1.
Bartholomew the Apostle
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Bartholomew was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. According to the Synaxarium of the Coptic Orthodox Church, his martyrdom is commemorated on the first day of the Coptic Calendar, which currently falls on September 11. His feast is June 11 in Eastern Christianity and August 24 in the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, Anglican Communion, Bartholomew comes from the Aramaic meaning son of Talmai or son of the furrows. Nathanael is mentioned only in the Gospel according to John, giuseppe Simone Assemani specifically remarks, the Chaldeans confound Bartholomew with Nathaniel. Some Biblical scholars reject this identification, however, Eusebius of Caesareas Ecclesiastical History states that after the Ascension, Bartholomew went on a missionary tour to India, where he left behind a copy of the Gospel of Matthew. Other traditions record him as serving as a missionary in Ethiopia, Mesopotamia, Parthia, popular traditions and legends say that Bartholomew preached the Gospel in India, then went to Greater Armenia. Two ancient testimonies exist about the mission of Saint Bartholomew in India and these are of Eusebius of Caesarea and of Saint Jerome. Both of these refer to this tradition while speaking of the visit of Pantaenus to India in the 2nd century. Along with his fellow apostle Jude Thaddeus, Bartholomew is reputed to have brought Christianity to Armenia in the 1st century, thus, both saints are considered the patron saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church. He is said to have been martyred in Albanopolis in Armenia, according to one account, he was beheaded, but a more popular tradition holds that he was flayed alive and crucified, head downward. He is said to have converted Polymius, the king of Armenia, astyages, Polymius brother, consequently ordered Bartholomews execution. The 13th century Saint Bartholomew Monastery was a prominent Armenian monastery constructed at the site of the martyrdom of Apostle Bartholomew in the Vaspurakan Province of Greater Armenia. The 6th-century writer in Constantinople, Theodorus Lector, averred that in about 507 Emperor Anastasius gave the body of Bartholomew to the city of Dura-Europos, which he had recently re-founded. A small part of the relics was given in 983 by Holy Roman Emperor Otto II to Rome where it is conserved at the basilica of San Bartolomeo allIsola, in time, the church there inherited an old pagan medical centre. This association with medicine in course of time caused Bartholomews name to become associated with medicine, some of Bartholomews alleged skull was transferred to the Frankfurt Cathedral, while an arm was venerated in Canterbury Cathedral. Of the many miracles performed by Bartholomew before and after his death, the people of Lipari celebrated his feast day annually. The tradition of the people was to take the silver and gold statue from inside the Cathedral of St Bartholomew. On one occasion, when taking the statue down the hill towards the town, when the men carrying the statue regained their strength, they lifted it a second time
2.
Yiddish
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Yiddish is the historical language of the Ashkenazi Jews. Yiddish is written with a fully vocalized alphabet based on the Hebrew script, the earliest surviving references date from the 12th century and call the language לשון־אַשכּנז or טײַטש, a variant of tiutsch, the contemporary name for Middle High German. Colloquially, the language is sometimes called מאַמע־לשון, distinguishing it from לשון־קדש, the term Yiddish, short for Yiddish-Teitsch, did not become the most frequently used designation in the literature until the 18th century. In the late 19th and into the 20th century the language was commonly called Jewish, especially in non-Jewish contexts. Modern Yiddish has two major forms, Eastern Yiddish is far more common today. It includes Southeastern, Mideastern, and Northeastern dialects, Eastern Yiddish differs from Western both by its far greater size and by the extensive inclusion of words of Slavic origin. Western Yiddish is divided into Southwestern, Midwestern, and Northwestern dialects, the term Yiddish is also used in the adjectival sense, synonymously with Jewish, to designate attributes of Ashkenazi culture. Prior to the Holocaust, there were over 10 million speakers of Yiddish, 85% of the Jews who died in the Holocaust were Yiddish speakers, assimilation following World War II further decreased the use of Yiddish both among survivors and Yiddish-speakers from other countries. However, the number of speakers is increasing in global Hasidic communities, the established view is that, as with other Jewish languages, Jews speaking distinct languages learned new co-territorial vernaculars, which they then Judaized. Exactly what German base lies behind the earliest form of Yiddish is disputed, both Weinreich and Solomon Birnbaum developed this model further in the mid-1950s. In Weinreichs view, this Old Yiddish substrate later bifurcated into two versions of the language, Western and Eastern Yiddish. They retained the Semitic vocabulary needed for religious purposes and created a Judeo-German form of speech, recent linguistic research has finessed, contested, or challenged the Weinreich model, providing alternative approaches to the origins of Yiddish. Some theorists argue that the fusion occurred with a Bavarian dialect base, the two main candidates for the germinal matrix of Yiddish, the Rhineland and Bavaria, are not necessarily incompatible. There may have been developments in the two regions, seeding the Western and Eastern dialects of Modern Yiddish. Dovid Katz proposes that Yiddish emerged from contact between speakers of High German and Aramaic-speaking Jews from the Middle East, wexlers model has met with little academic support, and strong critical challenges, especially among historical linguists. Alternative theories recognize the extent of Yiddishs Germanic vocabulary. Ashkenaz was centered on the Rhineland and the Palatinate, in what is now the westernmost part of Germany and its geographic extent did not coincide with the German principalities of the time, and it included northern France. Ashkenaz bordered on the inhabited by another distinctive Jewish cultural group, the Sephardim or Spanish Jews
3.
Belarusian language
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Belarusian is an official language of Belarus, along with Russian, and is spoken abroad, chiefly in Russia, Ukraine, and small parts in far-eastern Poland. Following independence, it became known as Belarusian. Belarusian is one of the East Slavic languages and shares many grammatical and lexical features with other members of the group, to some extent, Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian are mutually intelligible. Its predecessor stage is known as Ruthenian, in turn descended from Old East Slavic, at the 1999 Belarus Census, the Belarusian language was declared as a language spoken at home by about 3,686,000 Belarusian citizens. About 6,984,000 of Belarusians declared it their mother tongue, other sources put the population of the language as 6,715,000 in Belarus and 9,081,102 in all countries. According to a study done by the Belarusian government in 2009, 72% of Belarusians speak Russian at home,29. 4% of Belarusians can write, speak, and read Belarusian, while 52. 5% can only read and speak it. Although closely related to other East Slavic languages, especially Ukrainian, Belarusian phonology is distinct in a number of ways, the phoneme inventory of the modern Belarusian language consists of 45 to 54 phonemes,6 vowels and 39 to 48 consonants, depending on how they are counted. When the nine geminate consonants are excluded as mere variations, there are 39 consonants, the number 48 includes all consonant sounds, including variations and rare sounds, which may be semantically distinct in the modern Belarusian language. The Belarusian alphabet is a variant of the Cyrillic script, which was first used as an alphabet for the Old Church Slavonic language, the modern Belarusian form was defined in 1918, and consists of thirty-two letters. Before that, Belarusian had also written in the Belarusian Latin alphabet, the Belarusian Arabic alphabet. The Glagolitic script had been used, sporadically, until the 11th or 12th century, there are several systems of romanizing written Belarusian text in existence, see Romanization of Belarusian. Standardized Belarusian grammar in its form was adopted in 1959. It was developed from the form set down by Branislaw Tarashkyevich. Historically, there had existed several other alternative standardized forms of Belarusian grammar and it is mainly based on the Belarusian folk dialects of Minsk-Vilnius region. Belarusian grammar is mostly synthetic and partly analytic, and overall is similar to Russian grammar. The most significant instance of this is in the representation of vowel reduction, and in particular akannye, the merger of unstressed /a/ and /o/, Belarusian always spells this merged sound as ⟨a⟩, whereas Russian uses either ⟨a⟩ or ⟨o⟩, according to what the underlying phoneme is. This can significantly complicate the task of foreign speakers in learning these paradigms, besides the literary norm, there exist two main dialects of the Belarusian language, the North-Eastern and the South-Western. In addition, there exist the transitional Middle Belarusian dialect group, the North-Eastern dialect is chiefly characterized by the soft sounding R and strong akanye, and the South-Western dialect is chiefly characterized by the hard sounding R and moderate akanye
4.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
5.
Polish language
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Polish is a West Slavic language spoken primarily in Poland and is the native language of the Poles. It belongs to the Lechitic subgroup of the West Slavic languages, Polish is the official language of Poland, but it is also used throughout the world by Polish minorities in other countries. It is one of the languages of the European Union. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet, which has 9 additions to the letters of the basic Latin script, Polish is closely related to Kashubian, Silesian, Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian, Czech and Slovak. It is also the second most widely spoken Slavic language, after Russian, in history, Polish is known to be an important language, both diplomatically and academically in Central and Eastern Europe. Today, Polish is spoken by over 38.5 million people as their first language in Poland. It is also spoken as a language in western parts of Belarus and Ukraine, west and central Lithuania, as well as the northern parts of the Czech Republic. There are 55 million Polish language speakers around the world, Polish began to emerge as a distinct language around the 10th century, the process largely triggered by the establishment and development of the Polish state. With Christianity, Poland also adopted the Latin alphabet, which made it possible to write down Polish, the precursor to modern Polish is the Old Polish language. Ultimately, Polish is thought to descend from the unattested Proto-Slavic language, Poland is the most linguistically homogeneous European country, nearly 97% of Polands citizens declare Polish as their first language. Elsewhere, Poles constitute large minorities in Lithuania, Belarus, Polish is the most widely used minority language in Lithuanias Vilnius County and is found elsewhere in southeastern Lithuania. There are significant numbers of Polish speakers among Polish emigrants and their descendants in many other countries, in the United States, Polish Americans number more than 11 million but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently. The largest concentrations of Polish speakers reported in the census were found in three states, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey. Enough people in these areas speak Polish that PNC Financial Services offer services available in Polish at all of their machines in addition to English and Spanish. According to the 2011 census there are now over 500,000 people in England, in Canada, there is a significant Polish Canadian population, There are 242,885 speakers of Polish according to the 2006 census, with a particular concentration in Toronto and Montreal. The geographical distribution of the Polish language was affected by the territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II. Poles settled in the Recovered Territories in the west and north and this tendency toward a homogeneity also stems from the vertically integrated nature of the authoritarian Polish Peoples Republic. The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak standard Polish somewhat differently, first-language speakers of Polish have no trouble understanding each other, and non-native speakers may have difficulty distinguishing regional variations
6.
Neighbourhood
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A neighbourhood, or neighborhood, is a geographically localised community within a larger city, town, suburb or rural area. Neighbourhoods are often social communities with considerable face-to-face interaction among members, the Old English word for neighbourhood was neahdæl. ”Most of the earliest cities around the world as excavated by archaeologists have evidence for the presence of social neighbourhoods. Historical documents shed light on life in numerous historical preindustrial or nonwestern cities. Neighbourhoods are typically generated by social interaction among people living near one another, in this sense they are local social units larger than households not directly under the control of city or state officials. In addition to social neighbourhoods, most ancient and historical cities also had administrative districts used by officials for taxation, record-keeping, administrative districts are typically larger than neighbourhoods and their boundaries may cut across neighbourhood divisions. In some cases, however, administrative districts coincided with neighbourhoods, for example, in the T’ang period Chinese capital city Chang’an, neighbourhoods were districts and there were state officials who carefully controlled life and activity at the neighbourhood level. Neighbourhoods in preindustrial cities often had some degree of social specialisation or differentiation, ethnic neighbourhoods were important in many past cities and remain common in cities today. One factor contributing to neighbourhood distinctiveness and social cohesion in past cities was the role of rural to urban migration and this was a continual process in preindustrial cities, and migrants tended to move in with relatives and acquaintances from their rural past. Neighbourhoods have been the site of delivery or service interventions in part as efforts to provide local, quality services. Alfred Kahn, as early as the mid-1970s, described the experience, theory and fads of neighbourhood service delivery over the decade, including discussion of income transfers. Neighbourhoods, as an aspect of community, also are the site of services for youth, including children with disabilities. While the term neighbourhood organisation is not as common in 2015, community and economic development activists have pressured for reinvestment in local communities and neighbourhoods. Community and Economic Development may be understood in different ways, and may involve faith-based groups, urban sociology even has a subset termed neighbourhood sociology which supports the study of local communities and the diversity of urban neighbourhoods. Neighbourhoods are also used in studies from postal codes and health disparities. Neighbourhoods are convenient, and always accessible, since you are already in your neighbourhood when you walk out your door, successful neighbourhood action frequently requires little specialised technical skill, and often little or no money. Action may call for an investment of time, but material costs are often low, with neighbourhood action, compared to activity on larger scales, results are more likely to be visible and quickly forthcoming. The streets are cleaner, the crosswalk is painted, the trees are planted, visible and swift results are indicators of success, and since success is reinforcing, the probability of subsequent neighbourhood action is increased. The social support that a neighbourhood may provide can serve as a buffer against various forms of adversity
7.
Vilnius
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Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania and its largest city, with a population of 542,664 as of 2015. Vilnius is located in the southeast part of Lithuania and is the second largest city in the Baltic states, Vilnius is the seat of the main government institutions of Lithuania as well as of the Vilnius District Municipality. Vilnius is classified as a Gamma global city according to GaWC studies and its Jewish influence until the 20th century has led to it being described as the Jerusalem of Lithuania and Napoleon named it the Jerusalem of the North as he was passing through in 1812. In 2009, Vilnius was the European Capital of Culture, together with the Austrian city of Linz, the name of the city originates from the Vilnia River. The city has also known by many derivate spellings in various languages throughout its history. The most notable names for the city include, Polish, Wilno, Belarusian, Вiльня, German, Wilna, Latvian, Viļņa, Russian, Вильнюс, Yiddish, ווילנע , Czech. A Russian name from the time of the Russian Empire was Вильна/Вильно, the name Vilna is still used in Finnish, Portuguese, Spanish, and Hebrew. Wilna is still used in German, along with Vilnius, the neighborhoods of Vilnius also have names in other languages, which represent the languages spoken by various ethnic groups in the area. Historian Romas Batūra identifies the city with Voruta, one of the castles of Mindaugas, during the reign of Vytenis a city started to emerge from a trading settlement and the first Franciscan Catholic church was built. These letters contain the first unambiguous reference to Vilnius as the capital, According to legend, Gediminas dreamt of an iron wolf howling on a hilltop and consulted a pagan priest for its interpretation. He was told, What is destined for the ruler and the State of Lithuania, is thus, the Iron Wolf represents a castle and a city which will be established by you on this site. This city will be the capital of the Lithuanian lands and the dwelling of their rulers, the location offered practical advantages, it lay within the Lithuanian heartland at the confluence of two navigable rivers, surrounded by forests and wetlands that were difficult to penetrate. The duchy had been subject to intrusions by the Teutonic Knights, Vilnius was the flourishing capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the residence of the Grand Duke. Gediminas expanded the Grand Duchy through warfare along with strategic alliances and marriages, at its height it covered the territory of modern-day Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Transnistria, and portions of modern-day Poland and Russia. His grandchildren Vytautas the Great and Jogaila, however, fought civil wars, during the Lithuanian Civil War of 1389–1392, Vytautas besieged and razed the city in an attempt to wrest control from Jogaila. The two later settled their differences, after a series of treaties culminating in the 1569 Union of Lublin, the rulers of this federation held either or both of two titles, Grand Duke of Lithuania or King of Poland. In 1387, Jogaila acting as a Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland Władysław II Jagiełło, the city underwent a period of expansion. The Vilnius city walls were built for protection between 1503 and 1522, comprising nine city gates and three towers, and Sigismund August moved his court there in 1544
8.
Lithuania
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Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in Northern Europe. One of the three Baltic states, it is situated along the shore of the Baltic Sea, to the east of Sweden. It is bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, Lithuania has an estimated population of 2.9 million people as of 2015, and its capital and largest city is Vilnius. The official language, Lithuanian, along with Latvian, is one of two living languages in the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. For centuries, the shores of the Baltic Sea were inhabited by various Baltic tribes. In the 1230s, the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, the King of Lithuania, and the first unified Lithuanian state, with the Lublin Union of 1569, Lithuania and Poland formed a voluntary two-state union, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth lasted more than two centuries, until neighboring countries systematically dismantled it from 1772–95, with the Russian Empire annexing most of Lithuanias territory. As World War I neared its end, Lithuanias Act of Independence was signed on 16 February 1918, in the midst of the Second World War, Lithuania was first occupied by the Soviet Union and then by Nazi Germany. As World War II neared its end and the Germans retreated, Lithuania is a member of the European Union, the Council of Europe, a full member of the Eurozone, Schengen Agreement and NATO. It is also a member of the Nordic Investment Bank, the United Nations Human Development Index lists Lithuania as a very high human development country. Lithuania has been among the fastest growing economies in the European Union and is ranked 21st in the world in the Ease of Doing Business Index, the first people settled in the territory of Lithuania after the last glacial period in the 10th millennium BC. Over a millennium, the Indo-Europeans, who arrived in the 3rd – 2nd millennium BC, mixed with the local population, the first written mention of Lithuania is found in a medieval German manuscript, the Annals of Quedlinburg, in an entry dated 9 March 1009. Initially inhabited by fragmented Baltic tribes, in the 1230s the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, after his assassination in 1263, pagan Lithuania was a target of the Christian crusades of the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order. Despite the devastating century-long struggle with the Orders, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania expanded rapidly, by the end of the 14th century, Lithuania was one of the largest countries in Europe and included present-day Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia. The geopolitical situation between the west and the east determined the multicultural and multi-confessional character of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the ruling elite practised religious tolerance and Chancery Slavonic language was used as an auxiliary language to the Latin for official documents. In 1385, the Grand Duke Jogaila accepted Polands offer to become its king, Jogaila embarked on gradual Christianization of Lithuania and established a personal union between Poland and Lithuania. It implied that Lithuania, the fiercely independent land, was one of the last pagan areas of Europe to adopt Christianity, after two civil wars, Vytautas the Great became the Grand Duke of Lithuania in 1392. During his reign, Lithuania reached the peak of its expansion, centralization of the state began
9.
Vilnius Old Town
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The Old Town of Vilnius, one of the largest surviving medieval old towns in Northern Europe, has an area of 3.59 square kilometres. It encompasses 74 quarters, with 70 streets and lanes numbering 1487 buildings with a floor area of 1,497,000 square meters. The oldest part of the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius, it has developed over the course of centuries, and has been shaped by the citys history. It is a place some of Europes greatest architectural styles—gothic, renaissance, baroque and neoclassical—stand side by side. Pilies Street is the Old Towns main artery and the hub of cafe, the main street of Vilnius, Gediminas Avenue, is partially located in the Old Town. The central squares in the Old Town are the Cathedral Square, one of the most elaborate architectural complexes is the Vilnius University Architectural Ensemble, which occupies a large part of the Old Town and has 13 courtyards. It was selected to represent Lithuania in the Mini-Europe Park in Brussels, in 1994 the Vilnius Old Town was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in recognition of its universal value and originality. The definition of historic center itself has a broader meaning than the Old Town and it embraces the valuable historical suburbs of Vilnius, such as Užupis, which historically used to be outside the city boundaries. Therefore Užupis is often considered a part of the Old Town of Vilnius, annes Church Vilnius Cathedral in Cathedral Square St
10.
UNESCO
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The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations based in Paris. It is the heir of the League of Nations International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, UNESCO has 195 member states and nine associate members. Most of its offices are cluster offices covering three or more countries, national and regional offices also exist. UNESCO pursues its objectives through five major programs, education, natural sciences, social/human sciences, culture and it is also a member of the United Nations Development Group. UNESCO and its mandate for international cooperation can be traced back to a League of Nations resolution on 21 September 1921, on 18 December 1925, the International Bureau of Education began work as a non-governmental organization in the service of international educational development. However, the work of predecessor organizations was largely interrupted by the onset of World War II. On 30 October 1943, the necessity for an organization was expressed in the Moscow Declaration, agreed upon by China, the United Kingdom, the United States. This was followed by the Dumbarton Oaks Conference proposals of 9 October 1944, a prominent figure in the initiative for UNESCO was Rab Butler, the Minister of Education for the United Kingdom. At the ECO/CONF, the Constitution of UNESCO was introduced and signed by 37 countries, the Preparatory Commission operated between 16 November 1945, and 4 November 1946—the date when UNESCOs Constitution came into force with the deposit of the twentieth ratification by a member state. The first General Conference took place between 19 November to 10 December 1946, and elected Dr. Julian Huxley to Director-General and this change in governance distinguished UNESCO from its predecessor, the CICI, in how member states would work together in the organizations fields of competence. In 1956, the Republic of South Africa withdrew from UNESCO claiming that some of the organizations publications amounted to interference in the racial problems. South Africa rejoined the organization in 1994 under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, UNESCOs early work in the field of education included the pilot project on fundamental education in the Marbial Valley, Haiti, started in 1947. This project was followed by missions to other countries, including, for example. In 1948, UNESCO recommended that Member States should make free primary education compulsory, in 1990, the World Conference on Education for All, in Jomtien, Thailand, launched a global movement to provide basic education for all children, youths and adults. Ten years later, the 2000 World Education Forum held in Dakar, Senegal, UNESCOs early activities in culture included, for example, the Nubia Campaign, launched in 1960. The purpose of the campaign was to move the Great Temple of Abu Simbel to keep it from being swamped by the Nile after construction of the Aswan Dam, during the 20-year campaign,22 monuments and architectural complexes were relocated. This was the first and largest in a series of campaigns including Mohenjo-daro, Fes, Kathmandu, Borobudur, the organizations work on heritage led to the adoption, in 1972, of the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. The World Heritage Committee was established in 1976 and the first sites inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1978, since then important legal instruments on cultural heritage and diversity have been adopted by UNESCO member states in 2003 and 2005
11.
World Heritage Site
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A World Heritage Site is a landmark which has been officially recognized by the United Nations, specifically by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Sites are selected on the basis of having cultural, historical, scientific or some form of significance. UNESCO regards these sites as being important to the interests of humanity. The programme catalogues, names, and conserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common culture, under certain conditions, listed sites can obtain funds from the World Heritage Fund. The program was founded with the Convention Concerning the Protection of the Worlds Cultural and Natural Heritage, since then,192 state parties have ratified the convention, making it one of the most adhered to international instruments. As of July 2016,1052 sites are listed,814 cultural,203 natural, in 1959, the governments of Egypt and Sudan requested UNESCO to assist their countries to protect and rescue the endangered monuments and sites. In 1960, the Director-General of UNESCO launched an appeal to the Member States for an International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, the campaign, which ended in 1980, was considered a success. The project cost $80 million, about $40 million of which was collected from 50 countries, the projects success led to other safeguarding campaigns, saving Venice and its lagoon in Italy, the ruins of Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan, and the Borobodur Temple Compounds in Indonesia. UNESCO then initiated, with the International Council on Monuments and Sites, the United States initiated the idea of cultural conservation with nature conservation. The International Union for Conservation of Nature developed similar proposals in 1968, the Convention came into force on 17 December 1975. As of June 2016, it has been ratified by 192 states, including 188 UN member states plus the Cook Islands, the Holy See, Niue, a country must first list its significant cultural and natural sites, the result is called the Tentative List. A country may not nominate sites that have not been first included on the Tentative List, next, it can place sites selected from that list into a Nomination File. The Nomination File is evaluated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and these bodies then make their recommendations to the World Heritage Committee. There are ten selection criteria – a site must meet at least one of them to be included on the list, up to 2004, there were six criteria for cultural heritage and four criteria for natural heritage. In 2005, this was modified so there is now only one set of ten criteria. Nominated sites must be of outstanding value and meet at least one of the ten criteria. Thus, the Geneva Convention treaty promulgates, Article 53, PROTECTION OF CULTURAL OBJECTS AND OF PLACES OF WORSHIP. There are 1,052 World Heritage Sites located in 165 States Party, of these,814 are cultural,203 are natural and 35 are mixed properties
12.
Lithuanian language
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Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.9 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania, Lithuanian is a Baltic language, related to Latvian. It is written in a Latin alphabet, Lithuanian is often said to be the most conservative living Indo-European language, retaining many features of Proto-Indo-European now lost in other Indo-European languages. Anyone wishing to hear how Indo-Europeans spoke should come and listen to a Lithuanian peasant, among Indo-European languages, Lithuanian is extraordinarily conservative, retaining many archaic features otherwise found only in ancient languages such as Sanskrit or Ancient Greek. For this reason, it is one of the most important sources in the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language despite its late attestation, the Proto-Balto-Slavic languages branched off directly from Proto-Indo-European, then branched into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic. Proto-Baltic branched off into Proto-West Baltic and Proto-East Baltic, according to some glottochronological speculations, the Eastern Baltic languages split from the Western Baltic ones between AD400 and AD600. The Greek geographer Ptolemy had already written of two Baltic tribe/nations by name, the Galindai and Sudinoi in the 2nd century AD, the differentiation between Lithuanian and Latvian started after AD800, for a long period, they could be considered dialects of a single language. At a minimum, transitional dialects existed until the 14th or 15th century, also, the 13th- and 14th-century occupation of the western part of the Daugava basin by the German Sword Brethren had a significant influence on the languages independent development. The earliest surviving written Lithuanian text is a translation dating from about 1503–1525 of the Lords Prayer, the Hail Mary, printed books existed after 1547, but the level of literacy among Lithuanians was low through the 18th century, and books were not commonly available. Brought into the country by book smugglers despite the threat of prison sentences. Jonas Jablonskis made significant contributions to the formation of the standard Lithuanian language and his proposal for Standard Lithuanian was based on his native Western Aukštaitijan dialect with some features of the eastern Prussian Lithuanians dialect spoken in Lithuania Minor. These dialects had preserved archaic phonetics mostly intact due to the influence of the neighbouring Old Prussian language, Lithuanian has been the official language of Lithuania since 1918. During the Soviet era, it was used in official discourse along with Russian, Lithuanian is one of two living Baltic languages, along with Latvian. An earlier Baltic language, Old Prussian, was extinct by the 18th century, such an opinion was first represented by the likes of August Schleicher, and to a certain extent, Antoine Meillet. Endzelīns thought that the similarity between Baltic and Slavic was explicable through language contact while Schleicher, Meillet and others argued for a kinship between the two families. An attempt to reconcile the opposing stances was made by Jan Michał Rozwadowski and he proposed that the two language groups were indeed a unity after the division of Indo-European, but also suggested that after the two had divided into separate entities, they had posterior contact. The genetic kinship view is augmented by the fact that Proto-Balto-Slavic is easily reconstructible with important proofs in historic prosody, vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov believed in the unity of Balto-Slavic, but not in the unity of Baltic. In the 1960s, they proposed a new division, that into East-Baltic, West-Baltic, the Ivanov–Toporov theory is gaining ground among students of comparative-historic grammar of Indo-European language, and seems to be replacing the previous two stances in most PIE textbooks
13.
Vilnia River
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Vilnia is a river in Lithuania. Its source is near the village of Vindžiūnai,5 km south of Šumskas, the Vilnia is 79.6 km long and its basin covers 624 sq. km. For 13 km its flow makes the Belarus-Lithuania border, and the remaining 69 km are in Lithuania until it flows into the Neris River at Vilnius, eventually, its waters, via the Neriss drainage into the Neman River, flow into the Baltic Sea. Its confluence with the Neris lies within the city of Vilnius, springs along its length contribute to its flow. A series of wells accessing the rivers groundwaters, drilled in the early 20th century, the name of the river derives from the Lithuanian language word vilnis or vilnyti. Vilnelė, the form of the original hydronym Vilnia, came into popular use in Lithuanian. In an effort to restore the upstream migration of salmonids in the basin, a fish ladder was constructed on the Vilnia in 2000
14.
Montmartre
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Montmartre is a large hill in Pariss 18th arrondissement. It is 130 m high and gives its name to the surrounding district, Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacré-Cœur on its summit and as a nightclub district. The other, older, church on the hill is Saint Pierre de Montmartre, Montmartre is also the setting for several hit films. This site is served by metro, with line 2 stations at Anvers, Pigalle, and Blanche and line 12 stations at Pigalle, Abbesses, Lamarck - Caulaincourt, texts from the 8th century cite the name of mons Mercori, and a 9th-century text speaks of Mount Mars. Excavations in 1975 north of the Church of Saint-Pierre found coins from the 3rd century, earlier excavations in the 17th century at the Fontaine-du-But found vestiges of Roman baths from the 2nd century. According to Hilduin, Denis collected his head and carried it as far as the fontaine Saint-Denis, then descended the slope of the hill. Hilduin wrote that a church had built in the place formerly called Mont de Mars. In 1134, king Louis VI purchased the Merovingian chapel and built on the site the church of Saint-Pierre de Montmartre and he also founded The Royal Abbey of Montmartre, a monastery of the Benedictine order, whose buildings, gardens and fields occupied most of Montmartre. He also built a chapel, called the Martyrium, at the site where it was believed that Saint Denis had been decapitated. It became a pilgrimage site. In the 17th century, a priory called abbaye den bas was built at that site, the abbey was destroyed in 1790 during the French Revolution, and the convent demolished to make place for gypsum mines. The church of Saint-Pierre was saved, at the place where the chapel of the Martyrs was located, an oratory was built in 1855. By the 15th century, the north and northeast slopes of the hill were the site of a surrounded by vineyards, gardens and orchards of peach. The first mills were built on the slope in 1529, grinding wheat, barley. The siege eventually failed when a relief force approached and forced Henry to withdraw. In 1790, Montmartre was located just outside the limits of Paris and that year, under the revolutionary government of the National Constituent Assembly, it became the commune of Montmartre, with its town hall located on place du Tertre, site of the former abbey. The main businesses of the commune were wine making, stone quarries, the mining of gypsum had begun in the Gallo-Roman period, first in open air mines and then underground, and continued until 1860. The gypsum was cut into blocks, baked, then ground, sold as montmartarite, it was used for plaster, because of its resistance to fire and water
15.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
16.
Freetown Christiania
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It was temporarily closed by residents in April 2011 while discussions continued with the Danish government about its future, but then re-opened to the public. Christiania has been a source of controversy since its creation in a military area in 1971. Its cannabis trade was tolerated by authorities until 2004, in the years following 2004, measures for normalizing the legal status of the community led to conflicts, police raids and negotiations. The area of Christiania consists of the military barracks of Bådsmandsstræde. The ramparts and the borough of Christianshavn were established in 1617 by King Christian IV by reclaiming the low beaches, after the siege of Copenhagen during wars with Sweden, the ramparts were reinforced during 1682 to 1692 under Christian V to form a complete defence ring. The western ramparts of Copenhagen were demolished during the 19th century and they are today considered among the finest surviving 17th century defence works in the world. The barracks of Bådsmandsstræde housed the Royal Artillery Regiment, the Army Materiel Command and ammunition laboratories, less used after World War II, the barracks were abandoned between 1967 and 1971. The adjacent area to the north, Holmen, was Denmarks main naval base until the 1990s and it is an area in development, home to the new Copenhagen Opera House and schools. An area further north is used by the navy. The outermost defence line, Enveloppen, has been renamed Dyssen in Christiania language and it is connected to central Christiania by a bridge across the main moat or can be reached by the path beginning at Christmas Møllers Plads. Four gunpowder storehouses line the redans and they were built 1779-80 to replace a storage in central Copenhagen, at Østerport, which exploded infamously in 1770, killing 50 people. The buildings are renamed Aircondition, Autogena, Fakirskolen and Kosmiske Blomst and have, although protected, the last Danish execution site, active from 1946 to 1950, can still be seen on the Second Redan close to the building called Aircondition. The wooden execution shed is gone, but the concrete foundation, in total,29 World War II criminals were executed on the site. The last was Ib Birkedal, a high-level Danish Gestapo collaborator, in 2007, the National Heritage Agency proposed protection status for some of the ancient military buildings, now in Christiania. Some of the buildings have been altered somewhat after Christianias takeover. After the military moved out, the area was guarded by a few watchmen. On 4 September 1971, inhabitants of the surrounding neighborhood broke down the fence to take parts of the unused area as a playground for their children. Although the takeover was not necessarily organized in the beginning, some claim this happened as a protest against the Danish government, at the time there was a lack of affordable housing in Copenhagen
17.
Copenhagen
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Copenhagen, Danish, København, Latin, Hafnia) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark. Copenhagen has an population of 1,280,371. The Copenhagen metropolitan area has just over 2 million inhabitants, the city is situated on the eastern coast of the island of Zealand, another small portion of the city is located on Amager, and is separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the strait of Øresund. The Øresund Bridge connects the two cities by rail and road, originally a Viking fishing village founded in the 10th century, Copenhagen became the capital of Denmark in the early 15th century. Beginning in the 17th century it consolidated its position as a centre of power with its institutions, defences. After suffering from the effects of plague and fire in the 18th century and this included construction of the prestigious district of Frederiksstaden and founding of such cultural institutions as the Royal Theatre and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Later, following the Second World War, the Finger Plan fostered the development of housing, since the turn of the 21st century, Copenhagen has seen strong urban and cultural development, facilitated by investment in its institutions and infrastructure. The city is the cultural, economic and governmental centre of Denmark, Copenhagens economy has seen rapid developments in the service sector, especially through initiatives in information technology, pharmaceuticals and clean technology. Since the completion of the Øresund Bridge, Copenhagen has become integrated with the Swedish province of Scania and its largest city, Malmö. With a number of connecting the various districts, the cityscape is characterized by parks, promenades. Copenhagen is home to the University of Copenhagen, the Technical University of Denmark, the University of Copenhagen, founded in 1479, is the oldest university in Denmark. Copenhagen is home to the FC København and Brøndby football clubs, the annual Copenhagen Marathon was established in 1980. Copenhagen is one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the world, the Copenhagen Metro serves central Copenhagen while the Copenhagen S-train network connects central Copenhagen to its outlying boroughs. Serving roughly 2 million passengers a month, Copenhagen Airport, Kastrup, is the largest airport in the Nordic countries, the name of the city reflects its origin as a harbour and a place of commerce. The original designation, from which the contemporary Danish name derives, was Køpmannæhafn, meaning merchants harbour, the literal English translation would be Chapmans haven. The English name for the city was adapted from its Low German name, the abbreviations Kbh. or Kbhvn are often used in Danish for København, and kbh. for københavnsk. The chemical element hafnium is named for Copenhagen, where it was discovered, the bacterium Hafnia is also named after Copenhagen, Vagn Møller of the State Serum Institute in Copenhagen named it in 1954. Excavations in Pilestræde have also led to the discovery of a well from the late 12th century, the remains of an ancient church, with graves dating to the 11th century, have been unearthed near where Strøget meets Rådhuspladsen
18.
Lithuanian Jews
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Lithuanian Jews or Litvaks are Jews with roots in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The term is used to cover all Orthodox Jews who follow a Lithuanian style of life and learning. The area where Lithuanian Jews lived is referred to in Yiddish as Líta, Lithuania was historically home to a large and influential Jewish community that was almost entirely eliminated during the Holocaust. Before World War II, the Lithuanian Jewish population was some 160,000, Vilnius had a Jewish community of nearly 100,000, about 45% of the citys total population. There were over 110 synagogues and 10 yeshivas in Vilnius alone, about 2,000 Jews were counted in Lithuania during the 2005 census. Quoting the research done by H. G, using different sources Holocaust researchers claim there were between 60,000 and 65,000 Jewish soldiers in Polands independent army who identified themselves as Lithuanian Jews. The Yiddish adjective ליטוויש Litvish means Lithuanian, the noun for a Lithuanian Jew is Litvak. Of the main Yiddish dialects in Europe, the Litvishe Yiddish dialect was spoken by Jews in Lithuania, Belarus, Latvia, Estonia and northeaster Poland, including Suwałki, Lomza, in modern Israel Litaim is often used for all Haredi Jews who are not Hasidim. Other expressions used for this purpose are Yeshivishe and Misnagdim, both the words Litvishe and Litaim are somewhat misleading, because there are also Hasidic Jews from greater Lithuania and lots of Lithuanian Jews who are not Haredim. The term Misnagdim on the hand is somewhat outdated, because the opposition between the two groups has lost much of its relevance. Yeshivishe is also problematic because Hasidim now make use of yeshivot as much as the Litvishe Jews, the characteristically Lithuanian approach to Judaism was marked by a concentration on highly intellectual Talmud study. Lithuania became the heartland of the traditionalist opposition to Hasidism, differences between the groups grew to the extent that in popular perception Lithuanian and misnagged became virtually interchangeable terms. However, a minority of Lithuanian Jews belong to Hasidic groups, including Chabad, Slonim, Karlin. The most famous Lithuanian institution of Jewish learning was Volozhin yeshiva, twentieth century Lithuanian yeshivas include Ponevezh, Telshe, Mir, Kelm, and Slabodka, which bear the names of their Lithuanian forebears. In theoretical Talmud study, the leading Lithuanian authorities were Chaim Soloveitchik, in the 19th century, the Orthodox Ashkenazi residents of the Holy Land, broadly speaking, were divided into Hasidim and Perushim, who were Lithuanian Jews influenced by the Vilna Gaon. In reality, both the ethnic makeup and the traditions of the misnagged communities are much more diverse. Customs of Lithuanian non Hasidic Jews consist of, Wearing of tefillin during non sabbath days of the days of the festival chol hamoed. The pronunciation of the holam as ej, although not widespread and uniform among Lithuanian Jews, the shin being pronounced the same way as sin
19.
Graffiti
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Graffiti are writing or drawings that have been scribbled, scratched, or painted illicitly on a wall or other surface, often within public view. Graffiti range from simple written words to elaborate wall paintings, and they have existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, in modern times, paint and marker pens have become the most commonly used graffiti materials. In most countries, marking or painting property without the property owners permission is considered defacement and vandalism, Graffiti may also express underlying social and political messages and a whole genre of artistic expression is based upon spray paint graffiti styles. Within hip hop culture, graffiti have evolved alongside hip hop music, b-boying, unrelated to hip-hop graffiti, gangs use their own form of graffiti to mark territory or to serve as an indicator of gang-related activities. Controversies that surround graffiti continue to create disagreement amongst city officials, law enforcement, both graffiti and its occasional singular form graffito are from the Italian word graffiato. Graffiti is applied in art history to works of art produced by scratching a design into a surface, a related term is sgraffito, which involves scratching through one layer of pigment to reveal another beneath it. This technique was used by potters who would glaze their wares. In ancient times graffiti were carved on walls with a sharp object, the word originates from Greek γράφειν — graphein — meaning to write. The term graffiti referred to the inscriptions, figure drawings, and such, found on the walls of ancient sepulchres or ruins, use of the word has evolved to include any graphics applied to surfaces in a manner that constitutes vandalism. Safaitic dates from the first century BC to the fourth century AD, the first known example of modern style graffiti survives in the ancient Greek city of Ephesus. Local guides say it is an advertisement for prostitution, located near a mosaic and stone walkway, the graffiti shows a handprint that vaguely resembles a heart, along with a footprint and a number. This is believed to indicate that a brothel was nearby, with the handprint symbolizing payment, the ancient Romans carved graffiti on walls and monuments, examples of which also survive in Egypt. Graffiti in the world had different connotations than they carry in todays society concerning content. One inscription gives the address of a woman named Novellia Primigenia of Nuceria, another shows a phallus accompanied by the text, mansueta tene. Etched on the surface of the Mirror Wall, they contain pieces of prose, poetry, the majority of these visitors appear to have been from the elite of society, royalty, officials, professions, and clergy. There were also soldiers, archers, and even some metalworkers, the topics range from love to satire, curses, wit, and lament. Many demonstrate a high level of literacy and a deep appreciation of art. Most of the graffiti refer to the frescoes of semi-nude females found there, one reads, Among the ancient political graffiti examples were Arab satirist poems
20.
Bernardine Cemetery
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The Bernardine Cemetery, is one of the three oldest cemeteries in Vilnius, Lithuania. It covers about 38,000 square metres and has an estimated 14,000 burial sites. It was established in 1810 by the Bernardine monks of the Church of St. Francis of Assisi, just east of the city center in the Užupis district and its development was a consequence of Tsarist authorities of the Russian Empire prohibiting burying the dead near churches. The residents of Vilnius moved the cemetery to what was then the outskirts of the city, the Columbaria were built on the east and west sides of the cemetery. The cemetery was expanded in 1860, after the Second World War the cemetery was abandoned for the most part and began to deteriorate. It was closed in the 1970s and since then until recently it had remained almost unchanged, many of the oldest graves had sunk into the ground and became covered in moss. The eastern columbarium had almost entirely disappeared, restoration and reconstruction of its buildings and monuments, including the western columbarium, began in the late 1990s. The restoration work was funded by donors as well as through a joint effort by the Polish. V tomas, Vilniaus arkiviskupija, I dalis, department of Cultural Heritage Protection under Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania. Series of photos of the cemetery
21.
The Holocaust
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The Holocaust, also referred to as the Shoah, was a genocide in which some six million European Jews were killed by Adolf Hitlers Nazi Germany, and the World War II collaborators with the Nazis. The victims included 1.5 million children, and represented about two-thirds of the nine million Jews who had resided in Europe, killings took place throughout German-occupied Europe, as well as within Nazi Germany, and across all territories controlled by its allies. Other victims of Nazi crimes included ethnic Poles and other Slavs, Soviet citizens and Soviet POWs, communists, homosexuals, Freemasons, Jehovahs Witnesses, some 42,500 detention facilities were utilized in the concentration of victims for the purpose of gross violations of human rights. Over 200,000 people are estimated to have been Holocaust perpetrators, the persecution was carried out in stages, culminating in the policy of extermination of European Jews termed the Final Solution to the Jewish Question. Following Hitlers rise to power, the German government passed laws to exclude Jews from civil society, starting in 1933 the Nazis began to establish a network of concentration camps. After the outbreak of war in 1939 both German and foreign Jews were herded into wartime ghettos, in 1941, as Germany began to conquer new territory in the East, all anti-Jewish measures radicalized. Specialized paramilitary units called Einsatzgruppen murdered around two million Jews in mass shootings actions in less than a year, by mid-1942, victims were being regularly transported by freight trains to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, most were systematically killed in gas chambers. This continued until the end of World War II in Europe in April–May 1945, the most notable exception was the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943, when thousands of poorly-armed Jewish fighters held the Waffen-SS at bay for four weeks. An estimated 20, 000–30,000 Jewish partisans actively fought against the Nazis, French Jews took part in the French Resistance, which conducted a guerilla campaign against the Nazis and Vichy French authorities. Over a hundred armed Jewish uprisings took place, the term holocaust comes from the Greek adjective holókaustos, a variant of holókautos, referring to an animal sacrifice offered to a god in which the whole animal is completely burnt. Often used substantively in apposition with the noun thysia, the term appears in a fragment of pseudo-Callisthenes, writing in Latin, Jerome Latinized the Greek word as a neuter noun holocaustum, using it to translate references to the Jewish burnt offering in his translations of Exodus and Leviticus. In his Chronicon de rebus gestis Ricardi Primi, Richard of Devizes, the English poet John Milton had used the word to denote a conflagration in his 1671 poem Samson Agonistes and the word gradually developed to mean a massacre thereon. The term was used in the 1950s by historians as a translation of the Jewish word shoah to refer specifically to the Nazi genocide of Jews, the television mini-series Holocaust is credited with introducing the term into common parlance after 1978. The biblical word shoah, meaning calamity became the standard Hebrew term for the Holocaust as early as the 1940s, especially in Europe and Israel. Shoah is preferred by some Jews for several reasons including the offensive nature of the word holocaust which they take to refer to the Greek pagan custom. The Nazis used the phrase Final Solution to the Jewish Question, all branches of Germanys bureaucracy were engaged in the logistics that led to the genocides, turning the Third Reich into what one Holocaust scholar, Michael Berenbaum, has called a genocidal state. Every arm of the countrys sophisticated bureaucracy was involved in the killing process, as prisoners entered the death camps, they were made to surrender all personal property, which was catalogued and tagged before being sent to Germany to be reused or recycled. Berenbaum writes that the Final Solution of the Jewish question was in the eyes of the perpetrators, through a concealed account, the German National Bank helped launder valuables stolen from the victims
22.
Jewish cemeteries of Vilnius
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Two of the cemeteries were destroyed by the Soviet regime and the third is still active. The oldest and the largest Jewish cemetery was established in the 15th century in Šnipiškės suburb, now in Žirmūnai elderate, in Vilna Jewish culture, the cemetery was known as Piramont. It was closed by the Tsarist authorities in 1831 and it was destroyed by the Soviet authorities in 1949–50 during the construction of Žalgiris Stadium. The Vilnius Palace of Concerts and Sports was built in 1971 right in the middle of the former cemetery, in 2005, apartment and office buildings were built at the site. In August 2009, Lithuanian government reached an agreement with Jewish organizations on the boundaries of the cemetery, buildings already on the site will not be demolished. The second cemetery was located in Užupis and it was active from 1828 to 1943 or 1948. It was also destroyed by the Soviet authorities in 1960s following the destruction of the Great Synagogue of Vilna, tombstones from the two old cemeteries were used for staircases in various construction works around the city. Currently a memorial constructed of them marks the location of the entrance to the cemetery. Moreover, there are plans to build a monument in place of the old cemetery in Užupis, the new Jewish cemetery was opened in Šeškinė district near Sudervė Cemetery. Some graves of people, including that of the Vilna Gaon, were relocated to the new place from the old cemeteries before the destruction. Currently it has about 6,500 Jewish graves
23.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
24.
Homelessness
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Homelessness is the condition of people without a permanent dwelling, such as a house or apartment. People who are homeless are most often unable to acquire and maintain regular, safe, secure, the legal definition of homeless varies from country to country, or among different jurisdictions in the same country or region. According to the UK homelessness charity Crisis, a home is not just a space, it also provides roots, identity, security, a sense of belonging. American government homeless enumeration studies also include people who sleep in a public or private place not designed for use as a sleeping accommodation for human beings. There are a number of organizations who provide help for the homeless, in 2005, an estimated 100 million people worldwide were homeless, and as many as 1 billion people live as squatters, refugees or in temporary shelter, all lacking adequate housing. In Western countries, the majority of homeless are men. Most countries provide a variety of services to assist homeless people and these services often provide food, shelter and clothing and may be organized and run by community organizations or by government departments or agencies. These programs may be supported by the government, charities, churches, many cities also have street newspapers, which are publications designed to provide employment opportunity to homeless people. While some homeless have jobs, some must seek other methods to make a living, begging or panhandling is one option, but is becoming increasingly illegal in many cities. People who are homeless may have conditions, such as physical or mental health issues or substance addiction. In 2004, the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs defined a homeless household as those households without a shelter that would fall within the scope of living quarters. They carry their few possessions with them, sleeping in the streets, in doorways or on piers, or in another space and this category includes persons living in the streets without a shelter that would fall within the scope of living quarters, Secondary homelessness. This category may include persons with no place of usual residence who move frequently between various types of accommodations and this category includes persons living in private dwellings but reporting no usual address on their census form. The CES acknowledges that the approach does not provide a full definition of the homeless. Homelessness is perceived and addressed according to country. The ETHOS approach confirms that homelessness is a process that affects many vulnerable households at different points in their lives. The typology was launched in 2005 and is used for different purposes, as a framework for debate, for collection purposes, for policy purposes, monitoring purposes. This typology is an exercise which makes abstraction of existing legal definitions in the EU member states
25.
Squatting
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Squatting is the action of occupying an abandoned or unoccupied area of land or a building, usually residential—that the squatter does not own, rent or otherwise have lawful permission to use. Author Robert Neuwirth suggested in 2004 that there were one billion squatters globally and he forecasts there will be two billion by 2030 and three billion by 2050. Yet, according to Kesia Reeve, squatting is largely absent from policy and academic debate and is rarely conceptualised, as a problem, as a symptom, Squatting can be related to political movements, such as anarchist, autonomist, or socialist. It can be a means to conserve buildings or to provide housing, while these settlements may, in time, grow to become both legalised and indistinguishable from normal residential neighbourhoods, they start off as squats with minimal basic infrastructure. Thus, there is no sewage system, drinking water must be bought from vendors or carried from a nearby tap, besides being residences, some squats are used as social centres or host give-away shops, pirate radio stations or cafés. In Spanish-speaking countries, squatters receive several names, such as okupas in Spain, Chile or Argentina, Squatting by necessity is in itself a political issue, therefore also a statement or rather a response to the political system causing it. During the period of recession and increased housing foreclosures in the 2000s, squatting became far more prevalent in Western. In some cases, need-based and politically motivated squatting go hand in hand, conservational – i. e. preserving monuments because the authorities have let them decay Political – e. g. Property law and the state have traditionally favored the property owner, however, in many cases where squatters had de facto ownership, laws have been changed to legitimize their status. Anarchist Colin Ward comments, Squatting is the oldest mode of tenure in the world and this is as true of the Queen with her 176,000 acres as it is of the 54 percent of householders in Britain who are owner-occupiers. They are all the recipients of stolen land, for to regard our planet as a commodity offends every conceivable principle of natural rights. U. K. police official Sue Williams, for example, has stated that Squatting is linked to Anti-Social Behaviour and can cause a great deal of nuisance, in some cases there may also be criminal activities involved. The public attitude toward squatting varies, depending on legal aspects, socioeconomic conditions, in particular, while squatting of municipal buildings may be treated leniently, squatting of private property often leads to strong negative reaction on the part of the public and authorities. Adverse possession is a method of acquiring title to property through possession for a period under certain conditions. Countries where this principle exists include England and the United States, however, some non-common law jurisdictions have laws similar to adverse possession. For example, Louisiana has a doctrine called acquisitive prescription. There are large communities in Kenya, such as Kibera in Nairobi. An estimated 1,000 people live in the Grande Hotel Beira in Mozambique, the Zabbaleen settlement and the City of the Dead are both well-known squatter communities in Cairo
26.
Constitution
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A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i. e. constitute, some constitutions are uncodified, but written in numerous fundamental Acts of a legislature, court cases or treaties. Constitutions concern different levels of organizations, from states to companies. A treaty which establishes an international organization is also its constitution, within states, a constitution defines the principles upon which the state is based, the procedure in which laws are made and by whom. Some constitutions, especially codified constitutions, also act as limiters of state power, by establishing lines which a states rulers cannot cross, the term constitution comes through French from the Latin word constitutio, used for regulations and orders, such as the imperial enactments. Later, the term was used in canon law for an important determination, especially a decree issued by the Pope. The Latin term ultra vires describes activities of officials within an organization or polity that fall outside the constitutional or statutory authority of those officials. Ultra vires gives a justification for the forced cessation of such action. A violation of rights by an official would be ultra vires because a right is a restriction on the powers of government, and therefore that official would be exercising powers they do not have. It was never law, even though, if it had been a statute or statutory provision, in such a case, only the application may be ruled unconstitutional. Historically, the remedy for such violations have been petitions for common law writs, excavations in modern-day Iraq by Ernest de Sarzec in 1877 found evidence of the earliest known code of justice, issued by the Sumerian king Urukagina of Lagash ca 2300 BC. Perhaps the earliest prototype for a law of government, this document itself has not yet been discovered, for example, it is known that it relieved tax for widows and orphans, and protected the poor from the usury of the rich. After that, many governments ruled by codes of written laws. The oldest such document still known to exist seems to be the Code of Ur-Nammu of Ur, some of the better-known ancient law codes include the code of Lipit-Ishtar of Isin, the code of Hammurabi of Babylonia, the Hittite code, the Assyrian code and Mosaic law. In 621 BC a scribe named Draco codified the cruel oral laws of the city-state of Athens, in 594 BC Solon, the ruler of Athens, created the new Solonian Constitution. It eased the burden of the workers, and determined that membership of the class was to be based on wealth. Cleisthenes again reformed the Athenian constitution and set it on a footing in 508 BC. The most basic definition he used to describe a constitution in general terms was the arrangement of the offices in a state
27.
Sovereign state
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A sovereign state is, in international law, a nonphysical juridical entity that is represented by one centralized government that has sovereignty over a geographic area. International law defines sovereign states as having a permanent population, defined territory, one government, and it is also normally understood that a sovereign state is neither dependent on nor subjected to any other power or state. The existence or disappearance of a state is a question of fact, States came into existence as people gradually transferred their allegiance from an individual sovereign to an intangible but territorial political entity, of the state. States are but one of political orders that emerged from feudal Europe, others being city states, leagues. Westphalian sovereignty is the concept of sovereignty based on territoriality. It is a system of states, multinational corporations. Sovereignty is a term that is frequently misused and that position was reflected and constituted in the notion that their sovereignty was either completely lacking, or at least of an inferior character when compared to that of civilised people. Lassa Oppenheim said There exists perhaps no conception the meaning of which is more controversial than that of sovereignty. It is a fact that this conception, from the moment when it was introduced into political science until the present day, has never had a meaning which was universally agreed upon. In the opinion of H. V. Evatt of the High Court of Australia, sovereignty is neither a question of fact, nor a question of law, but a question that does not arise at all. The right of nations to determine their own status and exercise permanent sovereignty within the limits of their territorial jurisdictions is widely recognized. The Westphalian model of sovereignty has increasingly come under fire from the non-west as a system imposed solely by Western Colonialism. What this model did was make religion a subordinate to politics and this system does not fit in the Islamic world because concepts such as separation of church and state and individual conscience are not recognised in the Islamic religion as social systems. Nation denotes a people who are believed to or deemed to share common customs, religion, language, origins, however, the adjectives national and international are frequently used to refer to matters pertaining to what are strictly sovereign states, as in national capital, international law. State refers to the set of governing and supportive institutions that have sovereignty over a definite territory, State recognition signifies the decision of a sovereign state to treat another entity as also being a sovereign state. Recognition can be expressed or implied and is usually retroactive in its effects. It does not necessarily signify a desire to establish or maintain diplomatic relations, There is no definition that is binding on all the members of the community of nations on the criteria for statehood. In actual practice, the criteria are mainly political, not legal, in international law, however, there are several theories of when a state should be recognised as sovereign
28.
April Fools' Day
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April Fools Day is celebrated every year on April 1 by playing practical jokes and spreading hoaxes. The jokes and their victims are called April fools, people playing April Fool jokes expose their prank by shouting April Fool. Some newspapers, magazines, and other published media report fake stories, although popular since the 19th century, the day is not a public holiday in any country. Geoffrey Chaucers The Canterbury Tales contains the first recorded association between April 1 and foolishness, the custom of setting aside a day for the playing of harmless pranks upon ones neighbor is recognized widely throughout the world. Some precursors of April Fools Day include the Roman festival of Hilaria, in Chaucers Canterbury Tales, the Nuns Priests Tale is set Syn March bigan thritty dayes and two. Modern scholars believe there is a copying error in the extant manuscripts. Thus the passage originally meant 32 days after March, i. e.2 May, the anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia, readers apparently misunderstood this line to mean 32 March, i. e. April 1. In Chaucers tale, the vain cock Chauntecleer is tricked by a fox, in 1508, French poet Eloy dAmerval referred to a poisson d’avril, a possible reference to the holiday. In 1539, Flemish poet Eduard de Dene wrote of a nobleman who sent his servants on foolish errands on April 1, in 1686, John Aubrey referred to the holiday as Fooles holy day, the first British reference. On April 1,1698, several people were tricked into going to the Tower of London to see the Lions washed, in the Middle Ages, New Years Day was celebrated on March 25 in most European towns. In some areas of France, New Years was a week-long holiday ending on April 1, some writers suggest that April Fools originated because those who celebrated on January 1 made fun of those who celebrated on other dates. The use of January 1 as New Years Day was common in France by the century. In the Netherlands, the origin of April Fools Day is often attributed to the Dutch victory at Brielle in 1572, op 1 april verloor Alva zijn bril. is a Dutch proverb, which can be translated to, On the first of April, Alva lost his glasses. In this case, the serve as a metaphor for Brielle. This theory, however, provides no explanation for the celebration of April Fools Day. Although no Biblical scholar or historian are known to have mentioned a relationship, in a 1908 edition of the Harpers Weekly cartoonist newspaper, Bertha R. McDonald wrote, authorities gravely back with it to the time of Noah, in the UK, an April Fool joke is revealed by shouting April fool. At the recipient, who becomes the April fool, a study in the 1950s, by folklorists Iona and Peter Opie, found that in the UK, and in countries whose traditions derived from the UK, the joking ceased at midday
29.
Lithuanian litas
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The Lithuanian litas was the currency of Lithuania, until 1 January 2015, when it was replaced by the euro. It was divided into 100 centų, the name was modeled after the name of the country. From 1994 to 2002, the litas was pegged to the U. S. dollar at the rate of 4 to 1, the litas was pegged to the euro at the rate of 3.4528 to 1 since 2002. The euro was expected to replace the litas by January 1,2007, but persistent high inflation, on 1 January 2015 the litas was switched to the euro at the rate of 3.4528 to 1. The first litas was introduced on 2 October 1922, replacing the ostmark and ostruble, the ostmark was known as the auksinas in Lithuania. The litas was established at a value of 10 litų =1 US dollar and was subdivided into 100 centų. In the face of economic depression, the litas appeared to be quite a strong and stable currency. One litas was covered by 0.150462 grams of gold stored by the Bank of Lithuania in foreign countries. In March 1923, the circulation amounted to 39,412,984 litas, backed by 15,738,964 in actual gold and it was required that at least one third of the total circulation would be covered by gold and the rest by other assets. By 1938,1 U. S. dollar was worth about 5.9 litai, in March 1939 Nazi Germany demanded that Lithuania give up the Klaipėda Region, which had been detached from Germany after World War I. The Lithuanian government complied, and on 23 March 1939 the area was annexed by Germany, on the same day the reichsmark replaced the litas as the official currency of the region, with 1 litas being exchanged for 40 pfennig. Until 20 May 1939 inhabitants of the Memelgebiet could exchange litas for reichsmarks. The litas was replaced by the Soviet ruble in April 1941 after Lithuania was annexed by the Soviet Union, with 1 litas equal to 0.9 ruble, such an exchange rate provided great profits for the military and party officials. Trying to protect the value of the currency, people started to buy which, together with a downfall in production. Withdrawals were then limited to 250 litų before the litas was completely abolished. Coins were introduced in 1925 in denominations of 1 centas,2 centai,5 centai,10,20,50 centų,10 litų coins were introduced in 1936. All these coins were designed by the sculptor Juozas Zikaras, the litas coins displayed Jonas Basanavičius and Vytautas the Great, which was replaced by a portrait of President Antanas Smetona. In 1922, the Bank of Lithuania issued notes in denominations of 1 centas,2 centu,5 centai,10,20,50 centų, in 1924,500 and 1000 litų notes were added
30.
Felix Dzerzhinsky
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Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, nicknamed Iron Felix, was a Polish and Russian Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet statesman. His party pseudonyms were Yatsek, Yakub, Pereplyotchik, Franek, Astronom, Yuzef and he was a member of several revolutionary committees such as the Polish Revkom as well as several Russian and Soviet official positions. Dzerzhinsky is best known for establishing and developing the Soviet secret police forces, later he was a member of the Soviet government heading several commissariats, while being the chief of the Soviet secret police. The Cheka soon became notorious for mass executions, performed especially during the Red Terror. Felix Dzerzhinsky was born on 11 September 1877 at the Dzerzhinovo family estate, about 15 km away from a town of Ivyanets, in the Minsk Region. His aristocratic family belonged to the former Polish szlachta, of the Sulima coat of arms, as a child, before taking to Marxist ideology, Felix considered becoming a Jesuit priest. His sister Wanda died at the age of 12, when she was shot with a hunting rifle on the family estate by one of the brothers. At the time of the incident, there were conflicting claims as to whether Felix or his brother Stanisław was responsible for the accident. In 1868, after a stint in Kherson gymnasium, he worked as a gymnasium teacher of physics and mathematics at the gymnasiums of Taganrog. In 1875 Edmund Dzierżyński retired due to conditions and moved with his family to his estate near Ivyanets and Rakaw. In 1882 Felixs father died from tuberculosis, as a youngster Dzerzhinsky became fluent in four languages, Polish, Russian, Yiddish, and Latin. He attended the Wilno gymnasium from 1887 to 1895, one of the older students at this gymnasium was his future arch-enemy, Józef Piłsudski. Years later, as Marshal of Poland, Piłsudski recalled that Dzerzhinsky, distinguished himself as a student with delicacy and modesty. He was rather tall, thin and demure, making the impression of an ascetic with the face of an icon, tormented or not, this is an issue history will clarify, in any case this person did not know how to lie. School documents show that Dzerzhinsky attended his first year in school twice, two months before graduating, Dzerzhinsky was expelled from the gymnasium for revolutionary activity. He had joined a Marxist group, the Union of Workers, in late April 1896, he was one of 15 delegates at the first congress of the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party. In 1897, he attended the congress of the LSDP. On 18 March 1897, he was sent to Kaunas, to advantage of the arrest of the Polish Socialist Party branch
31.
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
32.
Micronation
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Several micronations have issued coins, flags, postage stamps, passports, medals, and other items. These items are rarely accepted outside of their own community but may be sold as novelties to help raise money or collected by enthusiasts, the earliest known micronations date from the beginning of the 19th century. The differences between such Internet micronations, other kinds of social networking groups, and role-playing games are difficult to define. The term micronation to describe those entities dates at least to the 1970s, the term micropatrology is sometimes used to describe the study of both micronations and microstates by micronationalists, some of whom refer to sovereign nation-states as macronations. The term micronation literally means small nation and it is a neologism originating in the mid-1970s to describe the many thousands of small unrecognised state-like entities that have mostly arisen since that time. The term has also come to be used retrospectively to refer to earlier unrecognized entities. Amongst supporters of micronations the term macronation is in use to refer to any internationally recognised sovereign nation-state. Not all micronations are small, some can be rather large, Micronations generally have a number of common features, although these may vary widely. They may have a similar to established sovereign states, including territorial claims, government institutions, official symbols and citizens. Micronations may also issue formal instruments such as stamps, coins, banknotes and passports. The Montevideo Convention was one attempt to create a definition distinguishing between states and non-states. Some micronations meet this definition, while some do not, nine main types of micronations are prevalent, Social, economic, or political simulations. Exercises in personal entertainment or self-aggrandisement, vehicles for the promotion of an agenda. These micronations tend to have a serious intent, and often involve significant numbers of people interested in recreating the past or simulating political or social processes. Nova Roma, a group claiming a membership of several thousand that has minted its own coins, maintains its own wiki. Embassy of Heaven, a Christian church that can be considered a micronation, Grand Duchy of Flandrensis, a Belgian micronation with claims over some territories of Antarctica. The micronation is also a simulation and cultural organization. In 2012, the micronation was composed of 114 citizens from 21 different nationalities, holy Empire of Reunion, a Brazilian micronation founded in 1997 as an online constitutional monarchy simulation
33.
Aerican Empire
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The Aerican Empire is a micronation founded in May 1987, which has no sovereign territory of its own and has never been recognized by any other sovereign state as existing. The name is cultured from the term American Empire, in 2000 The New York Times described its website as one of the more imaginative micronation sites. As with most micronations, the number of members has fluctuated wildly with time, in May 2009, it was reported to exceed 400 people. Their flag is similar to the flag of Canada, with a yellow smiley face instead of the red maple leaf in the white square. The Aerican Empire was founded on 8 May 1987 by Montreal psychiatrist Eric Lis and a core group of friends. Lis, who founded the Aerican Empire as a child, obtained his M. D. C. M. from McGill University and has published in the Journal of Psychiatry and Neuroscience. For the first ten years the Empire was almost wholly fictional, claiming sovereignty over a vast galaxy of planets, in 1997, the Empire created a website. In 2000, the first growth spurt in the Empires population was triggered by an article in The New York Times, in the months following this, the Empires membership rose to over five hundred people. This number slowly fell over the years as members left. The Empires mission statement is, The Empire exists to facilitate the evolution of a society wherein the Empire itself is no longer necessary and it claims to be organized as a parliamentary democracy, with various elected bodies and offices, under the oversight of an Emperor. The Aerican Empire first issued coinage in November 2009, and a coin was minted to celebrate Aericas 25th anniversary in 2012. It does not have printed passports, but has a downloadable novelty passport, the first issued passport was exhibited in the Palais de Tokyo 2007 Micronational art exhibition. Aerica issued stamps for the first time in 2015, annually, the Empire holds story-writing contests, role-playing and wargaming days, and such events as the Dog-Biscuit Appreciation Day Scavenger Hunt. It also developed a religion called Silinism, the worship of the Great Penguin, originally intended as a joke, possibly the single most widespread cultural activity within the Empire is gaming, particularly role-playing games and wargaming. The Aerican Empires official gaming club is associated with seven universities worldwide and has sponsored/funded/supported an annual gaming day on December 29 since 2003, AEGIS has funded the creation of several Aerican Empire-themed Warhammer 40K armies which have competed nationally in tournaments. While Internet-based activities in the Empire are more well-documented and facilitate interaction between members in different countries, a focus has always been local physical events. Members gather for meetings in Montreal, Springvale, New York and other centers. List of micronations The Aerican Empire
34.
Sovereign State of Aeterna Lucina
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The Sovereign State of Aeterna Lucina was an Australian micronation that existed between the late 1970s until the death of its founder in the 1990s. He also claimed to have awarded over 850 other honours, including Professorships, Doctorates of Philosophy and Divinity. Aeterna Lucina was founded in 1978, and initially occupied a property owned by Neuman near Byron Bay, according to a 1989 television report the Curl Curl residence - known as Vitama - was considered to be the micronations capital. The state was finally relocated to a location in rural Victoria of 16km²
35.
Akhzivland
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For the ancient site and national park see Achziv. For the former Palestinian village at this site see Az-Zeeb, Akhzivland is a micronation between Nahariya and the Lebanese border on the Israeli west coast. The state was founded by Eli Avivi in 1972, the micronation is promoted by the Israel Ministry of Tourism even though its legal status remains ambiguous. The micronation is located near the ruins of Achziv, an ancient settlement on the Mediterranean coast in the Western Galilee, about 5 kilometers north of Nahariya. A national park, field school, and the ruins of the Palestinian village of Az-Zeeb, the current site of Akhzivland is situated near the ancient port city of Achziv. Based on archeological findings and the burial sites located in the region. In the Book of Joshua, Achziv is mentioned as one of the nine cities of Judah, a thriving city was also located on the site during the time of the Mishnah. During the Crusader period, the city was given as a gift to a knight, during the Mamluk period, it was conquered by the Mamluk general Baibars, who established a fishing village at the site called Az-Zeeb. Its residents fled Az-Zeeb during Operation Ben-Ami in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, in 1961, the Israeli government granted the French resort company Club Med a fifty-year lease over part of the areas coastline. In 1952, Iranian-born sailor and Palmach veteran Eli Avivi moved into buildings in the villages, according to former residents of Az Zeeb, Avivi was hired by a family of fishermen, and later moved into the familys house in 1955. In 1970, the Israeli government sent bulldozers to demolish the home in which Avivi had been living, in protest, Eli founded Akhzivland in 1971, setting up a hostel and a museum inside the former home of the mukhtar of Az-Zeeb. The micronation became a tourist site, attracting artists, writers, the micronation elected Avivi to be President, established a flag and national anthem, and even issued passports. For a certain time, visitors’ passports received a special stamp, following the founding of Akhzivland, Avivi was arrested and detained, but was released 10 days later after a judge ruled that the charge of Creation of a Country Without Permission did not exist. After Avivi sued the Israeli government, a court ruled to lease the area to Avivi for 99 years, Akhzivland now contains a guest house, beachfront campground, and a museum of eccentricities, and is open to the public. On the Jewish states micro-state, an Israeli couple rules a beach for 65 years, Jewish News Service, jns. org, March 2,2017
36.
Save Aramoana Campaign
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The Save Aramoana Campaign was formed in 1974 to oppose a proposed aluminium smelter at Aramoana in New Zealand. In the late 1970s Aramoana was proposed as the site of an aluminium smelter by a consortium of New Zealand-based Fletcher-Challenge, Australias CSR Limited. An aluminium smelter was already operating at Tiwai Point when the smelter at Aramoana was proposed, from its inception, the Otago Harbour Board had vested in it for harbour purposes, land on the Northern side of the Otago Harbour entrance. After the Comalco Aluminium Smelter was opened at Bluffs Tiwai Point in 1971 and it was not well founded, and was withdrawn in the face of modest opposition. This had the effect of placing the project sub judice. The Government, keen to use the smelter to justify the Clyde Dam as part of its Think Big programme, passed the National Development Act. Waikouaiti, now combined with Taieri to become Silverpeaks, brought out its own district scheme with much more legally sound provisions for land use, specifically a smelter. Those provisions were fought by the campaigns planner at the council level, 733/82, upheld by that court in decision C51/83 J. Todd and the Careys Bay Assn. All reference to industrial development at Aramoana is to be deleted, with original art work donated by leading New Zealand artists for the purpose, and these raised nearly $NZ500,000 in 1982 terms. The campaign was well funded. Several New Zealand artists were involved in the campaign in other ways, most notably Ralph Hotere, the tide had turned against Think Big, and the smelter was left to sink without trace. Pechiney had left, Alusuisse went off to look for a more congenial site in Zaire, and Aramoana saw the village made freehold, the smelter plan called for the destruction of the villages of Aramoana and Te Ngaru, and also threatened a local wildlife reserve. The campaign attracted the attention of such as Ralph Hotere. However, the campaign waged by Aramoana and its supporters eventually forced a government backdown and this development combined with declining aluminium prices on world commodity markets, eventually led to the withdrawal of Alusuisse from the consortium in October,1981. The proposal is still remembered as a divisive issue, environment of New Zealand List of micronations Micronations portal
37.
Empire of Atlantium
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The Empire of Atlantium is a micronation and secular, pluralist progressive lobby group based in New South Wales, Australia. The books entry on Atlantium notes its espousal of progressive, liberal policies and characterizes it as a secular humanist utopia, among the causes Atlantium supports are the right to unrestricted international freedom of movement, the right to abortion, the right to assisted suicide and decimal calendar reform. It has almost 3,000 citizens, most of whom signed up online from over 100 countries and have never been to Atlantium, Atlantium was established in 1981 by three Sydney teenagers – George Francis Cruickshank, Geoffrey John Duggan and Claire Marie Coulter. Geoffrey Duggan was elected as prime minister, in 1999 Cruickshank purchased an apartment in the inner Sydney suburb of Potts Point, and soon after revived Atlantium, launching a website, which was instrumental in attracting new members. The 61 square metres apartment, known as the Imperium Proper, Concordia became the third capital of Atlantium on 12 January 2008, when the rural 0.76 square kilometres Province of Aurora, approximately 350 kilometres southwest of Sydney, was created. The Atlantium website describes Aurora as Atlantiums global administrative capital, ceremonial focal point, the Province of Aurora covers 0.76 square kilometres and has a fenced 4.5 kilometres long perimeter. It is divided into four divisions, known as the District of Hickey, the District of Duggan, Concordia Capital District. The latter is the current residence of Cruickshank, Concordia is the intended location of facilities to house Atlantiums legislature, government offices, museum, throne hall and commemorative monuments. It is the location of a residential and administrative building, several service structures. Aurora is also the site of an historic gold-processing facility built, the Atlantium website uses several different self-descriptions, including self-declared state, aspirant microstate and global sovereign state. No established nation has recognised Atlantiums sovereignty claims, and it has no diplomatic relations. Atlantium has appointed unaccredited diplomatic representatives called Imperial Legates in the United States, Pakistan, Poland, Brazil, India, Italy, Iran, Singapore, Serbia and Switzerland. The group has awarded Imperial Honours to various recipients, generally in recognition of political activism or for service to local communities, stamps, coins and banknotes are sold by Atlantium, which uses a decimal currency system of 100 imperial centi to the imperial solidus. Atlantiums website claims that the profits from sales are used for the Empires ongoing operations as well as charitable causes. The earliest documented media report referring to Atlantium is a 1984 philatelic magazine article about its cinderella stamp releases, there are currently 12 issues of Atlantian stamps. Atlantium mints coins, though the levels of Atlantian economic activity remain low, the first coin was the 20th anniversary 10 solidi coin, which has a likeness of George Cruickshank as the obverse and the imperial eagle as the reverse. In 2011, a 30 solidi coin was issued to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Atlantium, the coin has the likeness of George Cruickshank on the obverse and the wedge-tailed eagle on the reverse and was struck in cupronickel and plated with 9 carat gold. Banknotes of Atlantium are denominated in imperial solidi and are divided into a 2006 series
38.
Austenasia
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The Empire of Austenasia is a micronation and self-declared sovereign state based in the United Kingdom. It operates under constitutional monarchy and comprises eighteen properties that have declared themselves independent under the leadership of a house in south London, Austenasia is recognized by Vikesland, among others. Austenasia was founded on 20 September 2008 by Jonathan Austen, a student, and his father Terry Austen, after sending a declaration of independence for their house in Carshalton to their local Member of Parliament, Tom Brake, Terry was named Emperor and Jonathan was named Prime Minister. Jonathan met with Tom Brake MP in May 2011, who contacted Foreign Secretary William Hague to enquire about the criteria by which the UK recognises new states on Jonathans behalf. The micronation has been featured in local and international publications. The Empire of Austenasia is a monarchy in which the monarch holds great power. According to the website, their consent is necessary for any law to be passed. Each town has a Town Council composed of its population, the prime minister is elected through general elections. Austenasia claims several properties around the world, variously classified as cities, towns, wrythe, the micronations capital city, consists of a suburban house in the London Borough of Sutton. Several other British houses are also claimed, and other territorial claims include a farm in Brazil, part of a university campus in Australia, the micronation also has claims in the USA, Canada, India and Algeria. List of micronations Micronations portal Official website Austenasia on MicroWiki
39.
Dominion of British West Florida
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The Dominion of British West Florida is a separatist micronation founded in 2005 on an eccentric interpretation of actual historic events and based in the Gulf coast region of the United States. It claims the territory of the 18th-century colony of West Florida, which has since been subsumed into the US states of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. The Dominion claims to be striving for Dominion Status as a Commonwealth Realm, on a par with Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and The Bahamas. The organization is neither acknowledged by any government nor any authority over its claimed territory. The micronation was founded in November 2005 in order to reassert Britains rights over the region, by an individual identified on the website only as Robert VII. The website asserts that Duke Robert inherited the Peerage of the Dominion in 1969, the micronation has issued cinderella stamps and has minted several base metal coins, produced by Jorge Vidal and issued in denominations based on pre-decimal pounds. This interpretation of events is not supported by any mainstream historian. Republic of West Florida List of micronations Official Website Official Blog British West Florida article at Encyclopedia of Alabama
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Province of Bumbunga
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The Province of Bumbunga was an Australian secessionist micronation located on a farm at Bumbunga near Snowtown and Lochiel, South Australia, from 1976 until approximately 2000. Its founder and only ruler was a British monkey trainer, uranium prospector, Brackstone, an ardent British monarchist, became alarmed by what he saw as a drift away from the Australian system of constitutional monarchy toward outright republicanism. Brackstone then set about attracting tourism by planting thousands of plants in the pattern of a huge scale model of Great Britain. He intended to conduct weddings on his property, during which soil from the appropriate British county would be sprinkled on the ground, in 1980 Bumbunga began issuing Cinderella stamps portraying members of the British royal family. Later issues addressed anti-nuclear sentiments and other causes while retaining the royal theme. Though worthless as postage, they became popular with philatelists and oddity collectors, fifteen series of 5000 copies each were eventually produced. In 1987 changes to Australian investment laws that reduced the attraction of philatelic investments led Brackstone to abandon his commercial operations, in 1999 Brackstone was arrested and charged with possession of illegal firearms. His assertion of diplomatic immunity due to his status as Bumbungas sovereign was unsuccessful, and he was eventually deported and repatriated to the UK
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Nation of Celestial Space
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The Nation of Celestial Space was a micronation created by Evergreen Park, Illinois, resident James Thomas Mangan. Celestia comprised the entirety of space, which Mangan laid claim to on behalf of humanity to ensure that no one country might establish a political hegemony there. As Founder and First Representative, he registered this acquisition with the Recorder of Deeds, despite these efforts, the Nation of Celestial Space is thought to have become defunct with the death of its founder. Its only surviving legacy is the series of stamps and silver and gold coins, some of the coins minted by Celestia included a silver 1 Joule of 4.15 grams and a gold 1 Celeston of 2.20 grams. Their scarcity ensures that they sell for hundreds of dollars apiece on the rare occasions they come to market. James Thomas Mangans descendants include his son, James C. Mangan, his daughter Ruth Mangan Stump, Princess of the Nation of Celestial Space, and three grandsons, Glen Stump, Duke of Selenia, Dean Stump, Duke of Mars, the Declaration by the Nation of Celestial Space was issued by Celestia on December 21,1948. It proclaims to establish the nation to secure for sympathetic people, wherever they may live, the document goes on to explain the nature of Celestias claim. How to Start Your Own Country, 2nd ed. Port Townsend, WA, Breakout Productions,1984
