A state is a polity, established as a centralized organisation. There is no undisputed definition of a state. Max Weber's definition of a state as a polity that maintains a monopoly on the use of violence is used, as are many others; some states are sovereign, while other states are subject to external sovereignty or hegemony, where supreme authority lies in another state. The term "state" applies to federated states that are members of a federation, in which sovereignty is shared between member states and a federal body. Speakers of American English use the terms "state" and "government" as synonyms, with both words referring to an organized political group that exercises authority over a particular territory. In British and Commonwealth English, "state" is the only term that has that meaning, while "the government" instead refers to the ministers and officials who set the political policy for the territory, something that speakers of American English refer to as "the administration". Many human societies have been governed by states for millennia.

The first states arose about 5,500 years ago in conjunction with rapid growth of cities, invention of writing and codification of new forms of religion. Over time, a variety of different forms developed, employing a variety of justifications for their existence. Today, the modern nation state is the predominant form of state; the word state and its cognates in some other European languages derive from the Latin word status, meaning "condition, circumstances". The English noun state in the generic sense "condition, circumstances" predates the political sense, it is introduced to Middle English c. 1200 both directly from Latin. With the revival of the Roman law in 14th-century Europe, the term came to refer to the legal standing of persons, in particular the special status of the king; the highest estates those with the most wealth and social rank, were those that held power. The word had associations with Roman ideas about the "status rei publicae", the "condition of public matters". In time, the word lost its reference to particular social groups and became associated with the legal order of the entire society and the apparatus of its enforcement.

The early 16th-century works of Machiavelli played a central role in popularizing the use of the word "state" in something similar to its modern sense. The contrasting of church and state still dates to the 16th century; the North American colonies were called "states" as early as the 1630s. The expression L'Etat, c'est moi attributed to Louis XIV of France is apocryphal, recorded in the late 18th century. There is no academic consensus on the most appropriate definition of the state; the term "state" refers to a set of different, but interrelated and overlapping, theories about a certain range of political phenomena. The act of defining the term can be seen as part of an ideological conflict, because different definitions lead to different theories of state function, as a result validate different political strategies. According to Jeffrey and Painter, "if we define the'essence' of the state in one place or era, we are liable to find that in another time or space something, understood to be a state has different'essential' characteristics".

Different definitions of the state place an emphasis either on the ‘means’ or the ‘ends’ of states. Means-related definitions include those by Max Weber and Charles Tilly, both of whom define the state according to its violent means. For Weber, the state "is a human community that claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory”, while Tilly characterises them as "coercion-wielding organisations". Ends-related definitions emphasis instead the teleological aims and purposes of the state. Marxist thought regards the ends of the state as being the perpetuation of class domination in favour of the ruling class which, under the capitalist mode of production, is the bourgeoisie; the state exists to defend the ruling class's claims to private property and its capturing of surplus profits at the expense of the proletariat. Indeed, Marx claimed that "the executive of the modern state is nothing but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie".

Liberal thought provides another possible teleology of the state. According to John Locke, the goal of the state/commonwealth was "the preservation of property", with'property' in Locke's work referring not only to personal possessions but to one's life and liberty. On this account, the state provides the basis for social cohesion and productivity, creating incentives for wealth creation by providing guarantees of protection for one's life and personal property; the most used definition is Max Weber's, which describes the state as a compulsory political organization with a centralized government that maintains a monopoly of the legitimate use of force within a certain territory. General categories of state institutions include administrative bureaucracies, legal systems, military or religious organizations. Another accepted definition of the state is the one given at the Montevideo Convention on Rights and Duties of States in 1933, it provides that "he state as a person of international law should

The crew of the RMS Titanic were among the estimated 2,208 people who sailed on the maiden voyage of the second of the White Star Line's Olympic class ocean sea liners, from Southampton, England to New York City in the US. Halfway through the voyage, the ship struck an iceberg and sank in the early morning of 15 April 1912, resulting in the deaths of over 1,500 people, including 688 crew members; the following is a full list of known crew members who sailed on the maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic. Included in this list are the nine-member Guarantee Group and the eight members of the ship's band, who were given passenger accommodations and treated as both passengers and crew, they are included in the list of passengers on board RMS Titanic. Crew members are colour-coded, indicating whether they were perished; the crew member did not survive The crew member survived Survivors are listed with the lifeboat from which they were known to be rescued by the RMS Carpathia, on 15 April 1912. Victims whose remains were recovered after the sinking are listed with a superscript next to the body number, indicating the recovery vessel: MB – CS Mackay-Bennett M – CS Minia MM – CGS Montmagny A – SS Algerine O – RMS Oceanic I – SS Ilford OT – SS Ottawa Numbers 324 and 325 were unused, the six bodies buried at sea by the Carpathia went unnumbered.

Several recovered bodies were unidentifiable and thus not all numbers are matched with a person. Upon recovery, the bodies of 209 identified and unidentified victims of the sinking were brought to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Of those, 121 were taken to the non-denominational Fairview Lawn Cemetery, 59 were repatriated, 19 were buried in the Roman Catholic Mount Olivet Cemetery, 10 were taken to the Jewish Baron de Hirsch Cemetery; the bodies of the remaining recovered victims were either delivered to family members or buried at sea. The "Hometown" field may be misleading. Many crews had secondary or temporary addresses in Southampton, which they gave when signing the crew list, others may have only relocated there. In particular, the number of crew from Merseyside is understated. Dr. Alan Scarth, in his book Titanic and Liverpool, identifies 115 crew members with close connections to the city, of whom only 28 survived; the Titanic employed: One able officer known as a bosun or boatswain, who had seniority over all the unlicensed deck crew.

The able officer, an experienced crewman of the White Star Line, assisted Thomas Andrews in his daily inspections around the ship. 29 able seamen, who had completed additional training and had seniority over other crew members. They carried out the day-to-day operations of the ship. In addition, they were trained to operate man the lifeboats themselves; each able seaman was take charge of that boat if no officer were present. About eight of these men were lost when they went below decks to open the E Deck gangway and were never seen again; as all the remaining able seamen had departed in the first lifeboats launched, the lifeboats launched subsequently had a shortage of trained seamen to man them. As a result, a few stokers and victualling stewards were ordered to man the launching and rowing of the boats. In one instance, a passenger with yachting experience was put in co-command of a lifeboat. Two Boatswain Mates, experienced seamen who managed the deck lines, deck cranes, lifeboat davits, etc. on the deck Two Masters-at-Arms, along with the Chief Officer, held the only keys to the firearms cabinet.

Seven quartermasters. Two window cleaners. Six lookouts, who worked two to a shift in the crow's nest; the lookouts were supplied with binoculars to aid them in seeing over long distances but on the Titanic's maiden voyage binoculars were unavailable due to their being locked away, the key necessary to retrieve them was not on board. With the air temperature at 28 °F, a 20-mile-per-hour headwind, it is a matter of speculation as to how reliable the binoculars would have been if they had been available; the engineers were responsible for keeping the engines and other mechanical equipment on the Titanic running. They were the highest paid members of the crew and had the education and technical expertise to operate and repair the engineering plant. Shortly after leaving Southampton, a fire was discovered in the coal bunker of No 6 Boiler Room. For a number of days, coal trimmers were detailed to extinguish it. On the night of 14 April, the Second Engineering Officer, John Henry Hesketh – the senior engineer on duty, Leading Fireman Frederick Barrett were in No 6 Boiler inspecting the coal bunker and confirming the fire was out when the Titanic struck the iceberg at 11.40 pm.

It ripped this part of the ship and the pair escaped through the connecting tunnel to No 5 Boiler Room, closing the bulkhead doors. Barrett gave evidence at the Southampton Enquiry. Most of the engineering crew remained below decks in the engine and boiler rooms: some fighting a losing battle to keep the ship afloat by operating the pumps in the forward compartments as we

Mohamed ben Tahar ben Ali known by his nom de guerre Abbas Messaadi was the leader of the Moroccan Army of Liberation before his controversial assassination in June 1956 that would trigger the Rif Revolt. He became known as "Messadi". Abbas was running a military camp in Aknoul and was assassinated in Fes in June 1956 by Karim Hajjaj, a member of the Istiqlal party, his assassination was ordered by Mehdi Ben Barka. Karim Hajjaj was arrested and convicted of his murder but was pardoned by the king Mohammed V, it is claimed. He was first buried in Fes but in 1957 his remains were transferred to Ajdir, the stronghold of Mohamed ben Abdelkrim al-Khattabi, against the wishes of the Moroccan Ministry of the Interior controlled by the Istiqlal party; when security forces were sent by the ministry to repatriate the body to Fes, this sparked clashes with the population in Ajdir which led to the Rif revolt. His killing was the first in a series of assassinations directed against members of the Moroccan Army of liberation and other factions competing with the Istiqlal party and the Alaouite family Mahjoubi Aherdane Abdelkrim al-Khatib