1.
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
2.
Delaware
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Delaware is a state located in the Mid-Atlantic and/or Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, to the northeast by New Jersey, the state takes its name from Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, an English nobleman and Virginias first colonial governor. Delaware occupies the portion of the Delmarva Peninsula and is the second smallest, the sixth least populous. Delaware is divided into three counties, the lowest number of counties of any state, from north to south, the three counties are New Castle, Kent, and Sussex. While the southern two counties have historically been agricultural, New Castle County has been more industrialized. Before its coastline was explored by Europeans in the 16th century, Delaware was inhabited by groups of Native Americans, including the Lenape in the north. It was initially colonized by Dutch traders at Zwaanendael, near the present town of Lewes, Delaware was one of the 13 colonies participating in the American Revolution. On December 7,1787, Delaware became the first state to ratify the Constitution of the United States, the Delaware Indians, a name used by Europeans for Lenape people indigenous to the Delaware Valley, also derive their name from the same source. The surname de La Warr comes from Sussex and is of Anglo-Norman origin and it came probably from a Norman lieu-dit La Guerre. This toponymic could derive from the Latin word ager, from the Breton gwern or from the Late Latin varectum, the toponyms Gara, Gare, Gaire also appear in old texts cited by Lucien Musset, where the word gara means gore. It could also be linked with a patronymic from the Old Norse verr, Delaware is 96 miles long and ranges from 9 miles to 35 miles across, totaling 1,954 square miles, making it the second-smallest state in the United States after Rhode Island. Delaware is bounded to the north by Pennsylvania, to the east by the Delaware River, Delaware Bay, New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean, small portions of Delaware are also situated on the eastern side of the Delaware River sharing land boundaries with New Jersey. The state of Delaware, together with the Eastern Shore counties of Maryland, the definition of the northern boundary of the state is unusual. Most of the boundary between Delaware and Pennsylvania was originally defined by an arc extending 12 miles from the cupola of the courthouse in the city of New Castle and this boundary is often referred to as the Twelve-Mile Circle. This is the only nominally circular state boundary in the United States, to the west, a portion of the arc extends past the easternmost edge of Maryland. The remaining western border runs slightly east of due south from its intersection with the arc, the Wedge of land between the northwest part of the arc and the Maryland border was claimed by both Delaware and Pennsylvania until 1921, when Delawares claim was confirmed. Delaware is on a plain, with the lowest mean elevation of any state in the nation. Its highest elevation, located at Ebright Azimuth, near Concord High School, the northernmost part of the state is part of the Piedmont Plateau with hills and rolling surfaces
3.
Sussex County, Delaware
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Sussex County is a county located in the southern part of the U. S. state of Delaware, on the Delmarva Peninsula. As of the 2010 census, the population was 197,145, the first European settlement in the state of Delaware was founded by the Dutch in 1631 near the present-day town of Lewes on the Atlantic Coast. However, Sussex County was not organized until 1683 under English colonial rule, Sussex County is included in the Salisbury, MD-DE Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses much of central Delmarva. Archaeologists estimate that the first inhabitants of Sussex County, the southernmost county in Delaware, various indigenous cultures occupied the area, especially along the river and the coast, often having seasonal fishing villages. Historic Native Americans in Sussex County were members of Algonquian-speaking tribes, the people settled along the numerous bodies of water in the area where they were able to harvest fish, oysters, and other shellfish in the fall and winter. In the warmer months the women planted and cultivated crops, the men hunted deer and other small mammals, as larger game was not present in the area. There is no agreement on which European group was the first to settle in Sussex County, on an expedition for the Dutch West India Company, Henry Hudson recorded discovery in 1609 of what was later named the Delaware River. Attempting to following him, Samuel Argall, an English explorer, was blown off course in 1610 and landed in a bay which he named after the Governor of Virginia, Thomas West. In the first half of 1613, Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, a Dutch navigator, later it was found that what May had named Henlopen was Fenwick Island, protruding into the Atlantic Ocean. The name of the cape was moved to its present location just east of Lewes, Sussex County was the site of the first European settlement in Delaware, a Dutch trading post named Zwaanendael at the present site of Lewes. On June 3,1631, Dutch captain David Pietersen de Vries landed along the shores of the Delaware to establish a colony in the mid-Atlantic of the New World. The colony lasted only until 1632, when De Vries left, upon returning to Zwaanendael that December, he found the Indian tribes had killed his men and burned the colony. The Dutch set about settling the area once again, although the Dutch and Swedes returned to resettle the Delaware River region as early as 1638, much of the Delaware Bay area south of what is today the city of Newcastle was not settled until 1662. At that time, the city of Amsterdam made a grant of land at the Hoernkills to a party of Mennonites. A total of 35 men were to be included in the settlement, led by a Pieter Cornelisz Plockhoy of Zierikzee, and funded by a sizable loan from the city to get them established. This settlement, established in 1663, was organized in part by the Dutch to respond to threats from the English colony of Maryland to the west beginning to assert rights over the area. The English wrested control of New Netherland from the Dutch in 1664 and they destroyed the Mennonite settlement that same year, settlement in the area after the English ejected the Dutch was slow. Lord Baltimore encouraged Marylanders to move east to settle the area, but the land was far removed from other, more established settlements and did not appeal to many new settlers
4.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
5.
Laurel, Delaware
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Laurel is a town in Sussex County, Delaware, United States. The population was 3,708 at the 2010 census, Laurel is part of the Salisbury, Maryland-Delaware Metropolitan Statistical Area. It once hosted the Laurel Blue Hens of the Eastern Shore Baseball League, the site of the town of Laurel was a Nanticoke Indian settlement known as Broad Creek Town during most of the eighteenth century. Nearly all the Indian settlers left within 50 years, relocating to western Pennsylvania, the present town was laid out along the Broad Creek in the 1790s and was named for the laurel bushes that grew alongside the creek. The Chipman Potato House, Chipmans Mill, Collins Potato House, Hearn Potato House, E. L. Laurel is located on the Atlantic Coastal Plain in southwestern Delaware at 38°33′23″N 75°34′17″W. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has an area of 1.7 square miles. As of the census of 2000, there were 3,668 people,1,389 households, the population density was 2,215.9 people per square mile. There were 1,561 housing units at a density of 943.0 per square mile. The racial makeup of the town was 55. 56% White,39. 42% African American,0. 35% Native American,0. 95% Asian,0. 03% Pacific Islander,1. 20% from other races, and 2. 48% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2. 32% of the population,26. 4% of all households were made up of individuals and 12. 0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.64 and the family size was 3.19. In the town, the age distribution of the population shows 33. 2% under the age of 18,10. 6% from 18 to 24,26. 5% from 25 to 44,16. 7% from 45 to 64, the median age was 30 years. For every 100 females there were 83.1 males, for every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 72.9 males. The median income for a household in the town was $28,321, males had a median income of $28,006 versus $18,550 for females. The per capita income for the town was $13,594, about 18. 7% of families and 21. 2% of the population were below the poverty line, including 33. 6% of those under age 18 and 11. 4% of those age 65 or over. The Laurel High School Bulldogs have won three Division 2 State Football Championships in 1986,1987, and 1991, mark Briscoe and Jay Briscoe – Professional wrestlers Bert Carvel – former Governor of Delaware William B. FOX21 has its broadcast tower located in Laurel, WMDT WKDB Official Website of the Town of Laurel Laurel Chamber of Commerce Laurel Historical Society
6.
Wetland
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A wetland is a land area that is saturated with water, either permanently or seasonally, such that it takes on the characteristics of a distinct ecosystem. The primary factor that distinguishes wetlands from other forms or water bodies is the characteristic vegetation of aquatic plants. Wetlands play a number of roles in the environment, principally water purification, flood control, carbon sink, Wetlands are also considered the most biologically diverse of all ecosystems, serving as home to a wide range of plant and animal life. Wetlands occur naturally on every continent except Antarctica, the largest including the Amazon River basin, the West Siberian Plain, the water found in wetlands can be freshwater, brackish, or saltwater. The main wetland types include swamps, marshes, bogs, and fens, and sub-types include mangrove, carr, pocosin, the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment determined that environmental degradation is more prominent within wetland systems than any other ecosystem on Earth. International conservation efforts are being used in conjunction with the development of rapid assessment tools to people about wetland issues. Constructed wetlands can be used to treat municipal and industrial wastewater as well as stormwater runoff and they may also play a role in water-sensitive urban design. A patch of land that develops pools of water after a storm would not be considered a wetland. Wetlands have unique characteristics, they are distinguished from other water bodies or landforms based on their water level. Specifically, wetlands are characterized as having a table that stands at or near the land surface for a long enough period each year to support aquatic plants. A more concise definition is a community composed of hydric soil, Wetlands have also been described as ecotones, providing a transition between dry land and water bodies. In environmental decision-making, there are subsets of definitions that are agreed upon to make regulatory and policy decisions. A wetland is an ecosystem that arises when inundation by water produces soils dominated by anaerobic processes, There are four main kinds of wetlands – marsh, swamp, bog and fen. Some experts also recognize wet meadows and aquatic ecosystems as additional wetland types, the largest wetlands in the world include the swamp forests of the Amazon and the peatlands of Siberia. Under the Ramsar international wetland conservation treaty, wetlands are defined as follows, Article 2.1, may incorporate riparian and coastal zones adjacent to the wetlands, and islands or bodies of marine water deeper than six metres at low tide lying within the wetlands. Although the general definition given above applies around the world, each county, Wetlands generally include swamps, marshes, bogs and similar areas. This definition has been used in the enforcement of the Clean Water Act, some US states, such as Massachusetts and New York, have separate definitions that may differ from the federal governments. It is not uncommon for a wetland to be dry for long portions of the growing season, the most important factor producing wetlands is flooding
7.
Taxodium distichum
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Taxodium distichum is a large slow-growing and long-lived tree typically reaching heights of 30–35 m and a trunk diameter of 1–2 m. The bark is gray-brown to red-brown, thin and fibrous with a texture, having a vertically interwoven pattern of shallow ridges. The leaves are alternate and linear, with blades borne on the twig that are spirally arranged on the stem. Unlike most other species in the family Cupressaceae, it is deciduous, losing its leaves in the winter months and it is monoecious, with male and female flowers forming on slender tassel-like structures near the edge of the branchlets. The male and female strobili are produced from buds formed in the fall, with pollination in early winter. The seed cones are green maturing gray-brown, globular, and 2-3.5 cm in diameter and they have from 20 to 30 spirally arranged, four-sided scales, each bearing one or two triangular seeds. The number of seeds per cone ranges from 20 to 40, the cones disintegrate when mature to release the large seeds. The seeds are 5–10 mm long, the largest of any species in the family, and are produced every year. The seedlings have three to 9 cotyledons, the main trunks are surrounded by cypress knees. The oldest known specimen, located in Bladen County, North Carolina, is over 1,620 years old, making this one of the oldest living plants in eastern North America. The closely related Taxodium ascendens is treated by botanists as a distinct species, while others classify it as merely a variety of bald-cypress. It differs in shorter leaves borne on erect shoots, and in ecology, a few authors also treat Taxodium mucronatum as a variety of bald cypress, as T. distichum var. mexicanum Gordon, thereby considering the genus as comprising only one species. Mature planted specimens are seen as far north as Pittsburgh, and Ottawa, in Ottawa, in the Central Experimental Farm Arboretum, an average winter may kill back a quarter to half of new growth. Ancient bald cypress forests, with some more than 1,700 years old. The largest remaining stands are at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, near Naples. And in the Three Sisters tract along eastern North Carolinas Black River, the Corkscrew trees are around 500 years of age and some exceed 40 m in height. The Black River trees were cored in 1986 by University of Arkansas dendrologists with dates ranging back to 364 AD. In the northern and more part of its range from Delaware and Maryland to Williamsburg, Virginia
8.
Georgetown, Delaware
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Georgetown is a town in and the county seat of Sussex County, Delaware, United States. According to the 2010 census, the population of the town is 6,422, Georgetown is part of the Salisbury, Maryland-Delaware Metropolitan Statistical Area. Lewes, sited on the Delaware Bay, was designated as the first county seat and it was the first colony in Delaware, founded by the Dutch in 1631, and it remained the only significant European settlement in the region for some time. When English colonists William Penn organized the three counties of Pennsylvania, which are now Delaware, Lewes was the natural choice for the location of the Sussex Countys Seat of Justice. Sussex County was not well defined until after 1760, following resolution of a dispute between William Penns family and Frederick Calvert, 6th Baron Baltimore after intervention from the Crown and this dispute over borders had delayed discussion over the location of a county seat. Earlier Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore had argued that the county ended with Lewes, while Penns sons stated it continued into Fenwick Island, which it now does. The Mason–Dixon line was surveyed as part the agreement between the Penns and Lord Baltimore, and it has defined the western and southern border of the county. Georgetown, located centrally in the county, was later designated as its seat for court. After petitioning by western citizens of the county to the Delaware General Assembly, at the time, the land in central Sussex County was for the most part swampy and uninhabited. On May 9,1791, the commissioners, under the leadership of the Delaware State Senator George Mitchell, commissioner Rhodes Shankland began the survey by laying out a spacious square of 100 yards each way. Eventually Georgetown was laid out in a one mile in diameter. The area within this circle is now listed as a district on the National Register of Historic Places. The new location proved better as a center, Georgetown is still said to be sixteen miles from everywhere in Sussex County. The County Courthouse and Jail were built in the section of the town circle. Given this progress, the Seat of Justice was officially moved on October 26,1791, the new community was named Georgetown in honor of the lead commissioner George Mitchell. Lots, measuring 60 by 120-foot, were surveyed and sold to give a return to the States investment. Because of Delawares status as a state during the Civil War. The town and even some of its prominent families were divided by these split loyalties, in 2007, a monument commemorating Sussex County Confederates was constructed and installed at the Marvel Museum in Georgetown
9.
Bird
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Birds, a subgroup of Reptiles, are the last living examples of Dinosaurs. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the 5 cm bee hummingbird to the 2.75 m ostrich. They rank as the class of tetrapods with the most living species, at ten thousand. Birds are the closest living relatives of crocodilians, the fossil record indicates that birds evolved from feathered ancestors within the theropod group of saurischian dinosaurs. True birds first appeared during the Cretaceous period, around 100 million years ago, Birds, especially those in the southern continents, survived this event and then migrated to other parts of the world while diversifying during periods of global cooling. Primitive bird-like dinosaurs that lie outside class Aves proper, in the broader group Avialae, have been found dating back to the mid-Jurassic period, around 170 million years ago. Birds have wings which are more or less developed depending on the species, the digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have evolved for swimming. Many species annually migrate great distances, Birds are social, communicating with visual signals, calls, and bird songs, and participating in such social behaviours as cooperative breeding and hunting, flocking, and mobbing of predators. The vast majority of species are socially monogamous, usually for one breeding season at a time, sometimes for years. Other species have breeding systems that are polygynous or, rarely, Birds produce offspring by laying eggs which are fertilised through sexual reproduction. They are usually laid in a nest and incubated by the parents, most birds have an extended period of parental care after hatching. Some birds, such as hens, lay eggs even when not fertilised, songbirds, parrots, and other species are popular as pets. Guano is harvested for use as a fertiliser, Birds prominently figure throughout human culture. About 120–130 species have become extinct due to human activity since the 17th century, human activity threatens about 1,200 bird species with extinction, though efforts are underway to protect them. Recreational birdwatching is an important part of the ecotourism industry, the first classification of birds was developed by Francis Willughby and John Ray in their 1676 volume Ornithologiae. Carl Linnaeus modified that work in 1758 to devise the taxonomic classification system currently in use, Birds are categorised as the biological class Aves in Linnaean taxonomy. Phylogenetic taxonomy places Aves in the dinosaur clade Theropoda, Aves and a sister group, the clade Crocodilia, contain the only living representatives of the reptile clade Archosauria
