1.
Leith
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Leith /ˈliːθ/, Scottish Gaelic, Lìte, is a district to the north of the city of Edinburgh at the mouth of the Water of Leith. The earliest surviving references are in the royal charter authorising the construction of Holyrood Abbey in 1128. The medieval settlements of Leith had grown into a burgh by 1833, historically part of Midlothian, Leith is sited on the coast of the Firth of Forth and lies within the council area of the City of Edinburgh. The port remains one of its most valuable enterprises, handling over 1.5 million tonnes of cargo a year in 2003, previous to the bridge being built in the late 15th century, Leith had settlements on either side of the river, lacking an easy crossing. South Leith was larger and was controlled by the lairds of Restalrig and it was based on trade and had many merchants houses and warehouses. This was where ships offloaded their cargoes at The Shore where they were collected by Edinburgh merchants, leithers were explicitly forbidden by statute to participate directly in the trade at the port, to ensure that landed goods were not sold elsewhere. North Leith was smaller but proportionately richer, coming under the jurisdiction of Holyrood Abbey and it was effectively a fishing village consisting of one street, now Sandport Street and Quayside Lane. Burgage plots ran down to the river from each house and this has traditionally been the shipbuilding side of Leith with several wet and dry docks built over time. The first dry dock in Scotland was built here in 1720, a small peninsula of land on the east bank also came under the same jurisdiction on what is now Sheriff Brae/Sheriff Bank. The first bridge to both banks of the river was built in 1493 by Abbot Bellenden, who controlled the church at North Leith. The bridge was a bridge, the revenue supplementing the churchs income. Reputedly Leiths oldest building, it was demolished in 1780 to allow ships to sail further upstream, the earliest evidence of settlement in Leith comes from several archaeological digs undertaken in the Shore area in the late 20th century. Amongst the finds were medieval wharf edges from the 12th century and this date fits with the earliest documentary evidence of settlement in Leith - the foundation charter of Holyrood Abbey. Leith has played a long and prominent role in Scottish history, as the major port serving Edinburgh, it has been the stage on which many significant events in Scottish history have taken place. Mary of Guise ruled Scotland from Leith in 1560 as Regent while her daughter, Mary, Mary of Guise moved the Scottish Court to Leith, to a site that is now Parliament Street, off Coalhill. According to the 18th-century historian William Maitland, her palace was situated on Rotten Row, now Water Street. Artifacts from the residence are held by the National Museum of Scotland. In June 1560, Mary of Guise died, and the Siege of Leith ended with the departure of the French troops in accordance with the Treaty of Leith, also known as the Treaty of Edinburgh
2.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
3.
British Overseas Territories
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The 14 British Overseas Territories are territories under the jurisdiction and sovereignty of the United Kingdom. They are the parts of the British Empire that have not been granted independence or have voted to remain British territories. These territories do not form part of the United Kingdom and, with the exception of Gibraltar, are not part of the European Union, though the Cyprus SBAs are subject to EU law and use the Euro. Most of the territories are internally self-governing, with the UK retaining responsibility for defence. The rest are either uninhabited or have a population of military or scientific personnel. They share the British monarch as head of state, the term British Overseas Territory was introduced by the British Overseas Territories Act 2002, replacing the term British Dependent Territory, introduced by the British Nationality Act 1981. Prior to 1 January 1983, the territories were referred to as British Crown Colonies. With the exceptions of the British Antarctic Territory and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands and the British Indian Ocean Territory, the Territories retain permanent civilian populations. Permanent residency for the 7,000 or so living in the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri. Collectively, the Territories encompass a population of about 250,000 people, the vast majority of this,660,000 square miles, constitutes the British Antarctic Territory. The current minister responsible for the Territories excluding the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar and the Sovereign Base Areas is Baroness Anelay, Minister of State for the Commonwealth, the other three territories are the responsibility of Sir Alan Duncan MP, Minister of State for Europe and the Americas. The first, unofficial, colony was Newfoundland, where English fishermen routinely set up camps in the 16th century. It is now a province of Canada known as Newfoundland and Labrador and it retains strong cultural ties with Britain. English colonisation of North America began officially in 1607 with the settlement of Jamestown, st. Georges town, founded in Bermuda in that year, remains the oldest continuously inhabited British settlement in the New World. Bermuda and Bermudians have played important, sometimes pivotal, but generally underestimated or unacknowledged roles in the shaping of the English and British trans-Atlantic Empires. These include maritime commerce, settlement of the continent and of the West Indies, separate self-governing colonies federated to become Canada, Australia, South Africa, and Rhodesia. These and other large self-governing colonies had become known as Dominions by the 1920s, the Dominions achieved almost full independence with the Statute of Westminster. Through a process of following the Second World War, most of the British colonies in Africa, Asia
4.
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
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South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands is a British overseas territory in the southern Atlantic Ocean. It is a remote and inhospitable collection of islands, consisting of South Georgia, South Georgia is 165 kilometres long and 1 to 35 km wide and is by far the largest island in the territory. The South Sandwich Islands lie about 700 kilometres southeast of South Georgia, the total land area of the territory is 3,903 square kilometres. There is no permanent population on the islands, the United Kingdom claimed sovereignty over South Georgia in 1775 and the South Sandwich Islands in 1908. The territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands was formed in 1985, Argentina claimed South Georgia in 1927 and claimed the South Sandwich Islands in 1938. Argentina maintained a station, Corbeta Uruguay, on Thule Island in the South Sandwich Islands from 1976 until 1982 when it was closed by the Royal Navy. The Argentine claim over South Georgia contributed to the 1982 Falklands War, Argentina continues to claim sovereignty over South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The Island of South Georgia is said to have been first sighted in 1675 by Anthony de la Roché, a London merchant and it was sighted by the commercial Spanish ship León operating out of Saint-Malo on 28 June or 29 June 1756. At one time it was confused with Pepys Island, which was discovered by Dampier and Cowley in 1683, captain James Cook circumnavigated the island in 1775 and made the first landing. He claimed the territory for the Kingdom of Great Britain, British arrangements for the government of South Georgia were established under the 1843 British Letters Patent. In 1882–1883, a German expedition for the First International Polar Year was stationed at Royal Bay on the southeast side of the island, the scientists of this group observed the transit of Venus and recorded waves produced by the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. Seal hunting at South Georgia began in 1786 and continued throughout the 19th century, the waters proved treacherous and a number of vessels were wrecked there, such as Earl Spencer, in late 1801. South Georgia became a base for whaling beginning in the 20th century, a Norwegian, Carl Anton Larsen, established the first land-based whaling station and first permanent habitation at Grytviken in 1904. It operated through his Argentine Fishing Company, which settled in Grytviken, the station remained in operation until 1965. Whaling stations operated under leases granted by the Governor of the Falkland Islands, one was called a charnel house boiling wholesale in vaseline by an early 20th-century visitor. With the end of the industry, the stations were abandoned. Apart from a few preserved buildings such as the museum and church at Grytviken, in 1908, the United Kingdom issued further Letters Patent that established constitutional arrangements for its possessions in the South Atlantic. The Letters Patent covered South Georgia, the South Orkneys, the South Shetlands, the South Sandwich Islands, in 1909, an administrative centre and residence were established at King Edward Point on South Georgia, near the whaling station of Grytviken
5.
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
6.
Grytviken
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Grytviken is a settlement on the island of South Georgia, part of a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic. It was so named in 1902 by the Swedish surveyor Johan Gunnar Andersson who found old English try pots used to seal oil at the site. It is the best harbour on the island, consisting of a bay within a bay, the site is quite sheltered, provides a substantial area of flat land suitable for building, and has a good supply of fresh water. The settlement at Grytviken was established on 16 November 1904 by the Norwegian sea captain Carl Anton Larsen and it was phenomenally successful, with 195 whales taken in the first season alone. The whalers used every part of the animals – the blubber, meat, bones and viscera were rendered to extract the oil, Elephant seals were also hunted for their blubber. Around 300 men worked at the station during its heyday, operating during the summer from October to March. A few remained over the winter to maintain the boats and factory, every few months a transport ship would bring essential supplies to the station and take away the oil and other produce. The following year the Argentine Government established a meteorological station, Carl Anton Larsen, the founder of Grytviken, was a naturalised Briton born in Sandefjord, Norway. His family in Grytviken included his wife, three daughters and two sons, Larsen chose the whaling stations site during his 1902 visit while in command of the ship Antarctic of the Swedish Antarctic Expedition led by Otto Nordenskjöld. One of those try-pots, having the inscription ‘Johnson and Sons, Wapping Dock, managers and other senior officers of the whaling stations often had their families living together with them. Several more children have been born on South Georgia, recently even aboard visiting private yachts, even now, the shore around Grytviken is littered with whale bones and the rusting remains of whale oil processing plants and abandoned whaling ships. Grytviken is closely associated with the explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, Shackletons Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition set out from London on 1 August 1914, to reach the Weddell Sea on 10 January 1915, where the pack ice closed in on their ship, Endurance. The ship was broken by the ice on 27 October 1915, the 28 crew members managed to flee to Elephant Island off Antarctica, bringing three small boats with them. Shackleton and five men managed to reach the southern coast of South Georgia in the James Caird. They arrived at Cave Cove, and camped at Peggotty Bluff, from Grytviken, Shackleton organised a rescue operation to bring home the remaining men. He again returned to Grytviken, but posthumously, in 1922 he had died unexpectedly from a heart attack at the beginning of another Antarctic expedition. His widow chose South Georgia as his resting place. His grave is located south of Grytviken, alongside those of whalers who had died on the island, on 27 November 2011, the ashes of Frank Wild, Shackletons right-hand man, were interred on the right side of Shackletons grave-site
7.
Stromness, South Georgia
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Stromness is a former whaling station on the northern coast of South Georgia Island in the South Atlantic. It was the destination of Ernest Shackletons rescue journey in 1916 and it is the central of three harbours in the west side of Stromness Bay, South Georgia. The name Fridtjof Nansen or Nansen appeared for this harbour on some early charts, the name Stromness comes from the town of that name in Orkney, Scotland. In 1907 a floating factory was erected in Stromness Harbour, the station being built in 1912. From 1912 until 1931 Stromness operated as a station, the first manager of which was Petter Sørlle. In 1931 it was converted into a repair yard with a machine shop. It remained operational until 1961 when the site was abandoned, shackleton, along with Tom Crean and Frank Worsley, then trekked across South Georgias mountainous and glaciated interior in an effort to reach help on the populated northern shore of the island. After 36 hours of crossing the interior they arrived at the Stromness administration center which also was the home of the Norwegian whaling stations manager and this building has been dubbed the Villa at Stromness because it represents relative luxury compared to its surroundings. All men were rescued from Elephant Island, in the decades following its closure, Stromness has been subject to damage from the elements and many of its buildings have been reduced to ruins. However, recent efforts have made to restore the Villa. Outside of Stromness is a whalers cemetery with 14 grave markers. Research stations in Antarctica Stromness Bay This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Geological Survey document Stromness, South Georgia
8.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
9.
Avalanche
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An avalanche is a rapid flow of snow down a sloping surface. Avalanches are typically triggered in a zone from a mechanical failure in the snowpack when the forces on the snow exceed its strength. After initiation, avalanches usually accelerate rapidly and grow in mass, if the avalanche moves fast enough some of the snow may mix with the air forming a powder snow avalanche, which is a type of gravity current. Slides of rocks or debris, behaving in a way to snow, are also referred to as avalanches. The remainder of this article refers to snow avalanches, the load on the snowpack may be only due to gravity, in which case failure may result either from weakening in the snowpack or increased load due to precipitation. Avalanches that occur in this way are known as spontaneous avalanches, Avalanches can also be triggered by other loads such as skiers, snowmobilers, animals or explosives. Seismic activity may trigger the failure in the snowpack and avalanches. A popular myth is that avalanches can be triggered by loud noise or shouting, Avalanches are not rare or random events and are endemic to any mountain range that accumulates a standing snowpack. Avalanches are most common during winter or spring but glacier movements may cause ice, there is no universally accepted classification of avalanches—different classifications are useful for different purposes. Avalanches can be described by their size, their potential, their initiation mechanism, their composition. Most avalanches occur spontaneously during storms under increased load due to snowfall, the second largest cause of natural avalanches is metamorphic changes in the snowpack such as melting due to solar radiation. Other natural causes include rain, earthquakes, rockfall and icefall, artificial triggers of avalanches include skiers, snowmobiles, and controlled explosive work. Avalanche initiation can start at a point with only an amount of snow moving initially. A snowpack will fail when the load exceeds the strength, the load is straightforward, it is the weight of the snow. However, the strength of the snowpack is much more difficult to determine and is extremely heterogenous and it varies in detail with properties of the snow grains, size, density, morphology, temperature, water content, and the properties of the bonds between the grains. These properties may all metamorphose in time according to the humidity, water vapour flux, temperature. The top of the snowpack is also influenced by incoming radiation. One of the aims of research is to develop and validate computer models that can describe the evolution of the seasonal snowpack over time
10.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
11.
Allies of World War II
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The Allies of World War II, called the United Nations from the 1 January 1942 declaration, were the countries that together opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War. The Allies promoted the alliance as seeking to stop German, Japanese, at the start of the war on 1 September 1939, the Allies consisted of France, Poland and the United Kingdom, and dependent states, such as the British India. Within days they were joined by the independent Dominions of the British Commonwealth, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Poland was a minor factor after its defeat in 1939, France was a minor factor after its defeat in 1940. China had already been into a war with Japan since the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937. The alliance was formalised by the Declaration by United Nations, from 1 January 1942, however, the name United Nations was rarely used to describe the Allies during the war. The leaders of the Big Three – the UK, the Soviet Union, in 1945, the Allied nations became the basis of the United Nations. The origins of the Allied powers stem from the Allies of World War I, Germany resented signing Treaty of Versailles. The new Weimar republics legitimacy became shaken, by the early 1930s, the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler became the dominant revanchist movement in Germany and Hitler and the Nazis gained power in 1933. The Nazi regime demanded the cancellation of the Treaty of Versailles and made claims to German-populated Austria. The likelihood of war was high, and the question was whether it could be avoided through strategies such as appeasement, in Asia, when Japan seized Manchuria in 1931, the League of Nations condemned it for aggression against China. Japan responded by leaving the League of Nations in March 1933, after four quiet years, the Sino-Japanese War erupted in 1937 with Japanese forces invading China. The League of Nations condemned Japans actions and initiated sanctions on Japan, the United States, in particular, was angered at Japan and sought to support China. In March 1939, Germany took over Czechoslovakia, violating the Munich Agreement signed six months before, Britain and France decided that Hitler had no intention to uphold diplomatic agreements and responded by preparing for war. On 31 March 1939, Britain formed the Anglo-Polish military alliance in an effort to avert a German attack on the country, also, the French had a long-standing alliance with Poland since 1921. The Soviet Union sought an alliance with the powers. The agreement secretly divided the independent nations of eastern Europe between the two powers and assured adequate oil supplies for the German war machine, on 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland, two days later Britain and France declared war on Germany. Then, on 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, a Polish government-in-exile was set up and it continued to be one of the Allies, a model followed by other occupied countries. After a quiet winter, Germany in April 1940 invaded and quickly defeated Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Britain and its Empire stood alone against Hitler and Mussolini
12.
Royal Navy
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The Royal Navy is the United Kingdoms naval warfare force. Although warships were used by the English kings from the medieval period. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century, from the middle decades of the 17th century and through the 18th century, the Royal Navy vied with the Dutch Navy and later with the French Navy for maritime supremacy. From the mid 18th century it was the worlds most powerful navy until surpassed by the United States Navy during the Second World War. The Royal Navy played a key part in establishing the British Empire as the world power during the 19th. Due to this historical prominence, it is common, even among non-Britons, following World War I, the Royal Navy was significantly reduced in size, although at the onset of the Second World War it was still the worlds largest. By the end of the war, however, the United States Navy had emerged as the worlds largest, during the Cold War, the Royal Navy transformed into a primarily anti-submarine force, hunting for Soviet submarines, mostly active in the GIUK gap. The Royal Navy is part of Her Majestys Naval Service, which includes the Royal Marines. The professional head of the Naval Service is the First Sea Lord, the Defence Council delegates management of the Naval Service to the Admiralty Board, chaired by the Secretary of State for Defence. The strength of the fleet of the Kingdom of England was an important element in the power in the 10th century. English naval power declined as a result of the Norman conquest. Medieval fleets, in England as elsewhere, were almost entirely composed of merchant ships enlisted into service in time of war. Englands naval organisation was haphazard and the mobilisation of fleets when war broke out was slow, early in the war French plans for an invasion of England failed when Edward III of England destroyed the French fleet in the Battle of Sluys in 1340. Major fighting was confined to French soil and Englands naval capabilities sufficed to transport armies and supplies safely to their continental destinations. Such raids halted finally only with the occupation of northern France by Henry V. Henry VII deserves a large share of credit in the establishment of a standing navy and he embarked on a program of building ships larger than heretofore. He also invested in dockyards, and commissioned the oldest surviving dry dock in 1495 at Portsmouth, a standing Navy Royal, with its own secretariat, dockyards and a permanent core of purpose-built warships, emerged during the reign of Henry VIII. Under Elizabeth I England became involved in a war with Spain, the new regimes introduction of Navigation Acts, providing that all merchant shipping to and from England or her colonies should be carried out by English ships, led to war with the Dutch Republic. In the early stages of this First Anglo-Dutch War, the superiority of the large, heavily armed English ships was offset by superior Dutch tactical organisation and the fighting was inconclusive
