1.
Laon
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Laon is the capital city of the Aisne department in Hauts-de-France, northern France. As of 2012 its population was of 25,317, the holy district of Laon, which rises a hundred metres above the otherwise flat Picardy plain, has always held strategic importance. In the time of Julius Caesar there was a Gallic village named Bibrax where the Remis had to meet the onset of the confederated Belgae. Whatever may have been the locality of that battlefield, Laon was fortified by the Romans. At that time it was known as Alaudanum or Lugdunum Clavatum, archbishop Remigius of Reims, who baptised Clovis, was born in the Laonnais, and it was he who, at the end of the fifth century, instituted the bishopric of Laon. Thenceforward Laon was one of the towns of the kingdom of the Franks. Charles the Bald had enriched its church with the gift of very numerous domains, in about 847 the Irish philosopher John Scotus Eriugena appeared at the court of Charles the Bald, and was appointed head of the palace school. Eriugena spent the rest of his days in France, probably at Paris, early in the twelfth century the communes of France set about emancipating themselves, and the history of the commune of Laon is one of the richest and most varied. Anselm of Laons school for theology and exegesis rapidly became the most famous in Europe, the consequence was a revolt, in which the episcopal palace was burnt and the bishop and several of his partisans were put to death on 25 April 1112. The fire spread to the cathedral, and reduced it to ashes, uneasy at the result of their victory, the rioters went into hiding outside the town, which was anew pillaged by the people of the neighbourhood, eager to avenge the death of their bishop. The king alternately intervened in favour of the bishop and of the inhabitants till 1239, after that date the liberties of Laon were no more contested till 1331, when the commune was abolished. During the Hundred Years War it was attacked and taken by the Burgundians, under the League, Laon took the part of the Leaguers, and was taken by Henry IV. At the Revolution Laon permanently lost its rank as a bishopric, during the campaign of 1814, Napoleon tried in vain to dislodge Blücher and Bülow from it in the Battle of Laon. In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, an engineer blew up the magazine of the citadel at the moment when the German troops were entering the town. Many lives were lost, and the cathedral and the old palace were damaged. It surrendered to a German force on 9 September 1870, in the fall of 1914, during World War I, German forces captured the town and held it until the Allied offensive in the summer of 1918. It is 55 km from Reims,131 km from Amiens, the city contains numerous medieval buildings, including the cathedral Notre-Dame of Laon, dating mostly from the 12th and 13th centuries. The chapter-house and the cloister contain specimens of early 13th century architecture, the old episcopal palace, contiguous to the cathedral, is now used as a court-house
2.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, 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 member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Ancient Diocese of Laon
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The diocese of Laon in the present-day département of Aisne, was a Catholic diocese for around 1300 years, up to the French Revolution. Its seat was in Laon, France, with the Laon Cathedral, from early in the 13th century, the bishop of Laon was a Pair de France, among the elite. Pope Leo XIII further authorized it to use the title of St-Quentin, louis Séguier, nominated by Henry IV of France, Bishop of Laon in 1598, refused the nomination to make room for his young nephew Peter de Bérulle, afterwards cardinal and founder of the Oratorians. Genebald Latro Gondulphe Elinand I. or Ebreling Robert I, cagnoald Attole or Attila Vulfadus Serulphe Peregrin Madalgaire Liutwin Sigoald Bertifrid Madelvin Genebald II Bernicon Gerfrid Wenilon I. or Ganelon Wenilon II. Series episcoporum Ecclesiae catholicae, quotquot innotuerunt a beato Petro apostolo, ratisbon, Typis et Sumptibus Georgii Josephi Manz. Hierarchia catholica medii et recentis aevi V. Patavii, Messagero di S. Antonio, hierarchia catholica medii et recentis aevi VI. Fastes épiscopaux de lancienne Gaule, II, le clergé de France, ou tableau historique et chronologique des archevêques, évêques, abbés, abbesses et chefs des chapitres principaux du royaume, depuis la fondation des églises jusquà nos jours. Les évêques et les archevêques de France depuis 1682 jusquà1801, Catholic Encyclopedia Source This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Herbermann, Charles, ed. article name needed
5.
Picardy
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Picardy is a historical territory and a former administrative region of France. Since 1 January 2016, it is now part of the new region of Hauts-de-France and it is located in the northern part of France. The historical province of Picardy stretched from north of Noyon to Calais, via the whole of the Somme department, the province of Artois separated Picardy from French Flanders. From the 5th century the area was part of the Frankish Empire, and in the period it encompassed the six countships of Boulogne, Montreuil, Ponthieu, Amiénois, Vermandois. According to the 843 Treaty of Verdun the region part of West Francia. The name Picardy was not used until the 12th or 13th century, during this time, the name applied to all lands where the Picard language was spoken, which included all the territories from Paris to the Netherlands. In the Latin Quarter of Paris, people identified a Picard Nation of students at Sorbonne University, during the Hundred Years War, Picardy was the centre of the Jacquerie peasant revolt in 1358. From 1419 onwards, the Picardy counties were gradually acquired by the Burgundian duke Philip the Good, in 1477, King Louis XI of France led an army and occupied key towns in Picardy. By the end of 1477, Louis would control all of Picardy, in the 16th century, the government of Picardy was created. This became a new region of France, separate from what was historically defined as Picardy. The new Picardy included the Somme département, the half of the Aisne département. In 1557, Picardy was invaded by Habsburg forces under the command of Emmanuel Philibert, after a seventeen-day siege, St. Quentin would be ransacked, while Noyon would be burned by the Habsburg army. In the 17th century, a disease similar to English sweat originated from the region. It was called Suette des picards or Picardy sweat, the sugar industry has continued to play a prominent role in the economy of the region. One of the most significant historical events to occur in Picardy was the series of battles fought along the Somme during World War I. From September 1914 to August 1918, four major battles, including the Battle of the Somme, were fought by British, French, and German forces in the fields of Northern Picardy. In 2009, the Regional Committee for local government reform proposed to reduce the number of French regions, Picardy would have disappeared, and each department would have joined a nearby region. The Oise would have incorporated in the Île-de-France, the Somme would have been incorporated in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais
France
