1.
Cuba
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Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is a country comprising the island of Cuba as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located in the northern Caribbean where the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and it is south of both the U. S. state of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Haiti, and north of Jamaica. Havana is the largest city and capital, other cities include Santiago de Cuba. Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean, with an area of 109,884 square kilometres, prior to Spanish colonization in the late 15th century, Cuba was inhabited by Amerindian tribes. It remained a colony of Spain until the Spanish–American War of 1898, as a fragile republic, Cuba attempted to strengthen its democratic system, but mounting political radicalization and social strife culminated in the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1952. Further unrest and instability led to Batistas ousting in January 1959 by the July 26 Movement, since 1965, the state has been governed by the Communist Party of Cuba. A point of contention during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, a nuclear war broke out during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Culturally, Cuba is considered part of Latin America, Cuba is a Marxist–Leninist one-party republic, where the role of the vanguard Communist Party is enshrined in the Constitution. Independent observers have accused the Cuban government of human rights abuses. It is one of the worlds last planned economies and its economy is dominated by the exports of sugar, tobacco, coffee, according to the Human Development Index, Cuba is described as a country with high human development and is ranked the eighth highest in North America. It also ranks highly in some metrics of national performance, including health care, the name Cuba comes from the Taíno language. The exact meaning of the name is unclear but it may be translated either as where fertile land is abundant, authors who believe that Christopher Columbus was Portuguese state that Cuba was named by Columbus for the town of Cuba in the district of Beja in Portugal. Before the arrival of the Spanish, Cuba was inhabited by three distinct tribes of indigenous peoples of the Americas, the Taíno, the Guanajatabey, and the Ciboney people. The ancestors of the Ciboney migrated from the mainland of South America, the Taíno arrived from Hispanola sometime in the 3rd century A. D. When Columbus arrived they were the dominant culture in Cuba, having a population of 150,000. The name Cuba comes from the native Taíno language and it is derived from either coabana meaning great place, or from cubao meaning where fertile land is abundant. The Taíno were farmers, while the Ciboney were farmers as well as fishers and hunter-gatherers, Columbus claimed the island for the new Kingdom of Spain and named it Isla Juana after Juan, Prince of Asturias. In 1511, the first Spanish settlement was founded by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar at Baracoa, other towns soon followed, including San Cristobal de la Habana, founded in 1515, which later became the capital
2.
Analog television
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Analog television or analogue television is the original television technology that uses analog signals to transmit video and audio. In an analog television broadcast, the brightness, colors and sound are represented by variations of either the amplitude. Analog signals vary over a range of possible values which means that electronic noise. So with analog, a weak signal becomes snowy and subject to interference. In contrast, a moderately weak signal and a very strong digital signal transmit equal picture quality. Analog television may be wireless or can be distributed over a network using cable converters. All broadcast television systems preceding digital transmission of digital television used analog signals, analog television around the world has been in the process of shutting down since the late 2000s. The earliest systems were mechanical systems which used spinning disks with patterns of holes punched into the disc to scan an image. A similar disk reconstructed the image at the receiver, synchronization of the receiver disc rotation was handled through sync pulses broadcast with the image information. However these mechanical systems were slow, the images were dim and flickered severely, camera systems used similar spinning discs and required intensely bright illumination of the subject for the light detector to work. Analog television did not really begin as an industry until the development of the cathode-ray tube, the electron beam could be swept across the screen much faster than any mechanical disc system, allowing for more closely spaced scan lines and much higher image resolution. Also far less maintenance was required of an all-electronic system compared to a spinning disc system, all-electronic systems became popular with households after the Second World War. Broadcasters using analog television systems encode their signal using different systems, the official systems of transmission are named, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, K1, L, M and N. These systems determine the number of lines, channel width, vision bandwidth, vision-sound separation, each frame of a television image is composed of lines drawn on the screen. The lines are of varying brightness, the set of lines is drawn quickly enough that the human eye perceives it as one image. The next sequential frame is displayed, allowing the depiction of motion, the analog television signal contains timing and synchronization information, so that the receiver can reconstruct a two-dimensional moving image from a one-dimensional time-varying signal. The first commercial systems were black-and-white, the beginning of color television was in the 1950s. A practical television system needs to take luminance, chrominance, synchronization, and audio signals, the transmission system must include a means of television channel selection
3.
Radio
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When radio waves strike an electrical conductor, the oscillating fields induce an alternating current in the conductor. The information in the waves can be extracted and transformed back into its original form, Radio systems need a transmitter to modulate some property of the energy produced to impress a signal on it, for example using amplitude modulation or angle modulation. Radio systems also need an antenna to convert electric currents into radio waves, an antenna can be used for both transmitting and receiving. The electrical resonance of tuned circuits in radios allow individual stations to be selected, the electromagnetic wave is intercepted by a tuned receiving antenna. Radio frequencies occupy the range from a 3 kHz to 300 GHz, a radio communication system sends signals by radio. The term radio is derived from the Latin word radius, meaning spoke of a wheel, beam of light, however, this invention would not be widely adopted. The switch to radio in place of wireless took place slowly and unevenly in the English-speaking world, the United States Navy would also play a role. Although its translation of the 1906 Berlin Convention used the terms wireless telegraph and wireless telegram, the term started to become preferred by the general public in the 1920s with the introduction of broadcasting. Radio systems used for communication have the following elements, with more than 100 years of development, each process is implemented by a wide range of methods, specialised for different communications purposes. Each system contains a transmitter, This consists of a source of electrical energy, the transmitter contains a system to modulate some property of the energy produced to impress a signal on it. This modulation might be as simple as turning the energy on and off, or altering more subtle such as amplitude, frequency, phase. Amplitude modulation of a carrier wave works by varying the strength of the signal in proportion to the information being sent. For example, changes in the strength can be used to reflect the sounds to be reproduced by a speaker. It was the used for the first audio radio transmissions. Frequency modulation varies the frequency of the carrier, the instantaneous frequency of the carrier is directly proportional to the instantaneous value of the input signal. FM has the capture effect whereby a receiver only receives the strongest signal, Digital data can be sent by shifting the carriers frequency among a set of discrete values, a technique known as frequency-shift keying. FM is commonly used at Very high frequency radio frequencies for high-fidelity broadcasts of music, analog TV sound is also broadcast using FM. Angle modulation alters the phase of the carrier wave to transmit a signal
4.
Mobile telephony
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Mobile telephony is the provision of telephone services to phones which may move around freely rather than stay fixed in one location. Mobile phones connect to a cellular network of base stations. Both networks are interconnected to the switched telephone network to allow any phone in the world to be dialed. In 2010 there were estimated to be five billion mobile cellular subscriptions in the world. S, public mobile phone systems were first introduced in the years after the Second World War and made use of technology developed before and during the conflict. The first system opened in St Louis, Missouri, USA in 1946 whilst other countries followed in the succeeding decades, the UK introduced its System 1 manual radiotelephone service as the South Lancashire Radiophone Service in 1958. Calls were made via an operator using handsets identical to ordinary phone handsets, the phone itself was a large box located in the boot of the vehicle containing valves and other early electronic components. Although an uprated manual service was extended to cover most of the UK and these cellular systems were based on US Advanced Mobile Phone Service technology, the modified technology being named Total Access Communication System. In 1947 Bell Labs was the first to propose a cellular telephone network. In 1956 the MTA system was launched in Sweden, both problems were solved by Bell Labs employee Amos Joel who, in 1970 applied for a patent for a mobile communications system. However, a consulting firm calculated the entire U. S. As a consequence, Bell Labs concluded that the invention was of little or no consequence, the invention earned Joel induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2008. The first call on a mobile phone was made on April 3,1973 by Martin Cooper. Bell Labs went on to install the first trial cellular network in Chicago in 1978. This trial system was licensed by the FCC to ATT for commercial use in 1982 and, as part of the arrangements for the breakup of ATT. The first commercial system opened in Chicago in October 1983, a system designed by Motorola also operated in the Washington D. C. /Baltimore area from summer 1982 and became a full public service later the following year. Japans first commercial service was launched by NTT in 1978. The first fully automatic first generation system was the Nordic Mobile Telephone system, simultaneously launched in 1981 in Denmark, Finland, Norway. NMT was the first mobile phone network featuring international roaming, the Swedish electrical engineer Östen Mäkitalo started to work on this vision in 1966, and is considered as the father of the NMT system and some consider him also the father of the cellular phone
5.
Internet
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The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that use the Internet protocol suite to link devices worldwide. The origins of the Internet date back to research commissioned by the United States federal government in the 1960s to build robust, the primary precursor network, the ARPANET, initially served as a backbone for interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the 1980s. Although the Internet was widely used by academia since the 1980s, Internet use grew rapidly in the West from the mid-1990s and from the late 1990s in the developing world. In the two decades since then, Internet use has grown 100-times, measured for the period of one year, newspaper, book, and other print publishing are adapting to website technology, or are reshaped into blogging, web feeds and online news aggregators. The entertainment industry was initially the fastest growing segment on the Internet, the Internet has enabled and accelerated new forms of personal interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking. Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply chains across entire industries, the Internet has no centralized governance in either technological implementation or policies for access and usage, each constituent network sets its own policies. The term Internet, when used to refer to the global system of interconnected Internet Protocol networks, is a proper noun. In common use and the media, it is not capitalized. Some guides specify that the word should be capitalized when used as a noun, the Internet is also often referred to as the Net, as a short form of network. Historically, as early as 1849, the word internetted was used uncapitalized as an adjective, the designers of early computer networks used internet both as a noun and as a verb in shorthand form of internetwork or internetworking, meaning interconnecting computer networks. The terms Internet and World Wide Web are often used interchangeably in everyday speech, however, the World Wide Web or the Web is only one of a large number of Internet services. The Web is a collection of interconnected documents and other web resources, linked by hyperlinks, the term Interweb is a portmanteau of Internet and World Wide Web typically used sarcastically to parody a technically unsavvy user. The ARPANET project led to the development of protocols for internetworking, the third site was the Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, followed by the University of Utah Graphics Department. In an early sign of growth, fifteen sites were connected to the young ARPANET by the end of 1971. These early years were documented in the 1972 film Computer Networks, early international collaborations on the ARPANET were rare. European developers were concerned with developing the X.25 networks, in December 1974, RFC675, by Vinton Cerf, Yogen Dalal, and Carl Sunshine, used the term internet as a shorthand for internetworking and later RFCs repeated this use. Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the National Science Foundation funded the Computer Science Network, in 1982, the Internet Protocol Suite was standardized, which permitted worldwide proliferation of interconnected networks.5 Mbit/s and 45 Mbit/s. Commercial Internet service providers emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990
6.
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
7.
Spain
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By population, Spain is the sixth largest in Europe and the fifth in the European Union. Spains capital and largest city is Madrid, other urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. Modern humans first arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 35,000 years ago, in the Middle Ages, the area was conquered by Germanic tribes and later by the Moors. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a power and a major developed country with the worlds fourteenth largest economy by nominal GDP. Jesús Luis Cunchillos argues that the root of the span is the Phoenician word spy. Therefore, i-spn-ya would mean the land where metals are forged, two 15th-century Spanish Jewish scholars, Don Isaac Abravanel and Solomon ibn Verga, gave an explanation now considered folkloric. Both men wrote in two different published works that the first Jews to reach Spain were brought by ship by Phiros who was confederate with the king of Babylon when he laid siege to Jerusalem. This man was a Grecian by birth, but who had given a kingdom in Spain. He became related by marriage to Espan, the nephew of king Heracles, Heracles later renounced his throne in preference for his native Greece, leaving his kingdom to his nephew, Espan, from whom the country of España took its name. Based upon their testimonies, this eponym would have already been in use in Spain by c.350 BCE, Iberia enters written records as a land populated largely by the Iberians, Basques and Celts. Early on its coastal areas were settled by Phoenicians who founded Western Europe´s most ancient cities Cadiz, Phoenician influence expanded as much of the Peninsula was eventually incorporated into the Carthaginian Empire, becoming a major theater of the Punic Wars against the expanding Roman Empire. After an arduous conquest, the peninsula came fully under Roman Rule, during the early Middle Ages it came under Germanic rule but later, much of it was conquered by Moorish invaders from North Africa. In a process took centuries, the small Christian kingdoms in the north gradually regained control of the peninsula. The last Moorish kingdom fell in the same year Columbus reached the Americas, a global empire began which saw Spain become the strongest kingdom in Europe, the leading world power for a century and a half, and the largest overseas empire for three centuries. Continued wars and other problems led to a diminished status. The Napoleonic invasions of Spain led to chaos, triggering independence movements that tore apart most of the empire, eventually democracy was peacefully restored in the form of a parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Spain joined the European Union, experiencing a renaissance and steady economic growth
8.
Italy
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Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe. Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy shares open land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia, San Marino, Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate. Due to its shape, it is referred to in Italy as lo Stivale. With 61 million inhabitants, it is the fourth most populous EU member state, the Italic tribe known as the Latins formed the Roman Kingdom, which eventually became a republic that conquered and assimilated other nearby civilisations. The legacy of the Roman Empire is widespread and can be observed in the distribution of civilian law, republican governments, Christianity. The Renaissance began in Italy and spread to the rest of Europe, bringing a renewed interest in humanism, science, exploration, Italian culture flourished at this time, producing famous scholars, artists and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. The weakened sovereigns soon fell victim to conquest by European powers such as France, Spain and Austria. Despite being one of the victors in World War I, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and social turmoil. The subsequent participation in World War II on the Axis side ended in defeat, economic destruction. Today, Italy has the third largest economy in the Eurozone and it has a very high level of human development and is ranked sixth in the world for life expectancy. The country plays a prominent role in regional and global economic, military, cultural and diplomatic affairs, as a reflection of its cultural wealth, Italy is home to 51 World Heritage Sites, the most in the world, and is the fifth most visited country. The assumptions on the etymology of the name Italia are very numerous, according to one of the more common explanations, the term Italia, from Latin, Italia, was borrowed through Greek from the Oscan Víteliú, meaning land of young cattle. The bull was a symbol of the southern Italic tribes and was often depicted goring the Roman wolf as a defiant symbol of free Italy during the Social War. Greek historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus states this account together with the legend that Italy was named after Italus, mentioned also by Aristotle and Thucydides. The name Italia originally applied only to a part of what is now Southern Italy – according to Antiochus of Syracuse, but by his time Oenotria and Italy had become synonymous, and the name also applied to most of Lucania as well. The Greeks gradually came to apply the name Italia to a larger region, excavations throughout Italy revealed a Neanderthal presence dating back to the Palaeolithic period, some 200,000 years ago, modern Humans arrived about 40,000 years ago. Other ancient Italian peoples of undetermined language families but of possible origins include the Rhaetian people and Cammuni. Also the Phoenicians established colonies on the coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, the Roman legacy has deeply influenced the Western civilisation, shaping most of the modern world
9.
Optical fiber
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An optical fiber or optical fibre is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Fibers are also used for illumination, and are wrapped in bundles so that they may be used to carry images, thus allowing viewing in confined spaces, as in the case of a fiberscope. Specially designed fibers are used for a variety of other applications, some of them being fiber optic sensors. Optical fibers typically include a transparent core surrounded by a transparent cladding material with an index of refraction. Light is kept in the core by the phenomenon of internal reflection which causes the fiber to act as a waveguide. Fibers that support many propagation paths or transverse modes are called multi-mode fibers, multi-mode fibers generally have a wider core diameter and are used for short-distance communication links and for applications where high power must be transmitted. Single-mode fibers are used for most communication links longer than 1,000 meters, being able to join optical fibers with low loss is important in fiber optic communication. This is more complex than joining electrical wire or cable and involves careful cleaving of the fibers, precise alignment of the cores. For applications that demand a permanent connection a fusion splice is common, in this technique, an electric arc is used to melt the ends of the fibers together. Another common technique is a splice, where the ends of the fibers are held in contact by mechanical force. Temporary or semi-permanent connections are made by means of specialized optical fiber connectors, the field of applied science and engineering concerned with the design and application of optical fibers is known as fiber optics. The term was coined by Indian physicist Narinder Singh Kapany who is acknowledged as the father of fiber optics. Guiding of light by refraction, the principle that makes fiber optics possible, was first demonstrated by Daniel Colladon, John Tyndall included a demonstration of it in his public lectures in London,12 years later. When the ray passes from water to air it is bent from the perpendicular. If the angle which the ray in water encloses with the perpendicular to the surface be greater than 48 degrees, the angle which marks the limit where total reflection begins is called the limiting angle of the medium. For water this angle is 48°27′, for flint glass it is 38°41′, unpigmented human hairs have also been shown to act as an optical fiber. Practical applications, such as close internal illumination during dentistry, appeared early in the twentieth century, image transmission through tubes was demonstrated independently by the radio experimenter Clarence Hansell and the television pioneer John Logie Baird in the 1920s. The principle was first used for medical examinations by Heinrich Lamm in the following decade
10.
Venezuela
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Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a federal republic located on the northern coast of South America. It is bordered by Colombia on the west, Brazil on the south, Guyana on the east, Venezuela covers 916,445 km2 and has an estimated population of 31775371. The territory now known as Venezuela was colonized by Spain in 1522 amid resistance from indigenous peoples and it gained full independence as a separate country in 1830. During the 19th century, Venezuela suffered political turmoil and autocracy, since 1958, the country has had a series of democratic governments. This new constitution changed the name of the country to República Bolivariana de Venezuela. Venezuela is a presidential republic consisting of 23 states, the Capital District. Venezuela also claims all Guyanese territory west of the Essequibo River, oil was discovered in the early 20th century, and Venezuela has the worlds largest known oil reserves and has been one of the worlds leading exporters of oil. Previously an underdeveloped exporter of commodities such as coffee and cocoa, oil quickly came to dominate exports. The recovery of oil prices in the early 2000s gave Venezuela oil funds not seen since the 1980s, the Venezuelan government then established populist policies that initially boosted the Venezuelan economy and increased social spending, significantly reducing economic inequality and poverty. However, such policies later became controversial since they destabilized the economy, resulting in hyperinflation, an economic depression. According to the most popular and accepted version, in 1499, the stilt houses in the area of Lake Maracaibo reminded the navigator, Amerigo Vespucci, of the city of Venice, so he named the region Veneziola Piccola Venezia. The name acquired its current spelling as a result of Spanish influence, where the suffix -uela is used as a term, thus. The German language 16th century-term for the area, Klein-Venedig, also means little Venice, however, Martín Fernández de Enciso, a member of the Vespucci and Ojeda crew, gave a different account. In his work Summa de geografía, he states that they found people who called themselves the Veneciuela. Thus, the name Venezuela may have evolved from the native word and it is not known how many people lived in Venezuela before the Spanish conquest, it has been estimated at around one million. In addition to indigenous peoples known today, the population included historic groups such as the Kalina, Auaké, Caquetio, Mariche, the Timoto-Cuica culture was the most complex society in Pre-Columbian Venezuela, with pre-planned permanent villages, surrounded by irrigated, terraced fields. They also stored water in tanks and their houses were made primarily of stone and wood with thatched roofs. They were peaceful, for the most part, and depended on growing crops, regional crops included potatoes and ullucos
11.
American Forces Network
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The American Forces Network is the brand name used by the United States Armed Forces Radio and Television Service for its entertainment and command internal information networks worldwide. AFN broadcasts popular American radio and television programs from the major U. S. networks and it is sometimes referred to as the Armed Forces Network. AFRTS, American Forces Network and AFN are registered trademarks of the U. S. Department of Defense and it is based at Fort George G. Meade in Maryland. The American Forces Network is the arm of the American Forces Radio and Television Service. AFN falls under the control of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. Editorial control is by the Department of Defense, whereas the British Forces Broadcasting Service, for example, is independent of the Ministry of Defence, AFN employs military broadcasters as well as Department of Defense civilians and contractors. Service personnel hold broadcasting occupational specialties for their military branch, since 1997, all of AFNs military personnel receive primary training at the Defense Information School at Fort George G. Meade in Maryland. Before 1997, DINFOS was located at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis, in 1997, Fort Benjamin Harrison was largely closed as a function of the 1991 Base Closure and Realignment Commission. Additional/Advanced training is available at Fort George G. Meade. In the 1960s, DINFOS was located at Fort Slocum, NY on an island just off the harbor at New Rochelle. At its peak in 1965, the Army Chaplain school was located here. In 1963 this campus operated in a university setting with a military environment. The Army ran the Information School although training was offered to members of all military branches, Radio types took a rather severe audition written by CBS for their network announcers. Those who survived the audition became Broadcast Specialists with a 703 MOS, some of AFNs broadcasters have previous commercial broadcasting experience before enlisting in the military, but it is not a prerequisite for enlistment in the military as a broadcaster. During their training, the broadcasters are taught to use state-of-the-art audio, AFN management is located at DMA headquarters at Fort Meade. Day-to-day AFN broadcast operations are conducted at the AFN Broadcast Center/Defense Media Center in Riverside, California, from all global radio. The American Forces Network can trace its origins to May 26,1942, a television service was first introduced in 1954 with a pilot station at Limestone Air Force Base, Maine. In 1954, the mission of AFRS was officially recognized
12.
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base
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The base is on the shore of Guantánamo Bay at the southeastern end of Cuba. It is the oldest overseas U. S. Naval Base, since 2002, the naval base has contained a military prison, the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, for unlawful combatants captured in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other places during the War on Terror. Cases of torture of prisoners, and their denial of protection under the Geneva Conventions, have been condemned internationally. S. Coast Guard Aviation Detachment Guantanamo Bay U. S. GTMO-5, GTMO-6 and GTMO-7, besides servicemen, the base houses a large number of civilian contractors working for the military. These contractors are largely imported from Jamaica and Philippines, and are thought to constitute up to 40% of the bases population, on 30 April 1494, Christopher Columbus, on his second voyage, arrived and spent the night. The place where Columbus landed is now known as Fishermans Point, Columbus declared the bay Puerto Grande. The bay and surrounding areas came under British control during the War of Jenkins Ear, prior to British occupation, the bay was referred to as Walthenham Harbor. The British renamed the bay Cumberland Bay, the British retreated from the area after a failed attempt to march to Santiago de Cuba. During the Spanish–American War, the U. S. fleet attacking Santiago secured Guantánamos harbor for protection during the season of 1898. The Marines landed at Guantanamo Bay with naval support, and American and Cuban forces routed the defending Spanish troops, the war ended with the Treaty of Paris of 1898, in which Spain formally relinquished control of Cuba. Although the war was over, the US maintained a military presence on the island. In 1901 the US government passed the Platt Amendment as part of an Army Appropriations Bill, the Constitution took effect in 1902, and land for a naval base at Guantanamo Bay was granted to the United States the following year. The 1903 lease agreement was executed in two parts, the second agreement, signed five months later in July 1903, established the amount of USD$2,000 to be paid to Cuba annually by the US. The lease amount was changed in 1933 to $3676.50, payments have been sent annually, but only one lease payment has been cashed since the Cuban Revolution. Fidel Castro claimed that this check was deposited due to confusion in 1959, during World War II, the base was set up to use a nondescript number for postal operations. The base used the Fleet Post Office, Atlantic, in New York City, until the 1953–59 revolution, thousands of Cubans commuted daily from outside the base to jobs within. In mid-1958, vehicular traffic was stopped, workers were required to walk through the several gates. Public Works Center buses were pressed into service almost overnight to carry the tides of workers to and from the gate
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