Province of Zaragoza
Zaragoza called Saragossa in English, is a province of northern Spain, in the central part of the autonomous community of Aragon. Its capital is Zaragoza, the capital of the autonomous community. Other towns in Zaragoza include Calatayud, Borja, La Almunia de Doña Godina, Ejea de los Caballeros and Tarazona, its area is 17,274 km² and it is the fourth-largest Spanish province by land area. Its population is 954.811, of whom nearly three-quarters live in the capital, its population density is 50.95/km². It contains 292 municipalities; the main language throughout the province is Spanish, although Catalan is spoken in the Bajo Aragón-Caspe comarca and in Mequinenza municipality. The province of Zaragoza is bordered by the provinces of Lleida, Teruel, Soria, La Rioja and Huesca; the southern and western side of the province is in the mountainous Sistema Ibérico area and includes its highest point, the Moncayo, while the northern end reaches the Pre-Pyrenees. The Ebro River crosses the province from west to east.
Comarcas in the Zaragoza province: The following comarcas having their capital in Huesca Province include municipal terms within Zaragoza Province: Bajo Cinca: Mequinenza. Hoya de Huesca: Murillo de Gállego and Santa Eulalia de Gállego. Jacetania: Artieda, Salvatierra de Esca and Sigüés. Monegros: La Almolda, Farlete, Leciñena and Perdiguera. List of municipalities in Zaragoza Official website
Province of Guadalajara
Guadalajara is a province of central/north-central Spain, in the northern part of the autonomous community of Castilla–La Mancha. As of 2013 it had a population of 257,723 people; the population of the province has grown in the last 10 years. The province has been inhabited since the Paleolithic as evidenced by stone tools found on the banks of the Henares and Linares rivers. There are numerous prehistoric cave paintings in the Cueva de los Casares in Riba de Saelices while Megalithic tombs from the 4th millennium B. C. have been found at various sites in the province including Alcolea del Pinar. There are remains of several Bronze Age settlements along the river banks in the area, notably that in Loma del Lomo in Cogolludo as well as a late bronze age settlement in Mojares; the Celtiberians civilized the territory during the late Iron Age between the 6th and 3rd centuries B. C. various tribes establishing themselves in Sigüenza and Termancia in the north and further south around Molina. In addition to raising livestock and breeding horses, they created many fortified towns and villages as well as castles.
Between 143 and 133 B. C. the Romans initiated their battles to conquer Spain which continued until 94 B. C, they brought agriculture and commerce to the region, facilitating communications with roads and bridges. The most important Roman city was Segontia although they built a town wall around Luzaga where there were large public buildings; the Visigoths, with their capital at Toledo, were dominant in the area around the 6th and 7th centuries A. D. bringing Christianity and Germanic law into the region. In 578, King Leovigild founded Recópolis on the River Tagus with a palace; the Moors arrived in the area in c. 711, establishing Islamic rule for some four centuries until the early 13th century. Their most important contribution was founding of the capital, established by the Berber captain al-Faray, remembered for overcoming the Christians in the 9th century; the territory now covered by the Province of Guadalajara was part of the Moors' Marca Media. Sparsely populated, the most important towns were Atienza, Jadraque and Sigüenza.
Following the dismemberment of the Caliphate of Córdoba, Toledo gained independence in 1018, reaching its zenith under Yahya-al-Mamun who reigned from 1043 to 1075. Following his death, pressure from King Alfonso VI of León and Castile led to the beginning of Christian conquest of the region in 1085. By the early 12th century, Molina, La Serrania, Sigüenza and the Tagus Valley were retrieved leading to the establishment of the Bishopric of Sigüenza. Under Alfonso VII and Alfonso VIII, the region was repopulated with people from other parts of Castile. With the conquest of Cuenca and Alarcón at the end of the 12th century and the victory at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, the entire territory of Guadalajara was again in the hands of the Castilian Christians; the modern age began with the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon whose marriage in Valladolid in 1469 united the crowns of Castile and Aragón. They centralized the authority which had developed in the church, the military and the nobility ostensibly to earn income for fighting the infidels by reselling the territories they had gained.
In the 16th century, this practice was reinforced by Charles I and Philip II. In Guadalajara, this was the case with areas that had belonged to the military orders of Calatrava and Pastrana; the Mendozas who succeeded in acquiring substantial territories built a fortified palace in Pastrana and extended their influence over Sayatón, Escopete and Albalate. Under the Mendozas, the city of Guadalajara prospered in the 15th and 16th centuries, attracting writers and philosophers, bringing it the name la Atenas alcarreña. Encouraged by the Renaissance, Íñigo López de Mendoza, 1st Marquis of Santillana, not only built palaces and monasteries but developed a large library of Greek and Latin volumes. In the 16th century, his namesake Íñigo López de Mendoza, 4th Duke of the Infantado, went on to found an academy in the city, attracting additional writers. Pastrana prospered during the Renaissance under the leadership of Ruy Gómez de Silva with the establishment of Latin and choir schools. By the end of the 16th century, the town was famous for its Carmelite convents.
With the death of Ruy's widow, Ana de Mendoza in 1592, the nobility moved to Madrid, causing the province to lose the high status it had achieved. While the Spanish Golden Age developed in central Spain during the 17th century, Guadalajara experienced an extended period of decline as the Habsburgs brought about increased centralization. In the early 18th century, under the War of the Spanish Succession, the city of Guadalajara and the province's main towns all suffered considerable damage. In 1719, a royal textile factory was established in Guadalajara, bringing workers not only from across Spain but from the rest of Europe the Netherlands; the factory prospered throughout the 18th century but was closed in the early 19th century as a result of the War of Spanish Independence. During the War of Independence, French troops caused extensive damage to towns in the province Molina where over 600 buildings were destroyed by fire; when the city of Guadalajara was liberated in 1813, it was left in a devastated and poverty-stricken state.
Conditions improved in 1840 with the establishment of the Academy of Military Engineering in the former textile factory. Further military installations followed, culminating at the end of the century in the establishment of the Airshi
Maestrazgo, Aragon
Maestrazgo is a comarca in southeastern Aragon, Spain. Its names derives from the Maestrat/Maestrazgo mountain massif that extends to the east to the Comarques of the Valencian Community Alt Maestrat and Baix Maestrat; the most important town is Cantavieja. It is bordered by the Aragonese comarcas of Andorra-Sierra de Arcos, Cuencas Mineras, Comunidad de Teruel and Bajo Aragón, in the north and in the west and Gúdar-Javalambre in the south, as well as with the Castellón Province in the east; some municipal terms of this comarca are part of the historical region of Lower Aragon. This comarca has a dry, continental climate, with extreme seasonal changes, daily temperatures. Summers are hot and short compared with the long, cold winters; the Maestrazgo is in a mountainous region located at the eastern end of the Iberian System. The main range in this comarca is the Sierra de Gúdar located in the center. Other important ranges are Sierra de la Lastra, Sierra de Garrocha, Sierra de Caballos, Sierra de la Cañada, Sierra Carrascosa and Sierra del Rayo.
The summits of the highest mountains, like Peñarroya, Alto del Pobo and Tarayuela are covered with snow in the winter. The most important river draining the area is the Guadalope River. River Mijares marks Alfambra River the western. Ports Comarcas of Aragon Mountains of Aragon Iberian System Comarca del Maestrazgo Official site La Serrania del Maestrazgo Comarca turística - Aragón Pasture improvement in the Maestrazgo CAI Tourism Aragon Guide - Cariñena Wine & Wineries
Enclave and exclave
An enclave is a territory, or a part of a territory, surrounded by the territory of one other state. Territorial waters have the same sovereign attributes as land, enclaves may therefore exist within territorial waters. An exclave is a portion of a state or territory geographically separated from the main part by surrounding alien territory. Many exclaves are enclaves. Enclave is sometimes used improperly to denote a territory, only surrounded by another state. Vatican City and San Marino, enclaved by Italy, Lesotho, enclaved by South Africa, are enclaved states. Unlike an enclave, an exclave can be surrounded by several states; the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan is an example of an exclave. Semi-enclaves and semi-exclaves are areas that, except for possessing an unsurrounded sea border, would otherwise be enclaves or exclaves. Enclaves and semi-enclaves can exist as independent states, while exclaves always constitute just a part of a sovereign state. A pene-enclave is a part of the territory of one country that can be conveniently approached—in particular, by wheeled traffic—only through the territory of another country.
Pene-enclaves are called functional enclaves or practical enclaves. Many pene-exclaves border their own territorial waters, such as Point Roberts, Washington. A pene-enclave can exist on land, such as when intervening mountains render a territory inaccessible from other parts of a country except through alien territory. A cited example is the Kleinwalsertal, a valley part of Vorarlberg, accessible only from Germany to the north; the word enclave is French and first appeared in the mid-15th century as a derivative of the verb enclaver, from the colloquial Latin inclavare. It was a term of property law that denoted the situation of a land or parcel of land surrounded by land owned by a different owner, that could not be reached for its exploitation in a practical and sufficient manner without crossing the surrounding land. In law, this created a servitude of passage for the benefit of the owner of the surrounded land; the first diplomatic document to contain the word enclave was the Treaty of Madrid, signed in 1526.
The term enclave began to be used to refer to parcels of countries, fiefs, towns, etc. that were surrounded by alien territory. This French word entered the English and other languages to denote the same concept, although local terms have continued to be used. In India, the word "pocket" is used as a synonym for enclave. In British administrative history, subnational enclaves were called detachments or detached parts, national enclaves as detached districts or detached dominions. In English ecclesiastic history, subnational enclaves were known as peculiars; the word exclave, modeled on enclave, is a logically extended back-formation of enclave. Enclaves exist for a variety of historical and geographical reasons. For example, in the feudal system in Europe, the ownership of feudal domains was transferred or partitioned, either through purchase and sale or through inheritance, such domains were or came to be surrounded by other domains. In particular, this state of affairs persisted into the 19th century in the Holy Roman Empire, these domains exhibited many of the characteristics of sovereign states.
Prior to 1866 Prussia alone consisted of more than 270 discontiguous pieces of territory. Residing in an enclave within another country has involved difficulties in such areas as passage rights, importing goods, provision of utilities and health services, host nation cooperation. Thus, over time, enclaves have tended to be eliminated. For example, two-thirds of the then-existing national-level enclaves were extinguished on August 1, 2015, when the governments of India and Bangladesh implemented a Land Boundary Agreement that exchanged 162 first-order enclaves; this exchange thus de-enclaved another two dozen second-order enclaves and one third-order enclave, eliminating 197 of the Indo-Bangladesh enclaves in all. The residents in these enclaves had complained of being stateless. Only Bangladesh's Dahagram–Angarpota enclave remained. For illustration, in the figure, A1 is a semi-enclave. Although A2 is an exclave of A, it cannot be classed as an enclave because it shares borders with B and C; the territory A3 is both an exclave of A and an enclave from the viewpoint of B.
The singular territory D, although an enclave, is not an exclave. An enclave is a part of the territory of a state, enclosed within the territory of another state. To distinguish the parts of a state enclosed in a single other state, they are called true enclaves. A true enclave cannot be reached without passing through the territory of a single other state that surrounds it. Vinokurov calls this the restrictive definition of "enclave" given by international law, which thus "comprises only so-called'true enclaves'". Two examples are Büsingen am Hochrhein, a true enclave of Germany, Campione d'Italia, a true enclave of Italy, both of which are surrounded by Switzerland; the definition of a territory comprises territorial waters. In the case of enclaves in territorial waters, they are called maritime (those surrounded by ter
Sheep
Domestic sheep are quadrupedal, ruminant mammals kept as livestock. Like most ruminants, sheep are members of the even-toed ungulates. Although the name sheep applies to many species in the genus Ovis, in everyday usage it always refers to Ovis aries. Numbering a little over one billion, domestic sheep are the most numerous species of sheep. An adult female sheep is referred to as a ewe, an intact male as a ram or a tup, a castrated male as a wether, a younger sheep as a lamb. Sheep are most descended from the wild mouflon of Europe and Asia. One of the earliest animals to be domesticated for agricultural purposes, sheep are raised for fleeces and milk. A sheep's wool is the most used animal fiber, is harvested by shearing. Ovine meat is called lamb when from younger animals and mutton when from older ones in Commonwealth countries, lamb in the United States. Sheep continue to be important for wool and meat today, are occasionally raised for pelts, as dairy animals, or as model organisms for science.
Sheep husbandry is practised throughout the majority of the inhabited world, has been fundamental to many civilizations. In the modern era, New Zealand, the southern and central South American nations, the British Isles are most associated with sheep production. Sheepraising has a large lexicon of unique terms which vary by region and dialect. Use of the word sheep began in Middle English as a derivation of the Old English word scēap. A group of sheep is called a herd or mob. Many other specific terms for the various life stages of sheep exist related to lambing and age. Being a key animal in the history of farming, sheep have a entrenched place in human culture, find representation in much modern language and symbology; as livestock, sheep are most associated with pastoral, Arcadian imagery. Sheep figure in many mythologies—such as the Golden Fleece—and major religions the Abrahamic traditions. In both ancient and modern religious ritual, sheep are used as sacrificial animals; the exact line of descent between domestic sheep and their wild ancestors is unclear.
The most common hypothesis states. Sheep were among the first animals to be domesticated by humankind. C in Mesopotamia; the rearing of sheep for secondary products, the resulting breed development, began in either southwest Asia or western Europe. Sheep were kept for meat and skins. Archaeological evidence from statuary found at sites in Iran suggests that selection for woolly sheep may have begun around 6000 BC, the earliest woven wool garments have been dated to two to three thousand years later. Sheep husbandry spread in Europe. Excavations show that in about 6000 BC, during the Neolithic period of prehistory, the Castelnovien people, living around Châteauneuf-les-Martigues near present-day Marseille in the south of France, were among the first in Europe to keep domestic sheep. From its inception, ancient Greek civilization relied on sheep as primary livestock, were said to name individual animals. Ancient Romans kept sheep on a wide scale, were an important agent in the spread of sheep raising.
Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, speaks at length about wool. European colonists spread the practice to the New World from 1493 onwards. Domestic sheep are small ruminants with a crimped hair called wool and with horns forming a lateral spiral. Domestic sheep differ from their wild relatives and ancestors in several respects, having become uniquely neotenic as a result of selective breeding by humans. A few primitive breeds of sheep retain some of the characteristics of their wild cousins, such as short tails. Depending on breed, domestic sheep may have no horns at all, or horns in both sexes, or in males only. Most horned breeds have a single pair. Another trait unique to domestic sheep as compared to wild ovines is their wide variation in color. Wild sheep are variations of brown hues, variation within species is limited. Colors of domestic sheep range from pure white to dark chocolate brown, spotted or piebald. Selection for dyeable white fleeces began early in sheep domestication, as white wool is a dominant trait it spread quickly.
However, colored sheep do appear in many modern breeds, may appear as a recessive trait in white flocks. While white wool is desirable for large commercial markets, there is a niche market for colored fleeces for handspinning; the nature of the fleece varies among the breeds, from dense and crimped, to long and hairlike. There is variation of wool type and quality among members of the same flock, so wool classing is a step in the commercial processing of the fibre. Depending on breed, sheep show a range of weights, their rate of growth and mature weight is a heritable trait, selected for in breeding. Ewes weigh between 45 and 100 kilograms, rams between 45 and 160 kilograms; when all deciduous teeth have erupted, the sheep has 20 teeth. Mature sheep have 32 teeth; as with other ruminants, the front teeth in the lower jaw bite against a hard, toothless pad in the upper jaw. These are used to pick off vegetation the rear
Jiloca (comarca)
Jiloca Comarca is a comarca in Aragon, Spain. It is located in the mountainous Iberian System area, its capital is Calamocha and it was known as Comarca de Calamocha. The Jiloca River gives its name to this wine-producing comarca; the main mountain ranges in the area are Sierra Palomera, Sierra de Cucalón, Sierra Menera and Sierra de Santa Cruz-Valdelacasa. Allueva, Bádenas, Báguena, Bañón, Bea, Blancas, Bueña, Burbáguena, Caminreal, Castejón de Tornos, Cucalón, Ferreruela de Huerva, Fonfría, Fuentes Claras, Lanzuela, Monforte de Moyuela, Monreal del Campo, Nogueras, Odón, Ojos Negros, Pozuel del Campo, Rubielos de la Cérida, San Martín del Río, Santa Cruz de Nogueras, Tornos, Torralba de los Sisones, Torrecilla del Rebollar, Torre los Negros, Torrijo del Campo, Villafranca del Campo, Villahermosa del Campo, Villar del Salz Ribera del Jiloca Comarca del Jiloca official page
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco Bahamonde was a Spanish general and politician who ruled over Spain as a military dictator from 1939, after the nationalist victory in the Spanish Civil War, until his death in 1975. This period in Spanish history is known as Francoist Spain. During the 1924–1930 dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, Franco was promoted general at age 33, the youngest in Europe; as a conservative and a monarchist, Franco opposed the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a democratic secular republic in 1931. With the 1936 elections, the conservative Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups lost by a narrow margin, the leftist Popular Front came to power. Intending to overthrow the republic, Franco followed other generals in launching a coup that failed to take control of most of the country and precipitated the Spanish Civil War. With the death of the other generals, Franco became his faction's only leader. Franco gained military support from various authoritarian regimes and groups Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, while the Republican side was supported by Spanish communists and anarchists as well as the Soviet Union and the International Brigades.
In 1939, Franco won the war. He established a military dictatorship and proclaimed himself Head of State and Government under the title El caudillo. In April 1937, Franco merged the fascist and traditionalist political parties in the rebel zone, as well as other conservative and monarchist elements, into FET y de las JONS. At the same time, he outlawed all other political parties, thus Spain became a one-party state. Upon his rise to power, Franco implemented policies that repressed political opponents and dissenters, as many as 400,000 of whom died through the use of forced labor and executions in the concentration camps his regime operated. During World War II, he espoused neutrality as Spain's official wartime policy. However, he provided military support to the Axis in numerous ways: he allowed German and Italian ships and submarines to use Spanish harbors and ports, the Abwehr operated in Spain, the Blue Division fought alongside the Axis against the Soviet Union until 1944. Scholars consider it as conservative and authoritarian, rather than fascist.
Historian Stanley G. Payne states, "scarcely any of the serious historians and analysts of Franco consider the Generalissimo to have been a core fascist."Spain was isolated by many other countries for nearly a decade after World War II. By the 1950s, the nature of his regime changed from being totalitarian and using severe repression to an authoritarian system with limited pluralism. During the Cold War, Franco was one of the world's foremost anti-Communist figures: his regime was assisted by the West, it was asked to join NATO. After chronic economic depression in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Franco presided over the Spanish miracle, abandoning autarky and pursuing economic liberalization, delegating authority to liberal ministers. Franco died in 1975 at the age of 82, he restored the monarchy before his death, which made King Juan Carlos I his successor, who led the Spanish transition to democracy. Franco was born on 4 December 1892 at 108 Calle Frutos Saavedra in Galicia, he was baptised thirteen days at the military church of San Francisco, with the baptismal name Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo.
His father was of Andalusian ancestry. After relocating to Galicia, the family was involved in the Spanish Navy, over the span of two centuries produced naval officers for six uninterrupted generations, down to Franco's father Nicolás Franco y Salgado Araújo, his mother was María del Pilar Bahamonde y Pardo de Andrade and she was an upper middle-class Roman Catholic. His parents married in 1890; the young Franco spent much of his childhood with his two brothers, Nicolás and Ramón, his two sisters, María del Pilar, María de la Paz. The latter died in infancy. Nicolás was a naval officer and diplomat who in time married María Isabel Pascual del Pobil y Ravello. Ramón was a pioneer aviator, a Freemason with leftist political leanings, killed in an air accident on a military mission in 1938. María del Pilar married Alonso Jaráiz y Jeréz. Francisco was to follow his father into the Navy, but as a result of the Spanish–American War the country lost much of its navy as well as most of its colonies. Not needing any more officers, the Naval Academy admitted no new entrants from 1906 to 1913.
To his father's chagrin, Francisco decided to try the Spanish Army. In 1907, he entered the Infantry Academy in Toledo. At 19, Franco was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant in June 1912. Two years he obtained a commission to Morocco. Spanish efforts to occupy their new African protectorate provoked the protracted Rif War with native Moroccans, their tactics resulted in heavy losses among Spanish military officers, provided an opportunity to earn promotion through merit. It was said. Franco gained a reputation as a good officer. In 1913, Franco transferred into the newly formed regulares: Moroccan colonial troops with Spanish officers, who acted as shock troops; this transfer into a perilous role m
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Aragon
