Carboniferous
The Carboniferous is a geologic period and system that spans 60 million years from the end of the Devonian Period 358.9 million years ago, to the beginning of the Permian Period, 298.9 Mya. The name Carboniferous means "coal-bearing" and derives from the Latin words carbō and ferō, was coined by geologists William Conybeare and William Phillips in 1822. Based on a study of the British rock succession, it was the first of the modern'system' names to be employed, reflects the fact that many coal beds were formed globally during that time; the Carboniferous is treated in North America as two geological periods, the earlier Mississippian and the Pennsylvanian. Terrestrial animal life was well established by the Carboniferous period. Amphibians were the dominant land vertebrates, of which one branch would evolve into amniotes, the first terrestrial vertebrates. Arthropods were very common, many were much larger than those of today. Vast swaths of forest covered the land, which would be laid down and become the coal beds characteristic of the Carboniferous stratigraphy evident today.
The atmospheric content of oxygen reached its highest levels in geological history during the period, 35% compared with 21% today, allowing terrestrial invertebrates to evolve to great size. The half of the period experienced glaciations, low sea level, mountain building as the continents collided to form Pangaea. A minor marine and terrestrial extinction event, the Carboniferous rainforest collapse, occurred at the end of the period, caused by climate change. In the United States the Carboniferous is broken into Mississippian and Pennsylvanian subperiods; the Mississippian is about twice as long as the Pennsylvanian, but due to the large thickness of coal-bearing deposits with Pennsylvanian ages in Europe and North America, the two subperiods were long thought to have been more or less equal in duration. In Europe the Lower Carboniferous sub-system is known as the Dinantian, comprising the Tournaisian and Visean Series, dated at 362.5-332.9 Ma, the Upper Carboniferous sub-system is known as the Silesian, comprising the Namurian and Stephanian Series, dated at 332.9-298.9 Ma.
The Silesian is contemporaneous with the late Mississippian Serpukhovian plus the Pennsylvanian. In Britain the Dinantian is traditionally known as the Carboniferous Limestone, the Namurian as the Millstone Grit, the Westphalian as the Coal Measures and Pennant Sandstone; the International Commission on Stratigraphy faunal stages from youngest to oldest, together with some of their regional subdivisions, are: A global drop in sea level at the end of the Devonian reversed early in the Carboniferous. There was a drop in south polar temperatures; these conditions had little effect in the deep tropics, where lush swamps to become coal, flourished to within 30 degrees of the northernmost glaciers. Mid-Carboniferous, a drop in sea level precipitated a major marine extinction, one that hit crinoids and ammonites hard; this sea level drop and the associated unconformity in North America separate the Mississippian subperiod from the Pennsylvanian subperiod. This happened about 323 million years ago, at the onset of the Permo-Carboniferous Glaciation.
The Carboniferous was a time of active mountain-building as the supercontinent Pangaea came together. The southern continents remained tied together in the supercontinent Gondwana, which collided with North America–Europe along the present line of eastern North America; this continental collision resulted in the Hercynian orogeny in Europe, the Alleghenian orogeny in North America. In the same time frame, much of present eastern Eurasian plate welded itself to Europe along the line of the Ural Mountains. Most of the Mesozoic supercontinent of Pangea was now assembled, although North China, South China continents were still separated from Laurasia; the Late Carboniferous Pangaea was shaped like an "O." There were two major oceans in the Carboniferous—Panthalassa and Paleo-Tethys, inside the "O" in the Carboniferous Pangaea. Other minor oceans were shrinking and closed - Rheic Ocean, the small, shallow Ural Ocean and Proto-Tethys Ocean. Average global temperatures in the Early Carboniferous Period were high: 20 °C.
However, cooling during the Middle Carboniferous reduced average global temperatures to about 12 °C. Lack of growth rings of fossilized trees suggest a lack of seasons of a tropical climate. Glaciations in Gondwana, triggered by Gondwana's southward movement, continued into the Permian and because of the lack of clear markers and breaks, the deposits of this glacial period are referred to as Permo-Carboniferous in age; the cooling and drying of the climate led to the Carboniferous Rainforest Collapse during the late Carboniferous. Tropical rainforests fragmented and were devastated by climate change. Carboniferous rocks in Europe and eastern North America consist of a repeated sequence of limestone, sandstone and coal beds. In North America, the early Carboniferous is marine
Pentecost
The Christian holy day of Pentecost, celebrated on the seventh Sunday after Easter, commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and other followers of Jesus Christ while they were in Jerusalem celebrating the Feast of Weeks, as described in the Acts of the Apostles. In Christian tradition, this event represents the birth of the early Church. In Eastern Christianity, Pentecost can refer to the entire fifty days of Easter through Pentecost inclusive. Since its date depends on the date of Easter, Pentecost is a moveable feast; the holy day is called "White Sunday" or "Whitsunday" in the United Kingdom, where traditionally the next day, Whit Monday, was a public holiday. In Germany Pentecost is called "Pfingsten" and coincides with scholastic holidays and the beginning of many outdoor and springtime activities, such as festivals and organized outdoor activities by youth organizations; the Monday after Pentecost is a legal holiday in many European nations. The term Pentecost comes from the Greek Πεντηκοστή meaning "fiftieth".
It refers to the festival celebrated on the fiftieth day after Passover known as the "Feast of Weeks" and the "Feast of 50 days" in rabbinic tradition. The Septuagint uses the term Pentēkostē to refer to the "Feast of Pentecost" only twice, in the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit and 2 Maccabees; the Septuagint writers used the word in two other senses: to signify the year of Jubilee, an event which occurs every 50th year, in several passages of chronology as an ordinal number. The term has been used in the literature of Hellenistic Judaism by Philo of Alexandria and Josephus. In Judaism the Festival of Weeks was a harvest festival, celebrated seven weeks and one day after the first Sabbath of the Feast of Unleavened Bread in Deuteronomy 16:9 or seven weeks and one day after the Sabbath in Leviticus 23:16; the Festival of Weeks was called the feast of Harvest in Exodus 23:16 and the day of first fruits in Numbers 28:26. In Exodus 34:22 it is called the "firstfruits of the wheat harvest." The date for the "Feast of Weeks" came the day after seven full weeks following the first harvest of grain.
In Jewish tradition the fiftieth day was known as the Festival of Weeks. The actual mention of fifty days comes from Leviticus 23:16. During the Hellenistic period, the ancient harvest festival became a day of renewing the Noahic covenant, described in Genesis 9:8-17, established between God and "all flesh, upon the earth". By this time, some Jews were living in Diaspora. According to Acts 2:5-11 there were Jews from "every nation under heaven" in Jerusalem visiting the city as pilgrims during Pentecost. In particular the hoi epidemountes are identified as "visitors" to Jerusalem from Rome; this group of visitors includes both Jews and "proselytes". The list of nations represented in the biblical text includes Parthians, Elamites, Judaea, Pontus, Phrygia, Egypt and those who were visiting from Rome. Scholars have speculated about a possible earlier literary source for the list of nations including an astrological list by Paul of Alexandria and various references to the Jewish diaspora by writers of the Second Temple era.
After the destruction of the temple in 70 AD offerings could no longer be brought to the Temple and the focus of the festival shifted from agriculture to the giving of the law on Sinai. It became customary to gather at synagogue and read the Book of Ruth and Exodus Chapters 19 and 20; the term Pentecost appears in the Septuagint as one of names for the Festival of Weeks. The biblical narrative of the Pentecost includes numerous references to earlier biblical narratives like the Tower of Babel, the flood and creation narratives from the Book of Genesis, it includes references to certain theophanies, with certain emphasis on God's incarnate appearance on Sinai when the Ten Commandments were presented to Moses. Theologian Stephen Wilson has described the narrative as "exceptionally obscure" and various points of disagreement persist among bible scholars; some biblical commentators have sought to establish that the οἶκος given as the location of the events of in Acts 2:2 was one of the thirty halls of the Temple, but the text itself is lacking in specific details.
Richard C. H. Lenski and other scholars contend that the author of Acts could have chosen the word ἱερόν if this meaning were intended, rather than "house"; some semantic details suggest that the "house" could be the "upper room" mentioned in Acts 1:12-26 but there is no literary evidence to confirm the location with certainty and it remains a subject of dispute amongst scholars. The events of Acts Chapter 2 are set against the backdrop of the celebration of Pentecost in Jerusalem. There are several major features to the Pentecost narrative presented in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles; the author begins the narrative by noting that the disciples of Jesus "were all together in one place" on the "day of Pentecost". The verb used in Acts 2:1 to indicate the arrival of the day of Pentecost carries a connotation of fulfillment. There is a "mighty rushing wind" and "tongues as of fire" appear; the gathered disciples were "filled with the Holy Spirit, a
Lancashire
Lancashire is a ceremonial county in North West England. The administrative centre is Preston; the county has an area of 1,189 square miles. People from Lancashire are known as Lancastrians; the history of Lancashire begins with its founding in the 12th century. In the Domesday Book of 1086, some of its lands were treated as part of Yorkshire; the land that lay between the Ribble and Mersey, Inter Ripam et Mersam, was included in the returns for Cheshire. When its boundaries were established, it bordered Cumberland, Westmorland and Cheshire. Lancashire emerged as a major industrial region during the Industrial Revolution. Liverpool and Manchester grew into its largest cities, with economies built around the docks and the cotton mills respectively; these cities dominated the birth of modern industrial capitalism. The county contained the collieries of the Lancashire Coalfield. By the 1830s 85% of all cotton manufactured worldwide was processed in Lancashire. Accrington, Bolton, Bury, Colne, Manchester, Oldham, Preston and Wigan were major cotton mill towns during this time.
Blackpool was a centre for tourism for the inhabitants of Lancashire's mill towns during wakes week. The historic county was subject to a significant boundary reform in 1974 which created the current ceremonial county and removed Liverpool and Manchester, most of their surrounding conurbations to form the metropolitan and ceremonial counties of Merseyside and Greater Manchester; the detached northern part of Lancashire in the Lake District, including the Furness Peninsula and Cartmel, was merged with Cumberland and Westmorland to form Cumbria. Lancashire lost 709 square miles of land to other counties, about two fifths of its original area, although it did gain some land from the West Riding of Yorkshire. Today the ceremonial county borders Cumbria to the north, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, North and West Yorkshire to the east; the county palatine boundaries remain the same as those of the pre-1974 county with Lancaster serving as the county town, the Duke of Lancaster exercising sovereignty rights, including the appointment of lords lieutenant in Greater Manchester and Merseyside..
The county was established in 1182 than many other counties. During Roman times the area was part of the Brigantes tribal area in the military zone of Roman Britain; the towns of Manchester, Ribchester, Burrow and Castleshaw grew around Roman forts. In the centuries after the Roman withdrawal in 410AD the northern parts of the county formed part of the Brythonic kingdom of Rheged, a successor entity to the Brigantes tribe. During the mid-8th century, the area was incorporated into the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria, which became a part of England in the 10th century. In the Domesday Book, land between the Ribble and Mersey were known as "Inter Ripam et Mersam" and included in the returns for Cheshire. Although some historians consider this to mean south Lancashire was part of Cheshire, it is by no means certain, it is claimed that the territory to the north formed part of the West Riding of Yorkshire. It bordered on Cumberland, Westmorland and Cheshire; the county was divided into hundreds, Blackburn, Lonsdale and West Derby.
Lonsdale was further partitioned into Lonsdale North, the detached part north of the sands of Morecambe Bay including Furness and Cartmel, Lonsdale South. Lancashire is smaller than its historical extent following a major reform of local government. In 1889, the administrative county of Lancashire was created, covering the historic county except for the county boroughs such as Blackburn, Barrow-in-Furness, Wigan and Manchester; the area served by the Lord-Lieutenant covered the entirety of the administrative county and the county boroughs, was expanded whenever boroughs annexed areas in neighbouring counties such as Wythenshawe in Manchester south of the River Mersey and in Cheshire, southern Warrington. It did not cover the western part of Todmorden, where the ancient border between Lancashire and Yorkshire passes through the middle of the town. During the 20th century, the county became urbanised the southern part. To the existing county boroughs of Barrow-in-Furness, Bolton, Burnley, Liverpool, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, St. Helens and Wigan were added Warrington and Southport.
The county boroughs had many boundary extensions. The borders around the Manchester area were complicated, with narrow protrusions of the administrative county between the county boroughs – Lees urban district formed a detached part of the administrative county, between Oldham county borough and the West Riding of Yorkshire. By the census of 1971, the population of Lancashire and its county boroughs had reached 5,129,416, making it the most populous geographic county in the UK; the administrative county was the most populous of its type outside London, with a population of 2,280,359 in 1961. On 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, the administrative county was abolished, as were the county boroughs; the urbanised southern part became part of two metropolitan counties and Greater Manchester. The new county of Cumbria incorporates the Furness exclave; the boroughs of Liverpool, Knowsley, St. Helens and Sefton were included in Merseyside. In Greater Manchester the successor boroughs were
Easter
Easter called Pascha or Resurrection Sunday, is a festival and holiday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, described in the New Testament as having occurred on the third day after his burial following his crucifixion by the Romans at Calvary c. 30 AD. It is the culmination of the Passion of Jesus, preceded by Lent, a 40-day period of fasting and penance. Most Christians refer to the week before Easter as "Holy Week", which contains the days of the Easter Triduum, including Maundy Thursday, commemorating the Maundy and Last Supper, as well as Good Friday, commemorating the crucifixion and death of Jesus. In Western Christianity, Eastertide, or the Easter Season, begins on Easter Sunday and lasts seven weeks, ending with the coming of the 50th day, Pentecost Sunday. In Eastern Christianity, the season of Pascha begins on Pascha and ends with the coming of the 40th day, the Feast of the Ascension. Easter and the holidays that are related to it are moveable feasts which do not fall on a fixed date in the Gregorian or Julian calendars which follow only the cycle of the sun.
The First Council of Nicaea established two rules, independence of the Jewish calendar and worldwide uniformity, which were the only rules for Easter explicitly laid down by the council. No details for the computation were specified, it has come to be the first Sunday after the ecclesiastical full moon that occurs on or soonest after 21 March, but calculations vary. Easter is linked to the Jewish Passover by much of its symbolism, as well as by its position in the calendar. In most European languages the feast is called by the words for passover in those languages. Easter customs vary across the Christian world, include sunrise services, exclaiming the Paschal greeting, clipping the church, decorating Easter eggs; the Easter lily, a symbol of the resurrection, traditionally decorates the chancel area of churches on this day and for the rest of Eastertide. Additional customs that have become associated with Easter and are observed by both Christians and some non-Christians include egg hunting, the Easter Bunny, Easter parades.
There are various traditional Easter foods that vary regionally. The modern English term Easter, cognate with modern Dutch ooster and German Ostern, developed from an Old English word that appears in the form Ēastrun, -on, or -an; the most accepted theory of the origin of the term is that it is derived from the name of an Old English goddess mentioned by the 7th to 8th-century English monk Bede, who wrote that Ēosturmōnaþ was an English month, corresponding to April, which he says "was once called after a goddess of theirs named Ēostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month". In Latin and Greek, the Christian celebration was, still is, called Pascha, a word derived from Aramaic פסחא, cognate to Hebrew פֶּסַח; the word denoted the Jewish festival known in English as Passover, commemorating the Jewish Exodus from slavery in Egypt. As early as the 50s of the 1st century, writing from Ephesus to the Christians in Corinth, applied the term to Christ, it is unlikely that the Ephesian and Corinthian Christians were the first to hear Exodus 12 interpreted as speaking about the death of Jesus, not just about the Jewish Passover ritual.
In most of the non-English speaking world, the feast is known by names derived from Greek and Latin Pascha. Pascha is a name by which Jesus himself is remembered in the Orthodox Church in connection with his resurrection and with the season of its celebration; the New Testament states that the resurrection of Jesus, which Easter celebrates, is one of the chief tenets of the Christian faith. The resurrection established Jesus as the powerful Son of God and is cited as proof that God will righteously judge the world. For those who trust in Jesus' death and resurrection, "death is swallowed up in victory." Any person who chooses to follow Jesus receives "a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead". Through faith in the working of God those who follow Jesus are spiritually resurrected with him so that they may walk in a new way of life and receive eternal salvation. Easter is linked to Passover and the Exodus from Egypt recorded in the Old Testament through the Last Supper and crucifixion of Jesus that preceded the resurrection.
According to the New Testament, Jesus gave the Passover meal a new meaning, as in the upper room during the Last Supper he prepared himself and his disciples for his death. He identified the matzah and cup of wine as his body soon to be sacrificed and his blood soon to be shed. Paul states, "Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed"; the first Christians and Gentile, were aware of the Hebrew calendar. Jewish Christians, the first to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, timed the observance in relation to Passover. Direct evidence for a more formed Christian festival of Pascha begins to appear in the mid-2nd century; the earliest extant primary source referring to East
Greater Manchester
Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million. It encompasses one of the largest metropolitan areas in the United Kingdom and comprises ten metropolitan boroughs: Bolton, Oldham, Stockport, Trafford and the cities of Manchester and Salford. Greater Manchester was created on 1 April 1974 as a result of the Local Government Act 1972. Greater Manchester spans 493 square miles, which covers the territory of the Greater Manchester Built-up Area, the second most populous urban area in the UK, it is landlocked and borders Cheshire, West Yorkshire and Merseyside. There is a mix of high-density urban areas, semi-rural and rural locations in Greater Manchester, but land use is urban—the product of concentric urbanisation and industrialisation which occurred during the 19th century when the region flourished as the global centre of the cotton industry, it has a focused central business district, formed by Manchester city centre and the adjoining parts of Salford and Trafford, but Greater Manchester is a polycentric county with ten metropolitan districts, each of which has at least one major town centre and outlying suburbs.
Greater Manchester is governed by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, which consists of political leaders from each of the ten metropolitan borough councils, plus a directly elected mayor, with responsibility for economic development and transport. Andy Burnham is the inaugural Mayor of Greater Manchester, elected in 2017. For the 12 years following 1974 the county had a two-tier system of local government; the county council was abolished in 1986, so its districts became unitary authority areas. However, the metropolitan county continued to exist in law and as a geographic frame of reference, as a ceremonial county, with a Lord Lieutenant and a High Sheriff. Several county-wide services were co-ordinated through the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities between 1985 and 2011. Before the creation of the metropolitan county, the name SELNEC was used for the area, from the initials of "South East Lancashire North East Cheshire". Greater Manchester is an amalgamation of 70 former local government districts from the former administrative counties of Lancashire, the West Riding of Yorkshire and eight independent county boroughs.
Since deindustrialisation in the mid-20th century, Greater Manchester has emerged as an exporter of media and digital content and dance music, association football. Although the modern county of Greater Manchester was not created until 1974, the history of its constituent settlements goes back centuries. There is evidence of Iron Age habitation at Mellor, Celtic activity in a settlement named Chochion, believed to have been an area of Wigan settled by the Brigantes. Stretford was part of the land believed to have been occupied by the Celtic Brigantes tribe, lay on their border with the Cornovii on the southern side of the River Mersey; the remains of 1st-century forts at Castlefield in Manchester, Castleshaw Roman fort in Saddleworth, are evidence of Roman occupation. Much of the region was omitted from the Domesday Book of 1086. During the Middle Ages, much of what became Greater Manchester lay within the hundred of Salfordshire – an ancient division of the county of Lancashire. Salfordshire encompassed several parishes and townships, some of which, like Rochdale, were important market towns and centres of England's woollen trade.
The development of what became Greater Manchester is attributed to a shared tradition of domestic flannel and fustian cloth production, which encouraged a system of cross-regional trade. In the late-18th century, the Industrial Revolution transformed the local domestic system. Infrastructure such as rows of terraced housing and roads were constructed to house labour, transport goods, produce cotton goods on an industrial scale for a global market; the townships in and around Manchester began expanding "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century as part of a process of unplanned urbanisation brought on by a boom in industrial textile production and processing. This population increase resulted in the "vigorous concentric growth" of a conurbation between Manchester and an arc of surrounding mill towns, formed from a steady accretion of houses and transport infrastructure. Places such as Bury and Bolton played a central economic role nationally, by the end of the 19th century had become some of the most important and productive cotton-producing towns in the world.
However, it was Manchester, the most populous settlement, a major city, the world's largest marketplace for cotton goods, the natural centre of its region. By 1835 "Manchester was without challenge the first and greatest industrial city in the world". In the 1910s, local government reforms to administer this conurbation as a single entity were proposed. In the 18th century, German traders had coined the name Manchesterthum to cover the region in and around Manchester. However, the English term "Greater Mancheste
Summit
A summit is a point on a surface, higher in elevation than all points adjacent to it. The topographic terms acme, apex and zenith are synonymous; the term top is used only for a mountain peak, located at some distance from the nearest point of higher elevation. For example, a big massive rock next to the main summit of a mountain is not considered a summit. Summits near a higher peak, with some prominence or isolation, but not reaching a certain cutoff value for the quantities, are considered subsummits of the higher peak, are considered part of the same mountain. A pyramidal peak is an exaggerated form produced by ice erosion of a mountain top. Summit may refer to the highest point along a line, trail, or route; the highest summit in the world is Everest with height of 8844.43 m above sea level. The first official ascent was made by Sir Edmund Hillary, they reached the mountain`s peak in 1953. Whether a highest point is classified as a summit, a sub peak or a separate mountain is subjective; the UIAA definition of a peak is.
Otherwise, it's a subpeak. In many parts of the western United States, the term summit refers to the highest point along a road, highway, or railroad. For example, the highest point along Interstate 80 in California is referred to as Donner Summit and the highest point on Interstate 5 is Siskiyou Mountain Summit. A summit climbing differs from the common mountaineering. Summit expedition requires: 1+ year of training, a good physical shape, a special gear. Although a huge part of climber’s stuff can be left and taken at the base camps or given to porters, there is a long list of personal equipment. In addition to common mountaineers’ gear, Summit climbers need to take Diamox and bottles of oxygen. There are special requirements for crampons, ice axe, rappel device, etc. Geoid Hill – Landform that extends above the surrounding terrain Nadir Summit accordance Peak finder Summit Climbing Gear List
Spanish Armada
The Spanish Armada was a Habsburg Spanish fleet of 130 ships that sailed from A Coruña in late May 1588, under the command of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, with the purpose of escorting an army from Flanders to invade England. Medina Sidonia was an aristocrat without naval command experience but was made commander by King Philip II; the aim was to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I and her establishment of Protestantism in England, to stop English interference in the Spanish Netherlands and to the harm caused to Spanish interests by English and Dutch privateering ships that interfered with Spanish interests in America. English ships sailed from Plymouth to attack the Armada, were faster and more manoeuvrable than the larger Spanish Galleons, enabling them to fire on the Armada without loss as it sailed east off the south coast of England. There was an opportunity for the Armada to anchor in the Solent between the Isle of Wight and the English mainland and to occupy the Isle of Wight, but Medina Sidonia was under orders from King Philip II to meet up with the Duke of Parma's forces in The Netherlands.
This was so that England could be invaded by Parma's soldiers and other soldiers carried in ships of the Armada. Meanwhile, damage to the Armada had been done by English guns and a Spanish ship had been captured by Sir Francis Drake in the English Channel; the Armada anchored off Calais. While awaiting communications from Duke of Parma, the Armada was scattered by an English fireship night attack and abandoned its rendezvous with Parma's army, who were blockaded in harbour by Dutch flyboats. In the ensuing Battle of Gravelines the Spanish fleet was further damaged and were in risk of running aground on the Dutch coast when the wind changed; the Armada, driven by southwest winds, withdrew north, with the English fleet harrying it up the east coast of England. On return to Spain round the north of Scotland and south around Ireland, the Armada was disrupted further by storms. A large number of ships were wrecked on the coasts of Scotland and Ireland and over a third of the initial 130 ships failed to return.
As Martin and Parker explain, "Philip II attempted to invade England. This was due to his own mismanagement including appointing an aristocrat without naval experience as commander of the Armada, unfortunate weather, the opposition of the English and their Dutch allies including the use of fire-ships sailed into the anchored Armada.". The expedition was the largest engagement of the undeclared Anglo-Spanish War; the following year, England organised a similar large-scale campaign against Spain, the English Armada, sometimes called the "counter-Armada of 1589". The word armada is from the Spanish: armada, cognate with English army. From the Latin: armāta, the past participle of armāre,'to arm', used in Romance languages as a noun for armed force, navy, fleet. Armada Española is still the Spanish term for the modern Spanish Navy. Armada was the Portuguese traditional term of the Portuguese Navy. Henry VIII began the English Reformation as a political exercise over his desire to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.
Over time it became aligned with the Protestant reformation taking place in Europe during the reign of Henry's son, Edward VI. Edward died childless, his half-sister Mary I ascended the throne. A devout Catholic, Mary began to reassert Roman influence over church affairs, her attempts led to over 260 people being burned at the stake, earning her the nickname'Bloody Mary'. Mary's death in 1558 led to Elizabeth I, taking the throne. Unlike Mary, Elizabeth was in the reformist camp, reimplemented many of Edward's reforms. Philip, no longer co-monarch, deemed Elizabeth a illegitimate ruler of England. In the eyes of the Catholic Church, Henry had never divorced Catherine, making Elizabeth illegitimate, it is alleged that Phillip supported plots to have Elizabeth overthrown in favour of her Catholic cousin and heir presumptive, Queen of Scots. Elizabeth retaliated against Philip by supporting the Dutch revolt against Spain, as well as funding privateers to raid Spanish ships across the Atlantic. In retaliation, Philip planned an expedition to invade England in order to overthrow Elizabeth and, if the Armada was not successful, at least negotiate freedom of worship for Catholics and financial compensation for war in the Low Countries.
Through this, it would end the English material support for the United Provinces – the part of the Low Countries that had seceded from Spanish rule – and cut off English attacks on Spanish trade and settlements in the New World. The King was supported by Pope Sixtus V, who treated the invasion as a crusade, with the promise of a subsidy should the Armada make land. A raid on Cádiz, led by Francis Drake in April 1587, had captured or destroyed some thirty ships and great quantities of supplies, setting preparations back by a year. Philip favoured a triple attack, starting with a diversionary raid on Scotland, while the main Armada would capture the Isle of Wight, or Southampton, to establish a safe anchorage in the Solent; the Duke of Parma would follow with a large army from the Low Countries crossing the English Channel. Parma was uneasy about mounting such an invasion without any possibility of surprise, he was alarmed by the costs that would be incurred and advised Philip to postpone or abandon it.
The appointed commander of the Armada wa
