Baku
Baku is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. Baku is located 28 metres below sea level, which makes it the lowest lying national capital in the world and the largest city in the world located below sea level. Baku lies alongside the Bay of Baku. At the beginning of 2009, Baku's urban population was estimated at just over 2,000,000 people. About 25 percent of all inhabitants of the country live in Baku's metropolitan area. Baku is the sole metropolis in Azerbaijan. Baku is divided into 48 townships. Among these are the townships on the islands of the Baku Archipelago, the town of Oil Rocks built on stilts in the Caspian Sea, 60 kilometres away from Baku; the Inner City of Baku, along with the Shirvanshah's Palace and Maiden Tower, were inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000. According to the Lonely Planet's ranking, Baku is among the world's top ten destinations for urban nightlife; the city is the scientific and industrial center of Azerbaijan.
Many sizeable Azerbaijani institutions have their headquarters there. The Baku International Sea Trade Port is capable of handling two million tons of general and dry bulk cargoes per year. In recent years, Baku has become an important venue for international events, it hosted the 57th Eurovision Song Contest in 2012, the 2015 European Games, 4th Islamic Solidarity Games, the F1 Azerbaijan Grand Prix since 2016, will host the final of the 2018-19 UEFA Europa League and, will be one of the host cities for UEFA Euro 2020. The city is renowned for its harsh winds, reflected in its nickname, the "City of Winds". Baku is derived from the Persian name of the city باد-کوبه Bād-kube, meaning "Wind-pounded city", in which bād means "wind" and kube is rooted in the verb کوبیدن kubidan, "to pound", thus referring to a place where wind is strong and pounding. Indeed, the city is renowned for harsh winds; this is reflected in the city's nickname as the "City of Winds". A less probable folk etymology explains the name as deriving from Baghkuy, meaning "God's town".
Baga and kuy are the Old Persian words for "god" and "town" respectively. Arabic sources refer to the city as Baku, Bakukh and Bakuye, all of which seem to come from a Persian name. During Soviet rule, the city was spelled in Cyrillic as "Баку" in Russian and "Бакы" in Azerbaijani. Nowadays, when Azerbaijan is using the Latin alphabet, it is spelled as "Bakı". Around 100,000 years ago, the territory of modern Baku and Absheron was savanna with rich flora and fauna. Traces of human settlement go back to the Stone age. From the Bronze age there have been rock carvings discovered near Bayil, a bronze figure of a small fish discovered in the territory of the Old City; these have led some to suggest the existence of a Bronze Age settlement within the city's territory. Near Nardaran, in a place called Umid Gaya, a prehistoric observatory was discovered, where on the rock the images of sun and various constellations are carved together with a primitive astronomic table. Further archeological excavations revealed various prehistoric settlements, native temples and other artifacts within the territory of the modern city and around it.
In the 1st century CE, the Romans reached Baku. Near the city, in Gobustan, Roman inscriptions dating from 84–96 CE were discovered; this is one of the earliest written evidences for Baku. Baku was the realm of the Shirvanshahs during the 8th century CE; the city came under assault of the Khazars and the Rus. Shirvanshah Akhsitan I built a navy in Baku and repelled another Rus assault in 1170. After a devastating earthquake struck Shamakhi, the capital of Shirvan, Shirvanshah's court moved to Baku in 1191; the Shirvan era influenced Baku and the remainder of what is present-day Azerbaijan. Between the 12th and 14th centuries, massive fortifications were undertaken in Baku and the surrounding towns; the Maiden Tower, the Ramana Tower, the Nardaran Fortress, the Shagan Castle, the Mardakan Castle, the Round Castle and the famous Sabayil Castle on the island of the Bay of Baku was built during this period. The city walls of Baku were rebuilt and strengthened. By the early 16th century Baku's wealth and strategic position attracted the focus of its larger neighbors.
The fall of the Ak Koyunlu brought the city into the sphere of the newly formed Iranian Safavid dynasty, led by king Ismail I. Ismail I captured it, his successor, king Tahmasp I removed the Shirvanshahs from power, made Baku a part of the Shirvan province. Baku remained as an integral part of his empire and the successive Iranian dynasties to come for the next centuries, until the irrevocable cession in the first half of the 19th century; the House of Shirvan, who ruled Baku since the 9th century, was extinguished in the course of the Safavid rule. At this time the city was enclosed within the lines of strong walls, which were washed by the sea on one side and protected by a wide trench on land; the Ottomans gained control over Baku as a result of the Ottoman-Safavid War of 1578–1590. In 1604 Baku fortress was destroyed by Shah A
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, public service outside the civil service. It was established on 4 June 1917 by King George V and comprises five classes across both civil and military divisions, the most senior two of which make the recipient either a knight if male or dame if female. There is the related British Empire Medal, whose recipients are affiliated with, but not members of, the order. Recommendations for appointments to the Order of the British Empire were made on the nomination of the United Kingdom, the self-governing Dominions of the Empire and the Viceroy of India. Nominations continue today from Commonwealth countries that participate in recommending British honours. Most Commonwealth countries ceased recommendations for appointments to the Order of the British Empire when they created their own honours; the five classes of appointment to the Order are, in descending order of precedence: Knight Grand Cross or Dame Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire Knight Commander or Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire The senior two ranks of Knight or Dame Grand Cross, Knight or Dame Commander, entitle their members to use the title of Sir for men and Dame for women before their forename.
Most members are citizens of the United Kingdom or the Commonwealth realms that use the Imperial system of honours and awards. Honorary knighthoods are appointed to citizens of nations where the Queen is not head of state, may permit use of post-nominal letters but not the title of Sir or Dame. Honorary appointees are, referred to as Sir or Dame – Bob Geldof, for example. Honorary appointees who become a citizen of a Commonwealth realm can convert their appointment from honorary to substantive enjoy all privileges of membership of the order, including use of the title of Sir and Dame for the senior two ranks of the Order. An example is Irish broadcaster Terry Wogan, appointed an honorary Knight Commander of the Order in 2005, on successful application for British citizenship, held alongside his Irish citizenship, was made a substantive member and subsequently styled as Sir Terry Wogan. King George V founded the Order to fill gaps in the British honours system: The Orders of the Garter, of St Patrick honoured royals, peers and eminent military commanders.
In particular, King George V wished to create an Order to honour many thousands of those who had served in a variety of non-combatant roles during the First World War. When first established, the Order had only one division. However, in 1918, soon after its foundation, it was formally divided into Military and Civil Divisions; the Order's motto is For the Empire. At the foundation of the Order, the'Medal of the Order of the British Empire' was instituted, to serve as a lower award granting recipients affiliation but not membership. In 1922, this was renamed the'British Empire Medal', it stopped being awarded by the United Kingdom as part of the 1993 reforms to the honours system, but was again awarded beginning in 2012, starting with 293 BEMs awarded for Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee. In addition, the BEM is awarded by some other Commonwealth nations. In 2004, a report entitled "A Matter of Honour: Reforming Our Honours System" by a Commons committee recommended to phase out the Order of the British Empire, as its title was "now considered to be unacceptable, being thought to embody values that are no longer shared by many of the country's population".
The British monarch is Sovereign of the Order, appoints all other members of the Order. The next most senior member is the Grand Master, of whom there have been three: Prince Edward, the Prince of Wales; the Order is limited to 300 Knights and Dames Grand Cross, 845 Knights and Dames Commander, 8,960 Commanders. There are no limits applied to the total number of members of the fourth and fifth classes, but no more than 858 Officers and 1,464 Members may be appointed per year. Foreign appointees, as honorary members, do not contribute to the numbers restricted to the Order as full members do. Although the Order of the British Empire has by far the highest number of members of the British Orders of Chivalry, with over 100,000 living members worldwide, there are fewer appointments to knighthoods than in other orders. Though men can be knighted separately from an order of chivalry, women cannot, so the rank of Knight/Dame Commander of the Order is the lowest rank of damehood, second-lowest of knighthood.
Because of this, an appointment as Dame Commander is made in circumstances in which a man would be created a Knight Bachelor. For example, by convention, female judges of the High Court of Justice are created Dames Commander after appointment, while male judges
City of Westminster
The City of Westminster is an Inner London borough that holds city status. It occupies much of the central area of Greater London including most of the West End. In Middlesex, it is to the west of the ancient City of London, directly to the east of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, its southern boundary is the River Thames; the London borough was created with the 1965 establishment of Greater London. Upon its creation, it inherited the city status held by the smaller Metropolitan Borough of Westminster from 1900, first awarded to Westminster in 1540. Aside from a number of large parks and open spaces, the population density of the district is high. Many sites associated with London are in the borough, including St. James's Palace, Buckingham Palace, the Palace of Westminster and 10 Downing Street; the borough is divided into a number of localities including the ancient political district of Westminster. Much of the borough is residential, in 2008 it was estimated to have a population of 236,000.
The local government body is Westminster City Council. A study in 2017 by Trust for London and The New Policy Institute found that Westminster has the third-highest pay inequality of the 32 London boroughs, it has the second-least affordable private rent for low earners in London, behind only Kensington and Chelsea. The borough performs more positively on education, with 82% of adults and 69% of 19-year-olds having Level 3 qualifications; the current Westminster coat of arms were given to the city by an official grant on 2 September 1964. Westminster had other arms before; the symbols in the lower two thirds of the shield stand for former municipalities now merged with the city, Paddington and St. Marylebone; the original arms had a portcullis as the main charge. The origins of the City of Westminster pre-date the Norman Conquest of England. In the mid-11th century, King Edward the Confessor began the construction of an abbey at Westminster, only the foundations of which survive today. Between the abbey and the river he built a palace, thereby guaranteeing that the seat of Government would be fixed at Westminster, drawing power and wealth west out of the old City of London.
For centuries Westminster and the City of London were geographically quite distinct. It was not until the sixteenth century that houses began to be built over the adjoining fields absorbing nearby villages such as Marylebone and Kensington, creating the vast Greater London that exists today. Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries abolished the abbey at Westminster, although the former abbey church is still called Westminster Abbey; the church was the cathedral of the Diocese of Westminster created from part of the Diocese of London in 1540, by letters patent which granted city status to Westminster, a status retained after the diocese was abolished in 1550. The Westminster Court of Burgesses was formed in 1585 to govern the Westminster area under the Abbey's control; the City and Liberties of Westminster were further defined by Letters Patent in 1604, the court of burgesses and liberty continued in existence until 1900, the creation of the Metropolitan Borough of Westminster. The present-day City of Westminster as an administrative entity with its present boundaries dates from 1965, when the City of Westminster was created from the former area of three metropolitan boroughs: St Marylebone and the smaller Metropolitan Borough of Westminster, which included Soho, Mayfair, St. James's, Westminster, Pimlico and Hyde Park.
This restructuring took place under the London Government Act 1963, which reduced the number of local government districts in London, resulting in local authorities responsible for larger geographical areas and greater populations. The Westminster Metropolitan Borough was itself the result of an administrative amalgamation which took place in 1900. Sir John Hunt O. B. E was the First Town Clerk of the City of Westminster, 1900–1928. Prior to 1900, the area occupied by what would become the Metropolitan Borough of Westminster had been administered by five separate local bodies: the Vestry of St George Hanover Square, the Vestry of St Martin in the Fields, Strand District Board of Works, Westminster District Board of Works and the Vestry of Westminster St James; the boundaries of the City of Westminster today, as well as those of the other London boroughs, have remained more or less unchanged since the Act of 1963. The following table shows the ethnic group of respondents in the 2001 and 2011 census in Westminster.
The city is divided into each electing three councillors. Westminster City Council is composed of 41 Conservative Party members and 19 Labour Party members. A Lord Mayor is elected annually to serve as the official representative of the city for one year. See List of Lord Mayors of Westminster for a list of former Mayors and Lord Mayors; the City of Westminster covers all or part of the following areas of London: The City of Westminster is home to a large number of companies. Many leading global corporations have chosen to establish their global or European headquarters in the City of Westminster. Mayfair and St. James's within the City of Westminster have a large concentration of hedge fund and private equity funds; the West End is known as the Theatre District and is home to many of the leading performing arts businesses. Soho and its adjoining areas house a concentration of creative companies. Oxford Street is
Système universitaire de documentation
The système universitaire de documentation or SUDOC is a system used by the libraries of French universities and higher education establishments to identify and manage the documents in their possession. The catalog, which contains more than 10 million references, allows students and researcher to search for bibliographical and location information in over 3,400 documentation centers, it is maintained by the Bibliographic Agency for Higher Education. Official website
British people
The British people, or the Britons, are the citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the British Overseas Territories, the Crown dependencies. British nationality law governs modern British citizenship and nationality, which can be acquired, for instance, by descent from British nationals; when used in a historical context, "British" or "Britons" can refer to the Celtic Britons, the indigenous inhabitants of Great Britain and Brittany, whose surviving members are the modern Welsh people, Cornish people, Bretons. It may refer to citizens of the former British Empire. Though early assertions of being British date from the Late Middle Ages, the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707 triggered a sense of British national identity; the notion of Britishness was forged during the Napoleonic Wars between Britain and the First French Empire, developed further during the Victorian era. The complex history of the formation of the United Kingdom created a "particular sense of nationhood and belonging" in Great Britain and Ireland.
Because of longstanding ethno-sectarian divisions, British identity in Northern Ireland is controversial, but it is held with strong conviction by Unionists. Modern Britons are descended from the varied ethnic groups that settled in the British Isles in and before the 11th century: Prehistoric, Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Normans; the progressive political unification of the British Isles facilitated migration and linguistic exchange, intermarriage between the peoples of England and Wales during the late Middle Ages, early modern period and beyond. Since 1922 and earlier, there has been immigration to the United Kingdom by people from what is now the Republic of Ireland, the Commonwealth, mainland Europe and elsewhere; the British are a diverse, multinational and multilingual society, with "strong regional accents and identities". The social structure of the United Kingdom has changed radically since the 19th century, with a decline in religious observance, enlargement of the middle class, increased ethnic diversity since the 1950s.
The population of the UK stands at around 66 million, with a British diaspora of around 140 million concentrated in Australia and New Zealand, with smaller concentrations in the United States, Republic of Ireland, South Africa and parts of the Caribbean. The earliest known reference to the inhabitants of Great Britain may have come from 4th century BC records of the voyage of Pytheas, a Greek geographer who made a voyage of exploration around the British Isles. Although none of his own writings remain, writers during the time of the Roman Empire made much reference to them. Pytheas called the islands collectively αἱ Βρεττανίαι, translated as the Brittanic Isles, the peoples of what are today England, Wales and the Isle of Man of Prettanike were called the Πρεττανοί, Pritani or Pretani; the group included Ireland, referred to as Ierne "inhabited by the different race of Hiberni", Britain as insula Albionum, "island of the Albions". The term Pritani may have reached Pytheas from the Gauls, who used it as their term for the inhabitants of the islands.
Greek and Roman writers, in the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD, name the inhabitants of Great Britain and Ireland as the Priteni, the origin of the Latin word Britanni. It has been suggested that this name derives from a Gaulish description translated as "people of the forms", referring to the custom of tattooing or painting their bodies with blue woad made from Isatis tinctoria. Parthenius, a 1st-century Ancient Greek grammarian, the Etymologicum Genuinum, a 9th-century lexical encyclopaedia, mention a mythical character Bretannus as the father of Celtine, mother of Celtus, the eponymous ancestor of the Celts. By 50 BC Greek geographers were using equivalents of Prettanikē as a collective name for the British Isles. However, with the Roman conquest of Britain the Latin term Britannia was used for the island of Great Britain, Roman-occupied Britain south of Caledonia, although the people of Caledonia and the north were the self same Britons during the Roman period, the Gaels arriving four centuries later.
Following the end of Roman rule in Britain, the island of Great Britain was left open to invasion by pagan, seafaring warriors such as Germanic-speaking Anglo-Saxons and Jutes from Continental Europe, who gained control in areas around the south east, to Middle Irish-speaking people migrating from what is today Northern Ireland to the north of Great Britain, founding Gaelic kingdoms such as Dál Riata and Alba, which would subsume the native Brittonic and Pictish kingdoms and become Scotland. In this sub-Roman Britain, as Anglo-Saxon culture spread across southern and eastern Britain and Gaelic through much of the north, the demonym "Briton" became restricted to the Brittonic-speaking inhabitants of what would be called Wales, North West England, parts of Scotland such as Strathearn, Morayshire and Strathclyde. In addition the term was applied to Brittany in what is today France and Britonia in north west Spain, both regions having been colonised by Britons in the 5th century fleeing the Anglo-Saxon invasions.
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Design Research Unit
The Design Research Unit was one of the first generation of British design consultancies combining expertise in architecture and industrial design. It was founded by the managing director of Stuart Advertising Agency, Marcus Brumwell with Misha Black and Milner Gray in 1943, it became well known for its work in relation to the Festival of Britain in 1951 and its influential corporate identity project for British Rail in 1965. In 2004, DRU merged with Scott Brownrigg architects; the group formed in 1943 following discussions begun by Marcus Brumwell, the poet and writer Herbert Read the previous year. An early set of notes proposed a "service equipped to advise on all problems of design", addressing the needs of "the State, Municipal Authorities, Industry or Commerce." They anticipated a post-war demand for technical expertise and a need for "the reconditioning and re-designing public utility services" recommending "contact... with the railway companies, motor coach lines and so on."Herbert Read became their first member of staff, sharing offices in Kingsway with Mass-Observation, another initiative that Brumwell supported under the umbrella of the Advertising Services Guild.
Read was joined by Bernard Hollowood in 1944 and after an unsuccessful tour of factories in the Midlands they engaged the sculptor Naum Gabo to design a new car for Jowett. The contract was terminated by the company in 1945. Black and Gray were committed to wartime roles within the Exhibitions Department for the Ministry of Information. Under their leadership, DRU made important postwar contributions to the Britain Can Make It exhibition and Festival of Britain. At the invitation of the Council of Industrial Design, DRU designed the Quiz Machines that sought to gauge public taste at BCMI, as well as the didactic ‘What Industrial Design Means’ display; this marked the beginning of a long association between the two bodies. For the Festival of Britain they were the architects for the Regatta Restaurant and designed a series of displays for the Dome of Discovery. Key DRU commissions included the 1954 Electricity Board Showrooms, by Black, H. Diamond, the BOAC engineering hall at London Airport by Black, Kenneth Bayes, BOAC staff from 1951 to 1955, a number of interiors for the P&O Orient Line's new liner Oriana by Black and Bayes in 1959.
Other companies for whom DRU worked included Ilford, Watney Combe & Reid Dunlop, London Transport, British Railways. The 1968 City of Westminster street name signs by Misha Black have become an integral part of London's streetscape. Since this time, DRU has worked for many high-profile companies, in interior design, graphic design and architecture. Projects of note include: Architectural design for: London Underground's Jubilee line extension works, Docklands Light Railway, Copenhagen Metro, Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway, Nottingham's guided bus system Graphic design & wayfinding for: Network Rail, Lee Valley, TarmacTheir work is the subject of a Cubitt Artists touring exhibition and publication by Michelle Cotton. Kenneth Bayes, joined 1945 Misha Black, 1943–77 Marcus Brumwell, 1943–74 Frederick Gibberd, 1945–46 Alexander Gibson, Milner Gray, joined 1943 Jock Kinneir, 1949–56 Herbert Read, 1943–68 Richard Rogers, 1967–71 Su Rogers, 1967–71 Felix Samuely, 1945–46 Sadie Speight, 1945–46 Ian Thomas Liddell, 1970–98 Official website Design Research Unit 1942–72 by Michelle Cotton Design Research Unit 1942–72 exhibition
National Library of Australia
The National Library of Australia is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the National Library Act for "maintaining and developing a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the Australian people." In 2012–13, the National Library collection comprised 6,496,772 items, an additional 15,506 metres of manuscript material. It is located in Parkes, Canberra, ACT; the National Library of Australia, while formally established by the passage of the National Library Act 1960, had been functioning as a national library rather than a Parliamentary Library since its inception. In 1901, a Commonwealth Parliamentary Library was established to serve the newly formed Federal Parliament of Australia. From its inception the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library was driven to development of a national collection. In 1907 the Joint Parliamentary Library Committee under the Chairmanship of the Speaker, Sir Frederick William Holder defined the objective of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library in the following words: The Library Committee is keeping before it the ideal of building up, for the time when Parliament shall be established in the Federal Capital, a great Public Library on the lines of the world-famed Library of Congress at Washington.
The present library building was opened on 15 August 1968 by Prime Minister John Gorton. The building was designed by the architectural firm of Bunning and Madden in the Late Twentieth Century Stripped Classical style; the foyer is decorated in marble, with stained-glass windows by Leonard French and three tapestries by Mathieu Matégot. The building was listed on the Australian Commonwealth Heritage List on 22 June 2004. In 2012–13 the Library collection comprised 6,496,772 items, with an estimated additional 2,325,900 items held in the manuscripts collection; the Library's collections of Australiana have developed into the nation's single most important resource of materials recording the Australian cultural heritage. Australian writers and illustrators are sought and well represented—whether published in Australia or overseas; the Library's collection includes all formats of material, from books, journals and manuscripts to pictures, maps, oral history recordings, manuscript papers and ephemera.
92.1% of the Library's collection has been catalogued and is discoverable through the online catalogue. The Library has digitized over 174,000 items from its collection and, where possible, delivers these directly across the Internet; the Library is a world leader in digital preservation techniques, maintains an Internet-accessible archive of selected Australian websites called the Pandora Archive. The Library collects material produced by Australians, for Australians or about the Australian experience in all formats—not just printed works—books, newspapers, posters and printed ephemera—but online publications and unpublished material such as manuscripts and oral histories. A core Australiana collection is that of John A. Ferguson; the Library has particular collection strengths in the performing arts, including dance. The Library's considerable collections of general overseas and rare book materials, as well as world-class Asian and Pacific collections which augment the Australiana collections.
The print collections are further supported by extensive microform holdings. The Library maintains the National Reserve Braille Collection; the Library houses the largest and most developing research resource on Asia in Australia, the largest Asian language collections in the Southern hemisphere, with over half a million volumes in the collection, as well as extensive online and electronic resources. The Library collects resources about all Asian countries in Western languages extensively, resources in the following Asian languages: Burmese, Persian, Japanese, Korean, Manchu, Thai and Vietnamese; the Library has acquired a number of important Western and Asian language scholarly collections from researchers and bibliophiles. These collections include: Australian Buddhist Library Collection Braga Collection Claasz Collection Coedes Collection London Missionary Society Collection Luce Collection McLaren-Human Collection Otley Beyer Collection Sakakibara Collection Sang Ye Collection Simon Collection Harold S. Williams Collection The Asian Collections are searchable via the National Library's catalogue.
The National Library holds an extensive collection of manuscripts. The manuscript collection contains about 26 million separate items, covering in excess of 10,492 meters of shelf space; the collection relates predominantly to Australia, but there are important holdings relating to Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and the Pacific. The collection holds a number of European and Asian manuscript collections or single items have been received as part of formed book collections; the Australian manuscript collections date from the period of maritime exploration and settlement in the 18th century until the present, with the greatest area of strength dating from the 1890s onwards. The collection includes a large number of outstanding single items, such as the 14th century Chertsey Cartulary, the journal of James Cook on the HM Bark Endeavour, inscribed on t
