Roundabout
A roundabout is a type of circular intersection or junction in which road traffic is permitted to flow in one direction around a central island, priority is given to traffic in the junction. Modern roundabouts observe various design rules to increase safety. Compared to stop signs, traffic signals, earlier forms of roundabouts, modern roundabouts reduce the likelihood and severity of collisions by reducing traffic speeds and minimizing T-bone and head-on collisions. Variations on the basic concept include integration with tram and/or train lines, two-way flow, higher speeds and many others. Traffic exiting the roundabout comes from one direction, rather than three, simplifying the pedestrian's visual environment. Traffic moves enough to allow visual engagement with pedestrians, encouraging deference towards them. Other benefits include reduced driver confusion associated with perpendicular junctions and reduced queuing associated with traffic lights, they allow U-turns within the normal flow of traffic, which are not possible at other forms of junction.
Moreover, since vehicles on average spend less time idling at roundabouts than at signalled intersections, using a roundabout leads to less pollution. When entering vehicles only need to give way, they do not always perform a full stop. Research has shown that slow moving traffic in roundabouts makes less noise than traffic that must stop and start, speed up and brake. Modern roundabouts were first standardised in the UK in 1966 and were found to be a significant improvement over previous traffic circle and rotaries. Since they have spread and modern roundabouts are commonplace throughout the world. Half of the world's roundabouts are in France, although the United Kingdom has more as a proportion of the road than any other country. Circular junctions existed before roundabouts, including the Circus in the city of Bath, England, completed in 1768, part of a world heritage site. C; the operating and entry characteristics of these circles differ from modern roundabouts. French architect Eugène Hénard was designing one-way circular intersections as early as 1877.
American architect William Phelps Eno favored small traffic circles. He designed New York City's famous Columbus Circle, built in 1905. In 1907, architect John McLaren designed one of the first American roundabouts for both autos and streetcars in the Hanchett Residence Park in what is now San Jose, California; the first British circular junction was built in Letchworth Garden City in 1909. Its centre was intended as a traffic island for pedestrians, it was featured in the film The World's End. In the early 20th century, numerous traffic circles were constructed in the United States in the northeast. Examples include a circle in California. Other circular intersections were subsequently built in the United States, though many were large diameter'rotaries' that enabled high speed merge and weave maneuvers, they may control entering traffic by stop signs or traffic lights. Many older traffic circles allow entry at higher speeds without deflection, or require a stop and a 90-degree turn to enter; these designs were doomed to failure for two primary reasons: It takes a large diameter circle to provide enough room for merging at speed.
Although some of these circles were huge, they were not large enough for high-speed merging. Giving priority to entering traffic means that more vehicles can enter the circulatory roadway than it can handle; the result is congestion within the circle. The experience with traffic circles and rotaries in the US was entirely negative, characterised by high accident rates and congestion problems. By the mid 1950s, construction of traffic circles and rotaries had ceased entirely; the experience with traffic circles in other countries was not much better until the development of the modern roundabout in the United Kingdom during the 1960s. Starting in the 1990s the US saw a revival of smaller traffic circles, termed "roundabouts"; the modern roundabout arrived in the United States in 1990 in Summerlin, a major Las Vegas residential subdivision. As of December 2015 there are about 4800 of these modern roundabouts in the United States; as an example, Washington State contains about 120 roundabouts as of October 2016, all having been built since 1997 with more planned.
Widespread use of the modern roundabout began when the UK's Transport Research Laboratory engineers re-engineered and standardised circular intersections during the 1960s. Frank Blackmore led the development of the "Priority Rule" and subsequently invented the mini-roundabout to overcome capacity and safety limitations; the priority rule was found to improve traffic flow by up to 10%. The design became mandatory in the United Kingdom for all new roundabouts in November 1966; this give-way requirement has been the law in New York state since the 1920s. In the United States modern roundabouts emerged in the 1990s. Municipalities introducing new roundabouts are met with some degree of public resistance, just as in the United Kingdom in the 1960s. Surveys show. American confusion at how to enter and ho
Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of North America. It is 34 kilometres in length and up to 23 km in width, covering an area of 432 km2, it is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 km east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea. It is about 168 km east of both the countries of Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and 400 km north-east of Trinidad and Tobago. Barbados is outside the principal Atlantic hurricane belt, its capital and largest city is Bridgetown. Inhabited by Kalinago people since the 13th century, prior to that by other Amerindians, Barbados was visited by Spanish navigators in the late 15th century and claimed for the Spanish Crown, it first appeared in a Spanish map in 1511. The Portuguese claimed the island in 1536, but abandoned it, with their only remnants being an introduction of wild hogs for a good supply of meat whenever the island was visited. An English ship, the Olive Blossom, arrived in Barbados in 1625.
In 1627, the first permanent settlers arrived from England, it became an English and British colony. As a wealthy sugar colony, it became an English centre of the African slave trade until that trade was outlawed in 1807, with final emancipation of slaves in Barbados occurring over a period of years from 1833. On 30 November 1966, Barbados became an independent state and Commonwealth realm with Elizabeth II as its queen, it has a population of 287,010 people, predominantly of African descent. Despite being classified as an Atlantic island, Barbados is considered to be a part of the Caribbean, where it is ranked as a leading tourist destination. Forty percent of the tourists come from the UK, with the US and Canada making up the next large groups of visitors to the island; the name "Barbados" is from either the Portuguese term Os Barbados or the Spanish equivalent, Los Barbados, both meaning "the bearded ones". It is unclear whether "bearded" refers to the long, hanging roots of the bearded fig-tree, indigenous to the island, or to the bearded Caribs who once inhabited the island, or, more fancifully, to a visual impression of a beard formed by the sea foam that sprays over the outlying reefs.
In 1519, a map produced by the Genoese mapmaker Visconte Maggiolo showed and named Barbados in its correct position. Furthermore, the island of Barbuda in the Leewards is similar in name and was once named "Las Barbudas" by the Spanish, it is uncertain. One lesser-known source points to earlier revealed works predating contemporary sources indicating it could have been the Spanish. Many if not most believe the Portuguese, en route to Brazil, were the first Europeans to come upon the island; the original name for Barbados in the Pre-Columbian era was Ichirouganaim, according to accounts by descendants of the indigenous Arawakan-speaking tribes in other regional areas, with possible translations including "Red land with white teeth" or "Redstone island with teeth outside" or "Teeth". Colloquially, Barbadians refer to their home island as "Bim" or other nicknames associated with Barbados, including "Bimshire"; the origin is uncertain. The National Cultural Foundation of Barbados says that "Bim" was a word used by slaves, that it derives from the Igbo term bém from bé mụ́ meaning'my home, kind', the Igbo phoneme in the Igbo orthography is close to.
The name could have arisen due to the large percentage of enslaved Igbo people from modern-day southeastern Nigeria arriving in Barbados in the 18th century. The words'Bim' and'Bimshire' are recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary and Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionaries. Another possible source for'Bim' is reported to be in the Agricultural Reporter of 25 April 1868, where the Rev. N. Greenidge suggested the listing of Bimshire as a county of England. Expressly named were "Wiltshire, Hampshire and Bimshire". Lastly, in the Daily Argosy of 1652, there is a reference to Bim as a possible corruption of'Byam', the name of a Royalist leader against the Parliamentarians; that source suggested the followers of Byam became known as'Bims' and that this became a word for all Barbadians. Amerindian settlement of Barbados dates to about the 4th to 7th centuries AD, by a group known as the Saladoid-Barrancoid; the Arawaks from South America became dominant around 800 AD, maintained that status until around 1200.
In the 13th century, the Kalinago arrived from South America. The Spanish and Portuguese claimed Barbados from the late 16th to the 17th centuries; the Arawaks are believed to have fled to neighbouring islands. Apart from displacing the Caribs, the Spanish and Portuguese made little impact and left the island uninhabited; some Arawaks continue to live in Barbados. In the early years the majority of the labour was provided by European indentured servants English and Scottish, with enslaved Africans and enslaved Amerindian providing little of the workforce. During the Cromwellian era this included a large number of prisoners-of-war and people who were illicitly kidnapped, who were forcibly transported to the island and sold as servants; these last two groups were predominately Irish, as several thousand were infamously rounded up by Engli
Narrow-gauge railway
A narrow-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard 1,435 mm. Most narrow-gauge railways are between 600 1,067 mm. Since narrow-gauge railways are built with tighter curves, smaller structure gauges, lighter rails, they can be less costly to build and operate than standard- or broad-gauge railways. Lower-cost narrow-gauge railways are built to serve industries and communities where the traffic potential would not justify the cost of a standard- or broad-gauge line. Narrow-gauge railways have specialized use in mines and other environments where a small structure gauge necessitates a small loading gauge, they have more general applications. Non-industrial, narrow-gauge mountain railways are common in the Rocky Mountains of the United States and the Pacific Cordillera of Canada, Switzerland, the former Yugoslavia and Costa Rica. In some countries, narrow gauge is the standard. Narrow-gauge trams metre-gauge, are common in Europe. In general, a narrow-gauge railway is narrower than 1,435 mm.
Because of historical and local circumstances, the definition of a narrow-gauge railway varies. The earliest recorded railway appears in Georgius Agricola's 1556 De re metallica, which shows a mine in Bohemia with a railway of about 2 ft gauge. During the 16th century, railways were restricted to hand-pushed, narrow-gauge lines in mines throughout Europe. In the 17th century, mine railways were extended to provide transportation above ground; these lines were industrial. These railways were built to the same narrow gauge as the mine railways from which they developed; the world's first steam locomotive, built in 1802 by Richard Trevithick for the Coalbrookdale Company, ran on a 3 ft plateway. The first commercially successful steam locomotive was Matthew Murray's Salamanca built in 1812 for the 4 ft 1 in Middleton Railway in Leeds. Salamanca was the first rack-and-pinion locomotive. During the 1820s and 1830s, a number of industrial narrow-gauge railways in the United Kingdom used steam locomotives.
In 1842, the first narrow-gauge steam locomotive outside the UK was built for the 1,100 mm -gauge Antwerp-Ghent Railway in Belgium. The first use of steam locomotives on a public, passenger-carrying narrow-gauge railway was in 1865, when the Ffestiniog Railway introduced passenger service after receiving its first locomotives two years earlier. Many narrow-gauge railways were part of industrial enterprises and served as industrial railways, rather than general carriers. Common uses for these industrial narrow-gauge railways included mining, construction, tunnelling and conveying agricultural products. Extensive narrow-gauge networks were constructed in many parts of the world. Significant sugarcane railways still operate in Cuba, Java, the Philippines, Queensland, narrow-gauge railway equipment remains in common use for building tunnels; the first use of an internal combustion engine to power a narrow-gauge locomotive was in 1902. F. C. Blake built a 7hp petrol locomotive for the Richmond Main Sewerage Board sewage plant at Mortlake.
This 2 ft 9 in gauge locomotive was the third petrol-engined locomotive built. Extensive narrow-gauge rail systems served the front-line trenches of both sides in World War I, they were a short-lived military application, after the war the surplus equipment created a small boom in European narrow-gauge railway building. Narrow-gauge railways cost less to build because they are lighter in construction, using smaller cars and locomotives, smaller bridges and tunnels, tighter curves. Narrow gauge is used in mountainous terrain, where engineering savings can be substantial, it is used in sparsely populated areas where the potential demand is too low for broad-gauge railways to be economically viable. This is the case in parts of Australia and most of Southern Africa, where poor soils have led to population densities too low for standard gauge to be viable. For temporary railways which will be removed after short-term use, such as logging, mining or large-scale construction projects, a narrow-gauge railway is cheaper and easier to install and remove.
Such railways have vanished, due to the capabilities of modern trucks. In many countries, narrow-gauge railways were built as branch lines to feed traffic to standard-gauge lines due to lower construction costs; the choice was not between a narrow- and standard-gauge railway, but between a narrow-gauge railway and none at all. Narrow-gauge railways cannot interchange rolling stock with the standard- or broad-gauge railways with which they link, the transfer of passengers and freight require time-consuming manual labour or substantial capital expenditure; some bulk commodities, such as coal and gravel, can be mechanically transshipped, but this is time-consuming, the equipment required for the transfer is complex to maintain. If rail lines with other gauges coexist in a network, in times of peak demand i
Index of Barbados-related articles
The following is an alphabetical list of topics related to the nation of Barbados..bb–Internet country code top-level domain for Barbados +1 246 1898 Windward Islands Hurricane 3Ws Oval 2006 WGC-World Cup 2010 Barbados Premier Division 2011 Barbados Premier Division 2014 Barbados Premier Division 2014 Race of Champions 2015 Barbados Premier Division 2016 Barbados FA Cup 2016 Barbados Premier Division 2017 Barbados Premier League ABC Highway Andromeda Gardens Anglican Church of Barbados Anglo-America Animal Flower Cave Architecture of Barbados Area code 246 Army of Barbados Arts and entertainment of Barbados Athletics Association of Barbados Atlantic Shores, Barbados Atlas of Barbados Attorney-General of Barbados Australia–Barbados relations Bajan Bajan Creole Bajan stick licking Banks Barbados Brewery Bank holiday Banks Sports and Cultural Club Bannatyne, Barbados Barbadian Brazilians Barbadian British Barbadian Canadians Barbadian Chess Championship Barbadian dollar Barbadian general election, 1946 Barbadian general election, 1951 Barbadian general election, 1956 Barbadian general election, 1961 Barbadian general election, 1966 Barbadian general election, 1971 Barbadian general election, 1976 Barbadian general election, 1981 Barbadian general election, 1986 Barbadian general election, 1991 Barbadian general election, 1994 Barbadian general election, 1999 Barbadian general election, 2003 Barbadian general election, 2008 Barbadian general election, 2013 Barbadian National Heroes Barbadian nationality law Barbadian passport Barbadians Barbados Barbados and CARICOM Barbados Association for Children With Intellectual Challenges Barbados at the 2011 World Aquatics Championships Barbados at the 2013 World Aquatics Championships Barbados at the 2015 World Aquatics Championships Barbados at the 2017 World Aquatics Championships Barbados at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics Barbados at the 2011 World Championships in Athletics Barbados at the 2013 World Championships in Athletics Barbados at the 2017 World Championships in Athletics Barbados at the Commonwealth Games Barbados at the 2006 Commonwealth Games Barbados at the 2010 Commonwealth Games Barbados at the 2014 Commonwealth Games Barbados at the 2011 Commonwealth Youth Games Barbados at the Olympics Barbados at the 1968 Summer Olympics Barbados at the 1972 Summer Olympics Barbados at the 1976 Summer Olympics Barbados at the 1984 Summer Olympics Barbados at the 1988 Summer Olympics Barbados at the 1992 Summer Olympics Barbados at the 1996 Summer Olympics Barbados at the 2000 Summer Olympics Barbados at the 2004 Summer Olympics Barbados at the 2008 Summer Olympics Barbados at the 2012 Summer Olympics Barbados at the 2016 Summer Olympics Barbados at the 2010 Summer Youth Olympics Barbados at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics Barbados at the Pan American Games Barbados at the 1995 Pan American Games Barbados at the 1999 Pan American Games Barbados at the 2003 Pan American Games Barbados at the 2011 Pan American Games Barbados at the 2015 Pan American Games Barbados at the Paralympics Barbados at the 2004 Summer Paralympics Barbados at the 2008 Summer Paralympics Barbados at the 2012 Summer Paralympics Barbados at the 2016 Summer Paralympics Barbados Bar Association Barbados Boy Scouts Association Barbados–Brazil relations Barbados–Canada relations Barbados Chamber Orchestra Barbados–China relations Barbados Coast Guard Barbados Community College Barbados Cricket Association Barbados Cricket Buckle Barbados Cycling Union Barbados Davis Cup team Barbados Defence Force Barbados Defence Force Sports Program Barbados Division One Barbados Fed Cup team Barbados Football Association Barbados–France Maritime Delimitation Agreement Barbados–France relations Barbados–Germany relations Barbados Gold Cup Barbados–Grenada relations Barbados–Guyana relations Barbados Holetown Festival Barbados Independence Act 1966 Barbados–India relations Barbados–Japan relations Barbados Jazz Festival Barbados Labour Party Barbados lottery Barbados men's national field hockey team Barbados men's national volleyball team Barbados Museum & Historical Society Barbados National Archives Barbados national basketball team Barbados national cricket team Barbados national football team Barbados national football team results Barbados national netball team Barbados National Oil Company Limited Barbados National Party Barbados National Pledge Barbados national rugby sevens team Barbados national rugby union team Barbados National Stadium Barbados National Trust Barbados national under-23 football team Barbados nationality law Barbados–Nigeria relations Barbados Olympic Association Barbados on the Water Festival Barbados passport Barbados – People's Republic of China relations Barbados Police Headquarters Barbados Port Incorporated Barbados Postal Service Barbados Premier League Barbados Programme of Action Barbados rail Barbados Railway Barbados Red Cross Society Barbados Regiment Barbados Slave Code of 1661 Barbados Stock Exchange Barbados–Suriname relations Barbados Tramway Company Barbados Transport Board Barbados Tridents Barbados – Trinidad and Tobago relations Barbados – United Kingdom relations Barbados–United States relations Barbados Water Authority Barbados Wildlife Reserve Barbados Workers' Union Barclays Park, Barbados Bath, Barbados Bathsheba, Barbados Baxters, Barbados Bayfield, Barbados Bayleys, Barbados Bayview Hospital Bel Air, Barbados Bellairs Research Institute Belleplaine Bentleys Bico Limited BIM Bissex Blades, Barbados Blades Hill Blue Waters, Barbados Boscobelle Bottom Bay Bowmanston Boxing Day Branchbury Breedy's, Barbados Brereton, Barbados Bridgetown – Capital of Barbados Bridgetown Heliport Bridgetown Market Street Fair Brittons Hill FC Bruce Vale Bruce Vale River Bushy Park, Barbados Bussa Emancipation Statue Bussa's rebellion Cabinet of Barbados Call signs in Barbados Callenders Calypso music Cambridge, Barbados Canadian High Commissio
Tram
A tram is a rail vehicle which runs on tramway tracks along public urban streets. The lines or networks operated by tramcars are called tramways; the term electric street railways was used in the United States. In the United States, the term tram has sometimes been used for rubber-tyred trackless trains, which are unrelated to other kinds of trams. Tram vehicles are lighter and shorter than main line and rapid transit trains. Today, most trams use electrical power fed by a pantograph sliding on an overhead line. In some cases by a contact shoe on a third rail is used. If necessary, they may have dual power systems—electricity in city streets, diesel in more rural environments. Trams carry freight. Trams are now included in the wider term "light rail", which includes grade-separated systems; some trams, known as tram-trains, may have segments that run on mainline railway tracks, similar to interurban systems. The differences between these modes of rail transport are indistinct, a given system may combine multiple features.
One of the advantages over earlier forms of transit was the low rolling resistance of metal wheels on steel rails, allowing the trams to haul a greater load for a given effort. Problems included the fact that any given animal could only work so many hours on a given day, had to be housed, groomed and cared for day in and day out, produced prodigious amounts of manure, which the streetcar company was charged with disposing of. Electric trams replaced animal power in the late 19th and early 20th century. Improvements in other forms of road transport such as buses led to decline of trams in mid 20th century. Trams have seen resurgence in recent years; the English terms tram and tramway are derived from the Scots word tram, referring to a type of truck used in coal mines and the tracks on which they ran. The word tram derived from Middle Flemish trame; the identical word la trame with the meaning "crossbeam" is used in the French language. Etymologists believe that the word tram refers to the wooden beams the railway tracks were made of before the railroad pioneers switched to the much more wear-resistant tracks made of iron and steel.
The word Tram-car is attested from 1873. Although the terms tram and tramway have been adopted by many languages, they are not used universally in English; the term streetcar is first recorded in 1840, referred to horsecars. When electrification came, Americans began to speak of trolleycars or trolleys. A held belief holds the word to derive from the troller, a four-wheeled device, dragged along dual overhead wires by a cable that connected the troller to the top of the car and collected electrical power from the overhead wires. "Trolley" and variants refer to the verb troll, meaning "roll" and derived from Old French, cognate uses of the word were well established for handcarts and horse drayage, as well as for nautical uses. The alternative North American term'trolley' may speaking be considered incorrect, as the term can be applied to cable cars, or conduit cars that instead draw power from an underground supply. Conventional diesel tourist buses decorated to look like streetcars are sometimes called trolleys in the US.
Furthering confusion, the term tram has instead been applied to open-sided, low-speed segmented vehicles on rubber tires used to ferry tourists short distances, for example on the Universal Studios backlot tour and, in many countries, as tourist transport to major destinations. The term may apply to an aerial ropeway, e.g. the Roosevelt Island Tramway. Although the use of the term trolley for tram was not adopted in Europe, the term was associated with the trolleybus, a rubber-tyred vehicle running on hard pavement, which draws its power from pairs of overhead wires; these electric buses, which use twin trolley poles, are called trackless trolleys, or sometimes trolleys. The New South Wales, government has decided to use the term "light rail" for their trams; the history of trams, streetcars or trolley systems, began in early nineteenth century. It can be divided up into several discrete periods defined by the principal means of motive power used; the world's first passenger train or tram was the Swansea and Mumbles Railway, in Wales, UK.
The Mumbles Railway Act was passed by the British Parliament in 1804, horse-drawn service started in 1807. The service was restarted in 1860, again using horses, it was worked by steam from 1877, from 1929, by large electric tramcars, until closure in 1961. The Swansea and Mumbles Railway was something of a one-off however, no street tramway would appear in Britain until 1860 when one was built in Birkenhead by the American George Francis Train. Street railways developed in America before Europe due to the poor paving of the streets in American cities which made them unsuitable for horsebuses, which were common on the well-paved streets of European cities. Running the horsecars on rails allowed for a much smoother ride. There are records of a street railway running in Baltimore as early as 1828, however the first authenticated streetcar in America, was the New York and Harle
Scotland
Scotland is a country, part of the United Kingdom. Sharing a border with England to the southeast, Scotland is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, by the North Sea to the northeast and by the Irish Sea to the south. In addition to the mainland, situated on the northern third of the island of Great Britain, Scotland has over 790 islands, including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides; the Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the Early Middle Ages and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI, King of Scots, became King of England and King of Ireland, thus forming a personal union of the three kingdoms. Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain; the union created a new Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. In 1801, the Kingdom of Great Britain and Kingdom of Ireland enacted a political union to create a United Kingdom.
The majority of Ireland subsequently seceded from the UK in 1922. Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles and other royal symbols of statehood specific to the pre-union Kingdom of Scotland; the legal system within Scotland has remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland. The continued existence of legal, educational and other institutions distinct from those in the remainder of the UK have all contributed to the continuation of Scottish culture and national identity since the 1707 union with England; the Scottish Parliament, a unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, was established in 1999 and has authority over those areas of domestic policy which have been devolved by the United Kingdom Parliament. The head of the Scottish Government, the executive of the devolved legislature, is the First Minister of Scotland. Scotland is represented in the UK House of Commons by 59 MPs and in the European Parliament by 6 MEPs.
Scotland is a member of the British–Irish Council, sends five members of the Scottish Parliament to the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly. Scotland is divided into councils. Glasgow City is the largest subdivision in Scotland in terms of population, with Highland being the largest in terms of area. "Scotland" comes from the Latin name for the Gaels. From the ninth century, the meaning of Scotia shifted to designate Gaelic Scotland and by the eleventh century the name was being used to refer to the core territory of the Kingdom of Alba in what is now east-central Scotland; the use of the words Scots and Scotland to encompass most of what is now Scotland became common in the Late Middle Ages, as the Kingdom of Alba expanded and came to encompass various peoples of diverse origins. Repeated glaciations, which covered the entire land mass of modern Scotland, destroyed any traces of human habitation that may have existed before the Mesolithic period, it is believed the first post-glacial groups of hunter-gatherers arrived in Scotland around 12,800 years ago, as the ice sheet retreated after the last glaciation.
At the time, Scotland was covered in forests, had more bog-land, the main form of transport was by water. These settlers began building the first known permanent houses on Scottish soil around 9,500 years ago, the first villages around 6,000 years ago; the well-preserved village of Skara Brae on the mainland of Orkney dates from this period. Neolithic habitation and ritual sites are common and well preserved in the Northern Isles and Western Isles, where a lack of trees led to most structures being built of local stone. Evidence of sophisticated pre-Christian belief systems is demonstrated by sites such as the Callanish Stones on Lewis and the Maes Howe on Orkney, which were built in the third millennium BCE; the first written reference to Scotland was in 320 BC by Greek sailor Pytheas, who called the northern tip of Britain "Orcas", the source of the name of the Orkney islands. During the first millennium BCE, the society changed to a chiefdom model, as consolidation of settlement led to the concentration of wealth and underground stores of surplus food.
The first Roman incursion into Scotland occurred in 79 AD. After the Roman victory, Roman forts were set along the Gask Ridge close to the Highland line, but by three years after the battle, the Roman armies had withdrawn to the Southern Uplands; the Romans erected Hadrian's Wall in northern England and the Limes Britannicus became the northern border of the Roman Empire. The Roman influence on the southern part of the country was considerable, they introduced Christianity to Scotland. Beginning in the sixth century, the area, now Scotland was divided into three areas: Pictland, a patchwork of small lordships in central Scotland; these societies were based on the family unit and had sharp divisions in wealth, although the vast majority were poor and worked full-time in subsistence agriculture. The Picts kept slaves through the ninth century. Gaelic influence over Pictland and Northumbria was facilitated by the large number of Gaelic-speaking clerics working as missionaries. Operating in the sixth ce
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, to the southeast by Azerbaijan; the capital and largest city is Tbilisi. Georgia covers a territory of 69,700 square kilometres, its 2017 population is about 3.718 million. Georgia is a unitary semi-presidential republic, with the government elected through a representative democracy. During the classical era, several independent kingdoms became established in what is now Georgia, such as Colchis and Iberia; the Georgians adopted Christianity in the early 4th century. The common belief had an enormous importance for spiritual and political unification of early Georgian states. A unified Kingdom of Georgia reached its Golden Age during the reign of King David IV and Queen Tamar in the 12th and early 13th centuries. Thereafter, the kingdom declined and disintegrated under hegemony of various regional powers, including the Mongols, the Ottoman Empire, successive dynasties of Iran.
In the late 18th century, the eastern Georgian Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti forged an alliance with the Russian Empire, which directly annexed the kingdom in 1801 and conquered the western Kingdom of Imereti in 1810. Russian rule over Georgia was acknowledged in various peace treaties with Iran and the Ottomans and the remaining Georgian territories were absorbed by the Russian Empire in a piecemeal fashion in the course of the 19th century. During the Civil War following the Russian Revolution in 1917, Georgia became part of the Transcaucasian Federation and emerged as an independent republic before the Red Army invasion in 1921 which established a government of workers' and peasants' soviets. Soviet Georgia would be incorporated into a new Transcaucasian Federation which in 1922 would be a founding republic of the Soviet Union. In 1936, the Transcaucasian Federation was dissolved and Georgia emerged as a Union Republic. During the Great Patriotic War 700,000 Georgians fought in the Red Army against the German invaders.
After Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, a native Georgian, died in 1953, a wave of protest spread against Nikita Khrushchev and his de-Stalinization reforms, leading to the death of nearly one hundred students in 1956. From that time on, Georgia would become marred with blatant corruption and increased alienation of the government from the people. By the 1980s, Georgians were ready to abandon the existing system altogether. A pro-independence movement led to the secession from the Soviet Union in April 1991. For most of the following decade, post-Soviet Georgia suffered from civil conflicts, secessionist wars in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, economic crisis. Following the bloodless Rose Revolution in 2003, Georgia pursued a pro-Western foreign policy; this strengthened state institutions. The country's Western orientation soon led to the worsening of relations with Russia, culminating in the brief Russo-Georgian War in August 2008 and Georgia's current territorial dispute with Russia. Georgia is a member of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the GUAM Organization for Democracy and Economic Development.
It contains two de facto independent regions and South Ossetia, which gained limited international recognition after the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. Georgia and most of the world's countries consider the regions to be Georgian territory under Russian occupation. "Georgia" stems from the Persian designation of the Georgians – gurğān, in the 11th and 12th centuries adapted via Syriac gurz-ān/gurz-iyān and Arabic ĵurĵan/ĵurzan. Lore-based theories were given by the traveller Jacques de Vitry, who explained the name's origin by the popularity of St. George amongst Georgians, while traveller Jean Chardin thought that "Georgia" came from Greek γεωργός; as Prof. Alexander Mikaberidze adds, these century-old explanations for the word Georgia/Georgians are rejected by the scholarly community, who point to the Persian word gurğ/gurğān as the root of the word. Starting with the Persian word gurğ/gurğān, the word was adopted in numerous other languages, including Slavic and West European languages; this term itself might have been established through the ancient Iranian appellation of the near-Caspian region, referred to as Gorgan.
The native name is Sakartvelo, derived from the core central Georgian region of Kartli, recorded from the 9th century, in extended usage referring to the entire medieval Kingdom of Georgia by the 13th century. The self-designation used by ethnic Georgians is Kartvelebi; the medieval Georgian Chronicles present an eponymous ancestor of the Kartvelians, Kartlos, a great-grandson of Japheth. However, scholars agree that the word is derived from the Karts, the latter being one of the proto-Georgian tribes that emerged as a dominant group in ancient times; the name Sakartvelo consists of two parts. Its root, kartvel-i, specifies an inhabitant of the core central-eastern Georgian region of Kartli, or Iberia as it is known in sources of the Eastern Roman Empire. Ancient Greeks and Romans referred to early western Georgians as Colchians and eastern Georgians as Iberians; the Georgian circumfix sa-X-o is a standard geographic construction designating "the area where X dwell", where X is an ethnonym. To
