Marquesas Islands
The Marquesas Islands are a group of volcanic islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in the southern Pacific Ocean. The Marquesas are located at 9.7812° S, 139.0817° W. The highest point is the peak of Mount Oave on Ua Pou island at 1,230 m above sea level. Research based on 2010 studies suggests the islands were colonized in two successive waves by indigenous colonists from West Polynesia, beginning c. 1025–1120 AD, leading to the development of a "remarkably uniform culture, human biology and language."The Marquesas Islands form one of the five administrative divisions of French Polynesia. The capital of the Marquesas Islands administrative subdivision is the settlement of Taiohae on the island of Nuku Hiva; the population of the Marquesas Islands was 9,346 inhabitants at the August 2017 census. The Marquesas Islands group is one of the most remote in the world, lying about 852 mi northeast of Tahiti and about 3,000 mi away from the west coast of Mexico, the nearest continental land mass.
They fall into two geographical divisions: the northern group, consisting of Eiao, Motu One, the islands centered on the large island of Nuku Hiva: Motu Iti, Ua Pou, Motu Oa and Ua Huka, the southern group of Fatu Uku, Moho Tani, Fatu Hiva and Motu Nao, clustered around the main island of Hiva ʻOa. With a combined land area of 1,049 square kilometres, the Marquesas are among the largest island groups of French Polynesia discovered by Spanish galleons fleets en route to Manila, Nuku Hiva being the second largest island in the entire territory, after Tahiti. With the exception of Motu One, all the islands of the Marquesas are of volcanic origin. In contrast to the tendency to associate Polynesia with lush tropical vegetation, the Marquesas are remarkably dry islands. Though the islands lie within the tropics, they are the first major break in the prevailing easterly winds that spawn from the extraordinarily dry Humboldt Current; because of this, the islands are subject to frequent drought conditions, only those that reach highest into the clouds have reliable precipitation.
This has led to historical fluctuations in water supply, which have played a crucial role in the sustainability of human populations in certain sections of the various islands throughout the archipelago. This is evident in the low historical population of Ua Huka and the intermittent inhabitability of Eiao; the Marquesas Islands are thought to have formed by a center of upwelling magma called the Marquesas hotspot. Eiao Hatutu Motu Iti Motu Oa Motu One Nuku Hiva Ua Huka Ua Pou Fatu Hiva Fatu Huku Hiva ʻOa Moho Tani Motu Nao Tahuata Terihi There are a number of seamounts or shoals, located in the area of the northern Marquesas. Among these are: Clark Bank Hinakura Bank Lawson Bank Bank Jean Goguel The bulk of the Marquesas Islands are of volcanic origin, created by the Marquesas hotspot that underlies the Pacific Plate; the Marquesas Islands lie above a submarine volcanic plateau of the same name. The plateau, like the islands, is believed to be less than 5 million years old, though one hypothesis has the plateau as older and having a mirror image, the Inca Plateau, subducting under northern Peru.
Except for Motu One, all the Marquesas are high islands. Motu One is a low island. Unlike the majority of French Polynesian islands, the Marquesas are not surrounded by protective fringing reefs. Except for Motu One, in bays and other protected areas, the only other coral in the Marquesas is found in a rather strange place: on the top of the island of Fatu Huku; the South Equatorial Current lashes the islands mercilessly, which has led to sea-caves dotting the islands' shores. Except for where the valleys empty into the small bays, the islands are remarkable for their mountain ridges, which end abruptly as cliffs where they meet the sea; the islands are estimated to range in age from Fatu Hiva to the oldest, Eiao. Temperatures in the Marquesas are stable year around, but precipitation is variable. Precipitation is much greater on the east parts of the islands than on the western parts. Average annual precipitation can vary from more than 100 inches on windward shores and mountains to a low as 20 inches in the "desert" region of Nuku Hiva.
Droughts, sometimes lasting several years, are frequent and seem to be associated with the El Niño phenomena. The statistics from the weather station at Atuona on Hiva ʻOa is representative of the average sea-level climate of the Marquesas. Illustrating the variability of precipitation, the highest annual rainfall recorded in Atuona is 148.2 inches. The first recorded settlers of the Marquesas were Polynesians, from archaeological evidence, was long believed by scholars to have arrived from West Polynesia before 100 AD. However, a 2010 study using revised, high-precision radiocarbon dating based on more reliable samples has established that the period of eastern Polynesian colonization took place much in a shorter time frame of two waves: the "earliest in the Society Islands A. D. ∼1025–112
Aleutian Islands
The Aleutian Islands called the Aleut Islands or Aleutic Islands and known before 1867 as the Catherine Archipelago, are a chain of 14 large volcanic islands and 55 smaller ones belonging to both the U. S. state of Alaska and the Russian federal subject of Kamchatka Krai. They form part of the Aleutian Arc in the Northern Pacific Ocean, occupying an area of 6,821 sq mi and extending about 1,200 mi westward from the Alaska Peninsula toward the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, mark a dividing line between the Bering Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. Crossing longitude 180°, at which point east and west longitude end, the archipelago contains both the westernmost part of the United States by longitude and the easternmost by longitude; the westernmost U. S. island in real terms, however, is Attu Island. While nearly all the archipelago is part of Alaska and is considered as being in the "Alaskan Bush", at the extreme western end, the small, geologically related Commander Islands belong to Russia.
The islands, with their 57 volcanoes, form the northernmost part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. Physiographically, they are a distinct section of the larger Pacific Border province, which in turn is part of the larger Pacific Mountain System physiographic division; these Islands are most known for the battles and skirmishes that occurred there during the Aleutian Islands Campaign of World War II. It was one of only two attacks on the United States during that war. Motion between the Kula Plate and the North American Plate along the margin of the Bering Shelf ended in the early Eocene; the Aleutian Basin, the ocean floor north of the Aleutian arc, is the remainder of the Kula Plate that got trapped when volcanism and subduction jumped south to its current location at c. 56 Ma. The Aleutian island arc formed in the Early Eocene when the subduction of the Pacific Plate under the North American Plate began; the arc is made of separate blocks. The basement underlying the islands is made of three stratigraphic units: an Eocene layer of volcanic rock, an Oligocene—Miocene layer of marine sedimentary rock, a Pliocene—Quaternary layer of sedimentary and igneous rock.
The islands, known before 1867 as the Catherine Archipelago, comprise five groups the Fox Islands Islands of Four Mountains Andreanof Islands Rat Islands, Near IslandsAll five are located between 51° and 55° N latitude and 172° E and 163° W longitude. The largest islands in the Aleutians are Attu, Unalaska and Unimak in the Fox Islands; the largest of those is Unimak Island, with an area of 1,571.41 mi2, followed by Unalaska Island, the only other Aleutian Island with an area over 1,000 square miles. The axis of the archipelago near the mainland of Alaska has a southwest trend, but at Tanaga Island its direction changes to the northwest; this change of direction corresponds to a curve in the line of volcanic fissures that have contributed their products to the building of the islands. Such curved chains are repeated about the Pacific Ocean in the Kuril Islands, the Japanese chain, in the Philippines. All these island arcs are at the edge of the Pacific Plate and experience much seismic activity, but are still habitable.
The general elevation is least in the western. The island chain is a western continuation of the Aleutian Range on the mainland; the great majority of the islands bear evident marks of volcanic origin, there are numerous volcanic cones on the north side of the chain, some of them active. The coasts are rocky and surf-worn, the approaches are exceedingly dangerous, the land rising from the coasts to steep, bold mountains; these volcanic islands reach heights of 6,200 feet. Makushin Volcano located on Unalaska Island, is not quite visible from within the town of Unalaska, though the steam rising from its cone is visible on a clear day. Residents of Unalaska need only to climb one of the smaller hills in the area, such as Pyramid Peak or Mt. Newhall, to get a good look at the snow-covered cone; the volcanic Bogoslof and Fire Islands, which rose from the sea in 1796 and 1883 lie about 30 miles west of Unalaska Bay. In 1906, a new volcanic cone rose between the islets of Bogoslof and Grewingk, near Unalaska, followed by another in 1907.
These cones were nearly demolished by an explosive eruption on September 1, 1907. Newly found information in 2017, the volcanic cone erupted sending ash and ice particles 30,000 feet in the air; the Aleutians seen from space The climate of the islands is oceanic, with moderate and uniform temperatures and heavy rainfall. Fogs are constant. Summer weather is much cooler than Southeast Alaska, but the winter temperature of the islands and of the Alaska Panhandle is nearly the same. According to the Köppen climate classification system, the area southwest of 53.5°N 167.0°W / 53.5.
Adam Johann von Krusenstern
Adam Johann von Krusenstern was a Baltic German admiral and explorer, who led the first Russian circumnavigation of the globe. Krusenstern was born in Hagudi, Governorate of Estonia, Russian Empire into a Baltic German family descended from the Swedish aristocratic family von Krusenstjerna, who remained in the province after the country was ceded to Russia. In 1787, he joined the Russian Imperial Navy, served in the war against Sweden. Subsequently, he served in the Royal Navy between 1793 and 1799, visiting America and China. After publishing a paper pointing out the advantages of direct communication by sea between Russia and China by passing Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America and the Cape of Good Hope at the tip of South Africa, he was appointed by Tsar Alexander I to make a voyage to the Far East coast of Asia to endeavour to carry out the project. Under the patronage of Alexander, Count Nikolay Petrovich Rumyantsev and the Russian-American Company, Krusenstern led the first Russian circumnavigation of the world.
The chief object of this undertaking was the development of the fur trade with Russian America. Other goals of the two-ship expedition were to establish trade with China and Japan, facilitate trade in South America, examine the coast of California in western North America for a possible colony; the two ships, Nadezhda under the command of Krusenstern, Neva under the command of Captain-Lieutenant Yuri F. Lisianski, set sail from Kronstadt in August 1803, rounded Cape Horn of South America, reached the northern Pacific Ocean, returned via the Cape of Good Hope at South Africa. Krusenstern arrived back at Kronstadt in August 1806. Both seafarers made detailed recordings of their voyages. Upon his return, Krusenstern wrote a detailed report, "Reise um die Welt in den Jahren 1803, 1804, 1805 und 1806 auf Befehl Seiner Kaiserlichen Majestät Alexanders des Ersten auf den Schiffen Nadeschda und Newa" published in Saint Petersburg in 1810, it was published in 1811–1812 in Berlin. His scientific work, which includes an atlas of the Pacific, was published in 1827 in Saint Petersburg.
The geographical discoveries of Krusenstern made his voyage important for the progress of geographical science. His work won him an honorary membership in the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1816, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; as director of the Russian naval school Krusenstern did much useful work. He was a member of the scientific committee of the marine department, his contrivance for counteracting the influence of the iron in vessels on the compass was adopted in the navy. Krusenstern became an admiral in 1841 and he was awarded the Pour le Mérite in 1842, he died in 1846 in Kiltsi manor, an Estonian manor he had purchased in 1816, was buried in the Tallinn Cathedral. The Russian training tall ship Kruzenshtern is named after him. To commemorate the 200th anniversary of Krusenstern's circumnavigation, the ship retraced his route around the globe in 2005–2006. Another ship named. An Aeroflot Airbus 320 VP-BKC is named after him; the crater Krusenstern on the Moon is named after him.
There is Krusenstern Island in the Bering Strait, as well as a small group of islands in the Kara Sea, southwest of the Nordenskiöld Archipelago, called Krusenstern Islands. Cape Krusenstern in Northwest Alaska is the site of Cape Krusenstern National Monument, one of the most important archaeological sites in the state. In Russia, a fictional steamship Admiral Ivan Fyodorovich Kruzenshtern from the popular Prostokvashino animated film series is well-known as part of a catchphrase "Admiral I. F. Kruzenshtern, a man and a steamship", "pirated" from the title of a requiem poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky, To Comrade Nette, a Man and a Steamship; as a third-level linguistic derivation, there is a Russophone Israel klezmer-rock band, Kruzenshtern & Parohod. Another legacy is that the Cook Islands in the South Pacific bear that name thanks to von Krusenstern. Known as the Hervey Islands, he changed their name in 1835 to honour Captain Cook. More he changed the name of those which comprised the Southern Group and it was subsequently applied to all 15 islands when the New Zealand Parliament passed "The Cook Islands and other Islands Government Act" in 1901.
He recorded the new name in his "Atlas de l'Océan Pacifique" published at St. Petersburg between 1824 and 1835. Otto von Kotzebue Empire of Japan–Russian Empire relations European and American voyages of scientific exploration List of Baltic German explorers Family Krusenstern, in a straight line from Adam Johan von Krusenstern live in Poland Ilya Vinkovetsky, Empire, Race: The Impact of Round-the-World Voyages on Russia's Imperial Consciousness "Meeting of Frontiers" Conference, 2001 Kiltsi manor at Estonian Manors Portal Hagudi manor at Estonian Manors Portal Biographic entry from Nordisk familjebok Baltic nobility genealogy handbook Adam Johann von Krusenstern's family
Alexander Pushkin
Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin was a Russian poet and novelist of the Romantic era, considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. Pushkin was born into Russian nobility in Moscow, his father, Sergey Lvovich Pushkin, belonged to Pushkin noble families. A maternal great-grandfather was African-born general Abram Petrovich Gannibal, he published his first poem at the age of 15, was recognized by the literary establishment by the time of his graduation from the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. Upon graduation from the Lycee, Pushkin recited his controversial poem "Ode to Liberty", one of several that led to his being exiled by Tsar Alexander the First. While under the strict surveillance of the Tsar's political police and unable to publish, Pushkin wrote his most famous play, the drama Boris Godunov, his novel in verse, Eugene Onegin, was serialized between 1825 and 1832. Pushkin was fatally wounded in a duel with his brother-in-law, Georges-Charles de Heeckeren d'Anthès known as Dantes-Gekkern, a French officer serving with the Chevalier Guard Regiment, who attempted to seduce the poet's wife, Natalia Pushkina.
Pushkin's father, Sergei Lvovich Pushkin, was descended from a distinguished family of the Russian nobility that traced its ancestry back to the 12th century. Pushkin's mother, Nadezhda Ossipovna Gannibal, was descended through her paternal grandmother from German and Scandinavian nobility, she was his wife, Maria Alekseyevna Pushkina. Ossip Abramovich Gannibal's father, Pushkin's great-grandfather, was Abram Petrovich Gannibal, an African page kidnapped to Constantinople as a gift to the Ottoman Sultan and transferred to Russia as a gift for Peter the Great. Abram wrote in a letter to Empress Elizabeth, Peter the Great's daughter, that Gannibal was from the town of "Lagon". On the basis of a mythical biography by Gannibal's son-in-law Rotkirkh, some historians concluded from this that Gannibal was born in a part of what was the Abyssinian Empire, located today in Eritrea. Vladimir Nabokov, when researching Eugene Onegin, cast serious doubt on this origin theory. Research by the scholars Dieudonné Gnammankou and Hugh Barnes conclusively established that Gannibal was instead born in Central Africa, in an area bordering Lake Chad in modern-day Cameroon.
After education in France as a military engineer, Gannibal became governor of Reval and Général en Chef in charge of the building of sea forts and canals in Russia. Born in Moscow, Pushkin was entrusted to nursemaids and French tutors, spoke French until the age of ten, he became acquainted with the Russian language through communication with household serfs and his nanny, Arina Rodionovna, whom he loved dearly and was more attached to than to his own mother. He published his first poem at 15; when he finished school, as part of the first graduating class of the prestigious Imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoye Selo, near Saint Petersburg, his talent was widely recognized within the Russian literary scene. After school, Pushkin plunged into the vibrant and raucous intellectual youth culture of the capital, Saint Petersburg. In 1820, he published his first long poem and Ludmila, with much controversy about its subject and style. While at the Lyceum, Pushkin was influenced by the Kantian liberal individualist teachings of Alexander Petrovich Kunitsyn, whom Pushkin would commemorate in his poem 19 October.
Pushkin immersed himself in the thought of the French Enlightenment, to which he would remain permanently indebted throughout his life Diderot and Voltaire, whom he described as "the first to follow the new road, to bring the lamp of philosophy into the dark archives of history."Pushkin became committed to social reform and emerged as a spokesman for literary radicals. That angered the government and led to his transfer from the capital in May 1820, he went to the Caucasus and to Crimea and to Kamianka and Chișinău in Moldavia, where he became a Freemason. He joined the Filiki Eteria, a secret organization whose purpose was to overthrow Ottoman rule in Greece and establish an independent Greek state, he was inspired by the Greek Revolution and when the war against the Ottoman Turks broke out, he kept a diary recording the events of the national uprising. He stayed in Chișinău until 1823 and wrote two Romantic poems, which brought him acclaim: The Captive of the Caucasus and The Fountain of Bakhchisaray.
In 1823, Pushkin moved to Odessa, where he again clashed with the government, which sent him into exile on his mother's rural estate of Mikhailovskoye from 1824 to 1826. In Mikhaylovskoye, Pushkin wrote nostalgic love poems which he dedicated to Elizaveta Vorontsova, wife of Malorossia's General-Governor. Pushkin continued work on his verse-novel Eugene Onegin. In Mikhaylovskoye, in 1825, Pushkin wrote the poem To***, it is believed that he dedicated this poem to Anna Kern, but there are other opinions. Poet Mikhail Dudin believed. Pushkinist Kira Victorova believed. Vadim Nikolayev argued that the idea about the Empress was marginal and refused to discuss it, while trying to prove that poem had been dedicated to Tatyana Larina, the heroine of Eugene Onegin. Authorities summoned Pushkin to Moscow after his poem "Ode to Liberty" was found among the belongings o
Peter the Great
Peter the Great, Peter I or Peter Alexeyevich ruled the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire from 7 May 1682 until his death in 1725, jointly ruling before 1696 with his elder half-brother, Ivan V. Through a number of successful wars, he expanded the Tsardom into a much larger empire that became a major European power and laid the groundwork for the Russian navy after capturing ports at Azov and the Baltic Sea, he led a cultural revolution that replaced some of the traditionalist and medieval social and political systems with ones that were modern, scientific and based on the Enlightenment. Peter's reforms made a lasting impact on Russia, many institutions of Russian government trace their origins to his reign, he is known for founding and developing the city of Saint Petersburg, which remained the capital of Russia until 1917. The imperial title of Peter the Great was the following: By the grace of God, the most excellent and great sovereign prince Pyotr Alekseevich the ruler of all the Russias: of Moscow, of Kiev, of Vladimir, of Novgorod, Tsar of Kazan, Tsar of Astrakhan and Tsar of Siberia, sovereign of Pskov, great prince of Smolensk, Yugorsk, Vyatsky and others, sovereign and great prince of Novgorod Nizovsky lands, Chernigovsky, of Ryazan, of Rostov, Belozersky, Udorsky and the sovereign of all the northern lands, the sovereign of the Iverian lands, of the Kartlian and Georgian Kings, of the Kabardin lands, of the Circassian and Mountain princes and many other states and lands western and eastern here and there and the successor and sovereign and ruler.
Named after the apostle, described as a newborn as "with good health, his mother's black, vaguely Tatar eyes, a tuft of auburn hair", from an early age Peter's education was put in the hands of several tutors, most notably Nikita Zotov, Patrick Gordon, Paul Menesius. On 29 January 1676, Tsar Alexis died, leaving the sovereignty to Peter's elder half-brother, the weak and sickly Feodor III of Russia. Throughout this period, the government was run by Artamon Matveev, an enlightened friend of Alexis, the political head of the Naryshkin family and one of Peter's greatest childhood benefactors; this position changed when Feodor died in 1682. As Feodor did not leave any children, a dispute arose between the Miloslavsky family and Naryshkin family over who should inherit the throne. Peter's other half-brother, Ivan V of Russia, was next in line for the throne, but he was chronically ill and of infirm mind; the Boyar Duma chose the 10-year-old Peter to become Tsar with his mother as regent. This arrangement was brought before the people of Moscow, as ancient tradition demanded, was ratified.
Sophia Alekseyevna, one of Alexis' daughters from his first marriage, led a rebellion of the Streltsy in April–May 1682. In the subsequent conflict some of Peter's relatives and friends were murdered, including Matveev, Peter witnessed some of these acts of political violence; the Streltsy made it possible for Sophia, the Miloslavskys and their allies to insist that Peter and Ivan be proclaimed joint Tsars, with Ivan being acclaimed as the senior. Sophia exercised all power. For seven years, she ruled as an autocrat. A large hole was cut in the back of the dual-seated throne used by Peter. Sophia would sit behind the throne and listen as Peter conversed with nobles, while feeding him information and giving him responses to questions and problems; this throne can be seen in the Kremlin Armoury in Moscow. Peter was not concerned that others ruled in his name, he engaged in such pastimes as sailing, as well as mock battles with his toy army. Peter's mother sought to force him to adopt a more conventional approach and arranged his marriage to Eudoxia Lopukhina in 1689.
The marriage was a failure, ten years Peter forced his wife to become a nun and thus freed himself from the union. By the summer of 1689, Peter age 17, planned to take power from his half-sister Sophia, whose position had been weakened by two unsuccessful Crimean campaigns against the Crimean Khanate in an attempt to stop devastating Crimean Tatar raids into Russia's southern lands; when she learned of his designs, Sophia conspired with the leaders of the Streltsy, who continually aroused disorder and dissent. Peter, warned by the Streltsy, escaped in the middle of the night to the impenetrable monastery of Troitse-Sergiyeva Lavra. Sophia was overthrown, with Peter I and Ivan V continuing to act as co-tsars. Foy de la Neuville records that Sophia requested influential members of Peter's family, notably her aunts Tatyana and Anna, to mediate with him. Peter forced Sophia to enter a convent, where she gave up her name and her position as a member of the royal family. Still, Peter could not acquire actual control over Russian affairs.
Power was instead exercised by Natalya Naryshkina. It was only. Formally, Ivan V remained a co-ruler with Peter. Peter became the sole ruler when Ivan died in 1696. Peter was 24 years old. Peter grew to be tall as an a
Circumnavigation
Circumnavigation is the complete navigation around an entire island, continent, or astronomical body. This article focuses on the circumnavigation of Earth; the first circumnavigation of Earth was the Magellan-Elcano expedition, which sailed from Seville, Spain in 1519 and returned in 1522, after crossing the Atlantic and Indian oceans. The word circumnavigation is a noun formed from the verb circumnavigate, from the past participle of the Latin verb circumnavigare, from circum "around" + navigare "to sail". If a person walks around either Pole, he crosses all meridians, but this is not considered a "circumnavigation"; the trajectory of a true circumnavigation forms a continuous loop on the surface of Earth separating two-halves of comparable area. A basic definition of a global circumnavigation would be a route which covers a great circle, in particular one which passes through at least one pair of points antipodal to each other. In practice, people use different definitions of world circumnavigation to accommodate practical constraints, depending on the method of travel.
Since the planet is quasispheroidal, a trip from one Pole to the other, back again on the other side, would technically be a circumnavigation, but practical difficulties preclude such a voyage although it was undertaken in the early 1980s by Ranulph Fiennes. The first single voyage of global circumnavigation was that of the ship Victoria, between 1519 and 1522, known as the Magellan–Elcano expedition, it was a Castilian voyage of discovery, led by the Portuguese Ferdinand Magellan between 1519 and 1521, by the Spanish Juan Sebastián Elcano from 1521 to 1522. The voyage started in Seville, crossed the Atlantic Ocean, after several stopovers rounded the southern tip of South America where the expedition discovered the Strait of Magellan, named after the fleet's captain, it continued across the Pacific discovering a number of islands on its way, including Guam before arriving in the Philippines. After Magellan's death in the Philippines in 1521, Elcano took command of the expedition and continued the journey across the Indian Ocean, round the Cape of Good Hope, north along the Atlantic Ocean, back to Spain in 1522.
Elcano and a small group of 18 men were the only members of the expedition to make the full circumnavigation. Apart from some scholars, it is not accepted that Magellan and some crew members completed a full circumnavigation on several voyages, since Sumatra and Malacca lie southwest of Cebu. If he had been in the Moluccas islands in early 1512, he completed and exceeded an entire circumnavigation of Earth in longitude—though one circumnavigation in the strict sense implies a return to the same exact point. However, traveling west from Europe, in 1521, Magellan reached a region of Southeast Asia, which he had reached on previous voyages traveling east. Magellan thereby achieved a nearly complete personal circumnavigation of the globe for the first time in history. In 1577, Elizabeth I sent Francis Drake to start an expedition against the Spanish along the Pacific coast of the Americas. Drake set out from Plymouth, England in November 1577, aboard Pelican, which Drake renamed Golden Hind mid-voyage.
In September 1578, he passed through the southern tip of South America, named Drake Passage, which connects the southwestern part of the Atlantic Ocean with the southeastern part of the Pacific Ocean. In June 1579, Drake landed somewhere north of Spain's northern-most claim in Alta California, known as Drakes Bay, California. Drake completed the second circumnavigation of the world in September 1580, becoming the first commander to lead an entire circumnavigation. For the wealthy, long voyages around the world, such as was done by Ulysses S. Grant, became possible in the 19th century, the two World Wars moved vast numbers of troops around the planet. However, it was improvements in technology and rising incomes that made such trips common; the nautical global and fastest circumnavigation record is held by a wind-powered vessel, the trimaran IDEC 3. The record was established by six sailors: Francis Joyon, Alex Pella, Clément Surtel, Gwénolé Gahinet, Sébastien Audigane and Bernard Stamm; the absolute speed sailing record around the world followed the North Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic Ocean, Southern Ocean, South Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean route in an easterly direction.
The map on the right shows, in red, a typical, non-competitive, route for a sailing circumnavigation of the world by the trade winds and the Suez and Panama canals. It can be seen that the route approximates a great circle, passes through two pairs of antipodal points; this is a route followed by many cruising sailors. In yacht racing, a round-the-world route approximating a great circle would be quite impractical in a non-stop race where use of the Panama and Suez Canals would be impossible. Yacht racing therefore defines a world circumnavigation to be a passage of at least 21,600 nautical miles
Grand Duchy of Lithuania
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a European state that lasted from the 13th century to 1795, when the territory was partitioned among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and Austria. The state was founded by one of the polytheistic Baltic tribes from Aukštaitija; the Grand Duchy expanded to include large portions of the former Kievan Rus' and other Slavic lands, including what is now Belarus and parts of Ukraine and Russia. At its greatest extent, in the 15th century, it was the largest state in Europe, it was a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state, with great diversity in languages and cultural heritage. Consolidation of the Lithuanian lands began in the late 12th century. Mindaugas, the first ruler of the Grand Duchy, was crowned as Catholic King of Lithuania in 1253; the pagan state was targeted in the religious crusade by the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order. The multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state emerged only at the late reign of Gediminas and continued to expand under his son Algirdas.
Algirdas's successor Jogaila signed the Union of Krewo in 1386, bringing two major changes in the history of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania: conversion to Catholicism and establishment of a dynastic union between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland. The reign of Vytautas the Great marked both the greatest territorial expansion of the Grand Duchy and the defeat of the Teutonic Knights in the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, it marked the rise of the Lithuanian nobility. After Vytautas's death, Lithuania's relationship with the Kingdom of Poland deteriorated. Lithuanian noblemen, including the Radvila family, attempted to break the personal union with Poland. However, unsuccessful wars with the Grand Duchy of Moscow forced the union to remain intact; the Union of Lublin of 1569 created a new state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In the federation, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania maintained its political distinctiveness and had separate government, laws and treasury; the federation was terminated by the passing of the Constitution of 3 May 1791, when there was supposed to be now a single country, the Commonwealth of Poland, under one monarch and one parliament.
Shortly afterward, the unitary character of the state was confirmed by adopting the Reciprocal Guarantee of Two Nations. However, the newly-reformed Commonwealth was invaded by Russia in 1792 and partitioned between the neighbours, with a truncated state remaining only nominally independent. After the Kościuszko Uprising, the territory was partitioned among the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia and Austria in 1795; the Statutes of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania have the complete name of the state as the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Samogitia. The title of "grand duchy" was applied to Lithuania from the 14th century onward. In other languages, the grand duchy is referred to as: Belarusian: Вялікае Княства Літоўскае German: Großfürstentum Litauen Estonian: Leedu Suurvürstiriik Latin: Magnus Ducatus Lituaniae Latvian: Lieitija or Lietuvas Lielkņaziste Lithuanian: Lietuvos Didžioji Kunigaikštystė Old literary Lithuanian: Didi Kunigystė Lietuvos Polish: Wielkie Księstwo Litewskie Russian: Великое княжество Литовское Ruthenian: Великое князство Литовское Ukrainian: Велике князiвство Литовське The first written reference to Lithuania is found in the Quedlinburg Chronicle, which dates from 1009.
In the 12th century, Slavic chronicles refer to Lithuania as one of the areas attacked by the Rus'. Pagan Lithuanians paid tribute to Polotsk, but they soon grew in strength and organized their own small-scale raids. At some point between 1180 and 1183 the situation began to change, the Lithuanians started to organize sustainable military raids on the Slavic provinces, raiding the Principality of Polotsk as well as Pskov, threatening Novgorod; the sudden spark of military raids marked consolidation of the Lithuanian lands in Aukštaitija. The Livonian Order and Teutonic Knights, crusading military orders, were established in Riga in 1202 and in Prussia in 1226; the Christian orders posed a significant threat to pagan Baltic tribes and further galvanized the formation of the state. The peace treaty with Galicia–Volhynia of 1219 provides evidence of cooperation between Lithuanians and Samogitians; this treaty lists 21 Lithuanian dukes, including five senior Lithuanian dukes from Aukštaitija and several dukes from Žemaitija.
Although they had battled in the past, the Lithuanians and the Žemaičiai now faced a common enemy. Živinbudas had the most authority and at least several dukes were from the same families. The formal acknowledgment of common interests and the establishment of a hierarchy among the signatories of the treaty foreshadowed the emergence of the state. Mindaugas, the duke of southern Lithuania, was among the five senior dukes mentioned in the treaty with Galicia–Volhynia; the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle, reports that by the mid-1230s, Mindaugas had acquired supreme power in the whole of Lithuania. In 1236, the Samogitians, led by Vykintas, defeated the Livonian Order in the Battle of Saule; the Order was forced to become a branch of the Teutonic Knights in Prussia, making Samogitia, a strip of land that separated Livonia from Prussia, the main target of both orders. The battle provided a break in the wars with the Knights, Lithuania exploited this situation, arranging attacks towards the Ruthenian provinces and annexing Navahrudak and Hrodna.
Belarusian historians consider that Mindаugas was invited to rule Navahrudak and that the union was peaceful. In 1248 a civil war broke out be
