Płock is a city on the Vistula river in central Poland. It is located in the Masovian Voivodeship, having been the capital of the Płock Voivodeship. According to the data provided by GUS on 31 December 2018 there were 120,000 inhabitants in the city, its full ceremonial name, according to the preamble to the City Statute, is Stołeczne Książęce Miasto Płock. It is used in ceremonial documents as well as for preserving an old tradition. Płock is now a capital of the powiat in the west of the Mazovian Voivodeship. From 1079 to 1138 it was the capital of Poland, its cathedral contains the sarcophagi of a number of Polish monarchs. On, it was a royal city of Poland, it is the cultural, scientific and transportation center of the west and north Masovian region. The first Jewish settlers came to the city in the 14th century, responding to the extension of rights by the Polish kings, they built a community and constituted a large portion of the population through the 19th century, sometimes more than 40%.

Jews contributed to expansion of trades and crafts, helped the process of industrialization. In 1939, they made up 26% of the city's population. After the 1939 invasion of Poland, the German Nazis established a Jewish ghetto in Płock in 1940, they exterminated most of them in the Holocaust. By the war's end, only 300 Jewish residents were known to have survived, of more than 10,000 in the region; the area was long inhabited by pagan peoples. In the 10th century, a fortified location was established high of the Vistula River's bank; this location was strategic for centuries. Its location was a great asset. In 1009 a Benedictine monastery was established here, it became a center of art for the area. During the rule of the first monarchs of the Piast dynasty prior to the Baptism of Poland, Płock served as one of the monarchial seats, including that of Prince Mieszko I and King Bolesław I the Brave; the king built the original fortifications on Tumskie Hill. From 1037 to 1047, Płock was capital of the independent Mazovian state of Miecław.

Płock has been the residence of many Mazovian princes. In 1075, a diocese seat was created here for the Roman Catholic church. From 1079 to 1138, during the reign of the Polish monarchs Władysław I Herman and Bolesław III Wrymouth, the city was the capital of Poland earning its title as the Ducal Capital City of Płock, it was a seat of several of the dukes of Masovia. In 1180 the present-day Marshal Stanisław Małachowski High School, the oldest still existing school in Poland and one of the oldest in Central Europe, was established. In the early modern period it was capital of the Płock Voivodeship; the 16th century was the golden age of the city, before it suffered major losses in population due to plague and warfare, with wars between Sweden and Poland in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. At that time, the Swedes destroyed much of the city. In the late 18th century, it took down the old city walls, made a New Town, filled with many German migrants. In the Second Partition of Poland in 1793 the city was annexed by Prussia.

From 1807 it was part of the short-lived Polish Duchy of Warsaw and in 1815 it became part of Congress Poland on annexed by the Russian Empire. In 1831, the last sejm of Congress Poland was held in the Płock town hall, it was a seat of an active center. It laid out a new city plan in the early 19th century. Many of its finest buildings were constructed in this period in the Classical style, it had a scientific society before mid-century, in the late 19th century began to industrialize. During World War I, Płock was occupied by Germany from 1915 to 1918. In 1920, the city became famous for its heroic defense against the Soviets during the Polish–Soviet War. Germany invaded Poland in 1939, began to take over its government annecting the town to the Reich as part of the Regierungsbezirk Zichenau, it impressed people as forced laborers for German factories. The Germans renamed the city in 1941 to Schröttersburg, after the former Prussian Upper President Friedrich Leopold von Schrötter; the Museum of Mazovia provides exhibits and interpretation of region's history.

Płock is the oldest legislated seat of the Roman Catholic diocese. It is one of the five oldest cathedrals in Poland; the city is famous for the Divine Mercy Sanctuary where the apparition of Jesus to Saint Faustina Kowalska took place. From the visions of Feliksa Kozłowska in 1893, the Mariavite order of priests originated working to renew clergy within the Roman Catholic Church. Despite repeated attempts, they were not recognized by the Vatican and in the early 20th century established a separate and independent denomination; this site is the main seat of the Mariavite bishops. Their most important church was built here in the beginning of the 20th century. Poland in total has about 25,000 members of the Old Catholic Mariavite Church, as it is now named, with another 5,000 in France. A smaller breakaway church, the Catholic Mariavite Church, which has an integrated fema

The Ground-Based Interceptor is the anti-ballistic missile component of the United States' Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system. This interceptor is made up of a boost vehicle, constructed by Orbital Sciences Corporation, an Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle, built by Raytheon. Integration of these is performed by Boeing Space & Security; the three-stage Orbital Boost Vehicle uses the solid-fuel rocket upper stages of the Taurus launcher. The interceptor version deployed in the U. S. has three stages. A two-stage version was tested in 2010 for use in Europe's NATO missile defence as a backup option to the preferred Aegis System Standard Missile 3. A total of 64 interceptors are planned: 30 interceptors were deployed at the end of 2010 at Fort Greely and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. With fourteen additional missiles deployed by 2017, 20 more GBIs planned. Since 2006, the Missile Defense Agency conducted seven intercept tests with the operationally configured missile, four of which were successful.

Missile Defense Agency Booster Rocket Program Ground-based Interceptor | Missilethreat.csis.org

Early Bourgeois Revolution in Germany known as the Peasants' War Panorama, is a monumental painting by the East German painter Werner Tübke, executed from 1976 to 1987. It spans 14 metres by 123 metres and depicts a circular panorama of the Battle of Frankenhausen, fought on 15 May 1525 during the German Peasants' War; the painting has more than 3000 characters. The painting is the main attraction of the Panorama Museum, built to host it, in Bad Frankenhausen, Thuringia; the painting was commissioned in 1976 by the Ministry of Culture of East Germany. It was finished in 1987; the canvas was woven in one piece at the textile factory in Sursk, the Soviet Union, weighs 1.1 tons. Tübke used a total of 90,000 tubes of paint; the museum opened to the public on 14 September 1989, in time for the 500th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Müntzer. Media related to Early Bourgeois Revolution in Germany at Wikimedia Commons Panorama Museum