1.
Belgium
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Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a sovereign state in Western Europe bordered by France, the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, and the North Sea. It is a small, densely populated country which covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres and has a population of about 11 million people. Additionally, there is a group of German-speakers who live in the East Cantons located around the High Fens area. Historically, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were known as the Low Countries, the region was called Belgica in Latin, after the Roman province of Gallia Belgica. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, today, Belgium is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. It is divided into three regions and three communities, that exist next to each other and its two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region is a bilingual enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia, Belgiums linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its political history and complex system of governance, made up of six different governments. Upon its independence, declared in 1830, Belgium participated in the Industrial Revolution and, during the course of the 20th century, possessed a number of colonies in Africa. This continuing antagonism has led to several far-reaching reforms, resulting in a transition from a unitary to a federal arrangement during the period from 1970 to 1993. Belgium is also a member of the Eurozone, NATO, OECD and WTO. Its capital, Brussels, hosts several of the EUs official seats as well as the headquarters of major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium is also a part of the Schengen Area, Belgium is a developed country, with an advanced high-income economy and is categorized as very high in the Human Development Index. A gradual immigration by Germanic Frankish tribes during the 5th century brought the area under the rule of the Merovingian kings, a gradual shift of power during the 8th century led the kingdom of the Franks to evolve into the Carolingian Empire. Many of these fiefdoms were united in the Burgundian Netherlands of the 14th and 15th centuries, the Eighty Years War divided the Low Countries into the northern United Provinces and the Southern Netherlands. The latter were ruled successively by the Spanish and the Austrian Habsburgs and this was the theatre of most Franco-Spanish and Franco-Austrian wars during the 17th and 18th centuries. The reunification of the Low Countries as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands occurred at the dissolution of the First French Empire in 1815, although the franchise was initially restricted, universal suffrage for men was introduced after the general strike of 1893 and for women in 1949. The main political parties of the 19th century were the Catholic Party, French was originally the single official language adopted by the nobility and the bourgeoisie
2.
Menen
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Menen is a municipality located in the Belgian province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the city of Menen proper and the towns of Lauwe, the city is situated on the French/Belgian border. On January 1,2006, Menen had a population of 32,413. The total area is 33.07 km² which gives a density of 980 inhabitants per km². The city of Menen gives its name to the Menin Gate in Ypres which is a monument to those killed in World War I, the gate is so called as the road from that gate is the road to Menen. Menens position near the French border led to many sieges in the history of the city, there were as many as 22 sieges between 1579 and 1830. The city was part of France between 1668 and 1713, vauban turned Menen into a model-fortification. The city was besieged and taken by the Duke of Marlboroughs allied Army in August 1706, during the Flanders Campaign of the Wars of the French Revolution the city changed hands several times. There has been a big fire in 1750 that almost completely destroyed the city. It was also the scene of a battle in September 1793, Menen was a barrier town for the Kingdom of the Netherlands against France from 1815 to 1830. A new art museum, the Stadsmuseum ’t Schippershof, opened in 1999 which holds many works by Menen-born sculptor Yvonne Serruys, in 2013 the city drew international attention by forbidding its civil servants to speak French with francophones. The mayor, Martine Fournier, ordered that, if necessary, the municipality of Menen consists of Menen proper, Lauwe and Rekkem. In the area of Rekkem, theres also the hamlet Paradijs, in addition to the central town, Menen proper also contains the parishes and districts De Barakken and Ons Dorp. Menen proper is located north of the Leie, Lauwe. The urban area of the city of Menen is directly connected with the area of the French municipality Halluin
3.
Menin Gate
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The memorial is located at the eastern exit of the town and marks the starting point for one of the main roads out of the town that led Allied soldiers to the front line. Designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield and built and maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, in medieval times, the original narrow gateway on the eastern side of the city of Ypres was called the Hangoartpoort, poort being the Dutch word for gate. In order to prosper and maintain its wealth, the city of Ypres had to be fortified, during the 17th and 18th centuries, while under the occupation of the Habsburgs and the French, the city was increasingly fortified. Major works were completed at the end of the 17th century by the French military engineer Sebastien Le Prestre, at the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, the eastern exit simply cut through the remains of the ramparts and crossed a moat. The gateway was by this time known as the Menenpoort, or Menin Gate in English, because the road leading through the gateway led to the small town of Menen. Ypres occupied a position during the First World War because it stood in the path of Germanys planned sweep across the rest of Belgium. By October 1914, the much battered Belgian Army broke the dykes on the Yser River to the north of the City to keep the tip of Belgium out of German hands. For the Allies, Ypres was also important because it became the last major Belgian town that was not under German control. The importance of the town is reflected in the five major battles that occurred around it during the war, during the First Battle of Ypres the Allies halted the German Armys advance to the east of the city. The German army eventually surrounded the city on three sides, bombarding it throughout much of the war, the Second Battle of Ypres marked a second German attempt to take the city in April 1915. The third battle is more commonly referred to as Passchendaele, the fourth and fifth battles occurred during 1918. British and Commonwealth soldiers often passed through the Menenpoort on their way to the front lines with some 300,000 of them being killed in the Ypres Salient,90,000 of these soldiers have no known graves. From September to November 1915, the British 177th Tunnelling Company built tunnelled dugouts in the city ramparts near the Menin Gate and these were the first British tunnelled dugouts in the Ypres Salient. The carved limestone lions adorning the original gate were damaged by shellfire and they were restored in 1987, and currently reside at the entrance to that Memorial, so that all visitors to the Memorial pass between them. Reginald Blomfields triumphal arch, designed in 1921, is the entry to the passage for traffic through the mausoleum that honours the Missing. The patient lion on the top is the lion of Britain and it was chosen to be a memorial as it was the closest gate of the town to the fighting, and so Allied Troops would have marched past it on their way to fight. Actually, most troops passed out of the gates of Ypres. Its large Hall of Memory contains names on stone panels of 54,395 Commonwealth soldiers who died in the Salient, on completion of the memorial, it was discovered to be too small to contain all the names as originally planned
4.
Ypres
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Ypres is a Belgian municipality located in the Flemish province of West Flanders. Though Ieper is the name, the citys French name. The municipality comprises the city of Ypres and the villages of Boezinge, Brielen, Dikkebus, Elverdinge, Hollebeke, Sint-Jan, Vlamertinge, Voormezele, Zillebeke, together, they are home to about 34,900 inhabitants. During the First World War, Ypres was the centre of Battles of Ypres between German and Allied forces, during the war it was nicknamed Wipers, as its name was difficult for English-speaking British Imperial forces troops to pronounce. Ypres is an ancient town, known to have been raided by the Romans in the first century BC and it is first mentioned by name in 1066 and is probably named after the river Ieperlee on the banks of which it was founded. During the Middle Ages, Ypres was a prosperous Flemish city with a population of 40,000 in 1200 AD, renowned for its trade with England. As the third largest city in the County of Flanders Ypres played an important role in the history of the textile industry, textiles from Ypres could be found in the markets of Novgorod in Kievan Rus in the early 12th century. In 1241, a fire ruined much of the old city. The powerful city was involved in important treaties and battles, including the Battle of the Golden Spurs, the Battle at Mons-en-Pévèle, the Peace of Melun, the famous Cloth Hall was built in the thirteenth century. Also during this time cats, then the symbol of the devil and witchcraft, were thrown off Cloth Hall, today, this act is commemorated with a triennial Cat Parade through town. During the Norwich Crusade, led by the English bishop Henry le Despenser, Ypres was besieged from May to August 1383, after the destruction of Thérouanne, Ypres became the seat of the new Diocese of Ypres in 1561, and Saint Martins Church was elevated to cathedral. On 25 March 1678 Ypres was conquered by the forces of Louis XIV of France and it remained French under the treaty of Nijmegen, and Vauban constructed his typical fortifications that can still be seen today. In 1697, after the Treaty of Ryswick, Ypres was returned to the Spanish Crown, in 1713 it was handed over to the Habsburgs, and became part of the Austrian Netherlands. In 1782 the Habsburg Austrian Emperor Joseph II ordered parts of the torn down. This destruction, which was partly repaired, made it easier for the French to capture the city in the 1794 Siege of Ypres during the War of the First Coalition. In 1850 the Ypresian Age of the Eocene Epoch was named on the basis of geology in the region by Belgian geologist André Hubert Dumont, Ypres had long been fortified to keep out invaders. Parts of the ramparts, dating from 1385, still survive near the Rijselpoort. Over time, the earthworks were replaced by masonry and earth structures
5.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
6.
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough
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General John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, Prince of Mindelheim, KG, PC, was an English soldier and statesman whose career spanned the reigns of five monarchs. It was not until the accession of Queen Anne in 1702 that Marlborough reached the zenith of his powers and secured his fame and fortune. His marriage to the hot-tempered Sarah Jennings – Annes intimate friend – ensured Marlboroughs rise, first to the Captain-Generalcy of British forces, but his wifes stormy relationship with the Queen, and her subsequent dismissal from court, was central to his own fall. Incurring Annes disfavour, and caught between Tory and Whig factions, Marlborough, who had brought glory and success to Annes reign, was forced from office and went into self-imposed exile. He returned to England and to influence under the House of Hanover with the accession of George I to the British throne in 1714, Marlboroughs insatiable ambition made him the richest of all Annes subjects. His family connections wove him into the fabric of European politics and his leadership of the allied armies consolidated Britains emergence as a front-rank power. He successfully maintained unity among the allies, thereby demonstrating his diplomatic skills, Churchill was the son of Sir Winston Churchill of Glanvilles Wootton in Dorset, by his wife Elizabeth Drake, fourth daughter of Sir John Drake of Ash in the parish of Musbury in Devon. The Churchill family are stated by the Devon historian William George Hoskins to have originated at the estate of Churchill, in the parish of Broadclyst in Devon, although Winston had paid off the fine by 1651, it had impoverished him. From this episode may derive the Churchill family motto, Fiel Pero Desdichado, Winston Churchill and his wife Elizabeth Drake had at least nine children, only five of whom survived infancy. The eldest daughter, Arabella Churchill, was born on 28 February 1649, John Churchill, the two younger sons were George Churchill, an admiral in the Royal Navy, and Charles Churchill, a general who served on campaign in Europe with his eldest brother John. His descendant and biographer the Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, asserted that the conditions at Ashe might well have aroused in his mind two prevailing impressions, first a hatred of poverty. And secondly the need of hiding thoughts and feelings from those to whom their expression would be repugnant, after the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660 his fathers fortunes took a turn for the better, although he remained far from prosperous. The Kings own penury meant the old Cavaliers received scant financial reward, thus in 1665, Johns sister Arabella became Maid of Honour to Anne Hyde, the Duchess of York. Some months later John,15, joined her at court serving as page to Annes husband, James, Duke of York, the Duke of Yorks passion for all things naval and military rubbed off on young Churchill. Often accompanying the Duke inspecting the troops in the royal parks, on 14 September 1667, he obtained a commission as Ensign in the Kings Own Company in the 1st Guards, later to become the Grenadier Guards. That is unlikely, and even Sir Winston S. Churchill says There is, indeed, the known facts are that he was commissioned Ensign in September 1667, as above. By February 1671, John Churchill was back in London and duelling with Sir John Fenwick, but his liaisons with the insatiable temptress were indeed dangerous. You are a rascal, said Charles, but I forgive you because you do it to get your bread
7.
Flanders Campaign
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The Flanders Campaign was conducted from 6 November 1792 to 7 June 1795 during the first years of the French Revolutionary Wars. A coalition of states mobilised military forces all the French frontiers, with the intention to invade Revolutionary France. The largest of these forces assembled on the Franco-Flemish border, the Allies enjoyed several early victories, but were unable to advance beyond the French border fortresses and were eventually forced to withdraw by a series of French counter-offensives. The Allies established a new front in the south of the Netherlands and Germany, the Austrians pulled back to the lower Rhine and the British to Hanover from where they were eventually evacuated. Austria and Prussia had been at war with France since 1792, although Britain, only after the execution of the French king Louis XVI on 21 January 1793 and the declaration of war by the Revolutionary Government did they finally mobilize. Allied armies mobilised along all of the French frontiers, the largest and most important in the Flanders Franco-Belgian border region. In the north, the immediate aim was to eject the French from the Dutch Republic. Austria and Prussia broadly supported this aim, but both were short of money, initially, just fifteen hundred troops landed with York in February 1793. The Duke of York was obliged to follow objectives set by Pitts Foreign Minister Henry Dundas, thus Allied military decisions in the campaign were tempered by political objectives from Vienna and London. The defences of the Dutch Republic were in condition, its States Army not having fought in a war for 45 years. Williams main concern therefore was the preservation of the House of Orange, many of the old officer class had emigrated, leaving the cavalry in particular in chaotic condition. Only the artillery arm, less affected by emigration, had survived intact, the problems would become even more acute following the introduction of mass conscription, the Levée en Masse, in 1793. The price of failure or disloyalty was the guillotine, as the Austrians retreated, Dumouriez saw an opportunity with the Patriot exiles to overthrow the weak Dutch Republic by making a bold move north. A second French Division under Francisco de Miranda manoeuvred against the Austrians and Hanoverians in eastern Belgium, on 16 February Dumouriezs republican Armée du Nord advanced from Antwerp and invaded Dutch Brabant. Dutch forces fell back to the line of the Meuse abandoning the fortress of Breda after a siege. Within nine days an initial British guards brigade had assembled and dispatched across the English Channel, landing at Hellevoetsluis under the command of general Lake. Meanwhile, while Dumouriez moved north into Brabant, a army under Francisco de Miranda laid siege to Maastricht on 23 February. However the Austrians had been reinforced to 39,000 and, now commanded by Saxe-Coburg, crossed the Ruhr River on 1 March, the next day the Austrians took Aachen before reaching Maastricht on the Meuse and forcing Miranda to lift the siege
8.
Dutch Republic
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It preceded the Batavian Republic, the Kingdom of Holland, the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, and ultimately the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands. Alternative names include the United Provinces, Seven Provinces, Federated Dutch Provinces, most of the Low Countries had come under the rule of the House of Burgundy and subsequently the House of Habsburg. In 1549 Holy Roman Emperor Charles V issued the Pragmatic Sanction, Charles was succeeded by his son, King Philip II of Spain. This was the start of the Eighty Years War, in 1579 a number of the northern provinces of the Low Countries signed the Union of Utrecht, in which they promised to support each other in their defence against the Spanish army. This was followed in 1581 by the Act of Abjuration, the declaration of independence of the provinces from Philip II. In 1582 the United Provinces invited Francis, Duke of Anjou to lead them, but after an attempt to take Antwerp in 1583. After the assassination of William of Orange, both Henry III of France and Elizabeth I of England declined the offer of sovereignty, however, the latter agreed to turn the United Provinces into a protectorate of England, and sent the Earl of Leicester as governor-general. This was unsuccessful and in 1588 the provinces became a confederacy, the Union of Utrecht is regarded as the foundation of the Republic of the Seven United Provinces, which was not recognized by the Spanish Empire until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. During the Anglo-French war, the territory was divided into groups, the Patriots, who were pro-French and pro-American and the Orangists. The Republic of the United Provinces faced a series of revolutions in 1783–1787. During this period, republican forces occupied several major Dutch cities, initially on the defence, the Orangist forces received aid from Prussian troops and retook the Netherlands in 1787. After the French Republic became the French Empire under Napoleon, the Batavian Republic was replaced by the Napoleonic Kingdom of Holland, the Netherlands regained independence from France in 1813. In the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 the names United Provinces of the Netherlands, on 16 March 1815, the son of stadtholder William V crowned himself King William I of the Netherlands. Between 1815 and 1890 the King of the Netherlands was also in a union the Grand Duke of the sovereign Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. After Belgium gained its independence in 1830, the state became known as the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The County of Holland was the wealthiest and most urbanized region in the world, the free trade spirit of the time received a strong augmentation through the development of a modern, effective stock market in the Low Countries. The Netherlands has the oldest stock exchange in the world, founded in 1602 by the Dutch East India Company, while Rotterdam has the oldest bourse in the Netherlands, the worlds first stock exchange, that of the Dutch East-India Company, went public in six different cities. Later, a court ruled that the company had to reside legally in a city so Amsterdam is recognized as the oldest such institution based on modern trading principles
9.
Cultural center
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A cultural center or cultural centre is an organization, building or complex that promotes culture and arts. Cultural centers can be neighborhood community arts organizations, private facilities, government-sponsored, colombia Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, Brasilia, and São Paulo. Art space community centre infoshop music venue social centre
10.
Public library
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A public library is a library that is accessible by the general public and is generally funded from public sources, such as taxes. It is operated by librarians and library paraprofessionals, who are civil servants. There are five fundamental characteristics shared by public libraries, Public libraries exist in many countries across the world and are often considered an essential part of having an educated and literate population. Public access to books is not new, romans made scrolls in dry rooms available to patrons of the baths, and tried with some success to establish libraries within the empire. In the middle of the 19th century, the push for public libraries, paid for by taxes. Public libraries were started with a donation, or were bequeathed to parishes, churches. These social and institutional libraries formed the base of many academic and public collections of today. The establishment of circulating libraries in the 18th century, by booksellers and publishers provided a means of gaining profit, the circulating libraries not only provided a place to sell books, but also a place to lend books for a price. These circulating libraries provided a variety of including the increasingly popular novels. Circulating libraries were not exclusively lending institutions and often provided a place for other forms of commercial activity and this was necessary because the circulating libraries did not generate enough funds through subscription fees collected from its borrowers. As a commerce venture, it was important to consider the factors such as other goods or services available to the subscribers. The Malatestiana Library, also known as the Malatesta Novello Library, is a public library dating from 1452 in Cesena, Emilia-Romagna and it was the first European civic library, i. e. belonging to the Commune and open to everybody. It was commissioned by the Lord of Cesena, Malatesta Novello, the works were directed by Matteo Nuti of Fano and lasted from 1447 to 1452. In the early years of the 17th century, many famous collegiate, norwich City library was established in 1608 and Chethams Library in Manchester, which claims to be the oldest public library in the English-speaking world, opened in 1653. Claude Sallier, the French philologist and churchman, operated an early form of library in the town of Saulieu from 1737 to 1750. He wished to make culture and learning accessible to all people, the Załuski Library was built in Warsaw 1747–1795 by Józef Andrzej Załuski and his brother, Andrzej Stanisław Załuski, both Roman Catholic bishops. The library was open to the public and indeed was the first Polish public library, at the start of the 18th century, libraries were becoming increasingly public and were more frequently lending libraries. The 18th century saw the switch from closed parochial libraries to lending libraries, before this time, public libraries were parochial in nature and libraries frequently chained their books to desks
11.
Casemate
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A casemate, sometimes erroneously rendered casement, is a fortified gun emplacement or armored structure from which guns are fired. Originally, the referred to a vaulted chamber in a fortress. In armoured fighting vehicles that do not have a turret for the main gun, the word comes from the Italian casamatta, the etymology of which is uncertain. Others think that it comes from the Arabic word kasaba, transliterated to kasbah, menagio speculated that it came from the Greek word for pit, khasma, the plural of which is khasmata. Hensleigh Wedgwood thought that it came from the Spanish casa and matar, others take matto in its archaic Italian meaning of dark, equivalent to the English matt, as in opaque, making a casamatta a dark house. Casematte were also used as prisons, making use of their lack of light to add to the punishment. This explanation seems to be the most agreed upon, a casemate was originally a vaulted chamber usually constructed underneath the rampart. It was intended to be impenetrable and could be used for sheltering troops or stores, with the addition of an embrasure through the scarp face of the rampart, it could be used as a protected gun position. In the early 19th century, French military engineer Baron Haxo designed a free-standing casemate that could be built on the top of the rampart, casemates built in concrete were used in the Second World War to protect coastal artillery from air attack. In warship design the term casemate has been used in a number of ways, the most famous naval battle of the war was the duel at Hampton Roads between the Union turretted ironclad USS Monitor and the Confederate casemate ironclad CSS Virginia. Casemate ship was a term for central battery ship or center battery ship. The casemate was a box that extended the full width of the ship protecting many guns. The armoured sides of the box were the sides of hull of the ship, there was an armoured bulkhead at the front and rear of the casemate, and a thick deck protecting the top. The lower edge of the casemate sat on top of ships belt armour, some ships, such as the Alexandra, had a two-storey casemate. A casemate was a room in the side of a warship. A typical casemate held a 6-in gun, and had a 6 front plate, with armour plates on the sides and rear, with a protected top and floor. Casemates were similar in size to turrets, ships carrying them had them in pairs, the first battleships to carry them were the British Royal Sovereign class laid down in 1889. They were adopted as a result of live-firing trials against HMS Resistance in 1888, the use of casemates enabled the 6-in guns to be dispersed, so that a single hit would not knock out all of them
12.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
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