1.
Warsaw
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Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It stands on the Vistula River in east-central Poland, roughly 260 kilometres from the Baltic Sea and 300 kilometres from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population is estimated at 1.750 million residents within a metropolitan area of 3.101 million residents. The city limits cover 516.9 square kilometres, while the area covers 6,100.43 square kilometres. Once described as Paris of the East, Warsaw was believed to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world until World War II. On 9 November 1939, the city was awarded Polands highest military decoration for heroism, Warsaw is one of Europe’s most dynamic metropolitan cities. In 2012 the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked Warsaw as the 32nd most liveable city in the world, in 2017 the city came 4th in the “Business-friendly” category and 8th in the “Human capital and life style”. It was also ranked as one of the most liveable cities in Central, Warsaw is considered an Alpha– global city, a major international tourist destination and a significant cultural, political and economic hub. The city is a significant centre of research and development, BPO, ITO, the Warsaw Stock Exchange is the largest and most important in Central and Eastern Europe. Frontex, the European Union agency for external security, has its headquarters in Warsaw. Together with Frankfurt, London and Paris, Warsaw is also one of the cities with the highest number of skyscrapers in the European Union, the city is the seat of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra and the University of Warsaw. The historic city-centre of Warsaw with its picturesque Old Town in 1980 was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, buildings represent examples of nearly every European architectural style and historical period. Warsaw provides many examples of architecture from the gothic, renaissance, baroque, neoclassical and modern periods, furthermore, the city is positioning itself as Europes chic cultural capital with thriving art and club scenes and renowned restaurants. Folk etymology attributes the city name to a fisherman, Wars, according to legend, Sawa was a mermaid living in the Vistula River with whom Wars fell in love. In actuality, Warsz was a 12th/13th-century nobleman who owned a village located at the site of Mariensztat neighbourhood. See also the Vršovci family which had escaped to Poland, the official city name in full is miasto stołeczne Warszawa. A native or resident of Warsaw is known as a Varsovian – in Polish warszawiak, warszawianin, warszawianka, warszawiacy, other names for Warsaw include Varsovia and Varsóvia, Varsovie, Varsavia, Warschau, װאַרשע /Varshe, Варшава /Varšava /Varshava, Varšuva, Varsó. The first fortified settlements on the site of todays Warsaw were located in Bródno, after Jazdów was raided by nearby clans and dukes, a new similar settlement was established on the site of a small fishing village called Warszowa
2.
Physics
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Physics is the natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion and behavior through space and time, along with related concepts such as energy and force. One of the most fundamental disciplines, the main goal of physics is to understand how the universe behaves. Physics is one of the oldest academic disciplines, perhaps the oldest through its inclusion of astronomy, Physics intersects with many interdisciplinary areas of research, such as biophysics and quantum chemistry, and the boundaries of physics are not rigidly defined. New ideas in physics often explain the mechanisms of other sciences while opening new avenues of research in areas such as mathematics. Physics also makes significant contributions through advances in new technologies that arise from theoretical breakthroughs, the United Nations named 2005 the World Year of Physics. Astronomy is the oldest of the natural sciences, the stars and planets were often a target of worship, believed to represent their gods. While the explanations for these phenomena were often unscientific and lacking in evidence, according to Asger Aaboe, the origins of Western astronomy can be found in Mesopotamia, and all Western efforts in the exact sciences are descended from late Babylonian astronomy. The most notable innovations were in the field of optics and vision, which came from the works of many scientists like Ibn Sahl, Al-Kindi, Ibn al-Haytham, Al-Farisi and Avicenna. The most notable work was The Book of Optics, written by Ibn Al-Haitham, in which he was not only the first to disprove the ancient Greek idea about vision, but also came up with a new theory. In the book, he was also the first to study the phenomenon of the pinhole camera, many later European scholars and fellow polymaths, from Robert Grosseteste and Leonardo da Vinci to René Descartes, Johannes Kepler and Isaac Newton, were in his debt. Indeed, the influence of Ibn al-Haythams Optics ranks alongside that of Newtons work of the same title, the translation of The Book of Optics had a huge impact on Europe. From it, later European scholars were able to build the devices as what Ibn al-Haytham did. From this, such important things as eyeglasses, magnifying glasses, telescopes, Physics became a separate science when early modern Europeans used experimental and quantitative methods to discover what are now considered to be the laws of physics. Newton also developed calculus, the study of change, which provided new mathematical methods for solving physical problems. The discovery of new laws in thermodynamics, chemistry, and electromagnetics resulted from greater research efforts during the Industrial Revolution as energy needs increased, however, inaccuracies in classical mechanics for very small objects and very high velocities led to the development of modern physics in the 20th century. Modern physics began in the early 20th century with the work of Max Planck in quantum theory, both of these theories came about due to inaccuracies in classical mechanics in certain situations. Quantum mechanics would come to be pioneered by Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, from this early work, and work in related fields, the Standard Model of particle physics was derived. Areas of mathematics in general are important to this field, such as the study of probabilities, in many ways, physics stems from ancient Greek philosophy
3.
University of Warsaw
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The University of Warsaw, established in 1816, is the largest university in Poland. It employs over 6,000 staff including over 3,100 academic educators and it provides graduate courses for 53,000 students. The University offers some 37 different fields of study,18 faculties and over 100 specializations in Humanities and it was founded as a Royal University on 19 November 1816, when the Partitions of Poland separated Warsaw from the oldest and most influential University of Kraków. Tsar Alexander I granted permission for the establishment of five faculties – law and political science, medicine, philosophy, theology, the university expanded rapidly, but was closed during November Uprising in 1830. It was reopened in 1857 under the name Akademia Medyko-Chirurgiczna based in the nearby Staszic Palace with only medical and pharmaceutical faculties, over 70% of students were of Polish nationality, but after the revolution in 1905, the proportion dropped below 10% as a result of the boycott. The university was resurrected during the First World War and the number of students in 1918 was estimated at 4,500, after Polands independence in 1918 the new government focused on improving the university, and in the early 1930s it became the countrys largest. New faculties were established and the curriculum was extended, the university was named after Chief-of-State and Marshal of Poland Józef Piłsudski after his death in 1935. Following the Second World War and the devastation of Warsaw, the University successfully reopened in 1945, the University of Warsaw is one of the top Polish universities. It was ranked by Perspektywy magazine as best Polish university in 2010,2011 and 2014, international rankings such as ARWU and University Web Ranking rank the university as the best Polish higher level institution. On the list of 100 best European universities compiled by University Web Ranking, QS World University Rankings positioned the University of Warsaw as the best higher level institution among the worlds top 400. In 1795 the partitions of Poland left Warsaw with access only to the Academy of Vilnius, in 1815, the newly established autonomous Congress Poland de facto belonging to the Russian Empire found itself without a university at all, as Vilnius was incorporated into Russia. The first to be established in Congress Poland were the Law School, in 1816 Tsar Alexander I permitted the Polish authorities to create a university, comprising five departments, Law and Administration, Medicine, Philosophy, Theology, and Art and Humanities. The university soon grew to 800 students and 50 professors, after most of the students and professors took part in the November 1830 Uprising the university was closed down. After the Crimean War, Russia entered a period of liberalization. In 1862 departments of Law and Administration, Philology and History, the newly established academy gained importance and was soon renamed the Main School. However, after the January 1863 Uprising the liberal period ended, during its short existence, the Main School educated over 3,000 students, many of whom became part of the backbone of the Polish intelligentsia. The Main School was replaced with a Russian-language Imperial University of Warsaw and its purpose was to provide education for the Russian military garrison of Warsaw, the majority of students were Poles. The tsarist authorities believed that the Russian university would become a way to Russify Polish society
4.
Poland
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Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, situated between the Baltic Sea in the north and two mountain ranges in the south. Bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, the total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres, making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe, Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, and its capital and largest city is Warsaw. Other metropolises include Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk and Szczecin, the establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, Poland regained its independence in 1918 at the end of World War I, reconstituting much of its historical territory as the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, followed thereafter by invasion by the Soviet Union. More than six million Polish citizens died in the war, after the war, Polands borders were shifted westwards under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. With the backing of the Soviet Union, a communist puppet government was formed, and after a referendum in 1946. During the Revolutions of 1989 Polands Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy, informally called the Third Polish Republic. Since the early 1990s, when the transition to a primarily market-based economy began, Poland has achieved a high ranking on the Human Development Index. Poland is a country, which was categorised by the World Bank as having a high-income economy. Furthermore, it is visited by approximately 16 million tourists every year, Poland is the eighth largest economy in the European Union and was the 6th fastest growing economy on the continent between 2010 and 2015. According to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is ranked 19th in the list of the safest countries in the world to live in. The origin of the name Poland derives from a West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta River basin of the historic Greater Poland region in the 8th century, the origin of the name Polanie itself derives from the western Slavic word pole. In some foreign languages such as Hungarian, Lithuanian, Persian and Turkish the exonym for Poland is Lechites, historians have postulated that throughout Late Antiquity, many distinct ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland. The most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, the Slavic groups who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the authority of the Roman Church
5.
Masovian Voivodeship
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Masovian Voivodeship or Mazovia Province, is the largest and most populous of the sixteen Polish provinces, or voivodeships, created in 1999. It occupies 35,579 square kilometres of east-central Poland, and has 5,324,500 inhabitants. Its principal cities are Warsaw in the centre of the Warsaw metropolitan area, Radom in the south, Płock in the west, Siedlce in the east, the capital of the voivodeship is the national capital, Warsaw. The province was created on January 1,1999, out of the former Warsaw, Płock, Ciechanów, Ostrołęka, Siedlce and Radom Voivodeships, the provinces name recalls the traditional name of the region, Mazowsze, with which it is roughly coterminous. Masovian Voivodeship is divided into 42 counties,5 city counties and 37 land counties and these are subdivided into 314 gminas, which include 85 urban gminas. The counties, shown on the map, are described in the table below. The voivodeship contains 85 cities and towns and these are listed below in descending order of population, Protected areas in Masovian Voivodeship include one National Park and nine Landscape Parks. Together with Płock and Rawa Voivodeships, it formed the province of Masovia, Masovian Voivodeship was one of the voivodeships of Congress Poland. It was formed from Warsaw Department, and transformed into Masovia Governorate, there are three main road routes that pass through the voivodship, Cork–Berlin–Poznań–Warszawa–Minsk–Moscow–Omsk, Prague–Wrocław–Warsaw–Białystok–Helsinki and Pskov–Gdańsk–Warsaw–Kraków–Budapest. Currently there are small stretches of autostrada in the area. However, the A2 autostrada, upon its completion, will be the first autostrada to connect the region, the autostrada will pass directly through the voivodship from east to west connecting it with Belarus and Germany. The railroad system is based on Koleje Mazowieckie and PKP Intercity, the main international airport in the region is Warsaw Frederic Chopin Airport. Masovian Voivodeship is the wealthiest province in Poland and it produces 22% of Polish GDP, and GDP per capita is 160% of country average. Second Polish Republics Warsaw Voivodeship Official website Things to do in Warsaw
6.
Ochota massacre
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The principal perpetrators of these war crimes were the Nazi collaborationist S. S. Sturmbrigade R. O. N. A. The so-called Russian National Liberation Army, commanded by Bronislav Kaminski, the worst atrocities were committed in the local hospitals, in the Curie Institute, the Kolonia Staszica housing estate, and the Zieleniak concentration camp. In all, about 10,000 residents of Ochota were killed and had their property stolen, after which the district was systematically burnt down by German forces, as were the bodies of many of the victims. After the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising on 1 August 1944, SS-Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler ordered the destruction of the city, on 4 August 1944 at approximately 10,00, units of SS RONA commanded by Bronislav Kaminski entered Warsaws Ochota district. Hugona Kołłątaja at 93 Grójecka Street, groups of RONA soldiers stormed into peoples homes and expelled the residents, some of whom were shot - especially if they were reluctant to leave their properties. Most of the buildings in Opaczewska Street were set on fire that day after being systematically looted, on 4–5 August 1944, people were also murdered in nearby allotments, and the residents of 104 Grójecka Street were killed with grenades while hiding in the cellar. In the first hours of the massacre, RONA troops also entered the Radium Institute where they killed some of the patients, many of the victims were gang raped, before they were killed - a pattern which was repeated elsewhere. The transitional camp was located in the area of a vegetable market called Zieleniak. Between 10-20,000 inhabitants of the Ochota district and its areas were rounded up by the evening of 5 August. RONA troops took over the administration building of the marketplace. The marketplace was enclosed by a wall which prevented the prisoners from being able to escape. At the gate of the camp, the victims were searched for valuables, jewels and money, once inside the camp, the prisoners were given no sanitary facilities and no medicine or medical aid was available. A small amount of bread was sometimes given out. In addition, RONA soldiers sometimes shot at the people for fun. By 7 August 1944, the camp was overflowing with civilians and those who had been killed were laid in piles along the camp wall or buried in a makeshift manner. On the same day, several hundred people of non-Polish descent were escorted away to a camp in Okęcie. On 9 August, the first batch of prisoners was marched out of the Zieleniak camp, the capture of resistance positions along Wawelska Street on 11 August, was followed by the next wave of people expelled from their homes. As the number of murdered and deceased prisoners increased, their corpses were burned in the gymnasium of the neighbouring Hugo Kołłątaj Secondary School
7.
Housing estate
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A housing estate is a group of homes and other buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country, accordingly, a housing estate is usually built by a single contractor, with only a few styles of house or building design, so they tend to be uniform in appearance. In the British Isles, the term is quite broad, and can include anything from high rise government-subsidised housing, right through to more upmarket, developer-led suburban tract housing. Housing estates are the form of residential design used in new towns. Such estates are designed to minimise through-traffic flows, and to provide recreational space in the form of parks. The use of the term may have arisen from an area of housing being built on what had been an estate as towns and cities expanded in. Reduction of the phrase to mere estate is common in the United Kingdom and Ireland, bahria Town is largest private housing society in Asia. Bahria has been featured by international magazines and news agencies such as GlobalPost, Newsweek, Los Angeles Times and Emirates 24/7, gated communities in Pakistan are targeted towards upper middle class and upper class, and are mostly immune from problems of law enforcement. Housing estates were produced by local corporations or by private developers. The former tended to be a means of producing public housing leading to monotenure estates full of houses often known as council estates. The latter can refer to higher end tract housing for the middle class, in addition, the problems incurred by the early attempts at high density tower-block housing turned people away from this style of living. The resulting demand for land has many towns and cities increase enormously in size for only moderate increases in population. This has been largely at the expense of rural and greenfield land, nevertheless, the demand for housing continues to rise, and in the UK at least has precipitated a significant housing crisis. In the UK, some of the post war new towns were constructed en masse from housing estates rather than as organic growth from a population centre, in the former Czechoslovakia during the Communist era a construction of large housing estates was an important part of then urban planning. The government wanted to provide large quantities of affordable housing and to slash costs by employing uniform designs over the whole country and they also sought to foster a collectivistic nature in the people. Large housing estates of concrete panel buildings now dominate the suburbs of Prague, Bratislava, the largest such suburb in the former Czechoslovakia and central Europe can be found in Petržalka, a part of the Slovak capital of Bratislava. They may vary in scale, and are located in the remote or less accessible parts of the territory. Although some units are destined exclusively for rental, some of the flats within each development are earmarked for sale at prices which are lower than for private developments
8.
Voivodeships of Poland
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A województwo is the highest-level administrative subdivision of Poland, corresponding to a province in many other countries. The term województwo has been in use since the 14th century, the word województwo is also rendered as voivodeship or a variant spelling. The Polish local government reforms adopted in 1998, which went into effect on 1 January 1999 and these replaced the 49 former voivodeships that had existed from 1 July 1975. Todays voivodeships are mostly named after historical and geographical regions, while prior to 1998 generally took their names from the cities on which they were centered. The new units range in area from under 10,000 km2 to over 35,000 km2, voivodeships are further divided into powiats and gminas, see Administrative divisions of Poland. Competences and powers at voivodeship level are shared between the voivode, the sejmik and the marshal. In most cases these institutions are all based in one city, but in Kuyavian-Pomeranian and Lubusz Voivodeship the voivodes offices are in a different city from those of the executive, Voivodeship capitals are listed in the table below. The voivode is appointed by the Prime Minister and is the representative of the central government. The voivodes offices collectively are known as the urząd wojewódzki, the sejmik is elected every four years, at the same time as the local authorities at powiat and gmina level. It passes bylaws, including the development strategies and budget. It also elects the marszałek and other members of the executive, the marshals offices are collectively known as the urząd marszałkowski. According to 2014 Eurostat data, the GDP per capita of Polish voivodeships varies notably, Administrative division of Poland between 1979 and 1998 included 49 voivodeships upheld after the establishment of the Third Polish Republic in 1989 for another decade. This reorganization of administrative division of Poland was mainly a result of government reform acts of 1973–1975. In place of the administrative division, a new two-level administrative division was introduced. The three smallest voivodeships – Warsaw, Kraków and Łódź – had the status of municipal voivodeship. After World War II, the new division of the country within the new national borders was based on the prewar one and included 14 voivodeships. The voivodeships in the east that had not been annexed by the Soviet Union had their borders left almost unchanged. The newly acquired territories in the west and north were organized into the new voivodeships of Szczecin, Wrocław and Olsztyn, two cities were granted voivodeship status, Warsaw and Łódź
Poland
