1.
Genoa
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Genoa is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015,594,733 people lived within the administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of Genoa, over 1.5 million people live in the wider metropolitan area stretching along the Italian Riviera. Genoa has been nicknamed la Superba due to its glorious past, part of the old town of Genoa was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 2006. The citys rich history in notably its art, music. It is the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, Niccolò Paganini, Giuseppe Mazzini, Genoa, which forms the southern corner of the Milan-Turin-Genoa industrial triangle of north-west Italy, is one of the countrys major economic centres. The city has hosted massive shipyards and steelworks since the 19th century, the Bank of Saint George, founded in 1407, is among the oldest in the world and has played an important role in the citys prosperity since the middle of the 15th century. Today a number of leading Italian companies are based in the city, including Fincantieri, Selex ES, Ansaldo Energia, Ansaldo STS, Edoardo Raffinerie Garrone, Piaggio Aerospace, the Genoa area has been inhabited since the fifth or fourth millennium BC. In ancient times this area was frequented and inhabited by Ligures, Phoenicians, Phocaeans, Greeks, and Etruscans. The city cemetery, dating from the 6th and 5th centuries BC, testifies to the occupation of the site by the Greeks, but the fine harbour probably saw use much earlier, perhaps by the Etruscans. In the 5th century BC was founded the first oppidum at the foot of the today called the Castle Hill which now is inside the medieval old town. The ancient Ligurian city was known as Stalia, so referred to by Artemidorus Ephesius and Pomponius Mela, Ligurian Stalia was overshadowed by the powerful Marseille and Vada Sabatia, near modern Savona. Stalia had an alliance with Rome through a foedus aequum in the course of the Second Punic War, the Carthaginians accordingly destroyed it in 209 BC. The town was rebuilt and, after the Carthaginian Wars ended in 146 BC. it received municipal rights, the original castrum thenceforth expanded towards the current areas of Santa Maria di Castello and the San Lorenzo promontory. Trades included skins, wood, and honey, goods were shipped to the mainland, up to major cities like Tortona and Piacenza. Among the archeological remains from the Roman period, an amphitheatre was also found, another theory traces the name to the Etruscan word Kainua which means New City and still another from the Latin word ianua, related to the name of the God Janus, meaning door or passage. The latter is in reference to its position at the centre of the Ligurian coastal arch. The Latin name, oppidum Genua, is recorded by Pliny the Elder as part of the Augustean Regio IX Liguria, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Ostrogoths occupied Genoa
2.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
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.
Fresnel lens
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A Fresnel lens is a type of compact lens originally developed by French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel for lighthouses. The design allows the construction of lenses of large aperture and short focal length without the mass, a Fresnel lens can be made much thinner than a comparable conventional lens, in some cases taking the form of a flat sheet. A Fresnel lens can capture more light from a light source. The idea of creating a thinner, lighter lens by making it with separate sections mounted in a frame is attributed to Georges-Louis Leclerc. The Marquis de Condorcet proposed grinding such a lens from a thin piece of glass. French physicist and engineer Augustin-Jean Fresnel is most often given credit for the development of the lens for use in lighthouses. According to Smithsonian magazine, the first Fresnel lens was used in 1823 in the Cordouan lighthouse at the mouth of the Gironde estuary, scottish physicist Sir David Brewster is credited with convincing the United Kingdom to adopt these lenses in their lighthouses. The Fresnel lens reduces the amount of material required compared to a lens by dividing the lens into a set of concentric annular sections. An ideal Fresnel lens would have many such sections. In each section, the thickness is decreased compared to an equivalent simple lens. This effectively divides the surface of a standard lens into a set of surfaces of the same curvature. In some lenses, the surfaces are replaced with flat surfaces. Such a lens can be regarded as an array of prisms arranged in a fashion, with steeper prisms on the edges. In the first Fresnel lenses, each section was actually a separate prism, single-piece Fresnel lenses were later produced, being used for automobile headlamps, brake, parking, and turn signal lenses, and so on. In modern times, computer-controlled milling equipment might be used to more complex lenses. Fresnel lenses are made of glass or plastic, their size varies from large to medium to small. In many cases they are thin and flat, almost flexible. Modern Fresnel lenses usually consist of all refractive elements, however many of the lighthouses have both refracting and reflecting elements, as shown in the photographs and diagram
5.
Electric power distribution
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Electric power distribution is the final stage in the delivery of electric power, it carries electricity from the transmission system to individual consumers. Distribution substations connect to the system and lower the transmission voltage to medium voltage ranging between 2 kV and 35 kV with the use of transformers. Primary distribution lines carry this medium voltage power to distribution transformers located near the customers premises, Distribution transformers again lower the voltage to the utilization voltage of household appliances and typically feed several customers through secondary distribution lines at this voltage. Commercial and residential customers are connected to the distribution lines through service drops. Customers demanding a larger amount of power may be connected directly to the primary distribution level or the subtransmission level. Electric power distribution only became necessary in the 1880s when electricity started being generated at power stations, before that electricity was usually generated where it was used. Both were supplanting gas lighting systems, with arc lighting taking over large area/street lighting, the Edison DC system needed thick copper conductor cables, and the generating plants needed to be within about 1.5 miles of the farthest customer to avoid excessively large and expensive conductors. With much cheaper transmission costs and the economies of scale of having large generating plants supply whole cities and regions. Edisons propaganda campaign was short lived with his company switching over to AC in 1892, in the first half of the 20th century, the electric power industry was vertically integrated, meaning that one company did generation, transmission, distribution, metering and billing. Starting in the 1970s and 1980s, nations began the process of deregulation and privatisation, the distribution system would remain regulated, but generation, retail, and sometimes transmission systems were transformed into competitive markets. Electric power begins at a station, where the potential difference can be as high as 13,800 volts. However, High-voltage DC can be advantageous for isolating alternating-current systems or controlling the quantity of electricity transmitted, for example, Hydro-Québec has a direct-current line which goes from the James Bay region to Boston. From the generating station it goes to the generating station’s switchyard where a step-up transformer increases the voltage to a suitable for transmission. Once in the system, electricity from each generating station is combined with electricity produced elsewhere. Electricity is consumed as soon as it is produced and it is transmitted at a very high speed, close to the speed of light. Transformers step down transmission voltages, 35kV or more, down to primary distribution voltages and these are medium voltage circuits, usually 600-35,000 V. From the transformer, power goes to the busbar that can split the power off in multiple directions. The bus distributes power to distribution lines, which fan out to customers, urban distribution is mainly underground, sometimes in common utility ducts
6.
Light characteristic
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The graphic indicates how the real light may be identified when looking at its actual light output type or sequence. Different lights use different colours, frequencies and light patterns, so mariners can identify which light they are seeing, while light characteristics can be described in prose, e. g. Flashing white every three seconds, lists of lights and navigation chart annotations use abbreviations. The abbreviation notation is different from one light list to another, with dots added or removed. An abbreviation of the type of light, e. g. Fl. for flashing, the color of the light, e. g. W for white, G for green, R for red, Y for yellow. If no color is given, a light is generally implied. The cycle period, e. g. 10s for ten seconds, additional parameters are sometimes added, The height of the light above the chart datum for height. The range in which the light is visible, e. g. 10M for 10 nautical miles, an example of a complete light characteristic is Gp Oc W 10s 15m 10M. A fixed light, abbreviated F, is a continuous and steady light and it is most commonly used for a single-flashing light which exhibits only single flashes which are repeated at regular intervals, in which case it is abbreviated simply as Fl. It can also be used with a group of flashes which are regularly repeated, in which case the abbreviation is Fl. or Gr Fl. for a group of two flashes. Another possibility is a group, in which successive groups in the period have different numbers of flashes. A specific case sometimes used is when the flashes are longer than two seconds, such a light is sometimes denoted long flashing with the abbreviation L. Fl. If the frequency of flashes is large the light is denoted as a quick light, an occulting light is a rhythmic light in which the duration of light in each period is longer than the total duration of darkness. In other words, it is the opposite to a flashing light where the duration of darkness is longer than the duration of light. It has the appearance of flashing off, rather than flashing on, an isophase light, abbreviated Iso, is a light which has dark and light periods of equal length. The prefix derives from the Greek iso- meaning same, a quick light, abbreviated Q, is a special case of a flashing light with a large frequency. If the sequence of flashes is interrupted by regularly repeated eclipses of constant and long duration, group notation similar to flashing and occulting lights is also sometimes used. Another distinction sometimes made is between quick, very quick and ultra quick. This can be combined with notations for interruptions, e. g. I. U. Q. for interrupted ultra quick, or grouping, e. g. V. Q. for a very quick group of nine flashes
7.
Flashing light
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The graphic indicates how the real light may be identified when looking at its actual light output type or sequence. Different lights use different colours, frequencies and light patterns, so mariners can identify which light they are seeing, while light characteristics can be described in prose, e. g. Flashing white every three seconds, lists of lights and navigation chart annotations use abbreviations. The abbreviation notation is different from one light list to another, with dots added or removed. An abbreviation of the type of light, e. g. Fl. for flashing, the color of the light, e. g. W for white, G for green, R for red, Y for yellow. If no color is given, a light is generally implied. The cycle period, e. g. 10s for ten seconds, additional parameters are sometimes added, The height of the light above the chart datum for height. The range in which the light is visible, e. g. 10M for 10 nautical miles, an example of a complete light characteristic is Gp Oc W 10s 15m 10M. A fixed light, abbreviated F, is a continuous and steady light and it is most commonly used for a single-flashing light which exhibits only single flashes which are repeated at regular intervals, in which case it is abbreviated simply as Fl. It can also be used with a group of flashes which are regularly repeated, in which case the abbreviation is Fl. or Gr Fl. for a group of two flashes. Another possibility is a group, in which successive groups in the period have different numbers of flashes. A specific case sometimes used is when the flashes are longer than two seconds, such a light is sometimes denoted long flashing with the abbreviation L. Fl. If the frequency of flashes is large the light is denoted as a quick light, an occulting light is a rhythmic light in which the duration of light in each period is longer than the total duration of darkness. In other words, it is the opposite to a flashing light where the duration of darkness is longer than the duration of light. It has the appearance of flashing off, rather than flashing on, an isophase light, abbreviated Iso, is a light which has dark and light periods of equal length. The prefix derives from the Greek iso- meaning same, a quick light, abbreviated Q, is a special case of a flashing light with a large frequency. If the sequence of flashes is interrupted by regularly repeated eclipses of constant and long duration, group notation similar to flashing and occulting lights is also sometimes used. Another distinction sometimes made is between quick, very quick and ultra quick. This can be combined with notations for interruptions, e. g. I. U. Q. for interrupted ultra quick, or grouping, e. g. V. Q. for a very quick group of nine flashes
8.
United Kingdom Hydrographic Office
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The United Kingdom Hydrographic Office is located in Taunton, Somerset on Admiralty Way and has a workforce of approximately 1,000 staff. The UKHO is the UKs agency providing hydrographic and geospatial data to mariners and they are a trading arm of the Ministry of Defence. They are responsible for support to the Royal Navy and other defence customers. Supplying defence and the shipping industry, they help ensure Safety of Lives at Sea, protect the marine environment. Together with other national hydrographic offices and the International Hydrographic Organisation, they work to set and raise standards of hydrography, cartography. Their market-leading portfolio of ADMIRALTY Maritime Products & Services is found on over 90% of the ships trading internationally. Relied upon by mariners for over 200 years, their portfolio provides the most comprehensive range of SOLAS-compliant charts, publications and digital services to crews, cargo. The Admiraltys first Hydrographer was Alexander Dalrymple, appointed in 1795 on the order of King George III, the first chart Dalrymple published as Hydrographer to the ADMIRALTY brand did not appear until 1800. He also issued sailing directions and Notices to Mariners, Dalrymple was succeeded on his death in 1808 by Captain Thomas Hurd, under whose stewardship the department was given permission to sell charts to the public in 1821. In 1819 Captain Hurd entered into an agreement with Denmark to exchange charts. This is thought to be the earliest formal arrangement for the supply of information between the British and any foreign Hydrographic Office. Hurd developed the specialism of Royal Navy hydrographic surveyors, Rear-Admiral Sir W. Edward Parry was appointed Hydrographer in 1823 after his second expedition to discover a Northwest Passage. In 1825 some 736 charts and coastal views were being offered for sale by the Hydrographic Office, in 1828 Captain Parry and the Royal Society organised a scientific voyage to the South Atlantic, in collaboration with the Hydrographers of France and Spain, using HMS Chanticleer. In 1829, at the age of 55, Rear-Admiral Sir Francis Beaufort became Hydrographer, during his time as Hydrographer, he developed the eponymous Scale, saw the introduction of official tide tables in 1833 and instigated various surveys and expeditions. Several of these were by the HMS Beagle, including one to Tierra del Fuego, in 1831 Captain Beaufort informed Captain FitzRoy that he had found a savant for the latters surveying voyage to South America, Charles Darwin. After completing extensive surveys in South America she returned to Falmouth, Cornwall via New Zealand, by the time of Beauforts retirement in 1855, the Chart Catalogue listed 1,981 charts and 64,000 copies of them had been issued to the Royal Navy. In the 1870s the Hydrographic Service supported the Challenger expedition, an exercise that made many discoveries. The cruise was named after the vessel, HMS Challenger
9.
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
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NGA was known as the National Imagery and Mapping Agency until 2003. NGA headquarters is located at Fort Belvoir in Springfield, Virginia, the NGA campus, at 2.3 million square feet, is the third-largest government building in the Washington metropolitan area after The Pentagon and the Ronald Reagan Building. U. S. mapping and charting efforts remained relatively unchanged until World War I, using stereo viewers, photo-interpreters reviewed thousands of images. Many of these were of the target at different angles and times, giving rise to what became modern imagery analysis. The Engineer Reproduction Plant was the Army Corps of Engineerss first attempt to centralize mapping production, printing and it was located on the grounds of the Army War College in Washington, D. C. Previously, topographic mapping had largely been a function of individual field engineer units using field surveying techniques or copying existing or captured products, in addition, ERP assumed the supervision and maintenance of the War Department Map Collection, effective April 1,1939. With the advent of the Second World War aviation, field surveys began giving way to photogrammetry, photo interpretation, during wartime, it became increasingly possible to compile maps with minimal field work. Out of this emerged AMS, which absorbed the existing ERP in May 1942 and it was located at the Dalecarlia Site on MacArthur Blvd. just outside Washington, D. C. in Montgomery County, Maryland, and adjacent to the Dalecarlia Reservoir. AMS was designated as an Engineer field activity, effective July 1,1942, by General Order 22, OCE, the Army Map Service also combined many of the Armys remaining geographic intelligence organizations and the Engineer Technical Intelligence Division. The agencys credit union, Constellation Federal Credit Union, was chartered during the Army Map Service era and it has continued to serve all successive legacy agencies employees and their families. After the war, as capacity and range improved, the need for charts grew. The Army Air Corps established its map unit, which was renamed ACP in 1943 and was located in St. Louis, ACP was known as the U. S. Air Force Aeronautical Chart and Information Center from 1952 to 1972. A credit union was chartered for the ACP in 1948, called Aero Chart Credit Union and it was renamed Arsenal Credit Union in 1952, a nod to the St. Louis sites Civil War-era use as an arsenal. Shortly before leaving office in January 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized the creation of the National Photographic Interpretation Center, lundahl, combining Central Intelligence Agency, Army, Navy, and Air Force assets to solve national intelligence problems. NPIC was a component of the CIAs Directorate of Science and Technology, NPIC first identified the Soviet Unions basing of missiles in Cuba in 1962. The Defense Mapping Agency was created on January 1,1972, dMAs birth certificate, DoD Directive 5105.40, resulted from a formerly classified Presidential directive, Organization and Management of the U. S. Foreign Intelligence Community, which directed the consolidation of mapping functions previously dispersed among the military services, DMA became operational on July 1,1972, pursuant to General Order 3, DMA. On Oct.1,1996, DMA was folded into the National Imagery, DMA was first headquartered at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D. C, then at Falls Church, Virginia
10.
Amateur Radio Lighthouse Society
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Founded in 2000 by Jim Weidner, K2JXW, the Amateur Radio Lighthouse Society is devoted to maritime communications, amateur radio, lighthouses, and lightships. Its members travel to lighthouses around the world where they operate amateur radio equipment at or near the light, collecting lighthouse QSLs is popular for some amateur radio operators. ARLHS is a organization with over 1665 members worldwide as of July 2009. A convention is held in October each year, in 2010 the gathering was in Biloxi, Mississippi. In earlier years it has held in Solomons, Maryland, St. Simons, Georgia, Port Huron, Michigan. The ARLHS has been featured in magazines, such as CQ. Jim Weidner is its founding President, and Jim Buffington, K5JIM, is Vice President, the club call sign is W7QF and the website is The ARLHS maintains a catalog of lighthouses called The World List of Lights. Its main feature is a short, and easily transmitted identification number for each lighthouse, the WLOL lists any lighthouse that is or was an Aid to Navigation and can reasonably accommodate an amateur radio operation. Lights that are no longer in existence, but were once an ATN, also show up on the list, with over 15,000 entries, the WLOL is one of the most complete lighthouse catalogs in existence. Amateur Radio Lighthouse Society Website ARLHS Convention web site Indias First ARLHS activation in Mahaballipuram, Chennai, India Aug 2008 Kadalur Lighthouse Centenary and ILLW operation Aug 2009
11.
Marina Militare
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The Italian Navy is the maritime defence force of the Italian Republic. It is one of the four branches of Italian Armed Forces and was formed in 1946 from what remained of the Regia Marina after World War II. As of August 2014, the Italian Navy had a strength of 30,923 active personnel with approximately 184 vessels in service, the Regia Marina was formed on March 17,1861, after the proclamation of the Kingdom of Italy. The Italian Navy assumed its present name after the Italian monarchy was abolished following a referendum held on June 2,1946. At the end of its five years involvement in World War II, however, a large number of its naval units had survived the war, albeit in a low efficiency state, which was due to the conflict and the age of many vessels. A ban on owning Battleships, Aircraft carriers, Submarines and Amphibious Assault units, a ban on operating military installations on the islands of Pantelleria, Pianosa and on the archipelago of Pelagie Islands. The total displacement, battleships excluded, of the navy was not allowed to be greater than 67,500 tons. Some had already been dismantled in La Spezia between 1948 and 1955, including the aircraft carrier Aquila. However, the Soviet Union demanded the surrender of the battleship Giulio Cesare, the cruisers Attilio Regolo and Scipione Africano became the French Chateaurenault and Guichen, while Eugenio di Savoia became the Greek Helli. After break up and/or transfers, only a part of the fleet remained to be recommissioned into the Marina. With the new elections in 1946, the Kingdom of Italy became a Republic, the US government in Washington wished to keep its own installations on the Italian Peninsula and relaxed the Treaty restrictions by including Italy in the Mutual Defense Assistance Programme. Within NATO, the Marina Militare was assigned control of the Adriatic Sea and Strait of Otranto. This solution required a great effort to rebuild and transform the fleet. Progress was slow due to pressures on Italy and due to opposition from other European governments. These nations were concerned at seeing an Italian Navy capable of rivaling the Western naval forces, the ensign of the Italian Navy is the Italian tricolour defaced with the coat of arms of the Marina Militare. A further difference is that St, in 2012 the Navy began a restructuring process that will see a 21% decrease in personnel by 2025. A new structure was implemented in January 2014, the command structure is depicted below, Reporting to the Logistics Command is Maritime Command – divided into four areas who provide logistic support for their areas. The Corps of the Port Captaincies – Coast Guard is the coast guard of Italy and is part of the Italian Navy under the control of the Ministry of Infrastructures, in Italy, it is commonly known as simply the Guardia costiera
12.
Lighthouse
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Lighthouses mark dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals, reefs, and safe entries to harbors, and can assist in aerial navigation. Once widely used, the number of operational lighthouses has declined due to the expense of maintenance, before the development of clearly defined ports, mariners were guided by fires built on hilltops. Since raising the fire would improve the visibility, placing the fire on a platform became a practice that led to the development of the lighthouse. In antiquity, the lighthouse functioned more as a marker to ports than as a warning signal for reefs and promontories. The most famous lighthouse structure from antiquity was the Pharos of Alexandria, coins from Alexandria, Ostia, and Laodicea in Syria also exist. The modern era of lighthouses began at the turn of the 18th century, advances in structural engineering and new and efficient lighting equipment allowed for the creation of larger and more powerful lighthouses, including ones exposed to the sea. The function of lighthouses shifted toward the provision of a warning against shipping hazards. The Eddystone Rocks were a major hazard for mariners sailing through the English Channel. The first lighthouse built there was a wooden structure, anchored by 12 iron stanchions secured in the rock. His lighthouse was the first tower in the world to have been exposed to the open sea. The civil engineer, John Smeaton, rebuilt the lighthouse from 1756–59, his tower marked a step forward in the design of lighthouses. He modelled the shape of his lighthouse on that of an oak tree and he pioneered the use of hydraulic lime, a form of concrete that will set under water, and developed a technique of securing the granite blocks together using dovetail joints and marble dowels. This profile had the advantage of allowing some of the energy of the waves to dissipate on impact with the walls. His lighthouse was the prototype for the lighthouse and influenced all subsequent engineers. One such influence was Robert Stevenson, himself a figure in the development of lighthouse design. His greatest achievement was the construction of the Bell Rock Lighthouse in 1810 and this structure was based upon Smeatons design, but with several improved features, such as the incorporation of rotating lights, alternating between red and white. Stevenson worked for the Northern Lighthouse Board for nearly fifty years during which time he designed and oversaw the construction and he also invented the movable jib and the balance crane as a necessary part for lighthouse construction. Alexander Mitchell designed the first screw-pile lighthouse – his lighthouse was built on piles that were screwed into the sandy or muddy seabed, construction of his design began in 1838 at the mouth of the Thames and was known as the Maplin Sands lighthouse, and first lit in 1841
13.
Port of Genoa
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The Port of Genoa is the major Italian seaport on the Mediterranean Sea. With a trade volume of 51.6 million tonnes, it is the busiest port of Italy by cargo tonnage. The port is used as a dismantling station and has been named as the port where the Costa Concordia is to be dismantled.5 million cars and 250,000 trucks. A third cruise terminal is currently under construction in the area of Ponte Parodi. There are two lighthouses, the historical Lanterna,76 metres tall, and the small lighthouse of Punta Vagno. The marina of the Exhibition centre
14.
Tower of Hercules
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The Tower of Hercules is an ancient Roman lighthouse on a peninsula about 2.4 kilometers from the centre of A Coruña, Galicia, in north-western Spain. Until the 20th century, the tower itself was known as the Farum Brigantium, the Latin word farum is derived from the Greek pharos for the Lighthouse of Alexandria. The structure is 55 metres tall and overlooks the North Atlantic coast of Spain, the structure, almost 1900 years old and and renovated in 1791, is the oldest Roman lighthouse in use today. There is a garden featuring works by Pablo Serrano and Francisco Leiro. The Tower of Hercules is a National Monument of Spain, and it is the second tallest lighthouse in Spain, after the Faro de Chipiona. The tower is known to have existed by the 2nd century, built or perhaps rebuilt under Trajan and it is thought to be modeled after the Lighthouse of Alexandria. The tower has been in constant use since the 2nd century and is considered to be the oldest existing lighthouse in the world, the restoration was undertaken by naval engineer Eustaquio Giannini during the reign of Charles III of Spain, and was finished in 1791. Within, the much-repaired Roman and medieval masonry may be inspected, the Romans who conquered this region of Spain believed it to be, in a figurative sense, the end of the earth, whence its name Finisterra. This region is notorious for shipwrecks, earning it the name Costa da Morte, through the millennia many mythical stories of its origin have been told. According to a myth that blends Celtic and Greco-Roman elements, the hero Hercules slew the giant tyrant Geryon after three days and three nights of continuous battle. Hercules then—in a Celtic gesture— buried the head of Geryon with his weapons, the lighthouse atop a skull and crossbones representing the buried head of Hercules’ slain enemy appears in the coat-of-arms of the city of Corunna. The glimpse of that distant green land lured them to sail north to Ireland, according to the legend Breogáns descendants stayed in Ireland and are the Celtic ancestors of the current Irish people. A colossal statue of Breogán has been erected near the Tower, early geographical descriptions on the location of Brigantia point out that the town could be actually located in Corunna or in the locality of the modern town of Betanzos. This, however, could be a false etymology, the place he chose was an uninhabited place called Clunia, which later on evolved to Cruña and Coruña, and so to Corunna. The place name Clunia is believed to come from the Proto-Celtic root *klou̯ni, meaning meadow
15.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
16.
Sampierdarena
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Sampierdarena is a major port and industrial area of Genoa, in northwest Italy. With San Teodoro it forms the West Central municipio, Sampierdarena lies on the coast about 4 kilometres west of the centre of Genoa. In 2000 the population was 67,741, Sampierdarena was an ancient fishing village, named after the church of San Pietro dArena. During the Renaissance it became an area, with great palaces being built such as the Palazzo Spinola. After the coming of the railways it became one of the industrial centres of Italy. Ansaldo & C. was one of the companies of the area involved in shipbuilding and armaments. In 1926 the comune of Sampierdarena was absorbed by Greater Genoa, becoming in 1969 a delegazione, historically the area was dominated by heavy industry such as shipbuilding. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh. Lighthouse of Genoa Media related to Sampierdarena at Wikimedia Commons
17.
Peninsula
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A peninsula is a piece of land surrounded by water on the majority of its border, while being connected to a mainland from which it extends out. Examples include the upper and lower peninsulas of the state of Michigan, the surrounding water is usually understood to be continuous, though not necessarily named as a single body of water. Peninsulas are not always named as such, one can also be a headland, cape, island promontory, bill, point, a point is generally considered a tapering piece of land projecting into a body of water that is less prominent than a cape. A river which courses through a very tight meander is also said to form a peninsula within the loop of water. In English, the plural of peninsula is peninsulas or, less commonly, peninsulas can be found on coastlines and in smaller bodies of water throughout the world, ranging in scale from square meters to millions of square kilometers. Theres the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe, and in Southern Europe theres the Iberian Peninsula, the Italian Peninsula, south America has the Brunswick Peninsula, and Antarctica has the Antarctic Peninsula. In Africa, theres the Horn of Africa, and in Australia, asia has the 3 largest peninsulas in the world, the Arabian Peninsula, the Indian Peninsula, and the Indochinese Peninsula
18.
Convent
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A convent is either a community of priests, religious brothers or religious sisters, or the building used by the community, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion. The term derives via Old French from Latin conventus, perfect participle of the verb convenio, meaning to convene, the original reference was to the gathering of mendicants who spent much of their time travelling. Technically, a monastery or nunnery is a community of monastics, whereas a friary or convent is a community of mendicants, and a canonry a community of canons regular. The terms abbey and priory can be applied to both monasteries and canonries, an abbey is headed by an Abbot, and a priory is a dependent house headed by a Prior. In English usage since about the 19th century the term convent almost invariably refers to a community of women, in historical usage they are often interchangeable, with convent especially likely to be used for a friary. When applied to houses in Eastern Orthodoxy and Buddhism, English refers to all houses of male religious as monasteries. Christian monasticism Enclosed religious orders Herbermann, Charles, ed. Convent, carmelite Monastery of the Sacred Hearts —- an example of a modern-day convent Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Convent
19.
Woodcut
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Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that the artist cuts away carry no ink, while characters or images at surface level carry the ink to produce the print, the block is cut along the wood grain. The surface is covered with ink by rolling over the surface with a roller, leaving ink upon the flat surface. Multiple colors can be printed by keying the paper to a frame around the woodblocks, single-leaf woodcut is a term for a woodcut presented as a single image or print, as opposed to a book illustration. Among these the best known are the 16th century Hieronymus Andreae, Hans Lützelburger and Jost de Negker, all of whom ran workshops, the formschneider in turn handed the block on to specialist printers. There were further specialists who made the blank blocks and this is why woodcuts are sometimes described by museums or books as designed by rather than by an artist, but most authorities do not use this distinction. The division of labour had the advantage that a trained artist could adapt to the medium relatively easily, there were various methods of transferring the artists drawn design onto the block for the cutter to follow. Either the drawing would be made directly onto the block, or a drawing on paper was glued to the block, either way, the artists drawing was destroyed during the cutting process. Other methods were used, including tracing, in both Europe and the Far East in the early 20th century, some artists began to do the whole process themselves. In Japan, this movement was called sōsaku-hanga, as opposed to shin-hanga, in the West, many artists used the easier technique of linocut instead. Compared to intaglio techniques like etching and engraving, only low pressure is required to print, as a relief method, it is only necessary to ink the block and bring it into firm and even contact with the paper or cloth to achieve an acceptable print. In Europe a variety of woods including boxwood and several nut and fruit woods like pear or cherry were commonly used, in Japan, there are three methods of printing to consider, Stamping, Used for many fabrics and most early European woodcuts. Used for European woodcuts and block-books later in the fifteenth century, also used for many Western woodcuts from about 1910 to the present. The block goes face up on a table, with the paper or fabric on top, the back is rubbed with a hard pad, a flat piece of wood, a burnisher, or a leather frotton. A traditional Japanese tool used for this is called a baren, later in Japan, complex wooden mechanisms were used to help hold the woodblock perfectly still and to apply proper pressure in the printing process. This was especially helpful once multiple colors were introduced and had to be applied with precision atop previous ink layers, printing in a press, presses only seem to have been used in Asia in relatively recent times. Printing-presses were used from about 1480 for European prints and block-books, simple weighted presses may have been used in Europe before the print-press, but firm evidence is lacking
20.
Nuremberg Chronicle
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Written in Latin by Hartmann Schedel, with a version in German, translation by Georg Alt, it appeared in 1493. It is one of the early printed books—an incunabulum—and one of the first to successfully integrate illustrations. Latin scholars refer to it as Liber Chronicarum as this appears in the index introduction of the Latin edition. English-speakers have long referred to it as the Nuremberg Chronicle after the city in which it was published, german-speakers refer to it as Die Schedelsche Weltchronik in honour of its author. Two Nuremberg merchants, Sebald Schreyer and his son-in-law, Sebastian Kammermeister and they also commissioned George Alt, a scribe at the Nuremberg treasury, to translate the work into German. Both Latin and German editions were printed by Anton Koberger, in Nuremberg, the contracts were recorded by scribes, bound into volumes, and deposited in the Nuremberg City Archives. The first contract, from December,1491, established the relationship between the illustrators and the patrons, Wolgemut and Pleydenwurff, the painters, were to provide the layout of the chronicle, to oversee the production of the woodcuts, and to guard the designs against piracy. The patrons agreed to advance 1000 gulden for paper, printing costs, a second contract, between the patrons and the printer, was executed in March,1492. It stipulated conditions for acquiring the paper and managing the printing, the blocks and the archetype were to be returned to the patrons once the printing was completed. The author of the text, Hartmann Schedel, was a doctor, humanist. He earned a doctorate in medicine in Padua in 1466, then settled in Nuremberg to practice medicine, according to an inventory done in 1498, Schedels personal library contained 370 manuscripts and 670 printed books. The author used passages from the classical and medieval works in this collection to compose the text of Chronicle and he borrowed most frequently from another humanist chronicle, Supplementum Chronicarum, by Jacob Philip Foresti of Bergamo. It has been estimated that about 90% of the text is pieced together from works on humanities, science, philosophy, Nuremberg was one of the largest cities in the Holy Roman Empire in the 1490s, with a population of between 45,000 and 50,000. Thirty-five patrician families comprised the City Council, the Council controlled all aspects of printing and craft activities, including the size of each profession and the quality, quantity and type of goods produced. Although dominated by an aristocracy, Nuremberg was a center of northern humanism. Anton Koberger, printer of the Nuremberg Chronicle, printed the first humanist book in Nuremberg in 1472, Sebald Shreyer, one of the patrons of the chronicle, commissioned paintings from classical mythology for the grand salon of his house. Hartmann Schedel, author of the chronicle, was a collector of both Italian Renaissance and German humanist works. Hieronymus Münzer, who assisted Schedel in writing the chapter on geography, was among this group, as were Albrecht Dürer and Johann
21.
Crenellation
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These gaps are termed crenels, and the act of adding crenels to a previously unbroken parapet is termed crenellation. The solid widths between the crenels are called merlons, a wall with battlements is said to be crenelated or embattled. Battlements on walls have protected walkways behind them, on tower or building tops, the roof is used as the protected fighting platform. The term originated in about the 14th century from the Old French word batailler, the word crenel derives from the ancient French cren, Latin crena, meaning a notch, mortice or other gap cut out often to receive another element or fixing, see also crenation. In medieval England a licence to crenellate granted the permission to fortify their property. The castles in England vastly outnumber the licences to crenellate, royal pardons were obtainable, on the payment of an arbitrarily determined fine, by a person who had fortified without licence. The surviving records of such licences, generally issued by letters patent, there has been academic debate over the purpose of licensing. The view of military-focused historians is that licensing restricted the number of fortifications that could be used against a royal army and they indicated to the observer that the grantee had obtained royal recognition, acknowledgment and compliment. The crown usually did not charge for the granting of such licences, battlements have been used for thousands of years, the earliest known example is in the fortress at Buhen in Egypt. Battlements were used in the walls surrounding Assyrian towns, as shown on bas reliefs from Nimrud, traces of them remain at Mycenae in Greece, and some ancient Greek vases suggest the existence of battlements. The Great Wall of China has battlements, late merlons permitted fire from the first firearms. From the 13th century, the merlons could be connected with wooden shutters that provided added protection when closed, the shutters were designed to be opened to allow shooters to fire against the attackers, and closed during reloading. The Romans used low wooden pinnacles for their first aggeres, in the battlements of Pompeii, additional protection derived from small internal buttresses or spur walls, against which the defender might stand so as to gain complete protection on one side. Loop-holes were frequent in Italian battlements, where the merlon has much greater height, Italian military architects used the so-called Ghibelline or swallowtail battlement, with V-shaped notches in the tops of the merlon, giving a horn-like effect. This would allow the defender to be protected whilst shooting standing fully upright, the normal rectangular merlons were later nicknamed Guelph. In Muslim and African fortifications, the merlons often were rounded, the battlements of the Arabs had a more decorative and varied character, and were continued from the 13th century onwards not so much for defensive purposes as for a crowning feature to the walls. They serve a similar to the cresting found in the Spanish Renaissance. European architects persistently used battlements as a decorative feature throughout the Decorated
22.
Walls of Genoa
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The Italian city of Genoa, chief town of Liguria and ancient capital of the Republic of Genoa, during its long history had been defended by walls. To this day, large portions of walls remain, and Genoa has more. The main city walls are known as “Ninth century walls”, Barbarossa Walls, Fourteenth century walls, Sixteenth century walls and New Walls. In Roman times the centre of Genoa, on the Sarzano hill, may have been defended by a wall. The first known city walls were built in the 9th century, the first walls, which included Sarzano hill, had three gates. The settlement enclosed by the walls and the coastline occupied about twenty-two hectares, some small settlements, which had grown around churches, monasteries and feudal palaces, remained outside the walls. In 1155 the defensive wall was extended to north-west to include also the new out of the walls. The walls culminated on the top of St. Andrew hill, the new walls greatly expanded the area contained in it, compared to the previous one, including an area of 55 hectares. The three main gates had a look, with high semicircular towers. In the 13th century the Old Pier peninsula, at the limit of the port, was also included inside the walls. Between 1320 and 1327, the east side of the walls was extended to include Carignano hill, passing where now are the esplanade of Acquasola and this walls section had two gates, Porta dellAcquasola and Porta degli Archi. Hence the ancient walls, still visible, continue with the names of Mura of Santa Chiara, Mura del Prato and Mura delle Cappuccine, ending with a cliff overlooking the sea. From 1347 and 1350 another extension was built toward west, from the fort of Castelletto to the new St. Thomas Gate and this stretch of walls included a series of towers and gates, no longer existing. After this enlargement the city wall ran for 4,550 meters, in the 16th century, the walls were no longer able to stand an attack with the new firearms so they were modified to create new Star forts. The “Barbarossa walls” and their extensions of 14th century were modernized, by replacing the old square towers with triangular bastions, were also completed walls along the sea, including the entire shoreline between the St. Thomas gate and the Molo Vecchio. In this stretch of some gates were built, one for each pier of the port. At the end of Molo Vecchio in the half of this century Galeazzo Alessi designed Porta Siberia. From here the walls are linked to already existing on the sea side of Sarzano and Carignano hills
23.
Erica
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Erica is a genus of roughly 860 species of flowering plants in the family Ericaceae. The English common names heath and heather are shared by closely related genera of similar appearance. The genus Calluna was formerly included in Erica – it differs in having even smaller scale-leaves, Erica is sometimes referred to as winter heather to distinguish it from Calluna summer heather. The Latin word erica means heath or broom and it is believed that Pliny adapted erica from Ancient Greek ἐρείκη. The expected Anglo-Latin pronunciation, /ᵻˈraɪkə/, may be given in dictionaries, but /ˈɛrᵻkə/ is more commonly heard. Most of the species of Erica are small shrubs from 20–150 cm high, though some are taller, all are evergreen, with minute, needle-like leaves 2–15 mm long. Flowers are sometimes axillary, and sometimes borne in umbels or spikes. The seeds are small, and in some species may survive in the soil for decades. Dulfer published the last revision of the genus Erica, treating 605 species, many new species have subsequently been described and a further 83 have been included in Erica from former “minor genera”, such as Phillipia Klotzsch and Blaeria L. A more recent overview of Erica species is provided in an identification aid. A number of increasingly detailed phylogenetic hypotheses for Erica have been published based on nuclear ribosomal, the closest relatives of Erica are Daboecia and Calluna, representing the oldest surviving lineages of a, by inference, ancestrally Palearctic tribe Ericeae. The small number of European Erica species represent the oldest lineages of the genus, within which a single, order-of-magnitude more species rich, within the African clade, Cape and Madagascan/Mascarene species respectively represent monophyletic groups. Around 690 of the species are endemic to South Africa, the remaining species are native to other parts of Africa, Madagascar, the Mediterranean, and Europe. Like most Ericaceae, Erica species are mainly calcifuges, being limited to acidic or very acidic soils, in fact, the term ericaceous is frequently applied to all calcifuges, and to the compost used in their cultivation. Soils range from dry, sandy soils to extremely wet ones such as bog and they often dominate dwarf-shrub habitats, or the ground vegetation of open acidic woodland. Erica species are grown as landscape or garden plants for their floral effect and they associate well with conifers and are frequently seen in planting schemes as massed groundcover beneath varieties of dwarf conifers. They are capable of producing flower colour throughout the year and they can also be grown in tubs or window boxes to provide interest through autumn and into winter. Some species of sunbirds are known to visit and pollinate Erica, two such species are the southern double-collared sunbird and the orange-breasted sunbird
24.
Juniper
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Junipers are coniferous plants in the genus Juniperus /dʒuːˈnɪpərəs/ of the cypress family Cupressaceae. The highest-known Juniper forest occurs at an altitude of 16,000 feet in south-eastern Tibet, Junipers vary in size and shape from tall trees, 20–40 m tall, to columnar or low spreading shrubs with long trailing branches. They are evergreen with needle-like and/or scale-like leaves and they can be either monoecious or dioecious. The female seed cones are very distinctive, with fleshy, fruit-like coalescing scales which fuse together to form a structure, 4–27 mm long. In some species these berries are red-brown or orange but in most they are blue, they are often aromatic, the seed maturation time varies between species from 6–18 months after pollination. The male cones are similar to those of other Cupressaceae, with 6–20 scales, in zones 7 through 10, junipers can bloom and release pollen several times each year. A few species of juniper bloom in autumn, while most species pollinate from early winter until late spring. Many junipers have two types of leaves, seedlings and some twigs of trees have needle-like leaves 5–25 mm long. When juvenile foliage occurs on mature plants, it is most often found on shaded shoots, leaves on fast-growing whip shoots are often intermediate between juvenile and adult. In some species, all the foliage is of the juvenile needle-like type, in some of these, the needles are jointed at the base, in others, the needles merge smoothly with the stem, not jointed. The needle-leaves of junipers are hard and sharp, making the juvenile foliage very prickly to handle and this can be a valuable identification feature in seedlings, as the otherwise very similar juvenile foliage of cypresses and other related genera is soft and not prickly. Duplicana feed on the bark around injuries or canker, the number of juniper species is in dispute, with two recent studies giving very different totals, Farjon accepting 52 species, and Adams accepting 67 species. The junipers are divided into sections, though which species belong to which sections is still far from clear. The section Juniperus is a monophyletic group though. The adult leaves are needle-like, in whorls of three, and jointed at the base, Juniperus, Cones with 3 separate seeds, needles with one stomatal band. Juniperus communis - Common Juniper Juniperus communis subsp, alpina - Alpine Juniper Juniperus conferta - Shore Juniper Juniperus rigida - Temple Juniper or Needle Juniper Juniperus sect. Oxycedrus, Cones with 3 separate seeds, needles with two stomatal bands, caryocedrus, Cones with 3 seeds fused together, needles with two stomatal bands. Juniperus drupacea - Syrian Juniper Juniperus sect, the adult leaves are mostly scale-like, similar to those of Cupressus species, in opposite pairs or whorls of three, and the juvenile needle-like leaves are not jointed at the base
25.
Tax
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A tax is a financial charge or other levy imposed upon a taxpayer by a state or the functional equivalent of a state to fund various public expenditures. A failure to pay, or evasion of or resistance to taxation, is punishable by law. Taxes consist of direct or indirect taxes and may be paid in money or as its labour equivalent, the legal definition and the economic definition of taxes differ in that economists do not regard many transfers to governments as taxes. For example, some transfers to the sector are comparable to prices. Examples include tuition at public universities and fees for utilities provided by local governments, governments also obtain resources by creating money and coins, through voluntary gifts, by imposing penalties, by borrowing, and by confiscating wealth. In modern taxation systems, governments levy taxes in money, but in-kind and corvée taxation are characteristic of traditional or pre-capitalist states, the method of taxation and the government expenditure of taxes raised is often highly debated in politics and economics. Tax collection is performed by a government agency such as the Canada Revenue Agency, when taxes are not fully paid, the state may impose civil penalties or criminal penalties on the non-paying entity or individual. The levying of taxes aims to raise revenue to fund governing and/or to alter prices in order to affect demand, States and their functional equivalents throughout history have used money provided by taxation to carry out many functions. A governments ability to raise taxes is called its fiscal capacity, when expenditures exceed tax revenue, a government accumulates debt. A portion of taxes may be used to service past debts, governments also use taxes to fund welfare and public services. These services can include education systems, pensions for the elderly, unemployment benefits, energy, water and waste management systems are also common public utilities. A tax effectively changes relative prices of products and they have therefore sought to identify the kind of tax system that would minimize this distortion. Governments use different kinds of taxes and vary the tax rates, historically, taxes on the poor supported the nobility, modern social-security systems aim to support the poor, the disabled, or the retired by taxes on those who are still working. A states tax system often reflects its communal values and the values of those in current political power. To create a system of taxation, a state must make choices regarding the distribution of the tax burden—who will pay taxes and how much they will pay—and how the taxes collected will be spent. In democratic nations where the public elects those in charge of establishing or administering the tax system, in countries where the public does not have a significant amount of influence over the system of taxation, that system may reflect more closely the values of those in power. All large businesses incur administrative costs in the process of delivering revenue collected from customers to the suppliers of the goods or services being purchased. Taxation is no different, the resource collected from the public through taxation is always greater than the amount which can be used by the government, the difference is called the compliance cost and includes the labour cost and other expenses incurred in complying with tax laws and rules
26.
Guelphs and Ghibellines
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The Guelphs and Ghibellines were factions supporting the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor, respectively, in the Italian city-states of central and northern Italy. During the 12th and 13th centuries, rivalry between two parties formed a particularly important aspect of the internal politics of medieval Italy. The struggle for power between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire had arisen with the Investiture Controversy, which began in 1075, the division between the Guelphs and Ghibellines in Italy, however, persisted until the 15th century. Guelph is an Italian form of the name of the House of Welf, the names were likely introduced to Italy during the reign of Frederick Barbarossa. When Frederick conducted military campaigns in Italy to expand imperial power there, the Lombard League and its allies were defending the liberties of the urban communes against the Emperors encroachments and became known as Guelphs. The Ghibellines were thus the party, while the Guelphs supported the Pope. Broadly speaking, Guelphs tended to come from wealthy mercantile families, the Lombard League defeated Frederick at the Battle of Legnano in 1176. Frederick recognized the autonomy of the cities of the Lombard league under his nominal suzerainty. The division developed its own dynamic in the politics of medieval Italy, smaller cities tended to be Ghibelline if the larger city nearby was Guelph, as Guelph Republic of Florence and Ghibelline Republic of Siena faced off at the Battle of Montaperti,1260. Pisa maintained a staunch Ghibelline stance against her fiercest rivals, the Guelph Republic of Genoa, adherence to one of the parties could therefore be motivated by local or regional political reasons. Within cities, party allegiances differed from guild to guild, rione to rione, moreover, sometimes traditionally Ghibelline cities allied with the Papacy, while Guelph cities were even punished with interdict. Contemporaries did not use the terms Guelph and Ghibellines much until about 1250, at the beginning of the 13th century, Philip of Swabia, a Hohenstaufen, and his son-in-law Otto of Brunswick, a Welf, were rivals for the imperial throne. Philip was supported by the Ghibellines as a relative of Frederick I, Frederick II also introduced this division to the Crusader states in the Levant during the Sixth Crusade. After the death of Frederick II in 1250 the Ghibellines were supported by Conrad IV of Germany and later Manfred, King of Sicily, the Sienese Ghibellines inflicted a noteworthy defeat on Florentine Guelphs at the Battle of Montaperti. In that period the stronghold of Italian Ghibellines was the city of Forlì and that city remained with the Ghibelline factions, partly as a means of preserving its independence, rather than out of loyalty to the temporal power, as Forlì was nominally in the Papal States. Over the centuries, the papacy tried several times to control of Forlì. Essentially the two sides were now fighting either against German influence, or against the power of the Pope. In Florence and elsewhere the Guelphs usually included merchants and burghers and they also adopted peculiar customs such as wearing a feather on a particular side of their hats, or cutting fruit a particular way, according to their affiliation
27.
Trench
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A trench is a type of excavation or depression in the ground that is generally deeper than it is wide, and narrow compared with its length. In geology, trenches are created as a result of erosion by rivers or by geological movement of tectonic plates, in the civil engineering field, trenches are often created to install underground infrastructure or utilities, or later to access these installations. Trenches have also often been dug for defensive purposes. In archaeology, the method is used for searching and excavating ancient ruins or to dig into strata of sedimented material. Some trenches are created as a result of erosion by running water or by glaciers, others, such as rift valleys or more commonly oceanic trenches, are created by geological movement of tectonic plates. Some oceanic trenches include the Mariana Trench and the Aleutian Trench, the former geoform is relatively deep, linear and narrow, and is formed by plate subduction when plates converge. In the civil engineering field of construction or maintenance of infrastructure and they are used to place underground easily damaged and obstructive infrastructure or utilities. A similar use for higher bulk would be in pipeline transport and they may also be created later to search for pipes and other infrastructure that is known to be underground in the general area, but whose exact location has been lost. Finally, trenches may be created as the first step of creating a foundation wall, Trench shoring is often used in trenchworks to protect workers and stabilise embankments. An alternative to digging trenches is to create a utility tunnel, the advantages of utility tunnels are the reduction of maintenance manholes, one-time relocation, and less excavation and repair, compared with separate cable ducts for each service. When they are well mapped, they also allow access to all utilities without having to dig access trenches or resort to confused. One of the greatest advantages is public safety, for a comparison of utility tunnels vs. direct burial, see the article referred to above. In some cases, a trench is dug and deliberately preserved. This is typically done to install depressed motorways, open railway cuttings, trenches have often been dug for defensive purposes. In the pre-firearm eras, they were mainly a type of hindrance to an attacker of a fortified location, an early example of this can be seen in the Battle of the Trench, one of the early Battles of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. With the advent of firearms, trenches were used to shelter troops. The advantage of this method is that it only a small part of the site. However, this also has the disadvantage of only revealing small slices of the whole volume
28.
Olive oil
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Olive oil is a liquid fat obtained from olives, a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin. The oil is produced by pressing whole olives and it is commonly used in cooking, whether for frying or as a salad dressing. It is also used in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and soaps, and as a fuel for oil lamps. It is associated with the Mediterranean diet for its health benefits. The olive is one of three core food plants in Mediterranean cuisine, the two are wheat and grapes. Olive trees have grown around the Mediterranean since the 8th millennium BC. Spain is the largest producer of oil, followed by Italy. However, per capita consumption is highest in Greece, followed by Spain, Italy, consumption in North America and northern Europe is far less, but rising steadily. The composition of oil varies with the cultivar, altitude, time of harvest. It consists mainly of acid, with smaller amounts of other fatty acids including linoleic acid. The olive tree is native to the Mediterranean basin, wild olives were collected by Neolithic peoples as early as the 8th millennium BC, the wild olive tree originated in Asia Minor or in ancient Greece. It is not clear when and where trees were first domesticated, in Asia Minor, in the Levant. Archeological evidence shows that olives were turned into oil by 6000 BC and 4500 BC in present-day Palestine. Until 1500 BC, eastern areas of the Mediterranean were most heavily cultivated. Evidence also suggests that olives were being grown in Crete as long ago as 2,500 BC, the cultivation of olive trees in Crete became particularly intense in the post-palatial period and played an important role in the islands economy, as it did across the Mediterranean. Recent genetic studies suggest that species used by modern cultivators descend from multiple wild populations, Olive trees and oil production in the Eastern Mediterranean can be traced to archives of the ancient city-state Ebla, which were located on the outskirts of the Syrian city Aleppo. Here some dozen documents dated 2400 BC describe lands of the king and these belonged to a library of clay tablets perfectly preserved by having been baked in the fire that destroyed the palace. A later source is the frequent mentions of oil in the Tanakh, dynastic Egyptians before 2000 BC imported olive oil from Crete, Syria and Canaan and oil was an important item of commerce and wealth
29.
Coat of arms
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A coat of arms is an heraldic visual design on an escutcheon, surcoat, or tabard. The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the heraldic achievement which in its whole consists of shield, supporters, crest. A coat of arms is traditionally unique to a person, family, state. The ancient Romans used similar insignia on their shields, but these identified military units rather than individuals, the first evidence of medieval coats of arms has been attributed to the 11th century Bayeux Tapestry in which some of the combatants carry shields painted with crosses. However, that heraldic interpretation remains controversial, coats of arms came into general use by feudal lords and knights in battle in the 12th century. By the 13th century, arms had spread beyond their initial battlefield use to become a flag or emblem for families in the social classes of Europe. Exactly who had a right to use arms, by law or social convention, in the German-speaking regions both the aristocracy and burghers used arms, while in most of the rest of Europe they were limited to the aristocracy. The use of spread to the clergy, to towns as civic identifiers. Flags developed from coats of arms, and the arts of vexillology, the coats of arms granted to commercial companies are a major source of the modern logo. Despite no widespread regulation, heraldry has remained consistent across Europe, some nations, like England and Scotland, still maintain the same heraldic authorities which have traditionally granted and regulated arms for centuries and continue to do so in the present day. In England, for example, the granting of arms is and has controlled by the College of Arms. Unlike seals and other emblems, heraldic achievements have a formal description called a blazon. Many societies exist that also aid in the design and registration of personal arms, in the heraldic traditions of England and Scotland, an individual, rather than a family, had a coat of arms. In those traditions coats of arms are legal property transmitted from father to son, wives, undifferenced arms are used only by one person at any given time. Other descendants of the bearer could bear the ancestral arms only with some difference. One such charge is the label, which in British usage is now always the mark of an apparent or an heir presumptive. Because of their importance in identification, particularly in seals on legal documents and this has been carried out by heralds and the study of coats of arms is therefore called heraldry. In time, the use of arms spread from military entities to educational institutes, the author Helen Stuart argues that some coats of arms were a form of corporate logo
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Prison
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Besides their use for punishing crimes, jails and prisons are frequently used by authoritarian regimes against perceived opponents. Prisons often have facilities that are designed with long term confinement in mind in comparison to jails. In times of war, prisoners of war or detainees may be detained in prisons or prisoner of war camps. The use of prisons can be traced back to the rise of the state as a form of social organization, corresponding with the advent of the state was the development of written language, which enabled the creation of formalized legal codes as official guidelines for society. The best known of early legal codes is the Code of Hammurabi. Some Ancient Greek philosophers, such as Plato, began to develop ideas of using punishment to reform instead of simply using it as retribution. Imprisonment as a penalty was used initially for those who could not afford to pay their fines, eventually, since impoverished Athenians could not pay their fines, leading to indefinite periods of imprisonment, time limits were set instead. The prison in Ancient Athens was known as the desmoterion, the Romans were among the first to use prisons as a form of punishment, rather than simply for detention. A variety of existing structures were used to house prisoners, such as cages, basements of public buildings. One of the most notable Roman prisons was the Mamertine Prison, the Mamertine Prison was located within a sewer system beneath ancient Rome and contained a large network of dungeons where prisoners were held in squalid conditions, contaminated with human waste. Forced labor on public projects was also a common form of punishment. In many cases, citizens were sentenced to slavery, often in ergastula, during the Middle Ages in Europe, castles, fortresses, and the basements of public buildings were often used as makeshift prisons. Another common punishment was sentencing people to slavery, which involved chaining prisoners together in the bottoms of ships. However, the concept of the modern prison largely remained unknown until the early 19th-century, Punishment usually consisted of physical forms of punishment, including capital punishment, mutilation, flagellation, branding, and non-physical punishments, such as public shaming rituals. However, an important innovation at the time was the Bridewell House of Corrections, located at Bridewell Palace in London and these houses held mostly petty offenders, vagrants, and the disorderly local poor. In these facilities, inmates were given jobs, and through prison labor they were taught how to work for a living, by the end of the 17th century, houses of correction were absorbed into local prison facilities under the control of the local justice of the peace. From the late 17th century and during the 18th century, popular resistance to public execution, rulers began looking for means to punish and control their subjects in a way that did not cause people to associate them with spectacles of tyrannical and sadistic violence. They developed systems of mass incarceration, often with hard labor, the prison reform movement that arose at this time was heavily influenced by two somewhat contradictory philosophies
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Cyprus
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Cyprus, officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the Eastern Mediterranean and the third largest and third most populous island in the Mediterranean. It is located south of Turkey, west of Syria and Lebanon, northwest of Israel and Palestine, north of Egypt, the earliest known human activity on the island dates to around the 10th millennium BC. Archaeological remains from this include the well-preserved Neolithic village of Khirokitia. Cyprus was settled by Mycenaean Greeks in two waves in the 2nd millennium BC, Cyprus was placed under British administration based on Cyprus Convention in 1878 and formally annexed by Britain in 1914. While Turkish Cypriots made up 18% of the population, the partition of Cyprus and creation of a Turkish state in the north became a policy of Turkish Cypriot leaders, following nationalist violence in the 1950s, Cyprus was granted independence in 1960. On 15 July 1974, a coup détat was staged by Greek Cypriot nationalists and elements of the Greek military junta in an attempt at enosis and these events and the resulting political situation are matters of a continuing dispute. The Cyprus Republic has de jure sovereignty over the island of Cyprus, as well as its territorial sea and exclusive economic area, another nearly 4% of the islands area is covered by the UN buffer zone. The international community considers the part of the island as territory of the Republic of Cyprus occupied by Turkish forces. The occupation is viewed as illegal under law, amounting to illegal occupation of EU territory since Cyprus became a member of the European Union. Cyprus is a major tourist destination in the Mediterranean, on 1 January 2008, the Republic of Cyprus joined the eurozone. The earliest attested reference to Cyprus is the 15th century BC Mycenaean Greek
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Cupola
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In architecture, a cupola /ˈkjuːpələ/ is a small, most often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to light and air. The word derives, via Italian, from the lower Latin cupula small cup indicating a vault resembling an upside down cup. The cupola is a development during the Renaissance of the oculus, an ancient device found in Roman architecture, the chhatri, seen in Indian architecture, fits the definition of a cupola when it is used atop a larger structure. Cupolas often appear as small buildings in their own right and they often serve as a belfry, belvedere, or roof lantern above a main roof. In other cases they may crown a spire, tower, or turret, barns often have cupolas for ventilation. The square, dome-like segment of a North American railroad train caboose that contains the second-level or angel seats is called a cupola. Some armored fighting vehicles have cupolas, called commanders cupola, which is a dome or cylinder with armored glass to provide 360-degree vision around the vehicle
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Christian cross
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The Christian cross, seen as a representation of the instrument of the crucifixion of Jesus, is the best-known symbol of Christianity. It is related to the crucifix and to the general family of cross symbols. The basic forms of the cross are the Latin cross and the Greek cross, with variants used in heraldry. The cross-shaped sign, represented in its simplest form by a crossing of two lines at right angles, greatly predates the introduction of Christianity, in both East and West and it goes back to a very remote period of human civilization. It is supposed to have used not just for its ornamental value. It may have represented the apparatus used in kindling fire, and thus as the symbol of sacred fire or as a symbol of the sun, denoting its daily rotation. It has also interpreted as the mystic representation of lightning or of the god of the tempest, or the emblem of the Aryan pantheon. Another associated symbol is the cross used in ancient Egypt. It was often depicted in the hands of the goddess Sekhmet, Egyptian Christians adopted it as the emblem of the cross. Yet another Egyptian symbol is the nfr - meaning, beauty or perfect, in the Bronze Age a representation of the cross as conceived in Christian art appeared, and the form was popularised. The more precise characterization coincided with a general change in customs. The cross then came into use in forms on many objects, fibulas, cinctures, earthenware fragments. De Mortillet believed that use of the sign was not merely ornamental. In the proto-Etruscan cemetery of Golasecca every tomb has a vase with a cross engraved on it, true crosses of more or less artistic design have been found in Tiryns, at Mycenæ, in Crete, and on a fibula from Vulci. According to Swami Vivekananda the Christian cross is the Shivalinga converted into a cross, according to W. E. Vine, the cross was used by worshipers of Tammuz, an Ancient Near East deity of Babylonian origin who had the cross-shaped taw as his symbol. In which there was not only a straight and erected piece of Wood fixed in the Earth, but also a transverse Beam fastned unto that towards the top thereof. A symbol similar to the cross, the staurogram, was used to abbreviate the Greek word for cross in very early New Testament manuscripts such as P66, P45 and P75, the extensive adoption of the cross as Christian iconographic symbol arose from the 4th century. Another early depictions of the cross as a Christian symbol is the Alexamenos graffito. e, in his book De Corona, written in 204, Tertullian tells how it was already a tradition for Christians to trace repeatedly on their foreheads the sign of the cross
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Christianity
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Christianity is a Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, who serves as the focal point for the religion. It is the worlds largest religion, with over 2.4 billion followers, or 33% of the global population, Christians believe that Jesus is the Son of God and the savior of humanity whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament. Christian theology is summarized in creeds such as the Apostles Creed and his incarnation, earthly ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection are often referred to as the gospel, meaning good news. The term gospel also refers to accounts of Jesuss life and teaching, four of which—Matthew, Mark, Luke. Christianity is an Abrahamic religion that began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the mid-1st century, following the Age of Discovery, Christianity spread to the Americas, Australasia, sub-Saharan Africa, and the rest of the world through missionary work and colonization. Christianity has played a prominent role in the shaping of Western civilization, throughout its history, Christianity has weathered schisms and theological disputes that have resulted in many distinct churches and denominations. Worldwide, the three largest branches of Christianity are the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the denominations of Protestantism. There are many important differences of interpretation and opinion of the Bible, concise doctrinal statements or confessions of religious beliefs are known as creeds. They began as baptismal formulae and were expanded during the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries to become statements of faith. Many evangelical Protestants reject creeds as definitive statements of faith, even agreeing with some or all of the substance of the creeds. The Baptists have been non-creedal in that they have not sought to establish binding authoritative confessions of faith on one another. Also rejecting creeds are groups with roots in the Restoration Movement, such as the Christian Church, the Evangelical Christian Church in Canada, the Apostles Creed is the most widely accepted statement of the articles of Christian faith. It is also used by Presbyterians, Methodists, and Congregationalists and this particular creed was developed between the 2nd and 9th centuries. Its central doctrines are those of the Trinity and God the Creator, each of the doctrines found in this creed can be traced to statements current in the apostolic period. The creed was used as a summary of Christian doctrine for baptismal candidates in the churches of Rome. Most Christians accept the use of creeds, and subscribe to at least one of the mentioned above. The central tenet of Christianity is the belief in Jesus as the Son of God, Christians believe that Jesus, as the Messiah, was anointed by God as savior of humanity, and hold that Jesus coming was the fulfillment of messianic prophecies of the Old Testament. The Christian concept of the Messiah differs significantly from the contemporary Jewish concept, Jesus, having become fully human, suffered the pains and temptations of a mortal man, but did not sin
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Lighthouse keeper
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A lighthouse keeper is the person responsible for tending and caring for a lighthouse, particularly the light and lens in the days when oil lamps and clockwork mechanisms were used. Lighthouse keepers were sometimes referred to as wickies because of their job trimming the wicks, Lighthouse keepers were needed to trim the wicks, replenish fuel, wind clockworks and perform maintenance tasks such as cleaning lenses and windows. Electrification and other automated improvements such as monitoring and automatic bulb changing made paid keepers resident at the lights unnecessary. In the US, periodic maintenance of the lights is now performed by visiting Coast Guard Aids to Navigation teams, george Worthylake served as the first lighthouse keeper in the United States. He served at Boston Harbor Lighthouse from 1716 until his death in 1718, in 1776, Hannah Thomas became the first female lighthouse keeper in the United States when she became keeper of Plymouth Lighthouse in Massachusetts following the death of her husband, John Thomas. Both Hannah and her husband received $200 per year for their service, the last manned lighthouse in Australia was Sugarloaf Point Lighthouse, where the last keeper left in 2006. Machias Seal Island, in New Brunswick, has a lighthouse manned by the Canadian Coast Guard and it is kept manned for sovereignty purposes due to the disputed status of the island with the US. The last manned lighthouse in Finland was deserted in 1987, all French lighthouses are automated, though a few are still manned. The last lighthouse keeper in Iceland was terminated in 2010, baily Lighthouse was the last Irish lighthouse to be unmanned, in 1997. As of 2011, there were 62 manned lighthouses in Italy In 2006 Meshima Lighthouse became the last lighthouse in Japan to become automated, as of 2011, there are two manned lighthouses in the Netherlands, one at Schiermonnikoog and the other at Terschelling. All lighthouses in New Zealand have been automated since 1990, the last Norwegian lighthouse keeper moved out of Runde Lighthouse in 2002. The last manned lighthouse in the United Kingdom, the North Foreland Lighthouse, was automated in 1998, the last civilian keeper in the United States, Frank Schubert, died in 2003. The last officially manned lighthouse, Boston Light, was manned by the Coast Guard until 1998 and it now has volunteer keepers whose primary role is to serve as interpretive tour guides for visitors. To recognize the role of Lighthouse keepers in the nations maritime safety, fourteen ships in the Keeper class were built between 1996 and 2000 and are used to maintain aids to navigation, including lighthouses. Bibliography on Michigan and other lighthouses, ode to the lighthouse keeper by Andrew Tremaine. U. S. Coast Guard Aids to Navigation, A Historical Bibliography, United States Coast Guard Historians Office. Wagner, John L. Beacons Shining in the Night, The Lighthouses of Michigan, clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University. Seeing the Light, Lighthouses on the western Great Lakes, database of UK lighthouse keepers, http, //www. lighthousekeepers. org. uk
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Christopher Columbus
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Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer, navigator, colonizer, and citizen of the Republic of Genoa. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean and those voyages and his efforts to establish permanent settlements on the island of Hispaniola initiated the European colonization of the New World. Western imperialism and economic competition were emerging among European kingdoms through the establishment of routes and colonies. During his first voyage in 1492, he reached the New World instead of arriving at Japan as he had intended, landing on an island in the Bahamas archipelago that he named San Salvador. Over the course of three voyages, he visited the Greater and Lesser Antilles, as well as the Caribbean coast of Venezuela and Central America. These voyages had, therefore, an impact in the historical development of the modern Western world. He spearheaded the transatlantic trade and has been accused by several historians of initiating the genocide of the Hispaniola natives. Columbus himself saw his accomplishments primarily in the light of spreading the Christian religion, Columbus never admitted that he had reached a continent previously unknown to Europeans, rather than the East Indies for which he had set course. He called the inhabitants of the lands that he visited indios, the name Christopher Columbus is the Anglicisation of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. His name in Italian is Cristoforo Colombo and, in Spanish and he was born before 31 October 1451 in the territory of the Republic of Genoa, though the exact location remains disputed. His father was Domenico Colombo, a wool weaver who worked both in Genoa and Savona and who also owned a cheese stand at which young Christopher worked as a helper. Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino, and Giacomo were his brothers, Bartolomeo worked in a cartography workshop in Lisbon for at least part of his adulthood. He also had a sister named Bianchinetta, Columbus never wrote in his native language, which is presumed to have been a Genoese variety of Ligurian. In one of his writings, he says he went to sea at the age of 10, in 1470, the Columbus family moved to Savona, where Domenico took over a tavern. In the same year, Christopher was on a Genoese ship hired in the service of René of Anjou to support his attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Naples. Some modern historians have argued that he was not from Genoa but, instead and these competing hypotheses have generally been discounted by mainstream scholars. In 1473, Columbus began his apprenticeship as business agent for the important Centurione, Di Negro, later, he allegedly made a trip to Chios, an Aegean island then ruled by Genoa. In May 1476, he took part in a convoy sent by Genoa to carry valuable cargo to northern Europe
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Bombardment of Genoa
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The Bombardment of Genoa was a military event during the War of the Reunions when France bombarded the city of Genoa from the sea between May 18 and May 28,1684. The Republic of Genoa was strategically a very important ally of the Spanish Empire, all transport between Spain and Milan went through the port of Genoa. After the War of Devolution and the Franco-Dutch War, it was clear that France had replaced Spain as the most powerful country in Europe, in October 1683, France annexed some territory in the Spanish Netherlands, starting the War of the Reunions. When Spain sent reinforcements via the port of Genoa, the French decided to punish the city, without a formal declaration of war a French fleet, commanded by Abraham Duquesne, bombarded the city of Genoa between May 18 and May 28,1684. About 13,000 cannonballs were shot at the city in ten days time with a pause from May 21–22. The bombardment was terrible for the city and all the Genoese people because it was the first time in history in which bombs were used. The French tried to land troops at Albaro and Sampierdarena, but they were defeated by Genoese troops, the Republic of Genoa came under French influence for the next 100 years, although it remained independent and became neutral. The Genoan bankers and traders made new economic and financial links with France, genova 1684, World History at KMLA
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Louis XIV of France
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Louis XIV, known as Louis the Great or the Sun King, was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France and Navarre from 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest of any monarch of a country in European history. In the age of absolutism in Europe, Louis XIVs France was a leader in the centralization of power. Louis began his rule of France in 1661, after the death of his chief minister. By these means he became one of the most powerful French monarchs, under his rule, the Edict of Nantes, which granted rights to Huguenots, was abolished. The revocation effectively forced Huguenots to emigrate or convert in a wave of dragonnades, which managed to virtually destroy the French Protestant minority. During Louis reign, France was the leading European power, and it fought three wars, the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg. There were also two lesser conflicts, the War of Devolution and the War of the Reunions, warfare defined Louis XIVs foreign policies, and his personality shaped his approach. Impelled by a mix of commerce, revenge, and pique, in peacetime he concentrated on preparing for the next war. He taught his diplomats their job was to create tactical and strategic advantages for the French military, Louis XIV was born on 5 September 1638 in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, to Louis XIII and Anne of Austria. He was named Louis Dieudonné and bore the title of French heirs apparent. At the time of his birth, his parents had married for 23 years. His mother had experienced four stillbirths between 1619 and 1631, leading contemporaries thus regarded him as a divine gift and his birth a miracle of God. Sensing imminent death, Louis XIII decided to put his affairs in order in the spring of 1643, in defiance of custom, which would have made Queen Anne the sole Regent of France, the king decreed that a regency council would rule on his sons behalf. His lack of faith in Queen Annes political abilities was his primary rationale and he did, however, make the concession of appointing her head of the council. Louis relationship with his mother was uncommonly affectionate for the time, contemporaries and eyewitnesses claimed that the Queen would spend all her time with Louis. Both were greatly interested in food and theatre, and it is likely that Louis developed these interests through his close relationship with his mother. This long-lasting and loving relationship can be evidenced by excerpts in Louis journal entries, such as, but attachments formed later by shared qualities of the spirit are far more difficult to break than those formed merely by blood
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United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
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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
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World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
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Genoa C.F.C.
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Genoa Cricket and Football Club, commonly referred to simply as Genoa, is a professional Italian football and cricket club based in the city of Genoa, Liguria. Established on 7 September 1893, it is Italys oldest football team currently active, during their long history, Genoa have won the Italian Championship nine times. Genoas first title came at the championship in 1898 and their most recent was in 1923–24. They also won the Coppa Italia once, historically, Genoa is the fourth most successful Italian club in terms of championships won. Brera went as far as creating the nickname Vecchio Balordo for Genoa, the club has played its home games at the 36,536 capacity Stadio Luigi Ferraris since 1911. Since 1946, the ground has been shared with local rivals Sampdoria, Genoa has spent most of its post-war history going up and down between Serie A and Serie B, with two brief spells in Serie C. For more details on this topic, see History of Genoa C. F. C, the club was founded on 7 September 1893 as Genoa Cricket & Athletic Club. In its earliest years, it competed in athletics and cricket. Since the club was set up to represent England abroad, the shirts worn by the organisation were white. At first Italians were not permitted to join as it was a British sporting club abroad, Genoas activities took place in the north-west of the city in the Campasso area, at the Piazza dArmi. It was among the oldest in Italian football at the time, Italians were allowed to join and found a new ground in the form of Ponte Carrega. The first friendly match took place at home, against a team of Internazionale Torino and FBC Torinese. Not long after, Genoa recorded its first victory away against UPS Alessandria winning 2–0, friendly games also took place against various British sailors such as those from HMS Revenge. Football in Italy stepped up a level with the creation of the Italian Football Federation, Genoa competed in the first Italian Championship in 1898 at Velodromo Umberto I in Turin. They defeated Ginnastica Torino 2–1 in their first official game on 8 May, Genoa returned for the following season, this time with a few changes, the name of the club was altered to Genoa Cricket & Football Club, dropping the Athletic from its name. A change in colour was also in order, as they changed to white and blue vertical stripes. Genoa won their second title on a tournament which took place on 16 April 1899. On their way to winning their third title in 1900 and also beat local rivals Sampierdarenese 7–0
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U.C. Sampdoria
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Unione Calcio Sampdoria, commonly known as Sampdoria, is an Italian association football club based in Genoa. The club was formed in 1946 from the merger of two existing sports clubs whose roots can be traced back to the 1890s, Sampierdarenese and Andrea Doria, Sampdoria currently compete in Serie A. Both the team name and jersey do reflect this, the first being a combination of the former names, the teams colours are blue with white, red and black hoops, hence the nickname blucerchiati. Sampdoria play at Stadio Luigi Ferraris, capacity 36,536, the derby between the two teams is commonly known as the Derby della Lanterna. Sampdoria have won the Scudetto only once in their history, in 1990–91, the club has also won the Coppa Italia four times and one Supercoppa Italiana. Their biggest European success came when they won the Cup Winners Cup in 1989–90 and they also reached the European Cup final in 1991–92, losing the final 1–0 to Barcelona after extra time. The Ginnastica Sampierdarenese was founded in 1891, opening its section in 1899. Also around this time, a club named Society Andrea Doria was founded in 1895, the club eventually joined the competition for the 1903 Italian Football Championship, but did not win a game in the tournament until 1907, when they beat local rivals Genoa 3–1. It was not until 1910–11 that the club began to show promise, during that seasons tournament, they finished above Juventus, Internazionale and Genoa in the Piedmont-Lombardy-Liguria section. After World War I, Sampierdarenese finally began to compete in the Italian Championship, after they bought a club of Genoa province. With the 1921–22 season, the Italian top league was split into two competitions, both of the clubs in Sampdorias history were in competitions that year too. Sampierdarenese played in the FIGC-run competition, whereas Andrea Doria played in the CCI variation, Sampierdarenese won the Ligura section and then went on to the semi-finals, finishing top out of three clubs, this lead them to the final against Novese. Both legs of the final ended in 0–0 draws, thus a repetition match was played in Cremona on 21 May 1922, still intensely difficult to separate, the match went into extra time with Novese eventually winning the tie 2–1. After the league system in Italy was brought back into one item, at the end of the 1926–27 season, the clubs merged by fascist authorities under the name La Dominante. Wearing green and black striped shirts, La Dominante Genova were admitted to the first ever season of Serie B, the next season, under the name Liguria, they had a disastrous year, finishing bottom of the table and suffering relegation. Because of this, both Sampierdarenese and Andrea Doria reverted to their previous names as separate clubs, Sampierdarenese were back in Serie B for the 1932–33 season and finished in the upper part. The following year, they were crowned champions and were promoted into Serie A for the first time, in the early 1940s, the club was relegated, but bounced straight back up as Serie B champions in 1941. After World War II, both clubs were competing in Serie A, in a reverse of pre-war situations, Andrea Doria were now the top out of the two
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Lightning
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Lightning is a sudden electrostatic discharge that occurs during a thunder storm. This discharge occurs between electrically charged regions of a cloud, between two clouds, or between a cloud and the ground. The charged regions in the atmosphere temporarily equalize themselves through this discharge referred to as an if it hits an object on the ground. Lightning causes light in the form of plasma, and sound in the form of thunder, Lightning may be seen and not heard when it occurs at a distance too great for the sound to carry as far as the light from the strike or flash. This article incorporates public domain material from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration document Understanding Lightning, the details of the charging process are still being studied by scientists, but there is general agreement on some of the basic concepts of thunderstorm electrification. The main charging area in a thunderstorm occurs in the part of the storm where air is moving upward rapidly and temperatures range from -15 to -25 Celsius. At that place, the combination of temperature and rapid upward air movement produces a mixture of super-cooled cloud droplets, small ice crystals, the updraft carries the super-cooled cloud droplets and very small ice crystals upward. At the same time, the graupel, which is larger and denser. The differences in the movement of the precipitation cause collisions to occur, when the rising ice crystals collide with graupel, the ice crystals become positively charged and the graupel becomes negatively charged. The updraft carries the positively charged ice crystals upward toward the top of the storm cloud, the larger and denser graupel is either suspended in the middle of the thunderstorm cloud or falls toward the lower part of the storm. The result is that the part of the thunderstorm cloud becomes positively charged while the middle to lower part of the thunderstorm cloud becomes negatively charged. This part of the cloud is called the anvil. While this is the charging process for the thunderstorm cloud. In addition, there is a small but important positive charge buildup near the bottom of the cloud due to the precipitation. Many factors affect the frequency, distribution, strength and physical properties of a lightning flash in a particular region of the world. These factors include ground elevation, latitude, prevailing wind currents, relative humidity, proximity to warm and cold bodies of water, to a certain degree, the ratio between IC, CC and CG lightning may also vary by season in middle latitudes. Lightnings relative unpredictability limits a complete explanation of how or why it occurs, the actual discharge is the final stage of a very complex process. At its peak, a thunderstorm produces three or more strikes to the Earth per minute
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La Spezia
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La Spezia, at the head of the Gulf of La Spezia in the Liguria region of Northern Italy is the capital city of the province of La Spezia. In terms of population, La Spezia is the city in the Liguria region. Located midway between Genoa and Pisa on the Ligurian Sea, it is one of the main Italian military and commercial harbours and it is important for its museums, for the Palio del Golfo, and for the railway and boat links with Cinque Terre. The area of La Spezia has been settled since pre-historic times, in Roman times the most important centre was Luni, now located in the vicinity of Sarzana. In fact, this Ligurian influence still is visible in the layout as well as in the types of buildings. La Spezia developed substantially after 1861 when the naval arsenal there was commissioned by the Royal government. In September 1943 after the Italian capitulation to the Allies, it was the port for the Italian Navy when it was ordered to steam into British hands at Malta. The Germans arrived too late to stop the departure of the fleet and it was sunk in the harbour in La Spezia in 1944. After the liberation, La Spezia became the point of departure for the survivors from the Nazi concentration camps, from the summer of 1945 to the spring of 1948 more than 23,000 Jewish displaced persons managed to leave Italy clandestinely for Mandate Palestine. After lengthy vicissitudes, the ships Fede, Fenice, and Komemiut managed to evacuate everyone from the Spezia gulf, to the point that on Israeli geographical maps, cristo Re dei Secoli, consecrated in 1975. The project was by Adalberto Libera, abbey church of Santa Maria Assunta. It houses a series of artworks, some of them coming from other suppressed religious institutes. They include an Incoronation of the Virgin by Andrea della Robbia and it has a single nave with eighteenth and nineteenth century decorations. Built in 1900 in the heart of the working-class neighborhood Quartiere Umbertino, in 1273 the Genoese destroyed it, and a new fortification, along with a new line of walls, was erected by the podesteria of La Spezia from 1371. Annexed to this edifice, the Republic of Genoa added a new castle starting from 1607, public Gardens Art Nouveau–style villas Futurist mosaic by Prampolini inside the Post Office La Spezia is a point of departure for the Cinque Terre, either by train or boat. The boat also serves Lerici and Portovenere before turning into the sea toward the Cinque Terre. These localities are accessible by transport,15 kilometres from the central railway station of the city. La Spezia has a humid subtropical and Mediterranean climate, since only one month receives less than 40 millimetres
Italy
