Siberia is an extensive geographical region spanning much of Eurasia and North Asia. Siberia has been part of modern Russia since the 17th century; the territory of Siberia extends eastwards from the Ural Mountains to the watershed between the Pacific and Arctic drainage basins. The Yenisei River conditionally divides Siberia into two parts and Eastern. Siberia stretches southwards from the Arctic Ocean to the hills of north-central Kazakhstan and to the national borders of Mongolia and China. With an area of 13.1 million square kilometres, Siberia accounts for 77% of Russia's land area, but it is home to 33 million people—23% of the country's population. This is equivalent to an average population density of about 3 inhabitants per square kilometre, making Siberia one of the most sparsely populated regions on Earth. If it were a country by itself, it would still be the largest country in area, but in population it would be the world's 35th-largest and Asia's 14th-largest. Worldwide, Siberia is well-known for its long, harsh winters, with a January average of −25 °C, as well as its extensive history of use by Russian and Soviet governments as a place for prisons, labor camps, internal exile.

The origin of the name is unknown. Some sources say that "Siberia" originates from the Siberian Tatar word for "sleeping land". Another account sees the name as the ancient tribal ethnonym of the Sirtya, an ethnic group which spoke a Paleosiberian language; the Sirtya people were assimilated into the Siberian Tatars. The modern usage of the name was recorded in the Russian language after the Empire's conquest of the Siberian Khanate. A further variant claims; the Polish historian Chyliczkowski has proposed that the name derives from the proto-Slavic word for "north", same as Severia. Anatole Baikaloff has dismissed this explanation, he said that the neighbouring Chinese and Mongolians, who have similar names for the region, would not have known Russian. He suggests that the name might be a combination of two words with Turkic origin, "su" and "bir"; the region has paleontological significance, as it contains bodies of prehistoric animals from the Pleistocene Epoch, preserved in ice or in permafrost.

Specimens of Goldfuss cave lion cubs, Yuka the mammoth and another woolly mammoth from Oymyakon, a woolly rhinoceros from the Kolyma River, bison and horses from Yukagir have been found. The Siberian Traps were formed by one of the largest-known volcanic events of the last 500 million years of Earth's geological history, their activity continued for a million years and some scientists consider it a possible cause of the "Great Dying" about 250 million years ago, – estimated to have killed 90% of species existing at the time. At least three species of human lived in Southern Siberia around 40,000 years ago: H. sapiens, H. neanderthalensis, the Denisovans. In 2010 DNA evidence identified the last as a separate species. During past millennia different groups of nomads – such as the Enets, the Nenets, the Huns, the Xiongnu, the Scythians and the Uyghurs inhabited various parts of Siberia; the proto-Mongol Khitan people occupied parts of the region. In 630 the Khan of Sibir in the vicinity of modern Tobolsk was known as a prominent figure who endorsed Kubrat as Khagan of Old Great Bulgaria.

In the 13th century, during the period of the Mongol Empire, the Mongols conquered a large part of this area. With the breakup of the Golden Horde, the autonomous Khanate of Sibir formed in the late-15th century. Turkic-speaking Yakut migrated north from the Lake Baikal region under pressure from the Mongol tribes during the 13th to 15th century. Siberia remained a sparsely populated area. Historian John F. Richards wrote: "... it is doubtful that the total early modern Siberian population exceeded 300,000 persons". The growing power of Russia in the West began to undermine the Siberian Khanate in the 16th century. First, groups of traders and Cossacks began to enter the area; the Russian Army was directed to establish forts farther and farther east to protect new settlers who migrated from European Russia. Towns such as Mangazeya, Tara and Tobolsk developed, the last becoming the de facto capital of Siberia from 1590. At this time, Sibir was the name of a fortress at Qashlik, near Tobolsk. Gerardus Mercator, in a map published in 1595, marks Sibier both as the name of a settlement and of the surrounding territory along a left tributary of the Ob.

Other sources contend that the Xibe, an indigenous Tungusic people, offered fierce resistance to Russian expansion beyond the Urals. Some suggest. By the mid-17th century Russia had established areas of control; some 230,000 Russians had settled in Siberia by 1709. Siberia became one of the destinations for sending internal exiles; the conquest and colonization of Siberia by the Russians, made in the sixteenth century in general has many parallels with the conquest of the American West: a technologically more developed people invade ancestral territories occupied by other peoples, with less technological sophistication and a lifestyle and way of looking at the world different from the invading people. Ethnic Russians, because of their Christian traditions, saw these peoples as barbarians. Interestingly, at this same time, Western Europe looked at the Tsar and his subjects in a similar way. However, the Cossacks learned that it would be expensive for them to disregard all the experience acc

Prairie Township is one of fifteen townships in Edgar County, Illinois, USA. As of the 2010 census, its population was 273 and it contained 125 housing units. According to the 2010 census, the township has a total area of 35.99 square miles, of which 35.98 square miles is land and 0.01 square miles is water. Scottland Raven Illiana Quaker Wesley Chapel Cemetery. US Route 36 US Route 150 Illinois Route 1 Rowe Airport Edgar County Community Unit District 6 Georgetown-Ridge Farm Consolidated Unit School District 4 Illinois's 15th congressional district State House District 109 State Senate District 55 "Prairie Township, Edgar County, Illinois". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey. Retrieved 10 January 2010. US Census Bureau 2007 TIGER/Line Shapefiles US National Atlas City-Data.com Illinois State Archives

Andrzej Kusionowicz Grodyński, baptized as Andrzej Szymon Kusionowicz, was a Polish lawyer who worked as a Silesian circuit judge based in Cieszyn for much of his career. Kusionowicz was the editor of Gwiazdka Cieszyńska from 1889 to 1890. An associate of Paweł Stalmach, who founded Gwiazdka Cieszyńska, he was a friend of Józef Londzin with whom he shared the early vision of Cieszyn Silesia joining Galicia in a new Polish state independent of Austrian rule. On 7 September 1906 Kusionowicz changed his surname to Grodyński and was appointed President of the Silesian Court of Appeal in Katowice. Following World War I he represented the Polish High Court in Kraków for the legal transitioning of Silesia into the newly independent Poland. One of a large number of children of Sylwester and Anna, Andrzej was born in Gdów, Poland, to where his father had moved from Chocholów subsequent to the Battle of Gdów. In addition to starting the first'state school' in the district, conducting lessons in Polish in the former parish school building, Andrzej’s father, performed as the church organist.

Andrzej was raised in Western Galicia but when he was only fifteen his father died and his elder brother Józef, a notary in Milówka, became his legal guardian. After completing his schooling Andrzej attended universities in Kraków, Graz and Vienna moved to Cieszyn Silesia due to his keen interest in Polish affairs centred in that region. In 1887 "Jędrzéj" became a member of the Faculty for Public Reading, an important Polish cultural society that facilitated public access to reading materials and political interest, furthered in his university studies was expressed through his editorship of Gwiazdka Cieszyńska, from 12 January 1889 to 7 June 1890; this culminated in a nationalistic call for Polish Catholics and Polish Protestants to work together in selecting and voting for candidates in the forthcoming elections for the Silesian Parliament. Although the Sejm at the time was dominated by German representatives, this was a controversial plea given that the publisher of Gwiazdka Cieszyńska from 1889 was the Katolickie Towarzystwo Prasowe.

On 14 June 1890 fr Józef Londzin, in his first editorial on taking over from Kusionowicz, made no direct reference to this patriotic call by his predecessor but informed readers that he had been entrusted by the ‘Catholic hierarchy’ with the publication’s editorship before making his own plea for the Polish nation and people of Silesia to guard against the forces of liberalism and Germanisation. While Kusionowicz was the editor, Gwiazdka Cieszyńska had continued to espouse the ideals of Paweł Stalmach in advocating support of many social causes ranging from improving the welfare of the poor to progressing literacy and education levels among the ethnic Poles in Silesia and Galicia. Andrzej worked as secretary of the Cieszyn Education Society, of which Stalmach was the President, completed his studies for a doctorate of law from Jagiellonian University on 14 July 1891; that same year he participated with Jan Michejda, Ignacy Świeży, Hilary Filasiewicz, Antoni Dyboski, Adam Sikora, Szczepan Chrapek, Mieczysław Kopciński, Bolesław Rzepecki and Maryan Lanikiewicz in setting up the Cieszyn branch of Sokół.

After graduating as a Doctor of Law in 1891 Andrzej joined the law office of dr Jan Michejda, where in March 1893 he transferred to the judicial profession. This career progression followed the birth of his son, Bogusław Jan Sylwester, on 19 August 1892, but on 28 April 1894 tragedy struck in Andrzej's personal life when he lost his first wife Anna who at only thirty years of age died from tuberculosis. On 3 June 1896 Andrzej married Alicja Matter, the daughter of Alfons, a renowned builder and councillor in Cieszyn, a member of the Association of Silesian Catholics and who supported the opening of what was the first recognized "Polish School" in Cieszyn. In 1897 Andrzej was appointed as a judge in Jabłonków where he moved with Alicja before relocating again in 1903 to take up the position of Head of Court in Strumień. In 1907 he transferred to the District Court in Cieszyn, in which city he continued to reside after his appointment as President of the Court of Appeal in Katowice. Following the establishment in 1918 of the National Council of The Duchy of Cieszyn after World War I, comprising representatives of Polish political groups that had arisen over the preceding fifty years, the'Easements Commission' was set up with dr Andrzej Grodyński appointed as its Chairman.

In addition to carrying out his regular judicial duties, Andrzej participated in other significant meetings for the new Polish state and early in 1921 he was a member of the Polish delegation that entered into the first official talks with Czech representatives following the peace agreement reached in Paris on 20 November 1920. The early years of the Second Polish Republic placed onerous demands on Poland's judiciary which in turn led to a high mortalit