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.
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
4.
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
5.
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
6.
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
7.
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
8.
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
9.
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
10.
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
11.
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
12.
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
