The Little Ice Age was a period of cooling that occurred after the Medieval Warm Period. Although it was not a true ice age, the term was introduced into scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939, it has been conventionally defined as a period extending from the 16th to the 19th centuries, but some experts prefer an alternative timespan from about 1300 to about 1850. The NASA Earth Observatory notes three cold intervals: one beginning about 1650, another about 1770, the last in 1850, all separated by intervals of slight warming; the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report considered the timing and areas affected by the Little Ice Age suggested independent regional climate changes rather than a globally synchronous increased glaciation. At most, there was modest cooling of the Northern Hemisphere during the period. Several causes have been proposed: cyclical lows in solar radiation, heightened volcanic activity, changes in the ocean circulation, variations in Earth's orbit and axial tilt, inherent variability in global climate, decreases in the human population.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Third Assessment Report of 2001 described the areas affected: Evidence from mountain glaciers does suggest increased glaciation in a number of spread regions outside Europe prior to the twentieth century, including Alaska, New Zealand and Patagonia. However, the timing of maximum glacial advances in these regions differs suggesting that they may represent independent regional climate changes, not a globally-synchronous increased glaciation, thus current evidence does not support globally synchronous periods of anomalous cold or warmth over this interval, the conventional terms of "Little Ice Age" and "Medieval Warm Period" appear to have limited utility in describing trends in hemispheric or global mean temperature changes in past centuries.... Hemispherically, the "Little Ice Age" can only be considered as a modest cooling of the Northern Hemisphere during this period of less than 1°C relative to late twentieth century levels; the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report of 2007 discusses more recent research, giving particular attention to the Medieval Warm Period.

When viewed together, the available reconstructions indicate greater variability in centennial time scale trends over the last 1 kyr than was apparent in the TAR.... The result is a picture of cool conditions in the seventeenth and early nineteenth centuries and warmth in the eleventh and early fifteenth centuries, but the warmest conditions are apparent in the twentieth century. Given that the confidence levels surrounding all of the reconstructions are wide all reconstructions are encompassed within the uncertainty indicated in the TAR; the major differences between the various proxy reconstructions relate to the magnitude of past cool excursions, principally during the twelfth to fourteenth and nineteenth centuries. There is no consensus regarding the time when the Little Ice Age began, but a series of events before the known climatic minima has been referenced. In the 13th century, pack ice began advancing southwards in the North Atlantic, as did glaciers in Greenland. Anecdotal evidence suggests expanding glaciers worldwide.

Based on radiocarbon dating of 150 samples of dead plant material with roots intact, collected from beneath ice caps on Baffin Island and Iceland, Miller et al. state that cold summers and ice growth began abruptly between 1275 and 1300, followed by "a substantial intensification" from 1430 to 1455. In contrast, a climate reconstruction based on glacial length shows no great variation from 1600 to 1850 but strong retreat thereafter. Therefore, any of several dates ranging over 400 years may indicate the beginning of the Little Ice Age: 1250 for when Atlantic pack ice began to grow; the Little Ice Age ended in the latter half of the 19th century or early in the 20th century. The Little Ice Age brought colder winters to parts of North America. Farms and villages in the Swiss Alps were destroyed by encroaching glaciers during the mid-17th century. Canals and rivers in Great Britain and the Netherlands were frozen enough to support ice skating and winter festivals; the first River Thames frost fair was in 1608 and the last in 1814.

Freezing of the Golden Horn and the southern section of the Bosphorus took place in 1622. In 1658, a Swedish army marched across the Great Belt to Denmark to attack Copenhagen; the winter of 1794–1795 was harsh: the French invasion army under Pichegru was able to march on the frozen rivers of the Netherlands, the Dutch fleet was locked in the ice in Den Helder harbour. Sea ice surrounding Iceland extended for miles in every direction; the population of Iceland fell by half, but that may have been caused by skeletal fluorosis after the eruption of Laki in 1783. Iceland suffered failures of cereal crops and people moved away from a grain-based diet; the Norse colonies in Greenland starved and vanished by the early 15th century, as crops failed and livestock could

Hermann Jansen was a German architect, urban planner and university educator. Hermann Jansen was born in 1869 was the son of the pastry chef Francis Xavier Jansen and his wife Maria Anna Catharina Arnoldi. After visiting the humanistic Kaiser-Karls-Gymnasium in Aachen, Jansen studied architecture at the RWTH Aachen University in Karl Henrici. After graduation in 1893, Jansen worked in an architectural office in Aachen. 1897 drew Jansen to Berlin, in 1899 created his own business with the architect William Mueller. In the same year he made the designs for the later-named Pelzer tower in his home town of Aachen. In 1903 he took over the publication of the architecture magazine "The Builder", first published in 1902 in Munich. In the years prior to 1908, the District of Berlin and its surrounding towns and cities had witnessed immense growth due to private investment. Due to the unplanned nature of growth in the city, several key urban challenges surfaced; these included the provision of housing, capacity for efficient transport, the demand for public open spaces.

With pressures mounting, the city saw planning a means of directing growth, in 1908 put forth the ‘Groẞ-Berlin' competition. The competition required planners and architects to put forth design that would link central Berlin with surrounding towns in the regions to form a metropolis, spanning from the historic center to outer suburbs. Jansen was among the planners who submitted a comprehensive plan for a Greater Berlin, when the competition closed in 1910 his was awarded equal first place. Jansen's proposal dubbed "The Jansen-plan" stood as the first comprehensive plan to be commissioned for Greater Berlin. Under the Jansen plan, development of Berlin would be arranged around a small inner ring and a larger outer ring of green space comprising parks, gardens and meadows, which would be connected via green-corridors radiating outward from the compact inner-city; the central focus of green space in Jansen's design was well received and laid the foundation for the creation and safeguarding of open spaces across Berlin.

In addition to his focus on public space, Jansen's plan received accolades for the attention drawn to overcrowding in central Berlin, with a proposed fast transport system aimed at integrating the center of the city with peripheral areas. What made this aspect of Jansen's plan for Berlin so popular was the creation of positive dwellings in areas of urban expansion; these dwellings came in the form of single houses within small settlements with the intention of creating new opportunities for Berlin's less-privileged social classes to live outside the city center. Due to the onset of World War I, Jansens's plan was only implemented, however evidence of his work can still be found to some extent in the cityscape. Jansen's competition winning work was showcased at the General Town Planning Exhibition held on 1 May 1910 at the Royal Arts Academy, known today as Berlin University of the Arts; the exhibition was among the first to give comprehensive account of planning and the built environment. Following its unexpectedly popular reception in Berlin many sections, including Jansen's plan, were featured at the Town Planning Conference in London that year.

In 1918, Jansen was in the Royal Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin and recorded in their Senate and received the title of professor. On the occasion of his 50th Birthday, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Technical University in Stuttgart as the founder and leader of the modern urban art, he was a member of the Advisory Council of the Prussian cities Ministry of Public Works. He was a member of the Association of German Architects. In 1920, Hermann Jansen was appointed as associate professor of urban art at the Technische Hochschule Charlottenburg resigning in 1923. Jansen in 1930 became professor of urban planning at the University of Arts Berlin, he contributed to plans across Germany including. Jansen planned for foreign cities such as Riga, Łódź, Bratislava and Madrid. In the 1930s he prepared a city plan for Mersin, in 1938 the Mersin Interfaith Cemetery was established in one of the locations that he proposed. Following the failure of existing urban planning measures to address the uncontrolled growth experienced in Turkey's newly established capital Ankara, 1927 saw the Turkish Government put forth an international competition to create a comprehensive development plan for the new city.

The government invited three prominent European planners to the competition, Frenchman Léon Jaussely and Germans Joseph Brix and Hermann Jansen. In 1929 the competition concluded with the jury declaring Jansen's proposal to be the winner, following which he was commissioned with preparing detailed development plans for the capital city. Jansen's master plan for Ankara placed particular emphasis on the historical context of the region, stressing the importance of the new settlement sitting adjacent to the existing old city rather than enveloping it within the new design. Jansen called for the compulsory integration of green belts and areas within the city to promote a healthy urban environment extending this vision to the housing stock, which were designed to incorporate both front and rear gardens. A defining feature of Jansen's master plan for Ankara was his division of the city into functionally specialized zones, an unfamiliar concept when compared to traditional Turkish urban form; this included 18 residential sections, each

Jérémie Pauzié was a Genevan diamond jeweler and memoirist, known for his work for the Russian Imperial court and the Imperial Crown of Russia, which he created with the court's jeweler Georg Friedrich Ekart. Throughout his working life Pauzié, who held the title Principal Diamond Expert and Court Jeweller, made jewellery and gifts for the Russian nobility and the Imperial family, he recorded his life in the book of ‘Memoirs of a Court Jeweller Pauzié, published by the Russian history journal ‘Russkaya Starina’ in 1870. Pauzié studied for seven years with Benedict Gravero in Saint Petersburg, in the end of the 1730s started his own jewellery workshop. Hs speciality was work with diamond and other jewels, he did not have much experience with noble metals. For work on metals, he hired subcontractors. In this period, Pauzié produced jewellery for local noblemen, was admitted to the Imperial court. In 1761, Empress Elizabeth died, Ekart, the chief court jeweller, was charged in making a funeral crown.

His solution proved to be suboptimal, Pauzié was asked to repair the crown. After that, he got access to the court, was considered to be Ekart's chief rival; when the reign of Catherine the Great started, Ekart was charged with making the Imperial Crown, Pauzié decorated it with jewels, against Ekart's will. In 1764, Pauzié left Saint Petersburg and went back to Switzerland, where in 1770 he became the citizen of Geneva. Pauzié was commissioned to work with Ekart, the Russian Imperial court's jeweler, to create the Great Imperial Crown of Russia, created for the coronation of Catherine the Great in 1762; the crown was made in the style of classicism and constructed of two gold and silver half spheres, representing the eastern and western Roman empires, divided by a foliate garland and fastened with a low hoop. The crown contains 75 pearls and 4,936 Indian diamonds forming laurel and oak leaves, the symbols of power and strength, is surmounted by a 398.62 carat ruby spinel that belonged to the Empress Elizabeth, a diamond cross.

After Catherine the Great's coronation the crown continued to be used as the coronation crown of all Romanov emperors, till the monarchy's abolition and the death of last Romanov, Nikolas II in 1918. It is considered to be one of the main treasures of the Romanov dynasty, is now on display in the Moscow Kremlin Armoury Museum in Russia, his work formed part of the art jewellery exhibitions, including The Art of the Goldsmith & the Jeweler at A La Vieille Russie in New York and Carl Fabergé and Masters of Stone Carving: Gem Masterpieces of Russia at the Dormition Belfry of the Moscow Kremlin Museums in Moscow. In 2013 the Jérémie Pauzié name was acquired by French luxury group Vendôme Private Trading. «Culture» Discovery. Escape of the diamond master Pauzié. January, 2015 Notes of the Court Jeweler Jeremie Posier 1729-64, ed. A A Kunin, in Russkaya Starina, 1870 Alexander Solodkoff, Orfèvrerie russe du XVIIe au XIXe siècle, 1981, A la Vieille Russie, The Art of the Goldsmith & the Jeweler, 1968, no.

174, illus. P. 76 Sidler, Catalogue officiel du Musée de l'Ariana, Genève, Ville de Genève / Atar, 1905. 234 p.. P. 126, n° 47 Eisler, William. The Dassiers of Geneva: 18th-century European medallists. Volume II: Dassier and sons: an artistic enterprise in Geneva and Europe, 1733-1759. Lausanne, 2005. Pp. 361– 362, fig. 47, repr. n/b Golay, Laurent. Alexandra Karouova et al.. Suisse-Russie. Des siècles d'amour et d'oubli, 1680- 2006. Lausanne, Musée historique de Lausanne. P. 55, repr. coul. Jeffares, Neil. Dictionary of pastellists before 1800. London, Unicorn Press, 2006. P. 622, non repr. Edition critique introduite et commentée du mémoire de Jérémie Pauzié, joaillier à la Cour de Russie de 1730 à 1763 / Mélanie Draveny, Mémoire de licence dactyl. Lettres Genève, 2004