Norfolk is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. At the 2010 census, the population was 242,803. Norfolk is located at the core of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, named for the large natural harbor of the same name located at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, it is one of nine cities and seven counties that constitute the Hampton Roads metro area known as the Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, VA-NC MSA. The city is bordered to the north by the Chesapeake Bay, it shares land borders with the independent cities of Chesapeake to its south and Virginia Beach to its east. Norfolk is one of the oldest cities in Hampton Roads, is considered to be the historic, urban and cultural center of the region; the city has a long history as a strategic transportation point. The largest naval base in the world, Naval Station Norfolk, is located in Norfolk along with one of NATO's two Strategic Command headquarters; the city has the corporate headquarters of Norfolk Southern Railway, one of North America's principal Class I railroads, however the company is in the process of relocating their headquarters to Atlanta, Georgia.

Norfolk is home to Maersk Line, which manages the world's largest fleet of US-flag vessels. As the city is bordered by multiple bodies of water, Norfolk has many miles of riverfront and bayfront property, including beaches on the Chesapeake Bay, it is linked to its neighbors by an extensive network of interstate highways, bridges and three bridge-tunnel complexes, which are the only bridge-tunnels in the United States. In 1619 the Governor of the Virginia Colony, Sir George Yeardley, incorporated four jurisdictions, termed citties, for the developed portion of the colony; these formed the basis for colonial representative government in the newly minted House of Burgesses. What would become Norfolk was put under the Elizabeth Cittie incorporation. In 1634 King Charles I reorganized the colony into a system of shires; the former Elizabeth Cittie became Elizabeth City Shire. After persuading 105 people to settle in the colony, Adam Thoroughgood was granted a large land holding, through the head rights system, along the Lynnhaven River in 1636.

When the South Hampton Roads portion of the shire was separated, Thoroughgood suggested the name of his birthplace for the newly formed New Norfolk County. One year it was divided into two counties, Upper Norfolk and Lower Norfolk, chiefly on Thoroughgood's recommendation; this area of Virginia became known as the place of entrepreneurs, including men of the Virginia Company of London. Norfolk developed in the late-seventeenth century as a "Half Moone" fort was constructed and 50 acres were acquired from local natives of the Powhatan Confederacy in exchange for 10,000 pounds of tobacco; the House of Burgesses established the "Towne of Lower Norfolk County" in 1680. In 1691, a final county subdivision took place when Lower Norfolk County split to form Norfolk County and Princess Anne County. Norfolk was incorporated in 1705. In 1730, a tobacco inspection site was located here. According to the Tobacco Inspection Act, the inspection was "At Norfolk Town, upon the fort land, in the County of Norfolk.

In 1736 George II granted it a royal charter as a borough. By 1775, Norfolk developed into what contemporary observers argued was the most prosperous city in Virginia, it was an important port for exporting goods beyond. In part because of its merchants' numerous trading ties with other parts of the British Empire, Norfolk served as a strong base of Loyalist support during the early part of the American Revolution. After fleeing the colonial capital of Williamsburg, the Royal Governor of Virginia, John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, tried to reestablish control of the colony from Norfolk. Dunmore secured small victories at Norfolk but was soon driven into exile by the Virginia militia, commanded by Colonel Woodford, his departure brought an end to more than 168 years of British colonial rule in Virginia. On New Year's Day, 1776, Lord Dunmore's fleet of three ships shelled the city of Norfolk for more than eight hours; the gunfire, combined with fires started by the British and spread by the Patriots, destroyed more than 800 buildings, constituting nearly two-thirds of the city.

The Patriot forces destroyed the remaining buildings for strategic reasons the following month. Only the walls of Saint Paul's Episcopal Church survived subsequent fires. A cannonball from the bombardment remains within the wall of Saint Paul's. Following recovery from the Revolutionary War's burning and her citizens struggled to rebuild. In 1804, another serious fire along the city's waterfront destroyed some 300 buildings and the city suffered a serious economic setback. During the 1820s, agrarian communities across the American South suffered a prolonged recession, which caused many families to migrate to other areas. Many moved further into Kentucky and Tennessee; such migration followed the exhaustion of soil due to tobacco cultivation in the Tidewater, where it had been the primary commodity crop for generations. Virginia made some attempts to phase out slavery and manumissions increased in th

Eliot Ward Higgins, who wrote under the pseudonym Brown Moses, is a British citizen journalist and former blogger, known for using open-sources and social media for investigations. He has investigated the Syrian Civil War, 2014–15 Russian military intervention in Ukraine, the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 and the Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, he first gained mainstream media attention by identifying weapons in uploaded videos from the Syrian conflict. He is the founder of Bellingcat, a website for the citizen journalist to investigate current events using open-source information such as videos and pictures. Higgins was born in Shrewsbury in January 1979, he attended Adams' Grammar School in Shropshire from 1990–95. He worked in finance and administration. In 2012, when Higgins began blogging about the Syrian civil war, he was unemployed and spent his days taking care of his child at home. Higgins took the pseudonym Brown Moses from the Frank Zappa song "Brown Moses" on the album Thing-Fish.

Higgins' analyses of Syrian weapons, which began as a hobby out of his home in his spare time, are cited by the press and human rights groups and have led to parliamentary discussion. Higgins said that he began his career without specialized knowledge of weapons, human rights research or journalism, other than being self-taught online: "...before the Arab spring I knew no more about weapons that the average Xbox owner. I had no knowledge beyond what I'd learned from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rambo.". His Brown Moses Blog began in March 2012 by covering the Syrian conflict. Higgins operates by monitoring over 450 YouTube channels daily looking for images of weapons and tracking when new types appear in the war and with whom. According to Guardian reporter Matthew Weaver, Higgins has been "hailed as something of a pioneer" for his work. Higgins has no background or training in weapons and is self-taught, saying that "Before the Arab spring I knew no more about weapons than the average Xbox owner.

I had no knowledge beyond what I'd learned from Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rambo." Higgins does not read Arabic. Higgins is credited with being among the first to report on the widespread use of improvised barrel bombs by the Syrian government, a phenomenon which has spread to other troubled nations such as Iraq to combat insurgencies and opposition forces. Other aspects of the Syrian conflict uncovered and documented by Higgins include the use of cluster bombs in 2012, which the Syrian government denied using, he has investigated the Syrian regime's alleged use of chemical weapons, including the Ghouta chemical attack in detail. Higgins has performed contract work for Human Rights Watch and Action on Armed Violence. In 2015, MIT Professor Theodore Postol, Richard Lloyd, a former UN weapons inspector, criticised aspects of Higgins's work. Postol described him as "a one man news agency" adding "he was quoted by the Guardian, the New York Times, as an experienced war correspondent, and that without speaking a word of Arabic, without appropriate training, without studying politics or journalism".

Higgins used geolocation to publish an estimate of where the James Foley execution video was made outside Raqqa, an Islamic State stronghold in north-central Syria. Higgins used visual markers in stills from the video and his interpretation of satellite images of the terrain around Raqqa. In 2018 Higgins was a visiting research associate at the Centre for Science and Security Studies at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London and visiting research fellow at University of California Berkeley's Human Rights Center. In October of that year, Higgins was the subject of BBC Radio Four's programme Profile. On 15 July 2014, Higgins began a new website called Bellingcat for citizen journalists to investigate current events using open-source information such as videos and pictures, its launch was funded by a Kickstarter campaign. Bellingcat's self-taught open-source analysts include eight volunteers. Among its major projects, Bellingcat has investigated the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in Ukraine.

Its work is being considered by the Dutch police investigating the crash, Higgins has been interviewed twice by the investigators. Bellingcat has suggested that the anti-aircraft missile that hit the plane was fired by a Russian unit, the 53rd Buk brigade, based in the city of Kursk. On 31 May 2015, Bellingcat released a report alleging among other things photo manipulation of satellite images released by the Russian Ministry of Defense; the photos concerned the location of Ukrainian Buk missile launchers around the time MH17 was shot down. Bellingcat's use of error level analysis in its report was criticized by Jens Kriese, a professional image analyst. Bellingcat's findings about which field the missile was fired from were vindicated in September 2016 by the Dutch-led MH17 Joint Investigation Team. From 2016 until early 2019, Higgins was a senior fellow in the Digital Forensic Research Lab and Future Europe Initiative. C. In 2015, Higgins partnered with the Atlantic Council to co-author the report Hiding in Plain Sight: Putin's War in Ukraine which examined direct Russian military involvement in Ukraine.

The report was the inspiration for the documentary Selfie Soldiers in which Vice News correspondent Simon Ostrovsky followed digital traces left by a Russian soldier named Bato Dambaev, sent to fight in Easte

Katharina Scheven was a German feminist, a leader of the campaign against state-regulated prostitution. Katharina Bauch was born in 1861, she became Katharina Scheven through marriage to Paul Scheven of Zittau, an economist and publicist in Dresden, editor since 1904 of the journal Volkswohl. She worked as a teacher in Dresden, engaged in the training and education of girls, she was the author of a petition by the "Association of progressive women's associations" that demanded establishment of a girls' high school in Dresden, but was rejected by Mayor Beutler. She founded organizations dedicated to women's rights. Katharina Scheven was one of the young and liberal women who heard Gertrude Guillaume-Schack speak in London and took up the cause of abolishing regulated prostitution in Germany. Others included Anita Augspurg and Minna Cauer. Disapproval of public discussion of vice was an obstacle to Abolitionists. In 1895 the board of the BDF tried to prevent public discussion of a petition on prostitution it had presented to the national parliament because it addresses "very awkward matters".

In 1904 Katharina Scheven said it "is still regarded in many educated circles as unbecoming to know about these things, much less to talk about them. Katharina Scheven followed the examples of Lida Gustava Heymann and Anna Pappritz who had founded branches of the International Abolitionist Federation, in 1902 founded an IAF branch in Dresden. In 1904 these branches united under Scheven's leadership into the German branch of the IAF; the same year the IAF held its first congress in Dresden. Anna Pappritz and Katharina Scheven became the two most influential leaders of the German branch of the IAF. From 1902 to 1914 Pappritz and Scheven edited the DZIAF magazine Der Abolitionist. Scheven wanted prostitutes to be free of regulation, but wanted brothels to be abolished and the state to take measures to combat prostitution such as expanding child care facilities and improving work opportunities for women. Although the struggle against state-regulated brothels did not succeed, the IAF clubs contributed to mobilizing public opinion.

Scheven and Pappritz represented the conservative moral view among abolitionists. Scheven was against contraceptives and in favor of premarital abstinence. After the 1905 the controversy about the New Ethic split the DZIAF; the moderates led by Scheven and Pappritz further consolidated their control. Some of the radicals turned to the cause of suffrage, others to the sex-reform movement. In 1909 Pappritz and Scheven issued a pamphlet giving the DZIAF position on criminal law reform, they wrote that, "prostitution is called forth by demand from the side of men, that it is social distress that forces women to meet this demand with the corresponding supply." The solution, at odds with the leaders of the men's morality movement, was legislation that protected women workers and "organization of women workers, in order to secure for them a living wage, better access for women to education and vocational training." They stated that regulation of prostitution was an unjustified restriction of civil liberty, was unjust in affecting only the woman and not her client.

Criminalization would be unjust in punishing only the woman, letting the man go free. The state should be involved in cases such as coercion, abuse of minors and aggressive soliciting, but otherwise sex was a private matter and state interference would be an outrageous violation of individual freedom. From 1909 Scheven attended lectures at the Dresden University of Technology; as well as being involved in the IAF, Scheven was active in the Bund Deutscher Frauenvereine, from 1919 was a member of BDT's Federal board. When reform of criminal law was raised in 1909, she became chair of the BDF ethics committee, which prepared a broad list of topics on reform of the abortion law. Scheven argued against impunity for an abortion, which she though weakened the moral responsibility of women. Scheven was one of the founders of the Federation of Dresden Women's Organizations in 1918, some of which she led, she agitated for women's suffrage. She was a member of SPD, supported them in the Dresden city council.

Katharina Scheven died on 6 August 1922