1.
Island
–
An island or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, an island in a river or a lake island may be called an eyot or ait, and a small island off the coast may be called a holm. A grouping of geographically or geologically related islands is called an archipelago, an island may be described as such, despite the presence of an artificial land bridge, examples are Singapore and its causeway, and the various Dutch delta islands, such as IJsselmonde. There are two types of islands in the sea, continental and oceanic. The word island derives from Middle English iland, from Old English igland, Old English ieg is actually a cognate of Swedish ö and German Aue, and related to Latin aqua. There is a difference between islands and continents in terms of geology, continents sit on continental lithosphere which is part of tectonic plates floating high on Earths mantle. Oceanic crust is also part of tectonic plates, but it is denser than continental lithosphere, Islands are either extensions of the oceanic crust or geologically they are part of some continent sitting on continental lithosphere. This holds true for Australia, which sits on its own continental lithosphere, continental islands are bodies of land that lie on the continental shelf of a continent. A special type of island is the microcontinental island, which is created when a continent is rifted. Examples are Madagascar and Socotra off Africa, the Kerguelen Islands, New Caledonia, New Zealand, another subtype is an island or bar formed by deposition of tiny rocks where water current loses some of its carrying capacity. While some are transitory and may disappear if the volume or speed of the current changes, others are stable, oceanic islands are islands that do not sit on continental shelves. The vast majority are volcanic in origin, such as Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, the few oceanic islands that are not volcanic are tectonic in origin and arise where plate movements have lifted up the ocean floor above the surface. Examples are Saint Peter and Paul Rocks in the Atlantic Ocean, one type of volcanic oceanic island is found in a volcanic island arc. These islands arise from volcanoes where the subduction of one plate under another is occurring, examples are the Aleutian Islands, the Mariana Islands, and most of Tonga in the Pacific Ocean. The only examples in the Atlantic Ocean are some of the Lesser Antilles, another type of volcanic oceanic island occurs where an oceanic rift reaches the surface. There are two examples, Iceland, which is the second largest volcanic island, and Jan Mayen. A third type of oceanic island is formed over volcanic hotspots. A hotspot is more or less stationary relative to the tectonic plate above it
Island
–
Atafu atoll in Tokelau
Island
–
São Miguel Island, in
Azores archipelago, is also referred as "The Green Island".
Island
–
A small
Fijian island
Island
–
The
British Isles are a large group of islands. The main islands include
Great Britain and
Ireland.
2.
Caribbean Sea
–
The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere. The entire area of the Caribbean Sea, the islands of the West Indies. The Caribbean Sea is one of the largest seas and has an area of about 2,754,000 km2, the seas deepest point is the Cayman Trough, between the Cayman Islands and Jamaica, at 7,686 m below sea level. The Caribbean coastline has many gulfs and bays, the Gulf of Gonâve, Gulf of Venezuela, Gulf of Darién, Golfo de los Mosquitos, Gulf of Paria, the Caribbean Sea has the worlds second biggest barrier reef, the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef. It runs 1,000 km along the coasts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, the name Caribbean derives from the Caribs, one of the regions dominant Native American groups at the time of European contact during the late 15th century. During the first century of development, Spanish dominance in the region remained undisputed, from the 16th century, Europeans visiting the Caribbean region identified the South Sea as opposed to the North Sea. The Caribbean Sea had been unknown to the populations of Eurasia until 1492, at that time the Western Hemisphere in general was unknown to Europeans. Following the discovery of the islands by Columbus, the area was colonised by several Western cultures. As of 2015 the area is home to 22 island territories, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Caribbean Sea as follows, On the North. In the Windward Channel – a line joining Caleta Point and Pearl Point in Haïti, in the Mona Passage – a line joining Cape Engano and the extreme of Agujereada in Puerto Rico. From Galera Point through Trinidad to Galeota Point and thence to Baja Point in Venezuela, note that, although Barbados is an island on the same continental shelf, it is considered to be in the Atlantic Ocean rather than the Caribbean Sea. The Caribbean Sea is an oceanic sea largely situated on the Caribbean Plate, the Caribbean Sea is separated from the ocean by several island arcs of various ages. The youngest stretches from the Lesser Antilles to the Virgin Islands to the north east of Trinidad, the larger islands in the northern part of the sea Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica and Puerto Rico lie on an older island arc. The geological age of the Caribbean Sea is estimated to be between 160 and 180 million years and was formed by a fracture that split the supercontinent called Pangea in the Mesozoic Era. It is assumed the proto-caribbean basin existed in the Devonian period, in the early Carboniferous movement of Gondwana to the north and its convergence with the Euramerica basin decreased in size. The next stage of the Caribbean Seas formation began in the Triassic, powerful rifting led to the formation of narrow troughs, stretching from modern Newfoundland to the west coast of the Gulf of Mexico which formed siliciclastic sedimentary rocks. In the early Jurassic due to powerful marine transgression, water broke into the present area of the Gulf of Mexico creating a vast shallow pool, the emergence of deep basins in the Caribbean occurred during the Middle Jurassic rifting. The emergence of these marked the beginning of the Atlantic Ocean
Caribbean Sea
–
Roadtown,
Tortola,
British Virgin Islands
Caribbean Sea
–
Caribbean Sea
Caribbean Sea
–
Christopher Columbus landing on
Hispaniola in 1492.
Caribbean Sea
–
Tulum,
Maya city on the coast of the Caribbean in the state of
Quintana Roo (
Mexico)
3.
Geographic coordinate system
–
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
Geographic coordinate system
–
Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.
4.
Wildlife preserve
–
Nature reserves may be designated by government institutions in some countries, or by private landowners, such as charities and research institutions, regardless of nationality. Nature reserves fall into different IUCN categories depending on the level of protection afforded by local laws, early reservations often had a religious underpinning, such as the evil forest areas of West Africa which were forbidden to humans, who were threatened with spiritual attack if they went there. Sacred areas taboo from human entry to fishing and hunting are known by ancient cultures worldwide. The worlds first modern nature reserve was established in 1821 by the naturalist and explorer Charles Waterton around his estate in Walton Hall and he spent £9000 on the construction of a 3 mile long,9 ft tall wall to enclose his park from poachers. He tried to encourage birdlife by planting trees and hollowing out trunks for owls to nest in and he also invented artificial nest boxes to house starlings, jackdaws and sand martins and unsuccessfully attempted to introduce little owls from Italy. Drachenfels was protected as the first state-designated nature reserve in modern-day Germany, in Australia, a nature reserve is the title of a type of protected area used in the jurisdictions of the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Tasmania and Western Australia. The term “nature reserve” is defined in the relevant statutes used in those states and territories rather than by a national statute. As of 2014,1767 out of a total of 10339 protected areas listed within the Australian National Reserve System used the term “nature reserve in their names, in Brazil, nature reserves are classified as ecological stations or biological reserves by the National System of Conservation Units. Their main objectives are preserving fauna and flora and other natural attributes, visits are allowed only with permission, and only for educational or scientific purposes. Changes to the ecosystems in both types of reserve are allowed to restore and preserve the balance, biological diversity. Ecological stations are allowed to change the environment within strictly defined limits for the purpose of scientific research. A wildlife reserve in Brazil is also protected, and hunting is not allowed, there are 30 nature reserves in Egypt which cover 12% of Egyptian land. Those nature reserves were built according to the laws no, 102/1983 and 4/1994 for protection of the Egyptian nature reserve. Egypt announced a plan from to build 40 nature reserves from 1997 to 2017, to protect the natural resources. The largest nature reserve in Egypt is Gebel Elba in the southeast, denmark has three national parks and several nature reserves, some of them inside the national park areas. The largest single reserve is Hanstholm Nature Reserve, which covers 40 km2 and is part of Thy National Park, in Sweden there are 29 national parks. The first of them were established in 1909, in fact, Sweden was the first European country that established 9 national parks. There are almost 4,000 nature reserves in Sweden and they comprise about 85% of the surface that is protected by the Swedish Enironmental Code
Wildlife preserve
–
The Bee Lick Creek, of the
Jefferson Memorial Forest. This forest was designated as a National Audubon Society
wildlife refuge.
Wildlife preserve
–
Charles Waterton established the first nature reserve in 1821.
Wildlife preserve
–
Drachenfels (Siebengebirge)
Wildlife preserve
–
A bridged
stone river in
Bistrishko Branishte, an early Bulgarian nature reserve established in 1934.
5.
Coral
–
Corals are marine invertebrates in the class Anthozoa of phylum Cnidaria. They typically live in colonies of many identical individual polyps. The group includes the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans, a coral group is a colony of myriad genetically identical polyps. Each polyp is an animal typically only a few millimeters in diameter. A set of tentacles surround a central mouth opening, an exoskeleton is excreted near the base. Over many generations, the colony creates a large skeleton that is characteristic of the species. Individual heads grow by reproduction of polyps. Corals also breed sexually by spawning, polyps of the same species release gametes simultaneously over a period of one to several nights around a full moon and these are commonly known as zooxanthellae and the corals that contain them are zooxanthellate corals. Such corals require sunlight and grow in clear, shallow water, other corals do not rely on zooxanthellae and can live in much deeper water, with the cold-water genus Lophelia surviving as deep as 3,000 metres. Some have been found on the Darwin Mounds, north-west of Cape Wrath, Corals have also been found as far north as off the coast of Washington State and the Aleutian Islands. In his Scala Naturae, Aristotle classified corals as zoophyta, animals that had characteristics of plants and were therefore hypothetically in between animals and plants, the Persian polymath Al-Biruni classified sponges and corals as animals, arguing that they respond to touch. The phylogeny of Anthozoans is not clearly understood and a number of different models have been proposed, within the Hexacorallia, the sea anemones, coral anemones and stony corals may constitute a monophyletic grouping united by their eight-fold symmetry and cnidocyte trait. The Octocorallia appears to be monophyletic, and primitive members of this group may have been stolonate, the cladogram presented here comes from a 2014 study by Stampar et al. which was based on the divergence of mitochondrial DNA within the group and on nuclear markers. Corals are classified in the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria and they are divided into three subclasses, Hexacorallia, Octocorallia, and Ceriantharia. The Hexacorallia include the stony corals, the sea anemones and the zoanthids and these groups have polyps that generally have 6-fold symmetry. The Octocorallia include blue coral, soft corals, sea pens and these groups have polyps with 8-fold symmetry, each polyp having eight tentacles and eight mesenteries. Fire corals are not true corals, being in the order Anthomedusa of the class Hydrozoa, Corals are sessile animals in the class Anthozoa and differ from most other cnidarians in not having a medusa stage in their life cycle. The body unit of the animal is a polyp, most corals are colonial, the initial polyp budding to produce another and the colony gradually developing from this small start
Coral
–
Coral
Coral
–
Anatomy of a stony coral polyp
Coral
–
Montastraea cavernosa polyps with tentacles extended
Coral
–
A male
great star coral, Montastraea cavernosa, releasing sperm into the water.
6.
Limestone
–
Limestone is a sedimentary rock, composed mainly of skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral, forams and molluscs. Its major materials are the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate, about 10% of sedimentary rocks are limestones. The solubility of limestone in water and weak acid solutions leads to karst landscapes, most cave systems are through limestone bedrock. The first geologist to distinguish limestone from dolomite was Belsazar Hacquet in 1778, like most other sedimentary rocks, most limestone is composed of grains. Most grains in limestone are skeletal fragments of organisms such as coral or foraminifera. Other carbonate grains comprising limestones are ooids, peloids, intraclasts and these organisms secrete shells made of aragonite or calcite, and leave these shells behind when they die. Limestone often contains variable amounts of silica in the form of chert or siliceous skeletal fragment, some limestones do not consist of grains at all, and are formed completely by the chemical precipitation of calcite or aragonite, i. e. travertine. Secondary calcite may be deposited by supersaturated meteoric waters and this produces speleothems, such as stalagmites and stalactites. Another form taken by calcite is oolitic limestone, which can be recognized by its granular appearance, the primary source of the calcite in limestone is most commonly marine organisms. Some of these organisms can construct mounds of rock known as reefs, below about 3,000 meters, water pressure and temperature conditions cause the dissolution of calcite to increase nonlinearly, so limestone typically does not form in deeper waters. Limestones may also form in lacustrine and evaporite depositional environments, calcite can be dissolved or precipitated by groundwater, depending on several factors, including the water temperature, pH, and dissolved ion concentrations. Calcite exhibits a characteristic called retrograde solubility, in which it becomes less soluble in water as the temperature increases. Impurities will cause limestones to exhibit different colors, especially with weathered surfaces, Limestone may be crystalline, clastic, granular, or massive, depending on the method of formation. Crystals of calcite, quartz, dolomite or barite may line small cavities in the rock, when conditions are right for precipitation, calcite forms mineral coatings that cement the existing rock grains together, or it can fill fractures. Travertine is a banded, compact variety of limestone formed along streams, particularly there are waterfalls. Calcium carbonate is deposited where evaporation of the leaves a solution supersaturated with the chemical constituents of calcite. Tufa, a porous or cellular variety of travertine, is found near waterfalls, coquina is a poorly consolidated limestone composed of pieces of coral or shells. During regional metamorphism that occurs during the building process, limestone recrystallizes into marble
Limestone
–
Limestone outcrop in the
Torcal de Antequera nature reserve of
Málaga, Spain
Limestone
–
Limestone quarry at
Cedar Creek, Virginia, USA
Limestone
–
Cutting the limestone blocks at a quarry in
Gozo,
Malta
Limestone
–
Limestone as building material
7.
Christopher Columbus
–
Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer, navigator, colonizer, and citizen of the Republic of Genoa. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean and those voyages and his efforts to establish permanent settlements on the island of Hispaniola initiated the European colonization of the New World. Western imperialism and economic competition were emerging among European kingdoms through the establishment of routes and colonies. During his first voyage in 1492, he reached the New World instead of arriving at Japan as he had intended, landing on an island in the Bahamas archipelago that he named San Salvador. Over the course of three voyages, he visited the Greater and Lesser Antilles, as well as the Caribbean coast of Venezuela and Central America. These voyages had, therefore, an impact in the historical development of the modern Western world. He spearheaded the transatlantic trade and has been accused by several historians of initiating the genocide of the Hispaniola natives. Columbus himself saw his accomplishments primarily in the light of spreading the Christian religion, Columbus never admitted that he had reached a continent previously unknown to Europeans, rather than the East Indies for which he had set course. He called the inhabitants of the lands that he visited indios, the name Christopher Columbus is the Anglicisation of the Latin Christophorus Columbus. His name in Italian is Cristoforo Colombo and, in Spanish and he was born before 31 October 1451 in the territory of the Republic of Genoa, though the exact location remains disputed. His father was Domenico Colombo, a wool weaver who worked both in Genoa and Savona and who also owned a cheese stand at which young Christopher worked as a helper. Bartolomeo, Giovanni Pellegrino, and Giacomo were his brothers, Bartolomeo worked in a cartography workshop in Lisbon for at least part of his adulthood. He also had a sister named Bianchinetta, Columbus never wrote in his native language, which is presumed to have been a Genoese variety of Ligurian. In one of his writings, he says he went to sea at the age of 10, in 1470, the Columbus family moved to Savona, where Domenico took over a tavern. In the same year, Christopher was on a Genoese ship hired in the service of René of Anjou to support his attempt to conquer the Kingdom of Naples. Some modern historians have argued that he was not from Genoa but, instead and these competing hypotheses have generally been discounted by mainstream scholars. In 1473, Columbus began his apprenticeship as business agent for the important Centurione, Di Negro, later, he allegedly made a trip to Chios, an Aegean island then ruled by Genoa. In May 1476, he took part in a convoy sent by Genoa to carry valuable cargo to northern Europe
Christopher Columbus
–
Posthumous portrait of Christopher Columbus by
Sebastiano del Piombo, 1519. There are no known authentic portraits of Columbus.
Christopher Columbus
–
Christopher Columbus at the gates of the
monastery of Santa María de la Rábida with his son Diego, by
Benet Mercadé
Christopher Columbus
–
Columbus' handwritten notes in Latin, on the margins of his copy of
The Travels of Marco Polo
Christopher Columbus
–
"Columbus map", drawn c. 1490 in the
Lisbon workshop of Bartolomeo and Christopher Columbus
8.
Haiti
–
Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti and formerly called Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican Republic, the region was originally inhabited by the indigenous Taíno people. Spain discovered the island on 5 December 1492 during the first voyage of Christopher Columbus across the Atlantic, when Columbus initially landed in Haiti, he had thought he had found India or Asia. On Christmas Day 1492, Columbus flagship the Santa Maria ran aground north of what is now Limonade, the island was named La Española and claimed by Spain, which ruled until the early 17th century. Competing claims and settlements by the French led to the portion of the island being ceded to France. The development of plantations, worked by slaves brought from Africa. Upon his death in a prison in France, he was succeeded by his lieutenant, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the Haitian Revolution lasted just over a dozen years, and apart from Alexandre Pétion, the first President of the Republic, all the first leaders of government were former slaves. The Citadelle Laferrière is the largest fortress in the Americas, Henri Christophe – former slave and first king of Haiti, Henri I – built it to withstand a possible foreign attack. It has the lowest Human Development Index in the Americas, most recently, in February 2004, a coup détat originating in the north of the country forced the resignation and exile of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. A provisional government took control with security provided by the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, the name Haïti comes from the indigenous Taíno language which was the native name given to the entire island of Hispaniola to mean, land of high mountains. The h is silent in French and the ï in Haïti, is a mark used to show that the second vowel is pronounced separately. In English, this rule for the pronunciation is often disregarded, the name Haïti was restored by Haitian revolutionary Jean-Jacques Dessalines as the official name of independent Saint-Domingue, as a tribute to the Amerindian predecessors. The Taíno name for the island was Haiti. The people had migrated over centuries into the Caribbean islands from South America, genetic studies show they were related to the Yanomami of the Amazon Basin. They also originated in Central and South America, after migrating to Caribbean islands, in the 15th century, the Taíno were pushed into the northeast Caribbean islands by the Caribs. In the Taíno societies of the Caribbean islands, the largest unit of organization was led by a cacique, or chief. The caciquedoms were tributary kingdoms, with payment consisting of harvests, Taíno cultural artifacts include cave paintings in several locations in the country. These have become symbols of Haiti and tourist attractions
Haiti
–
Burning of the town of
Cap-Français
Haiti
–
Flag
Haiti
–
Battle between
British troops in French service and the
Haitian rebels.
Haiti
–
Pétion and Dessalines swearing allegiance to one another before God; painting by
Guillon-Lethière
9.
United States
–
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
United States
–
Native Americans meeting with Europeans, 1764
United States
–
Flag
United States
–
The signing of the
Mayflower Compact, 1620.
United States
–
The
Declaration of Independence: the
Committee of Five presenting their draft to the
Second Continental Congress in 1776
10.
French language
–
French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
French language
–
The
"arrêt" signs (French for "stop") are used in
Canada while the international stop, which is also a valid French word, is used in France as well as other French-speaking countries and regions.
French language
–
Regions where French is the main language
French language
–
Town sign in
Standard Arabic and French at the entrance of
Rechmaya in
Lebanon.
French language
–
An obsolete 100
Lebanese pound note with the French language inscriptions "Banque du Liban" and "Cent livres".
11.
United States Fish and Wildlife Service
–
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service is an agency of the federal government within the U. S. Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is working with others to conserve, protect, and enhance fish, wildlife, plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The leader of the FWS is the director of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service Daniel M. Ashe, of Maryland, bavin National Fish and Wildlife Forensic Laboratory Landscape Conservation Cooperatives The vast majority of fish and wildlife habitat is on non-federal lands. The FWS employs approximately 9,000 people and is organized into an administrative office, eight regional offices. Spencer Fullerton Baird was appointed its first commissioner, in 1903, the Fish Commission was reorganized as the United States Bureau of Fisheries. In 1885–1886, the Division of Economic Ornithology and Mammalogy was established within the United States Department of Agriculture, in 1896 it became the Division of Biological Survey. Its early work focused on the effect of birds in controlling pests and mapping the geographical distribution of plants. Clinton Hart Merriam headed the Bureau for 25 years and became a figure for improving the scientific understanding of birds. Under Darlings guidance, the Bureau began a legacy of protecting vital natural habitat throughout the country. The USFWS was finally created in 1940, when the Bureaus of Fisheries, however, these exceptions often only apply to Native Americans that are registered with the federal government and are enrolled with a federally recognized tribe. Therefore, many people that wish to practice their religion continue to face persecution. This has become a source of conflict between many tribes and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the USFWS began to incorporate the research of scientists into conservation decisions. Additionally, other natural resource agencies within the United States government, such as the USDA, have taken steps to be inclusive of tribes, native people. This has marked a transition to a relationship of more cooperation rather than the tension between tribes and government agencies seen historically, today, these agencies work closely with tribal governments to ensure the best conservation decisions are made and that tribes retain their sovereignty
United States Fish and Wildlife Service
–
Arctic Refuge Law Enforcement Officer Heather Bartlett stands alongside her
Super Cub, 2009
United States Fish and Wildlife Service
–
Logo of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service
United States Fish and Wildlife Service
–
USFWS patrol vehicles, Alaska 1950
12.
Cuba
–
Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is a country comprising the island of Cuba as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located in the northern Caribbean where the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and it is south of both the U. S. state of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Haiti, and north of Jamaica. Havana is the largest city and capital, other cities include Santiago de Cuba. Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean, with an area of 109,884 square kilometres, prior to Spanish colonization in the late 15th century, Cuba was inhabited by Amerindian tribes. It remained a colony of Spain until the Spanish–American War of 1898, as a fragile republic, Cuba attempted to strengthen its democratic system, but mounting political radicalization and social strife culminated in the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1952. Further unrest and instability led to Batistas ousting in January 1959 by the July 26 Movement, since 1965, the state has been governed by the Communist Party of Cuba. A point of contention during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, a nuclear war broke out during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Culturally, Cuba is considered part of Latin America, Cuba is a Marxist–Leninist one-party republic, where the role of the vanguard Communist Party is enshrined in the Constitution. Independent observers have accused the Cuban government of human rights abuses. It is one of the worlds last planned economies and its economy is dominated by the exports of sugar, tobacco, coffee, according to the Human Development Index, Cuba is described as a country with high human development and is ranked the eighth highest in North America. It also ranks highly in some metrics of national performance, including health care, the name Cuba comes from the Taíno language. The exact meaning of the name is unclear but it may be translated either as where fertile land is abundant, authors who believe that Christopher Columbus was Portuguese state that Cuba was named by Columbus for the town of Cuba in the district of Beja in Portugal. Before the arrival of the Spanish, Cuba was inhabited by three distinct tribes of indigenous peoples of the Americas, the Taíno, the Guanajatabey, and the Ciboney people. The ancestors of the Ciboney migrated from the mainland of South America, the Taíno arrived from Hispanola sometime in the 3rd century A. D. When Columbus arrived they were the dominant culture in Cuba, having a population of 150,000. The name Cuba comes from the native Taíno language and it is derived from either coabana meaning great place, or from cubao meaning where fertile land is abundant. The Taíno were farmers, while the Ciboney were farmers as well as fishers and hunter-gatherers, Columbus claimed the island for the new Kingdom of Spain and named it Isla Juana after Juan, Prince of Asturias. In 1511, the first Spanish settlement was founded by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar at Baracoa, other towns soon followed, including San Cristobal de la Habana, founded in 1515, which later became the capital
Cuba
–
Hatuey, an early
Taíno chief of Cuba.
Cuba
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Flag
Cuba
–
Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar,
conquistador of Cuba.
Cuba
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Slaves in Cuba unloading ice from Maine, c. 1832.
13.
Jamaica
–
Jamaica is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea, consisting of the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles. The island,10,990 square kilometres in area, lies about 145 kilometres south of Cuba, Jamaica is the fourth-largest island country in the Caribbean, by area. Inhabited by the indigenous Arawak and Taíno peoples, the island came under Spanish rule following the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1494, Many of the indigenous people died of disease, and the Spanish imported African slaves as labourers. Named Santiago, the island remained a possession of Spain until 1655, under British colonial rule Jamaica became a leading sugar exporter, with its plantation economy highly dependent on slaves imported from Africa. The British fully emancipated all slaves in 1838, and many chose to have subsistence farms rather than to work on plantations. Beginning in the 1840s, the British imported Chinese and Indian indentured labour to work on plantations, the island achieved independence from the United Kingdom on 6 August 1962. With 2.8 million people, Jamaica is the third-most populous Anglophone country in the Americas, Kingston is the countrys capital and largest city, with a population of 937,700. Jamaicans predominately have African ancestry, with significant European, Chinese, Hakka, Indian, due to a high rate of emigration for work since the 1960s, Jamaica has a large diaspora around the world, particularly in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Jamaica is a Commonwealth realm, with Queen Elizabeth II as its monarch and her appointed representative in the country is the Governor-General of Jamaica, an office held by Sir Patrick Allen since 2009. Andrew Holness has served as the head of government and Prime Minister of Jamaica from March 2016, the indigenous people, the Taíno, called it Xaymaca in Arawakan, meaning the Land of Wood and Water or the Land of Springs. Colloquially Jamaicans refer to their island as the Rock. Slang names such as Jamrock, Jamdown, or briefly Ja, have derived from this, the Arawak and Taíno indigenous people, originating in South America, settled on the island between 4000 and 1000 BC. When Christopher Columbus arrived in 1494, there were more than 200 villages ruled by caciques, the south coast of Jamaica was the most populated, especially around the area now known as Old Harbour. The Taino still inhabited Jamaica when the English took control of the island in 1655, the Jamaican National Heritage Trust is attempting to locate and document any evidence of the Taino/Arawak. Christopher Columbus claimed Jamaica for Spain after landing there in 1494 and his probable landing point was Dry Harbour, now called Discovery Bay, although there is some debate that it might have been St. Anns Bay. St. Anns Bay was named Saint Gloria by Columbus, as the first sighting of the land, the capital was moved to Spanish Town, then called St. Jago de la Vega, around 1534. Spanish Town has the oldest cathedral of the British colonies in the Caribbean, the Spanish were forcibly evicted by the English at Ocho Rios in St. Ann. In 1655, the English, led by Sir William Penn and General Robert Venables, the English continued to import African slaves as labourers
Jamaica
–
Henry Morgan was a famous
Caribbean pirate and privateer; he had first come to the West Indies as an indentured servant, like most of the early English colonists.
Jamaica
Jamaica
–
Prince Charles and the
Duchess of Cornwall during a visit to Jamaica in 2008.
Jamaica
–
Inside the
Jamaican Parliament.
14.
Jamaica Channel
–
The Jamaica Channel is a strait separating the islands of Jamaica and Hispaniola, in the Caribbean Sea. Along with the Windward Passage to its north, it connects the Caribbean Sea to the North Atlantic Ocean, the strait is about 190 kilometres wide with depths of up to 1,200 metres. Located in the strait about 55 kilometres west of Haiti is Navassa Island, an uninhabited and disputed island measuring 5.2 km²
Jamaica Channel
–
The northern Caribbean showing in red the location of Jamaica Channel.
15.
Ficus
–
Ficus is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes and hemiepiphytes in the family Moraceae. Collectively known as fig trees or figs, they are throughout the tropics with a few species extending into the semi-warm temperate zone. The common fig is a species native to southwest Asia and the Mediterranean region. The fruit of most other species are edible though they are usually of only local economic importance or eaten as bushfood. However, they are important food resources for wildlife. Figs are also of cultural importance throughout the tropics, both as objects of worship and for their many practical uses. Fig species are characterized by their unique inflorescence and distinctive pollination syndrome, the specific identification of many of the species can be difficult, but figs as a group are relatively easy to recognize. Many have aerial roots and a shape or habit. The fig fruit is an inflorescence, sometimes referred to as a syconium. Finally, there are three traits that together are unique to figs. There are no unambiguous older fossils of Ficus, however, current molecular clock estimates indicate that Ficus is a relatively ancient genus being at least 60 million years old, and possibly as old as 80 million years. The main radiation of extant species, however, may have taken more recently. Moreover, figs with different plant habits have undergone radiation in different biogeographic regions. In the tropics, it is common to find that Ficus is the most species-rich plant genus in a particular forest. In Asia as many as 70 or more species can co-exist, Ficus species richness declines with an increase in latitude in both hemispheres. Figs are keystone species in many rainforest ecosystems and their fruit are a key resource for some frugivores including fruit bats, capuchin monkeys, langurs and mangabeys. They are even more important for some birds, asian barbets, pigeons, hornbills, fig-parrots and bulbuls are examples of taxa that may almost entirely subsist on figs when these are in plenty. The citrus long-horned beetle, for example, has larvae that feed on wood, including that of fig trees, similarly, the sweet potato whitefly is frequently found as a pest on figs grown as potted plants and is spread through the export of these plants to other localities
Ficus
–
Fig trees
Ficus
–
Aerial root that may eventually provide structural support
Ficus
–
A
Ficus carica
Ficus
–
Ficus exasperata, fruits
16.
Coccoloba diversifolia
–
Coccoloba diversifolia is a small to medium-sized tree growing to 10 m tall. The bark is gray, smooth, and thin but may become scaly on the largest trees. The flowers numerous inconspicuous appear on spikes 1. 5–18 cm long in the spring, the fruit is an achene 6–10 mm long surrounded by a dark purple edible fleshy perianth, ripening in the fall. The tree is unable to survive hard frost and it is resistant to high winds, salt and drought. Bahamian dry forests Interactive Distribution Map for Coccoloba diversifolia
Coccoloba diversifolia
–
Coccoloba diversifolia
17.
Mona, Puerto Rico
–
Mona is the third-largest island of the Puerto Rican archipelago, after the main island of Puerto Rico and Vieques. It is the largest of three located in the Mona Passage, a strait between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, the others being Monito Island and Desecheo Island. It measures about 11 km by 7 km, and lies 66 km west of Puerto Rico, of which it is administratively a part. The original name given to the island by the Taíno Indians is Amona and it is one of two islands that make up the Isla de Mona e Islote Monito Barrio of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. The island is managed as the Mona Island Nature Reserve, Mona Island is believed to have been originally settled by Arawak Indians who arrived from Quisqueya. An archeological excavation during the 1980s discovered many Pre-Columbian objects on the island that helped support historians theories of the islands first inhabitants, stone tools found in a rock shelter have been dated to around 3000 BC. Much later the island was settled by the Taínos and remained so until the arrival of the Spanish in the 15th century. Within hours of setting foot in Puerto Rico, Columbus and his ships headed west to Hispaniola, as he left Puerto Rico, he reputedly became the first European to sight the island on September 24,1494, which was claimed for Spain. The name Mona derives from the Taíno name Ámona, bestowed by the natives in honor of the ruling Cacique or chief of the island. However, one amateur archaeologist who has studied the Mona Island/Columbus sighting for over 14 years puts this in dispute with the following logic, Columbus is in a bay on the northwest corner. He is to sail from there straight across to the north coast of Hispaniola, why would he sail south to where he has already been and then sail north again to Hispaniola. Mona Island was probably picked by armchair historians because it is the island in the passage between Puerto Rico and Hispaniola that is drawn on most maps. It is more logical that when Columbus left the northwest coast of Puerto Rico and it was never considered by armchair authors because it is small, barren, and of no interest, it is not drawn on most maps. In 1502, Fray Nicolás de Ovando was sent to Isla de la Mona to keep an eye, from a safe distance, with a group of 2,000 Spanish settlers, Ovando was left in charge of creating a permanent settlement on the island. Juan Ponce de León, who accompanied Columbus on his first two voyages, became the first ruling governor of Puerto Rico, in 1515, after some wrangling, Ferdinand II was able to reclaim the island from Diego Colón, Viceroy of the Indies. By then, Isla de la Mona was an important point of trade between Spain and the rest of Latin America, as well as a rest stop for the crews of boats carrying slaves. Realizing that mining would require intense labor, the majority of inhabitants chose to work as fishermen, by accepting this option, they also were exempted from paying imposed taxes, and were able to avoid the hard labor many other natives endured in mines. In time, natives from neighboring islands were brought to Mona Island to assist with labor
Mona, Puerto Rico
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Mona Island Lighthouse
Mona, Puerto Rico
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Satellite Image
Mona, Puerto Rico
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Monito Island as seen from offshore
Mona, Puerto Rico
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Buildings on Playa Pájaros on the south coast
18.
Mona Passage
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The Mona Passage is a strait that separates the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico. The Mona Passage connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean Sea, the 80 mi stretch of sea between the four islands is one of the most difficult passages in the Caribbean. It is fraught with variable tidal currents created by the islands on either side of it. There are three islands in the Mona Passage, Mona Island lies close to the middle of the Mona Passage, five kilometers northwest of Mona Island is much smaller Monito Island. Fifty kilometers northeast of Mona Island and much closer to the Puerto Rican mainland is Desecheo Island, the Passage was also the site of a devastating earthquake and resulting tsunami that hit western Puerto Rico in 1918. It is the site of frequent small earthquakes, the passage is underlain by a seismically active rift zone that overprints an older partly eroded tilted-block structure. Desecheo Island sits on the Desecheo ridge, a narrow east–west ridge that extends west from the northwest corner of Puerto Rico. The ridge forms the boundary of the 4000 m deep Mona rift which extends toward the north to the strike slip fault zones which bound Puerto Rico. The east face of the rift has a relief of 3 km and is controlled by the N - S trending Mona Rift Fault. The epicenter of the 1918 earthquake was located along the east or southeast edge of the Mona Rift, the Mona Passage connects the Atlantic Ocean waters and Caribbean Sea waters, above a sill depth of 400 to 500 meters. The sill runs along a northwest to southeast direction between Cabo Engaño in the west and the Cabo Rojo Shelf in the east margin of the Mona Passage, the vertical profile of the low-frequency mean meridional water transport is characterized by a two-layer structure. Below this layer, the Tropical Central Water exits toward the Atlantic Ocean, the mean value for the meridional transport for a sampled year was -1.85 ±0.25 Sverdrup into the Caribbean Sea. The barotropic tide propagates from northeast to southwest along Mona Passage, semidiurnal tidal currents impinging on a submarine ridge known as El Pichincho can force the generation of an internal tide with a wave height of 40 meters. Underwater glider observations reveal wave damping as the internal tide propagates south along the Mona Passage towards the open Caribbean Sea, internal tides at El Pichincho can elevate the turbulent vertical diffusivity values, and with a reduction of the Richardson number at the base of the pycnocline. Higher values of productivity were observed near the wave trough. The packets propagate either into the Caribbean Sea or the Atlantic Ocean depending on the direction of the currents that forced their generation, under sail it means an even longer distance because of having to tack a zig-zag course into the easterly trade winds. At the stop of Saona Island on the southeast coast of the Dominican Republic and this is an advantage which is not possible when departing from Samaná. It is only about 40 miles from Saona to the protected anchorage inside the coral reef on the west coast of Mona Island
Mona Passage
–
Location of the Mona Passage
19.
Puerto Rico
–
Puerto Rico, officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and briefly called Porto Rico, is an unincorporated territory of the United States located in the northeast Caribbean Sea. It is an archipelago that includes the island of Puerto Rico and a number of smaller ones such as Mona, Culebra. The capital and most populous city is San Juan and its official languages are Spanish and English, though Spanish predominates. The islands population is approximately 3.4 million, Puerto Ricos rich history, tropical climate, diverse natural scenery, renowned traditional cuisine, and attractive tax incentives make it a popular destination for travelers from around the world. Four centuries of Spanish colonial government transformed the ethnic, cultural and physical landscapes primarily with waves of African captives, and Canarian. In the Spanish imperial imagination, Puerto Rico played a secondary, in 1898, following the Spanish–American War, the United States appropriated Puerto Rico together with most former Spanish colonies under the terms of the Treaty of Paris. Puerto Ricans are natural-born citizens of the United States, however, Puerto Rico does not have a vote in the United States Congress, which governs the territory with full jurisdiction under the Puerto Rico Federal Relations Act of 1950. As a U. S. territory, American citizens residing on the island are disenfranchised at the level and may not vote for president. However, Congress approved a constitution, allowing U. S. citizens on the territory to elect a governor. A fifth referendum will be held in June 2017, with only Statehood, in early 2017, the Puerto Rican government-debt crisis posed serious problems for the government. The outstanding bond debt that had climbed to $70 billion or $12,000 per capita at a time with 12. 4% unemployment, the debt had been increasing during a decade long recession. Puerto Ricans often call the island Borinquen – a derivation of Borikén, its indigenous Taíno name, the terms boricua and borincano derive from Borikén and Borinquen respectively, and are commonly used to identify someone of Puerto Rican heritage. The island is also known in Spanish as la isla del encanto. Columbus named the island San Juan Bautista, in honor of Saint John the Baptist, eventually traders and other maritime visitors came to refer to the entire island as Puerto Rico, while San Juan became the name used for the main trading/shipping port and the capital city. The islands name was changed to Porto Rico by the United States after the Treaty of Paris of 1898, the anglicized name was used by the US government and private enterprises. The name was changed back to Puerto Rico by a joint resolution in Congress introduced by Félix Córdova Dávila in 1931, the ancient history of the archipelago known today as Puerto Rico is not well known. The scarce archaeological findings and early Spanish scholarly accounts from the colonial era constitute the basis of knowledge about them. The first comprehensive book on the history of Puerto Rico was written by Fray Íñigo Abbad y Lasierra in 1786, the first settlers were the Ortoiroid people, an Archaic Period culture of Amerindian hunters and fishermen who migrated from the South American mainland
Puerto Rico
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A Taíno Village at the
Tibes Ceremonial Center.
Puerto Rico
–
Flag
Puerto Rico
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Juan Ponce de León (
Santervás de Campos,
Valladolid, Spain), was the first governor of Puerto Rico. His grandson
Juan Ponce de León II was the first criollo governor of Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico
–
The 16th century
Fort San Felipe del Morro in San Juan, Puerto Rico
20.
Dominican Republic
–
The Dominican Republic is a sovereign state occupying the eastern two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western one-third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, christopher Columbus landed on the Western part of Hispaniola, in what is now Haiti, on December 6,1492. The island became the first seat of the Spanish colonial rule in the New World, the Dominican people declared independence in November 1821 but were forcefully annexed by their more powerful neighbor Haiti in February 1822. After the 1844 victory in the Dominican War of Independence against Haitian rule the country again under Spanish colonial rule until the Dominican War of Restoration of 1865. The Dominican Republic experienced mostly internal strife until 1916, a civil war in 1965, the countrys last, was ended by another U. S. military occupation and was followed by the authoritarian rule of Joaquín Balaguer, 1966–1978. Since then, the Dominican Republic has moved toward representative democracy and has been led by Leonel Fernández for most of the time since 1996. Danilo Medina, the Dominican Republics current president, succeeded Fernandez in 2012, the Dominican Republic has the ninth-largest economy in Latin America and is the largest economy in the Caribbean and Central American region. Though long known for agriculture and mining, the economy is now dominated by services. Over the last two decades, the Dominican Republic have been standing out as one of the economies in the Americas – with an average real GDP growth rate of 5. 4% between 1992 and 2014. GDP growth in 2014 and 2015 reached 7.3 and 7. 0%, respectively, in the first half of 2016 the Dominican economy grew 7. 4% continuing its trend of rapid economic growth. Recent growth has been driven by construction, manufacturing and tourism, private consumption has been strong, as a result of low inflation, job creation, as well as high level of remittances. The Dominican Republic has a market, Bolsa de Valores de la Republica Dominicana. and advanced telecommunication system. Nevertheless, unemployment, government corruption, and inconsistent electric service remain major Dominican problems, the country also has marked income inequality. International migration affects the Dominican Republic greatly, as it receives, mass illegal Haitian immigration and the integration of Dominicans of Haitian descent are major issues. A large Dominican diaspora exists, mostly in the United States, contributes to development, the Dominican Republic is the most visited destination in the Caribbean. The year-round golf courses are major attractions, the island has an average temperature of 26 °C and great climatic and biological diversity. The country is also the site of the first cathedral, castle, monastery, and fortress built in all of the Americas, located in Santo Domingos Colonial Zone, a World Heritage Site. Music and sport are of importance in the Dominican culture, with Merengue and Bachata as the national dance and music
Dominican Republic
–
The Pomier Caves are a series of 55 caves located north of San Cristobal in the Dominican Republic. They contain the largest collection of 2,000-year-old rock art in the Caribbean.
Dominican Republic
–
Flag
Dominican Republic
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The
Alcázar of Colón, located in Santo Domingo, is the oldest
Viceregal residence in all of the Americas.
Dominican Republic
–
Jean-Pierre Boyer the mulatto ruler of Haiti.
21.
Guano
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Guano is the accumulated excrement of seabirds, seals, or cave-dwelling bats. As a manure, guano is an effective fertilizer due to its exceptionally high content of nitrogen, phosphate and potassium. During the twentieth century, guano-producing birds became an important target of conservation programs, today, guano is increasingly sought after by organic farmers. Seabird guano consists of nitrogen-rich ammonium oxalate and urate, phosphates, as well as some earth salts, the word guano originates from the Andean indigenous language Quechua, which refers to any form of dung used as an agricultural fertilizer. Archaeological evidence suggests that Andean people have collected guano from small islands, spanish colonial documents suggest that the rulers of the Inca Empire assigned great value to guano, restricted access to it, and punished any disturbance of the birds with death. The Guanay cormorant has historically been the most abundant and important producer of guano, other important guano producing species off the coast of Peru are the Peruvian pelican and the Peruvian booby. At that time, massive deposits of guano existed on some islands, in this context the United States passed the Guano Islands Act in 1856, which gave U. S. citizens discovering a source of guano on an unclaimed island exclusive rights to the deposits. Nine of these islands are still officially U. S. territories, control over guano played a central role in the Chincha Islands War between Spain and a Peruvian-Chilean alliance. Indentured workers from China played an important role in guano harvest, the first group of 79 Chinese workers arrived in Peru in 1849, by the time that trade ended a quarter of a century later, over 100,000 of their fellow countrymen had been imported. There is no evidence that enslaved Pacific Islanders participated in guano mining. Between 1847 and 1873, there was a significant increase in Peruvian guano exports, after 1870, the use of Peruvian guano as a fertilizer was eclipsed by saltpeter in the form of caliche extraction from the interior of the Atacama Desert, not far from the guano areas. Since 1909, when the Peruvian government took over guano extraction for use by Peru farmers, South Africa independently developed its own guano industry based on sustained-yield production from marine birds during this period, as well. Both industries eventually collapsed due to pressure from overfishing, DNA testing has suggested that new potato varieties imported alongside Peruvian seabird guano in 1842 brought a virulent strain of potato blight that began the Irish Potato Famine. The ideal type of guano is found in dry climates. Post-depositional decomposition and ammonia volatilization of penguin guano also plays an important role in the evolution of ornithogenic sediments in the cold, Bat guano is usually mined in caves and this mining is associated with a corresponding loss of troglobytic biota and diminishing of biodiversity. Guano deposits support a variety of cave-adapted invertebrates that rely on bat feces as their sole source of nutrition. The greatest damage caused by mining to caves with extant guano deposits is to the bat colonies themselves, bats are highly vulnerable to regular disturbance to their roosts. Some species, such as Phyllonycteris aphylla, have low fat reserves, many species will drop pups when in panic, with subsequent death, leading to a steady reduction in population
Guano
–
The nest of the
Peruvian booby is made of almost pure guano.
Guano
–
The
Guanay cormorant has historically been the most important producer of guano.
Guano
–
Mining guano in the
Chincha Islands off the central coast of
Peru c. 1860.
Guano
–
Advertisement for guano, 1884.
22.
Endemism
–
The extreme opposite of endemism is cosmopolitan distribution. An alternative term for a species that is endemic is precinctive, the word endemic is from New Latin endēmicus, from Greek ενδήμος, endēmos, native. Endēmos is formed of en meaning in, and dēmos meaning the people, the term, precinctive, has been suggested by some scientists, and was first used in botany by MacCaughey in 1917. It is the equivalent of endemism, precinction was perhaps first used by Frank and McCoy. That definition excludes artificial confinement of examples by humans in far-off botanical gardens or zoological parks, physical, climatic, and biological factors can contribute to endemism. The orange-breasted sunbird is found in the fynbos vegetation zone of southwestern South Africa. The glacier bear is found only in limited places in Southeast Alaska, political factors can play a part if a species is protected, or actively hunted, in one jurisdiction but not another. There are two subcategories of endemism, paleoendemism and neoendemism, paleoendemism refers to species that were formerly widespread but are now restricted to a smaller area. Neoendemism refers to species that have arisen, such as through divergence and reproductive isolation or through hybridization. Endemics can easily become endangered or extinct if their restricted habitat changes, particularly—but not only—due to human actions, there were millions of both Bermuda petrels and Bermuda cedars in Bermuda when it was settled at the start of the seventeenth century. By the end of the century, the petrels were thought extinct, cedars, already ravaged by centuries of shipbuilding, were driven nearly to extinction in the twentieth century by the introduction of a parasite. Bermuda petrels and cedars are now rare, as are species endemic to Bermuda
Endemism
–
The
orange-breasted sunbird (Nectarinia violacea) is exclusively found in
fynbos vegetation.
23.
Anguidae
–
Anguidae is the name of a large and diverse family of lizards native to the Northern Hemisphere. The group includes the slowworms, glass lizards, and alligator lizards, the family is divided into three subfamilies and contains 102 species in ten genera. They have hard osteoderms beneath their scales, and many of the species have reduced or absent limbs, giving them a snake-like appearance, anguids are carnivorous or insectivorous, and inhabit a wide range of different habitats. The group includes both egg-laying and viviparous species, most species are terrestrial, although some climb trees. Anguids have a good fossil record. Anguids were particularly diverse during the Paleocene and Eocene in North America, some species, such as Glyptosaurus, grew to large size and evolved a highly specialized crushing dentition
Anguidae
–
Anguidae Temporal range:
Late Cretaceous to present
Anguidae
–
Helodermoides tuberculatus fossil
24.
Gecko
–
Geckos are lizards belonging to the infraorder Gekkota, found in warm climates throughout the world. They range from 1.6 to 60 cm, most geckos cannot blink, but they often lick their eyes to keep them clean and moist. They have a fixed lens within each iris that enlarges in darkness to let in more light, Geckos are unique among lizards in their vocalizations. They use chirping sounds in social interactions with other geckos and they are the most species-rich group of lizards, with about 1,500 different species worldwide. The New Latin gekko and English gecko stem from the Indonesian-Malay gēkoq, all geckos, excluding the Eublepharidae family, lack eyelids and instead have a transparent membrane, which they lick to clean. Nocturnal species have an excellent night vision, their vision is 350 times more sensitive than human color vision. The nocturnal geckos evolved from diurnal species which had lost the eye rods, the gecko eye therefore modified its cones that increased in size into different types both single and double. Three different photopigments have been retained and are sensitive to UV, blue and they also use a multifocal optical system that allows them to generate a sharp image for at least two different depths. Most gecko species can lose their tails in defense, a process called autotomy, many species are well known for their specialised toe pads that enable them to climb smooth and vertical surfaces, and even cross indoor ceilings with ease. Geckos are well-known to people who live in regions of the world. These become part of the menagerie and are often welcomed, as they feed on insects, including moths. Unlike most lizards, geckos are usually nocturnal, the largest species, the kawekaweau, is only known from a single, stuffed specimen found in the basement of a museum in Marseille, France. This gecko was 60 cm long and it was endemic to New Zealand. The smallest gecko, the Jaragua sphaero, is a mere 1.6 cm long and was discovered in 2001 on an island off the coast of the Dominican Republic. Geckos occur in various patterns and colors, and are among the most colorful lizards in the world, some species can change colour and may be lighter in colour at night. Some species are parthenogenic, which means the female is capable of reproducing without copulating with a male and this improves the geckos ability to spread to new islands. However, in a situation where a single female gecko populates an entire island, the geckos mating call sounds like a shortened bird chirping which attracts males, when they are nearby. Like other reptiles, geckos are ectothermic, producing very little metabolic heat, essentially a geckos body temperature is dependent on its environment
Gecko
Gecko
–
Oligocene -era gecko trapped in
amber
Gecko
–
Close-up of the underside of a gecko's foot as it walks on vertical glass
Gecko
–
Uroplatus fimbriatus clinging to glass
25.
Sphaerodactylus
–
All species in this genus are rather small, but two species, S. ariasae and S. parthenopion, are tiny, and – with a snout-vent length of about 1.6 cm —the smallest reptiles in the world. The following 105 species are recognized as being valid. M. C. T, Sphaerodactylus at the Reptarium. cz Reptile Database Schwartz A, Thomas R. A Check-list of West Indian Amphibians and Reptiles, Carnegie Museum of Natural History Special Publication No.1. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Carnegie Museum of Natural History,216 pp. Wagler J. Natürliches System der AMPHIBIEN, mit vorangehender Classification der SÄUGTHIERE und VÖGEL. Vi +354 pp. + one plate, media related to Sphaerodactylus at Wikimedia Commons
Sphaerodactylus
–
Sphaerodactylus
26.
Anolis
–
Anolis, or anoles, is a genus of iguanian lizards belonging to the family Dactyloidae. With 391 species, Anolis represents the worlds most species-rich amniote tetrapod genus and this very large genus displays considerable paraphyly, but phylogenetic analysis suggests a number of subgroups or clades. These include, carolinensis isolepis Several species of Anolis are occasionally ascribed to the genus Norops, Several species often listed under Anolis have been ascribed to the genus Phenacosaurus, but recent work places them in the clade Dactyloa. The green anole has become the first reptile to have its complete genome sequenced. Closely related, recently diverged anole lizards exhibited more divergence in thermal biology than in morphology and these anole lizards are thought to have the same structural niche and have similarities in their size and shape. However they inhabited different climatic niches in which there was variability in temperature and this suggests that thermal physiology is more associated with recently diverged anole lizards. Anolis lizards are some of the best examples of adaptive radiation and convergent evolution. Populations of lizards on isolated islands diverge to occupy separate ecological niches, in addition, these patterns repeat on numerous islands, with animals in similar habitats converging on similar body forms repeatedly. After appearing on each of the four Greater Antillean Islands about 50 million years ago, some living in the tree canopy area, others low on the tree trunk near the ground, others in the mid-trunk area, others on twigs. Each new species developed its own distinct type, called an ecomorph. Together the different species occupied their various niches in the trees as a community, a study of lizard fossils trapped in amber, show the lizard communities have existed for about 20 million years or more. Four modern ecomorph body types, trunk-crown, trunk-ground, trunk, close comparison of the lizard fossils with their descendants alive today in the Caribbean shows the lizards have changed little in the millions of years. Polychrotidae Carolina anole Brown anole Losos, Jonathan B, lizards in an evolutionary tree, ecology and adaptive radiation of anoles. Anole Annals, a written and edited by scientists who study Anolis lizards Anolis, The Reptile Database Adapting Anolis
Anolis
–
Anolis
27.
Anole
–
The Dactyloidae are a family of lizards commonly known as anoles /əˈnoʊliːz/. The NCBI places the anole in subfamily Polychrotinae of the family Iguanidae and these clades are, Dactyloa, Deiroptyx, Ctenonotus, Xiphosurus, Norops, Chamaelinorops, Anolis and Audantia. Therefore, Polychrotidae as a family has been invalidated, which classifies Polychrus under subfamily Polychrotinae, due to their ability to change color, anolis lizards are frequently referred to as American chameleons. Anolis lizards also share characteristics with geckos. However anoles are not closely related to either of those groups, Anoles share many anatomical features with arboreal iguanas. These similarities include skeletal structure and nearly identical foot structure, a large majority of them sport a green coloration, including the only species native to the United States, the aptly named green anole. The green anole can change its color based on level, sun/light exposure. Although their color changing ability is limited, often anoles are only able to change one color. Anoles are a diverse and plentiful group of lizards. The knight, green, bark, Jamaican giant, and Cuban brown anoles can all be found in the United States, the most prevalent of these species by far is the Cuban brown anole, which has pushed the native green anole population farther north. When green anoles and brown anoles inhabit the area, the brown anoles are primarily terrestrial or restrict themselves to the lower branches of bushes. Brown anoles have also spread into East Texas, at a nursery in the Heights neighborhood of Houston, Texas, a stable population has established itself, hatchlings having been observed in the spring of 2005. While nearly all anoles can change their color, the extent and variations of this ability differ widely throughout the individual species. For example, the green anole can change its color from a bright, leafy green to a brown color, while the Cuban brown can only change its shade of brown. Many anoles are between eight and 18 cm in length, some larger species, such as the knight anole, can surpass 12 in, some males of the knight anole species can even reach 20 in in length. Anoles diets include insects and other invertebrates, with crickets, spiders. They have been seen to eat butterflies, Anoles are opportunistic feeders, and may attempt to eat any attractive meal that is small enough. The primary foods for captive anoles are small feeder crickets that can be purchased at most pet stores and they usually inhabit regions around 3–6 m high
Anole
–
Dactyloidae
Anole
–
The colorful
Barbados anole
Anole
–
Anole out of hiding
28.
Rock iguana
–
Cyclura is a genus of lizards in the family Iguanidae. Member species of this genus are known as cycluras or more commonly as rock iguanas. Rock iguanas have a degree of endemism, with a single species or subspecies restricted to individual islands. The generic name is derived from the Ancient Greek cyclos meaning circular and ourá meaning tail, currently, there are nine described species and eight subspecies identified in this genus. These are nonvolcanic islands made up of eroded limestone which form natural caves that the iguanas use as retreats. All rock iguanas are herbivorous, consuming leaves, flowers, berries, a study in 2000 by Allison Alberts of the San Diego Zoo revealed that seeds passing through the digestive tracts of rock iguanas germinate more rapidly than those that do not. These seeds in the fruits consumed by cycluras have an advantage by sprouting before the end of very short rainy seasons. Their diet is very rarely supplemented with insect larvae, crabs, slugs, dead birds, unlike mammals, reptile kidneys cannot concentrate urine to save on water intake. Instead reptiles excrete toxic nitrogenous wastes as uric acid through their cloaca. In the case of the rock iguana which consumes large amounts of vegetation, the record for the longest lived captive-born rock iguana is held by a Lesser Caymans iguana, which lived for 33 years in captivity. A blue iguana captured on Grand Cayman in 1950 by naturalist Ira Thompson was imported to the United States in 1985 by Ramon Noegel and sold to reptile importer and breeder, Crutchfield loaned this iguana to the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, Texas in 1997. The lizard was named Godzilla by the zoo staff and was kept until his death in 2004, Thompson estimated the iguana to be 15 years of age at the time of its capture. This lizard may have been the words longest-living recorded lizard at 69 years of age, although the particulars vary slightly among species and subspecies, the rock iguanas reach sexual maturity at three to seven years of age. Females become sexually mature at two to five years of age, males can be highly territorial with the notable exception of the Exuma Island iguana. Mating takes place at the beginning of or just prior to the first rainy season of the year, females lay from 2 to 34 eggs, with an average clutch size of 17 within 40 days. Females of most species guard their nests for several days after laying their eggs and it has been noted that Cyclura eggs are among the largest lizard eggs produced in the world. Every species and subspecies of rock iguana is endangered, in 1990, the American Zoo and Aquarium Association designated the genus Cyclura as their highest priority. Their first project was a breeding program for the Grand Cayman iguana
Rock iguana
–
Rock iguana
Rock iguana
–
Acklin's Island iguana basking on a rock
Rock iguana
–
Grand Cayman blue iguana, Cyclura lewisi
29.
Curly-tailed lizards
–
The curly-tailed lizards are a family, Leiocephalidae, of lizards which are widely distributed throughout much of the Caribbean, but are relatively unstudied. They were previously regarded as members of subfamily Leiocephalinae within the family Tropiduridae, there are presently 29 known species. Leiocephalus is the genus in the family Leiocephalidae. The following species and subspecies, listed alphabetically by name, are recognized as being valid. A Description of a new Genus and some new species of Saurian Reptiles, a Check-list of West Indian Amphibians and Reptiles. Carnegie Museum of Natural History Special Publication No.1, pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Carnegie Museum of Natural History
Curly-tailed lizards
–
Curly-tailed lizards
30.
Dwarf boa
–
The Tropidophiidae, common name dwarf boas, are a family of nonvenomous snakes found from Mexico and the West Indies south to southeastern Brazil. These are small to medium-sized fossorial snakes, some with beautiful, currently, four living genera, containing 22 species, and one extinct genus, with one species, are recognized. This family is confined to the neotropics, mainly in Hispaniola, Jamaica, and the Cayman Islands, with the greatest diversity being in Cuba and these snakes are very small, averaging to about 30–60 cm in total length. Most species spend their day burrowed underground or under vegetation, surfacing only at night or when it rains, some species are arboreal and are often seen hiding in bromeliads in trees. The dwarf boas can change color from light to dark and this color change is brought about by the movement of dark pigment granules. When threatened, tropidophiids coil up into a tight ball, a more peculiar defensive behavior is their ability to bleed voluntarily from the eyes, mouth, and nostrils. List of tropidophiid species and subspecies Tropidophiidae by common name Tropidophiidae by taxonomic synonyms List of snakes, Tropidophiidae at the Reptarium. cz Reptile Database. Tropidophiidae at Life is Short but Snakes are Long
Dwarf boa
–
Tropidophiidae
31.
Extinct
–
In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms, normally a species. The moment of extinction is considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed. Because a species range may be very large, determining this moment is difficult. This difficulty leads to such as Lazarus taxa, where a species presumed extinct abruptly reappears after a period of apparent absence. More than 99 percent of all species, amounting to five billion species. Estimates on the number of Earths current species range from 10 million to 14 million, of which about 1.2 million have been documented and over 86 percent have not yet been described. More recently, in May 2016, scientists reported that 1 trillion species are estimated to be on Earth currently with only one-thousandth of one percent described, the relationship between animals and their ecological niches has been firmly established. Mass extinctions are relatively rare events, however, isolated extinctions are quite common, only recently have extinctions been recorded and scientists have become alarmed at the current high rate of extinctions. Most species that become extinct are never scientifically documented, some scientists estimate that up to half of presently existing plant and animal species may become extinct by 2100. A dagger symbol next to a name is often used to indicate its extinction. A species is extinct when the last existing member dies, Extinction therefore becomes a certainty when there are no surviving individuals that can reproduce and create a new generation. Pinpointing the extinction of a species requires a definition of that species. If it is to be declared extinct, the species in question must be distinguishable from any ancestor or daughter species. Extinction of a plays a key role in the punctuated equilibrium hypothesis of Stephen Jay Gould. In ecology, extinction is often used informally to refer to local extinction, in which a species ceases to exist in the area of study. This phenomenon is known as extirpation. Local extinctions may be followed by a replacement of the species taken from other locations, species which are not extinct are termed extant. Those that are extant but threatened by extinction are referred to as threatened or endangered species, currently an important aspect of extinction is human attempts to preserve critically endangered species
Extinct
–
by
IUCN Red List category
Extinct
–
Skeleton of
Palaeoloxodon namadicus, an extinct elephant species
Extinct
–
The
dodo of
Mauritius, shown here in a 1626 illustration by
Roelant Savery, is an often-cited example of
modern extinction
Extinct
–
External mold of the extinct
Lepidodendron from the
Upper Carboniferous of
Ohio
32.
Hispaniola
–
Hispaniola is the 22nd-largest island in the world, located in the Caribbean island group, the Greater Antilles. It is the second largest island in the Caribbean after Cuba, two sovereign nations share the 76, 192-square-kilometre island. The only other shared island in the Caribbean is Saint Martin, Hispaniola is the site of the first permanent European settlement in the Americas, founded by Christopher Columbus on his voyages in 1492 and 1493. The island was called by various names by its native people, fernández de Oviedo and de las Casas both recorded that the island was called Haiti by the Taíno. DAnghiera added another name, Quizqueia, but later shows that the word does not seem to derive from the original Arawak Taíno language. When Columbus took possession of the island in 1492, he named it Insula Hispana, meaning the Spanish Island in Latin and La Isla Española, meaning the Spanish Island, in Spanish. De las Casas shortened the name to Española, and when d‘Anghiera detailed his account of the island in Latin, he rendered its name as Hispaniola. Due to Taíno, Spanish and French influences on the island, historically the whole island was referred to as Haiti, Hayti, Santo Domingo, St. Domingue. The name Haïti was adopted by Haitian revolutionary Jean-Jacques Dessalines in 1804, as the name of independent Saint-Domingue. It was also adopted as the name of independent Santo Domingo, as the Republic of Spanish Haiti. Christopher Columbus inadvertently landed on the island during his first voyage across the Atlantic in 1492, where his flagship, a contingent of men were left at an outpost christened La Navidad, on the north coast of present-day Haiti. The island was inhabited by the Taíno, one of the indigenous Arawak peoples, the Taino were at first tolerant of Columbus and his crew, and helped him to construct La Navidad on what is now Môle-Saint-Nicolas, Haiti, in December 1492. European colonization of the began in earnest the following year. In 1496 the town of Nueva Isabela was founded, after being destroyed by a hurricane, it was rebuilt on the opposite side of the Ozama River and called Santo Domingo. It is the oldest permanent European settlement in the Americas, several 16th century writers estimated the 1492 population of Hispaniola at over 1 million people. Twentieth-century estimates of the range from 60,000 to 8,000,000. Harsh enslavement by Spanish colonists, redirection of food supplies and labor towards the colonists, had a impact on both mortality and fertility over the first quarter century. Colonial administrators and Dominican and Hyeronimite priests observed that the search for gold, demographic data from two provinces in 1514 shows a low birth rate consistent with a 3. 5% annual population decline
Hispaniola
–
View from Hispaniola
Hispaniola
–
Early map of Hispaniola and
Puerto Rico, c. 1639.
Hispaniola
–
Columbus landing on Hispaniola
Hispaniola
–
French map of Hispaniola by Nicolas de Fer
33.
Guano Islands Act
–
The Guano Islands Act is a United States federal law passed by the U. S. Congress that enables citizens of the United States to take possession of unclaimed islands containing guano deposits. The islands can be located anywhere, so long as they are not occupied and it also empowers the President of the United States to use the military to protect such interests and establishes the criminal jurisdiction of the United States in these territories. The Act continues to be part of the law of the United States, the most recent Guano Islands Act claim was made to Navassa Island, however, the claim was discarded because a court ruled the island was already under American jurisdiction. In the 1840s, guano came to be prized as a source of saltpeter for gunpowder as well as an agricultural fertilizer, the United States began importing it in 1843 through New York. By the early 1850s, the U. K. imported over 200,000 tons a year, and U. S. imports totaled about 760,000 tons. The Act enables U. S. citizens to take possession of unclaimed islands containing guano for the U. S. and this encouraged American entrepreneurs to search and exploit new deposits on tiny islands and reefs in the Caribbean and in the Pacific. This is the beginning of the concept of insular areas in U. S. territories, with insular areas, land could be held by the federal government without the prospect of its ever becoming a state in the Union. The provision was considered and ruled constitutional by the U. S. Supreme Court in Jones v. United States,137 U. S.202. More than 100 islands have been claimed for the United States under the Guano Islands Act, but most claims have been withdrawn. The Act specifically allows the islands to be considered possessions of the U. S. on the other hand, it also does not say that the U. S. cannot retain possession though the guano is exhausted. The Act does not specify what the status of the territory is after it is abandoned by private U. S. interests, the implication is that it reverts to its former status as terra nullius. In most cases, the stems from attempts by a state to expand its exclusive economic zone over the surrounding seas. To cement the U. S. claim to Navassa Island against Haiti, control of Navassa Island was transferred by the Department of the Interior to the Director of the Office of Insular Affairs under Order No.3205 on January 16,1997. Both the Department of the Interior and Insular Affairs would later grant administration responsibilities to the United States Fish, Order No 3210 also established a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea boundary for the United States around Navassa Island. Multiple countries have claimed ownership of Serranilla Bank and the Bajo Nuevo Bank, Bajo Nuevo Bank is the subject of conflicting claims made by a number of sovereign states. In 1899, a claim was made on Fox Island, Quebec, neither the US nor Jamaica recognized his claim before the raft was destroyed in a storm in 1966
Guano Islands Act
–
Thirteen Colonies (1776)
34.
James Buchanan
–
James Buchanan, Jr. was the 15th President of the United States, serving immediately prior to the American Civil War. He is the president from Pennsylvania, the only president to remain a lifelong bachelor. Beginning in the 1820s, he represented Pennsylvania in the United States House of Representatives and later the Senate, Buchanan was nominated by the Democratic Party in the 1856 presidential election, on a ticket with former Kentucky Representative John C. He defeated both the incumbent President Pierce and Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas to win the nomination and his subsequent election victory took place in a three-man race against Republican John C. Shortly after taking office, Buchanan lobbied the Supreme Court to issue a ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford. He allied with the South in attempting to gain the admission of Kansas to the Union as a state under the Lecompton Constitution. In the process, he alienated both Republican abolitionists and Northern Democrats, most of whom supported the principle of sovereignty in determining a new states slaveholding status. He was often called a doughface, a Northerner with Southern sympathies, and he fought with Douglas, in the midst of the growing sectional crisis, the Panic of 1857 struck the nation. Buchanan indicated in his 1857 inaugural address that he would not seek a second term, he kept his word, Breckinridge in the 1860 presidential election. In response, seven Southern states declared their secession from the Union, Buchanans view was that secession was illegal, but that going to war to stop it was also illegal, and so didnt confront the new polity militarily. Buchanan, an attorney, was noted for his mantra, I acknowledge no master, Buchanan supported the United States during the Civil War, and publicly defended himself against charges that he was responsible for the Civil War. Shortly after the Union victory, he published his memoirs, Mr. Buchanans Administration on the Eve of Rebellion and he died in 1868 at age 77. Buchanan aspired to be a president who would rank in history with George Washington, historians who participated in a 2006 survey voted his failure to deal with secession the worst presidential mistake ever made. His parents were both of Ulster Scots descent, the father having emigrated from Milford, County Donegal, Ireland, one of eleven siblings, Buchanan was the oldest child in the family to survive infancy. Shortly after Buchanans birth the family moved to a farm near Mercersburg, Pennsylvania, Buchanans father became the wealthiest person in town, becoming a prosperous merchant and investing in real estate. The family home in Mercersburg was later turned into the James Buchanan Hotel, Buchanan attended the village academy and, starting in 1807, Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Though he was expelled at one point for poor behavior, he pleaded for a second chance. Later that year, he moved to Lancaster, which, at the time, was the capital of Pennsylvania, James Hopkins, the most prominent lawyer in Lancaster, accepted Buchanan as a student, and in 1812 Buchanan was admitted to the bar after an oral exam
James Buchanan
–
James Buchanan
James Buchanan
–
Buchanan statue in National Portrait Gallery
James Buchanan
–
Buchanan's birthplace relocated log cabin in Mercersburg, PA
James Buchanan
–
An anti-Buchanan political cartoon from the 1856 election
35.
United States Supreme Court
–
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest federal court of the United States. In the legal system of the United States, the Supreme Court is the interpreter of federal constitutional law. The Court normally consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight justices who are nominated by the President. Once appointed, justices have life tenure unless they resign, retire, in modern discourse, the justices are often categorized as having conservative, moderate, or liberal philosophies of law and of judicial interpretation. Each justice has one vote, and while many cases are decided unanimously, the Court meets in the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington, D. C. The Supreme Court is sometimes referred to as SCOTUS, in analogy to other acronyms such as POTUS. The ratification of the United States Constitution established the Supreme Court in 1789 and its powers are detailed in Article Three of the Constitution. The Supreme Court is the court specifically established by the Constitution. The Court first convened on February 2,1790, by which five of its six initial positions had been filled. According to historian Fergus Bordewich, in its first session, he Supreme Court convened for the first time at the Royal Exchange Building on Broad Street and they had no cases to consider. After a week of inactivity, they adjourned until September, the sixth member was not confirmed until May 12,1790. Because the full Court had only six members, every decision that it made by a majority was made by two-thirds. However, Congress has always allowed less than the Courts full membership to make decisions, under Chief Justices Jay, Rutledge, and Ellsworth, the Court heard few cases, its first decision was West v. Barnes, a case involving a procedural issue. The Courts power and prestige grew substantially during the Marshall Court, the Marshall Court also ended the practice of each justice issuing his opinion seriatim, a remnant of British tradition, and instead issuing a single majority opinion. Also during Marshalls tenure, although beyond the Courts control, the impeachment, the Taney Court made several important rulings, such as Sheldon v. Nevertheless, it is primarily remembered for its ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which helped precipitate the Civil War. In the Reconstruction era, the Chase, Waite, and Fuller Courts interpreted the new Civil War amendments to the Constitution, during World War II, the Court continued to favor government power, upholding the internment of Japanese citizens and the mandatory pledge of allegiance. Nevertheless, Gobitis was soon repudiated, and the Steel Seizure Case restricted the pro-government trend, the Warren Court dramatically expanded the force of Constitutional civil liberties. It held that segregation in public schools violates equal protection and that traditional legislative district boundaries violated the right to vote
United States Supreme Court
–
Chief Justice Marshall
United States Supreme Court
–
Supreme Court of the United States
United States Supreme Court
–
The Roberts Court, October 2010 Back row (left to right):
Sonia Sotomayor,
Stephen G. Breyer,
Samuel A. Alito, and
Elena Kagan. Front row (left to right):
Clarence Thomas,
Antonin Scalia,
Chief Justice John Roberts,
Anthony Kennedy, and
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
United States Supreme Court
–
Roberts, John
John Roberts (
Chief Justice)
36.
Baltimore, Maryland
–
Baltimore is the largest city in the U. S. state of Maryland, and the 29th-most populous city in the country. It was established by the Constitution of Maryland and is not part of any county, thus, it is the largest independent city in the United States, with a population of 621,849 as of 2015. As of 2010, the population of the Baltimore Metropolitan Area was 2.7 million, founded in 1729, Baltimore is the second largest seaport in the Mid-Atlantic. Baltimores Inner Harbor was once the leading port of entry for immigrants to the United States. With hundreds of identified districts, Baltimore has been dubbed a city of neighborhoods, in the War of 1812, Francis Scott Key wrote The Star-Spangled Banner, later the American national anthem, in Baltimore. More than 65,000 properties, or roughly one in three buildings in the city, are listed on the National Register, more than any city in the nation. The city has 289 properties listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the historical records of the government of Baltimore are located at the Baltimore City Archives. The city is named after Cecil Calvert, second Lord Baltimore, of the Irish House of Lords, Baltimore Manor was the name of the estate in County Longford on which the Calvert family lived in Ireland. Baltimore is an anglicization of the Irish name Baile an Tí Mhóir, in 1608, Captain John Smith traveled 210 miles from Jamestown to the uppermost Chesapeake Bay, leading the first European expedition to the Patapsco River. The name Patapsco is derived from pota-psk-ut, which translates to backwater or tide covered with froth in Algonquian dialect, a quarter century after John Smiths voyage, English colonists began to settle in Maryland. The area constituting the modern City of Baltimore and its area was first settled by David Jones in 1661. He claimed the area today as Harbor East on the east bank of the Jones Falls stream. In the early 1600s, the immediate Baltimore vicinity was populated, if at all. The Baltimore area had been inhabited by Native Americans since at least the 10th millennium BC, one Paleo-Indian site and several Archaic period and Woodland period archaeological sites have been identified in Baltimore, including four from the Late Woodland period. During the Late Woodland period, the culture that is called the Potomac Creek complex resided in the area from Baltimore to the Rappahannock River in Virginia. It was located on the Bush River on land that in 1773 became part of Harford County, in 1674, the General Assembly passed An Act for erecting a Court-house and Prison in each County within this Province. The site of the house and jail for Baltimore County was evidently Old Baltimore near the Bush River. In 1683, the General Assembly passed An Act for Advancement of Trade to establish towns, ports, one of the towns established by the act in Baltimore County was on Bush River, on Town Land, near the Court-House
Baltimore, Maryland
–
Sixth Regiment fighting railroad strikers, July 20, 1877
Baltimore, Maryland
–
Downtown Baltimore,
Emerson Bromo-Seltzer Tower,
Pennsylvania Station,
M&T Bank Stadium, (
Baltimore Ravens Stadium),
Inner Harbor and the
National Aquarium in Baltimore,
Baltimore City Hall,
Washington Monument
Baltimore, Maryland
–
The
Battle Monument commemorates the
Battle of Baltimore.
Baltimore, Maryland
–
The
Great Baltimore Fire of 1904, looking west from
Pratt and
Gay streets
37.
American Civil War
–
The American Civil War was an internal conflict fought in the United States from 1861 to 1865. The Union faced secessionists in eleven Southern states grouped together as the Confederate States of America, the Union won the war, which remains the bloodiest in U. S. history. Among the 34 U. S. states in February 1861, War broke out in April 1861 when Confederates attacked the U. S. fortress of Fort Sumter. The Confederacy grew to eleven states, it claimed two more states, the Indian Territory, and the southern portions of the western territories of Arizona. The Confederacy was never recognized by the United States government nor by any foreign country. The states that remained loyal, including border states where slavery was legal, were known as the Union or the North, the war ended with the surrender of all the Confederate armies and the dissolution of the Confederate government in the spring of 1865. The war had its origin in the issue of slavery. The Confederacy collapsed and 4 million slaves were freed, but before his inauguration, seven slave states with cotton-based economies formed the Confederacy. The first six to declare secession had the highest proportions of slaves in their populations, the first seven with state legislatures to resolve for secession included split majorities for unionists Douglas and Bell in Georgia with 51% and Louisiana with 55%. Alabama had voted 46% for those unionists, Mississippi with 40%, Florida with 38%, Texas with 25%, of these, only Texas held a referendum on secession. Eight remaining slave states continued to reject calls for secession, outgoing Democratic President James Buchanan and the incoming Republicans rejected secession as illegal. Lincolns March 4,1861 inaugural address declared that his administration would not initiate a civil war, speaking directly to the Southern States, he reaffirmed, I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the United States where it exists. I believe I have no right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. After Confederate forces seized numerous federal forts within territory claimed by the Confederacy, efforts at compromise failed, the Confederates assumed that European countries were so dependent on King Cotton that they would intervene, but none did, and none recognized the new Confederate States of America. Hostilities began on April 12,1861, when Confederate forces fired upon Fort Sumter, while in the Western Theater the Union made significant permanent gains, in the Eastern Theater, the battle was inconclusive in 1861–62. The autumn 1862 Confederate campaigns into Maryland and Kentucky failed, dissuading British intervention, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which made ending slavery a war goal. To the west, by summer 1862 the Union destroyed the Confederate river navy, then much of their western armies, the 1863 Union siege of Vicksburg split the Confederacy in two at the Mississippi River. In 1863, Robert E. Lees Confederate incursion north ended at the Battle of Gettysburg, Western successes led to Ulysses S. Grants command of all Union armies in 1864
American Civil War
–
New Orleans the largest cotton exporting port for New England and Great Britain textile mills, shipping Mississippi River Valley goods from North, South and Border states.
American Civil War
–
Clockwise from top:
Battle of Gettysburg,
Union Captain John Tidball's artillery,
Confederate prisoners,
ironclad USS Atlanta, ruins of
Richmond, Virginia,
Battle of Franklin
American Civil War
–
Sen. Stephen Douglas, author of the
Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854
American Civil War
–
Sen. John J. Crittenden, of the 1860
Crittenden Compromise
38.
Maryland
–
The states largest city is Baltimore, and its capital is Annapolis. Among its occasional nicknames are Old Line State, the Free State, the state is named after Henrietta Maria of France, the wife of Charles I of England. George Calvert was the first Lord of Baltimore and the first English proprietor of the colonial grant. Maryland was the state to ratify the United States Constitution. Maryland is one of the smallest U. S. states in terms of area, as well as one of the most densely populated, Maryland has an area of 12,406.68 square miles and is comparable in overall area with Belgium. It is the 42nd largest and 9th smallest state and is closest in size to the state of Hawaii, the next largest state, its neighbor West Virginia, is almost twice the size of Maryland. Maryland possesses a variety of topography within its borders, contributing to its nickname America in Miniature. The mid-portion of this border is interrupted by Washington, D. C. which sits on land that was part of Montgomery and Prince Georges counties and including the town of Georgetown. This land was ceded to the United States Federal Government in 1790 to form the District of Columbia, the Chesapeake Bay nearly bisects the state and the counties east of the bay are known collectively as the Eastern Shore. Close to the town of Hancock, in western Maryland, about two-thirds of the way across the state. This geographical curiosity makes Maryland the narrowest state, bordered by the Mason–Dixon line to the north, portions of Maryland are included in various official and unofficial geographic regions. Much of the Baltimore–Washington corridor lies just south of the Piedmont in the Coastal Plain, earthquakes in Maryland are infrequent and small due to the states distance from seismic/earthquake zones. The M5.8 Virginia earthquake in 2011 was felt moderately throughout Maryland, buildings in the state are not well-designed for earthquakes and can suffer damage easily. The lack of any glacial history accounts for the scarcity of Marylands natural lakes, laurel Oxbow Lake is an over one-hundred-year-old 55-acre natural lake two miles north of Maryland City and adjacent to Russett. Chews Lake is a natural lake two miles south-southeast of Upper Marlboro. There are numerous lakes, the largest of them being the Deep Creek Lake. Maryland has shale formations containing natural gas, where fracking is theoretically possible, as is typical of states on the East Coast, Marylands plant life is abundant and healthy. Middle Atlantic coastal forests, typical of the southeastern Atlantic coastal plain, grow around Chesapeake Bay, moving west, a mixture of Northeastern coastal forests and Southeastern mixed forests cover the central part of the state
Maryland
–
Western Maryland: known for its heavily forested mountains. A panoramic view of
Deep Creek Lake and the surrounding
Appalachian Mountains in
Garrett County.
Maryland
–
Flag
Maryland
–
Dramatic example of Maryland's
fall line, a change in rock type and elevation that creates waterfalls in many areas along the Southwest to Northeast geological boundary that crosses the state.
Great Falls, cliffs and rapids.
Maryland
–
Typical freshwater river above the tidal zone. The
Patapsco River includes the famous
Thomas Viaduct and is part of the
Patapsco Valley State Park. Later, the river forms the
Inner Harbor as it empties into the
Chesapeake Bay.
39.
Dynamite
–
Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents and stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht and it rapidly gained wide-scale use as a safer alternative to gun powder and nitroglycerin. Dynamite was invented by Alfred Nobel and was the first safely manageable explosive stronger than black powder, Nobel obtained patents for his invention in England on 7 May 1867, in Sweden on 19 October 1867. After its introduction, dynamite rapidly gained wide-scale use as an alternative to black powder. Nobel tightly controlled the patents, and unlicensed duplicating companies were shut down. However, a few American businessmen got around the patent by using a different formula. Nobel originally sold dynamite as Nobels Blasting Powder but decided to change the name to dynamite, from the Ancient Greek word δύναμις dýnamis, an industrialist, engineer, and inventor, Alfred Nobels father, Immanuel Nobel, built bridges and buildings in Stockholm. His construction work inspired him to new methods of blasting rock. Immanuels work with later on inspired Alfred to make explosives safer. Today dynamite is used in the mining, quarrying, construction. Dynamite is still the product of choice for trenching applications, Dynamite is occasionally used as an initiator or booster for AN and ANFO explosive charges. Nitroglycerin by itself is a strong explosive, but is extremely shock-sensitive, and degrades over time to even more unstable forms. Dynamite combines nitroglycerin with absorbents and stabilizers, rendering it safe to use, the original composition of dynamite consisted of three parts Explosive Oil, one part diatomaceous earth as the absorbent, and a small admixture of sodium carbonate antacid as the stabilizer. Diatomaceous earth is not usually used today as an absorbent medium and it has replaced by cheaper media like sawdust, wood pulp, flour. Other stabilizers like calcium carbonate or zinc oxide can be used in the place of sodium carbonate, sodium nitrate is added to the medium as an oxidizer that improves the dynamites brisance. Dynamite is usually sold in the form of cardboard cylinders about 20 cm long and about 3.2 cm in diameter, a stick of dynamite thus produced contains roughly 1 MJ of energy. Other sizes also exist, rated by either portion or by weight, Dynamite is usually rated by weight strength, usually from 20% to 60%. For example, 40% dynamite is composed of 40% nitroglycerin and 60% dope, the maximum shelf life of nitroglycerin-based dynamite is recommended as one year from the date of manufacture under good storage conditions
Dynamite
–
Preparation of dynamite during the construction of the
Douglas Dam, 1942.
Dynamite
–
Sawdust (or any other type of absorbent material) soaked in
nitroglycerin.
Dynamite
–
"Nobel's ExtraDynamite" manufactured by Nobel's old company, Nitroglycerin Aktiebolaget.
Dynamite
–
Advertisement for the Aetna Explosives Company of New York.
40.
Barque
–
A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts having the fore- and mainmasts rigged square and only the mizzen rigged fore-and-aft. The word barque entered English via French, which in came from the Latin barca by way of Occitan. The Latin barca may stem from Celtic barc or Greek baris, the Oxford English Dictionary considers the latter improbable. The word barc appears to have come from Celtic languages, the form adopted by English, perhaps from Irish, was bark, while that adopted by Latin as barca very early, which gave rise to the French barge and barque. In Latin, Spanish and Italian the term refers to a small boat. French influence in England led to the use in English of both words, although their meanings now are not the same, well before the 19th century a barge had become interpreted as a small vessel of coastal or inland waters. Somewhat later, a became a sailing vessel of a distinctive rig as detailed below. In Britain, by the century, the spelling had taken on the French form of barque. Francis Bacon used this form of the word as early as 1592, throughout the period of sail, the word was used also as a shortening of the barca-longa of the Mediterranean Sea. The usual convention is that spelling barque refers to a ship and bark to tree hide, barcarole in music shares the same etymology, being originally a folk song sung by Venetian gondolier and derived from barca - boat in Italian. In the 18th century, the British Royal Navy used the bark for a nondescript vessel that did not fit any of its usual categories. She happened to be a sailing vessel with a plain bluff bow. Our Northern Mariners, who are trained in the coal-trade, apply this distinction to a broad-sterned ship, hon. the Earl of Sussex, Lord Deputy of Ireland. By the end of the 18th century, the term came to refer to any vessel with a particular type of sail-plan. This comprises three masts, fore-and-aft sails on the aftermost mast and square sails on all other masts, barques were the workhorse of the Golden Age of Sail in the mid-19th century as they attained passages that nearly matched full rigged ships but could operate with smaller crews. Conversely, the ship rig tended to be retained for training vessels where the larger the crew, another advantage is that a barque can outperform a schooner or barkentine, and is both easier to handle and better at going to windward than a full-rigged ship. Usually the main mast was the tallest, that of Moshulu extends to 58 m off the deck, the four-masted barque can be handled with a surprisingly small crew—at minimum, ten—and while the usual crew was around thirty, almost half of them could be apprentices. Today many sailing ships are barques
Barque
–
Three-masted barque (
US Revenue Cutter Salmon P. Chase, 1878–1907)
Barque
–
Four-masted barque Nippon Maru II
Barque
–
Barque used by
Hatshepsut during expedition to
Punt during her reign as pharaoh in the
eighteenth dynasty of Ancient Egypt
Barque
–
Five-masted barque
Potosi (ca. 1895-1920)
41.
United States Reports
–
The United States Reports are the official record of the rulings, orders, case tables, and other proceedings of the Supreme Court of the United States. Opinions of the court in each case, prepended with a prepared by the Reporter of Decisions. For lawyers, citations to United States Reports are the reference for Supreme Court decisions. Following Bluebook, a commonly accepted citation protocol, the case Brown, et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, for example, would be cited as, Brown v. Bd. of Educ. The early volumes of the United States Reports were originally published privately by the individual Supreme Court Reporters, as was the practice in England, the reports were designated by the names of the reporters who compiled them, Dallass Reports, Cranchs Reports, etc. The decisions appearing in the entire first volume and most of the volume of United States Reports are not decisions of the United States Supreme Court. Instead, they are decisions from various Pennsylvania courts, dating from the colonial period, alexander Dallas, a lawyer and journalist, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had been in the business of reporting these cases for newspapers and periodicals. He subsequently began compiling his case reports in a bound volume and this would come to be known as the first volume of Dallas Reports. Dallas continued to collect and publish Pennsylvania decisions in a volume of his Reports. When the Supreme Court began hearing cases, he added those cases to his reports, starting towards the end of the volume,2 Dallas Reports. Dallas went on to publish a total of four volumes of decisions during his tenure as Reporter, when the Supreme Court moved to Washington, D. C. in 1800, Dallas remained in Philadelphia, and William Cranch took over as unofficial reporter of decisions. In 1817, Congress made the Reporter of Decisions an official, salaried position, in 1874, the U. S. government began to fund the reports publication, creating the United States Reports. The earlier, private reports were retroactively numbered volumes 1–90 of the United States Reports, therefore, decisions appearing in these early reports have dual citation forms, one for the volume number of the United States Reports, and one for the set of nominate reports. For example, the citation to McCulloch v. Maryland is 17 U. S.316
United States Reports
–
Volumes of the United States Reports on the shelf at a
law library
42.
U.S. Supreme Court
–
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest federal court of the United States. In the legal system of the United States, the Supreme Court is the interpreter of federal constitutional law. The Court normally consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight justices who are nominated by the President. Once appointed, justices have life tenure unless they resign, retire, in modern discourse, the justices are often categorized as having conservative, moderate, or liberal philosophies of law and of judicial interpretation. Each justice has one vote, and while many cases are decided unanimously, the Court meets in the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington, D. C. The Supreme Court is sometimes referred to as SCOTUS, in analogy to other acronyms such as POTUS. The ratification of the United States Constitution established the Supreme Court in 1789 and its powers are detailed in Article Three of the Constitution. The Supreme Court is the court specifically established by the Constitution. The Court first convened on February 2,1790, by which five of its six initial positions had been filled. According to historian Fergus Bordewich, in its first session, he Supreme Court convened for the first time at the Royal Exchange Building on Broad Street and they had no cases to consider. After a week of inactivity, they adjourned until September, the sixth member was not confirmed until May 12,1790. Because the full Court had only six members, every decision that it made by a majority was made by two-thirds. However, Congress has always allowed less than the Courts full membership to make decisions, under Chief Justices Jay, Rutledge, and Ellsworth, the Court heard few cases, its first decision was West v. Barnes, a case involving a procedural issue. The Courts power and prestige grew substantially during the Marshall Court, the Marshall Court also ended the practice of each justice issuing his opinion seriatim, a remnant of British tradition, and instead issuing a single majority opinion. Also during Marshalls tenure, although beyond the Courts control, the impeachment, the Taney Court made several important rulings, such as Sheldon v. Nevertheless, it is primarily remembered for its ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which helped precipitate the Civil War. In the Reconstruction era, the Chase, Waite, and Fuller Courts interpreted the new Civil War amendments to the Constitution, during World War II, the Court continued to favor government power, upholding the internment of Japanese citizens and the mandatory pledge of allegiance. Nevertheless, Gobitis was soon repudiated, and the Steel Seizure Case restricted the pro-government trend, the Warren Court dramatically expanded the force of Constitutional civil liberties. It held that segregation in public schools violates equal protection and that traditional legislative district boundaries violated the right to vote
U.S. Supreme Court
–
Chief Justice Marshall
U.S. Supreme Court
–
Supreme Court of the United States
U.S. Supreme Court
–
The Roberts Court, October 2010 Back row (left to right):
Sonia Sotomayor,
Stephen G. Breyer,
Samuel A. Alito, and
Elena Kagan. Front row (left to right):
Clarence Thomas,
Antonin Scalia,
Chief Justice John Roberts,
Anthony Kennedy, and
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
U.S. Supreme Court
–
Roberts, John
John Roberts (
Chief Justice)
43.
Benjamin Harrison
–
Before ascending to the presidency, Harrison established himself as a prominent local attorney, Presbyterian church leader, and politician in Indianapolis, Indiana. Harrison unsuccessfully ran for governor of Indiana in 1876, the Indiana General Assembly elected Harrison to a six-year term in the U. S. Senate, where he served from March 4,1881, to March 4,1887. A Republican, Harrison was elected to the presidency in 1888, defeating the Democratic incumbent, hallmarks of Harrisons administration included unprecedented economic legislation, including the McKinley Tariff, which imposed historic protective trade rates, and the Sherman Antitrust Act. Harrison also facilitated the creation of the national forest reserves through an amendment to the Land Revision Act of 1891, during his administration six western states were admitted to the Union. Due in large part to surplus revenues from the tariffs, federal spending reached one billion dollars for the first time during his term, the spending issue in part led to the defeat of the Republicans in the 1890 mid-term elections. Cleveland defeated Harrison for re-election in 1892, due to the unpopularity of the high tariff. Harrison returned to life and his law practice in Indianapolis. In 1900 Harrison represented the Republic of Venezuela in a case against the United Kingdom. Harrison traveled to Europe as part of the case and after a brief stay returned to Indianapolis and he died at his home in Indianapolis in 1901 of complications from influenza. S. Historians, however, have not questioned Harrisons commitment to personal and official integrity, Harrisons paternal ancestors were the Harrison family of Virginia, whose immigrant ancestor, Benjamin Harrison, arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1630. Benjamin, the president, was born on August 20,1833, in North Bend, Ohio. Benjamin was also a grandson of U. S. Harrison was seven years old when his grandfather was elected U. S. president, although Harrisons family was distinguished, his parents were not wealthy. John Scott Harrison, a two-term U. S. congressman from Ohio, despite the familys modest resources, Harrisons boyhood was enjoyable, much of it spent outdoors fishing or hunting. Benjamin Harrisons early schooling took place in a log cabin near his home, fourteen-year-old Harrison and his older brother, Irwin, enrolled in Farmers College near Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1847. In 1850, Harrison transferred to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and he joined the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, which he used as a network for much of his life. He was also a member of Delta Chi, a law fraternity which permitted dual membership, classmates included John Alexander Anderson, who became a six-term U. S. congressman, and Whitelaw Reid Harrisons vice presidential running mate in 1892. At Miami, Harrison was strongly influenced by history and political economy professor Robert Hamilton Bishop, Harrison also joined a Presbyterian church at college and, like his mother, became a lifelong Presbyterian. Carolines father, a Presbyterian minister, performed the ceremony, the Harrisons had two children, Russell Benjamin Harrison, and Mary Mamie Scott Harrison
Benjamin Harrison
–
Benjamin Harrison
Benjamin Harrison
–
Benjamin Harrison c1850
Benjamin Harrison
–
Brigadier General Harrison (left) with other commanders of the XX Corps, 1865
Benjamin Harrison
–
Benjamin Harrison Home in Indianapolis
44.
Windward Passage
–
The Windward Passage is a strait in the Caribbean Sea, between the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola. The strait specifically lies between the easternmost region of Cuba and the northwest of Haiti,80 km wide, the Windward Passage has a threshold depth of 1,700 m. From either the tip of the Guantánamo Province of Cuba, or the western tip of Haitis Nord-Ouest Department. The Septentrional-Oriente fault zone passes through the Windward Passage from the southern coast of Cuba to the northern coast of Hispaniola, during the Holocene the slip rate between these two islands was 9 ±3 mm /year. The Septentrional Fault extends east at least to the still active Mona Rift in the Mona Passage, where extension occurs between Hispaniola and Puerto Rico
Windward Passage
–
The Windward Passage marked in red
45.
Navassa Island Light
–
It is on the shortest route between the east coast of the United States and the Panama Canal. The light was built in 1917 and deactivated in 1996, the light is gradually deteriorating from lack of maintenance. The keepers house is roofless and in ruins, the importance of the light before the advent of GPS is evident in the fact that it has the twelfth-highest tower and fourth-highest focal plane of all U. S. lights. List of lighthouses in the United States
Navassa Island Light
–
The light in 1999
46.
Foot (unit)
–
The foot is a unit of length in the imperial and US customary systems of measurement. Since 1959, both units have been defined by international agreement as equivalent to 0.3048 meters exactly, in both systems, the foot comprises 12 inches and three feet compose a yard. Historically the foot was a part of local systems of units, including the Greek, Roman, Chinese, French. It varied in length from country to country, from city to city and its length was usually between 250 mm and 335 mm and was generally, but not always, subdivided into 12 inches or 16 digits. The United States is the industrialized nation that uses the international foot and the survey foot in preference to the meter in its commercial, engineering. The foot is legally recognized in the United Kingdom, road signs must use imperial units, the measurement of altitude in international aviation is one of the few areas where the foot is widely used outside the English-speaking world. The length of the international foot corresponds to a foot with shoe size of 13,14,15.5 or 46. Historically the human body has been used to provide the basis for units of length. The foot of a male is typically about 15. 3% of his height, giving a person of 160 cm a foot of 245 mm. These figures are less than the used in most cities over time. Archeologists believe that the Egyptians, Ancient Indians and Mesopotamians preferred the cubit while the Romans, under the Harappan linear measures, Indus cities during the Bronze Age used a foot of 13.2 inches and a cubit of 20.8 inches. The Egyptian equivalent of the measure of four palms or 16 digits—was known as the djeser and has been reconstructed as about 30 cm. The Greek foot had a length of 1⁄600 of a stadion, one stadion being about 181.2 m, the standard Roman foot was normally about 295.7 mm, but in the provinces, the pes Drusianus was used, with a length of about 334 mm. Originally both the Greeks and the Romans subdivided the foot into 16 digits, but in later years, after the fall of the Roman Empire, some Roman traditions were continued but others fell into disuse. In AD790 Charlemagne attempted to reform the units of measure in his domains and his units of length were based on the toise and in particular the toise de lÉcritoire, the distance between the fingertips of the outstretched arms of a man. The toise has 6 pieds each of 326.6 mm, at the same time, monastic buildings used the Carolingian foot of 340 mm. The procedure for verification of the foot as described in the 16th century by Jacob Koebel in his book Geometrei, the measures of Iron Age Britain are uncertain and proposed reconstructions such as the Megalithic Yard are controversial. Later Welsh legend credited Dyfnwal Moelmud with the establishment of their units, the Belgic or North German foot of 335 mm was introduced to England either by the Belgic Celts during their invasions prior to the Romans or by the Anglo-Saxons in the 5th & 6th century
Foot (unit)
–
The unofficial public
imperial measurement standards erected at the
Royal Observatory in
Greenwich in the 19th century
Foot (unit)
–
Determination of the rod, using the length of the left foot of 16 randomly chosen people coming from church service. Woodcut published in the book Geometrei by Jakob Köbel (Frankfurt, c. 1536).
Foot (unit)
–
Page from Austrian Lehrbuch des gesammten Rechnens für die vierte Classe der Hauptschulen in den k.k. Staaten – 1848
47.
United States Lighthouse Service
–
It was responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of all lighthouses and lightvessels in the United States. In 1789, the United States Lighthouse Establishment was created and operated under the Department of the Treasury, all U. S. lighthouse ownership was transferred to the government which became the general lighthouse authority. In 1792, the Cape Henry Lighthouse was the first lighthouse built by the USLHE, in 1822, French physicist, Augustin Fresnel designed the Fresnel lens. In 1841 the Fresnel lens was first used in the United States, in 1852, The Lighthouse Board was created. In 1871, the Duxbury Pier Light became the first caisson lighthouse built in the United States, in 1877, kerosene became the primary fuel for lighthouses. Prior to this varies fuels included sperm oil, Colza oil, rapeseed oil, in 1884, uniforms came into use by all members of the Lighthouse Board. In 1886, the Statue of Liberty was the first lighthouse to use electricity, in 1898, all coastal lighthouses were extinguished, for the first time in U. S. history, as a precaution during the Spanish–American War. In 1904, the Lightship Nantucket became first U. S. vessel to have radio communication, in 1910, the Bureau of Lighthouses was created and operated as the United States Lighthouse Service. In 1910,11,713 aids to navigation of all types were around the country, congress abolished the U. S. Light-House Board and created the Bureau of Lighthouses under the Department of Commerce. The Board had hired a number of civilians and many of these people took over the roles that the military officers had been playing. Though initially called inspectors, the heads of the districts changed their titles to superintendent. President William Taft selected George R. Putnam to head the new bureau, for 25 years, Putnam headed the bureau and during his administration, navigational aids saw a substantial increase. New technology was incorporated into the work, particularly in the area of electric aids. This new technology permitted a reduction of over 800 employees during Putnams 25 years as head of the bureau, during World War I and the period following, several technological advances contributed to the automation of lighthouses, rendering human occupancy unnecessary. A device for automatically replacing burned-out electric lamps in lighthouses was developed and placed in several stations in 1916. A bell alarm warning keepers of fluctuations in the efficiency of oil-vapor lamps was developed in 1917. In the same year, the first experimental radiobeacon was installed in a lighthouse, the only lightvessel of the service sunk by enemy action was the LV-71 on August 6,1918. After the sinking of the SS Merak by the German submarine U-104 near Diamond Shoals, nobody was hurt in the action because the German commander allowed the Americans to evacuate the ship before firing
United States Lighthouse Service
–
U.S. Light House Service Stop Watch (ca. 1931) – specially manufactured by the
Gallet Watch Company for USLHS use.
United States Lighthouse Service
–
Seal of the United States Lighthouse Service
United States Lighthouse Service
–
Diamond Shoal Lightship No. 71
United States Lighthouse Service
–
USLHS Greenbriar in 1938
48.
Harvard University
–
Although never formally affiliated with any denomination, the early College primarily trained Congregationalist and Unitarian clergy. Its curriculum and student body were gradually secularized during the 18th century, james Bryant Conant led the university through the Great Depression and World War II and began to reform the curriculum and liberalize admissions after the war. The undergraduate college became coeducational after its 1977 merger with Radcliffe College, Harvards $34.5 billion financial endowment is the largest of any academic institution. Harvard is a large, highly residential research university, the nominal cost of attendance is high, but the Universitys large endowment allows it to offer generous financial aid packages. Harvards alumni include eight U. S. presidents, several heads of state,62 living billionaires,359 Rhodes Scholars. To date, some 130 Nobel laureates,18 Fields Medalists, Harvard was formed in 1636 by vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In 1638, it obtained British North Americas first known printing press, in 1639 it was named Harvard College after deceased clergyman John Harvard an alumnus of the University of Cambridge who had left the school £779 and his scholars library of some 400 volumes. The charter creating the Harvard Corporation was granted in 1650 and it offered a classic curriculum on the English university model—many leaders in the colony had attended the University of Cambridge—but conformed to the tenets of Puritanism. It was never affiliated with any denomination, but many of its earliest graduates went on to become clergymen in Congregational. The leading Boston divine Increase Mather served as president from 1685 to 1701, in 1708, John Leverett became the first president who was not also a clergyman, which marked a turning of the college toward intellectual independence from Puritanism. When the Hollis Professor of Divinity David Tappan died in 1803 and the president of Harvard Joseph Willard died a year later, in 1804, in 1846, the natural history lectures of Louis Agassiz were acclaimed both in New York and on the campus at Harvard College. Agassizs approach was distinctly idealist and posited Americans participation in the Divine Nature, agassizs perspective on science combined observation with intuition and the assumption that a person can grasp the divine plan in all phenomena. When it came to explaining life-forms, Agassiz resorted to matters of shape based on an archetype for his evidence. Charles W. Eliot, president 1869–1909, eliminated the position of Christianity from the curriculum while opening it to student self-direction. While Eliot was the most crucial figure in the secularization of American higher education, he was motivated not by a desire to secularize education, during the 20th century, Harvards international reputation grew as a burgeoning endowment and prominent professors expanded the universitys scope. Rapid enrollment growth continued as new schools were begun and the undergraduate College expanded. Radcliffe College, established in 1879 as sister school of Harvard College, Harvard became a founding member of the Association of American Universities in 1900. In the early 20th century, the student body was predominately old-stock, high-status Protestants, especially Episcopalians, Congregationalists, by the 1970s it was much more diversified
Harvard University
–
Engraving of
Harvard College by
Paul Revere, 1767
Harvard University
–
Harvard University
Harvard University
–
John Harvard statue,
Harvard Yard
Harvard University
–
Richard Rummell's 1906 watercolor landscape view, facing northeast.
