1.
Maastricht
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Maastricht is a city and a municipality in the southeast of the Netherlands. It is the city of the province of Limburg. Maastricht is located on both sides of the Meuse river, at the point where the Jeker River joins it, Maastricht developed from a Roman settlement to a Medieval religious centre, a garrison town and an early industrial city. Today, Maastricht is well-regarded as an affluent cultural center, Maastricht has 1677 national heritage sites, which is the second highest number in a Dutch town, after Amsterdam. It has become known, by way of the Maastricht Treaty, as the birthplace of the European Union, European citizenship, and the single European currency, the town is popular with tourists for shopping and recreation, and has a large growing international student population. Maastricht is a member of the Most Ancient European Towns Network and is part of the Meuse-Rhine Euroregion, the name Maastricht is derived from Latin Traiectum ad Mosam, meaning crossing at the Meuse, and referring to the bridge built by the Romans. The Latin name first appears in documents and it is not known whether this was Maastrichts official name during Roman times. A resident of Maastricht is referred to as Maastrichtenaar whilst in the local dialect it is either Mestreechteneer or, colloquially, there is some debate as to whether Maastricht is the oldest city in the Netherlands. Some people consider Nijmegen the oldest, mainly because it was the first settlement in the Netherlands to receive Roman city rights, Maastricht never did, but it may be as old or older as a settlement. In addition, Maastricht can claim uninterrupted habitation since Roman times, a large number of archeological finds confirms this. Nijmegen has a gap in its history, there is no evidence of habitation in the early Middle Ages. Neanderthal remains have been found to the west of Maastricht, of a later date are Palaeolithic remains, between 8,000 and 25,000 years old. Celts lived here around 500 BC, at a spot where the river Meuse was shallow and it is not known when the Romans arrived in Maastricht, or whether the settlement was founded by them. The Romans built a bridge over the Meuse in the 1st century AD, the bridge was an important link in the main road between Bavay and Cologne. Roman Maastricht was probably relatively small, remains of the Roman road, the bridge, a religious shrine, a Roman bath, a granary, some houses and the 4th-century castrum walls and gates, have been excavated. Fragments of provincial Roman sculptures, as well as coins, jewelry, glass, pottery, according to legend, the Armenian-born Saint Servatius, Bishop of Tongeren, died in Maastricht in 384 and was buried there along the Roman road, outside the castrum. According to Gregory of Tours it was bishop Monulph who, around 570, built the first stone church on the grave of Servatius, the city remained an early Christian diocese until it lost this position to nearby Liège in the early 8th century. In the early Middle Ages Maastricht was part of the heartland of the Carolingian Empire along with Aachen, the town was an important centre for trade and manufacturing
2.
Capitol Cinema (Ottawa)
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The Capitol Cinema was the largest movie theatre ever built in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and was the citys only true movie palace. Opened in 1920, the 2530-seat cinema was regarded as one of the best cinemas designed by famed theatre-architect Thomas W. Lamb. The Capitol was located at the southwest corner of the intersection of Queen Street and Bank Street, the train was greeted by the Governor Generals Foot Guards band and thousands of movie fans. A motorcade took the visitors to the City Hall on Elgin Street, after a short tour of the city, the visitors were greeted by James Alexander Lougheed on Parliament Hill, and then taken to their accommodations in the Château Laurier. The crowds that greeted the motorcade at each stage of its procession through the city were described by the Ottawa Citizen as throngs with unrivalled scenes of enthusiasm. The opening performance that consisted of two films, D. W. Griffiths The Love Flower and a comedy entitled Cheer Up. Crowds of people who were unable to obtain tickets for the sold-out show lingered on the sidewalks outside the theatre throughout the evening. One city councillor, Napoléon Champagne, later defended his attendance at the party in the Ottawa Citizen by claiming that he had looking after the married men. In the era of the movie palaces, theatres were typically built with a narrow entrance on the main thoroughfare. This enabled the bulk of the building to be constructed on cheaper land well away from the thoroughfare, Ottawas Loews theater was different, as it occupied the entirety of a prime downtown corner site. This enabled Lamb to design a grander lobby for the theater, with a marble staircase and balustrade, a colonnaded mezzanine. The auditorium was equally impressive, with its ornate proscenium arch, hand-painted ceiling dome, box seats, the Capitol was considered to be among the finest movie palaces in North America. In Palaces of the Night, John Lindsay wrote, many feel the Ottawa Capitol was the most attractive of all of Lambs theatres, with the grandest split staircase and lobby anywhere. Loews main competitor in Canada, Famous Players, promised a larger flagship theatre on Sparks Street to trump the Loews cinema on Queen Street. With a population of 150,000 at that time, however, in 1924, Loews sold off its Canadian theatres, and the American Keith theatre circuit was able to outbid Famous Players for the Ottawa Loews. The cinema was renamed Keiths Vaudeville, and shortly thereafter the marquee was changed again to the RKO Capitol, for five years, Famous Players continued to announce on an annual basis that it would be building a competing cinema on Sparks Street. In 1929, however, Famous Players merged with RKOs Canadian operations, the name of the theatre was ultimately changed to simply the Capitol. Despite the end of the era, the Capitol continued to host musical concerts, plays and other events, along with its main film programming
3.
Ottawa
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Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It stands on the bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of southern Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, the two form the core of the Ottawa–Gatineau census metropolitan area and the National Capital Region. The 2016 census reported a population of 934,243, making it the fourth-largest city in Canada, the City of Ottawa reported that the city had an estimated population of 960,754 as of December 2015. Founded in 1826 as Bytown, and incorporated as Ottawa in 1855, the city name Ottawa was chosen in reference to the Ottawa River nearby, the name of which is derived from the Algonquin Odawa, meaning to trade. The city is the most educated in Canada, and is home to a number of post-secondary, research, and cultural institutions, including the National Arts Centre, Ottawa also has the highest standard of living in the nation and low unemployment. It ranked second out of 150 worldwide in the Numbeo quality of life index 2014–2015, with the draining of the Champlain Sea around ten thousand years ago the Ottawa Valley became habitable. The area was used for wild harvesting, hunting, fishing, trade, travel. The Ottawa river valley has archaeological sites with arrow heads, pottery, the area has three major rivers that meet, making it an important trade and travel area for thousands of years. The Algonquins called the Ottawa River Kichi Sibi or Kichissippi meaning Great River or Grand River, Étienne Brûlé, the first European to travel up the Ottawa River, passed by Ottawa in 1610 on his way to the Great Lakes. Three years later, Samuel de Champlain wrote about the waterfalls of the area and about his encounters with the Algonquins, the early explorers and traders were later followed by many missionaries. The first maps of the area used the word Ottawa to name the river, philemon Wright, a New Englander, created the first settlement in the area on 7 March 1800 on the north side of the river, across from Ottawa in Hull. He, with five other families and twenty-five labourers, set about to create a community called Wrightsville. Wright pioneered the Ottawa Valley timber trade by transporting timber by river from the Ottawa Valley to Quebec City, the following year, the town would soon be named after British military engineer Colonel John By who was responsible for the entire Rideau Waterway construction project. Colonel By set up military barracks on the site of todays Parliament Hill and he also laid out the streets of the town and created two distinct neighbourhoods named Upper Town west of the canal and Lower Town east of the canal. Similar to its Upper Canada and Lower Canada namesakes, historically Upper Town was predominantly English speaking and Protestant whereas Lower Town was predominantly French, Irish, bytowns population grew to 1,000 as the Rideau Canal was being completed in 1832. In 1855 Bytown was renamed Ottawa and incorporated as a city, William Pittman Lett was installed as the first city clerk guiding it through 36 years of development. On New Years Eve 1857, Queen Victoria, as a symbolic, in reality, Prime Minister John A. Macdonald had assigned this selection process to the Executive Branch of the Government, as previous attempts to arrive at a consensus had ended in deadlock
4.
Canada
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Canada is a country in the northern half of North America. Canadas border with the United States is the worlds longest binational land border, the majority of the country has a cold or severely cold winter climate, but southerly areas are warm in summer. Canada is sparsely populated, the majority of its territory being dominated by forest and tundra. It is highly urbanized with 82 per cent of the 35.15 million people concentrated in large and medium-sized cities, One third of the population lives in the three largest cities, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Its capital is Ottawa, and other urban areas include Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, Winnipeg. Various aboriginal peoples had inhabited what is now Canada for thousands of years prior to European colonization. Pursuant to the British North America Act, on July 1,1867, the colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and this began an accretion of provinces and territories to the mostly self-governing Dominion to the present ten provinces and three territories forming modern Canada. With the Constitution Act 1982, Canada took over authority, removing the last remaining ties of legal dependence on the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II being the head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level and it is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many other countries. Its advanced economy is the eleventh largest in the world, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources, Canadas long and complex relationship with the United States has had a significant impact on its economy and culture. Canada is a country and has the tenth highest nominal per capita income globally as well as the ninth highest ranking in the Human Development Index. It ranks among the highest in international measurements of government transparency, civil liberties, quality of life, economic freedom, Canada is an influential nation in the world, primarily due to its inclusive values, years of prosperity and stability, stable economy, and efficient military. While a variety of theories have been postulated for the origins of Canada. In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona, from the 16th to the early 18th century Canada referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River. In 1791, the area became two British colonies called Upper Canada and Lower Canada collectively named The Canadas, until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the name for the new country at the London Conference. The transition away from the use of Dominion was formally reflected in 1982 with the passage of the Canada Act, later that year, the name of national holiday was changed from Dominion Day to Canada Day
5.
Basarrate (Metro Bilbao)
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Basarrate is a station of the Line 1 and Line 2 of Metro Bilbao. The station before is Santutxu and the station after is Bolueta, Basarrate is located in the neighborhood of Santutxu in the district of Begoña, in the city of Bilbao. Its name comes from Campa de Basarrate, a plaza located above the station and it is one of the two stations of Metro Bilbao located in this neighborhood, with the other one being Santutxu station. The station was opened on July 5,1997, the station is served by Line 1 to Etxebarri, Bidezabal and Plentzia and Line 2 to Basauri and Santurtzi. From Monday to Friday, the first train arrives at 6, 04am, passengers willing to interchange from line 1 to line 2 or vice versa may do it in this station. 3, Pintor Losada Street Basarrate Square Iturriaga Street, corner of Marqués Laurentín St
6.
Metro Bilbao
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Metro Bilbao is a rapid transit system serving the city of Bilbao and the region of Greater Bilbao. Its lines have a Y shape, with two lines that both banks of the Nervión river and then combine to form one line that ends in the south of Bilbao. The network of Metro Bilbao is connected with Euskotren Tranbia, Bilboko Aldiriak, Euskotren Trena, Feve, as of 2013, the Metro operates on 43.28 kilometers of route, with 42 stations with 80 accesses. It is the third largest Metro company in Spain by number of passengers carried behind the Madrid, on February 21,2007, the Basque Government announced a project for the construction of a third metro line, which in the future will be expanded to Bilbao Airport. Construction of the new line began in July 2008, on January 25,2008, the preliminary layout of lines four and five was published. At the same time, the University of the Basque Country requested the construction of Line 6 in order to connect Leioa and Getxo with Asua Valley going through the university campus. The section between the stations of San Inazio and Etxebarri is the same for Lines 2 and 1 with 10.39 kilometres, Bolueta Station Euskotren Trena, L1, L1d and L3 Bizkaibus, Lines A2610, A3613, A3621, A3622, A3918, A3928 and A3929. At the same time, Urbinaga Station was built with the intention of connecting lines C1 and C2 of Cercanías, however, these connection projects have not been finished as of 2011. Eventually the Urbinaga project was restarted in 2009 and that future intermodal station will also take advantage of the future Leioa-Urbinaga Tram. Its construction was expected to start at the end of 2009, the idea of building a metro system in the city of Bilbao is an old one. In the 1920s the citys council prepared a project to build a system in the neighbourhoods of Abando. Soon after, the crises and the Spanish Civil War put a definitive end to the project. In 1971 the government of Biscay, the Bilbao City Council, in 1976, five years later, the Biscay Transport Consortium was created. In that same year two proposals were created to start a service in 1985, the first of them is almost identical to the current network. A year later a project was created to build the metro, however lots of objections were raised against it, in 1985 the construction plans were altered and a new project was created. Finally in 1987 the Basque Government approved the plan to build, a metro system was deemed to be the best way to improve congestion problems in the evolving and regenerating city. The contract for the metro system in Bilbao was awarded to the architects Sir Norman Foster. The same year the first underground station was opened in Erandio, in 1989 construction began in the city centre, where the main Moyúa square was closed to pedestrians until 1997
7.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
8.
Palace of Versailles
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The Palace of Versailles, Château de Versailles, or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. Versailles is therefore not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime. First built by Louis XIII in 1623, as a lodge of brick and stone. The first phase of the expansion was designed and supervised by the architect Louis Le Vau and it culminated in the addition of three new wings of stone, which surrounded Louis XIIIs original building on the north, south, and west. After Le Vaus death in 1670, the work was taken over and completed by his assistant, charles Le Brun designed and supervised the elaborate interior decoration, and André Le Nôtre landscaped the extensive Gardens of Versailles. Le Brun and Le Nôtre collaborated on the fountains, and Le Brun supervised the design. During the second phase of expansion, two enormous wings north and south of the wings flanking the Cour Royale were added by the architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart. He also replaced Le Vaus large terrace, facing the garden on the west, with became the most famous room of the palace. The Royal Chapel of Versailles, located at the end of the north wing, was begun by Mansart in 1688. One of the most baffling aspects to the study of Versailles is the cost – how much Louis XIV, owing to the nature of the construction of Versailles and the evolution of the role of the palace, construction costs were essentially a private matter. Initially, Versailles was planned to be a residence for Louis XIV and was referred to as the kings house. Once Louis XIV embarked on his campaigns, expenses for Versailles became more of a matter for public record. To counter the costs of Versailles during the years of Louis XIVs personal reign. Accordingly, all materials that went into the construction and decoration of Versailles were manufactured in France, even the mirrors used in the decoration of the Hall of Mirrors were made in France. While Venice in the 17th century had the monopoly on the manufacture of mirrors, to meet the demands for decorating and furnishing Versailles, Colbert nationalised the tapestry factory owned by the Gobelin family, to become the Manufacture royale des Gobelins. In 1667, the name of the enterprise was changed to the Manufacture royale des Meubles de la Couronne, the Comptes meticulously list the expenditures on the silver furniture – disbursements to artists, final payments, delivery – as well as descriptions and weight of items purchased. Entries for 1681 and 1682 concerning the silver used in the salon de Mercure serve as an example. 5 In anticipation, For the silver balustrade for the bedroom,90,000 livres II
The dictionary definition of mezzanine at Wiktionary