1.
Jacksonville, Florida
–
Jacksonville is a seaport city and the seat of Duval County, Florida, United States. With an estimated 868,031 residents as of 2015, Jacksonville is the most populous city in both the state of Florida and the southeastern United States. It is estimated to be the 12th most populous city in the United States and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. The Jacksonville metropolitan area has a population of 1,603,497 and is the 34th largest in the United States and fourth largest in the state of Florida. The city is situated on the banks of the St. Johns River, in the First Coast region of North Florida, prior to European settlement, the Jacksonville area was inhabited by Native American people known as the Timucua. In 1564, the French established the colony of Fort Caroline at the mouth of the St. Johns River. In 1822, a year after the United States gained Florida from Spain, Jacksonville is the cultural, commercial and financial center of North Florida. A major military and civilian deep-water port, the citys riverine location supports two United States Navy bases and the Port of Jacksonville, Floridas third largest seaport. The two US Navy bases, Blount Island Command and the nearby Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Jacksonville is also home to several colleges and universities, including University of North Florida, Jacksonville University and Florida State College at Jacksonville. The area of the city of Jacksonville has been inhabited for thousands of years. In the 16th century, the beginning of the era, the region was inhabited by the Mocama. At the time of contact with Europeans, all Mocama villages in present-day Jacksonville were part of the powerful chiefdom known as the Saturiwa, centered around the mouth of the St. Johns River. One early map shows a village called Ossachite at the site of what is now downtown Jacksonville, French Huguenot explorer Jean Ribault charted the St. Johns River in 1562 calling it the River of May because he discovered it in May. Ribault erected a column near present-day Jacksonville claiming the newly discovered land for France. In 1564, René Goulaine de Laudonnière established the first European settlement, Fort Caroline, philip II of Spain ordered Pedro Menéndez de Avilés to protect the interest of Spain by attacking the French presence at Fort Caroline. On September 20,1565, a Spanish force from the nearby Spanish settlement of St. Augustine attacked Fort Caroline, the Spanish renamed the fort San Mateo, and following the ejection of the French, St. Augustines position as the most important settlement in Florida was solidified. The location of Fort Caroline is subject to debate but a reconstruction of the fort was established on the St. Johns River in 1964. Spain ceded Florida to the British in 1763 after the French and Indian War, the British introduced the cultivation of sugar cane, indigo and fruits as well the export of lumber
2.
Swimming (sport)
–
Swimming is an individual or team sport that involves using arms and legs to move the body through water. Typically, the takes place in pools or in open-water. Competitive swimming is one of the most popular Olympic sports, with events in butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, freestyle, in addition to these individual events, swimmers also take part in relays. Swimming each stroke requires specific techniques, and in competition, there are specific regulations concerning the form for different strokes. There are also put in place to regulate what types of swimsuits are allowed at competitions. Although it is possible for competitive swimmers to incur several injuries from the sport, evidence of recreational swimming in prehistoric times has been found, with the earliest evidence dating to Stone Age paintings from around 10000 years ago. Written references date from 2000 BC, with some of the earliest references to swimming including the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Bible, Beowulf, the Quran and others. In 1538, Nikolaus Wynmann, a German professor of languages, wrote the first swimming book, Swimming emerged as a competitive recreational activity in the 1830s in England. In 1828, the first indoor swimming pool, St Georges Baths was opened to the public, by 1837, the National Swimming Society was holding regular swimming competitions in six artificial swimming pools, built around London. In 1844 two Native American participants at a competition in London introduced the front crawl to a European audience. Sir John Arthur Trudgen picked up the stroke from some South American natives and successfully debuted the new stroke in 1873. His stroke is still regarded as the most powerful to use today, captain Matthew Webb was the first man to swim the English Channel, in 1875. Using the breaststroke technique, he swam the channel 21.26 miles in 21 hours and 45 minutes and his feat was not replicated or surpassed for the next 36 years, until T. W. Burgess made the crossing in 1911. Other European countries also established swimming federations, Germany in 1882, France in 1890, the first European amateur swimming competitions were in 1889 in Vienna. The worlds first womens swimming championship was held in Scotland in 1892, mens swimming became part of the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 in Athens. In 1902, the Australian Richmond Cavill introduced the front crawl to the Western world, in 1908, the world swimming association, Fédération Internationale de Natation, was formed. Womens swimming was introduced into the Olympics in 1912, the first international tournament for women outside the Olympics was the 1922 Womens Olympiad, Butterfly was developed in the 1930s and was at first a variant of breaststroke, until it was accepted as a separate style in 1952. Competitive swimming became popular in the 19th century, the goal of competitive swimming is to break personal or world records while beating competitors in any given event
3.
Freestyle swimming
–
Freestyle races are the most common of all swimming competitions, with distances reaching 1500m. The stroke used almost universally in freestyle races is the front crawl, for this reason, the term freestyle is sometimes incorrectly used as a synonym for front crawl when in fact it means one is mostly free to choose a style. Freestyle swimming implies to the freedom to choose any style for competitive swimming. The front crawl is most commonly chosen by swimmers, as this provides the greatest speed, during a race, the competitor circles the arms forward in alternation and kicks the feet up and down. Although competitors can choose any motion during the stroke, it is not common to see someone doing dog paddle. Stand-alone freestyle events can also be using one of the officially regulated strokes. For the freestyle part of swimming competitions, however, one cannot use breaststroke, butterfly. Front crawl is based on the Trudgen that was improved by Richmond Cavill from Sydney, Cavill developed the stroke by observing a young boy from the Solomon Islands, Alick Wickham. Cavill and his brothers spread the Australian crawl to England, New Zealand, Richmond Cavill used this stroke in 1902 at an International Championships in England to set a new world record by swimming 100 yards in 58.4 seconds. Freestyle competitions have also been completely and partially in other styles. During the Olympic Games, front crawl is swum almost exclusively during freestyle. Some of the few rules are that swimmers must touch the end of the pool during each length, as with all competitive events, false starts are not allowed. Times have consistently dropped over the due to better training techniques. In the first four Olympics, competitions were not held in pools, the 1904 Olympics freestyle race was the only one ever measured at 100 yards, instead of the usual 100 metres. A 100-metre pool was built for the 1908 Olympics and sat in the center of the stadiums track. The 1912 Olympics, held in the Stockholm harbour, marked the beginning of electronic timing, male swimmers wore full body suits up until the 1940s, which caused more drag in the water than their modern swimwear counterparts. The 1924 Olympics were the first to use the standard 50 metre pool with marked lanes, in the freestyle, swimmers originally dove from the pool walls, but diving blocks were eventually incorporated at the 1936 Olympics. The tumble turn, better known as the turn, was developed in the 1950s
4.
Swimming at the Summer Olympics
–
Swimming has been a sport at every modern Summer Olympics. It has been open to women since 1912, along with track & field athletics and gymnastics, it is one of the most popular spectator sports at the Games. Swimming has the second largest number of events, the International Olympic Committee recognise the best performances in all 32 current pool-based swimming events at the Games as Olympic records. In the first four Olympics, competitions were not held in pools, the 1904 Olympics races were the only ones ever measured in yards, instead of the usual metres. A 100-metre pool was built for the 1908 Olympics and was located in the centre of the stadiums track. The 1912 Olympics, held in the Stockholm harbour, marked the beginning of electrical timing, male swimmers wore full body swimsuits up until the 1940s, which caused more drag in the water than their modern swim-wear counterparts. Also, over the years, pool designs have lessened the drag, some design considerations allow for the reduction of swimming resistance making the pool faster. The 1924 Olympics were the first to use the standard 50 metre pool with marked lanes, in the freestyle, swimmers originally dove from the pool walls, but diving blocks were incorporated starting at the 1936 Summer Olympics. The flip-turn was developed by the 1950s, swimming goggles were first allowed in 1976. The butterfly stroke events were not held until 1956, previous rules permitted the butterfly stroke in breaststroke races. After 1956, when rules were changed, butterfly became its own stroke entirely. Women were first allowed the distance of 800 metres freestyle in 1968. Up until then, women were considered to be too delicate to swim a race this long, both men and women were granted the 200 metre freestyle race in 1968, giving swimmers an intermediate distance race between 100 metres and 400 metres. Womens teams were first granted the 800 metre freestyle race in 1996 - even though there had been a mens relay race at that distance since 1912. At six Olympiads, the men had two freestyle relay races, but the women only had one, the medley relay races were not held for men or for women until 1960, but they have continued in every Olympiad since then. Starting in 2008, both men and women compete in 10 km open water swim events
