1.
United States national rugby union team
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The United States mens national rugby union team, nicknamed the Eagles, represents the United States in the sport of rugby union. The national team is controlled by USA Rugby, which is a member of Rugby Americas North, until sevens made its debut at the 2016 Rio Games, the United States was the reigning Olympic champion in rugby, having won gold at the 1920 and 1924 Summer Olympics. As of June 27,2016, the Eagles are ranked 17th in the world by the World Rugby Rankings and their highest ranking, achieved ahead of the 2007 World Cup, was 14th, their lowest ranking was 20th, following a winless campaign in the 2008 Churchill Cup. The highest profile tournament in which the Eagles play is the Rugby World Cup, the Eagles have played in all but one Rugby World Cup since the tournament began in 1987. The United States has expressed interest in hosting the 2027 Rugby World Cup, the United States competed in the Pacific Nations Cup every Summer from 2013 to 2015. Previously, the U. S. has competed in the now-defunct Churchill Cup, the contest was named the Americas Rugby Championship and began in 2016. The United States won the 2017 Americas Rugby Championship after drawing with Argentina XV and it was the United States first 15s title in over 90 years. Informal football games such as rugby became popular in the United States in the mid-19th century, Rugby union was played as early as 1872 among rugby clubs in the San Francisco Bay Area composed mainly of British expatriates. California lost to the Phoenix club 7–4, the first recorded rugby game in the U. S. place in May 1874 when Harvard University hosted McGill University. The game sparked an interest on college campuses nationwide, in 1876 Yale, Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia formed the Intercollegiate Football Association, which largely used the rugby code. In 1886 Harvards Oscar Shafter Howard introduced these rules to the campus of the University of California, American football was fierce, and as injuries mounted, the public became alarmed at its brutalities and President Theodore Roosevelt threatened to outlaw the sport. Beginning in 1906, rugby became the game of choice at Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley. Rugbys popularity, however, was lived, and the sport had died out by the outbreak of World War I. A California student team toured Australia and New Zealand in 1910, Australia obliged by touring North America in 1912, and the U. S. national team played its first international match on November 16,1912 against Australia in Berkeley, California. A year later, the U. S. hosted New Zealand at the venue on November 15,1913. Rugby union had not been played competitively in most of the USA for more than a decade before the 1920 Olympics. The U. S. Olympic committee decided that because California is the state playing Rugby in the US. The U. S. assembled mostly a California-based team, with six players from the University of California, the Olympic Games Committee of the Amateur Athletic Union paid the expenses to transport the team from California to the games in Antwerp
2.
Romania national rugby union team
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The Romania national rugby union team, nicknamed The Oaks, is the representative side of Romania in rugby union. Rugby union in Romania is administered by the Romanian Rugby Federation, the team plays in yellow and blue strips. France first played rugby against Romania in 1924 when they tried to establish a rival to the Five Nations championship, although not regarded as a top-tier team in more recent times, their history includes wins against four of the Six Nations Championship teams. Romania have played in every Rugby World Cup as of 2015, however, the likes of Georgia have challenged Romania for top spot below the Six Nations, and Georgia, along with Portugal have both won the European Nations Cup. The game itself was introduced by students returning with rugby balls from their studies in Paris to form such as Stadiul Roman from 1913 onwards. Seventeen other teams would be formed in the capital, Bucharest, Romanias first international was played against the USA in 1919. France first officially played rugby union against Romania in May 1924 when they tried to establish a rival to the Five Nations Championship, France were victorious by 59 points to 3. Romania were one of three teams who entered the 1924 Olympics in Paris, France won 59–3, scoring 13 tries including four by the fine Stade Francais winger Adolphe Jaureguy. The USA then defeated Romania 39–0, Romania finishing third claimed the bronze medal. The Federaţia Română de Rugby was formed in 1931, in 1939 a team was formed in Braşov at an aircraft factory. This was the first team outside Bucharest, the communist regime used rugby union like it used other sports, as a propaganda tool during the Cold War with the West. Every international success was presented as a result of the righteousness of the communist rule. All the financial resources were directed toward the preparation of the team to the detriment of domestic development. Top players were employed in the army or the police, whose sides CSA Steaua București and these infrastructures bred a talented national side. A generation of French school trained coaches from late ’40s, and ’50s built a system and led the team to success of the 1960s, ’70s. In this era Romania began to more regularly against the major nations. Their first win over France came in 1960 in Bucharest, in a match won by 11-5. In 1974 Romania won against France 15 –10 in Bucharest, in 1975 Romania went for an 8-game tour to New Zealand, concluding in Wellington with a 10-10 draw against the Junior All Blacks
3.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
4.
Rugby union
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Rugby union, known in some parts of the world simply as rugby, is a contact team sport which originated in England in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its most common form, a game is between two teams of 15 players using a ball on a rectangular field with H-shaped goalposts on each try line. Historically an amateur sport, in 1995 restrictions on payments to players were removed, World Rugby, originally the International Rugby Football Board and from 1998 to 2014 the International Rugby Board, has been the governing body for rugby union since 1886. Rugby union spread from the Home Nations of Great Britain and Ireland, early exponents of the sport included Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and France. Countries that have adopted rugby union as their de facto national sport include Fiji, Georgia, Madagascar, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, Rugby union is played in over 100 countries across six continents, there are 101 full members and 18 associate members of World Rugby. The Rugby World Cup, first held in 1987, takes place four years with the winner of the tournament receiving the Webb Ellis Cup. The Six Nations Championship in Europe and The Rugby Championship in the Southern Hemisphere are major annual competitions. The origin of football is reputed to be an incident during a game of English school football at Rugby School in 1823. Although the evidence for the story is doubtful, it was immortalised at the school with a plaque unveiled in 1895, despite the doubtful evidence, the Rugby World Cup trophy is named after Webb Ellis. Rugby football stems from the form of game played at Rugby School, Old Rugbeian Albert Pell, a student at Cambridge, is credited with having formed the first football team. During this early period different schools used different rules, with pupils from Rugby. Other important events include the Blackheath Clubs decision to leave the Football Association in 1863, despite the sports full name of rugby union, it is known simply as rugby throughout most of the world. The first rugby football international was played on 27 March 1871 between Scotland and England, by 1881 both Ireland and Wales had representative teams, and in 1883 the first international competition, the Home Nations Championship had begun. 1883 is also the year of the first rugby tournament, the Melrose Sevens. During the early history of union, a time before commercial air travel. The first two notable tours both took place in 1888—the British Isles team touring New Zealand and Australia, followed by the New Zealand team touring Europe, All three teams brought new styles of play, fitness levels and tactics, and were far more successful than critics had expected. After Morgan began singing, the crowd joined in, the first time a national anthem was sung at the start of a sporting event, in 1905 France played England in its first international match
5.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
6.
Oakland, California
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Oakland /ˈoʊklənd/ is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. The city was incorporated in 1852, Oaklands territory covers what was once a mosaic of California coastal terrace prairie, oak woodland, and north coastal scrub. Its land served as a resource when its hillside oak and redwood timber were logged to build San Francisco. In the late 1860s, Oakland was selected as the terminal of the Transcontinental Railroad. Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, many San Francisco citizens moved to Oakland, enlarging the citys population, increasing its housing stock and it continued to grow in the 20th century with its busy port, shipyards, and a thriving automobile manufacturing industry. Oakland is known for its sustainability practices, including a top-ranking for usage of electricity from renewable resources, in addition, due to a steady influx of immigrants during the 20th century, along with thousands of African-American war-industry workers who relocated from the Deep South during the 1940s. Oakland is the most ethnically diverse city in the country. The earliest known inhabitants were the Huchiun Indians, who lived there for thousands of years, the Huchiun belonged to a linguistic grouping later called the Ohlone. In Oakland, they were concentrated around Lake Merritt and Temescal Creek, in 1772, the area that later became Oakland was claimed, with the rest of California, by Spanish settlers for the King of Spain. In the early 19th century, the Spanish crown granted the East Bay area to Luis María Peralta for his Rancho San Antonio, the grant was confirmed by the successor Mexican republic upon its independence from Spain. Upon his death in 1842, Peralta divided his land among his four sons, Most of Oakland fell within the shares given to Antonio Maria and Vicente. The portion of the parcel that is now Oakland was called encinal—Spanish for oak grove—due to the oak forest that covered the area. In 1851, three men—Horace Carpentier, Edson Adams, and Andrew Moon—began developing what is now downtown Oakland, on May 4,1852, the Town of Oakland incorporated. Two years later, on March 25,1854, Oakland re-incorporated as the City of Oakland, with Horace Carpentier elected the first mayor, the city and its environs quickly grew with the railroads, becoming a major rail terminal in the late 1860s and 1870s. In 1868, the Central Pacific constructed the Oakland Long Wharf at Oakland Point, a number of horsecar and cable car lines were constructed in Oakland during the latter half of the 19th century. The first electric streetcar set out from Oakland to Berkeley in 1891, at the time of incorporation, Oakland consisted of the territory that lay south of todays major intersection of San Pablo Avenue, Broadway, and Fourteenth Street. The city gradually annexed farmlands and settlements to the east and the north, Oaklands rise to industrial prominence, and its subsequent need for a seaport, led to the digging of a shipping and tidal channel in 1902. This resulted in the town of Alameda being made an island
