1.
Nova Scotia
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Nova Scotia is one of Canadas three Maritime provinces, and one of the four provinces which form Atlantic Canada. Nova Scotia is Canadas second-smallest province, with an area of 55,284 square kilometres, including Cape Breton, as of 2016, the population was 923,598. Nova Scotia is the second most-densely populated province in Canada with 17.4 inhabitants per square kilometre, Nova Scotia means New Scotland in Latin and is the recognized English language name for the province. In Scottish Gaelic, the province is called Alba Nuadh, which simply means New Scotland. Nova Scotia is Canadas second-smallest province in area after Prince Edward Island, the provinces mainland is the Nova Scotia peninsula surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, including numerous bays and estuaries. Nowhere in Nova Scotia is more than 67 km from the ocean, Nova Scotia has many ancient fossil-bearing rock formations. These formations are rich on the Bay of Fundys shores. Blue Beach near Hantsport, Joggins Fossil Cliffs, on the Bay of Fundys shores, has yielded an abundance of Carboniferous age fossils, wassons Bluff, near the town of Parrsboro, has yielded both Triassic and Jurassic age fossils. Nova Scotia lies in the mid-temperate zone, since the province is almost surrounded by the sea, the climate is closer to maritime than to continental climate. The winter and summer temperature extremes of the climate are moderated by the ocean. However, winters are cold enough to be classified as continental – still being nearer the freezing point than inland areas to the west. The Nova Scotia climate is in ways similar to the central Baltic Sea coast in Northern Europe. This is in spite of Nova Scotia being some fifteen parallels south, areas not on the Atlantic coast experience warmer summers more typical of inland areas, and winter lows a little colder. The province includes regions of the Mikmaq nation of Mikmaki, the Mikmaq people inhabited Nova Scotia at the time the first European colonists arrived. In 1605, French colonists established the first permanent European settlement in the future Canada at Port Royal, the British conquest of Acadia took place in 1710. The Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 formally recognized this and returned Cape Breton Island to the French, present-day New Brunswick then still formed a part of the French colony of Acadia. The British changed the name of the capital from Port Royal to Annapolis Royal, in 1749, the capital of Nova Scotia moved from Annapolis Royal to the newly established Halifax. In 1755 the vast majority of the French population were removed in the Expulsion of the Acadians
2.
Provinces and territories of Canada
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Canadas geography is divided into administrative divisions known as provinces and territories that are responsible for delivery of sub-national governance. Over its history, Canadas international borders have changed several times, the ten provinces are Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Saskatchewan. Several of the provinces were former British colonies, Quebec was originally a French colony, the three territories are Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon, which govern the rest of the area of the former British North America. Together, the provinces and territories make up the worlds second-largest country by area, the powers flowing from the Constitution Act are divided between the federal government and the provincial governments to exercise exclusively. In modern Canadian constitutional theory, the provinces are considered to be co-sovereign divisions, the territories are not sovereign, but simply part of the federal realm, and have a commissioner who represents the federal government. Notes, There are three territories in Canada, unlike the provinces, the territories of Canada have no inherent sovereignty and have only those powers delegated to them by the federal government. They include all of mainland Canada north of latitude 60° north and west of Hudson Bay, the following table lists the territories in order of precedence. Prior to Confederation, Ontario and Quebec were united as the Province of Canada, over the following years, Manitoba, British Columbia, and Prince Edward Island were added as provinces. The Hudsons Bay Company controlled large swathes of western Canada referred to as Ruperts Land and the North-Western Territory until 1870, subsequently, the area was re-organized into the province of Manitoba and the Northwest Territories. The remaining Arctic islands were transferred by Britain to Canada in 1880,1898 saw the Yukon Territory, later renamed simply as Yukon, carved from the parts of the Northwest Territories surrounding the Klondike gold fields. On September 1,1905, a portion of the Northwest Territories south of the 60th parallel north became the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. In 1912, the boundaries of Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba were expanded northward, Manitobas to the 60° parallel, Ontarios to Hudson Bay, in 1907, Newfoundland acquired dominion status. In the middle of the Great Depression in Canada with Newfoundland facing a period of economic crisis. In 2001, it was officially renamed Newfoundland and Labrador, in 1903, the Alaska Panhandle Dispute fixed British Columbias northwestern boundary. This was one of two provinces in Canadian history to have its size reduced. In 1999, Nunavut was created from the portion of the Northwest Territories. Yukon lies in the portion of The North, while Nunavut is in the east. All three territories combined are the most sparsely populated region in Canada, covering 3,921,739 km2 in land area and they are often referred to as a single region, The North, for organisational and economic purposes
3.
Causeway
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In modern usage, a causeway is a road or railway on top an embankment usually across a broad body of water or wetland. When first used, the word appeared in a such as causey way making clear its derivation from the earlier form causey. This word seems to have come from the source by two different routes. It derives ultimately, from the Latin for heel, calx, anciently, the construction was trodden down, one layer at a time, often by slaves or flocks of sheep. Today, this work is done by machines, the same technique would have been used for road embankments, raised river banks, sea banks and fortification earthworks. The second derivation route is simply the hard, trodden surface of a path, the name by this route came to be applied to a firmly-surfaced road. It is now little-used except in dialect and in the names of roads which were notable for their solidly-made surface. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica states causey, a mound or dam, which is derived, through the Norman-French caucie, from the late Latin via calciata, a road stamped firm with the feet. The word is comparable in both meanings with the French chaussée, from a form of which it reached English by way of Norman French. The French adjective, chaussée, carries the meaning of having given a hardened surface. As a noun chaussée is used on the one hand for a metalled carriageway, other languages have a noun with similar dual meaning. The Welsh is relevant here, as it also has a verb, sarnu, a transport corridor that is carried instead on a series of arches, perhaps approaching a bridge, is a viaduct. In the U. S. a short stretch of viaduct is called an overpass, some low causeways across shore waters become inaccessible when covered at high tide. The modern embankment may be constructed within a cofferdam, two parallel steel sheet pile or concrete retaining walls, anchored to each other with steel cables or rods. This construction may also serve as a dyke that keeps two bodies of water apart, such as bodies with a different water level on each side, or with water on one side. This may also be the purpose of a structure, the road providing a hardened crest for the dike. It also provides access for maintenance as well perhaps, as a public service, notable causeways include those that connect Singapore and Malaysia, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and Venice to the mainland, all of which carry roadways and railways. In the Netherlands there are a number of prominent dykes which also double as causeways, including the Afsluitdijk, Brouwersdam, in Louisiana, two very long bridges, called the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, stretch across Lake Pontchartrain for almost 38 km, making them the worlds longest bridges
4.
Mi'kmaq
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The Mikmaq or Migmaq are a First Nations people indigenous to Canadas Maritime Provinces and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec. They call their national territory Mikmaki, others today live in Newfoundland and the northeastern region of Maine. The nation has a population of about 40,000, of whom nearly 11,000 speak Mikmaq, once written in Mikmaq hieroglyphic writing, it is now written using most letters of the Latin alphabet. After implementation of the Indian Act, the Grand Council took on a more spiritual function, the Grand Council was made up of chiefs of the seven district councils of Mikmaki. On September 26,2011 the Government of Canada announced the recognition of Canadas newest Mikmaq First Nations Band, the new band, which is landless, has accepted 25,000 applications to become part of the band. The number of applications received by the deadline on November 30,2012 exceeded 100,000, as of January 2013. The deadline was extended to January 31,2014, and then to February 10,2014 and its members are recognized as Status Indians, joining other organized Mikmaq bands recognized in southeast Canada. Until the 1980s, Micmac remained the most common spelling in English, although still used, for example in Ethnologue, this spelling has fallen out of favour in recent years. Most scholarly publications now use the spelling Mikmaq, and it has been adopted by media as the spelling Micmac is now considered to be colonially tainted, the Mikmaq prefer to use one of the three current Mikmaq orthographies when writing the language. Lnu is the term the Mikmaq use for themselves, their autonym, various explanations exist for the origin of the term Mikmaq. The Mikmaw Resource Guide states that Mikmaq means the family, The definite article the suggests that Mikmaq is the undeclined form indicated by the letter m. When declined in the singular it reduces to the forms, nikmaq - my family, kikmaq - your family. Other hypotheses include the following, The name Micmac was first recorded in a memoir by de La Chesnaye in 1676. Professor Ganong in a footnote to the word megamingo, as used by Marc Lescarbot, the Micmacs, then, must have thought of themselves as the Red Earth People, or the People of the Red Earth. Others seeking a meaning for the word Micmac have suggested that it is from nigumaach, my brother, my friend, members of the Mikmaq historically referred to themselves as Lnu, but used the term níkmaq as a greeting. The French initially referred to the Mikmaq as Souriquois and later as Gaspesiens or Mickmakis, the British originally referred to them as Tarrantines. According to ethnologist T. J. Brasser, with a climate unfavorable for agriculture and their weakly developed leadership did not extend beyond hunting parties. The Mikmaq lived in a cycle of seasonal movement between living in dispersed interior winter camps and larger coastal communities during the summer
5.
First Nations
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The First Nations are the predominant Aboriginal peoples of Canada south of the Arctic. Those in the Arctic area are distinct and known as Inuit, the Métis, another distinct ethnicity, developed after European contact and relations primarily between First Nations people and Europeans. There are currently 634 recognized First Nations governments or bands spread across Canada, roughly half of which are in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia. Under the Employment Equity Act, First Nations are a group, along with women, visible minorities. First Nations are not defined as a minority under the Act or by the criteria of Statistics Canada. Within Canada, First Nations has come into general use—replacing the deprecated term Indians—for the indigenous peoples of the Americas, individuals using the term outside Canada include supporters of the Cascadian independence movement, as well as U. S. tribes within the Pacific Northwest. The singular, commonly used on culturally politicized reserves, is the term First Nations person, North American indigenous peoples have cultures spanning thousands of years. Some of their oral traditions accurately describe historical events, such as the Cascadia earthquake of 1700, written records began with the arrival of European explorers and colonists during the Age of Discovery, beginning in the late 15th century. European accounts by trappers, traders, explorers, and missionaries give important evidence of early contact culture, in addition, archeological and anthropological research, as well as linguistics, have helped scholars piece together understanding of ancient cultures and historic peoples. Combined with later development, this relatively non-combative history has allowed First Nations peoples to have an influence on the national culture. Collectively, First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples constitute Aboriginal peoples in Canada, Indigenous peoples of the Americas, First Nations came into common usage in the 1980s to replace the term Indian band in referring to groups of Indians with common government and language. Elder Sol Sanderson says that he coined the term in the early 1980s, others say that the term came into common usage in the 1970s to avoid using the word Indian, which some Canadians considered offensive. No legal definition of the term exists, some Aboriginal peoples in Canada have also adopted the term First Nation to replace the word band in the formal name of their community. While the word Indian is still a term, its use is erratic. Some First Nations people consider the term offensive, while others prefer it to Aboriginal person/persons/people, the term is a misnomer given to indigenous peoples of North America by European explorers who erroneously thought they had landed on the Indian subcontinent. The use of the term Native Americans, which the United States government and it refers more specifically to the Aboriginal peoples residing within the boundaries of the United States. The parallel term Native Canadian is not commonly used, but Natives and autochthones are, under the Royal Proclamation of 1763, also known as the Indian Magna Carta, the Crown referred to indigenous peoples in British territory as tribes or nations. The term First Nations is capitalized, unlike alternative terms, bands and nations may have slightly different meanings
6.
History of the Americas
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The prehistory of the Americas begins with people migrating to these areas from Asia during the height of an Ice Age. The ancestors of todays American Indigenous peoples were the Paleo-Indians, they were hunter-gatherers who migrated into North America, the most popular theory asserts that migrants came to the Americas via Beringia, the land mass now covered by the cold ocean waters in the Bering Strait. Small lithic stage peoples followed megafauna like bison, mammoth, and caribou, groups of people may also have traveled into North America on shelf or sheet ice along the northern Pacific coast. Cultural traits brought by the first immigrants later evolved and spawned such cultures as Iroquois on North America and these cultures later developed into civilizations. In many cases, these cultures expanded at a date than their Old World counterparts. Spain colonized most of the American continent from present-day Southwestern United States, Florida, Portugal settled in what is mostly present-day Brazil while England established colonies in the Eastern coast of the United States, as well as the North Pacific coast and most of Canada. France settled in Quebec and other parts of Eastern Canada and claimed an area in what is today the central United States, the Netherlands settled New Netherlands, some Caribbean islands and parts of Northern South America. The colonial period lasted three centuries, from the early 16th to the early 19th centuries, when Brazil and the larger Hispanic American nations declared independence. The United States obtained independence from England much earlier, in 1776, others remained attached to their European parent state until the end of the 19th century, such as Cuba and Puerto Rico which were linked to Spain until 1898. Smaller territories such as Guyana obtained independence in the mid-20th century, the specifics of Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the exact dates and routes traveled, are subject to ongoing research and discussion. These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets, another route proposed is that, either on foot or using primitive boats, they migrated down the Pacific Northwest coast to South America. Evidence of the latter would since have been covered by a sea rise of a hundred meters following the last ice age. Archaeologists contend that the Paleo-Indian migration out of Beringia, ranges from 40,000 to around 16,500 years ago and this time range is a hot source of debate. Amerindian groups in the Bering Strait region exhibit perhaps the strongest DNA or mitochondrial DNA relations to Siberian peoples, the genetic diversity of Amerindian indigenous groups increase with distance from the assumed entry point into the Americas. Certain genetic diversity patterns from West to East suggest, particularly in South America, that migration proceeded first down the west coast, geneticists have variously estimated that peoples of Asia and the Americas were part of the same population from 42,000 to 21,000 years ago. First, it shows that Upper Paleolithic Siberians came from a population of early modern humans that spread out of Africa to Europe and Central. Second, Paleoindian skeletons with phenotypic traits atypical of modern-day Native Americans can be explained as having a historical connection to Upper Paleolithic Siberia. A route through Beringia is seen as more likely than the Solutrean hypothesis, on October 3,2014, the Oregon cave, where the oldest DNA evidence of human habitation in North America was found, was added to the National Register of Historic Places
7.
12th century
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As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century is the period from 1101 to 1200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Common Era. In the history of European culture, this period is considered part of the High Middle Ages and is called the Age of the Cistercians. In Song dynasty China an invasion by Jurchens caused a schism of north and south. The Khmer Empire of Cambodia flourished during this century, while the Fatimids of Egypt were overtaken by the Ayyubid dynasty, China is under the Northern Song dynasty. Early in the century, Zhang Zeduan paints Along the River During the Qingming Festival and it will later end up in the Palace Museum, Beijing. In southeast Asia, there is conflict between the Khmer Empire and the Champa, Angkor Wat is built under the Hindu king Suryavarman II. By the end of the century the Buddhist Jayavarman VII becomes the ruler, Japan is in its Heian period. The Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga is made and attributed to Toba Sōjō and it ends up at the Kōzan-ji, Kyoto. In Oceania, the Tuʻi Tonga Empire expands to a greater area. Europe undergoes the Renaissance of the 12th century, the blast furnace for the smelting of cast iron is imported from China, appearing around Lapphyttan, Sweden, as early as 1150. Alexander Neckam is the first European to document the mariners compass, Christian humanism becomes a self-conscious philosophical tendency in Europe. Christianity is also introduced to Estonia, Finland, and Karelia, the first medieval universities are founded. Middle English begins to develop, and literacy begins to spread outside the Church throughout Europe, in addition, churchmen are increasingly willing to take on secular roles. By the end of the century, at least a third of Englands bishops also act as judges in secular matters. The Ars antiqua period in the history of the music of Western Europe begins. The earliest recorded miracle play is performed in Dunstable, England Gothic architecture and trouvère music begin in France, during the middle of the century, the Cappella Palatina is built in Palermo, Sicily, and the Madrid Skylitzes manuscript illustrates the Synopsis of Histories by John Skylitzes. Fire and plague insurance first become available in Iceland, and the first documented outbreaks of influenza there happens, the medieval state of Serbia state is formed by Stefan Nemanja and then continued by the Nemanjić dynasty. By the end of the century, both the Capetian Dynasty and the House of Anjou are relying primarily on mercenaries in their militaries, paid soldiers are available year-round, unlike knights who expected certain periods off to maintain their manor lifestyles
8.
Knights Templar
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The order was founded in 1119 and active from about 1129 to 1312. The order, which was among the wealthiest and most powerful, became a favoured charity throughout Christendom and grew rapidly in membership and they were prominent in Christian finance. Templar knights, in their distinctive white mantles with a red cross, were among the most skilled fighting units of the Crusades, the Templars were closely tied to the Crusades, when the Holy Land was lost, support for the order faded. Rumours about the Templars secret initiation ceremony created distrust, and King Philip IV of France – deeply in debt to the order – took advantage of the situation to control over them. In 1307, he had many of the members in France arrested, tortured into giving false confessions. Pope Clement V disbanded the order in 1312 under pressure from King Philip, the abrupt reduction in power of a significant group in European society gave rise to speculation, legend, and legacy through the ages. The re-use of their name for later organizations has kept the name Templar alive to the modern day, after Europeans in the First Crusade recovered Jerusalem in 1099, many Christians made pilgrimages to various sacred sites in the Holy Land. Although the city of Jerusalem was under relatively secure Christian control, in 1119, the French knight Hugues de Payens approached King Baldwin II of Jerusalem and Warmund, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and proposed creating a monastic order for the protection of these pilgrims. The Temple Mount had a mystique because it was above what was believed to be the ruins of the Temple of Solomon. The Crusaders therefore referred to the Al-Aqsa Mosque as Solomons Temple, and from this location the new order took the name of Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon, or Templar knights. The order, with about nine knights including Godfrey de Saint-Omer and André de Montbard, had few financial resources and their emblem was of two knights riding on a single horse, emphasising the orders poverty. The impoverished status of the Templars did not last long, another major benefit came in 1139, when Pope Innocent IIs papal bull Omne Datum Optimum exempted the order from obedience to local laws. This ruling meant that the Templars could pass freely through all borders, were not required to pay any taxes, with its clear mission and ample resources, the order grew rapidly. One of their most famous victories was in 1177 during the Battle of Montgisard, although the primary mission of the order was military, relatively few members were combatants. The others acted in support positions to assist the knights and to manage the financial infrastructure, the Templar Order, though its members were sworn to individual poverty, was given control of wealth beyond direct donations. A nobleman who was interested in participating in the Crusades might place all his assets under Templar management while he was away, based on this mix of donations and business dealing, the Templars established financial networks across the whole of Christendom. The Order of the Knights Templar arguably qualifies as the worlds first multinational corporation, in the mid-12th century, the tide began to turn in the Crusades. The Muslim world had become united under effective leaders such as Saladin, and dissension arose amongst Christian factions in, and concerning
9.
Chester, Nova Scotia
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Chester is a village located in Nova Scotia, Canada. It is part of Nova Scotias Chester Municipal District in the part of Lunenburg County. Chester was officially founded in 1759 during the French and Indian War and it was the Shoreham grant, although French fishermen had already built a few houses on the site. The first permanent European-descended settlers were a group from Massachusetts who came to the area in 1761, the following day the privateers successfully executed the Raid on Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. During the War of 1812, the American Privateer Young Teazer was trapped off the shores of Chester by the HMS Hogue, to avoid capture, a crew member of the Young Teazer destroyed his own ship, killing most of the crew. After World War I, to honour the 54 soldiers from the area that were killed, after the war the Womens Institute of Nova Scotia established the Zoé Vallé Memorial Library. Chester is one of the wealthiest communities in the province as a result of being a holiday and resort destination, with seasonal and year-round estates. The nearby waters of Mahone Bay and its numerous islands are known for yachting and have made the Chester Yacht Club into a cruising destination. A Provincial ferry from the village provides a schedule of daily trips to Big Tancook Island, Chester was the site of a controversial proposal to change status of the village. A committee had been formed in hopes of changing the status of Chester by incorporating as a town, thereby leaving the Chester Municipal District. Many residents of the village under the banner Citizens for Fairness successfully fought the motion on the principle that the majority of citizens, by ballot, should decide such a fundamental change. Some also saw the possibility of higher taxes, costs for a hall, a mayor. They won the right to a plebiscite in the fall of 2002 from the Nova Scotia Legislature, the motion was defeated in a public plebiscite on February 22,2003. The village is situated on the Chester Peninsula, which extends into Mahone Bay, the village has two natural harbours, Front Harbour on the east and Back Harbour on the west. The village is immediately south of Stanford Lake. Chester has a school, Chester District School and a middle school. Forest Heights Community School brings together students from all of the Municipality of the District of Chester, the village is home to the Chester Playhouse one of the best-known community theaters on Nova Scotias South Shore. Chester is well known for its annual summer sailing regatta, Chester Race Week, in the last weekend of July there is the annual Chester Garden Show and the House and Garden Tour along with harbour tours
10.
Expulsion of the Acadians
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The Expulsion occurred during the French and Indian War and was part of the British military campaign against New France. The British first deported Acadians to the Thirteen Colonies, and after 1758 transported additional Acadians to Britain, in all, of the 14,100 Acadians in the region, approximately 11,500 Acadians were deported. After the British Siege of Port Royal in 1710, the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht allowed the Acadians to keep their lands, over the next forty-five years, however, the Acadians refused to sign an unconditional oath of allegiance to Britain. During the same period, they participated in various military operations against the British. As a result, the British sought to eliminate any future threat posed by the Acadians. In the first wave of the expulsion, Acadians were deported to other British colonies, during the second wave, they were deported to Britain and France, from where they migrated to Louisiana. Acadians fled initially to Francophone colonies such as Canada, the northern part of Acadia, Isle Saint-Jean. During the second wave of the expulsion, these Acadians were either imprisoned or deported, throughout the expulsion, Acadians and the Wabanaki Confederacy continued a guerrilla war against the British in response to British aggression which had been continuous since 1744. Thousands of Acadians died in the expulsions, mainly from diseases, on July 11,1764, the British government passed an order-in-council to permit Acadians to legally return to British territories, provided that they take an unqualified oath of allegiance. The American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow memorialized the event in his poem about the plight of the fictional character Evangeline. After the British officially gained control of Acadia in 1713, the Acadians refused to sign an oath of loyalty to become British subjects. Instead, they negotiated a conditional oath that promised neutrality, some Acadians remained neutral and refused the unconditional oath. The difficulty was partly religious, as the British monarch was the head of the Protestant Church of England, other Acadians refused to sign an unconditional oath because they were anti-British. Various historians have observed that some Acadians were labelled neutral when they were not, by the time of the Expulsion of the Acadians, there was already a long history of political and military resistance by Acadians and the Wabanaki Confederacy to the British occupation of Acadia. The Mikmaq and the Acadians were allies through their Catholicism and numerous inter-marriages, while the Acadians were the largest population, the Wabanaki Confederacy, particularly the Mikmaq, held the military strength in Acadia even after the British conquest. They resisted the British occupation and were joined on occasions by Acadians. These efforts were supported and led by French priests in the region. In 1753, French troops from Canada marched south and seized and fortified the Ohio Valley, Britain protested the invasion and claimed Ohio for itself
11.
Seven Years' War
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The Seven Years War was a war fought between 1754 and 1763, the main conflict occurring in the seven-year period from 1756 to 1763. It involved every European great power of the time except the Ottoman Empire and spanned five continents, affecting Europe, the Americas, West Africa, India, and the Philippines. The conflict split Europe into two coalitions, led by the Kingdom of Great Britain on one side and the Kingdom of France on the other. Meanwhile, in India, the Mughal Empire, with the support of the French, faced with this sudden turn of events, Britain aligned herself with Prussia, in a series of political manoeuvres known as the Diplomatic Revolution. Conflict between Great Britain and France broke out in 1754–1756 when the British attacked disputed French positions in North America, meanwhile, rising power Prussia was struggling with Austria for dominance within and outside the Holy Roman Empire in central Europe. In 1756, the major powers switched partners, realizing that war was imminent, Prussia preemptively struck Saxony and quickly overran it. The result caused uproar across Europe, because of Austrias alliance with France to recapture Silesia, which had been lost in a previous war, Prussia formed an alliance with Britain. Reluctantly, by following the diet, most of the states of the empire joined Austrias cause. The Anglo-Prussian alliance was joined by smaller German states, Sweden, seeking to re-gain Pomerania joined the coalition, seeing its chance when virtually all of Europe opposed Prussia. Spain, bound by the Pacte de Famille, intervened on behalf of France, the Russian Empire was originally aligned with Austria, fearing Prussias ambition on the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, but switched sides upon the succession of Tsar Peter III in 1762. Naples, Sicily, and Savoy, although sided with the Franco-Spanish alliance, like Sweden, Russia concluded a separate peace with Prussia. The war ended with the Treaty of Paris between France, Spain and Great Britain and the Treaty of Hubertusburg between Saxony, Austria and Prussia, in 1763. The Native American tribes were excluded from the settlement, a subsequent conflict, Prussia emerged as a new European great power. Although Austria failed to retrieve the territory of Silesia from Prussia its military prowess was noted by the other powers. The involvement of Portugal, Spain and Sweden did not return them to their status as great powers. France was deprived of many of its colonies and had saddled itself with heavy war debts that its inefficient financial system could barely handle. Spain lost Florida but gained French Louisiana and regained control of its colonies, e. g. Cuba and the Philippines, France and Spain avenged their defeat in 1778 when the American Revolutionary War broke out, with hopes of destroying Britains dominance once and for all. The Seven Years War was perhaps the first true world war, having taken place almost 160 years before World War I and it was characterized in Europe by sieges and the arson of towns as well as open battles with heavy losses
12.
Massachusetts
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It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island to the south, New Hampshire and Vermont to the north, and New York to the west. The state is named for the Massachusett tribe, which inhabited the area. The capital of Massachusetts and the most populous city in New England is Boston, over 80% of Massachusetts population lives in the Greater Boston metropolitan area, a region influential upon American history, academia, and industry. Originally dependent on agriculture, fishing and trade, Massachusetts was transformed into a manufacturing center during the Industrial Revolution, during the 20th century, Massachusetts economy shifted from manufacturing to services. Modern Massachusetts is a leader in biotechnology, engineering, higher education, finance. Plymouth was the site of the first colony in New England, founded in 1620 by the Pilgrims, in 1692, the town of Salem and surrounding areas experienced one of Americas most infamous cases of mass hysteria, the Salem witch trials. In 1777, General Henry Knox founded the Springfield Armory, which during the Industrial Revolution catalyzed numerous important technological advances, in 1786, Shays Rebellion, a populist revolt led by disaffected American Revolutionary War veterans, influenced the United States Constitutional Convention. In the 18th century, the Protestant First Great Awakening, which swept the Atlantic World, in the late 18th century, Boston became known as the Cradle of Liberty for the agitation there that led to the American Revolution. The entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts has played a commercial and cultural role in the history of the United States. Before the American Civil War, Massachusetts was a center for the abolitionist, temperance, in the late 19th century, the sports of basketball and volleyball were invented in the western Massachusetts cities of Springfield and Holyoke, respectively. Many prominent American political dynasties have hailed from the state, including the Adams, both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also in Cambridge, have been ranked among the most highly regarded academic institutions in the world. Massachusetts public school students place among the top nations in the world in academic performance, the official name of the state is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. While this designation is part of the official name, it has no practical implications. Massachusetts has the position and powers within the United States as other states. Massachusetts was originally inhabited by tribes of the Algonquian language family such as the Wampanoag, Narragansett, Nipmuc, Pocomtuc, Mahican, and Massachusett. While cultivation of crops like squash and corn supplemented their diets, villages consisted of lodges called wigwams as well as longhouses, and tribes were led by male or female elders known as sachems. Between 1617 and 1619, smallpox killed approximately 90% of the Massachusetts Bay Native Americans, the first English settlers in Massachusetts, the Pilgrims, arrived via the Mayflower at Plymouth in 1620, and developed friendly relations with the native Wampanoag people. This was the second successful permanent English colony in the part of North America that later became the United States, the event known as the First Thanksgiving was celebrated by the Pilgrims after their first harvest in the New World which lasted for three days
