The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and completely enclosed by land: on the north by Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa and on the east by the Levant. Although the sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean, it is referred to as a separate body of water. Geological evidence indicates that around 5.9 million years ago, the Mediterranean was cut off from the Atlantic and was or desiccated over a period of some 600,000 years before being refilled by the Zanclean flood about 5.3 million years ago. It covers an area of about 2,500,000 km2, representing 0.7% of the global ocean surface, but its connection to the Atlantic via the Strait of Gibraltar—the narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Spain in Europe from Morocco in Africa—is only 14 km wide. In oceanography, it is sometimes called the Eurafrican Mediterranean Sea or the European Mediterranean Sea to distinguish it from mediterranean seas elsewhere.

The Mediterranean Sea has an average depth of 1,500 m and the deepest recorded point is 5,267 m in the Calypso Deep in the Ionian Sea. It lies between latitudes 30° and 46° N and longitudes 6° W and 36° E, its west–east length, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Gulf of Iskenderun, on the southeastern coast of Turkey, is about 4,000 kilometres. The sea was an important route for merchants and travellers of ancient times, facilitating trade and cultural exchange between peoples of the region; the history of the Mediterranean region is crucial to understanding the origins and development of many modern societies. The countries surrounding the Mediterranean in clockwise order are Spain, Monaco, Slovenia, Croatia and Herzegovina, Albania, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. In addition, the Gaza Strip and the British Overseas Territories of Gibraltar and Akrotiri and Dhekelia have coastlines on the sea; the Ancient Egyptians called the Mediterranean Wadj-wr/Wadj-Wer/Wadj-Ur. The Ancient Greeks called the Mediterranean ἡ θάλασσα or sometimes ἡ μεγάλη θάλασσα, ἡ ἡμέτερα θάλασσα, or ἡ θάλασσα ἡ καθ'ἡμᾶς.

The Romans called it Mare Mare Internum and, starting with the Roman Empire, Mare Nostrum. The term Mare Mediterrāneum appears later: Solinus used it in the 3rd century, but the earliest extant witness to it is in the 6th century, in Isidore of Seville, it means'in the middle of land, inland' in Latin, a compound of medius, -āneus. The Latin word is a calque of Greek μεσόγειος, from μέσος and γήινος, from γῆ; the original meaning may have been'the sea in the middle of the earth', rather than'the sea enclosed by land'. Ancient Iranians called it the "Roman Sea", in Classic Persian texts was called Daryāy-e Rōm which may be from Middle Persian form, Zrēh ī Hrōm; the Carthaginians called it the "Syrian Sea". In ancient Syrian texts, Phoenician epics and in the Hebrew Bible, it was known as the "Great Sea", HaYam HaGadol, or as "The Sea". However, it has been called the "Hinder Sea" because of its location on the west coast of Greater Syria or the Holy Land, sometimes translated as "Western Sea". Another name was the "Sea of the Philistines", from the people inhabiting a large portion of its shores near the Israelites.

In Modern Hebrew, it is called HaYam HaTikhon'the Middle Sea'. In Classic Persian texts was called Daryāy-e Šām "The Western Sea" or "Syrian Sea". In Modern Arabic, it is known as al-Baḥr al-Mutawassiṭ'the Middle Sea'. In Islamic and older Arabic literature, it was Baḥr al-Rūm'the Sea of the Romans' or'the Roman Sea'. At first, that name referred to only the Eastern Mediterranean, but it was extended to the whole Mediterranean. Other Arabic names were Baḥr al-Maghrib. In Turkish, it is the Akdeniz'the White Sea'; the origin of the name is not clear, as it is not known in earlier Greek, Byzantine or Islamic sources. It may be to contrast with the Black Sea. In Persian, the name was translated as Baḥr-i Safīd, used in Ottoman Turkish, it is the origin of the colloquial Greek phrase Άσπρη Θάλασσα. Johann Knobloch claims that in classical antiquity, cultures in the Levant used colours to refer to the cardinal points: black referred to the north, yellow or blue to east, red to south, white to west; this would explain the Greek Άspri Thálassa, the Bulgarian Byalo More, the Turkish Akdeniz, the Arab nomenclature described above, lit.

"White Sea". Several ancient civilizations were located around the Mediterranean shores and were influenced by their proximity to the sea, it provided routes for trade and war, as well as food for numerous communities throughout the ages. Due to the shared climate and access to the sea, cult

Michael Richard Devlin is a former professional American football player and an assistant coach with the Houston Texans of the National Football League. Devlin attended Cherokee High School in the Marlton section of Evesham Township, New Jersey and was a letterman in football. Devlin played for the second-best high school football team in New Jersey, losing The Star-Ledger Trophy to the number one team and USA Today top five ranked Union High School Farmers. Devlin would start with two Union Farmers at the University of Iowa, running back Tony Stewart and Offensive Guard Mike Ferroni. Devlin was selected by the Buffalo Bills in the fifth round of the 1993 NFL Draft after playing college football as an interior lineman with the Iowa Hawkeyes, he played 58 career games over a span of seven years in the NFL. During his three-year stint with the Buffalo Bills, he played on special teams and at center and guard, backed up All-Pro Kent Hull, made an appearance in Super Bowl XXVIII. On March 8, 1996, Devlin signed with the Arizona Cardinals.

During his time there, he was part of the starting lineup at center in all but two of twenty-six games. Devlin retired from playing after the 1999 season. In 2000, he became a quality control coach for the offensive component of the Cardinals, before becoming an assistant offensive lineman coach. During the 2004-2005 seasons, Devlin served as offensive line coach for the Toledo Rockets. In 2006, Devlin became the tight ends coach for the New York Jets, he was promoted to offensive line coach on February 5, 2013. Devlin left the Jets to accept the same position with the Houston Texans on January 9, 2015. New York Jets coaching profile

Kathleen Winsor was an American author. She is best known for the 1944 historical novel Forever Amber; the novel, racy for its time, became a runaway bestseller as it drew criticism from some authorities for its depictions of sexuality. She wrote seven other novels. Winsor was raised in Berkeley, California, her father was a real-estate dealer. At the age of 18, Winsor made a list of her goals for life. Among those was her hope to write a best-selling novel. Winsor graduated in 1938 from the University of Berkeley. During her school years, she married a fellow student, All-American college football player Robert Herwig. In 1937, she began writing a thrice-weekly sports column for the Oakland Tribune. Although that job only lasted a year, Winsor remained at the newspaper, she was fired in 1938. Winsor became interested in the Restoration period through her husband. Herwig was writing a paper for school on Charles II, out of boredom, Winsor read one of his research books, her husband joined the military at the outbreak of World War II and spent five years with the United States Marines fighting in the Pacific theatre.

During that time, Winsor studied the Restoration period, claiming to have read 356 books on the subject. She began writing a novel based on her research, her fifth draft of the novel was accepted for publication. The publishers promptly edited the book down to one-fifth of its original size; the resulting novel, Forever Amber, was 972 pages long. The novel took readers on a frolic through Restoration England and offered vivid images of fashion, politics and public disasters of the time, including the plague and the Great Fire of London; the book appeared in 1944. It attracted criticism for its blatant sexual references. Fourteen U. S. states banned it as pornography and the Hays Office condemned it, but within a month the movie rights had been purchased by Twentieth Century Fox. The film, directed by Otto Preminger and starring Linda Darnell and Cornel Wilde, was released in 1947. Despite being banned, Forever Amber became one of the bestselling American novels of the 1940s, it sold over 100,000 copies in its first week of release, went on to sell over three million copies.

Made a celebrity by the success of her novel, Winsor found it unthinkable to return to the married life she had known with Herwig and, in 1946, they divorced. Ten days she became the sixth wife of the big-band leader and clarinetist Artie Shaw, despite the fact that two years Shaw had castigated his then-wife, Ava Gardner, for reading such a "trashy novel" as Forever Amber; the marriage to Shaw ended in 1948, Winsor soon married her divorce attorney, Arnold Krakower. That marriage ended in divorce, in 1953. In 1956 Winsor married for the fourth time, to Paul A. Porter, a former head of the Federal Communications Commission, they remained married until Porter's death in 1975. Winsor's next commercially successful novel, Star Money, appeared in 1950, was a portrait drawn from her experience of becoming a bestselling author, but in five subsequent novels, the last appearing in 1986 – The Lovers, Calais and Arabella, Wanderers Eastward, Wanderers West – she failed to make as much of an impact. In 2000 a new edition of Forever Amber was published with a foreword by Barbara Taylor Bradford.

Winsor died May 2003 in New York City. Forever Amber ISBN 0-14-100982-9 Star Money ISBN 0-451-02708-6 The Lovers ISBN 0-552-07118-8 America, With Love ISBN 0-451-01600-9 Wanderers Eastward, Wanderers West ISBN 0-8217-5033-X Calais ISBN 0-385-14865-8 Jacintha ISBN 0-517-55201-9 Robert and Arabella ISBN 0-517-56078-X Winsor's manuscripts and research from 1940-1949 are at The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Guardian Unlimited obituary on Kathleen Winsor Lise Jaillant, "Subversive Middlebrow: The Campaigns to Ban Kathleen Winsor’s Forever Amber in the United States and in Canada." International Journal of Canadian Studies 48: 33-52. Guardian Unlimited book review of Forever Amber by Elaine Showalter, August 2002. Time magazine book review, October 1957, of America, With Love. Works by or about Kathleen Winsor at Internet Archive