Pennsylvania the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state located in the Northeastern, Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The Appalachian Mountains run through its middle; the Commonwealth is bordered by Delaware to the southeast, Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, Lake Erie and the Canadian province of Ontario to the northwest, New York to the north, New Jersey to the east. Pennsylvania is the 33rd-largest state by area, the 5th-most populous state according to the most recent official U. S. Census count in 2010, it is the 9th-most densely populated of the 50 states. Pennsylvania's two most populous cities are Philadelphia, Pittsburgh; the state capital and its 10th-largest city is Harrisburg. Pennsylvania has 140 miles of waterfront along Lake Erie and the Delaware River; the state is one of the 13 original founding states of the United States. Part of Pennsylvania, together with the present State of Delaware, had earlier been organized as the Colony of New Sweden.

It was the second state to ratify the United States Constitution, on December 12, 1787. Independence Hall, where the United States Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution were drafted, is located in the state's largest city of Philadelphia. During the American Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg was fought in the south central region of the state. Valley Forge near Philadelphia was General Washington's headquarters during the bitter winter of 1777–78. Pennsylvania is 170 miles north to south and 283 miles east to west. Of a total 46,055 square miles, 44,817 square miles are land, 490 square miles are inland waters, 749 square miles are waters in Lake Erie, it is the 33rd-largest state in the United States. Pennsylvania has 51 miles of coastline along Lake Erie and 57 miles of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary. Of the original Thirteen Colonies, Pennsylvania is the only state that does not border the Atlantic Ocean; the boundaries of the state are the Mason–Dixon line to the south, the Twelve-Mile Circle on the Pennsylvania-Delaware border, the Delaware River to the east, 80°31' W to the west and the 42° N to the north, except for a short segment on the western end, where a triangle extends north to Lake Erie.

Cities include Philadelphia, Reading and Lancaster in the southeast, Pittsburgh in the southwest, the tri-cities of Allentown and Easton in the central east. The northeast includes the former anthracite coal mining cities of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Hazleton. Erie is located in the northwest. State College serves the central region while Williamsport serves the commonwealth's north-central region as does Chambersburg the south-central region, with York and the state capital Harrisburg on the Susquehanna River in the east-central region of the Commonwealth and Altoona and Johnstown in the west-central region; the state has five geographical regions, namely the Allegheny Plateau and Valley, Atlantic Coastal Plain and the Erie Plain. Ontario New York New Jersey Delaware Maryland West Virginia Ohio Pennsylvania's diverse topography produces a variety of climates, though the entire state experiences cold winters and humid summers. Straddling two major zones, the majority of the state, except for the southeastern corner, has a humid continental climate.

The southern portion of the state has a humid subtropical climate. The largest city, has some characteristics of the humid subtropical climate that covers much of Delaware and Maryland to the south. Summers are hot and humid. Moving toward the mountainous interior of the state, the winter climate becomes colder, the number of cloudy days increases, snowfall amounts are greater. Western areas of the state locations near Lake Erie, can receive over 100 inches of snowfall annually, the entire state receives plentiful precipitation throughout the year; the state may be subject to severe weather from spring through summer into autumn. Tornadoes occur annually in the state, sometimes in large numbers, such as 30 recorded tornadoes in 2011; as of 1600, the tribes living in Pennsylvania were the Algonquian Lenape, the Iroquoian Susquehannock & Petun and the Siouan Monongahela Culture, who may have been the same as a little known tribe called the Calicua, or Cali. Other tribes who entered the region during the colonial era were the Trockwae, Saponi, Nanticoke, Conoy Piscataway, Iroquois Confederacy—possibly among others.

Other tribes, like the Erie, may have once held some land in Pennsylvania, but no longer did so by the year 1600. Both the Dutch and the English claimed both sides of the Delaware River as part of their colonial lands in America; the Dutch were the first to take possession. By June 3, 1631, the Dutch had begun settling the Delmarva Peninsula by establishing the Zwaanendael Colony on the site of present-day Lewes, Delaware. In 1638, Sweden established the New Sweden Colony, in the region of Fort Christina, on the site of present-day Wilmington, Delaware. New Sweden claimed and, for the most part, controlled the lower Delaware River region (parts of present-day Delaware

Jeu Royal de la Guerre is a French novelty card game for two to twelve players, described in La Maison des Jeux Academiques in 1659. It is a trick-taking game played with a dedicated war-themed 40-card pack based on the French-suited 36-card piquet pack; the suits are irrelevant for gameplay, to a large extent the game is determined by four suitless special cards. Jeu Royal de la Guerre was played with a dedicated pack of 40 cards; the pack consisted of a war-themed version of a piquet pack, which at the time still had 36 cards, along with 4 suitless cards. The suitless cards were Death, Army General, Prisoner of War; the remaining cards were Ace, Queen, Jack and 6–10 in each of the four French suits. The aces were styled as a cannoneer, a soldier with a drawn rapier, a battalion, a squadron of horsemen. After removing the four suitless cards, the pack could be used for playing Piquet, Triomphe or Brelan; the game is played for each player depositing the same amount before the cards are dealt. The number of cards each player receives was not specified in the published rules, although it is implicit that at least five tricks are played and at least one card must remain in the stock.

Three of the four suitless cards have immediate effects on the players. Death The player who holds the Death card loses automatically and does not participate in trick-play. Force The player who holds the Force card wins from the pot twice what he or she paid; the player remains in exchanges the Force card for another card from the stock. Prisoner of War The player who holds this card must double his or her contribution to the pot or leave the game; the suits are irrelevant for trick-play. If the highest rank in a trick occurs more than once, the first card played of that rank wins the trick; the cards rank King, Army General, Prisoner of War, Ace, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6. Eldest hand leads to the first trick. Unlike in most trick-taking games, it is not the winner of a trick. Instead, the lead passes from one player to the next in the direction of play. A player who loses the Army General in a trick must pay a "ransom" amounting to the total value of the pot to the winner of the trick. A player who wins a trick by playing the Army General wins the pot.

Anything that remains in the pot at the end is won by the player who wins the greatest number of tricks. The game first appeared in 1659 in Étienne Loyson's La maison academique: contenant les jeux du picquet, du hoc, du tric-trac, du hoca, & autres jeux facetieux & divertissans, a work modeled after the first French game anthology, La Marinière's 1654 Maison Academique; the rules were reprinted along with a short advertisement piece for the card pack in the 1702 Den Haag edition of Maison Academique. Unrelated novelty cards were advertised in the 1735 edition of Le Royal Jeu de l'Hombre et celui du Picquet; the pack consisted of 60 cards, ten each in the six suits yellow, blue, red and green. Within each suit, the ranks were numbered and designated as King, Knight, Lady etc. down to Lackey. Loyson, Étienne, La Maison des Jeux Academiques, Paris: Loyson, pp. 30–33. Loyson, Étienne, La Maison des Jeux Academiques, Paris: Loyson, pp. 30–33. La Maison Academique, Den Haag: van Elinckhuysen, 1702, pp. 98–103.

Le Royal Jeu de l'Hombre et celui du Picquet, Amsterdam: Foubert, 1735, p. 68. Background information on early French game anthologies from Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève

Mary Jane Crafoord Muus was a Danish painter and illustrator. Most of her works portray people, either in portraits or walking about on streets or market places in foreign countries, she is remembered above all for her sensitive, realistic illustrations in a wide range of Danish books. One of Denmark's foremost 20th-century illustrators, she had a unique style of her own. Born in Odder in central Jutland, she studied both painting and graphic arts at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts under Aksel Jørgensen, she travelled to France, Italy, North Africa and North America. Working in a predominantly Realist style, she made woodcuts, illustrating the works of Charles Dickens or Herman Bang's Ved Vejen. In 1949, while in Paris, she illustrated an anthology of Jules Romains' works, she became a member of the Corner artists association in 1965. As a graphic artist, Muus preferred woodcuts but used lithography and etching for her illustrations. Jane Muus exhibited her woodcuts both in Denmark and in Czechoslovakia, Lugano and Rostock.

Her works can be seen in the national institutions of Norway and France as well as in London's Victoria and Albert Museum and New York's Museum of Modern Art. In 1968, Muus was awarded the Eckersberg Medal and, in 1984, the Thorvaldsen Medal. Illustrated list of Jane Muus' works in Danish museums Selection of Jane Muus' works from Clausens Kunsthandel