1.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
2.
Pennsylvania
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Pennsylvania /ˌpɛnsᵻlˈveɪnjə/, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state located in the northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The Appalachian Mountains run through its middle, Pennsylvania is the 33rd largest, the 5th most populous, and the 9th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The states five most populous cities are Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie, the state capital, and its ninth-largest city, is Harrisburg. Pennsylvania has 140 miles of shoreline along Lake Erie and the Delaware Estuary. The state is one of the 13 original founding states of the United States, it came into being in 1681 as a result of a land grant to William Penn. Part of Pennsylvania, together with the present State of Delaware, had earlier been organized as the Colony of New Sweden and 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 states 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 Washingtons headquarters during the 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, and 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. Cities include Philadelphia, Reading, Lebanon and Lancaster in the southeast, Pittsburgh in the southwest, the tri-cities of Allentown, Bethlehem, the northeast includes the former anthracite coal mining communities of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pittston City, and Hazleton. Erie is located in the northwest, the state has 5 regions, namely the Allegheny Plateau, Ridge and Valley, Atlantic Coastal Plain, Piedmont, and the Erie Plain. Straddling two major zones, the majority of the state, with the exception of the corner, has a humid continental climate. The largest city, Philadelphia, has characteristics of the humid subtropical climate that covers much of Delaware. Moving toward the interior of the state, the winter climate becomes colder, the number of cloudy days increase. Western areas of the state, particularly locations near Lake Erie, can receive over 100 inches of snowfall annually, the state may be subject to severe weather from spring through summer into fall. Tornadoes occur annually in the state, sometimes in large numbers, the Tuscarora Nation took up temporary residence in the central portion of Pennsylvania ca. Both the Dutch and the English claimed both sides of the Delaware River as part of their lands in America
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
U.S. state
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A U. S. state is a constituent political entity of the United States of America. There are 50 states, which are together in a union with each other. Each state holds administrative jurisdiction over a geographic territory. Due to the shared sovereignty between each state and the government, Americans are citizens of both the federal republic and of the state in which they reside. State citizenship and residency are flexible, and no government approval is required to move between states, except for persons covered by certain types of court orders. States range in population from just under 600,000 to over 39 million, four states use the term commonwealth rather than state in their full official names. States are divided into counties or county-equivalents, which may be assigned some local authority but are not sovereign. County or county-equivalent structure varies widely by state, State governments are allocated power by the people through their individual constitutions. All are grounded in principles, and each provides for a government. States possess a number of powers and rights under the United States Constitution, Constitution has been amended, and the interpretation and application of its provisions have changed. The general tendency has been toward centralization and incorporation, with the government playing a much larger role than it once did. There is a debate over states rights, which concerns the extent and nature of the states powers and sovereignty in relation to the federal government. States and their residents are represented in the federal Congress, a legislature consisting of the Senate. Each state is represented in the Senate by two senators, and is guaranteed at least one Representative in the House, members of the House are elected from single-member districts. Representatives are distributed among the states in proportion to the most recent constitutionally mandated decennial census, the Constitution grants to Congress the authority to admit new states into the Union. Since the establishment of the United States in 1776, the number of states has expanded from the original 13 to 50, alaska and Hawaii are the most recent states admitted, both in 1959. The Constitution is silent on the question of states have the power to secede from the Union. Shortly after the Civil War, the U. S. Supreme Court, in Texas v. White, as a result, while the governments of the various states share many similar features, they often vary greatly with regard to form and substance
5.
Pennsylvania German language
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Pennsylvania German is a variety of West Central German spoken by the Amish and Old Order Mennonites in the United States and Canada, closely related to the Palatine dialects. There are possibly more than 300,000 native speakers in North America, although for many, the term Pennsylvania Dutch is often taken to refer to the Amish and related Old Order groups exclusively, the term should not imply a connection to any particular religious group. In this context, the word Dutch does not refer to the Dutch people or their descendants, alternatively, some sources give the origin of Dutch in this case as a corruption or a folk-rendering of the Pennsylvania German endonym Deitsch. Speakers of the language today are found in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and other Midwestern States of the United States. Historically, the dialect was spoken in several other regions where its use has either largely or entirely faded. Since that time, its use has greatly declined, some other North and South American Mennonites of Dutch and Prussian origin speak what is actually a Low German dialect, referred to as Plautdietsch. Low German and High German differ considerably and are not mutually intelligible, as do Pennsylvania German, most of them spoke Rhine Franconian, especially Palatinan and to a lesser degree Alemannic dialects, and it is believed that in the first generations after the settlers arrived these dialects merged. The result of that dialect levelling was a very close to the eastern dialects of Palatinian. When individuals from the Palatinate region of Germany encounter Pennsylvania German speakers today, there are many similarities between the German dialect that is still spoken in this small part of southwestern Germany and Pennsylvania German. There are approximately 2,400,000 Germans in Rhine-Neckar Metropolitan Region speaking Palatinate German, Pennsylvania German has primarily been a spoken language throughout its history, with very few of its speakers making much of an attempt to read or write it. Writing in Pennsylvania German can be a task, and there is no spelling standard for the language whatsoever. There are currently two primary, competing models which numerous orthographic systems have been based upon by individuals attempting to write in the Pennsylvania German language, one school tends to follow the rules of American English orthography, the other the rules of Standard German orthography. The choice of writing system is not meant to imply any difference in pronunciation, for comparison, a translation into Pennsylvania German, using two different spelling systems, of the Lords Prayer, as found in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, is presented below. The text in the second column illustrates a system based on American English orthography, the text in the third column uses, on the other hand, a system based on Standard German. The English original is found in the first column, and a Standard German version appears in the fifth column, since 1997, the Pennsylvania German newspaper Hiwwe wie Driwwe allows dialect authors to publish Pennsylvania German poetry and prose. Hiwwe wie Driwwe was founded by Michael Werner and it is published twice a year - since 2013 in cooperation with the Pennsylvania German Cultural Heritage Center at Kutztown University. Since 2015, the newspaper is published online and in print. In 2014, Jehovahs Witnesses began to publish literature in Pennsylvania German, Pennsylvania German reflects the origins of the early speakers from the regions along the upper Rhine River in the Rhineland, Württemberg, Baden, Saarland, Switzerland and the Elsass/Alsace
6.
Delaware Valley
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The Delaware Valley is the valley through which the Delaware River flows. By extension, this toponym is commonly used to refer to the Philadelphia metropolitan area, the Delaware Valley Metropolitan Area is located at the southern part of the Northeast megalopolis extending from Boston to Washington, D. C. metropolitan areas. The MSA has a population of over 6 million, while the CSA has a population of over 7.1 million. Philadelphia, being the major commercial, cultural, and industrial center. As of March 2011, the Philadelphia–Camden–Wilmington, PA–NJ–DE–MD Metropolitan Statistical Area constitutes the sixth-largest metropolitan area in the United States, Philadelphias media market ranks fourth, behind New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago, in Nielsen Media Market size rankings. It also borders the New York metropolitan area located directly to the north of this area, such educational institutions as Delaware Valley Regional High School in Alexandria Township and Delaware Valley College in Doylestown Township are named after the region. Likewise, Frenchtowns now defunct newspaper The Delaware Valley News was another example of the usage, although much of the Trenton MSA is considered part of the Delaware Valley and often considered part of Philadelphias media market area, it is classified as part of New Yorks CSA. Within the Hispanic population, the vast majority are Puerto Ricans, there is a significant West Indian community. There is even a small Native American community known as Lenapehoking for Lenni-Lenape Indians of West Philadelphia. Philadelphias suburbs contain a concentration of malls, the two largest of which have at least 5,000,000 square feet of office space. Malls, office complexes, strip shopping plazas, expressways, and tract housing are common sights, and more and more continue to replace rolling countryside, farms, woods, and wetlands. However, due to opposition by residents and political officials. Older townships and large boroughs such as Cheltenham, Norristown, Jenkintown, Upper Darby, the fastest-growing counties are Chester, Montgomery, Bucks, and Gloucester. Upper Darby, in Delaware County is the largest township in the United States, sometimes Reading is included in the Delaware Valley Metro Area. The Delaware Valley has four seasons with ample precipitation and is divided by the 0 °C January isotherm. The region has two ski areas, Bear Creek Ski and Recreation Area in eastern Berks County and Spring Mountain in central Montgomery County. Using the -3 °C January isotherm as a boundary, all of the Delaware Valley is humid subtropical except for portions of Berks County, the warm-summer humid continental climate only exists in higher areas of Berks where all monthly temperatures average below 22 °C. The valley was the territory of the Susquehannock and Lenape, who are recalled in place throughout the region
7.
South Central Pennsylvania
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Portions of western Schuylkill and Northumberland counties are also located in South Central Pennsylvania. Despite the designation South Central Pennsylvania, many of the counties are located in the southeastern portion of the state. Lancaster, with a population of 59,322, is the largest city in the region, and the second largest metropolitan area. Harrisburg, with a population of 49,528, is the second largest city in the region, and has the largest metropolitan area with a population of 643,820 people, York is the other significant city in the region. The Harrisburg-Lancaster-York television market is the 39th largest market in the United States, between 1700-1950, the area was historically settled by ethnic German, Dutch, Italian, Irish, and English populations. Many residents of the portion of this area commute to Baltimore especially from York County. The area is home of the Pennsylvania state capital, being the site of the bloodiest battlefield of the Civil War, and being the home of Hersheys chocolate, South Central Pennsylvania has also hosted two former capitals of the United States during the American Revolution, Lancaster and York. The region is drained primarily by the Susquehanna River, flowing southwards to Chesapeake Bay, the South Central Pennsylvania region is the site of the first paved highway in the United States, the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike, connecting the cities of Philadelphia and Lancaster. Milton Hershey began his milk chocolate manufacturing in Lancaster, and later to the town of Hershey, South Central Pennsylvania is still the corporate headquarters of The Hershey Company and possesses many smaller chocolate manufacturers like Wilbur and Wolfgang. The York Peppermint Pattie was originally manufactured in the city of York, the Hershey Bears, named for The Hershey Company, are the oldest team in the American Hockey League. South Central Pennsylvania is the home of the largest Amish population in the United States, many tourists visit the region to see and learn about the Amish. Gettysburg was the site of the bloodiest battle of the Civil War and this town is home to the historic Wilbur Chocolate Factory and the Julius Sturgis Pretzel Factory. The inhabitants of South Central Pennsylvania speak with the Susquehanna dialect. awhile- used at the end of a sentence, the most significant film set in the region is the 1985 film Witness starring Harrison Ford, Danny Glover, Alexander Godunov, Kelly McGillis, and Viggo Mortensen. It was set in and filmed in the borough of Strasburg, the film Lucky Numbers starring John Travolta and Lisa Kudrow was filmed throughout Harrisburg and Palmyra, and was based on the 1980 Pennsylvania Lottery scandal. The movie Girl, Interrupted, starring Angelina Jolie and Winona Ryder, was filmed in Mechanicsburg, Mechanicsburg was chosen for its old fashioned appearance and its old-fashioned drug store simply titled Drugs, all of which gave the film its time-dated appearance. The Woodward Hill Cemetery and the Landis Valley Museum were also used to simulate the Oak Ridge Cemetery, Scotland, PA, a modern retelling of Shakespeares Macbeth, is set in Scotland, a small town in Franklin County. Historically, Scotland, Pennsylvania was originally settled by Scots-Irish Americans, music in the South Central Pennsylvania region varies from the popular genres such as Rock and roll, Hip-hop, Jazz, Rhythm and blues, Country, etc. to the softer melodies of the Amish and Mennonites. A few mainstream acts got their start in South Central Pennsylvania, another rock band called Fuel started off playing in local venues in Harrisburg
8.
American Revolution
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The British responded by imposing punitive laws on Massachusetts in 1774 known as the Coercive Acts, following which Patriots in the other colonies rallied behind Massachusetts. Tensions escalated to the outbreak of fighting between Patriot militia and British regulars at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the conflict then developed into a global war, during which the Patriots fought the British and Loyalists in what became known as the American Revolutionary War. The Continental Congress determined King George IIIs rule to be tyrannical and infringing the rights as Englishmen. The Patriot leadership professed the political philosophies of liberalism and republicanism to reject monarchy and aristocracy, Congress rejected British proposals requiring allegiance to the monarchy and abandonment of independence. The British were forced out of Boston in 1776, but then captured and they blockaded the ports and captured other cities for brief periods, but failed to defeat Washingtons forces. After a failed Patriot invasion of Canada, a British army was captured at the Battle of Saratoga in late 1777, a combined American–French force captured a second British army at Yorktown in 1781, effectively ending the war in the United States. The Treaty of Paris in 1783 formally ended the conflict, confirming the new nations complete separation from the British Empire. The United States took possession of all the territory east of the Mississippi River and south of the Great Lakes, with the British retaining control of Canada. Among the significant results of the revolution was the creation of a new Constitution of the United States. Historians typically begin their histories of the American Revolution with the British victory in the French and Indian War in 1763, the lands west of Quebec and west of a line running along the crest of the Allegheny mountains became Indian territory, temporarily barred to settlement. For the prior history, see Thirteen Colonies, in 1764, Parliament passed the Currency Act to restrain the use of paper money which British merchants saw as a means to evade debt payments. Parliament also passed the Sugar Act, imposing customs duties on a number of articles, none did and Parliament passed the Stamp Act in March 1765 which imposed direct taxes on the colonies for the first time. All official documents, newspapers, almanacs, and pamphlets—even decks of playing cards—were required to have the stamps, the colonists did not object that the taxes were high, but because they had no representation in the Parliament. Benjamin Franklin testified in Parliament in 1766 that Americans already contributed heavily to the defense of the Empire, stationing a standing army in Great Britain during peacetime was politically unacceptable. London had to deal with 1,500 politically well-connected British officers who became redundant, in 1765, the Sons of Liberty formed. They used public demonstrations, boycott, violence, and threats of violence to ensure that the British tax laws were unenforceable, in Boston, the Sons of Liberty burned the records of the vice admiralty court and looted the home of chief justice Thomas Hutchinson. Several legislatures called for united action, and nine colonies sent delegates to the Stamp Act Congress in New York City in October 1765, moderates led by John Dickinson drew up a Declaration of Rights and Grievances stating that taxes passed without representation violated their rights as Englishmen. Colonists emphasized their determination by boycotting imports of British merchandise, the Parliament at Westminster saw itself as the supreme lawmaking authority throughout all British possessions and thus entitled to levy any tax without colonial approval
9.
Pennsylvania Dutch
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The Pennsylvania Dutch are a cultural group formed by early German-speaking immigrants to Pennsylvania and their descendants. The word Dutch does not refer to the Dutch people or their descendants, the early wave of settlers, which would eventually coalesce to form the Pennsylvania Dutch, began in the late 17th century and concluded in the late 18th century. Historically they spoke the dialect of German known as Pennsylvania German or Pennsylvania Dutch, the first major emigration of Germans to America resulted in the founding of the Borough of Germantown, in northwest Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, on October 6,1683. Mass emigration of Palatines began out of Germany in the early 18th century from areas along the Rhine River, the Pennsylvania Dutch maintained numerous religious affiliations, with the greatest number being Lutheran or Reformed, but with many Anabaptists as well. The Anabaptist religions promoted a lifestyle, and their adherents were known as Plain people or Plain Dutch. This was in contrast to the Fancy Dutch, who tended to more easily into the American mainstream. Over time, the dialects spoken by these immigrants fused into a unique dialect known as Pennsylvania German or Pennsylvania Dutch. At one time, more than one-third of Pennsylvanias population spoke this language, a number of German cultural practices continue to this day, and German Americans remain the largest ancestry group claimed in Pennsylvania by people in the census. Pennsylvania Dutch is most likely a corruption of the endonym Deitsch, the word Dutch and Deutsch share the same origin and similar pronunciation. The pronunciation though for Dutch is with the u like in but, so in the latter it sounds like Doych. During the Middle Ages the use of Dutch in English referred to West Germanic speakers of continental Europe in general, from c.1600 onward it was mainly restricted to the inhabitants of the Low Countries. This has resulted in communities of Pennsylvania Dutch speakers emigrating to Canada. Today, the language is spoken in the Waterloo Region. Many Pennsylvania Dutch are descendants of refugees from the Palatinate of the German Rhine, most of the Pennsylvania Dutch have roots going much further back in the Palatinate. During the War of the Grand Alliance, French troops pillaged the Palatinate, the War of the Palatinate, also called the War of the League of Augsburg, began in 1688 as Louis XIV took claim of the Electorate of the Palatinate. French forces devastated all major cities of the region, including Cologne, by 1697 the war came to a close with the Treaty of Ryswick, now Rijswijk in the Netherlands, and the Palatinate remained free of French control. However, by 1702, the War of Spanish Succession began, French expansionism forced many Palatines to flee as refugees. Mass emigration of Palatines began out of Germany in the early 18th century, in the spring of 1709, Queen Anne granted refuge to about 7,000 Palatines who had sailed the Rhine to Rotterdam
United States
Pennsylvania
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