1.
Loran-C
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Loran-C was a hyperbolic radio navigation system which allowed a receiver to determine its position by listening to low frequency radio signals transmitted by fixed land-based radio beacons. Loran-C combined two different techniques to provide a signal that was both long-range and highly accurate, traits that had formerly been at odds. The downside was the expense of the equipment needed to interpret the signals, Loran-C became one of the most common and widely used navigation systems for large areas of North America, Europe, Japan and the entire Atlantic and Pacific areas. The Soviet Union operated a nearly identical system, CHAYKA, the introduction of civilian satellite navigation in the 1990s led to a very rapid drop-off in Loran-C use. Discussions about the future of Loran-C began in the 1990s, and several dates were announced. In 2010 the US and Canadian systems were shut down, along with shared Loran-C/CHAYKA stations with Russia, several other chains remained active, and some had been upgraded for continued use. At the end of 2015, navigation chains in most of Europe were turned off, the original LORAN was proposed by Alfred Lee Loomis at a meeting of the Microwave Committee. The Microwave Committee, by this time organized into what would become the Radiation Laboratory, took up development as Project 3. During the initial meetings a member of the UK liaison team, Taffy Bowen, mentioned that he was aware the British were also working on a similar concept, but had no information on its performance. The development team, led by Loomis, made progress on the transmitter design. Extensive signal-strength measurements were made by mounting a conventional radio receiver in a station wagon, however, the custom receiver design and its associated cathode ray tube displays proved to be a bigger problem. In spite of efforts to design around the problem, instability in the display prevented accurate timing measurements. They met with the Gee team in 1941, and immediately adopted this solution and they also found that Project 3 and Gee called for almost identical systems, with similar performance, range and accuracy. But Gee had already completed basic development and was entering into initial production, in response, the Project 3 team told the Army Air Force to adopt Gee, and realigned their own efforts to provide long-range navigation on the oceans. Rapid development followed, and a system covering the western Atlantic was operational in 1943, additional stations followed, covering the European side, and then a massive expansion in the Pacific. By the end of the war there were 72 operational LORAN stations, in 1958 the operation of the LORAN system was handed over to the US Coast Guard, which renamed the system Loran-A, the lower-case name being introduced at that time. There are two ways to implement the timing measurements needed for a navigation system, pulse timing systems like Gee and LORAN. The former requires sharp pulses of signal, and their accuracy is limited to how rapidly the pulses can be turned on and off, which is, in turn
2.
Norway
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The Antarctic Peter I Island and the sub-Antarctic Bouvet Island are dependent territories and thus not considered part of the Kingdom. Norway also lays claim to a section of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land, until 1814, the kingdom included the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland. It also included Isle of Man until 1266, Shetland and Orkney until 1468, Norway has a total area of 385,252 square kilometres and a population of 5,258,317. The country shares a long border with Sweden. Norway is bordered by Finland and Russia to the north-east, Norway has an extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea. King Harald V of the Dano-German House of Glücksburg is the current King of Norway, erna Solberg became Prime Minister in 2013, replacing Jens Stoltenberg. A constitutional monarchy, Norway divides state power between the Parliament, the Cabinet and the Supreme Court, as determined by the 1814 Constitution, the kingdom is established as a merger of several petty kingdoms. By the traditional count from the year 872, the kingdom has existed continuously for 1,144 years, Norway has both administrative and political subdivisions on two levels, counties and municipalities. The Sámi people have an amount of self-determination and influence over traditional territories through the Sámi Parliament. Norway maintains close ties with the European Union and the United States, the country maintains a combination of market economy and a Nordic welfare model with universal health care and a comprehensive social security system. Norway has extensive reserves of petroleum, natural gas, minerals, lumber, seafood, the petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of the countrys gross domestic product. On a per-capita basis, Norway is the worlds largest producer of oil, the country has the fourth-highest per capita income in the world on the World Bank and IMF lists. On the CIAs GDP per capita list which includes territories and some regions, from 2001 to 2006, and then again from 2009 to 2017, Norway had the highest Human Development Index ranking in the world. It also has the highest inequality-adjusted ranking, Norway ranks first on the World Happiness Report, the OECD Better Life Index, the Index of Public Integrity and the Democracy Index. Norway has two names, Noreg in Nynorsk and Norge in Bokmål. The name Norway comes from the Old English word Norðrveg mentioned in 880, meaning way or way leading to the north. In contrasting with suðrvegar southern way for Germany, and austrvegr eastern way for the Baltic, the Anglo-Saxon of Britain also referred to the kingdom of Norway in 880 as Norðmanna land. This was the area of Harald Fairhair, the first king of Norway, and because of him
3.
Island
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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. Example, Singapore and its causeway, or the various Dutch delta islands, there are two main 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
4.
Jan Mayen
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Jan Mayen is a Norwegian volcanic island situated in the North Arctic Ocean. It is 55 km long and 373 km2 in area, partly covered by glaciers and it has two parts, larger northeast Nord-Jan and smaller Sør-Jan, linked by a 2.5 km wide isthmus. It lies 600 km northeast of Iceland,500 km east of central Greenland and 1,000 km west of the North Cape, the island is mountainous, the highest summit being the Beerenberg volcano in the north. The isthmus is the location of the two largest lakes of the island, Sørlaguna, and Nordlaguna, a third lake is called Ullerenglaguna. Jan Mayen was formed by the Jan Mayen hotspot, although administered separately, Svalbard and Jan Mayen are collectively assigned the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code SJ. Jan Mayen Island has one exploitable natural resource, gravel, from the site at Trongskaret, other than this, economic activity is limited to providing services for employees of Norways radio communications and meteorological stations located on the island. Jan Mayen has one unpaved airstrip, Jan Mayensfield, which is about 1,585 m long, the 124.1 km coast has no ports or harbours, only offshore anchorages. There are important fishing resources, and the existence of Jan Mayen establishes a large Exclusive Economic Zone around it, a dispute between Norway and Denmark regarding the fishing exclusion zone between Jan Mayen and Greenland was settled in 1988 granting Denmark the greater area of sovereignty. Significant deposits of petroleum and natural gas are suspected by geologists to lie below Jan Mayens surrounding seafloors, Jan Mayen Island is an integral part of the Kingdom of Norway. Since 1995, Jan Mayen has been administered by the County Governor of the northern Norwegian county of Nordland to which it is closest. However, some authority over Jan Mayen has been assigned to the commander of the Norwegian Defence Logistics Organisation. The only inhabitants on the island are personnel working for the Norwegian Armed Forces, eighteen people spend the winter on the island, but the population may double during the summer, when heavy maintenance is performed. Personnel serve either six months or one year, and are exchanged twice a year in April, the main purpose of the military personnel is to operate a Loran-C base. The support crew, including mechanics, cooks, and a nurse, are among the military personnel, both the LORAN transmitter and the meteorological station are located a few kilometres away from the settlement Olonkinbyen, where all personnel live. Transport to the island is provided by C-130 Hercules military transport planes operated by the Royal Norwegian Air Force that land at Jan Mayensfields gravel runway, the planes fly in from Bodø Main Air Station eight times a year. Since the airport does not have any instrument landing capabilities, good visibility is required, for heavy goods, freight ships visit during the summer, but since there are no harbours, the ships must anchor. The island has no population, but is assigned the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code SJ. It uses the Internet country code top-level domain. no and data code JN, Jan Mayen has telephone and internet connection over satellite, using Norwegian telephone numbers
5.
Electric generator
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In electricity generation, a generator is a device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy for use in an external circuit. Sources of mechanical energy include steam turbines, gas turbines, water turbines, internal combustion engines, the first electromagnetic generator, the Faraday disk, was built in 1831 by British scientist Michael Faraday. Generators provide nearly all of the power for electric power grids, the reverse conversion of electrical energy into mechanical energy is done by an electric motor, and motors and generators have many similarities. Many motors can be driven to generate electricity and frequently make acceptable manual generators. Electromagnetic generators fall into one of two categories, dynamos and alternators. The magnetic field of the dynamo or alternator can be provided by either wire windings called field coils or permanent magnets, a generator using permanent magnets is sometimes called a magneto. Armature, The power-producing component of an electrical machine, in a generator, alternator, or dynamo the armature windings generate the electric current, which provides power to an external circuit. The armature can be on either the rotor or the stator, depending on the design, before the connection between magnetism and electricity was discovered, electrostatic generators were invented. They operated on electrostatic principles, by using moving electrically charged belts, plates, the charge was generated using either of two mechanisms, electrostatic induction or the triboelectric effect. Such generators generated very high voltage and low current and their only practical applications were to power early X-ray tubes, and later in some atomic particle accelerators. The operating principle of electromagnetic generators was discovered in the years of 1831–1832 by Michael Faraday, the principle later called Faradays law, is that an electromotive force is generated in an electrical conductor which encircles a varying magnetic flux. He also built the first electromagnetic generator, called the Faraday disk and it produced a small DC voltage. This design was inefficient, due to self-cancelling counterflows of current in regions of the disk that were not under the influence of the magnetic field. While current was induced directly underneath the magnet, the current would circulate backwards in regions that were outside the influence of the magnetic field and this counterflow limited the power output to the pickup wires, and induced waste heating of the copper disc. Later homopolar generators would solve this problem by using an array of magnets arranged around the perimeter to maintain a steady field effect in one current-flow direction. Another disadvantage was that the voltage was very low, due to the single current path through the magnetic flux. Experimenters found that using multiple turns of wire in a coil could produce higher, since the output voltage is proportional to the number of turns, generators could be easily designed to produce any desired voltage by varying the number of turns. Wire windings became a feature of all subsequent generator designs
6.
Amsterdam
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Amsterdam is the capital and most populous municipality of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its status as the capital is mandated by the Constitution of the Netherlands, although it is not the seat of the government, which is The Hague. Amsterdam has a population of 851,373 within the city proper,1,351,587 in the urban area, the city is located in the province of North Holland in the west of the country. The metropolitan area comprises much of the part of the Randstad, one of the larger conurbations in Europe. Amsterdams name derives from Amstelredamme, indicative of the citys origin around a dam in the river Amstel, during that time, the city was the leading centre for finance and diamonds. In the 19th and 20th centuries the city expanded, and many new neighborhoods and suburbs were planned, the 17th-century canals of Amsterdam and the 19–20th century Defence Line of Amsterdam are on the UNESCO World Heritage List. As the commercial capital of the Netherlands and one of the top financial centres in Europe, Amsterdam is considered a world city by the Globalization. The city is also the capital of the Netherlands. Many large Dutch institutions have their headquarters there, and seven of the worlds 500 largest companies, including Philips and ING, are based in the city. In 2012, Amsterdam was ranked the second best city to live in by the Economist Intelligence Unit and 12th globally on quality of living for environment, the city was ranked 3rd in innovation by Australian innovation agency 2thinknow in their Innovation Cities Index 2009. The Amsterdam seaport to this day remains the second in the country, famous Amsterdam residents include the diarist Anne Frank, artists Rembrandt van Rijn and Vincent van Gogh, and philosopher Baruch Spinoza. The Amsterdam Stock Exchange, the oldest stock exchange in the world, is located in the city center. After the floods of 1170 and 1173, locals near the river Amstel built a bridge over the river, the earliest recorded use of that name is in a document dated October 27,1275, which exempted inhabitants of the village from paying bridge tolls to Count Floris V. This allowed the inhabitants of the village of Aemstelredamme to travel freely through the County of Holland, paying no tolls at bridges, locks, the certificate describes the inhabitants as homines manentes apud Amestelledamme. By 1327, the name had developed into Aemsterdam, Amsterdam is much younger than Dutch cities such as Nijmegen, Rotterdam, and Utrecht. In October 2008, historical geographer Chris de Bont suggested that the land around Amsterdam was being reclaimed as early as the late 10th century. This does not necessarily mean there was already a settlement then, since reclamation of land may not have been for farming—it may have been for peat. Amsterdam was granted city rights in either 1300 or 1306, from the 14th century on, Amsterdam flourished, largely from trade with the Hanseatic League
7.
Luxembourg City
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Luxembourg, also known as Luxembourg City, is the capital city of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, and the countrys most populous commune. The city contains Luxembourg Castle, established by the Franks in the Early Middle Ages, as of January 2016, the commune had a population of 115,227, which was more than three times the population of the countrys second most populous commune. The citys metropolitan population, including that of surrounding communes of Hesperange, Sandweiler, Strassen, in 2011, Luxembourg was ranked as having the second highest per capita GDP in the world at $80,119, with the city having developed into a banking and administrative centre. In the 2011 Mercer worldwide survey of 221 cities, Luxembourg was placed first for personal safety while it was ranked 19th for quality of living, in the Roman era, a fortified tower guarded the crossing of two Roman roads that met at the site of Luxembourg city. Siegfried built his castle, named Lucilinburhuc, on the Bock Fiels, in 987, Archbishop Egbert of Trier consecrated five altars in the Church of the Redemption. At a Roman road intersection near the church, a marketplace appeared around which the city developed, the city, because of its location and natural geography, has through history been a place of strategic military significance. The first fortifications were built as early as the 10th century, by the end of the 12th century, as the city expanded westward around the new St. Nicholas Church, new walls were built that included an area of 5 hectares. In about 1340, under the reign of John the Blind, in 1443, the Burgundians under Philip the Good conquered Luxembourg. Subsequently, the Burgundians, the Spanish, the French, the Spanish again, the Austrians, the French again, in the 17th century, the first casemates were built, initially, Spain built 23 km of tunnels, starting in 1644. These were then enlarged under French rule by Marshal Vauban, during the French Revolutionary Wars, the city was occupied by France twice, once, briefly, in 1792–3, and, later, after a seven-month siege. After the Luxembourg Crisis, the 1867 Treaty of London required Luxembourg to dismantle the fortifications in Luxembourg City. Their demolition took sixteen years, cost 1.5 million gold francs, furthermore, the Prussian garrison was to be withdrawn. When, in 1890, Grand Duke William III died without any heirs, the Grand Duchy passed out of Dutch hands. Despite Luxembourgs best efforts to remain neutral in the First World War, on 30 August, Helmuth von Moltke moved his headquarters to Luxembourg City, closer to his armies in France in preparation for a swift victory. However, the victory never came, and Luxembourg would play host to the German high command for another four years. At the end of the occupation, Luxembourg City was the scene of an attempted communist revolution, on 9 November 1918, communists declared a socialist republic, in 1921, the city limits were greatly expanded. The communes of Eich, Hamm, Hollerich, and Rollingergrund were incorporated into Luxembourg City, in 1940, Germany occupied Luxembourg again. Under the occupation, the citys streets all received new, German names
8.
Monaco
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Monaco, officially the Principality of Monaco, is a sovereign city-state and microstate, located on the French Riviera in Western Europe. France borders the country on three sides while the other side borders the Mediterranean Sea, Monaco has an area of 2.02 km2 and a population of about 38,400 according to the last census of 2015. With 19,009 inhabitants per km², it is the second smallest, Monaco has a land border of 5.47 km, a coastline of 3.83 km, and a width that varies between 1,700 and 349 m. The highest point in the country is a pathway named Chemin des Révoires on the slopes of Mont Agel, in the Les Révoires Ward. Monacos most populous Quartier is Monte Carlo and the most populous Ward is Larvotto/Bas Moulins, through land reclamation, Monacos land mass has expanded by twenty percent, in 2005, it had an area of only 1.974 km2. Monaco is known as a playground for the rich and famous, in 2014, it was noted about 30% of the population was made up of millionaires, more than in Zürich or Geneva. Monaco is a principality governed under a form of constitutional monarchy, although Prince Albert II is a constitutional monarch, he wields immense political power. The House of Grimaldi have ruled Monaco, with brief interruptions, the official language is French, but Monégasque, Italian, and English are widely spoken and understood. The states sovereignty was recognized by the Franco-Monegasque Treaty of 1861. Despite Monacos independence and separate foreign policy, its defense is the responsibility of France, however, Monaco does maintain two small military units. Economic development was spurred in the late 19th century with the opening of the countrys first casino, Monte Carlo, since then, Monacos mild climate, scenery, and gambling facilities have contributed to the principalitys status as a tourist destination and recreation center for the rich. In more recent years, Monaco has become a major banking center and has sought to diversify its economy into services and small, high-value-added, the state has no income tax, low business taxes, and is well known for being a tax haven. It is also the host of the street circuit motor race Monaco Grand Prix. Monaco is not formally a part of the European Union, but it participates in certain EU policies, including customs, through its relationship with France, Monaco uses the euro as its sole currency. Monaco joined the Council of Europe in 2004 and it is a member of the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. Monacos name comes from the nearby 6th-century BC Phocaean Greek colony, according to an ancient myth, Hercules passed through the Monaco area and turned away the previous gods. As a result, a temple was constructed there, the temple of Hercules Monoikos, because the only temple of this area was the House of Hercules, the city was called Monoikos. It ended up in the hands of the Holy Roman Empire, an ousted branch of a Genoese family, the Grimaldi, contested it for a hundred years before actually gaining control
9.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
