1.
Stratego/XT
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Stratego/XT is a language and toolset for constructing stand-alone program transformation systems. It combines the Stratego transformation language with the XT toolset of transformation components, the Stratego language is based on a programming paradigm called strategic term rewriting. It provides rewrite rules for expressing basic transformation steps, the application of these rules can be controlled using strategies, a form of subroutines. Program transformations often operate by modifying the abstract syntax tree, in Stratego it is also possible to specify transformations using concrete syntax
2.
Strategos
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Strategos or Strategus, plural strategoi, is used in Greek to mean military general. In the Hellenistic world and the Byzantine Empire the term was used to describe a military governor. In the modern Hellenic Army it is the highest officer rank, the ten were of equal status, and replaced the polemarchos, who had hitherto been the senior military commander. At Marathon in 490 BC they decided strategy by majority vote, at this date the polemarchos had a casting vote, and one view is that he was the commander-in-chief, but from 486 onwards the polemarchos, like the other archontes, was appointed by lot. The annual election of the strategoi was held in the spring, if a strategos died or was dismissed from office, a by-election might be held to replace him. This system continued at least until ca, 356/7 BC, but by the time Aristotle wrote his Constitution of the Athenians in ca.330 BC, the appointments were made without any reference to tribal affiliation. Hence, during the Hellenistic period, although the number of the tribes was increased, as political power passed to the rhetores in the later 5th century, the strategoi were limited to their military duties. Originally, the strategoi were appointed ad hoc to various assignments and this was generalized in Hellenistic times, when each strategos was given specific duties. One of them, the strategos epi ta hopla, ascended to major prominence in the Roman period, the Athenian people kept a close eye on their strategoi. If the vote went against anyone, he was deposed and as a rule tried by jury, the strategos as an office is attested at least for Syracuse from the late 5th century BC, Erythrae, and in the koinon of the Arcadians in the 360s BC. The title of strategos autokrator was also used for generals with broad powers, thus Philip II of Macedon was elected as strategos autokrator of the League of Corinth. g. In the Hellenistic empires of the Diadochi, notably Lagid Egypt, for which most details are known, in Egypt, the strategoi were originally responsible for the Greek military colonists established in the country. Quickly, they assumed a role in the administration alongside the nomarches, the governor of each of the nomes. Already by the time of Ptolemy II, the strategos was the head of the administration, while conversely his military role declines. Ptolemy V established the office of epistrategos to oversee the individual strategoi, the latter had now become solely civilian officials, combining the role of the nomarches and the oikonomos, while the epistrategos retained powers of military command. In addition, hypostrategoi could be appointed as subordinates, the office largely retained its Ptolemaic functions and continued to be staffed by the Greek population of the country. The Odrysian kingdom of Thrace was also divided into strategiai, each headed by a strategos, based on the various Thracian tribes and subtribes. At the time of the annexation into the Roman Empire in 46 AD, there were 50 such districts, which were initially retained in the new Roman province
3.
Board game
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A board game is a tabletop game that involves counters or pieces moved or placed on a pre-marked surface or board, according to a set of rules. Some games are based on strategy, but many contain an element of chance. Games usually have a goal that a player aims to achieve, early board games represented a battle between two armies, and most modern board games are still based on defeating opposing players in terms of counters, winning position, or accrual of points. There are many varieties of board games and their representation of real-life situations can range from having no inherent theme, like checkers, to having a specific theme and narrative, like Cluedo. Board games have been played in most cultures and societies throughout history, the Pilgrims and Puritans of New England frowned on game playing and viewed dice as instruments of the devil. In Thoughts on Lotteries Thomas Jefferson wrote, Almost all these pursuits of chance produce something useful to society, but there are some which produce nothing, and endanger the well-being of the individuals engaged in them or of others depending on them. Such are games with cards, dice, billiards, etc. and suppress the pursuit altogether, there are some other games of chance, useful on certain occasions, and injurious only when carried beyond their useful bounds. Such are insurances, lotteries, raffles, etc and these they do not suppress, but take their regulation under their own discretion. As the US shifted from agrarian to urban living in the century, greater leisure time. The American home, once the center of production, became the locus of entertainment, enlightenment. Children were encouraged to board games that developed literacy skills. The earliest board games published in the United States were based upon Christian morality, the Mansion of Happiness, for example, sent players along a path of virtues and vices that led to the Mansion of Happiness. The missionaries are cast in white as the symbol of innocence, temperance, and hope while the pope and pagan are cast in black, the color of gloom of error, and. grief at the daily loss of empire. Commercially produced board games in the century were monochrome prints laboriously hand-colored by teams of low-paid young factory women. Advances in paper making and printmaking during the period enabled the production of relatively inexpensive board games. The most significant advance was the development of chromolithography, an achievement that made bold. Games cost as little as US$.25 for a small boxed card game to $3.00 for more elaborate games, American Protestants believed a virtuous life led to success, but the belief was challenged mid-century when Americans embraced materialism and capitalism. The accumulation of material goods was viewed as a divine blessing, in 1860, The Checkered Game of Life rewarded players for mundane activities such as attending college, marrying, and getting rich
4.
Strategy game
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A strategy game or strategic game is a game in which the players uncoerced, and often autonomous decision-making skills have a high significance in determining the outcome. Almost all strategy games require internal decision tree style thinking, the term strategy comes ultimately from Greek, meaning generalship. It differs from tactics in that it refers to the scheme of things. In abstract strategy games, the game is loosely tied to a thematic concept. The rules do not attempt to simulate reality, but rather serve the internal logic of the game, a purists definition of an abstract strategy game requires that it cannot have random elements or hidden information. This definition includes such games as chess, Go and Arimaa, a smaller category of non-perfect abstract strategy games incorporate hidden information without using any random elements, for example, Stratego. One of the most focused team strategy games is contract bridge and this card game consists of two teams of two players, whose offensive and defensive skills are continually in flux as the games dynamic progresses. Some argue that the benefits of playing this team strategy card game extend to those skills and strategies used in business, eurogames, or German-style boardgames, are a relatively new genre that sit between abstract strategy games and simulation games. They generally have simple rules, short to medium playing times, indirect player interaction, the games emphasize strategy, play down chance and conflict, lean towards economic rather than military themes, and usually keep all the players in the game until it ends. This type of game is an attempt to simulate the decisions, most of the rules are chosen to reflect what the real-world consequences would be of each player action and decision. Abstract games cannot be divided from simulations and so games can be thought of as existing on a continuum of almost pure abstraction to almost pure simulation. Wargames are simulations of military battles, campaigns or entire wars, players will have to consider situations that are analogous to the situations faced by leaders of historical battles. As such, war games are usually heavy on simulation elements, popular miniature wargames include Warhammer 40,000 or its fantasy counterpart Warhammer Fantasy. Popular strategic board wargames include Risk, Axis and Allies, Diplomacy, advanced Squad Leader is a successful tactical scale wargame. Strategy video games are categorized based on whether they offer the continuous gameplay of real-time strategy, Game of chance Game of skill Mind sport
5.
Wargaming
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A wargame is a strategy game that deals with military operations of various types, real or fictional. Wargaming is the dedicated to the play of such games. When used professionally by the military to study warfare, war game may refer to a theoretical study or a full-scale military exercise. Hobby wargamers have traditionally used wargame, while the military has generally used war game, business wargames exist as well, but in general, they are only role-playing games based on market situations. Wargames are generally categorized as historical, hypothetical, fantasy, or science fiction, Historical games by far form the largest group. These games are based upon events and attempt to represent a reasonable approximation of the actual forces, terrain. Hypothetical games are games grounded in fact but concern battles or conflicts that did not actually happen. Fantasy and science fiction wargames either draw their inspiration from works of fiction or provide their own imaginary setting, highly stylized conflict games such as chess are not generally considered wargames, although they are recognized as being related. Games involving conflict in other arenas than the battlefield, such as business, the modern wargaming hobby has its origins at the beginning of the 19th century, with von Reiswitzs Kriegsspiel rules. Later, H. G. Wells book Little Wars ushered in the age of miniatures games in two or more players simulated a battle as a pastime. During the 1950s the first large-scale, mass-produced board games depicting military conflicts were published and these games were at the height of their popularity during the 1970s, and became quite complex and technical in that time. Like all games, wargames exist in a range of different complexities, some are fundamentally simple—often called beer-and-pretzel games—whereas others attempt to simulate a high level of historical realism. These latter games typically require extensive rulebooks that encompass a variety of actions. These games often require a study of the rules before they can be played. Wargames also feature a range of scales, from games that simulate individual soldiers, Wargames are generally a representational art form. Usually, this is of a fairly concrete historical subject, the Cold War provided fuel for many games that attempted to show what a non-nuclear World War III would be like, moving from a re-creation to a predictive model in the process. Risk could be considered a wargame, it uses a map of the Earth and is unabashedly about sending out armies to conquer the world. However, it has no readily-discernible timeframe, and combat is extremely abstract, leading many to not consider it as an actual wargame, the highest percentage of war-themed games that are not wargames come from the video game industry
6.
Memory
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Memory is the faculty of the mind by which information is encoded, stored, and retrieved. Memory is vital to experiences and related to systems, it is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If we could not remember past events, we could not learn or develop language, relationships, often memory is understood as an informational processing system with explicit and implicit functioning that is made up of a sensory processor, short-term memory, and long-term memory. The sensory processor allows information from the world to be sensed in the form of chemical and physical stimuli and attended to with various levels of focus. Working memory serves as an encoding and retrieval processor, information in the form of stimuli is encoded in accordance with explicit or implicit functions by the working memory processor. The working memory also retrieves information from previously stored material, finally, the function of long-term memory is to store data through various categorical models or systems. Explicit and implicit functions of memory are known as declarative and non-declarative systems. These systems involve the purposeful intention of memory retrieval and storage, declarative, or explicit, memory is the conscious storage and recollection of data. Under declarative memory resides semantic and episodic memory, semantic memory refers to memory that is encoded with specific meaning, while episodic memory refers to information that is encoded along a spatial and temporal plane. Declarative memory is usually the primary process thought of when referencing memory, non-declarative, or implicit, memory is the unconscious storage and recollection of information. An example of a process would be the unconscious learning or retrieval of information by way of procedural memory. Memory is not a processor, and is affected by many factors. The manner information is encoded, stored, and retrieved can all be corrupted, the amount of attention given new stimuli can diminish the amount of information that becomes encoded for storage. Also, the process can become corrupted by physical damage to areas of the brain that are associated with memory storage. Finally, the retrieval of information from long-term memory can be disrupted because of decay within long-term memory, normal functioning, decay over time, and brain damage all affect the accuracy and capacity of memory. Sensory memory holds sensory information less than one second after an item is perceived, the ability to look at an item and remember what it looked like with just a split second of observation, or memorization, is the example of sensory memory. It is out of control and is an automatic response. With very short presentations, participants often report that they seem to see more than they can actually report, the first experiments exploring this form of sensory memory were precisely conducted by George Sperling using the partial report paradigm
7.
Army
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An army or ground force is a fighting force that fights primarily on land. In the broadest sense, it is the military branch. It may also include other branches of the such as the air force via means of aviation corps. Within a national force, the word army may also mean a field army. They differ from army reserves who are activated only during such times as war or natural disasters, in several countries, the army is officially called the Land Army to differentiate it from an air force called the Air Army, notably France. In such countries, the army on its own retains its connotation of a land force in common usage. By convention, irregular military is understood in contrast to regular armies which grew slowly from personal bodyguards or elite militia, regular in this case refers to standardized doctrines, uniforms, organizations, etc. Regular military can also refer to full-time status, versus reserve or part-time personnel, other distinctions may separate statutory forces, from de facto non-statutory forces such as some guerrilla and revolutionary armies. Armies may also be expeditionary or fencible, india has had some of the earliest armies in the world. During the Indus Valley Civilization however, there was just a small force as they didnt fear invasion at the time. After the Aryan invasion, kingdoms and city-states started forming armies to protect their cities, one of the first known recorded battles, the Battle of the Ten Kings, happened when a Hindu king defeated an alliance of ten kings. During the Iron Age, the Maurya and Nanda Empires had large armies, in the Gupta age, large armies of longbowmen were recruited to fight off invading horse archer armies. Elephants, pikemen and cavalry were other featured troops, in Rajput times, the main piece of equipment was iron or chain-mail armour, a round shield, either a curved blade or a straight-sword, a chakra disc and a katar dagger. China has existed as a culture for thousands of years, the states of China raised armies for at least 1000 years before the Spring and Autumn Annals. By the Warring States period, the crossbow had been perfected enough to become a military secret, thus any political power of a state rested on the armies and their organization. China underwent political consolidation of the states of Han, Wei, Chu, Yan, Zhao and Qi, until by 221 BCE, Qin Shi Huang, sun Tzus The Art of War remains one of Chinas Seven Military Classics, even though it is two thousand years old. Since no political figure could exist without an army, measures were taken to only the most capable leaders could control the armies. Civil bureaucracies arose to control the power of the states
8.
Napoleon
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Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the French Revolutionary Wars. As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814, Napoleon dominated European and global affairs for more than a decade while leading France against a series of coalitions in the Napoleonic Wars. He won most of these wars and the vast majority of his battles, one of the greatest commanders in history, his wars and campaigns are studied at military schools worldwide. Napoleons political and cultural legacy has ensured his status as one of the most celebrated and he was born Napoleone di Buonaparte in Corsica to a relatively modest family from the minor nobility. When the Revolution broke out in 1789, Napoleon was serving as an officer in the French army. Seizing the new opportunities presented by the Revolution, he rose through the ranks of the military. The Directory eventually gave him command of the Army of Italy after he suppressed a revolt against the government from royalist insurgents, in 1798, he led a military expedition to Egypt that served as a springboard to political power. He engineered a coup in November 1799 and became First Consul of the Republic and his ambition and public approval inspired him to go further, and in 1804 he became the first Emperor of the French. Intractable differences with the British meant that the French were facing a Third Coalition by 1805, in 1806, the Fourth Coalition took up arms against him because Prussia became worried about growing French influence on the continent. Napoleon quickly defeated Prussia at the battles of Jena and Auerstedt, then marched the Grand Army deep into Eastern Europe, France then forced the defeated nations of the Fourth Coalition to sign the Treaties of Tilsit in July 1807, bringing an uneasy peace to the continent. Tilsit signified the high watermark of the French Empire, hoping to extend the Continental System and choke off British trade with the European mainland, Napoleon invaded Iberia and declared his brother Joseph the King of Spain in 1808. The Spanish and the Portuguese revolted with British support, the Peninsular War lasted six years, featured extensive guerrilla warfare, and ended in victory for the Allies. The Continental System caused recurring diplomatic conflicts between France and its client states, especially Russia, unwilling to bear the economic consequences of reduced trade, the Russians routinely violated the Continental System and enticed Napoleon into another war. The French launched an invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. The resulting campaign witnessed the collapse of the Grand Army, the destruction of Russian cities, in 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russian forces in a Sixth Coalition against France. A lengthy military campaign culminated in a large Allied army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in October 1813, the Allies then invaded France and captured Paris in the spring of 1814, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April. He was exiled to the island of Elba near Rome and the Bourbons were restored to power, however, Napoleon escaped from Elba in February 1815 and took control of France once again. The Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition, which defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in June, the British exiled him to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died six years later at the age of 51
9.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
10.
Europe
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Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, yet the non-oceanic borders of Europe—a concept dating back to classical antiquity—are arbitrary. Europe covers about 10,180,000 square kilometres, or 2% of the Earths surface, politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a population of about 740 million as of 2015. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast, Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization. The fall of the Western Roman Empire, during the period, marked the end of ancient history. Renaissance humanism, exploration, art, and science led to the modern era, from the Age of Discovery onwards, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at times the Americas, most of Africa, Oceania. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to economic, cultural, and social change in Western Europe. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the west and the Warsaw Pact in the east, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1955, the Council of Europe was formed following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill and it includes all states except for Belarus, Kazakhstan and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, the EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The European Anthem is Ode to Joy and states celebrate peace, in classical Greek mythology, Europa is the name of either a Phoenician princess or of a queen of Crete. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, wide, broad and ὤψ eye, broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. For the second part also the divine attributes of grey-eyed Athena or ox-eyed Hera. The same naming motive according to cartographic convention appears in Greek Ανατολή, Martin Litchfield West stated that phonologically, the match between Europas name and any form of the Semitic word is very poor. Next to these there is also a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning darkness. Most major world languages use words derived from Eurṓpē or Europa to refer to the continent, in some Turkic languages the originally Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa
11.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
12.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
13.
Netherlands
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The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
14.
Trademark
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The trademark owner can be an individual, business organization, or any legal entity. A trademark may be located on a package, a label, for the sake of corporate identity, trademarks are often displayed on company buildings. A trademark identifies the owner of a particular product or service. The unauthorized usage of trademarks by producing and trading counterfeit consumer goods is known as brand piracy, the owner of a trademark may pursue legal action against trademark infringement. Most countries require formal registration of a trademark as a precondition for pursuing this type of action, the United States, Canada and other countries also recognize common law trademark rights, which means action can be taken to protect an unregistered trademark if it is in use. Still, common law trademarks offer the holder in general less legal protection than registered trademarks. A trademark may be designated by the symbols, ™ ℠ ® A trademark is typically a name, word, phrase, logo, symbol, design, image. There is also a range of non-conventional trademarks comprising marks which do not fall into these categories, such as those based on colour, smell. Trademarks which are considered offensive are often rejected according to a nations trademark law, the term trademark is also used informally to refer to any distinguishing attribute by which an individual is readily identified, such as the well-known characteristics of celebrities. When a trademark is used in relation to services rather than products, it may sometimes be called a service mark, in other words, trademarks serve to identify a particular business as the source of goods or services. The use of a trademark in this way is known as trademark use, certain exclusive rights attach to a registered mark. Different goods and services have been classified by the International Classification of Goods, in trademark treatises it is usually reported that blacksmiths who made swords in the Roman Empire are thought of as being the first users of trademarks. Other notable trademarks that have used for a long time include Löwenbräu. The first trademark legislation was passed by the Parliament of England under the reign of King Henry III in 1266, the first modern trademark laws emerged in the late 19th century. In France the first comprehensive system in the world was passed into law in 1857 with the Manufacture. In Britain, the Merchandise Marks Act 1862 made it an offense to imitate anothers trade mark with intent to defraud or to enable another to defraud. In 1875 the Trade Marks Registration Act was passed which allowed formal registration of marks at the UK Patent Office for the first time. Registration was considered to comprise prima facie evidence of ownership of a trade mark, in the United States, Congress first attempted to establish a federal trademark regime in 1870
15.
Milton Bradley Company
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The Milton Bradley Company was an American board game manufacturer established by Milton Bradley in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1860. In 1920, it absorbed the game production of McLoughlin Brothers, Milton Bradley was taken over by Hasbro, Inc. in 1984. The name was retained as one of Hasbros brands until it was discontinued in the 2000s, Milton Bradley found success making board games. In 1860, Milton Bradley moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, and its graphic design of Abraham Lincoln sold very well until Lincoln grew his beard and rendered the likeness out-of-date. Struggling to find a new way to use his lithography machine, Tapley challenged him to a game, most likely an old English game. Bradley conceived the idea of making a purely American game and he created The Checkered Game of Life, which had players move along a track from Infancy to Happy Old Age, in which the point was to avoid Ruin and reach Happy Old Age. Squares were labeled with moral positions from honor and bravery to disgrace, players used a spinner instead of dice because of the negative association with gambling. By spring of 1861, over 45,000 copies of The Checkered Game of Life had been sold, Bradley became convinced board games were his companys future. When the Civil War broke out in early 1861, Milton Bradley temporarily gave up making board games, however, upon seeing bored soldiers stationed in Springfield, Bradley began producing small games the soldiers could play during their down time. This is regarded as the first travel game in the country and these games included chess, checkers, backgammon, dominoes, and The Checkered Game of Life. They were sold for one dollar a piece to soldiers and charitable organizations that bought them in bulk to distribute, by the 1870s, the company was producing dozens of games and capitalizing on fads. Milton Bradley became the first manufacturer in America to make croquet sets, the sets included wickets, mallets, balls, stakes, and an authoritative set of rules to play by that Bradley himself had created from oral tradition and his own sense of fair play. In 1880, the company began making jigsaw puzzles, in the late 1860s, Bradley became involved in the Kindergarten movement. Deeply invested in the cause, his company began manufacturing educational items such as colored papers, the company was hurt by Bradleys generosity. He gave these materials away free of charge, which cost them, due to the recession of the late 1870s, his investors told him either his kindergarten work must go or they would go. Bradley chose to keep his kindergarten work and his friend George Tapley bought the interest of the lost investors and took over as president of the Milton Bradley Company. The Milton Bradley Company took a new direction in 1869 after Milton Bradley went to hear a lecture about the movement by early education pioneer. Peabody promoted the philosophy of the German scholar Friedrich Froebel, Froebel stated that through education children learn and develops through creative activities
16.
Hasbro
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/ˈhæzbroʊ/ is an American multinational toy and board game company. Hasbro is the third largest toy maker in the world with revenues of approximately $4.45 billion, Hasbro acquired the trademarks and products of Kenner, Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley, among others. Among its toy and game products are the iconic Monopoly board game, Joe figurine, Furby electronic stuffed animal, Transformers mechanical toys and My Little Pony. The Hasbro brand also spawned TV shows, such as Family Game Night on the Discovery Family network, the corporate headquarters is located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The majority of its products are manufactured in East Asia, in 1923, three brothers named Herman, Hillel and Henry Hassenfeld founded Hassenfeld Brothers, a company selling textile remnants, in Providence, Rhode Island. Over the next two decades, the company expanded to produce pencil cases and school supplies, in 1926, Hassenfeld Brothers was incorporated, with Hillel leaving for another textile business while Henry took charge of the corporation. With cost of rising and their pencil supplier making pencil cases. In the 1940s, Hassenfeld Brothers produced doctor and nurse kits, its first toys, with Hillels death in 1943, Henry Hassenfeld became CEO while his son, Merrill, became president. The company entered the fields during World War II to support its toy line. Hassenfeld Brothers first toy hit was Mr. Potato Head, which the company purchased from George Lerner in 1952, the toy was a smash success. In 1954, the became a Disney major licensee. In 1960, Henry died and Merrill took over the parent company and his older brother Harold ran the pencil-making business, Hassenfeld Brothers expanded to Canada with Hassenfeld Brothers Ltd. in 1961. The company was approached in 1963 to license a toy based on The Lieutenant, instead, in 1964, Hassenfeld Brothers produced the G. I. Joe toy, which they termed an action figure in order to market the toy to boys who wouldnt want to play with dolls, Joe accounted for two-thirds of Hassenfelds sales. Having previously sold toys under the Hasbro trade name, the company shortened its name to Hasbro Industries in 1968, with the unpopular Vietnam War at its height in 1969, Hasbro redesigned GI Joe to be less militaristic and more adventure oriented. Its promotional efforts included the catchphrase Boy Oh Boy and its A Hasbro Toy. in television commercials and print ads. Also in 1969 Hasbro bought Burt Claster Enterprises, which produced Romper Room and had just begun a Romper Room toy line, a month-long teamsters strike and far eastern supplier troubles caused the company to have a $1 million loss for the year. By 1975, the company had ended the nursery chain, Hasbro also entered the cookware field with the Galloping Gourmet line based on a contemporary television cooking show
17.
Barnes & Noble
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Barnes & Noble, Inc. is a Fortune 500 company, the largest retail bookseller in the United States, and one of the nations leading retailers of content, digital media, and educational products. As of January 6,2017, the company operates 638 retail stores in all 50 U. S. states. After a series of mergers and bankruptcies in the American bookstore industry since the 1990s, previously, Barnes and Noble operated the chain of small B. Dalton Booksellers stores in malls until they announced the liquidation of the chain. The company is known for large retail outlets, many of which contain a café serving Starbucks coffee and other consumables, from cannolis to spinach and feta pretzels. Most stores sell books, magazines, newspapers, DVDs, graphic novels, gifts, games, toys, music, Barnes & Noble originated in 1886 with a bookstore called Arthur Hinds & Company, located in the Cooper Union Building in New York City. In the fall of 1886, Gilbert Clifford Noble, a then-recent Harvard graduate from Westfield, in 1894, Noble was made a partner, and the name of the shop was changed to Hinds & Noble. In 1901, Hinds & Noble moved to 31–35 W. 15th Street, in 1917, Noble bought out Hinds and entered into a partnership with William Barnes, son of his old friend Charles, the name of the store was changed accordingly to Barnes & Noble. In 1930, Noble sold his share of the company to William Barnes son John Wilcox Barnes, Noble died on June 6,1936, at the age of 72. In the long history of the bookstore, the partnership was a brief interlude of thirteen years. In 1932, at the height of the Great Depression, the moved to a flagship location on 18th Street and Fifth Avenue. The Noble family retained ownership of a publishing business. In 1940, the store was one of the first businesses to feature Muzak and that decade the company opened stores in Brooklyn and Chicago. William Barnes died in 1945, at the age of 78, John Barnes died in 1964, and the company was sold to the conglomerate Amtel two years later. The business was purchased in 1971, by Leonard Riggio for $1.2 million, by then, it had been badly mismanaged over the prior two years and consisted only of a significantly reduced wholesale operation and a single retail location—the store at 105 Fifth Avenue. Between the 1970s and the 1980s, Barnes & Noble opened smaller discount stores and they also began to publish their own books to be sold to mail-order customers. These titles were primarily affordable reissues of out-of-print titles and selling them through mail-order catalogs allowed Barnes & Noble to reach new customers nationwide. Barnes & Noble continued to expand throughout the 1980s, and it purchased the primarily shopping mall-based B. Dalton chain from Dayton Hudson in 1986, the last B. Dalton stores were scheduled to close in January 2010. In 1989, Barnes and Noble had purchased the 22-store chain Bookstop, the acquisition of the 797 B. Dalton bookstores turned the company into a nationwide retailer, and by the end of fiscal year 1999, the second-largest online bookseller in the United States
18.
Target Corporation
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Target Corporation is the second-largest discount store retailer in the United States, behind Walmart, and a component of the S&P500 Index. The first Target store opened in Roseville, Minnesota in 1962 while the parent company was renamed the Dayton Corporation in 1967, the company has found success as a cheap-chic player in the industry. The parent company was renamed the Target Corporation in 2000 and divested itself of its last department store chains in 2004, as of 2017, Target operates 1,806 locations throughout the United States. Target is often recognized for its emphasis on the needs of its younger, image-conscious shoppers, the Westminster Presbyterian Church from downtown Minneapolis burned down during the Panic of 1893. Without insurance coverage to cover the loss, the congregation found itself unable to rebuild. The store was renamed the Dayton Dry Goods Company in 1903, Dayton died in 1938 and was succeeded by his son Nelson as the president of the $14 million business. Nelson died in 1950 and was replaced by his own son Donald, the company acquired the Lipmans department store company during the 1950s and operated it as a separate division. John F. Geisse developed the concept of upscale discount retailing while working for the Dayton Company. Using his concepts, the company opened its first Target discount store at 1515 West County Road B in the Saint Paul suburb of Roseville, Minnesota, Douglas Dayton was its first president. The name Target originated from publicity director Stewart K. Widdess and it opened three additional units in the first year, and reported its first gain in 1965 with sales reaching $39 million. Later that decade, B. Dalton Bookseller was formed as a subsidiary of the Dayton Company, the parent company acquired the jewelers Shreve & Co. and J. E. Caldwell, the Pickwick Book Shops, and the electronics and appliances chain Lechmere. It also went public with its first offering of common stock, in 1969, the Dayton Company itself merged with the Detroit-based J. L. Hudson Company, and together formed the Dayton-Hudson Corporation. The new company, at the time the 14th-largest retailer in the United States, consisted of Target and the department stores Daytons, Diamonds, Hudsons, John A. Brown, Target reached $200 million in sales while Dayton-Hudson acquired Team Electronics and the jewelers C. D. Peacock, Inc. and Jessop and Sons in the 1970s, Target reported a decrease in profits in 1972, due to the rapid pace of expansion with the purchase and conversion of several former Arlans department store locations. New management marked down merchandise to reduce its overstock and only opened one new location that year, Dayton-Hudson was established as the seventh-largest general merchandise retailer in the United States with its acquisition of Mervyns in 1978. It sold the Dayton-Hudson Jewelers subsidiary to Henry Birks & Sons of Montreal, Target was established as the dominant retailer in southern California after purchasing fifty Gemco stores in the state in 1986, that year, Dayton-Hudson sold B. Dalton Bookseller to Barnes & Noble. The acquisition of several Gold Circle and Richway stores assisted its expansion into northwestern and southeastern United States, later that year, Dayton-Hudson sold Lechmere to a group of investors. In 1990, Dayton-Hudson acquired Marshall Fields and opened its first Target Greatland store in Apple Valley and it started the Everyday Hero clothing specialty store with two locations in Minneapolis in 1992, although they were closed in 1997
19.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
20.
Gold (color)
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Gold, also called golden, is one of a variety of yellow-orange color blends used to give the impression of the color of the element gold. The web color gold is sometimes referred to as golden to distinguish it from the metallic gold. The use of gold as a term in traditional usage is more often applied to the color metallic gold. The first recorded use of golden as a name in English was in 1300 to refer to the element gold. Metallic gold, such as in paint, is often called goldtone or gold-tone, in heraldry, the French word or is used. In model building, the gold is different from brass. A shiny or metallic silvertone object can be painted with transparent yellow to obtain goldtone, at right is displayed a representation of the color metallic gold which is a simulation of the color of the actual metallic element gold itself—gold shade. The American Heritage Dictionary defines the color metallic gold as A light olive-brown to dark yellow, or a moderate, of course, the visual sensation usually associated with the metal gold is its metallic shine. This cannot be reproduced by a solid color, because the shiny effect is due to the materials reflective brightness varying with the surfaces angle to the light source. Especially in sacral art in Christian churches, real gold was used for rendering gold in paintings, Gold can also be woven into sheets of silk to give an East Asian traditional look. Old gold is a yellow, which varies from heavy olive or olive brown to deep or strong yellow. The widely accepted color old gold is on the rather than the lighter side of this range. The first recorded use of old gold as a name in English was in the early 19th century. The Delta Sigma Pi fraternity, founded in November 7,1907, official colors are designated royal purple, the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternitys colors are garnet and old gold. Old gold is one of two colors of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity, maroon and old gold are the colors of Texas State Universitys intercollegiate sports teams. Old Gold and black are the colors of Purdue University Boilermakers intercollegiate sports teams. The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets wear white and old gold, the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, UCF Knights, and Vanderbilt Commodores wear old gold and black. The New Orleans Saints list their official team colors as black, old gold, Golden yellow is the color halfway between amber and yellow on the RGB color wheel
21.
Silver (color)
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Silver or metallic gray is a color tone resembling gray that is a representation of the color of polished silver. The visual sensation usually associated with the silver is its metallic shine. This cannot be reproduced by a solid color, because the shiny effect is due to the materials brightness varying with the surface angle to the light source. In addition, there is no mechanism for showing metallic or fluorescent colors on a computer without resorting to rendering software which simulates the action of light on a shiny surface, consequently, in art and in heraldry one would normally use a metallic paint that glitters like real silver. A matte grey color could also be used to represent silver color, the first recorded use of silver as a color name in English was in 1481. In heraldry, the word argent is used, derived from Latin argentum over Medieval French argent, displayed at right is the web color silver. Since version 3.2 of HTML silver is a name for one of the 16 basic-VGA-colors, hTML-example, <body bgcolor=silver> CSS-example, body Pale silver is the pale tone of silver color called silver in Crayola crayons. Silver has been a Crayola color since 1903, Crayola silver is not a neutral grayscale color, but rather a warm gray with a very slight tinge of orange-red. The color silver pink is displayed at right, the color name silver pink first came into use in 1948. The source of color is the Plochere Color System, a color system formulated in 1948 that is widely used by interior designers. At right is displayed the color silver sand, the color name silver sand for this tone of silver has been in use since 2001, when it was promulgated as one of the colors on the Xona. com Color List. At right is displayed the color silver chalice, the color name silver chalice for this tone of silver has been in use since 2001, when it was promulgated as one of the colors on the Xona. com Color List. At right is displayed the color Roman silver, Roman silver, a blue-gray tone of silver, is one of the colors on the Resene Color List, a color list widely popular in Australia and New Zealand. At right is displayed the old silver. Old silver is a color that was formulated to resemble tarnished silver, the first recorded use of old silver as a color name in English was in 1905. Sonic silver is a tone of silver included in Metallic FX crayons, plants A silver birch is a tree in the birch family. The leaves are silver on underside. A silver fir is a timber tree that originated in Europe
22.
Go (game)
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Go is an abstract strategy board game for two players, in which the aim is to surround more territory than the opponent. The game was invented in ancient China more than 2,500 years ago and it was considered one of the four essential arts of the cultured aristocratic Chinese scholar caste in antiquity. The earliest written reference to the game is recognized as the historical annal Zuo Zhuan. The modern game of Go as we know it was formalized in Japan in the 15th century CE, despite its relatively simple rules, Go is very complex, even more so than chess, and possesses more possibilities than the total number of atoms in the visible universe. Compared to chess, Go has both a board with more scope for play and longer games, and, on average. The playing pieces are called stones, one player uses the white stones and the other, black. The players take turns placing the stones on the vacant intersections of a board with a 19×19 grid of lines, beginners often play on smaller 9×9 and 13×13 boards, and archaeological evidence shows that the game was played in earlier centuries on a board with a 17×17 grid. However, boards with a 19×19 grid had become standard by the time the game had reached Korea in the 5th century CE, the objective of Go—as the translation of its name implies—is to fully surround a larger total area of the board than the opponent. Once placed on the board, stones may not be moved, capture happens when a stone or group of stones is surrounded by opposing stones on all orthogonally-adjacent points. The game proceeds until neither player wishes to make another move, when a game concludes, the territory is counted along with captured stones and komi to determine the winner. Games may also be terminated by resignation, as of mid-2008, there were well over 40 million Go players worldwide, the overwhelming majority of them living in East Asia. As of December 2015, the International Go Federation has a total of 75 member countries, Go is an adversarial game with the objective of surrounding a larger total area of the board with ones stones than the opponent. As the game progresses, the players position stones on the board to map out formations, contests between opposing formations are often extremely complex and may result in the expansion, reduction, or wholesale capture and loss of formation stones. A basic principle of Go is that a group of stones must have at least one liberty to remain on the board, a liberty is an open point bordering the group. An enclosed liberty is called an eye, and a group of stones with two or more eyes is said to be unconditionally alive, such groups cannot be captured, even if surrounded. A group with one eye or no eyes is dead and cannot resist eventual capture, the general strategy is to expand ones territory, attack the opponents weak groups, and always stay mindful of the life status of ones own groups. The liberties of groups are countable, situations where mutually opposing groups must capture each other or die are called capturing races, or semeai. In a capturing race, the group with more liberties will ultimately be able to capture the opponents stones, capturing races and the elements of life or death are the primary challenges of Go
23.
Choke point
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A choke point can allow a numerically inferior defending force to thwart a larger opponent if the attacker cannot bring superior numbers to bear. It was the suitability of the Caribbean as a chokepoint that attracted pirates, the Spanish treasure fleets leaving the Americas would need to pass there to pick up the strong, prevailing, westerly winds that would take them back to Spain. From the 18th to the early 20th centuries, the size of the United Kingdoms Royal Navy meant it had control over much of the worlds oceans. Choke points were of importance to the British Empire, which often used them to control trade in British colonies and, to a lesser extent. Choke points have also been a source of tension, notably during the Suez Crisis, the Royal Navy still deems its choke points as strategically vital. Indeed, the importance of choke points was first recognised by British Admiral John Fisher and these are major British choke points today, The English Channel GIUK gap Strait of Gibraltar The choke points still have significant strategic importance for the Royal Navy. The GIUK gap was also a important part of the Cold War. The Suez Canal and the Sumed pipeline carry 4.5 million barrels a day, the canal was closed for eight years after the Six Day War in 1967. In many instances, alternate routes are nonexistent or impractical, for example, an alternate to the Suez/Sumed route required an additional 6,000 miles around Cape of Good Hope. The Royal Navy also still deems its choke points to the Atlantic as strategically important, strategic geography Sea lines of communication String of Pearls
24.
Chess
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Chess is a two-player strategy board game played on a chessboard, a checkered gameboard with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. Chess is played by millions of people worldwide, both amateurs and professionals, each player begins the game with 16 pieces, one king, one queen, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, and eight pawns. Each of the six piece types moves differently, with the most powerful being the queen, the objective is to checkmate the opponents king by placing it under an inescapable threat of capture. To this end, a players pieces are used to attack and capture the opponents pieces, in addition to checkmate, the game can be won by voluntary resignation by the opponent, which typically occurs when too much material is lost, or if checkmate appears unavoidable. A game may result in a draw in several ways. Chess is believed to have originated in India, some time before the 7th century, chaturanga is also the likely ancestor of the Eastern strategy games xiangqi, janggi and shogi. The pieces took on their current powers in Spain in the late 15th century, the first generally recognized World Chess Champion, Wilhelm Steinitz, claimed his title in 1886. Since 1948, the World Championship has been controlled by FIDE, the international governing body. There is also a Correspondence Chess World Championship and a World Computer Chess Championship, online chess has opened amateur and professional competition to a wide and varied group of players. There are also many variants, with different rules, different pieces. FIDE awards titles to skilled players, the highest of which is grandmaster, many national chess organizations also have a title system. However, these are not recognised by FIDE, the term master may refer to a formal title or may be used more loosely for any skilled player. Until recently, chess was a sport of the International Olympic Committee. Chess was included in the 2006 and 2010 Asian Games, since the 1990s, computer analysis has contributed significantly to chess theory, particularly in the endgame. The computer IBM Deep Blue was the first machine to overcome a reigning World Chess Champion in a match when it defeated Garry Kasparov in 1997, the rise of strong computer programs that can be run on hand-held devices has led to increasing concerns about cheating during tournaments. The official rules of chess are maintained by FIDE, chesss international governing body, along with information on official chess tournaments, the rules are described in the FIDE Handbook, Laws of Chess section. Chess is played on a board of eight rows and eight columns. The colors of the 64 squares alternate and are referred to as light, the chessboard is placed with a light square at the right-hand end of the rank nearest to each player
25.
Backgammon
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Backgammon is one of the oldest board games known. It is a two player game where playing pieces are moved according to the roll of dice, and a player wins by removing all of their pieces from the board before their opponent. Backgammon is a member of the family, one of the oldest classes of board games in the world. Backgammon involves a combination of strategy and luck, while the dice may determine the outcome of a single game, the better player will accumulate the better record over series of many games, somewhat like poker. With each roll of the dice, players must choose from options for moving their checkers. The optional use of a doubling cube allows players to raise the stakes during the game, like chess, backgammon has been studied with great interest by computer scientists. Owing to this research, backgammon software has been developed that is capable of beating world-class human players, Backgammon playing pieces are known variously as checkers, draughts, stones, men, counters, pawns, discs, pips, chips, or nips. The objective is to all of ones own checkers from the board before ones opponent can do the same. In the most often-played variants the checkers are scattered at first, as the playing time for each individual game is short, it is often played in matches where victory is awarded to the first player to reach a certain number of points. Each side of the board has a track of 12 long triangles, the points form a continuous track in the shape of a horseshoe, and are numbered from 1 to 24. In the most commonly used setup, each begins with fifteen checkers. The two players move their checkers in opposing directions, from the 24-point towards the 1-point, points 1 through 6 are called the home board or inner board, and points 7 through 12 are called the outer board. The 7-point is referred to as the bar point, and the 13-point as the midpoint, to start the game, each player rolls one die, and the player with the higher number moves first using the numbers shown on both dice. If the players roll the number, they must roll again. Both dice must land completely flat on the side of the gameboard. The players then alternate turns, rolling two dice at the beginning of each turn, after rolling the dice, players must, if possible, move their checkers according to the number shown on each die. For example, if the player rolls a 6 and a 3, the player must move one checker six points forward, and another or the same checker three points forward. The same checker may be moved twice, as long as the two moves can be separately and legally, six and then three, or three and then six
26.
Rook (chess)
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A rook is a piece in the strategy board game of chess. Formerly the piece was called the tower, marquess, rector, the term castle is considered informal, incorrect, or old-fashioned. However, in Persian the word for castling is qaleh raften, each player starts the game with two rooks, one in each of the corner squares on their own side of the board. The white rooks start on squares a1 and h1, while the black rooks start on a8, the rook moves horizontally or vertically, through any number of unoccupied squares. As with captures by other pieces, the captures by occupying the square on which the enemy piece sits. The rook also participates, with the king, in a move called castling. In the medieval shatranj, the rook symbolized a chariot, Persian war chariots were heavily armoured, carrying a driver and at least one ranged-weapon bearer, such as an archer. The sides of the chariot were built to resemble fortified stone work, giving the impression of small, mobile buildings, however, in the West the rook is almost universally represented as a crenellated turret. One possible explanation is that when the game was imported to Italy, the Persian rukh became the Italian word rocca, meaning fortress, an alternative name in Russian, тура. An exception is seen in the British Museums collection of the medieval Lewis chess pieces in which the rooks appear as stern warders or wild-eyed Berzerker warriors, rooks usually are similar in appearance to small castles, and as a result a rook is sometimes called a castle. This usage was common in the past but today it is rarely if ever used in literature or among players. The Russian name for the means a sailing boat or longship of Northern cultures such as the Vikings. Two rooks are generally considered to be slightly more than a queen. Winning a rook for a bishop or knight is referred to as winning the exchange, rooks and queens are called heavy pieces or major pieces, as opposed to bishops and knights, the minor pieces. In that position, the support each other, and can more easily move to occupy. A common strategic goal is to place a rook on the first rank of an open file, from this position, the rook is relatively unexposed to risk but can exert control on every square on the file. If one file is particularly important, a player might advance one rook on it, a rook on the seventh rank is typically very powerful, as it threatens the opponents unadvanced pawns and hems in the enemy king. A rook on the rank is often considered sufficient compensation for a pawn
27.
The Art of War
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The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise dating from the 5th century BC. Attributed to the ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu the text is composed of 13 chapters and it is commonly thought of as a definitive work on military strategy and tactics. It was placed at the head of Chinas Seven Military Classics upon the creation in 1080 by Emperor Shenzong of Song. It has had an influence on Eastern and Western military thinking, business tactics, legal strategy, the book was first translated into French in 1772 by the Jesuit Jean Joseph Marie Amiot and a partial translation into English was attempted by British officer Everard Ferguson Calthrop in 1905. The first annotated English translation was completed and published by Lionel Giles in 1910, leaders such as Mao Zedong, General Võ Nguyên Giáp, General Douglas MacArthur and leaders of Imperial Japan have drawn inspiration from the work. This text was identified with the received Master Suns Art of War. The prominent strategist, poet, and warlord Cao Cao in the early 3rd century AD authored the earliest known commentary to the Art of War, caos preface makes clear that he edited the text and removed certain passages, but the extent of his changes were unclear historically. The Art of War appears throughout the bibliographical catalogs of the Chinese dynastic histories, in 1972, the Yinqueshan Han slips were discovered in two Han dynasty tombs near the city of Linyi in Shandong Province. The Sun Bin texts material overlaps with much of the Sunzi text, and this discovery showed that much of the historical confusion was due to the fact that there were two texts that could have been referred to as Master Suns Art of War, not one. The content of the text is about one-third of the chapters of the modern The Art of War. It is now accepted that the earlier The Art of War was completed sometime between 500 and 450 BC. The Art of War is divided into 13 chapters, the collection is referred to as being one zhuàn, detail Assessment and Planning explores the five fundamental factors and seven elements that determine the outcomes of military engagements. By thinking, assessing and comparing these points, a commander can calculate his chances of victory, habitual deviation from these calculations will ensure failure via improper action. The text stresses that war is a grave matter for the state. Waging War explains how to understand the economy of warfare and how success requires winning decisive engagements quickly and this section advises that successful military campaigns require limiting the cost of competition and conflict. Strategic Attack defines the source of strength as unity, not size, in order of importance, these critical factors are, Attack, Strategy, Alliances, Army and Cities. Disposition of the Army explains the importance of defending existing positions until a commander is capable of advancing from those positions in safety and it teaches commanders the importance of recognizing strategic opportunities, and teaches not to create opportunities for the enemy. Forces explains the use of creativity and timing in building an armys momentum, Military Maneuvers explains the dangers of direct conflict and how to win those confrontations when they are forced upon the commander
28.
Bomb
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A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Bombs have been in use since the 11th century in Song Dynasty China, the term bomb is not usually applied to explosive devices used for civilian purposes such as construction or mining, although the people using the devices may sometimes refer to them as a bomb. The military use of the bomb, or more specifically aerial bomb action, typically refers to airdropped, unpowered explosive weapons most commonly used by air forces. Other military explosive weapons not classified as bombs include grenades, shells, depth charges, warheads when in missiles, in unconventional warfare, other names can refer to a range of offensive weaponry. For instance, in recent Middle Eastern conflicts, bombs called improvised explosive devices have been employed by insurgent fighters to great effectiveness, the word comes from the Latin bombus, which in turn comes from the Greek βόμβος, an onomatopoetic term meaning booming, buzzing. Explosive bombs were used in China in 1221, by a Jin dynasty army against a Song Dynasty city, Bombs built using bamboo tubes appear in the 11th century. Bombs made of cast iron shells packed with explosive gunpowder date to 13th century China, the term was coined for this bomb during a Jin dynasty naval battle of 1231 against the Mongols. When hit, even iron armour was pierced through. The Ming Dynasty text Huolongjing describes the use of gunpowder bombs. During the Mongol invasions of Japan, the Mongols used the explosive thunder-crash bombs against the Japanese, archaeological evidence of the thunder-crash bombs has been discovered in an underwater shipwreck off the shore of Japan by the Kyushu Okinawa Society for Underwater Archaeology. X-rays by Japanese scientists of the excavated shells confirmed that they contained gunpowder, explosive shock waves can cause situations such as body displacement, dismemberment, internal bleeding and ruptured eardrums. Shock waves produced by explosive events have two components, the positive and negative wave. The positive wave shoves outward from the point of detonation, followed by the vacuum space sucking back towards the point of origin as the shock bubble collapses. The greatest defense against shock injuries is distance from the source of shock, as a point of reference, the overpressure at the Oklahoma City bombing was estimated in the range of 28 MPa. A thermal wave is created by the release of heat caused by an explosion. Military bomb tests have documented temperatures of up to 2,480 °C, while capable of inflicting severe to catastrophic burns and causing secondary fires, thermal wave effects are considered very limited in range compared to shock and fragmentation. This would be fatal to humans, as tests have proven. Fragmentation is produced by the acceleration of shattered pieces of bomb casing, the use of fragmentation in bombs dates to the 14th century, and appears in the Ming Dynasty text Huolongjing
29.
Marshal
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Marshal is a term used in several official titles in various branches of society. As marshals became trusted members of the courts of Medieval Europe, during the last few centuries, it has been used for elevated offices, such as in military rank and civilian law enforcement. Marshal is an ancient loanword from Old French, which in turn is borrowed from Old Frankish *marhskalk, being still evident in Middle Dutch maerscalc, marscal and it is cognate with Old High German mar-scalc id. modern German Marschall. It originally and literally meant horse servant, from Germanic *marha- horse and this horse servant origin is retained in the current French name for farrier, maréchal-ferrant. The late Roman and Byzantine title of comes stabuli was adopted as a Latin analogue, which has become the French connétable and, derived from the French, finally, in Byzantium a marshal with elevated authority, notably a borderlands military command, is also known as an Exarch. In many countries, the rank of marshal, cf. field marshal, is the highest army rank, the equivalent navy rank is often admiral of the fleet. Marshals are typically, but not exclusively, appointed only in wartime, in many countries, especially in Europe, the special symbol of a marshal is a baton, and their insignia often incorporate batons. In some countries, the marshal is used instead of general in the higher air force ranks. The four highest Royal Air Force ranks are marshal of the Royal Air Force, air marshal, air marshal. The five-star rank of marshal of the Air Force is used by some Commonwealth, in the French Army and most National Armies modeled upon the French system, maréchal des logis is a cavalry term equivalent to sergeant. Some historical rulers have used special marshal titles to reward certain subjects, though not strictly military ranks, these honorary titles have been exclusively bestowed upon successful military leaders, such as the famous grand marshal of Ayacucho Antonio José de Sucre. Most famous are the Marshals of France, not least under Napoléon I, in England during the First Barons War the title Marshal of the Army of God was bestowed upon Robert Fitzwalter by election. Both the Soviet Union and Russia have army general as well as marshal in their rank system, the relationships between them is unresolved. Marshal of the Soviet Union Chief marshal of an arm was used in five Soviet military branches – the air force, artillery, armoured troops, engineer troops. Marshal of an arm was used in five Soviet military branches – the air force, artillery, armoured troops, engineer troops. Marshal of an arm is considered equivalent to the rank general of the army, which was used in the infantry. The function of the Marshal of the Court varies according to national tradition, often, the charge includes also the honorary privilege as chief of the protocol to announce formally the arrival of VIP guests at audiences, state dinners, and conferences in the monarchs premises. This office was made hereditary in the high nobility, e. g. the English Earl Marshal
30.
General officer
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A general officer is an officer of high rank in the army, and in some nations air forces or marines. The term general is used in two ways, as the title for all grades of general officer and as a specific rank. It originates in the 16th century, as a shortening of captain general, the adjective general had been affixed to officer designations since the late medieval period to indicate relative superiority or an extended jurisdiction. Today, the title of General is known in countries as a four-star rank. However different countries use different systems of stars for senior ranks and it has a NATO code of OF-9 and is the highest rank currently in use in a number of armies. The various grades of general officer are at the top of the rank structure. Lower-ranking officers in military forces are typically known as field officers or field-grade officers. There are two systems of general ranks used worldwide. In addition there is a system, the Arab system of ranks. Variations of one form, the old European system, were used throughout Europe. It is used in the United Kingdom, from which it spread to the Commonwealth. The other is derived from the French Revolution, where ranks are named according to the unit they command. The system used either a general or a colonel general rank. The rank of marshal was used by some countries as the highest rank. Many countries actually used two brigade command ranks, which is why some countries now use two stars as their brigade general insignia, mexico and Argentina still use two brigade command ranks. As a lieutenant outranks a sergeant major, confusion arises because a lieutenant is outranked by a major. Originally the serjeant major was, exclusively, the commander of the infantry, junior only to the captain general, the distinction of serjeant major general only applied after serjeant majors were introduced as a rank of field officer. Serjeant was eventually dropped from both titles, creating the modern rank titles
31.
Colonel
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Colonel is a senior military officer rank below the general officer ranks. However, in small military forces, such as those of Iceland or the Vatican. It is also used in police forces and paramilitary organizations. Historically, in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a colonel was typically in charge of a regiment in an army, the rank of colonel is typically above the rank of lieutenant colonel. The rank above colonel is typically called brigadier, brigade general or brigadier general, equivalent naval ranks may be called captain or ship-of-the-line captain. In the Commonwealth air force rank system, the equivalent rank is group captain, the word colonel derives from the same root as the word column and means of a column, and, by implication, commander of a column. The word colonel is therefore linked to the column in a similar way that brigadier is linked to brigade. By the end of the medieval period, a group of companies was referred to as a column of an army. Since the word is believed to derive from sixteenth-century Italian, it was presumably first used by Italian city states in that century. The first use of colonel as a rank in an army was in the French National Legions created by King Francis I by his decree of 1534. Building on the reforms of Louis XIIs decree of 1509. Each colonel commanded a legion with a strength of six thousand men. With the shift from primarily mercenary to primarily national armies in the course of the seventeenth century, the Spanish equivalent rank of coronel was used by the Spanish tercios in the 16th and 17th centuries. Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, nicknamed the Great Captain, divided his armies in coronelías or colonelcies, however, the Spanish word probably derives from a different origin, in that it appears to designate an officer of the crown, rather than an officer of the column. This makes the Spanish word coronel probably cognate with the English word coroner and this regiment, or governance, was to some extent embodied in a contract and set of written rules, also referred to as the colonels regiment or standing regulation. By extension, the group of companies subject to a colonels regiment came to be referred to as his regiment as well, the position, however, was primarily contractual and it became progressively more of a functionless sinecure. By the late 19th century, colonel was a military rank though still held typically by an officer in command of a regiment or equivalent unit. As European military influence expanded throughout the world, the rank of colonel became adopted by every nation
32.
Major
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Major is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicators, major is one rank senior to that of an army captain and it is considered the most junior of the field officer ranks. Majors are typically assigned as specialised executive or operations officers for battalion-sized units of 300 to 1,200 soldiers, in some militaries, notably France and Ireland, the rank of major is referred to as commandant, while in others it is known as captain-major. The rank of major is used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures, such as the Pennsylvania State Police, New York State Police, New Jersey State Police. As a police rank, major roughly corresponds to the UK rank of superintendent, the term major can also be used with a hyphen to denote the leader of a military band such as in pipe-major or drum-major. Historically, the rank designation develops in English in the 1640s, taken from French majeur, in turn a shortening of sergent-majeur, which at the time designated a higher rank than at present
33.
Captain (armed forces)
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The army rank of captain is a commissioned officer rank historically corresponding to the command of a company of soldiers. The rank is used by some air forces and marine forces. Today, a captain is typically either the commander or second-in-command of a company or artillery battery, in the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army, a captain may also command a company, or be the second-in-command of a battalion. In NATO countries, the rank of captain is described by the code OF-2 and is one rank above an OF-1, the rank of captain is generally considered to be the highest rank a soldier can achieve while remaining in the field. The rank of captain should not be confused with the rank of captain or with the British-influenced air force rank of group captain. The term ultimately goes back to Late Latin capitaneus meaning chief, prominent, in Middle English adopted as capitayn in the 14th century, the military rank of captain was in use from the 1560s, referring to an officer who commands a company. The naval sense, an officer who commands a man-of-war, is earlier, from the 1550s. He would in turn receive money from another nobleman to serve as his lieutenant, the funding to provide for the troops came from the monarch or his government, the captain had to be responsible for it. If he was not, or was otherwise court-martialed, he would be dismissed, otherwise, the only pension for the captain was selling the right to another nobleman when he was ready to retire. In most countries, the air force is the junior service, many, such as the United States Air Force, use a rank structure and insignia similar to those of the army. However, the United Kingdoms Royal Air Force, many other Commonwealth air forces, a group captain is OF-5 and was derived from the naval rank of captain. In the unified system of the Canadian Forces, the air force rank titles are pearl grey, a variety of images illustrative of different forces insignia for captain are shown below, Captain Captain Senior captain Staff captain
34.
Lieutenant
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A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations armed forces, fire service or police. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different military formations, but is often subdivided into senior and junior ranks, in navies it is often equivalent to the army rank of captain, it may also indicate a particular post rather than a rank. The rank is used in fire services, emergency medical services, security services. Lieutenant may also appear as part of a used in various other organisations with a codified command structure. It often designates someone who is second-in-command, and as such, for example, a lieutenant master is likely to be second-in-command to the master in an organisation using both ranks. Political uses include lieutenant governor in various governments, and Quebec lieutenant in Canadian politics, in the United Kingdom, a lord lieutenant is the sovereigns representative in a county or lieutenancy area, while a deputy lieutenant is one of the lord lieutenants deputies. However, their efforts failed, and the French word is used, along with its many variations. The early history of the pronunciation is unclear, Middle English spellings suggest that the /luː-/ and /lɛf-/ pronunciations may have existed even then. The rare Old French variant spelling luef for Modern French lieu supports the suggestion that a final of the Old French word was in certain environments perceived as an, in Royal Naval tradition—and other English-speaking navies outside the United States—a reduced pronunciation /ləˈtɛnənt/ is used. This is not recognised as current by recent editions of the OED, conventionally, armies and other services or branches which use army-style rank titles have two grades of lieutenant, but a few also use a third, more junior, rank. Where more junior officers were employed as deputies to the lieutenant, they went by names, including second lieutenant, sub-lieutenant, ensign. The senior grade of lieutenant is known as first lieutenant in the United States, and as lieutenant in the United Kingdom, in countries which do not speak English, the rank title usually translates as lieutenant, but may also translate as first lieutenant or senior lieutenant. The Israel Defense Forces rank segen literally translates as deputy, which is equivalent to a lieutenant, there is great variation in the insignia used worldwide. In most English-speaking and Arabic-speaking countries, as well as a number of European and South American nations, an example of an exception is the United States, whose armed forces distinguish their lieutenant ranks with one silver bar for first lieutenant and one gold bar for second lieutenant. Second lieutenant is usually the most junior grade of commissioned officer, in non-English-speaking countries, the equivalent rank title may translate as second lieutenant, lieutenant, sub-lieutenant or junior lieutenant. Non-English terms include alferes, alférez, fänrik, ensign, Leutnant, letnan, poručík, a few non-English-speaking militaries maintain a lower rank, frequently translated as third lieutenant OF1c. The rank title may translate as second lieutenant, junior lieutenant, sub-lieutenant or ensign. Warsaw Pact countries standardised their ranking systems on the Soviet system, some of the former Soviet and Warsaw Pact nations have now discarded the third rank while many retain it like Bulgaria
35.
Sergeant
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Sergeant is a rank in many uniformed organizations, principally military and policing forces. Its origin is the Latin serviens, one who serves, through the French term sergent, the term sergeant refers to a non-commissioned officer placed above the rank of a corporal and a police officer immediately below a lieutenant. In most armies the rank of sergeant corresponds to command of a squad, in Commonwealth armies, it is a more senior rank, corresponding roughly to a platoon second-in-command. In the United States Army, sergeant is a junior rank corresponding to a four-soldier fireteam leader. More senior non-commissioned ranks are often variations on sergeant, for example staff sergeant, many countries use sergeant rank, whether in English or using a cognate with the same origin in another language. The equivalent rank in Arab armies is raqeeb, meaning overseer or watcher, in medieval European usage, a sergeant was simply any attendant or officer with a protective duty. Any medieval knight or military order of knighthood might have sergeants-at-arms, the etymology of the term is from Anglo-French sergant, serjant servant, valet, court official, soldier, from Middle Latin servientem servant, vassal, soldier. Later, a sergeant was a man of what would now be thought of as the middle class. Sergeants could fight either as heavy to light cavalry, or as well trained professional infantry, most notable medieval mercenaries fell into the sergeant class, such as Flemish crossbowmen and spearmen, who were seen as reliable quality troops. The sergeant class was deemed to be half of a knight in military value. A specific kind of military sergeant was the serjeant-at-arms, one of a body of armed men retained by English lords, the title is now given to an officer in modern legislative bodies who is charged with keeping order during meetings and, if necessary, forcibly removing disruptive members. The responsibilities of a sergeant differ from army to army, there are usually several ranks of sergeant, each corresponding to greater experience and responsibility for the daily lives of the soldiers of larger units. Sergeant is a rank in both the Australian Army and the Royal Australian Air Force, the ranks are equivalent to each other and the Royal Australian Navy rank of petty officer. The Australian Army rank of sergeant is now redundant and is no longer awarded, due to being outside the rank equivalencies. Chief petty officers and flight sergeants are not required to call a warrant officer class two sir in accordance with Australian Defence Force Regulations 1952. The rank of sergeant exists in all Australian police forces and is more senior than a constable or senior constable, New South Wales Police Force, for example, has the additional rank of incremental sergeant. This is a progression, following appointment as a sergeant for seven years. An incremental sergeant rank is less senior than a senior sergeant but is more senior than a sergeant, upon appointment as a sergeant or senior sergeant, the sergeant is given a warrant of appointment under the commissioners hand and seal
36.
Sapper
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They are also trained to serve as infantry personnel in defensive and offensive operations. A sappers duties are devoted to tasks involving facilitating movement, defence and survival of allied forces, the term sapper is used in the British Army and Commonwealth nations, Polish Army and the U. S. military. The phrase sapper comes from the French saper, saps were excavated by brigades of trained sappers or instructed troops. When an army was defending a fortress with cannon, they had an obvious height, the attacking armys artillery had to be brought forward, under fire, so as to facilitate effective counter-battery fire. This was achieved by digging what the French termed a sappe, using techniques developed and perfected by Vauban, the sappers began the trench at such an angle so as to avoid enemy fire enfilading the sappe. As they pressed forward, a position was prepared from which cannon could suppress the defenders on the bastions, the sappers would then change the course of their trench, zig-zagging toward the fortress wall. Each leg brought the attackers artillery closer until the cannon would be sufficiently suppressed for the attackers to breach the walls. Broadly speaking, sappers were experts at demolishing or otherwise overcoming or bypassing fortification systems. An additional term applied to sappers of the British Indian Army was miner, the native engineer corps were referred to as sappers and miners, as for example, the Royal Bombay Sappers and Miners. The term arose from a task done by sappers to further the battle after saps were dug, the saps permitted cannon to be brought into firing range of the besieged fort and its cannon, but often the cannon themselves were unable to breach the fort walls. This was dangerous work, often lethal to the sappers, and was resisted by the besieged enemy. Since the two tasks went hand in hand and were done by the troops, native Indian engineer corps came to be called sappers and miners. Sapper is the Royal Engineers equivalent of private, the term sapper was introduced in 1856 when the Corps of Royal Sappers and Miners was amalgamated with the officer corps of the Royal Engineers to form the Corps of Royal Engineers. During the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of World War I Australian sappers repaired a bridge at the crossing of the Jordan River at Jisr Benat Yakub. Here the retreating Ottoman and German rearguard had blown up the central arch which was repaired in five hours by sappers attached to the Australian Mounted Division. Australian Sappers in the Vietnam War were also honoured in the Cold Chisel song Khe Sanh with the line I left my heart to the Sappers round Khe Sanh, in the Canadian Forces, sappers exist both in the regular force and reserve force. The rank of sapper is used instead of private trained to signify completion of the Engineer DP1 course, Canadian sappers have been deployed in many major conflicts in recent history including World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the War in Afghanistan. Ultimately, the objective of the sappers is to facilitate the living, moving, and fighting for friendly troops on the battlefield, the motto of the Canadian Military Engineers is Ubique a motto shared with the Royal Canadian Artillery
37.
Reconnaissance
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In military operations, reconnaissance is the exploration outside an area occupied by friendly forces to gain information about natural features and enemy presence. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops, ships or submarines, manned/unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, satellites, espionage normally is not reconnaissance, because reconnaissance is a militarys special forces operating ahead of its main forces, spies are non-combatants operating behind enemy lines. Often called recce or recon, the verb is reconnaître. Traditionally, reconnaissance was a role that was adopted by the cavalry, speed was key in these maneuvers, thus infantry was ill suited to the task. From horses to vehicles, for warriors throughout history, commanders procured their ability to have speed and mobility, to mount and dismount, skirmishing is a traditional skill of reconnaissance, as well as harassment of the enemy. Reconnaissance conducted by ground forces includes special reconnaissance, armored reconnaissance, amphibious reconnaissance, aerial reconnaissance is reconnaissance carried out by aircraft. The purpose is to weather conditions, map terrain, and may include military purposes such as observing tangible structures, particular areas. Naval forces use aerial and satellite reconnaissance to observe enemy forces, navies also undertake hydrographic surveys and intelligence gathering. Reconnaissance satellites provide military commanders with photographs of enemy forces and other intelligence, military forces also use geographical and meteorological information from Earth observation satellites. A tracker needs to pay attention to both the environment and the psychology of his enemy. Knowledge of human psychology, sociology, and cultural backgrounds is necessary to know the actions of the enemy and this is almost as necessary as to know the physical character of the country, its climate and products. Certain people will do certain things almost without fail, certain other things, perfectly feasible, they will not do. There is no danger of knowing too much of the habits of an enemy. One should neither underestimate the enemy nor credit him with superhuman powers, fear and courage are latent in every human being, though roused into activity by very diverse means. Types of reconnaissance, Terrain-oriented reconnaissance is a survey of the terrain, force-oriented reconnaissance focuses on the enemy forces and may include target acquisition. Civil-oriented reconnaissance focuses on the dimension of the battlespace. The techniques and objectives are not mutually exclusive, it is up to the commander whether they are carried out separately or by the same unit, some military elements tasked with reconnaissance are armed only for self-defense, and rely on stealth to gather information. Others are well-enough armed to also deny information to the enemy by destroying their reconnaissance elements, reconnaissance-in-force is a type of military operation or military tactics used specifically to probe an enemys disposition
38.
Espionage
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Espionage is the obtaining of information considered secret or confidential without the permission of the holder of the information. Espionage can be committed by an individual or a spy ring, in the service of a government or a company, the practice is inherently clandestine, as it is by definition unwelcome and in many cases illegal and punishable by law. Espionage is a subset of intelligence gathering, which includes espionage as well as information gathering from public sources, Espionage is often part of an institutional effort by a government or commercial concern. However, the term is associated with state spying on potential or actual enemies primarily for military purposes. Spying involving corporations is known as industrial espionage, one of the most effective ways to gather data and information about the enemy is by infiltrating the enemys ranks. This is the job of the spy, Spies can bring back all sorts of information concerning the size and strength of enemy forces. They can also find dissidents within the forces and influence them to defect. In times of crisis, spies can also be used to steal technology, counterintelligence operatives can feed false information to enemy spies, protecting important domestic secrets, and preventing attempts at subversion. Nearly every country has strict laws concerning espionage, and the penalty for being caught is often severe. However, the benefits that can be gained through espionage are generally great enough that most governments, events involving espionage are well documented throughout history. The Old Testament of the Christian Bible, which is based primarily on the Hebrew Bible, speaks about Joshua and Caleb, the ancient writings of Chinese and Indian military strategists such as Sun-Tzu and Chanakya contain information on deception and subversion. Chanakyas student Chandragupta Maurya, founder of the Maurya Empire in India, made use of assassinations, spies and secret agents, the ancient Egyptians had a thoroughly developed system for the acquisition of intelligence, and the Hebrews used spies as well, as in the story of Rahab. Spies were also prevalent in the Greek and Roman empires, during the 13th and 14th centuries, the Mongols relied heavily on espionage in their conquests in Asia and Europe. Feudal Japan often used ninjas to gather intelligence, aztecs used Pochtecas, people in charge of commerce, as spies and diplomats, and had diplomatic immunity. Many modern espionage methods were established by Francis Walsingham in Elizabethan England, in 1585, Mary, Queen of Scots was placed in the custody of Sir Amias Paulet, who was instructed to open and read all of Marys clandestine correspondence. In a successful attempt to expose her, Walsingham arranged a single exception, Mary was misled into thinking these secret letters were secure, while in reality they were deciphered and read by Walsinghams agents. He succeeded in intercepting letters that indicated a conspiracy to displace Elizabeth I with Mary, in foreign intelligence, Walsinghams extensive network of intelligencers, who passed on general news as well as secrets, spanned Europe and the Mediterranean. While foreign intelligence was a part of the principal secretarys activities, Walsingham brought to it flair and ambition
39.
Flag
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A flag is a piece of fabric with a distinctive design that is used as a symbol, as a signaling device, or as decoration. National flags are patriotic symbols with varied wide-ranging interpretations, often including strong military associations due to their original, flags are also used in messaging, advertising, or for other decorative purposes. The study of flags is known as vexillology, from the Latin word vexillum, due to the use of flags by military units, flag is also used as the name of some military units. A flag is equivalent to a brigade in Arab countries, and in Spain, in antiquity, field signs or standards were used in warfare that can be categorized as vexilloid or flag-like. During the High Middle Ages flags came to be used primarily as a device in battle. Already during the medieval period, and increasingly during the Late Middle Ages. Regimental flags for individual units became commonplace during the Early Modern period, flags also became the preferred means of communications at sea, resulting in various systems of flag signals, see, International maritime signal flags. One of the most popular uses of a flag is to symbolize a nation or country, some national flags have been particularly inspirational to other nations, countries, or subnational entities in the design of their own flags. Some prominent examples include, The flag of Denmark, the Dannebrog, is attested in 1478, the flag of the Netherlands is the oldest tricolour. Its three colours of red, white and blue go back to Charlemagnes time, the 9th century, the coastal region of what today is the Netherlands was then known for its cloth in these colours. Maps from the early 16th century already put flags in these colours next to this region, a century before that, during the 15th century, the three colours were mentioned as the coastal signals for this area, with the three bands straight or diagonal, single or doubled. As state flag it first appeared around 1572 as the Princes Flag in orange–white–blue, soon the more famous red–white–blue began appearing, becoming the prevalent version from around 1630. Orange made a comeback during the war of the late 18th century. During World War II the pro-Nazi NSB used it, any symbolism has been added later to the three colours, although the orange comes from the House of Orange-Nassau. This use of orange comes from Nassau, which today uses orange-blue, not from Orange, however, the usual way to show the link with the House of Orange-Nassau is the orange pennant above the red-white-blue. It is said that the Dutch Tricolour has inspired many flags but most notably those of Russia, New York City, the national flag of France was designed in 1794. As a forerunner of revolution, Frances tricolour flag style has been adopted by other nations, examples, Italy, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ireland, Haiti, Romania and Mexico. The Union Flag of the United Kingdom is the most commonly used, british colonies typically flew a flag based on one of the ensigns based on this flag, and many former colonies have retained the design to acknowledge their cultural history
40.
World War I
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World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany
41.
Monopoly (game)
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The current version was first published by Parker Brothers in 1935. Subtitled The Fast-Dealing Property Trading Game, the game is named after the concept of monopoly—the domination of a market by a single entity. It is now owned and produced by the American game and toy company Hasbro and it was intended as an educational tool to illustrate the negative aspects of concentrating land in private monopolies. Magie took out a patent in 1904 and her game, The Landlords Game, was self-published, beginning in 1906. A series of variant board games based on her concept was developed from 1906 through the 1930s that involved the buying and selling of land, cardboard houses were added and rents were increased as they were added. Magie again patented the game in 1923, after the meal, the Darrows played The Landlords Game several times with them, a game that was entirely new to the Darrows, and before he left, Darrow asked for a written set of the rules. After Darrow brought his own Monopoly game out, the Todds never spoke to the Darrows again, but see below for a version in which the Todds shared their own Monopoly-like game with the Darrows. By 1933, a variation on The Landlords Game called Monopoly was the basis of the game sold by Parker Brothers. The original version of the game in this format was based on the streets of Atlantic City, by the 1970s, the false notion that the game had been created solely by Charles Darrow had become popular folklore, it was printed in the games instructions. In 1936, Parker Brothers began licensing the game for sale outside the United States, hidden inside these games were maps, compasses, real money, and other objects useful for escaping. They were distributed to prisoners by British secret service-created fake charity groups, economics professor Ralph Anspach published a game Anti-Monopoly in 1973, and was sued for trademark infringement by Parker Brothers in 1974. The case went to trial in 1976, Anspach won on appeals in 1979, as the 9th Circuit Court determined that the trademark Monopoly was generic, and therefore unenforceable. The United States Supreme Court declined to hear the case, allowing the court ruling to stand. This decision was overturned by the passage of Public Law 98-620 in 1984, with that law in place, Parker Brothers and its parent company, Hasbro, continue to hold valid trademarks for the game Monopoly. However, Anti-Monopoly was exempted from the law and Anspach later reached a settlement with Hasbro, the research that Dr. Anspach conducted during the course of the litigation was what helped to bring the games history before Charles Darrow into the spotlight. In 1991, Hasbro acquired Parker Bros. and thus Monopoly, prior to the Hasbro acquisition, Parker Bros. only acted as a publisher only issuing two versions at a time, a regular and deluxe. Thus Hasbro move to create and license other versions and involve the public in varying the game, in 2003, the company held a national tournament on a chartered train going from Chicago to Atlantic City. Also in 2003, Hasbro sued the maker of Ghetto-opoly and won, while in February, the company sued RAD Games over Super Add On accessory board game that fit in the center of the board
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Milton Bradley
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Milton Bradley was an American business magnate, game pioneer and publisher, credited by many with launching the board game industry, with the Milton Bradley Company. Born in Vienna, Maine in 1836, to Lewis and Fannie Bradley, Bradley grew up in a household in Lowell. After completing high school in 1854 he found work as a draftsman and patent agent before enrolling at the Lawrence Scientific School in Cambridge and he was unable to finish his studies after moving with his family to Hartford, Connecticut, where he could not find gainful employment. In 1856, he left home and got a job in the works of the Blanchard & Kimball in Springfield. After the company was shuttered during the recession of 1858, he entered business for himself as a mechanical draftsman, in 1859, Bradley went to Providence, Rhode Island to learn lithography and in 1860, he set up the first color lithography shop in Springfield, Massachusetts. He moved forward with an idea he had for a game which he called The Checkered Game of Life. Bradleys ventures into the production of games began with a large failure in his lithograph business. When he printed and sold an image of the little-known Republican presidential nominee Abraham Lincoln, but a customer demanded his money back because the picture was not an accurate representation—Lincoln had decided to grow his distinctive beard after Bradleys print was published. Suddenly, the prints were worthless, and Bradley burned those remaining in his possession, looking for a lucrative alternate project, Bradley found inspiration from an imported board game a friend gave him, concluding that he could produce and market a similar game to American consumers. In the winter of 1860, Bradley released The Checkered Game of Life, the game proved an instant success. Bradley personally sold his first run of several hundred copies in a visit to New York, by 1861. But even the most seemingly secure positions, like Fat Office, held dangers – Prison, Ruin, the first player to accumulate 100 points won the game. While the structure of play in The Checkered Game of Life differed little from previous board games, earlier games, such as the popular Mansion of Happiness created in Puritan Massachusetts, focused entirely on promoting moral virtue. Bradley defined success in business terms, depicting life as a quest for accomplishment with personal virtues as a means to that end. This complemented Americas burgeoning fascination with obtaining wealth, and with the relationship between character and wealth, in the years following the Civil War. The game—and later board games produced by the Milton Bradley Company—also fit the increasing amount of leisure time. The company is now a subsidiary of Pawtucket, Rhode Island–based firm Hasbro, Bradley published tracts and pamphlets on Fröbels kindergarten system. His company produced two magazines, Kindergarten News, and Work and Play, neither was profitable, and Bradleys business partners withdrew their support, but Bradley persevered, publishing both magazines until the end of his life
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Wood
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Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees, and other woody plants. It is a material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers which are strong in tension embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression. Wood is sometimes defined as only the secondary xylem in the stems of trees, in a living tree it performs a support function, enabling woody plants to grow large or to stand up by themselves. It also conveys water and nutrients between the leaves, other growing tissues, and the roots, Wood may also refer to other plant materials with comparable properties, and to material engineered from wood, or wood chips or fiber. In 2005, the stock of forests worldwide was about 434 billion cubic meters. As an abundant, carbon-neutral renewable resource, woody materials have been of intense interest as a source of renewable energy, in 1991 approximately 3.5 billion cubic meters of wood were harvested. Dominant uses were for furniture and building construction, a 2011 discovery in the Canadian province of New Brunswick discovered the earliest known plants to have grown wood, approximately 395 to 400 million years ago. Wood can be dated by carbon dating and in species by dendrochronology to make inferences about when a wooden object was created. People have used wood for millennia for many purposes, primarily as a fuel or as a material for making houses, tools, weapons, furniture, packaging, artworks. Constructions using wood date back ten thousand years, buildings like the European Neolithic long house were made primarily of wood. Recent use of wood has changed by the addition of steel. The year-to-year variation in tree-ring widths and isotopic abundances gives clues to the climate at that time. This process is known as growth, it is the result of cell division in the vascular cambium, a lateral meristem. These cells then go on to form thickened secondary cell walls, composed mainly of cellulose, hemicellulose, if the distinctiveness between seasons is annual, these growth rings are referred to as annual rings. Where there is little seasonal difference growth rings are likely to be indistinct or absent, if the bark of the tree has been removed in a particular area, the rings will likely be deformed as the plant overgrows the scar. It is usually lighter in color than that near the portion of the ring. The outer portion formed later in the season is known as the latewood or summerwood. However, there are differences, depending on the kind of wood
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Plastic
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Plastic is a material consisting of any of a wide range of synthetic or semi-synthetic organic compounds that are malleable and can be molded into solid objects. Plastics are typically organic polymers of high mass, but they often contain other substances. They are usually synthetic, most commonly derived from petrochemicals, due to their relatively low cost, ease of manufacture, versatility, and imperviousness to water, plastics are used in an enormous and expanding range of products, from paper clips to spaceships. They have already displaced many traditional materials, such as wood, stone, horn and bone, leather, paper, metal, glass, and ceramic, in most of their former uses. In developed countries, about a third of plastic is used in packaging, other uses include automobiles, furniture, and toys. In the developing world, the ratios may be different - for example, the worlds first fully synthetic plastic was bakelite, invented in New York in 1907 by Leo Baekeland who coined the term plastics. Toward the end of the century, one approach to this problem was met with wide efforts toward recycling, the word plastic is derived from the Greek πλαστικός meaning capable of being shaped or molded, from πλαστός meaning molded. The common word plastic should not be confused with the technical adjective plastic, used for insulating parts in electrical fixtures, paper laminated products, thermally insulation foams. Problems include the probability of moldings naturally being dark colors, One of the most expensive commercial polymers. It forms the basis of artistic and commercial acrylic paints when suspended in water with the use of other agents, polytetrafluoroethylene – Heat-resistant, low-friction coatings, used in things like non-stick surfaces for frying pans, plumbers tape and water slides. It is more known as Teflon. Urea-formaldehyde – One of the aminoplasts and used as an alternative to phenolics. Used as an adhesive and electrical switch housings. Early plastics were bio-derived materials such as egg and blood proteins, in 1600 BC, Mesoamericans used natural rubber for balls, bands, and figurines. Treated cattle horns were used as windows for lanterns in the Middle Ages, materials that mimicked the properties of horns were developed by treating milk-proteins with lye. In the 1800s, as industrial chemistry developed during the Industrial Revolution, the development of plastics also accelerated with Charles Goodyears discovery of vulcanization to thermoset materials derived from natural rubber. Parkesine is considered the first man-made plastic, the plastic material was patented by Alexander Parkes, In Birmingham, UK in 1856. It was unveiled at the 1862 Great International Exhibition in London, parkesine won a bronze medal at the 1862 Worlds fair in London
