Governors of those two islands sent warships to capture Roberts. Martinique was occupied several times by the British including once during the Seven Years' War and twice during the Napoleonic Wars. Excepting a period from 1802–1809 following signing of the Treaty of Amiens, Britain controlled the island for most of the time from 1794–1815, when it was traded back to France at the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars. Martinique has remained a French possession since then; as sugar prices declined in the early 1800s, the planter class lost political influence. In 1848, Victor Schoelcher persuaded the French government to end slavery in the French W
France
France the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean, it is bordered by Belgium and Germany to the northeast and Italy to the east, Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic and Indian oceans; the country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres and a total population of 67.3 million. France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nice. During the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by a Celtic people. Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, holding it until the arrival of Germanic Franks in 476, who formed the Kingdom of Francia.
The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned Francia into Middle Francia and West Francia. West Francia which became the Kingdom of France in 987 emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages following its victory in the Hundred Years' War. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a global colonial empire was established, which by the 20th century would become the second largest in the world; the 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars between Protestants. France became Europe's dominant cultural and military power in the 17th century under Louis XIV. In the late 18th century, the French Revolution overthrew the absolute monarchy, established one of modern history's earliest republics, saw the drafting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which expresses the nation's ideals to this day. In the 19th century, Napoleon established the First French Empire, his subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a tumultuous succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870.
France was a major participant in World War I, from which it emerged victorious, was one of the Allies in World War II, but came under occupation by the Axis powers in 1940. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and dissolved in the course of the Algerian War; the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, remains today. Algeria and nearly all the other colonies became independent in the 1960s and retained close economic and military connections with France. France has long been a global centre of art and philosophy, it hosts the world's fourth-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is the leading tourist destination, receiving around 83 million foreign visitors annually. France is a developed country with the world's sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP, tenth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of aggregate household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, human development.
France is considered a great power in global affairs, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a leading member state of the European Union and the Eurozone, a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, La Francophonie. Applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name "France" comes from the Latin "Francia", or "country of the Franks". Modern France is still named today "Francia" in Italian and Spanish, "Frankreich" in German and "Frankrijk" in Dutch, all of which have more or less the same historical meaning. There are various theories as to the origin of the name Frank. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm, the name of the Franks has been linked with the word frank in English, it has been suggested that the meaning of "free" was adopted because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation.
Another theory is that it is derived from the Proto-Germanic word frankon, which translates as javelin or lance as the throwing axe of the Franks was known as a francisca. However, it has been determined that these weapons were named because of their use by the Franks, not the other way around; the oldest traces of human life in what is now France date from 1.8 million years ago. Over the ensuing millennia, Humans were confronted by a harsh and variable climate, marked by several glacial eras. Early hominids led a nomadic hunter-gatherer life. France has a large number of decorated caves from the upper Palaeolithic era, including one of the most famous and best preserved, Lascaux. At the end of the last glacial period, the climate became milder. After strong demographic and agricultural development between the 4th and 3rd millennia, metallurgy appeared at the end of the 3rd millennium working gold and bronze, iron. France has numerous megalithic sites from the Neolithic period, including the exceptiona
