1.
National Register of Historic Places
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The National Register of Historic Places is the United States federal governments official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation. The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 established the National Register, of the more than one million properties on the National Register,80,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing resources within historic districts, each year approximately 30,000 properties are added to the National Register as part of districts or by individual listings. For most of its history the National Register has been administered by the National Park Service and its goals are to help property owners and interest groups, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, coordinate, identify, and protect historic sites in the United States. While National Register listings are mostly symbolic, their recognition of significance provides some financial incentive to owners of listed properties, protection of the property is not guaranteed. During the nomination process, the property is evaluated in terms of the four criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, the application of those criteria has been the subject of criticism by academics of history and preservation, as well as the public and politicians. Occasionally, historic sites outside the proper, but associated with the United States are also listed. Properties can be nominated in a variety of forms, including individual properties, historic districts, the Register categorizes general listings into one of five types of properties, district, site, structure, building, or object. National Register Historic Districts are defined geographical areas consisting of contributing and non-contributing properties, some properties are added automatically to the National Register when they become administered by the National Park Service. These include National Historic Landmarks, National Historic Sites, National Historical Parks, National Military Parks/Battlefields, National Memorials, on October 15,1966, the Historic Preservation Act created the National Register of Historic Places and the corresponding State Historic Preservation Offices. Initially, the National Register consisted of the National Historic Landmarks designated before the Registers creation, approval of the act, which was amended in 1980 and 1992, represented the first time the United States had a broad-based historic preservation policy. To administer the newly created National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service of the U. S. Department of the Interior, hartzog, Jr. established an administrative division named the Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation. Hartzog charged OAHP with creating the National Register program mandated by the 1966 law, ernest Connally was the Offices first director. Within OAHP new divisions were created to deal with the National Register, the first official Keeper of the Register was William J. Murtagh, an architectural historian. During the Registers earliest years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, organization was lax and SHPOs were small, understaffed, and underfunded. A few years later in 1979, the NPS history programs affiliated with both the U. S. National Parks system and the National Register were categorized formally into two Assistant Directorates. Established were the Assistant Directorate for Archeology and Historic Preservation and the Assistant Directorate for Park Historic Preservation, from 1978 until 1981, the main agency for the National Register was the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service of the United States Department of the Interior. In February 1983, the two assistant directorates were merged to promote efficiency and recognize the interdependency of their programs, jerry L. Rogers was selected to direct this newly merged associate directorate
2.
National Historic Landmark
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A National Historic Landmark is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Of over 85,000 places listed on the countrys National Register of Historic Places, a National Historic Landmark District may include contributing properties that are buildings, structures, sites or objects, and it may include non-contributing properties. Contributing properties may or may not also be separately listed, prior to 1935, efforts to preserve cultural heritage of national importance were made by piecemeal efforts of the United States Congress. The first National Historic Site designation was made for the Salem Maritime National Historic Site on March 17,1938. In 1960, the National Park Service took on the administration of the data gathered under this legislation. Because listings often triggered local preservation laws, legislation in 1980 amended the procedures to require owner agreement to the designations. On October 9,1960,92 properties were announced as designated NHLs by Secretary of the Interior Fred A. Seaton, more than 2,500 NHLs have been designated. Most, but not all, are in the United States, there are NHLs in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Three states account for nearly 25 percent of the nations NHLs, three cities within these states all separately have more NHLs than 40 of the 50 states. In fact, New York City alone has more NHLs than all but five states, Virginia, California, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, there are 74 NHLs in the District of Columbia. Some NHLs are in U. S. commonwealths and territories, associated states, and foreign states. There are 15 in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and other U. S. commonwealths and territories,5 in U. S. -associated states such as Micronesia, over 100 ships or shipwrecks have been designated as NHLs. About half of the National Historic Landmarks are privately owned, the National Historic Landmarks Program relies on suggestions for new designations from the National Park Service, which also assists in maintaining the landmarks. A friends group of owners and managers, the National Historic Landmark Stewards Association, works to preserve, protect, if not already listed on the National Register of Historic Places, an NHL is automatically added to the Register upon designation. About three percent of Register listings are NHLs, american Water Landmark List of U. S
3.
Cambridge, Massachusetts
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Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, and is a part of the Boston metropolitan area. According to the 2010 Census, the population was 105,162. As of July 2014, it was the fifth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, Worcester, Springfield, Cambridge was one of the two seats of Middlesex County prior to the abolition of county government in 1997, Lowell was the other. The site for what would become Cambridge was chosen in December 1630, because it was located safely upriver from Boston Harbor, Thomas Dudley, his daughter Anne Bradstreet, and her husband Simon, were among the first settlers of the town. The first houses were built in the spring of 1631, the settlement was initially referred to as the newe towne. Official Massachusetts records show the name capitalized as Newe Towne by 1632, the original village site is in the heart of todays Harvard Square. In the late 19th century, various schemes for annexing Cambridge itself to the city of Boston were pursued and rejected, in 1636, the Newe College was founded by the colony to train ministers. Newe Towne was chosen for the site of the college by the Great and General Court primarily—according to Cotton Mather—to be near the popular, in May 1638 the name of the settlement was changed to Cambridge in honor of the university in Cambridge, England. Hooker and Shepard, Newtownes ministers, and the colleges first president, major benefactor, in 1629, Winthrop had led the signing of the founding document of the city of Boston, which was known as the Cambridge Agreement, after the university. It was Governor Thomas Dudley who, in 1650, signed the charter creating the corporation which still governs Harvard College, Cambridge grew slowly as an agricultural village eight miles by road from Boston, the capital of the colony. By the American Revolution, most residents lived near the Common and Harvard College, with farms and estates comprising most of the town. Coming up from Virginia, George Washington took command of the volunteer American soldiers camped on Cambridge Common on July 3,1775, most of the Tory estates were confiscated after the Revolution. On January 24,1776, Henry Knox arrived with artillery captured from Fort Ticonderoga, a second bridge, the Canal Bridge, opened in 1809 alongside the new Middlesex Canal. The new bridges and roads made what were formerly estates and marshland into prime industrial and residential districts, in the mid-19th century, Cambridge was the center of a literary revolution when it gave the country a new identity through poetry and literature. Cambridge was home to some of the famous Fireside Poets—so called because their poems would often be read aloud by families in front of their evening fires, the Fireside Poets—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, and Oliver Wendell Holmes—were highly popular and influential in their day. Cambridge was incorporated as a city in 1846, the citys commercial center began to shift from Harvard Square to Central Square, which became the downtown of the city around this time. The coming of the railroad to North Cambridge and Northwest Cambridge then led to three changes in the city, the development of massive brickyards and brickworks between Massachusetts Ave. For many decades, the citys largest employer was the New England Glass Company, by the middle of the 19th century it was the largest and most modern glassworks in the world
4.
Watertown, Massachusetts
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The Town of Watertown is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Greater Boston area, the population was 31,915 at the 2010 census. Watertown is one of fourteen Massachusetts municipalities that have applied for, Watertown is made up of six neighborhoods, Bemis, Brigham, Coolidge Square, East Watertown, Watertown Square and the West End. Archeological evidence suggests that Watertown was inhabited for thousands of years before the arrival of settlers from England, two tribes of Massachusett, the Pequossette and the Nonantum, had settlements on the banks of the river later called the Charles. The Pequossette built a weir to trap herring at the site of the current Watertown Dam. The annual fish migration, as both alewife and blueback herring swim upstream from their home in the sea to spawn in the fresh water where they were hatched. Watertown, first known as Saltonstall Plantation, was one of the earliest of the Massachusetts Bay settlements and it was begun early in 1630 by a group of settlers led by Richard Saltonstall and George Phillips and officially incorporated that same year. The alternate spelling Waterton is seen in early documents. The first buildings were upon land now included within the limits of Cambridge known as Gerrys Landing, for its first quarter century Watertown ranked next to Boston in population and area. Since then its limits have been greatly reduced, thrice portions have been added to Cambridge, and it has contributed territory to form the new towns of Weston, Waltham, Lincoln and Belmont. As early as the close of the 17th century, Watertown was the horse and cattle market in New England and was known for its fertile gardens. Here about 1632 was erected the first gristmill in the colony, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress, after adjournment from Concord, met from April to July 1775 in the First Parish Church, the site of which is marked by a monument. The Massachusetts General Court held its sessions here from 1775 to 1778, committees met in the nearby Edmund Fowle House. Boston town meetings were held here during the siege of Boston, from 1832 to 1834 Theodore Parker conducted a private school here and his name is still preserved in the Parker School, though the building no longer operates as a public school. The Arsenal is notable for being the site of a 1911 strike prompted by the management methods of operations research pioneer Frederick Winslow Taylor, taylors method, which he dubbed Scientific Management, broke tasks down into smaller components. The strike and its causes were controversial enough that they resulted in Congressional hearings in 1911, taylors methods spread widely, influencing such industrialists as Henry Ford, and the idea is one of the underlying inspirations of the factory line industrial method. The site includes the Arsenal Center for the Arts, an arts center that opened in 2005. The Arsenal is now owned by athenahealth, Arsenal Street features two shopping malls across the street from one another, with the Watertown Mall on one side, and The Arsenal Project of Watertown on the other
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
6.
Jacob Bigelow
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Jacob Bigelow was an American physician and botanist. He was architect of Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Bigelow was born in Sudbury, Massachusetts on February 27,1787. Bigelow graduated from Harvard College in 1806 and then studied under John Gorham and he then graduated from the University of Pennsylvania medical school in 1810. He also studied under botantist Benjamin Barton and he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1812. Bigelow taught medicine and botany at Harvard and published books, including one of Americas first botanical books. His interest in mechanics and non-biological sciences was also illustrated by the publication of his Elements of Technology in 1829, Bigelow came up with the idea for Mount Auburn Cemetery as early as 1825, though a site was not acquired until five years later. Bigelow was concerned about the unhealthiness of burials under churches as well as the possibility of running out of space. With help from the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, Mount Auburn Cemetery was founded on 70 acres of land authorized by the Massachusetts Legislature for use as a garden or rural cemetery and it was dedicated in 1831 by Joseph Story, first president of the Mount Auburn Association. Bigelow died on January 10,1879 and was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery, Bigelow came to prominence also by challenging the effectiveness of the therapeutics of the day. His Discourse on Self-Limited Diseases in which he attacked physicians blind allegiance to drugs, to establish support, Bigelow wrote on how the outcomes among treated and untreated patients were similar, regarding the use of heroic therapies. Bigelow’s deprications helped form a new conceptual nucleus around which medical orthodoxy could begin to redefine itself, an introduction to physiological & systematical botany Florula bostoniensi American medical botany Florula bostoniensi Bailey, L. H. Jr. Some North American Botanists, V. Jacob Bigelow, the American Journal of Science and Arts Third Series. Biographical Dictionary of American Science, The Seventeenth through the Nineteenth Centuries, troy, New York, The Southworth Company Publishers,1914
7.
Rural cemetery
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The rural cemetery or garden cemetery is a style of burial ground that uses landscaping in a park-like setting. As a reaction to this, the first landscaped cemetery was opened in 1804, the garden cemetery in the US was a development of this style. Prior to this, urban burial grounds were generally located on small plots within cities. Its first manifestation in the US was Mount Auburn Cemetery near Boston, founded by Dr. Jacob Bigelow, supreme Court Justice Joseph Story delivered the dedication address on September 24,1831. Mount Auburn inspired dozens of rural cemeteries across New England, the northeast. Many were accompanied by dedication addresses similar to Storys, which linked the cemeteries to the mission of creating a Christian republic, Mount Auburn quickly grew as popular site for both burials and public recreation, attracting locals as well as tourists from across the country and Europe. These cemeteries often became the home of tall obelisks, spectacular mausoleums, the Ohlsdorf was transformed from a treeless, sandy plain into 92 acres of sculpted, wooded landscape by its first director, architect Wilhelm Cordes. In 2016 it stands as the largest rural cemetery in the world, as of 1911 rural cemeteries were still unusual in Germany. Other examples include the Waldfriedhof Dahlem in Berlin,1931, rural cemeteries, from their inception, were intended as civic institutions designed for public use. Today, many of historic cemeteries are designated landmarks and are cared for by non-profit organizations
8.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
9.
Middlesex County, Massachusetts
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Middlesex County is a county in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in the United States. As of 2014, the population was 1,570,315, making it the twenty-third most populous county in the United States. For administrative purposes the county held two regions, Middlesex-North with its county seat in Lowell, and Middlesex-South with its county seat in Cambridge, Middlesex County is included in the Boston–Cambridge–Newton, MA–NH Metropolitan Statistical Area. Massachusetts counties also define locations for National Weather Service weather alerts, in 2010, the center of population of Massachusetts was located in Middlesex County, in the town of Natick. The county was created by the Massachusetts General Court on May 10,1643, Middlesex initially contained Charlestown, Cambridge, Watertown, Sudbury, Concord, Woburn, Medford, Wayland, and Reading. On April 19th,1775, it became the site of the first armed conflict of the American Revolutionary War, on July 11,1997, the Massachusetts State Legislature abolished Middlesex County as a governmental entity due primarily to the countys insolvency. Middlesex County continues to exist as a geographic boundary, Middlesex County owned and operated the Superior Courthouses in Cambridge and Lowell and the Middlesex County Hospital in Waltham. Budgets proposed by the County Commissioners were approved by a County Advisory Board that consisted of a representative of each of the 54 cities. The votes of the members of the Advisory Board were weighted based on the overall valuation of property in their respective communities. Additionally, all county maintenance and security employees were absorbed into the corresponding staffs of the Massachusetts Trial Court, the legislation also transferred ownership of the two Superior Courthouses to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Finally, the office of County Commissioner was immediately abolished and the office of County Treasurer was abolished as of December 31,2002. Besides the Sheriff and the two Registers of Deeds, the Middlesex District Attorney, the Middlesex Register of Probate and the Middlesex Clerk of Courts are all elected countywide to six-year terms, records of land ownership in Middlesex County are maintained at the two Registries of Deeds. The first Middlesex County Registry of Deeds was created in 1649 in Cambridge, in 1855, the Massachusetts State Legislature created a Registry of Deeds for the Northern District of Middlesex County in Lowell. The Northern District consists the city of Lowell and the towns of Billerica, Carlisle, Chelmsford, Dracut, Dunstable, Tewksbury, Tyngsborough, Westford, the remaining 44 cities and towns of Middlesex County are in the Southern District which remained in Cambridge. Even after the abolition of county government in Middlesex, communities are now granted the right to form their own regional compacts for sharing services. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has an area of 847 square miles. It is the third-largest county in Massachusetts by land area and it is bounded southeast by the Charles River, and drained by the Merrimack, Nashua, and Concord rivers, and other streams. The MetroWest region comprises much of the portion of the county
10.
Massachusetts
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It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island to the south, New Hampshire and Vermont to the north, and New York to the west. The state is named for the Massachusett tribe, which inhabited the area. The capital of Massachusetts and the most populous city in New England is Boston, over 80% of Massachusetts population lives in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, a region influential upon American history, academia, and industry. Originally dependent on agriculture, fishing and trade, Massachusetts was transformed into a manufacturing center during the Industrial Revolution, during the 20th century, Massachusetts economy shifted from manufacturing to services. Modern Massachusetts is a leader in biotechnology, engineering, higher education, finance. Plymouth was the site of the first colony in New England, founded in 1620 by the Pilgrims, in 1692, the town of Salem and surrounding areas experienced one of Americas most infamous cases of mass hysteria, the Salem witch trials. In 1777, General Henry Knox founded the Springfield Armory, which during the Industrial Revolution catalyzed numerous important technological advances, in 1786, Shays Rebellion, a populist revolt led by disaffected American Revolutionary War veterans, influenced the United States Constitutional Convention. In the 18th century, the Protestant First Great Awakening, which swept the Atlantic World, in the late 18th century, Boston became known as the Cradle of Liberty for the agitation there that led to the American Revolution. The entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts has played a commercial and cultural role in the history of the United States. Before the American Civil War, Massachusetts was a center for the abolitionist, temperance, in the late 19th century, the sports of basketball and volleyball were invented in the western Massachusetts cities of Springfield and Holyoke, respectively. Many prominent American political dynasties have hailed from the state, including the Adams, both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also in Cambridge, have been ranked among the most highly regarded academic institutions in the world. Massachusetts public school students place among the top nations in the world in academic performance, the official name of the state is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. While this designation is part of the official name, it has no practical implications. Massachusetts has the position and powers within the United States as other states. Massachusetts was originally inhabited by tribes of the Algonquian language family such as the Wampanoag, Narragansett, Nipmuc, Pocomtuc, Mahican, and Massachusett. While cultivation of crops like squash and corn supplemented their diets, villages consisted of lodges called wigwams as well as longhouses, and tribes were led by male or female elders known as sachems. Between 1617 and 1619, smallpox killed approximately 90% of the Massachusetts Bay Native Americans, the first English settlers in Massachusetts, the Pilgrims, arrived via the Mayflower at Plymouth in 1620, and developed friendly relations with the native Wampanoag people. This was the second successful permanent English colony in the part of North America that later became the United States, the event known as the First Thanksgiving was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World which lasted for three days
11.
Mile
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The mile is an English unit of length of linear measure equal to 5,280 feet, or 1,760 yards, and standardised as exactly 1,609.344 metres by international agreement in 1959. The Romans divided their mile into 5,000 feet but the importance of furlongs in pre-modern England meant that the statute mile was made equivalent to 8 furlongs or 5,280 feet in 1593. This form of the mile then spread to the British-colonized nations who continue to employ the mile, the US Geological Survey now employs the metre for official purposes but legacy data from its 1927 geodetic datum has meant that a separate US survey mile continues to see some use. Derived units such as miles per hour and miles per gallon, however, continue to be abbreviated as mph, mpg. The modern English word mile derives from Middle English myl and Old English mīl, the present international mile is usually what is understood by the unqualified term mile. When this distance needs to be distinguished from the nautical mile, in British English, the statute mile may refer to the present international miles or to any other form of English mile since the 1593 Act of Parliament which set it as a distance of 1,760 yards. Under American law, however, the statute mile refers to the US survey mile, the mile has been variously abbreviated—with and without a trailing period—as m, M, ml, and mi. The American National Institute of Standards and Technology now uses and recommends mi in order to avoid confusion with the SI metre and millilitre. Derived units such as miles per hour and miles per gallon, however, continue to be abbreviated in the United States, United Kingdom, the BBC style holds that There is no acceptable abbreviation for ‘miles’ and so it should be spelt out when used in describing areas. The Roman mile consisted of a thousand paces as measured by every other step—as in the distance of the left foot hitting the ground 1,000 times. The ancient Romans, marching their armies through uncharted territory, would push a carved stick in the ground after each 1000 paces. Well-fed and harshly driven Roman legionaries in good weather thus created longer miles, the distance was indirectly standardised by Agrippas establishment of a standard Roman foot in 29 BC, and the definition of a pace as 5 feet. An Imperial Roman mile thus denoted 5,000 Roman feet, surveyors and specialized equipment such as the decempeda and dioptra then spread its use. In modern times, Agrippas Imperial Roman mile was empirically estimated to have been about 1,481 metres in length, in Hellenic areas of the Empire, the Roman mile was used beside the native Greek units as equivalent to 8 stadia of 600 Greek feet. The mílion continued to be used as a Byzantine unit and was used as the name of the zero mile marker for the Byzantine Empire. The Roman mile also spread throughout Europe, with its local variations giving rise to the different units below, also arising from the Roman mile is the milestone. All roads radiated out from the Roman Forum throughout the Empire –50,000 miles of stone-paved roads, at every mile was placed a shaped stone, on which was carved a Roman numeral, indicating the number of miles from the center of Rome – the Forum. Hence, one knew how far one was from Rome
12.
Kilometre
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The kilometre or kilometer is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one thousand metres. K is occasionally used in some English-speaking countries as an alternative for the kilometre in colloquial writing. A slang term for the kilometre in the US military is klick, there are two common pronunciations for the word. It is generally preferred by the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, many scientists and other users, particularly in countries where the metric system is not widely used, use the pronunciation with stress on the second syllable. The latter pronunciation follows the pattern used for the names of measuring instruments. The problem with this reasoning, however, is that the meter in those usages refers to a measuring device. The contrast is more obvious in countries using the British rather than American spelling of the word metre. When Australia introduced the system in 1975, the first pronunciation was declared official by the governments Metric Conversion Board. However, the Australian prime minister at the time, Gough Whitlam, by the 8 May 1790 decree, the Constituent assembly ordered the French Academy of Sciences to develop a new measurement system. In August 1793, the French National Convention decreed the metre as the length measurement system in the French Republic. The first name of the kilometre was Millaire, although the metre was formally defined in 1799, the myriametre was preferred to the kilometre for everyday use. The term myriamètre appeared a number of times in the text of Develeys book Physique dEmile, ou, Principes de la de la nature. French maps published in 1835 had scales showing myriametres and lieues de Poste, the Dutch, on the other hand, adopted the kilometre in 1817 but gave it the local name of the mijl. It was only in 1867 that the term became the only official unit of measure in the Netherlands to represent 1000 metres. In the US, the National Highway System Designation Act of 1995 prohibits the use of highway funds to convert existing signs or purchase new signs with metric units. Although the State DOTs had the option of using metric measurements or dual units, all of them abandoned metric measurements, the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices since 2000 is published in both metric and American Customary Units. Some sporting disciplines feature 1000 m races in major events, but in other disciplines, even though records are catalogued
13.
Boston
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Boston is the capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. Boston is also the seat of Suffolk County, although the county government was disbanded on July 1,1999. The city proper covers 48 square miles with a population of 667,137 in 2015, making it the largest city in New England. Alternately, as a Combined Statistical Area, this wider commuting region is home to some 8.1 million people, One of the oldest cities in the United States, Boston was founded on the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by Puritan settlers from England. It was the scene of several key events of the American Revolution, such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston. Upon U. S. independence from Great Britain, it continued to be an important port and manufacturing hub as well as a center for education, through land reclamation and municipal annexation, Boston has expanded beyond the original peninsula. Its rich history attracts many tourists, with Faneuil Hall alone drawing over 20 million visitors per year, Bostons many firsts include the United States first public school, Boston Latin School, first subway system, the Tremont Street Subway, and first public park, Boston Common. Bostons economic base also includes finance, professional and business services, biotechnology, information technology, the city has one of the highest costs of living in the United States as it has undergone gentrification, though it remains high on world livability rankings. Bostons early European settlers had first called the area Trimountaine but later renamed it Boston after Boston, Lincolnshire, England, the renaming on September 7,1630 was by Puritan colonists from England who had moved over from Charlestown earlier that year in quest of fresh water. Their settlement was limited to the Shawmut Peninsula, at that time surrounded by the Massachusetts Bay and Charles River. The peninsula is thought to have been inhabited as early as 5000 BC, in 1629, the Massachusetts Bay Colonys first governor John Winthrop led the signing of the Cambridge Agreement, a key founding document of the city. Puritan ethics and their focus on education influenced its early history, over the next 130 years, the city participated in four French and Indian Wars, until the British defeated the French and their Indian allies in North America. Boston was the largest town in British America until Philadelphia grew larger in the mid-18th century, Bostons harbor activity was significantly curtailed by the Embargo Act of 1807 and the War of 1812. Foreign trade returned after these hostilities, but Bostons merchants had found alternatives for their investments in the interim. Manufacturing became an important component of the economy, and the citys industrial manufacturing overtook international trade in economic importance by the mid-19th century. Boston remained one of the nations largest manufacturing centers until the early 20th century, a network of small rivers bordering the city and connecting it to the surrounding region facilitated shipment of goods and led to a proliferation of mills and factories. Later, a network of railroads furthered the regions industry. Boston was a port of the Atlantic triangular slave trade in the New England colonies
14.
Cemetery
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A cemetery or graveyard is a place where the remains of dead people are buried or otherwise interred. The word cemetery implies that the land is designated as a burial ground. The term graveyard is used interchangeably with cemetery, but primarily referred to a burial ground within a churchyard. The intact or cremated remains of people may be interred in a grave, commonly referred to as burial, or in a tomb, an above-ground grave, in Western cultures, funeral ceremonies are often observed in cemeteries. These ceremonies or rites of passage according to cultural practices. Modern cemeteries often include crematoria, and some previously used for both, continue as crematoria as a principal use long after the interment areas have been filled. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a cemetery as a burial-ground generally, a large public park or ground laid out expressly for the interment of the dead, and not being the ‘yard’ of any church. Prehistoric cemeteries are referred to by the term grave field. From about the 7th century, European burial was under the control of the Church, practices varied, but in continental Europe, bodies were usually buried in a mass grave until they had decomposed. The bones were exhumed and stored in ossuaries, either along the arcaded bounding walls of the cemetery, or within the church under floor slabs. In Europe this was accompanied with a depiction of their coat of arms. Most others were buried in graveyards again divided by social status, mourners who could afford the work of a stonemason had a headstone engraved with a name, dates of birth and death and sometimes other biographical data, and set up over the place of burial. Usually, the writing and symbols carved on the headstone. Some families hired a blacksmith and had large crosses made from various metals put on the place of burial, in many European states, burial in graveyards was eventually outlawed altogether through government legislation. Instead of graveyards, completely new places of burial were established away from populated areas and outside of old towns. Many new cemeteries became municipally owned or were run by their own corporations, in some cases, skeletons were exhumed from graveyards and moved into ossuaries or catacombs. A large action of this occurred in 18th century Paris when human remains were transferred from graveyards all over the city to the Catacombs of Paris. The bones of an estimated 6 million people are to be found there, an early example of a landscape-style cemetery is Père Lachaise in Paris
15.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
16.
Acre
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The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial and US customary systems. It is defined as the area of 1 chain by 1 furlong, lucia, St. Helena, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Turks and Caicos, the United Kingdom, the United States and the US Virgin Islands. The international symbol of the acre is ac, the most commonly used acre today is the international acre. In the United States both the international acre and the US survey acre are in use, but differ by two parts per million, see below. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land, one international acre is defined as exactly 4,046.8564224 square metres. An acre was defined in the Middle Ages, being the amount of land that could be ploughed in one day with a yoke of oxen. One acre equals 0.0015625 square miles,4,840 square yards,43,560 square feet or about 4,047 square metres. While all modern variants of the acre contain 4,840 square yards, there are definitions of a yard. A square enclosing one acre is approximately 69.57 yards, as a unit of measure, an acre has no prescribed shape, any area of 43,560 square feet is an acre. In the international yard and pound agreement of 1959 the United States, consequently, the international acre is exactly 4,046.8564224 square metres. The US survey acre is about 4,046.872609874252 square metres, its value is based on an inch defined by 1 metre =39.37 inches exactly. Surveyors in the United States use both international and survey feet, and consequently, both varieties of acre. Since the difference between the US survey acre and international acre is only about a quarter of the size of an A4 sheet of paper, areas are seldom measured with sufficient accuracy for the different definitions to be detectable. In India, residential plots are measured in cents or decimal, in Sri Lanka the division of an acre into 160 perches or 4 roods is common. To be more exact, one acre is 90.75 percent of a 100 yards long by 53.33 yards wide American football field, the full field, including the end zones, covers approximately 1.32 acres. For residents of countries, the acre might be envisaged as approximately half of a 105 metres long by 68 metres wide association football pitch. It may also be remembered as 44,000 square feet, in English it was historically spelled aker. The acre was approximately the amount of land tillable by a yoke of oxen in one day and this explains one definition as the area of a rectangle with sides of length one chain and one furlong
17.
Hectare
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The hectare is an SI accepted metric system unit of area equal to 100 ares and primarily used in the measurement of land as a metric replacement for the imperial acre. An acre is about 0.405 hectare and one hectare contains about 2.47 acres, in 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1⁄100 km2. When the metric system was further rationalised in 1960, resulting in the International System of Units, the are was not included as a recognised unit. The hectare, however, remains as a non-SI unit accepted for use with the SI units, the metric system of measurement was first given a legal basis in 1795 by the French Revolutionary government. At the first meeting of the CGPM in 1889 when a new standard metre, manufactured by Johnson Matthey & Co of London was adopted, in 1960, when the metric system was updated as the International System of Units, the are did not receive international recognition. The units that were catalogued replicated the recommendations of the CGPM, many farmers, especially older ones, still use the acre for everyday calculations, and convert to hectares only for official paperwork. Farm fields can have long histories which are resistant to change, with names such as the six acre field stretching back hundreds of years. The names centiare, deciare, decare and hectare are derived by adding the standard metric prefixes to the base unit of area. The centiare is a synonym for one square metre, the deciare is ten square metres. The are is a unit of area, equal to 100 square metres and it was defined by older forms of the metric system, but is now outside of the modern International System of Units. It is commonly used to measure real estate, in particular in Indonesia, India, and in French-, Portuguese-, Slovakian-, Serbian-, Czech-, Polish-, Dutch-, in Russia and other former Soviet Union states, the are is called sotka. It is used to describe the size of suburban dacha or allotment garden plots or small city parks where the hectare would be too large, the decare is derived from deka, the prefix for 10 and are, and is equal to 10 ares or 1000 square metres. It is used in Norway and in the former Ottoman areas of the Middle East, the hectare, although not strictly a unit of SI, is the only named unit of area that is accepted for use within the SI. The United Kingdom, United States, Burma, and to some extent Canada instead use the acre, others, such as South Africa, published conversion factors which were to be used particularly when preparing consolidation diagrams by compilation. In many countries, metrication redefined or clarified existing measures in terms of metric units, non-SI units accepted for use with the International System of Units
18.
Arboretum
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An arboretum in a narrow sense is a collection of trees only. Related collections include a fruticetum, and a viticetum, a collection of vines, more commonly, today, an arboretum is a botanical garden containing living collections of woody plants intended at least partly for scientific study. An arboretum specializing in growing conifers is known as a pinetum, other specialist arboreta include saliceta, populeta, and querceta. The term arboretum was first used in an English publication by John Claudius Loudon in 1833 in The Gardeners Magazine, egyptian Pharaohs planted exotic trees and cared for them, they brought ebony wood from the Sudan, and pine and cedar from Syria. It is reported that Hatshepsut had these trees planted in the courts of her Deir el Bahri mortuary temple complex, Arboreta are special places for the cultivation and display of a wide variety of different kinds of trees and shrubs. Many tree collections have been claimed as the first arboretum, in most cases, however, Arboreta differ from pieces of woodland or plantations because they are botanically significant collections with a variety of examples rather than just a few kinds. Of course there are many tree collections that are older than the eighteenth century in different parts of the world. Loudons Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum,8 vols, Loudon urged that a national arboretum be created and called for arboreta and other systematic collections to be established in public parks, private gardens, country estates and other places. He regarded the Derby Arboretum as the most important landscape-gardening commission of the part of his career because it demonstrated the benefits of a public arboretum. The more lofty trees suffered from the high winds. We walked round the two spirals of this coil of trees and shrubs, viz. from Acer to Quercus. There is no garden scene about London so interesting, a plan of Loddiges arboretum was included in The Encyclopaedia of Gardening,1834 edition. One example of an early European tree collection is the Trsteno Arboretum, the date of its founding is unknown, but it was already in existence by 1492, when a 15 m span aqueduct to irrigate the arboretum was constructed, this aqueduct is still in use. The garden was created by the prominent local Gučetić/Gozze family and it suffered two major disasters in the 1990s but its two unique and ancient Oriental Planes remained standing. Udhagamandalam Arboretum, The Nilgiris, India The arboretum at Ooty was established in 1992 with an aim of conserving native and indigenous trees and it was established during the year 1992 and maintained by Department of Horticulture with Hill Area Development Programme funds. The area is the natural habitats of indigenous and migratory birds. During the year 2005-2006, it was rehabilated with funds provided by the Hill Area Development Programme by providing permanent fencing, a foot path, and other infrastructure facilities. The arboretum is the realization of the dream of William Douglas Cook, the arboretum is now the National Arboretum of New Zealand, and holds some 4,000 different trees, shrubs and climbers
19.
The Deserted Village
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The Deserted Village is a poem by Oliver Goldsmith published in 1770. It is a work of social commentary, and condemns rural depopulation, the location of the poems deserted village is unknown, but the description may have been influenced by Goldsmiths memory of his childhood in rural Ireland, and his travels around England. The poem is written in couplets, and describes the decline of a village. In the poem, Goldsmith criticises rural depopulation, the moral corruption found in towns, consumerism, enclosure, landscape gardening, avarice, and the pursuit of wealth from international trade. The poem employs, in the words of one critic, deliberately precise obscurity, the poem was very popular in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but also provoked critical responses, including from other poets such as George Crabbe. References to the poem, and particularly its ominous Ill fares the land warning, have appeared in a number of other contexts, Goldsmith grew up in the hamlet of Lissoy in Ireland. In the 1760s, Goldsmith travelled extensively around England, visiting many small settlements, in this period, the enclosure movement was at its height. The poem is dedicated to the artist Sir Joshua Reynolds, Reynolds and Goldsmith were close friends, and were both founding members, along with Samuel Johnson, of a dining society called The Club. Reynolds had helped to promote Goldsmiths play The Good-Naturd Man to the actor and theatre manager David Garrick, the Deserted Village condemns rural depopulation and the indulgence of the rich. This was a subject that Goldsmith had tackled in his earlier poem The Traveller, or a Prospect of Society, Goldsmith also set out his ideas about rural depopulation in an essay entitled The Revolution in Low Life, published in Lloyds Evening Post in 1762. There is no single place which has identified as the village of the poems title. While personal references in the give the impression of referring to the village in which Goldsmith grew up. In The Revolution in Low Life, Goldsmith had condemned the destruction of a village within 50 miles of London in order to construct a landscape garden. Goldsmith reported that he had witnessed this scene in 1761. In the same year, Nuneham Courtenay was removed to make way for Nuneham Park and its owner—Simon Harcourt, 1st Earl Harcourt—moved the village 1.5 miles away. There are a number of other concordances between Nuneham Courtenays destruction and the contents of the The Deserted Village, the position of both villages, on a hill near a river, was similar, and both had parsons who enjoyed gardening. The poem opens with a description of a village named Auburn, loveliest village of the plain, Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain, Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid, And parting summers lingering blooms delayed. The poem then moves on to describe the village in its current state, Goldsmith then states that the residents of Auburn have not moved to the city, but have emigrated overseas
20.
Oliver Goldsmith
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He is thought to have written the classic childrens tale The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes. Goldsmiths birth date and year are not known with certainty, according to the Library of Congress authority file, he told a biographer that he was born on 10 November 1728. The location of his birthplace is also uncertain, when Goldsmith was two years old, his father was appointed the rector of the parish of Kilkenny West in County Westmeath. The family moved to the parsonage at Lissoy, between Athlone and Ballymahon, and continued to live there until his fathers death in 1747, in 1744 Goldsmith went up to Trinity College, Dublin. Neglecting his studies in theology and law, he fell to the bottom of his class, in 1747, along with four other undergraduates, he was expelled for a riot in which they attempted to storm the Marshalsea Prison. He settled in London in 1756, where he held various jobs, including an apothecarys assistant. There, through fellow Club member Edmund Burke, he made the acquaintance of Sir George Savile, the combination of his literary work and his dissolute lifestyle led Horace Walpole to give him the epithet inspired idiot. During this period he used the pseudonym James Willington to publish his 1758 translation of the autobiography of the Huguenot Jean Marteilhe. Goldsmith was described by contemporaries as prone to envy, a congenial but impetuous and disorganised personality who once planned to emigrate to America, mitchell sorely missed good company, which Goldsmith naturally provided in spades. Thomas De Quincey wrote of him All the motion of Goldsmiths nature moved in the direction of the true, the natural, the sweet and his premature death in 1774 may have been partly due to his own misdiagnosis of his kidney infection. Goldsmith was buried in Temple Church in London, the inscription reads, HERE LIES/OLIVER GOLDSMITH. There is a monument to him in the centre of Ballymahon, see The Vicar of Wakefield, The Good-Naturd Man, The Traveller, and She Stoops to Conquer. In 1760 Goldsmith began to publish a series of letters in the Public Ledger under the title The Citizen of the World and it was inspired by the earlier essay series Persian Letters by Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu. Goldsmith wrote this romantic ballad of precisely 160 lines in 1765, the hero and heroine are Edwin, a youth without wealth or power, and Angelina, the daughter of a lord beside the Tyne. Angelina spurns many wooers, but refuses to make plain her love for young Edwin, quite dejected with my scorn, Edwin disappears and becomes a hermit. One day, Angelina turns up at his cell in boys clothes and, not recognising him, Edwin then reveals his true identity, and the lovers never part again. The poem is notable for its portrayal of a hermit. In keeping with tradition, however, Edwin the Hermit claims to spurn the sex
21.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
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