Philadelphia County is the most populous county in the U. S. state of Pennsylvania. As of 2018, Philadelphia County was home to an estimated population of 1,584,138 residents; the county is the second smallest county in Pennsylvania by land area. Philadelphia County is one of the three original counties, along with Chester and Bucks counties, created by William Penn during November 1682. Since 1854, the county has been coextensive with the City of Philadelphia, which serves as its seat of government. Philadelphia County is part of the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD, located along the lower Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, within the Northeast megalopolis. Philadelphia County is the economic and cultural anchor of the Delaware Valley, the eighth-largest combined statistical area in the United States, with a population of 7.2 million. Native American tribes of Lenape were the first known occupants in the area that became Philadelphia County; the first European settlers were Swedes and Finns who arrived during 1638.

The Netherlands seized the area during 1655, but lost control to England during 1674. William Penn received his charter for Pennsylvania from Charles II of England during 1681, November 1682 he divided Pennsylvania into three counties. During the same year, Philadelphia was planned and was made the county seat and the capital of the Province of Pennsylvania. Penn wanted Philadelphia, meaning "love brotherly", to be a place where religious tolerance and the freedom to worship were ensured. Philadelphia's name is shared with an ancient city in Asia Minor mentioned by the Bible's Book of Revelation, it was William Penn's desire, as a Quaker, that his "Holy Experiment" would be found blameless at the Last Judgment. When established, Philadelphia County consisted of the area from the Delaware River west between the Schuylkill River to the south and the border with Bucks County to the north. Two counties would be formed out of Philadelphia County, Berks County, formed during 1752, Montgomery County established during 1784.

From these separations, as well as other border changes, was created the present-day boundaries of the county. The City of Philadelphia, as planned by Penn, comprised only that portion of the present day city situated between South and Vine Streets and the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers. Other settlements were made beyond the boundaries of the city, in the course of time they became incorporated separately and had separate governments. Several of these settlements were situated contiguous to the "city proper" of Philadelphia, such as Southwark and Moyamensing in the south, the Northern Liberties District, Spring Garden and Penn District to the north, West Philadelphia and Blockley to the west — which combined with the City of Philadelphia formed one continuously urban area, the whole group being known abroad as Philadelphia. Besides these, there were a number of other outlying townships and settlements throughout the county. Over time, as the population expanded out from the City of Philadelphia, those closer to the City of Philadelphia became absorbed into Philadelphia.

During this period, the city government of Philadelphia and the county government of Philadelphia acted separately. By the mid-19th century, a more structured government bureaucracy was needed. A reform charter, on February 2, 1854, defined all the boroughs and districts of the County of Philadelphia as being within the City of Philadelphia, thus abolishing the patchwork of cities and townships that had comprised Philadelphia County since its founding; the city-county consolidation was a result of the inability of a colonial-type government by committees to adapt to the needs of a growing city for new public services, for example, better streets, transportation and schools. The newly integrated districts had marked characteristics between them, but over time, after the consolidation, these characteristics were integrated into the City of Philadelphia. Presently, the names of some of these old districts survive as the names of neighborhoods in the city, with their boundaries matching their historic boundaries.

During 1951, a new law known as the Home Rule Charter merged county offices completely. This new charter provided the city with a common structure and outlined the "strong mayor" form of government, still used; the county offices were merged with the city government during 1952 eliminating the county as a government. Though the county no longer has a government structure by law, in both the Unconsolidated Pennsylvania Statutes and The Philadelphia Code and Charter, the County of Philadelphia is still an entity within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, it is thus subject to the laws of the Commonwealth concerning counties. Exceptions include restrictions stated in the Home Rule Charter of Philadelphia, Act of Consolidation, 1854, subsequent legislation; the county is the only First Class County, meaning it had a population of 1.5 million or more at the last census, in the Commonwealth. Philadelphia has become racially and ethnically diverse over the years, this process continues. Since 1990, thousands of immigrants from Latin America and Europe have arrived in the county.

Presently, the city has some of the largest Irish, German, Puerto Rican, Vietnamese, Ukrainian, Chinese, Arab and Cambodian populations in America. The county has the fourth largest concentration of African Americans in North America, including large nu

Euphemius or Euphemios was a Byzantine commander in Sicily, who rebelled against the imperial governor in 826 CE, invited the Aghlabids to aid him, thus beginning the Muslim conquest of Sicily. Euphemius was a Byzantine military commander. In 826, he was a tourmarches and was appointed by the new governor of the theme of Sicily, the patrikios Constantine Soudas, as head of the provincial fleet. According to the Arab historian Ibn al-Athir, Euphemius raided Ifriqiya, seized a number of merchant vessels before they could enter safe ports and devastated the coasts. While he was away the Emperor Michael II the Amorian sent a letter ordering his demotion and punishment. Euphemius learned of this while returning to Sicily with his fleet. Euphemius, supported by the fleet, revolted, he was proclaimed emperor and sailed for the capital of Sicily, captured. The patrikios Constantine was either absent from the city or fled inland at his approach but soon gathered an army and attacked him. Euphemius forced the governor to seek refuge in Catana.

When Euphemius sent his forces against Catana, Constantine tried to flee again but was captured and executed. The background of these events is unclear. According to Theophanes Continuatus, Euphemius had abducted the nun Homoniza from her monastery and taken her as his wife, her brothers protested to the Emperor, who ordered the island's governor to investigate the matter and if the charges were found true, to cut off Euphemius' nose as punishment. The Chronicon Salernitanum reports a different variant of the story, whereby Euphemius was betrothed to Homoniza but the governor of Sicily gave her as wife to another, who had bribed the governor; this led Euphemius to swear revenge against the governor. Several historians have cast doubt on these "romantic" stories of the origin of Euphemius' revolt. Theophanes reports that he rebelled along with "some of his fellow tourmarchai", indicating a wider dissatisfaction among the provincial commanders; as Alexander Vasiliev remarked, Sicily had shown tendencies against the imperial government before, such as the revolts of Basil Onomagoulos in 718 and Elpidius in 781–2.

According to Vasiliev, the ambitious commander used an opportune moment, when the Byzantine government was weakened by the recent rebellion of Thomas the Slav and by its preoccupation with the contemporary Muslim conquest of Crete, to seize power. The German historian Ekkehard Eickhoff speculated that Euphemius may have been considered unreliable by the imperial government and that his raid against Ifriqiya—the first such operation attested by the Byzantine fleet—was on Euphemius' initiative, indicating his impetuous character and it may have been the reason he was ordered arrested by the Emperor, who preferred to maintain a passive stance in the West. In traditional historiography, Euphemius is regarded as a champion of Sicilian autonomy against Constantinople rather than an imperial usurper but in a published seal of office, he calls himself "Emperor of the Romans", thus indicating his imperial ambitions. Whatever the true reason for his uprising, soon after his victory over Constantine, Euphemius was deserted by a close ally, a man known through Arab sources as "Balata".

Balata was entrusted with extending Euphemius' rule over western Sicily, Palermo, where his cousin Michael was governor. The two men denounced Euphemius' usurpation of the imperial title and marched against Syracuse, defeated Euphemius and took the city. Like Elpidius in the 780s, Euphemius resolved to seek refuge among the Empire's enemies and with a few supporters sailed to Ifriqiya. There he sent a delegation to the Aghlabid court, which pleaded with the Aghlabid emir Ziyadat Allah for an army to help Euphemius conquer Sicily, after which he would pay the Aghlabids an annual tribute; this offer presented a great opportunity for the Aghlabids. Ziyadat Allah had just suppressed a dangerous three-year revolt of the Arab ruling elite but his rule was plagued by long-simmering ethnic tensions between Arab settlers and Berbers and criticism by the jurists of the Malikite school for the Aghlabids' preoccupation with worldly concerns, their "un-Islamic" system of taxation and their luxurious lifestyle.

An invasion of Sicily promised to divert the energies of their restless soldiers to more profitable ventures, as well as gaining for the regime the prestige of waging jihad against the infidels. Ziyadat Allah's council was divided over the issue but was swayed by the respected qadi of Kairouan, Asad ibn al-Furat, placed at the head of the expeditionary force; the Muslim army is said to have consisted of ten thousand foot soldiers and seven hundred cavalry Ifriqiyan Arabs and Berbers but also some Khurasanis. The fleet comprised a hundred ships, to which were added Euphemius' vessels. On 14 June 827, the allied fleets sailed from the Bay of Sousse and after three days reached Mazara in south-western Sicily, where they landed. There they were met with soldiers loyal to Euphemius but the alliance soon began to fray: a Muslim detachment mistook some of Euphemius' partisans for loyalist troops and a skirmish ensued. Although Euphemius' troops were ordered to place a twig on their helmets as a distinctive mark, Asad announced his intention to wage the campaign without them.

It is clear that Euphemius had lost control of the campaign to Asad and that the invasion army, which in any case was overwhelmingly Muslim, served purposes other than his own. Soon after that, who seems to have taken over the functions, if not the title, of the imperial governor on the island, appeared nearby; the Muslims d

The 2015 Japanese Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race, held on 27 September 2015 at the Suzuka Circuit in Suzuka, Japan. The race was the fourteenth round of the 2015 World Championship, marked the forty-first running of the Japanese Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton entered the race as the defending winner of the Grand Prix and Drivers' Championship leader with a 41-point lead over his Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg. Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel came into the event eight points further back in third. Mercedes led the Constructors' Championship over Ferrari by 153 points, with Williams a further 110 points behind Ferrari. Hamilton won the race, having overtaken Rosberg at the start, who fell back to fourth, but recovered to finish second. Rosberg's deficit in the Drivers' Championship therefore increased to 48 points. Sebastian Vettel finished third for Ferrari; this was the first race in which all cars were classified as finishers since the 2011 European Grand Prix, would not be replicated again until the 2016 Chinese Grand Prix.

For the third year in a row, Pirelli opted to bring its two hardest dry weather compounds for this event, the orange-banded hard compound as the "prime" selection, while the white-banded medium tyre used as the "option" selection. The two wet-weather tyres, the green-banded intermediate and blue-banded full wet tyres, were available to use as they are at all events. Pirelli cited the nature of the track and the high lateral energy loads experienced in the corners, in particular 130R – taken at full throttle and top speed in dry weather racing – as reasons for the hardest tyres being used; the suppliers expected a performance difference of 0.6–0.8 seconds per lap between the compounds. The Japanese Grand Prix was one of only two events in the 2015 season to have only one drag reduction system zone, the other being Monaco; the DRS zone at Suzuka was in its traditional spot, on the start/finish straight between turn 18 and turn 1, with the detection point just before the Casio Triangle complex.

Force India driver Nico Hülkenberg served a three-place grid penalty following qualifying after being deemed at-fault for a collision with Williams driver Felipe Massa at the previous event in Singapore. Red Bull equipped both of their cars with new turning vanes for the Grand Prix in order to improve the airflow underneath the car and therefore create more downforce; the new device had only been used by Daniil Kvyat during the previous race in Singapore. After a poor performance in Singapore, Mercedes introduced a revised rear wing endplate, while McLaren brought a new front wing to Suzuka; this was the first running of the Japanese Grand Prix after Jules Bianchi's crash at the previous edition, which proved fatal when Bianchi succumbed to his injuries nine months following the accident. The Manor Marussia team announced that they would mark the occasion in a "very private way". In the wake of the accident, the organisers of the Japanese Grand Prix installed a large crane in place of the tractor that Bianchi hit.

The Lotus team's equipment arrived late in Suzuka, while team members were kept from entering their hospitality unit after cash-flow problems caused the unit not to be paid for in time. Going into the weekend, Lewis Hamilton was leading the World Drivers' Championship on 252 points, 41 ahead of his Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg. Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari was 8 more points behind on 203, followed by Kimi Räikkönen and Valtteri Bottas on 107 and 101 points respectively. In the World Constructors' Championship, Mercedes was leading Ferrari by 153 points, with Williams an additional 112 points behind in third. Per the regulations for the 2015 season, three practice sessions were held. In first practice, Carlos Sainz Jr. set the fastest time with a 1:49.434 in rainy conditions, about half a second ahead of second placed Daniil Kvyat. Eight drivers chose not to set a time, with complaints about aquaplaning in the stage of the session; the first fifty minutes of the session saw. While the first timed laps were set on full wet tyres, the two Williams cars were the first to go out on intermediate tyres.

Nico Rosberg ran with the power unit that he had used at the Italian Grand Prix before it was changed due to a coolant leak. He switched back to the one. Jolyon Palmer again took over for Romain Grosjean at Lotus. While the rain had stopped at the beginning of the second session, the track was still damp and all drivers ran on intermediate tyres. Daniil Kvyat set the fastest time at 1:48.277, just 0.023 seconds ahead of Nico Rosberg, with Lewis Hamilton in third, half a second down on Kvyat. Sebastian Vettel set the fifth fastest time while driving the most timed laps of the session at nineteen. Sainz, fastest in first practice, heard "strange noises" from his power unit, but finished seventh fastest. Felipe Massa was the only Williams driver to run. After more than half an hour, more rain fell and a number of drivers went out to get more running on the full-wet tyres; this included Fernando Alonso, forced to wait forty minutes to start his running due to an unspecified issue with the power unit.

The third session on Saturday was held in dry conditions. The two Mercedes drivers Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton set the fastest times, with Rosberg being about three-tenths of a second quicker than Hamilton. Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo was third, half a second down on Rosberg's 1:33.995 lap time. Kvyat in the other Red Bull di