1.
Invasion of Normandy
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The Western Allies of World War II launched the largest amphibious invasion in history when they assaulted Normandy, located on the northern coast of France, on 6 June 1944. The invaders were able to establish a beachhead as part of Operation Overlord after a successful D-Day, Allied land forces came from the United States, Britain, Canada, and Free French forces. The Normandy invasion began with overnight parachute and glider landings, massive air attacks, the invasion began and during the evening the remaining elements of the airborne divisions landed. Land forces used on D-Day sailed from bases along the south coast of England, Allied forces rehearsed their D-Day roles for months before the invasion. On 28 April 1944, in south Devon on the English coast,749 U. S. soldiers and sailors were killed when German torpedo boats surprised one of these landing exercises, Exercise Tiger. In the months leading up to the invasion, the Allied forces conducted an operation, Operation Fortitude, aimed at misleading the Germans with respect to the date. There were several leaks prior to or on D-Day, through the Cicero affair, the Germans obtained documents containing references to Overlord, but these documents lacked all detail. Double Cross agents, such as the Spaniard Juan Pujol, played an important role in convincing the German High Command that Normandy was at best a diversionary attack. After being told, Eisenhower reduced Miller to lieutenant colonel and sent him back to the U. S. where he retired, another such leak was General Charles de Gaulles radio message after D-Day. He, unlike all the leaders, stated that this invasion was the real invasion. This had the potential to ruin the Allied deceptions Fortitude North, in contrast, Gen. Eisenhower referred to the landings as the initial invasion. A full moon occurred on 6 June, Allied Expeditionary Force Supreme Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower had tentatively selected 5 June as the date for the assault. The weather was fine during most of May, but deteriorated in early June, the Allied troop convoys already at sea were forced to take shelter in bays and inlets on the south coast of Britain for the night. It seemed possible that everything would have to be cancelled and the returned to their embarkation camps. The next full moon period would be nearly a month away, at a vital meeting on 5 June, Eisenhowers chief meteorologist forecast a brief improvement for 6 June. Commander of all forces for the invasion General Bernard Montgomery. Commander of the Allied Air Forces Air Chief Marshal Leigh Mallory was doubtful, on the strength of Staggs forecast, Eisenhower ordered the invasion to proceed. As a result, prevailing overcast skies limited Allied air support, some troops stood down and many senior officers were away for the weekend
2.
Anchor
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An anchor is a device, normally made of metal, used to connect a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ancora, which comes from the Greek ἄγκυρα. Anchors can either be temporary or permanent, permanent anchors are used in the creation of a mooring, and are rarely moved, a specialist service is normally needed to move or maintain them. Vessels carry one or more anchors, which may be of different designs. A sea anchor is a drogue, not in contact with the seabed, used to control a drifting vessel, anchors achieve holding power either by hooking into the seabed, or via sheer mass, or a combination of the two. Permanent moorings use large masses resting on the seabed, semi-permanent mooring anchors and large ships anchors derive a significant portion of their holding power from their mass, while also hooking or embedding in the bottom. Modern anchors for smaller vessels have metal flukes which hook on to rocks on the bottom or bury themselves in soft seabed, the vessel is attached to the anchor by the rode, which is made of chain, cable, rope, or a combination of these. A10,1 scope gives the greatest holding power, Anchoring with sufficient scope and/or heavy chain rode brings the direction of strain close to parallel with the seabed. If necessary, motoring slowly around the location of the anchor also helps dislodge it, anchors are sometimes fitted with a tripping line attached to the crown, by which they can be unhooked from rocks or coral. The term aweigh describes an anchor when it is hanging on the rope and is not resting on the bottom and this is linked to the term to weigh anchor, meaning to lift the anchor from the sea bed, allowing the ship or boat to move. An anchor is described as aweigh when it has broken out of the bottom and is being hauled up to be stowed. Aweigh should not be confused with under way, which describes a vessel which is not moored to a dock or anchored, the earliest anchors were probably rocks, and many rock anchors have been found dating from at least the Bronze Age. Pre-European Maori waka used one or more hollowed stones, tied with flax ropes, many modern moorings still rely on a large rock as the primary element of their design. However, using pure mass to resist the forces of a storm only works well as a permanent mooring, the ancient Greeks used baskets of stones, large sacks filled with sand, and wooden logs filled with lead. According to Apollonius Rhodius and Stephen of Byzantium, anchors were formed of stone, such anchors held the vessel merely by their weight and by their friction along the bottom. Iron was afterwards introduced for the construction of anchors, and an improvement was made by forming them with teeth, or flukes, the Admiralty Pattern, A. P. or simply Admiralty, and also known as Fisherman, is the anchor shape most familiar to non-sailors. It consists of a shank with a ring or shackle for attaching the rode. At the other end of the shank there are two arms, carrying the flukes, while the stock is mounted to the other end, when the anchor lands on the bottom, it will generally fall over with the arms parallel to the seabed
3.
Philadelphia Naval Shipyard
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The Navy Yard, formerly known as the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard and Philadelphia Naval Business Center, was an important naval shipyard of the United States for almost two centuries. It is now an industrial park that includes a commercial shipyard. Philadelphias original navy yard, begun in 1776 on Front Street, the new, much larger yard grew up around facilities begun in 1871 on League Island at the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers. The United States Navy ended most of its activities there in the 1990s, and in 2000, the Navy still has a Naval Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility and a few engineering activities at the site. The yard has its origins in a shipyard on Philadelphias Front Street on the Delaware River that was founded in 1776, from 1812 till 1865 it was a big production center. The first ship which was launched to the water was vessel Franklin and this event was watched by more than 50,000 spectators. The rapid development of shipbuilding companies pledged Philadelphia to improve production processes. It was the first shipyard in the world which used floating dry docks in the process to improve an operating time of the ships. After the advent of ironclad warships made the site obsolete, new facilities were built in 1871 on League Island at the confluence of the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers. After first making a request to the Secretary of the Navy via shipyard Commandant Commodore James Barron, on August 29,1835 they appealed directly to President Andrew Jackson, there is no probability they will secede from their demands. Rodegier, David R. and Foner, Sheldon Our Own Time, A History of American Labor, Naval Aircraft Factory was established at the League Island site in 1917. Just after World War I, a 350-ton capacity hammerhead crane was ordered for the yard, manufactured in 1919 by the McMyler-Interstate Company in Bedford, Ohio, the crane was called the League Island Crane by its builder. Weighing 3,500 tons, the crane was shipped to the yard in sections, the League Island Crane was for many years the Navys largest crane. Mustin Field opened at the Naval Aircraft Factory in 1926 and operated until 1963, the shipyards greatest period came in World War II, when the yard employed 40,000 people who built 53 ships and repaired 574. During this period, the built the famed battleship New Jersey and its 45, 000-ton sister ship. In the Naval Laboratory Philip Abelson developed the thermal diffusion technique for separating U-235 for the Manhattan Project. After the war, the workforce dropped to 12,000, the yard built its last new ship, the command ship Blue Ridge, in 1970. The yards closure was originally recommended in 1991 by the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, as a result of foreign competition, the planned closing was unsuccessfully litigated to the US Supreme Court in Dalton v. Specter
4.
Service star
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The service star may also be referred to as a campaign star or battle star depending on which award is authorized the star and the manner in which the device is used for the award. Service stars, Campaign stars, and Battle stars are worn with one point of the star pointing up on the ribbon of a medal. A silver star is worn instead of five bronze stars, a service star is sometimes mistaken for a Bronze Star or Silver Star. The service star is similar to the gold and silver 5⁄16 Inch Stars which may be authorized to be worn on specific individual decorations of certain services to denote additional decorations. Service stars are authorized for the following United States expeditionary medals, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, Navy Expeditionary Medal, Service stars are also authorized for the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal effective February 9,2015 retroactive to September,11,2001. Each star represents a deployment in support of an approved GWOT operation, only one GWOT-EM is awarded for each operation. The five GWOT-EM approved operations by inclusive dates are, Enduring Freedom,11,2001 - TBD Iraqi Freedom, Mar.19,2003 - Aug.31, 2010Nomad Shadow, Nov.05,2007 - TBD New Dawn, Sep. 01,2010 - Dec.31,2011 Inherent Resolve, the bronze service star is also authorized for certain unit awards such as the Presidential Unit Citation to denote a second and subsequent award. The service ribbon itself indicates the first award, with a service star being added to indicate the second. If ever applicable, a service star is worn instead of five bronze stars. As a result, at least one star will be worn on the ribbon. However, though authorized for wear, no battle stars have been approved for wear, only a combatant commander can initiate a request for a battle star. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the approving authority, only one award of the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and one award of the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal may be authorized for any individual. The specific manner of wear and symbolism of the stars varied from medal to medal, for example, an American Campaign Medal with a bronze service star indicated the service member had participated in an antisubmarine campaign. On other medals, bronze service stars were used on the service ribbon for those recipients of medals in possession of authorized campaign claps for those medals. Similarly, during the Vietnam War and afterwards, the Battle Effectiveness Award took the place of receiving battle stars for superior battle efficiency in place of combat operations. Awards and decorations of the United States military United States military award devices 5/16 inch star Oak leaf cluster United States award regulations for World War II
5.
Museum ship
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A museum ship, also called a memorial ship, is a ship that has been preserved and converted into a museum open to the public for educational or memorial purposes. Some are also used for training and recruitment purposes, mostly for the number of museum ships that are still operational. Many, if not most, museum ships are also associated with a maritime museum, only a few survive, sometimes because of historical significance, but more often due to luck and circumstance. The restoration and maintenance of museum ships presents problems for historians who are asked for advice, for instance, the rigging of sailing ships has almost never survived, and so the rigging plan must be reconstructed from various sources. Studying the ships also allows historians to analyze how life on and operation of the ships took place, numerous scientific papers have been written on ship restoration and maintenance, and international conferences are held discussing the latest developments. Another consideration is the distinction between a museum ship, and a ship replica. As repairs accumulate over time, less and less of the ship is of the materials. Visitors without historical background are often unable to distinguish between a historical museum ship and a ship replica, which may serve solely as a tourist attraction. Typically the visitor enters via gangplank, wanders around on the deck, then goes below, usually using the original stairways, giving a sense of how the crew got around. The interior features restored but inactivated equipment, enhanced with mementos including old photographs, explanatory displays, pages from the logs, menus. Some add recorded sound effects, audio tours or video displays to enhance the experience, in some cases, the ships radio room has been brought back into use, with volunteers operating amateur radio equipment. Often, the callsign assigned is a variation on the identification of the ship. For example, the submarine USS Cobia, which had the call NBQV, is now on the air as NB9QV. The World War II submarine USS Pampanito, berthed at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park, had the wartime call NJVT and is now on the air as NJ6VT, in other cases, such as the USS Missouri, a distinctive call is used. This radio work not only helps restore part of the vessel, a number of the larger museum ships have begun to offer hosting for weddings, meetings, other events, and sleepovers, and on a few ships still seaworthy, cruises. In the United States, this includes the USS Constitutions annual turnaround, a place on the deck is by invitation or lottery only, and highly prized. Many consider the appeal of an interesting old vessel on the city waterfront strong enough that any port city should showcase one or more museum ships. This may even include building a ship at great expense
6.
Evansville, Indiana
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Evansville is a city in and the county seat of Vanderburgh County, Indiana, United States. The population was 117,429 at the 2010 census, the 38th parallel crosses the north side of the city and is marked on Interstate 69. Situated on an oxbow in the Ohio River, the city is referred to as the Crescent Valley or River City. As testament to the Ohios grandeur, early French explorers named it La Belle Riviere, the area has been inhabited by various cultures for millennia, dating back at least 10,000 years. Angel Mounds was a permanent settlement of the Mississippian culture from 1000 AD to around 1400 AD, the city itself was founded in 1812. The broad economic base of the region has helped build an economy which is known for its stability, diversity, Four NYSE companies are headquartered in Evansville, along with the global operations center for NYSE company Mead Johnson. Three other companies traded on the NASDAQ are also headquartered in Evansville, the city is home to public and private enterprise in many areas, as Evansville serves as the economic hub of the region. The city has well known educational institutions. Other local educational institutions have also garnered praise and attention, including nationally ranked Signature School, in 2008, Evansville was voted the best city in the country in which to live, work, and play by the readers of Kiplinger, and in 2009 the 11th best. See main article, History of Evansville, Indiana, there was a continuous human presence in the area that became Evansville from at least 8,000 BC by Paleo-Indians. Following the abandonment of Angel Mounds between the years 1400 and 1450, tribes of Miami, Shawnee, Piankeshaw, Wyandot, Delaware, the land encompassing Evansville was formally relinquished by the Delaware in 1805 to General William Henry Harrison, then governor of the Indiana Territory. French hunters and trappers were among the first Europeans to come to the area, on March 27,1812, Hugh McGary Jr. purchased about 441 acres and named it McGarys Landing. In 1814, to more people, McGary renamed his village Evansville in honor of Colonel Robert Morgan Evans. Evansville incorporated in 1817 and became a county seat on January 7,1818, the county was named for Henry Vanderburgh, a deceased chief judge of the Indiana territorial supreme court. Evansville soon became a commercial town with an extensive river trade. The west side of Evansville was for many years cut off from the part of the city by Pigeon Creek. The land comprising the town of Lamasco was platted in 1837 and was ultimately annexed in 1870. The project was intended to open Indiana to commerce and improve transportation from New Orleans to New York City, unfortunately the project bankrupted the state and was so poorly engineered that it would not hold water
7.
Landing Ship, Tank
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This provided amphibious assaults to almost any beach. The bow of the LST had a door that would open with a ramp for unloading the vehicles. The LST had a flat keel that allowed the ship to be beached. The twin propellers and rudders had protection from grounding, the LSTs served across the globe during World War II including, Pacific War and European theatre. The first tank landing ships were built to British requirements by converting existing ships, then the British, over 1,000 LSTs were laid down in the United States during World War II for use by the Allies. Eighty more were built in the United Kingdom and Canada, as an interim measure, three 4, 000- to 4, 800-GRT tankers, built to pass over the restrictive bars of Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela, were selected for conversion because of their shallow draft. Bow doors and ramps were added to ships, which became the first tank landing ships, LST, HMS Misoa, Tasajera. They later proved their worth during the invasion of Algeria in 1942, the first purpose-built LST design was HMS Boxer. It was a design from ideas penned by Prime Minister Winston Churchill. In order that it could carry 13 Churchill infantry tanks,27 other vehicles and nearly 200 men at a speed of 18 knots, as a result, each of the three ordered in March 1941 had a very long ramp stowed behind the bow doors. The three ships were converted to Fighter Direction Ships for the invasion of Normandy, the U. S. were to build seven LST but in light of the problems with the design and progress with the LCT Mark II the plans were canceled. Construction of the LCTs took until 1943 and the first US LCT was launched before them, at their first meeting at the Atlantic conference in Argentia, Newfoundland, in August 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill confirmed the Admiraltys views. During this meeting, it was decided that the Bureau of Ships would design these vessels, as with the standing agreement, these ships would be built by the US so British shipyards could concentrate on building vessels for the Royal Navy. The specifications called for vessels capable of crossing the Atlantic, calling a vessel 300 ft long a craft was considered a misnomer and the type was re-christened Landing Ship, Tank, or LST. The LST design incorporated elements of the first British LCTs from their designer, Sir Rowland Baker, one of the elements provided for sufficient buoyancy in the ships sidewalls so that they would float the ship even when the tank deck was flooded. The LST gave up the speed of HMS Boxer, at only 10 knots, within a few days, John C. Niedermair of the Bureau of Ships sketched out an awkward looking ship that proved to be the design for the more than 1,000 LST that were built during World War II. An anchor and mechanical winch system also aided in the ability to pull itself off the beach
8.
General Motors
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With global headquarters at the Renaissance Center in Detroit, Michigan, United States, GM manufactures cars and trucks in 35 countries. In 2008,8.35 million GM cars and trucks were sold globally under various brands, current auto brands are Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, Holden, and Wuling. Former GM automotive brands include McLaughlin, Oakland, Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Hummer, Saab, Saturn, Vauxhall, the company was founded by William C. Durant on September 16,1908 as a holding company. The company was the largest automobile manufacturer from 1931 through 2007, in addition to brands selling assembled vehicles, GM also has had various automotive-component and non-automotive brands, many of which it divested in the 1980s through 2000s. General Motors produces vehicles in 37 countries under twelve brands, Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac, Holden, HSV, Opel, Vauxhall, Wuling, Baojun, Jie Fang, and Ravon. The current company, General Motors Company LLC, was formed in 2009 following the bankruptcy of General Motors Corporation, the new company purchased the majority of the assets of the old GM, including the brand General Motors. In addition to its twelve brands, General Motors also holds a 20% stake in IMM, General Motors employs 212,000 people and does business in more than 140 countries. General Motors is divided into five segments, GM North America, Opel Group, GM International Operations, GM South America. General Motors led global vehicle sales for 77 consecutive years from 1931 through 2007, longer any other automaker. General Motors acts in most countries outside the U. S. via wholly owned subsidiaries, GMs OnStar subsidiary provides vehicle safety, security and information services. In 2009, General Motors shed several brands, closing Saturn, Pontiac, and Hummer, in 2010, the reorganized GM made an initial public offering that was one of the worlds top five largest IPOs to date, and returned to profitability later that year. General Motors Corporation was formed on September 16,1908, in Flint, Michigan, GMs co-founder was Charles Stewart Mott, whose carriage company was merged into Buick prior to GMs creation. Over the years, Mott became the largest single stockholder in GM, and spent his life with his Mott Foundation, GM acquired Oldsmobile later that year. In 1909, Durant brought in Cadillac, Elmore, Oakland, also in 1909, GM acquired the Reliance Motor Truck Company of Owosso, Michigan, and the Rapid Motor Vehicle Company of Pontiac, Michigan, the predecessors of GMC Truck. Durant, along with R. S. McLaughlin, lost control of GM in 1910 to a bankers trust, because of the amount of debt taken on in its acquisitions. The next year, Durant started the Chevrolet Motor Car Company in the U. S. and in Canada in 1915, Durant took back control of the company after one of the most dramatic proxy wars in American business history. Durant then reorganized General Motors Company into General Motors Corporation in 1916, merging Chevrolet with GM, shortly thereafter, he again lost control, this time for good, after the new vehicle market collapsed. These facilities were added to the factories that were exclusive to Cadillac, Buick, Oldsmobile, Oakland
9.
EMD 567
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The EMD567 is a line of large medium-speed diesel engines built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division. This engine, which succeeded Wintons 201A, was used in EMDs locomotives from 1938 until its replacement in 1966 by the EMD645 and it has a bore of 8 1⁄2 in, a stroke of 10 in and a displacement of 567 cu in per cylinder. Like the 201A, the EMD645 and the EMD710 and it is a V engine with an angle of 45° between cylinder banks. The 710,645, and 567 are the only two-stroke engines commonly used today in locomotives, eugene W. Kettering, son of Charles F. Kettering, joined Winton Engine in 1930. He moved to Detroit in 1936, and was a figure in the development of the 567. He moved to EMD in 1938, became Chief Engineer at EMD in 1948, then Division Director in 1956, although this power increase is not recommended, horsepower-for-horsepower updates are quite successful and common. Because of their age,567 engines are exempt from emissions rules. EMD manufactures a series of 645 power assemblies which are particularly useful in updating these exempt 567 engines. EMDs chief competitor, GE, now makes EMD-compatible replacement parts, all 567 engines are two-stroke 45 degree V-engines. The engine is a design with four poppet-type exhaust valves in the cylinder head. For maintenance, an assembly, consisting of a cylinder head, cylinder liner, piston, piston carrier. The block is made flat, formed and rolled structural steel members. Blocks may, therefore, be repaired, if required. Each bank of cylinders has a camshaft which operates the exhaust valves. The 567 is laid out with engine accessories at the forward end, the blowers and camshafts are at the rear end of the engine, with the blowers mounted above the power take off. All engines have mechanically-controlled unit injectors, see EMD645 for general specifications common to all 567-645-710 engines. All 567 engines utilize forced induction, with either a Roots blower or a turbocharger, at higher engine speeds, increased exhaust gas temperature is sufficient to drive the turbine and the clutch disengages, turning the turbo-compressor system into a true turbocharger. The turbo-compressor can revert to compressor mode momentarily during demands for large increases in output power
10.
Diesel engine
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Diesel engines work by compressing only the air. This increases the air temperature inside the cylinder to such a degree that it ignites atomised diesel fuel that is injected into the combustion chamber. This contrasts with spark-ignition engines such as an engine or gas engine. In diesel engines, glow plugs may be used to aid starting in cold weather, or when the engine uses a lower compression-ratio, the original diesel engine operates on the constant pressure cycle of gradual combustion and produces no audible knock. Low-speed diesel engines can have an efficiency that exceeds 50%. Diesel engines may be designed as either two-stroke or four-stroke cycles and they were originally used as a more efficient replacement for stationary steam engines. Since the 1910s they have used in submarines and ships. Use in locomotives, trucks, heavy equipment and electricity generation plants followed later, in the 1930s, they slowly began to be used in a few automobiles. Since the 1970s, the use of engines in larger on-road and off-road vehicles in the US increased. According to the British Society of Motor Manufacturing and Traders, the EU average for diesel cars accounts for 50% of the total sold, including 70% in France and 38% in the UK. The worlds largest diesel engine is currently a Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C Common Rail marine diesel, the definition of a Diesel engine to many has become an engine that uses compression ignition. To some it may be an engine that uses heavy fuel oil, to others an engine that does not use spark ignition. However the original cycle proposed by Rudolf Diesel in 1892 was a constant temperature cycle which would require higher compression than what is needed for compression ignition. Diesels idea was to compress the air so tightly that the temperature of the air would exceed that of combustion, to make this more clear, let it be assumed that the subsequent combustion shall take place at a temperature of 700°. Then in that case the pressure must be sixty-four atmospheres, or for 800° centigrade the pressure must be ninety atmospheres. In later years Diesel realized his original cycle would not work, Diesel describes the cycle in his 1895 patent application. Notice that there is no longer a mention of compression temperatures exceeding the temperature of combustion, now all that is mentioned is the compression must be high enough for ignition. In 1806 Claude and Nicéphore Niépce developed the first known internal combustion engine, the Pyréolophore fuel system used a blast of air provided by a bellows to atomize Lycopodium
11.
Knot (unit)
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The knot is a unit of speed equal to one nautical mile per hour, approximately 1.151 mph. The ISO Standard symbol for the knot is kn, the same symbol is preferred by the IEEE, kt is also common. The knot is a unit that is accepted for use with the SI. Etymologically, the term derives from counting the number of knots in the line that unspooled from the reel of a log in a specific time. 1 international knot =1 nautical mile per hour,1.852 kilometres per hour,0.514 metres per second,1.151 miles per hour,20.254 inches per second,1852 m is the length of the internationally agreed nautical mile. The US adopted the definition in 1954, having previously used the US nautical mile. The UK adopted the international nautical mile definition in 1970, having used the UK Admiralty nautical mile. The speeds of vessels relative to the fluids in which they travel are measured in knots, for consistency, the speeds of navigational fluids are also measured in knots. Thus, speed over the ground and rate of progress towards a distant point are given in knots. Until the mid-19th century, vessel speed at sea was measured using a chip log, the chip log was cast over the stern of the moving vessel and the line allowed to pay out. Knots placed at a distance of 8 fathoms -47 feet 3 inches from each other, passed through a sailors fingers, the knot count would be reported and used in the sailing masters dead reckoning and navigation. This method gives a value for the knot of 20.25 in/s, the difference from the modern definition is less than 0. 02%. On a chart of the North Atlantic, the scale varies by a factor of two from Florida to Greenland, a single graphic scale, of the sort on many maps, would therefore be useless on such a chart. Recent British Admiralty charts have a latitude scale down the middle to make this even easier, speed is sometimes incorrectly expressed as knots per hour, which is in fact a measure of acceleration. Prior to 1969, airworthiness standards for aircraft in the United States Federal Aviation Regulations specified that distances were to be in statute miles. In 1969, these standards were amended to specify that distances were to be in nautical miles. At 11000 m, an airspeed of 300 kn may correspond to a true airspeed of 500 kn in standard conditions. Beaufort scale Hull speed, which deals with theoretical estimates of maximum speed of displacement hulls Knot count Knotted cord Metre per second Orders of magnitude Rope Kemp
12.
LCVP (United States)
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The landing craft, vehicle, personnel or Higgins boat was a landing craft used extensively in amphibious landings in World War II. The craft was designed by Andrew Higgins based on boats made for operating in swamps, more than 20,000 were built, by Higgins Industries and licensees. Typically constructed from plywood, this shallow-draft, barge-like boat could ferry a platoon-sized complement of 36 men to shore at 9 knots. Men generally entered the boat by climbing down a cargo net hung from the side of their troop transport, they exited by charging down the boats bow ramp. Satisfactory in most respects, the major drawback appeared to be that equipment had to be unloaded. However, it was put into production and service as the craft, personnel. The LCP had two gun positions at the bow. The LCP, commonly called the U-boat or the Higgins boat, was supplied to the British, to whom it was known as the R-boat. Within one month, tests of the ramp-bow Eureka boat in Lake Pontchartrain showed conclusively that successful operation of such a boat was feasible and this boat became the Landing Craft, Personnel or LCP. The machine gun positions were still at the front of the boat, the design was still not ideal, because the ramp was a bottleneck for the troops, as was the case with the British Landing Craft Assault of the year before. The next step was to fit a full-width ramp, now troops could leave en masse and a small vehicle such as a Jeep could be carried, this new version became the LCVP, or simply, the Higgins boat. The machine gun positions were moved to the rear of the boat, at just over 36 ft long and just under 11 ft wide, the LCVP was not a large craft. Powered by a 225-horsepower Diesel engine at 12 knots, it would sway in choppy seas, since its sides and rear were made of plywood, it offered limited protection from enemy fire. The Higgins boat could hold either a 36-man platoon, a jeep and its shallow draft enabled it to run up onto the shoreline, and a semi-tunnel built into its hull protected the propeller from sand and other debris. The steel ramp at the front could be lowered quickly and it was possible for the Higgins boat to swiftly disembark men and supplies, reverse itself off the beach, and head back out to the supply ship for another load within three to four minutes. If Higgins had not designed and built those LCVPs, we never could have landed over an open beach, the whole strategy of the war would have been different. Only a few Higgins boats have survived, often with modifications for post-War use. A remarkably preserved Higgins boat, with the original Higgins motor, was discovered in a yard in Valdez, Alaska
13.
National Register of Historic Places
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The National Register of Historic Places is the United States federal governments official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation. The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966 established the National Register, of the more than one million properties on the National Register,80,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing resources within historic districts, each year approximately 30,000 properties are added to the National Register as part of districts or by individual listings. For most of its history the National Register has been administered by the National Park Service and its goals are to help property owners and interest groups, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, coordinate, identify, and protect historic sites in the United States. While National Register listings are mostly symbolic, their recognition of significance provides some financial incentive to owners of listed properties, protection of the property is not guaranteed. During the nomination process, the property is evaluated in terms of the four criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, the application of those criteria has been the subject of criticism by academics of history and preservation, as well as the public and politicians. Occasionally, historic sites outside the proper, but associated with the United States are also listed. Properties can be nominated in a variety of forms, including individual properties, historic districts, the Register categorizes general listings into one of five types of properties, district, site, structure, building, or object. National Register Historic Districts are defined geographical areas consisting of contributing and non-contributing properties, some properties are added automatically to the National Register when they become administered by the National Park Service. These include National Historic Landmarks, National Historic Sites, National Historical Parks, National Military Parks/Battlefields, National Memorials, on October 15,1966, the Historic Preservation Act created the National Register of Historic Places and the corresponding State Historic Preservation Offices. Initially, the National Register consisted of the National Historic Landmarks designated before the Registers creation, approval of the act, which was amended in 1980 and 1992, represented the first time the United States had a broad-based historic preservation policy. To administer the newly created National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service of the U. S. Department of the Interior, hartzog, Jr. established an administrative division named the Office of Archeology and Historic Preservation. Hartzog charged OAHP with creating the National Register program mandated by the 1966 law, ernest Connally was the Offices first director. Within OAHP new divisions were created to deal with the National Register, the first official Keeper of the Register was William J. Murtagh, an architectural historian. During the Registers earliest years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, organization was lax and SHPOs were small, understaffed, and underfunded. A few years later in 1979, the NPS history programs affiliated with both the U. S. National Parks system and the National Register were categorized formally into two Assistant Directorates. Established were the Assistant Directorate for Archeology and Historic Preservation and the Assistant Directorate for Park Historic Preservation, from 1978 until 1981, the main agency for the National Register was the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service of the United States Department of the Interior. In February 1983, the two assistant directorates were merged to promote efficiency and recognize the interdependency of their programs, jerry L. Rogers was selected to direct this newly merged associate directorate
14.
Tall Stacks
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The sixth edition was held on October 4 through October 8,2006. After the 2009 event was cancelled a festival was scheduled for 2010. Organizers later set a date of October 3–7,2012, which was also cancelled. The first Tall Stacks festival was held in October 1988 as a part of Cincinnatis bicentennial celebration, subsequent festivals,1992, when the event expanded to four days. Attendance increased to 800,000, which was the largest attendance for any event in Cincinnati history to date,1995, when the schedule was moved up a year to prevent a near-conflict with the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. The event expanded to five days and 19 riverboats, the Kentucky cities added a Civil War re-enactment to the festivities, and attendance increased again to 850,000, a new record. 1999, though attendance was down, Tall Stacks 99 drew 660,000 and was named the top tourism event by the American Bus Association. Nineteen riverboats again travelled to the festival,2003, when the festival took on its current formal name and drew a record 900,000 visitors. Theme cruises were an attraction, such as wine tasting cruises, Cincinnati Zoo cruises. Musical acts included Creedence Clearwater Revisited, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Shawn Colvin, The Jayhawks, Delbert McClinton, John Hammond, Nickel Creek, B. B. King, Los Lobos, Ricky Skaggs, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and more than 150 other national, regional,2006, when 17 riverboats took part in the festival, including the Delta Queen, Belle of Louisville, General Jackson, Natchez, Mississippi Queen, and Majestic. On the Newport, Kentucky side of the river at the site of the Newport Barracks, a series of American Civil War displays were established, the US Army Corps of Engineers had displays about the river. 2009, Event was cancelled due to lack of sponsorship, denny Tall Stacks official Web site Tall Stacks Photos Tall Stacks Photos II Video Clips of Paddle Steamers at Tall Stacks 2006
15.
Cincinnati
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Cincinnati is a city in the U. S. state of Ohio that serves as county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the side of the confluence of the Licking with the Ohio River. With a population of 298,550, Cincinnati is the third-largest city in Ohio and its metropolitan statistical area is the 28th-largest in the United States and the largest centered in Ohio. The city is part of the larger Cincinnati–Middletown–Wilmington combined statistical area. In the 19th century, Cincinnati was an American boomtown in the heart of the country, it rivaled the larger cities in size. Throughout much of the 19th century, it was listed among the top 10 U. S and it was by far the largest city in the west. By the end of the 19th century, with the shift from steamboats to railroads drawing off freight shipping, trade patterns had altered and Cincinnatis growth slowed considerably. Cincinnati is home to two sports teams, the Cincinnati Reds, the oldest franchise in Major League Baseball. The University of Cincinnati, founded in 1819, is one of the 50 largest in the United States, Cincinnati is known for its historic architecture. In the late 1800s, Cincinnati was commonly referred to as Paris of America, due mainly to such ambitious projects as the Music Hall, Cincinnatian Hotel. The original surveyor, John Filson, named it Losantiville, in 1790, Arthur St. Ethnic Germans were among the early settlers, migrating from Pennsylvania and the backcountry of Virginia and Tennessee. General David Ziegler succeeded General St. Clair in command at Fort Washington, after the conclusion of the Northwest Indian Wars and removal of Native Americans to the west, he was elected as the mayor of Cincinnati in 1802. Cincinnati was incorporated as a city in 1819, exporting pork products and hay, it became a center of pork processing in the region. From 1810 to 1830 its population tripled, from 9,642 to 24,831. Completion of the Miami and Erie Canal in 1827 to Middletown, Ohio further stimulated businesses, the city had a labor shortage until large waves of immigration by Irish and Germans in the late 1840s. The city grew rapidly over the two decades, reaching 115,000 persons by 1850. Construction on the Miami and Erie Canal began on July 21,1825, the first section of the canal was opened for business in 1827. In 1827, the canal connected Cincinnati to nearby Middletown, by 1840, during this period of rapid expansion and prominence, residents of Cincinnati began referring to the city as the Queen City
16.
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
17.
United States Navy
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The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U. S. Navy is the largest, most capable navy in the world, the U. S. Navy has the worlds largest aircraft carrier fleet, with ten in service, two in the reserve fleet, and three new carriers under construction. The service has 323,792 personnel on duty and 108,515 in the Navy Reserve. It has 274 deployable combat vessels and more than 3,700 operational aircraft as of October 2016, the U. S. Navy traces its origins to the Continental Navy, which was established during the American Revolutionary War and was effectively disbanded as a separate entity shortly thereafter. It played a role in the American Civil War by blockading the Confederacy. It played the role in the World War II defeat of Imperial Japan. The 21st century U. S. Navy maintains a global presence, deploying in strength in such areas as the Western Pacific, the Mediterranean. The Navy is administratively managed by the Department of the Navy, the Department of the Navy is itself a division of the Department of Defense, which is headed by the Secretary of Defense. The Chief of Naval Operations is an admiral and the senior naval officer of the Department of the Navy. The CNO may not be the highest ranking officer in the armed forces if the Chairman or the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The mission of the Navy is to maintain, train and equip combat-ready Naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression, the United States Navy is a seaborne branch of the military of the United States. The Navys three primary areas of responsibility, The preparation of naval forces necessary for the prosecution of war. The development of aircraft, weapons, tactics, technique, organization, U. S. Navy training manuals state that the mission of the U. S. Armed Forces is to prepare and conduct prompt and sustained combat operations in support of the national interest, as part of that establishment, the U. S. Navys functions comprise sea control, power projection and nuclear deterrence, in addition to sealift duties. It follows then as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, the Navy was rooted in the colonial seafaring tradition, which produced a large community of sailors, captains, and shipbuilders. In the early stages of the American Revolutionary War, Massachusetts had its own Massachusetts Naval Militia, the establishment of a national navy was an issue of debate among the members of the Second Continental Congress. Supporters argued that a navy would protect shipping, defend the coast, detractors countered that challenging the British Royal Navy, then the worlds preeminent naval power, was a foolish undertaking. Commander in Chief George Washington resolved the debate when he commissioned the ocean-going schooner USS Hannah to interdict British merchant ships, and reported the captures to the Congress
18.
National Park Service
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It was created on August 25,1916, by Congress through the National Park Service Organic Act and is an agency of the United States Department of the Interior. As of 2014, the NPS employs 21,651 employees who oversee 417 units, the National Park Service celebrated its centennial in 2016. National parks and national monuments in the United States were originally individually managed under the auspices of the Department of the Interior, the movement for an independent agency to oversee these federal lands was spearheaded by business magnate and conservationist Stephen Mather, as well as J. Horace McFarland. With the help of journalist Robert Sterling Yard, Mather ran a publicity campaign for the Department of the Interior and they wrote numerous articles that praised the scenic and historic qualities of the parks and their possibilities for educational, inspirational, and recreational benefits. This campaign resulted in the creation of a National Park Service, Mather became the first director of the newly formed NPS. On March 3,1933, President Herbert Hoover signed the Reorganization Act of 1933, the act would allow the President to reorganize the executive branch of the United States government. It wasnt until later that summer when the new President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President Roosevelt agreed and issued two Executive orders to make it happen. In 1951, Conrad Wirth became director of the National Park Service, the demand for parks after the end of the World War II had left the parks overburdened with demands that could not be met. In 1952, with the support of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, he began Mission 66, New parks were added to preserve unique resources and existing park facilities were upgraded and expanded. In 1966, as the Park Service turned 50 years old, emphasis began to turn from just saving great and wonderful scenery, Director George Hartzog began the process with the creation of the National Lakeshores and then National Recreation Areas. Since its inception in 1916, the National Park Service has managed each of the United States national parks, Yellowstone National Park was the first national park in the United States. In 1872, there was no government to manage it. Yosemite National Park began as a park, the land for the park was donated by the federal government to the state of California in 1864 for perpetual conservation. Yosemite was later returned to federal ownership, at first, each national park was managed independently, with varying degrees of success. In Yellowstone, the staff was replaced by the U. S. Army in 1886. Due to the irregularities in managing these national treasures, Stephen Mather petitioned the government to improve the situation. In response, Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane challenged him to lobby for creating a new agency, Mather was successful with the ratification of the National Park Service Organic Act in 1916. Later, the agency was given authority over other protected areas, the National Park System includes all properties managed by the National Park Service
19.
Philadelphia
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In 1682, William Penn, an English Quaker, founded the city to serve as capital of the Pennsylvania Colony. Philadelphia was one of the capitals in the Revolutionary War. In the 19th century, Philadelphia became an industrial center. It became a destination for African-Americans in the Great Migration. The areas many universities and colleges make Philadelphia a top international study destination, as the city has evolved into an educational, with a gross domestic product of $388 billion, Philadelphia ranks ninth among world cities and fourth in the nation. Philadelphia is the center of activity in Pennsylvania and is home to seven Fortune 1000 companies. The Philadelphia skyline is growing, with a market of almost 81,900 commercial properties in 2016 including several prominent skyscrapers. The city is known for its arts, culture, and rich history, Philadelphia has more outdoor sculptures and murals than any other American city. Fairmount Park, when combined with the adjacent Wissahickon Valley Park in the watershed, is one of the largest contiguous urban park areas in the United States. The 67 National Historic Landmarks in the city helped account for the $10 billion generated by tourism, Philadelphia is the only World Heritage City in the United States. Before Europeans arrived, the Philadelphia area was home to the Lenape Indians in the village of Shackamaxon, the Lenape are a Native American tribe and First Nations band government. They are also called Delaware Indians and their territory was along the Delaware River watershed, western Long Island. Most Lenape were pushed out of their Delaware homeland during the 18th century by expanding European colonies, Lenape communities were weakened by newly introduced diseases, mainly smallpox, and violent conflict with Europeans. Iroquois people occasionally fought the Lenape, surviving Lenape moved west into the upper Ohio River basin. The American Revolutionary War and United States independence pushed them further west, in the 1860s, the United States government sent most Lenape remaining in the eastern United States to the Indian Territory under the Indian removal policy. In the 21st century, most Lenape now reside in the US state of Oklahoma, with communities living also in Wisconsin, Ontario. The Dutch considered the entire Delaware River valley to be part of their New Netherland colony, in 1638, Swedish settlers led by renegade Dutch established the colony of New Sweden at Fort Christina and quickly spread out in the valley. In 1644, New Sweden supported the Susquehannocks in their defeat of the English colony of Maryland
20.
Pennsylvania
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Pennsylvania /ˌpɛnsᵻlˈveɪnjə/, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state located in the northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The Appalachian Mountains run through its middle, Pennsylvania is the 33rd largest, the 5th most populous, and the 9th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The states five most populous cities are Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie, the state capital, and its ninth-largest city, is Harrisburg. Pennsylvania has 140 miles of shoreline along Lake Erie and the Delaware Estuary. The state is one of the 13 original founding states of the United States, it came into being in 1681 as a result of a land grant to William Penn. Part of Pennsylvania, together with the present State of Delaware, had earlier been organized as the Colony of New Sweden and it was the second state to ratify the United States Constitution, on December 12,1787. Independence Hall, where the United States Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution were drafted, is located in the states largest city of Philadelphia, during the American Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg, was fought in the south central region of the state. Valley Forge near Philadelphia was General Washingtons headquarters during the winter of 1777–78. Pennsylvania is 170 miles north to south and 283 miles east to west, of a total 46,055 square miles,44,817 square miles are land,490 square miles are inland waters, and 749 square miles are waters in Lake Erie. It is the 33rd largest state in the United States, Pennsylvania has 51 miles of coastline along Lake Erie and 57 miles of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary. Cities include Philadelphia, Reading, Lebanon and Lancaster in the southeast, Pittsburgh in the southwest, the tri-cities of Allentown, Bethlehem, the northeast includes the former anthracite coal mining communities of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pittston City, and Hazleton. Erie is located in the northwest, the state has 5 regions, namely the Allegheny Plateau, Ridge and Valley, Atlantic Coastal Plain, Piedmont, and the Erie Plain. Straddling two major zones, the majority of the state, with the exception of the corner, has a humid continental climate. The largest city, Philadelphia, has characteristics of the humid subtropical climate that covers much of Delaware. Moving toward the interior of the state, the winter climate becomes colder, the number of cloudy days increase. Western areas of the state, particularly locations near Lake Erie, can receive over 100 inches of snowfall annually, the state may be subject to severe weather from spring through summer into fall. Tornadoes occur annually in the state, sometimes in large numbers, the Tuscarora Nation took up temporary residence in the central portion of Pennsylvania ca. Both the Dutch and the English claimed both sides of the Delaware River as part of their lands in America
21.
North Africa
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North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of Africa. The United Nationss definition of Northern Africa is, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, the countries of Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and Libya are often collectively referred to as the Maghreb, which is the Arabic word for sunset. Egypt lies to the northeast and encompasses part of West Asia, while Sudan is situated on the edge of the Sahel, Egypt is a transcontinental country because of the Sinai Peninsula, which geographically lies in Western Asia. North Africa also includes a number of Spanish possessions, the Canary Islands and Madeira in the North Atlantic Ocean northwest of the African mainland are included in considerations of the region. From 3500 BC, following the abrupt desertification of the Sahara due to changes in the Earths orbit. The Islamic influence in the area is significant, and North Africa is a major part of the Muslim world. Some researchers have postulated that North Africa rather than East Africa served as the point for the modern humans who first trekked out of the continent in the Out of Africa migration. The Atlas Mountains extend across much of Morocco, northern Algeria and Tunisia, are part of the mountain system that also runs through much of Southern Europe. They recede to the south and east, becoming a steppe landscape before meeting the Sahara desert, the sediments of the Sahara overlie an ancient plateau of crystalline rock, some of which is more than four billion years old. Sheltered valleys in the Atlas Mountains, the Nile Valley and Delta, a wide variety of valuable crops including cereals, rice and cotton, and woods such as cedar and cork, are grown. Typical Mediterranean crops, such as olives, figs, dates and citrus fruits, the Nile Valley is particularly fertile, and most of the population in Egypt and Sudan live close to the river. Elsewhere, irrigation is essential to improve yields on the desert margins. The inhabitants of Saharan Africa are generally divided in a manner corresponding to the principal geographic regions of North Africa, the Maghreb, the Nile valley. The edge of the Sahel, to the south of Egypt has mainly been inhabited by Nubians, Ancient Egyptians record extensive contact in their Western desert with people that appear to have been Berber or proto-Berber, as well as Nubians from the south. They have contributed to the Arabized Berber populations, the official language or one of the official languages in all of the countries in North Africa is Arabic. The people of the Maghreb and the Sahara regions speak Berber languages and several varieties of Arabic, the Arabic and Berber languages are distantly related, both being members of the Afroasiatic language family. The Tuareg Berber languages are more conservative than those of the coastal cities. Over the years, Berbers have been influenced by contact with cultures, Greeks, Phoenicians, Egyptians, Romans, Vandals, Arabs, Europeans
22.
Gela
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Gela, is a city and comune in the Autonomous Region of Sicily, the largest for area and population in the islands southern coast. It is part of the Caltanissetta province, being the only comune in Italy with a population and area that exceeds those of the provinces capital. Founded by Greek colonists from Rhodes and Crete in 689 BC, in 1943 Gela was the first Italian beach reached by allies during the Invasion of Sicily from the allies. The city was founded around 688 BC by colonists from Rhodes, the city was named after the river Gela. The Greeks established many colonies in the south of what is now Italy, Gela flourished and after only a century, a group of Geloi founded the colony of Agrigento. The expansion, however, led to economic and social strain, causing the plebs to leave the city, however, the revolt was opposed by the high priest of Diana and the exiled plebs returned to Gela. For over a century no further mention is made about the politics of the city, until the ancient historians note that a tyrant, Cleander. After his death, power transferred to his brother Hippocrates, who conquered Callipoli, Leontini, Naxos, Hergetios, only Syracuse, with the help of her former colonizing city, Corinth and Corcyra, managed to escape the Gelese expansion. When Camarina, a Syracusan colony, rebelled in 492 BC, after having defeated the Syracusan army at the Heloros river, he besieged the city but was convinced to retreat in exchange for possession of Camarina. The tyrant lost his life in 491 in a battle against the Siculi, Hippocrates was succeeded by Gelo, who, in 484, conquered Syracuse and moved his seat of government there. His brother Hiero was given control over Gela, when Theron of Agrigento conquered Himera and a Carthaginian army disembarked in Sicily to counter him, he asked for help from Gela and Syracuse. Gelo and Hiero were victorious in the subsequent battle of Himera, after the death of Gelo, Hiero moved to Syracuse, leaving Gela to Polyzelos. Thenceforth the history of the city becomes uncertain, it has suggested that the citizens freed themselves from the rule of tyrants. Many of the Geloi returned from Syracuse in this period, Gela was at the head of the Sicilian league that pushed back the Athenian attempt to conquer the island in 415 BC. In 406 the Carthaginians conquered Agrigento and destroyed it, Gela asked for the help of Dionysius I of Syracuse. However, for reasons, the latter did not arrive in time and, after heroic deeds, Gela was ruined. The survivors took refuge in Syracuse, in 397 they returned home and joined Dionysius II in his struggle for freedom from the invaders, and in 383 BC they saw their independence acknowledged. Under Agathocles the city suffered again for internal strife between the population and the aristocrats
23.
Salerno
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Salerno listen is a city and comune in Campania and is the capital of the province of the same name. It is located on the Gulf of Salerno on the Tyrrhenian Sea, Salerno was an independent Lombard principality in the early Middle Ages. During this time, it became the site of the first medical school in the world, later, in 1694, the city was struck by several catastrophic earthquakes and plagues. After a period of Spanish rule which would last until the 18th century, in recent history the city hosted the King of Italy, who moved from Rome in 1943 after Italy negotiated a peace with the Allies in World War II. A brief so-called government of the South was then established in the town, some of the Allied landings during Operation Avalanche occurred near Salerno. Today Salerno is an important cultural centre in Campania and Italy and has had a long, a patron saint of Salerno is Saint Matthew, the Apostle, whose relics are kept here at the crypt of Salerno Cathedral. The area of what is now Salerno has been settled since pre-historical times. We know the Oscan-Etruscan city of Irna, situated across the Irno river and this settlement represented an important base for Etruscan trade with the Greek colonies of Posidonia and Elea. It was occupied by the Samnites around the 5th century BC as consequence of the Battle of Cumae as part of the Syracusan sphere of influence. With the Roman advance in Campania, Irna began to lose its importance, being supplanted by the new Roman colony of Salernum, developing around an initial castrum. The new city, which gradually lost its function in favour of its role as a trade center, was connected to Rome by the Via Popilia. Archaeological remains, although fragmentary, suggest the idea of a flourishing, under the Emperor Diocletian, in the late 3rd century AD, Salernum became the administrative centre of the Lucania and Bruttii province. Like many coastal cities of southern Italy, Salerno initially remained untouched by the newcomers and it subsequently became part of the Duchy of Benevento. Under the Lombard dukes Salerno enjoyed the most splendid period of its history, with Arechis II, Salerno became a centre of studies with its famous Medical School. The Lombard prince ordered the city to be fortified, the Castle on the Bonadies mountain had already been built with walls, in 839 Salerno declared independence from Benevento, becoming the capital of a flourishing principality stretching out to Capua, northern Calabria and Apulia up to Taranto. The coins minted in the city circulated in all the Mediterranean, however, the stability of the Principate was continually shaken by the Saracen attacks and, most of all, by internal struggles. In 1056, one of the numerous plots led to the fall of Guaimar and his weaker son Gisulf II succeeded him, but the decline of the principality had begun. In 1077 Salerno reached its zenith but soon lost all its territory to the Normans, on 13 December 1076, the Norman conqueror Robert Guiscard, who had married Guaimar IVs daughter Sikelgaita, besieged Salerno and defeated his brother-in-law Gisulf
24.
Normandy landings
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The Normandy landings were the landing operations on Tuesday,6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. The largest seaborne invasion in history, the operation began the liberation of German-occupied northwestern Europe from Nazi control, planning for the operation began in 1943. Adolf Hitler placed German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in command of German forces, the amphibious landings were preceded by extensive aerial and naval bombardment and an airborne assault—the landing of 24,000 American, British, and Canadian airborne troops shortly after midnight. Allied infantry and armoured divisions began landing on the coast of France at 06,30, the target 50-mile stretch of the Normandy coast was divided into five sectors, Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword. Strong winds blew the landing craft east of their positions, particularly at Utah. Casualties were heaviest at Omaha, with its high cliffs, at Gold, Juno, and Sword, several fortified towns were cleared in house-to-house fighting, and two major gun emplacements at Gold were disabled, using specialised tanks. The Allies failed to any of their goals on the first day. Carentan, St. Lô, and Bayeux remained in German hands, and Caen, German casualties on D-Day have been estimated at 4,000 to 9,000 men. Allied casualties were at least 10,000, with 4,414 confirmed dead, museums, memorials, and war cemeteries in the area now host many visitors each year. Between 27 May and 4 June 1940, over 338,000 troops of the British Expeditionary Force, after the German Army invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin began pressing his allies for the creation of a second front in western Europe. In late May 1942 the Soviet Union and the United States made a joint announcement that a. full understanding was reached with regard to the urgent tasks of creating a front in Europe in 1942. Instead of a return to France, the Western Allies staged offensives in the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations. By mid-1943 the campaign in North Africa had been won, the Allies then launched the invasion of Sicily in July 1943, and subsequently invaded Italy in September the same year. By then, Soviet forces were on the offensive and had won a victory at the Battle of Stalingrad. The decision to undertake a cross-channel invasion within the year was taken at the Trident Conference in Washington in May 1943. Initial planning was constrained by the number of landing craft, most of which were already committed in the Mediterranean. At the Tehran Conference in November 1943, Roosevelt and Churchill promised Stalin that they would open the second front in May 1944. Four sites were considered for the landings, Brittany, the Cotentin Peninsula, Normandy, as Brittany and Cotentin are peninsulas, it would have been possible for the Germans to cut off the Allied advance at a relatively narrow isthmus, so these sites were rejected
25.
Omaha Beach
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Omaha Beach was the code name for one of the five sectors of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France in the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944, during World War II. On D-Day, the untested 29th Infantry Division, along with nine companies of U. S. Army Rangers redirected from Pointe du Hoc, were to assault the western half of the beach, the battle-hardened 1st Infantry Division was given the eastern half. The initial assault waves, consisting of tanks, infantry, and combat forces, were carefully planned to reduce the coastal defenses. Opposing the landings was the German 352nd Infantry Division, of the 12,020 men of the division,6,800 were experienced combat troops, detailed to defend a 53-kilometer front. The Germans were largely deployed in strongpoints along the coast—the German strategy was based on defeating any seaborne assault at the water line, very little went as planned during the landing at Omaha. Difficulties in navigation caused the majority of landing craft to miss their targets throughout the day, the defenses were unexpectedly strong, and inflicted heavy casualties on landing U. S. troops. Under heavy fire, the engineers struggled to clear the beach obstacles, weakened by the casualties taken just in landing, the surviving assault troops could not clear the heavily defended exits off the beach. This caused further problems and consequent delays for later landings, small penetrations were eventually achieved by groups of survivors making improvised assaults, scaling the bluffs between the most heavily defended points. Omaha was bounded at either end by large rocky cliffs, the crescent-shaped beach presented a gently sloping tidal area averaging 300 m between low and high-water marks. Above the tide line was a bank of shingle 2.5 m high, at the western end, the shingle bank rested against a stone sea wall which ranged from 1. 5–4 m in height. For the remaining two thirds of the beach after the seawall ended, the shingle lay against a low sand embankment, the German defensive preparations and the lack of any defense in depth indicated that their plan was to stop the invasion at the beaches. Four lines of obstacles were constructed in the intertidal zone,30 meters behind these was a continuous line of logs driven into the sand pointing seaward, every third one capped with an anti-tank mine. The final line of obstacles was a line of hedgehogs 150 meters from the shoreline. The area between the bank and the bluffs was both wired and mined, and mines were also scattered on the bluff slopes. Positions within each strongpoint were interconnected by trenches and tunnels, as well as the basic weaponry of rifles and machine guns, more than 60 light artillery pieces were deployed at these strongpoints. The heaviest pieces were located in eight gun casemates and four open positions while the guns were housed in 35 pillboxes. A further 18 anti-tank guns completed the disposition of artillery targeting the beach, areas between the strongpoints were lightly manned with occasional trenches, rifle pits, and 85 machine-gun emplacements. No area of the beach was left uncovered, and the disposition of weapons meant that flanking fire could be brought to bear anywhere along the beach, Allied intelligence had identified the coastal defenders as a reinforced battalion of the 716th Infantry Division
26.
English Channel
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The English Channel, also called simply the Channel, is the body of water that separates southern England from northern France, and links the southern part of the North Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. It is about 560 km long and varies in width from 240 km at its widest to 33.3 km in the Strait of Dover and it is the smallest of the shallow seas around the continental shelf of Europe, covering an area of some 75,000 km2. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the English Channel as follows, a line joining Isle Vierge to Lands End. The southwestern limit of the North Sea, the IHO defines the southwestern limit of the North Sea as a line joining the Walde Lighthouse and Leathercoat Point. The Walde Lighthouse is 6 km east of Calais, and Leathercoat Point is at the end of St Margarets Bay. The Strait of Dover, at the Channels eastern end, is its narrowest point and it is relatively shallow, with an average depth of about 120 m at its widest part, reducing to a depth of about 45 m between Dover and Calais. Eastwards from there the adjoining North Sea reduces to about 26 m in the Broad Fourteens where it lies over the watershed of the land bridge between East Anglia and the Low Countries. It reaches a depth of 180 m in the submerged valley of Hurds Deep,48 km west-northwest of Guernsey. The eastern region along the French coast between Cherbourg and the mouth of the Seine river at Le Havre is frequently referred to as the Bay of the Seine. There are several islands in the Channel, the most notable being the Isle of Wight off the English coast. The coastline, particularly on the French shore, is indented, several small islands close to the coastline, including Chausey. The Cotentin Peninsula in France juts out into the Channel, whilst on the English side there is a parallel channel known as the Solent between the Isle of Wight and the mainland. The Celtic Sea is to the west of the Channel, the time difference of about six hours between high water at the eastern and western limits of the Channel is indicative of the tidal range being amplified further by resonance. It was never defined as a border and the names were more or less descriptive. It was not considered as the property of a nation, strangely, before the development of the modern nations, British scholars very often referred to it as Gaulish and the French one as British or English. The name English Channel has been used since the early 18th century. In modern Dutch, however, it is known as Het Kanaal, later, it has also been known as the British Channel or the British Sea having been called the Oceanus Britannicus by the 2nd-century geographer Ptolemy. The same name is used on an Italian map of about 1450, the Anglo-Saxon texts often call it Sūð-sǣ as opposed to Norð-sǣ
27.
England
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England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west, the Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east, the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain in its centre and south, and includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly, and the Isle of Wight. England became a state in the 10th century, and since the Age of Discovery. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the worlds first industrialised nation, Englands terrain mostly comprises low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there are uplands in the north and in the southwest, the capital is London, which is the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland through another Act of Union to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain, the name England is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means land of the Angles. The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages, the Angles came from the Angeln peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as Engla londe, is in the ninth century translation into Old English of Bedes Ecclesiastical History of the English People. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars, it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. An alternative name for England is Albion, the name Albion originally referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus, specifically the 4th century BC De Mundo, in it are two very large islands called Britannia, these are Albion and Ierne. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, the word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins. Albion is now applied to England in a poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximately 780,000 years ago. The oldest proto-human bones discovered in England date from 500,000 years ago, Modern humans are known to have inhabited the area during the Upper Paleolithic period, though permanent settlements were only established within the last 6,000 years
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France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
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United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
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Green Cove Springs
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Green Cove Springs is a hydrological spring and a city in Clay County, Florida, United States. The population was 5,378 at the 2000 census, as of 2010, the population recorded by the U. S. Census Bureau was 6,908. It is the county seat of Clay County, the city is named after the portion of the St. Johns River upon which the city is built. The river bends here, and the area is sheltered by trees that are perennially green, the area was first inhabited over 7,000 years ago by natives drawn by the warm mineral spring. The spring, locally known as the Original Fountain of Youth, attracted guests in the 19th century, today the sulfur-scented spring water feeds an adjacent public swimming pool before flowing the short distance to the St. Johns River. The Green Cove Springs area was first developed by George E. Clarke in 1816 when he was provided land, under a Spanish land grant, Green Cove Springs was established in 1854 as White Sulfur Springs. Renamed in 1866, it became the Clay County seat in 1871, agriculture and tourism were two of the primary economic ventures until the end of the century, when Henry Flaglers railroad began taking tourists further south into Florida. In 1895, the Great Freeze destroyed the citrus crops. The 1920s saw renewed development, with automobile traffic bringing in tourists again, the Great Depression of the 1930s saw the end of growth again for the city. The period immediately before and during World War II again brought new growth to Green Cove Springs. On September 11,1940, the U. S. Navy opened Naval Air Station Lee Field in honor of Ensign Bejamin Lee who had lost his life in a crash at Killinghome, England, during World War I. In August 1943, the facility was renamed Naval Air Station Green Cove Springs and consisted of four 5, after the war, NAS Green Cove Springs was downgraded in status to a Naval Auxiliary Air Station as part of the greater NAS Jacksonville complex. In 1960, the Navy decommissioned NAAS Green Cove Springs and the pier facility, some of the mothballed vessels were transferred to foreign navies, while others were relocated to other Reserve Fleet locations. In 1984, the city annexed the former base into the city to utilize it for further growth and development as the Clay County Port. The air station is now a private airfield known as Reynolds Airpark with a single 5, 000-foot asphalt runway currently operational, although the original air traffic control tower is still standing, attached to one of the former Navy aircraft hangars, the airfield remains an uncontrolled facility. Green Cove Springs is the birthplace of Charles E. Merrill, one of the founders of Merrill, the towns spring is described by his son James Merrill in the poem Two From Florida, published in The Inner Room. Green Cove Springs is also the birthplace of Augusta Savage, Savage was an African American sculptor associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Locally, the community is known as the home of Gustafsons Farm, the main Gustafson Dairy Farm is located in Green Cove Springs and is one of the largest privately owned dairy farms in the southeastern United States
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Military Sealift Command
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The Military Sealift Command is a United States Navy organization that controls the replenishment and military transport ships of the Navy. The United States Military Sealift Command has the responsibility for providing sealift and it first came into existence on 9 July 1949 when the Military Sea Transportation Service became solely responsible for the Department of Defenses ocean transport needs. The MSTS was renamed the Military Sealift Command in 1970, Military Sealift Command ships are made up of a core fleet of ships owned by the United States Navy and others under long-term-charter augmented by short-term or voyage-chartered ships. Some ships may have Navy or Marine Corps personnel on board to carry out communication and special mission functions, ships on charter or equivalent, retain commercial colors and bear the standard merchant prefix MV, SS, or GTS, without hull numbers. Five programs comprise Military Sealift Command, Combat Logistics Force, Special Mission, Prepositioning, Service Support, the Combat Logistics Force’s role is to directly replenish ships that are underway at sea, enabling them to deploy for long periods of time without having to come to port. The Special Mission program operates vessels for military and federal government tasks, such as submarine support and missile flight data collection. The Prepositioning program sustains the US militarys forward presence strategy by deploying supply ships in key areas prior to actual need, also, MSC realigned two of its four mission-driven programs and adding a fifth program. The Prepositioning and Sealift programs are unchanged by the 2012 reorganization, as of June 2013, Military Sealift Command operated around 110 ships, and employed 9,800 people. The Combat Logistics Force is the part of the MSC most associated with supporting the Navy. In 1972, a study concluded that it would be cheaper for civilians to man USN support vessels such as tankers, the CLF is the American equivalent of the British Royal Fleet Auxiliary. These MSC ships are painted gray and can be easily identified by the blue. The Combat Logistics Force was formerly called the Naval Fleet Auxiliary Force, some of its ships were transferred to the new Service Support program. Special mission ships work for several different US Navy customers, including the Naval Sea Systems Command and these ships like those of the NFAF are painted haze gray with blue and gold stack bands. Some of its ships were transferred to the new Service Support program, as a key element of sea basing, afloat prepositioning provides the military equipment and supplies for a contingency forward deployed in key ocean areas before need. The MSC Prepositioning Program supports the US Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, Prepositioning ships remain at sea, ready to deploy on short-notice the vital equipment, fuel and supplies to initially support military forces in the event of a contingency. The Prepositioning Program consists of 34 at-sea ships plus 2 aviation support ships kept in reduced operating status and these ships wear civilian livery, and are only designated USNS if government-owned, those chartered from civilian owners are either SS or MV. It consists of four government-operated ships formerly in the Special Mission program, Sealift is divided into three separate project offices, Tanker Project Office, Dry Cargo Project Office and the Surge Project Office. As a result of a 2012 organization, MSCs 12 worldwide MSC ship support units will now report to the MSC operational area commands in their areas of responsibility
32.
Labrador Sea
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The Labrador Sea is an arm of the North Atlantic Ocean between the Labrador Peninsula and Greenland. The sea is flanked by continental shelves to the southwest, northwest and it connects to the north with Baffin Bay through the Davis Strait. It has been described as a sea of the Atlantic. The sea formed upon separation of the North American Plate and Greenland Plate that started about 60 million years ago, the Labrador Sea formed upon separation of the North American Plate and Greenland Plate that started about 60 million years ago and stopped about 40 million years ago. A sedimentary basin, which is now buried under the continental shelves, onset of magmatic sea-floor spreading was accompanied by volcanic eruptions of picrites and basalts in the Paleocene at the Davis Strait and Baffin Bay. Between about 500 BC and 1300 AD, the southern coast of the sea contained Dorset, Beothuk and Inuit settlements, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Labrador Sea as follows, On the North, the South limit of Davis Strait. On the East, a line from Cape St. Francis 47°45′N 52°27′W to Cape Farewell, thence a line joining this ledge with the East extreme of Cape St. Charles in Labrador. The Labrador Sea is about 3,400 m deep and 1,000 km wide where it joins the Atlantic Ocean and it becomes shallower, to less than 700 m towards Baffin Bay and passes into the 300 kilometres wide Davis Strait. A 100–200 m deep turbidity current channel system, which is about 2–5 km wide and 3,800 kilometres long, runs on the bottom of the sea and it is called the Northwest Atlantic Mid-Ocean Channel and is one of the worlds longest drainage systems of Pleistocene age. It appears as a river bed with numerous tributaries and is maintained by high-density turbidity currents flowing within the levees. The water temperature varies between −1 °C in winter and 5–6 °C in summer, the salinity is relatively low, at 31–34.9 parts per thousand. Two-thirds of the sea is covered in ice in winter, tides are semi-diurnal, reaching 4 m. There is a water circulation in the sea. It is initiated by the East Greenland Current and continued by the West Greenland Current, then, the Baffin Island Current and Labrador Current transport cold and less saline water southward along the Canadian coast. These currents carry numerous icebergs and therefore hinder navigation and exploration of the gas fields beneath the sea bed. The speed of the Labrador current is typically 0. 3–0.5 m/s, the Labrador Current maintains the water temperature at 0 °C and salinity between 30 and 34 parts per thousand. The NADW consists of three parts of different origin and salinity, and the top one, the Labrador Sea Water, is formed in the Labrador Sea. This part occurs at a depth and has a relatively low salinity, low temperature and high oxygen content compared to the layers above
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Davis Strait
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Davis Strait is a northern arm of the Labrador Sea. It lies between mid-western Greenland and Nunavut, Canadas Baffin Island, to the north is Baffin Bay. The strait was named for the English explorer John Davis, who explored the area seeking a Northwest Passage. By the 1650s it was used for whale hunting, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Davis Strait as follows, On the North. The Southern limit of Baffin Bay, the parallel of 60° North between Greenland and Labrador. The Eastern limit of the Northwestern Passages South of 70° North, the Davis Strait is underlain by complex geological features of buried grabens and ridges, probably formed by strike-slip faulting during Paleogene times about 45 million to 62 million years ago. The strike-slip faulting transferred plate-tectonic motions in the Labrador Sea to Baffin Bay and it is the worlds broadest strait. With a water depth of one and two thousand meters the strait is substantially shallower than the Labrador Sea to the south or Baffin Bay to the north. The strait is famous for its fierce tides that can range from 30 to 60 ft and this has led the Greenlands minister and provincial council to offer a large number of off-shore concessions to potential hydrocarbon extraction. The largest concessions areas are located in seas west of Greenland, primarily the Davis Strait and Baffin Bay, june 2005 Satellite photograph of Davis Strait from MODIS, showing meltwater ponds
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Baffin Bay
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Baffin Bay, located between Baffin Island and the southwest coast of Greenland, is a marginal sea of the North Atlantic Ocean. It is connected to the Atlantic via Davis Strait and the Labrador Sea, the narrower Nares Strait connects Baffin Bay with the Arctic Ocean. The bay is not navigable most of the year because of the ice cover and high density of floating ice, however, a polynya of about 80,000 km2, known as the North Water, opens in summer on the north near Smith Sound. Most of the life of the bay is concentrated near that region. The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of Baffin Bay as follows, a line from Cape Sheridan, Grant Land to Cape Bryant, Greenland. The parallel of 70° North between Greenland and Baffin Land, the Eastern limits of the North-West Passages. The area of the bay has been inhabited since c. 500 BC, around AD1200, the initial Dorset settlers were replaced by the Thule peoples. Recent excavations also suggest that the Norse colonization of the Americas reached the shores of Baffin Bay sometime between the 10th and 14th centuries, the English explorer John Davis was the first recorded European to enter the bay, arriving in 1585. In 1612, a group of English merchants formed the Company of Merchants of London and their governor Thomas Smythe organized five expeditions to explore the northern coasts of Canada in search of a maritime passage to the Far East. Henry Hudson and Thomas Buttons explored Hudson Bay, William Gibbons Labrador, and Robert Bylot Hudson Strait, aboard the Discovery, Baffin charted the area and named Lancaster, Smith, and Jones Sounds after members of his company. By the completion of his 1616 voyage, Baffin held out no hope of an ice-free passage, over time, his account came to be doubted until it was confirmed by John Rosss 1818 voyage. More advanced scientific studies followed in 1928, in the 1930s and after World War II by Danish, currently, there are a few Inuit settlements on the Canadian coast of the bay, including Arctic Bay, Pond Inlet and Clyde River. Those settlements are accessed and supplied by air and annual sealifts, in 1975, a town was built at Nanisivik to support lead and zinc production at the Nanisivik Mine—the first Canadian mine in the Arctic. The mine was closed in 2002 due to declining resources and metal prices, whereas the town still has a functional seaport and an airport, as of the 2006 census, it has an official population of zero. Baffin Bay was the epicenter of a 7.3 magnitude earthquake in 1933 and this is the largest known earthquake north of the Arctic Circle. It caused no damage because of its location and the small number of the nearby onshore communities. The northwestern part of the bay remains one of the most seismically active regions in eastern Canada, five earthquakes of magnitude 6 have occurred here since 1933. The latest strong earthquake occurred on 15 April 2010 and had the magnitude of 5.1, Baffin Bay is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean bounded by the Baffin Island in the west, Greenland in the east, and Ellesmere Island in the north
35.
Maritime Administration
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The United States Maritime Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Transportation. Its programs promote the use of transportation and its seamless integration with other segments of the transportation system. The Maritime Administration works in areas involving ships and shipping, shipbuilding, port operations, vessel operations, national security, environment. On June 4, Deputy Maritime Administrator Paul “Chip” Jaenichen was named Acting Maritime Administrator and he will serve in this role until the appointment and confirmation of a new Maritime Administrator. On August 6,1981, MARAD came under control of the Department of Transportation thereby bringing all transportation programs under one cabinet-level department, MARAD administers financial programs to develop, promote, and operate the U. S. Maritime Service and the U. S. S. Documented vessels to foreign registries, maintains equipment, shipyard facilities, the Maritime Subsidy Board negotiates contracts for ship construction and grants operating-differential subsidies to shipping companies. The Maritime Security Program authorizes MARAD to enter contracts with U. S. -flag commercial ship owners to provide service during times of war or national emergencies. As of 2007, ten companies have signed contracts providing the MSP with a reserve of sixty cargo vessels, United States Maritime Service, a training organization for the U. S
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National Defense Reserve Fleet
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The NDRF is managed by the U. S. Department of Transportations Maritime Administration. It is a different entity from the United States Navy reserve fleets, NDRF vessels are at the fleet sites at James River, Virginia–the James River Reserve Fleet, Beaumont, Texas–the Beaumont Reserve Fleet, and Suisun Bay, California, and at designated outported berths. Former anchorage sites included Stony Point, New York - the Hudson River Reserve Fleet, Wilmington, North Carolina, Mobile, Alabama, Astoria, Oregon, and Olympia, Washington. Through the 2010s, the oldest, most decrepit hulls at Suisun Bay will be stripped of materials, then broken up in Texas. Twenty of the most polluting mothball ships are slated for recycling by 2012, at its peak in 1950, the NDRF had 2,277 ships in lay-up. In July 2007, it held 230 ships, primarily dry cargo ships with some tankers, military auxiliaries, by the end of August,2015, it held 100. The NDRF was established under Section 11 of the Merchant Ship Sales Act of 1946 to serve as a reserve of ships for national defense, NDRF vessels were used in seven wars and crises. During the Korean War,540 vessels were out to move military forces. During a worldwide tonnage shortfall in 1951–53, more than 600 ships were reactivated to carry coal to Northern Europe, from 1955 through 1964, another 600 ships were used to store grain for the Department of Agriculture. Another 223 cargo ships and 29 tankers were activated during a tonnage shortfall after the Suez Canal was closed in 1956, during the Berlin crisis of 1961,18 vessels were activated and remained in service until 1970. Another 172 vessels were activated for the Vietnam War and these are crewed with a reduced crew but kept available for activation within four, five, ten or twenty days. An additional 28 ships are held under United States Maritime Administration custody for other Government agencies on a cost-reimbursable basis. Vessels with military utility or logistic value are held in status and are in a preservation program that is designed to keep them in the same condition as when they enter the fleet. The internal spaces are dehumidified to slow the corrosion of metal, DC power is distributed through anodes to the exterior underwater portions of the hull, creating an electric field that suppresses corrosion and preserves the surface of the hull. External painting and other work is generally deferred since it does not affect the ability to activate and operate the vessel. MARAD is authorized as the government’s disposal agent through the NDRF program for merchant type vessels equal to or greater than 1,500 gross tons. A state agency can file an application to request title to a vessel as-is where-is from the NDRF for the purpose of creating an artificial reef, of the 132 non-retention vessels in the NDRF, there are 117 that are being prepared for disposal. The NDRF program can give and lend historic artifacts to maritime-heritage organizations, battleships, cruisers, and aircraft carriers which have been stricken or those awaiting final disposition may be transferred to MARAD locations for berthing
37.
Greece
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Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, historically also known as Hellas, is a country in southeastern Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2015. Athens is the capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, situated on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. Greece consists of nine regions, Macedonia, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Thessaly, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Thrace, Crete. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a vast number of islands, eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres. From the eighth century BC, the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as polis, which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea. Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC, becoming a part of the Roman Empire and its successor. The Greek Orthodox Church also shaped modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World, falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence. Greeces rich historical legacy is reflected by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among the most in Europe, Greece is a democratic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the member to join the European Communities and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001. Greeces unique cultural heritage, large industry, prominent shipping sector. It is the largest economy in the Balkans, where it is an important regional investor, the names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages, locations and cultures. The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona cave, all three stages of the stone age are represented in Greece, for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries and these civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script known as Linear A, and the Mycenaeans in Linear B, an early form of Greek. The Mycenaeans gradually absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC and this ushered in a period known as the Greek Dark Ages, from which written records are absent. The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, in 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the worlds first democratic system of government in Athens
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Hellenic Navy
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The Hellenic Navy is the naval force of Greece, part of the Hellenic Armed Forces. The modern Greek navy has its roots in the forces of various Aegean Islands. During the periods of monarchy it was known as the Royal Navy, the total displacement of all the navys vessels is approximately 150,000 tons. The motto of the Hellenic Navy is Μέγα το της Θαλάσσης Κράτος from Thucydides account of Pericles oration on the eve of the Peloponnesian War and this has been translated as The rule of the sea is a great matter. Pericles words are written across the top of the emblem, the navy, as it represents a necessary weapon for Greece, should only be created for war and aim to victory. The history of the Hellenic Navy begins with the birth of modern Greece, the fleet was of crucial importance to the success of the revolt. Its goal was to prevent as much as possible the Ottoman Navy from resupplying the isolated Ottoman garrisons, although Greek crews were experienced seamen, the light Greek ships, mostly armed merchantmen, were unable to stand up to the large Turkish ships of the line in direct combat. So the Greeks conducted the equivalent of modern-day naval special operations, resorting to the use of fireships and it was in the use of such ships that courageous seamen like Constantine Kanaris won international renown. Under the leadership of capable admirals, most prominently Andreas Miaoulis of Hydra, however, as Greece became embroiled in a civil war, the Sultan called upon his strongest subject, Muhammad Ali of Egypt, for aid. Despite victories at Samos and Gerontas, the Revolution was threatened with collapse until the intervention of the Great Powers in the Battle of Navarino in 1827. There the Egypto-Ottoman fleet was defeated by the combined fleets of the Britain, France. When Ioannis Capodistrias became governor of newly liberated Greece in 1828, the Greek fleet consisted of few remaining ships, which had participated in the war for independence. The first minister of Naval affairs was Constantine Kanaris, and the most powerful ship of the fleet at that time, the frigate Hellas, had been constructed in the United States in 1825. The Hellenic Navy established its headquarters at the island of Poros, furthermore, continuous efforts towards the education of officers were initiated. Young people were trained at the military school of Scholi Evelpidon and afterwards they were transferred to the navy. In 1831, Greece descended into anarchy with numerous areas, including Mani and Hydra and it was during this revolt that the flagship Hellas, docked at Poros, was set on fire by Admiral Andreas Miaoulis. Capodistrias was assassinated a few months after, the first Naval School was founded in 1846 on the Corvette Loudovikos and Leonidas Palaskas was assigned as its director. During the 1850s, the progressive elements of the navy won out
39.
Mobile, Alabama
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Mobile is the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. Alabamas only saltwater port, Mobile is located at the head of the Mobile Bay, Mobile is the principal municipality of the Mobile metropolitan area. This region of 412,992 residents is composed solely of Mobile County, Mobile is the largest city in the Mobile-Daphne−Fairhope CSA, with a total population of 604,726, the second largest in the state. As of 2011, the population within a 60-mile radius of Mobile is 1,262,907, Mobile began as the first capital of colonial French Louisiana in 1702. During its first 100 years, Mobile was a colony of France, then Britain, Mobile first became a part of the United States of America in 1813, with the annexation of West Florida under President James Madison. In 1861 Alabama joined the Confederate States of America, which surrendered in 1865, Mobile is known for having the oldest organized Carnival celebrations in the United States. The festival began to be celebrated in the first decade of the 18th century by its first French Catholic colonial settlers. Mobile was host to the first formally organized Carnival mystic society, known elsewhere as a krewe, to celebrate with a parade in the United States, in 2005 the first integrated mystic society had a parade for Mardi Gras. The city gained its name from the Mobile tribe that the French colonists encountered living in the area of Mobile Bay. The Mobile tribe, along with the Tohomé, obtained permission from the colonists, about seven years after the founding of the Mobile settlement, to settle near the fort. It was founded by French Canadian brothers Pierre Le Moyne dIberville and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, Bienville was appointed as royal governor of French Louisiana in 1701. Mobiles Roman Catholic parish was established on July 20,1703, by Jean-Baptiste de la Croix de Chevrières de Saint-Vallier, the parish was the first French Catholic parish established on the Gulf Coast of the United States. In 1704 the ship Pélican delivered 23 French women to the colony, though most of the Pélican girls recovered, numerous colonists and neighboring Native Americans contracted the disease in turn and died. This early period was also the occasion of the importation of the first African slaves, the population of the colony fluctuated over the next few years, growing to 279 persons by 1708, yet descending to 178 persons two years later due to disease. A new earth-and-palisade Fort Louis was constructed at the new site during this time, by 1712, when Antoine Crozat was appointed to take over administration of the colony, its population had reached 400 persons. The capital of La Louisiane was moved in 1720 to Biloxi, leaving Mobile to serve as a regional military and trading center. In 1723 the construction of a new fort with a stone foundation began and it was renamed Fort Condé in honor of Louis Henri, Duc de Bourbon. In 1763, the Treaty of Paris was signed, ending the Seven Years War, by this treaty, France ceded its territories east of the Mississippi River to Britain
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Mississippi River
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The Mississippi River is the chief river of the largest drainage system on the North American continent. Flowing entirely in the United States, it rises in northern Minnesota, with its many tributaries, the Mississippis watershed drains all or parts of 31 U. S. states and 2 Canadian provinces between the Rocky and Appalachian Mountains. The Mississippi ranks as the fourth longest and fifteenth largest river in the world by discharge, the river either borders or passes through the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Native Americans long lived along the Mississippi River and its tributaries, most were hunter-gatherers, but some, such as the Mound Builders, formed prolific agricultural societies. The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century changed the way of life as first explorers, then settlers. The river served first as a barrier, forming borders for New Spain, New France, and the early United States, and then as a vital transportation artery and communications link. Formed from thick layers of the silt deposits, the Mississippi embayment is one of the most fertile agricultural regions of the country. In recent years, the river has shown a shift towards the Atchafalaya River channel in the Delta. The word itself comes from Messipi, the French rendering of the Anishinaabe name for the river, see below in the History section for additional information. In addition to historical traditions shown by names, there are at least two measures of a rivers identity, one being the largest branch, and the other being the longest branch. Using the largest-branch criterion, the Ohio would be the branch of the Lower Mississippi. Using the longest-branch criterion, the Middle Mississippi-Missouri-Jefferson-Beaverhead-Red Rock-Hellroaring Creek River would be the main branch and its length of at least 3,745 mi is exceeded only by the Nile, the Amazon, and perhaps the Yangtze River among the longest rivers in the world. The source of this waterway is at Browers Spring,8,800 feet above sea level in southwestern Montana and this is exemplified by the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and the phrase Trans-Mississippi as used in the name of the Trans-Mississippi Exposition. It is common to qualify a regionally superlative landmark in relation to it, the New Madrid Seismic Zone along the river is also noteworthy. These various basic geographical aspects of the river in turn underlie its human history and present uses of the waterway, the Upper Mississippi runs from its headwaters to its confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis, Missouri. The source of the Upper Mississippi branch is traditionally accepted as Lake Itasca,1,475 feet above sea level in Itasca State Park in Clearwater County, however, the lake is in turn fed by a number of smaller streams. From its origin at Lake Itasca to St. Louis, Missouri, fourteen of these dams are located above Minneapolis in the headwaters region and serve multiple purposes, including power generation and recreation. The remaining 29 dams, beginning in downtown Minneapolis, all locks and were constructed to improve commercial navigation of the upper river
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Ohio River
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The Ohio River, which streams westward from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Cairo, Illinois, is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River in the United States. The 981-mile river flows through or along the border of six states, through its largest tributary, the Tennessee River, the basin includes many of the states of the southeastern U. S. It is the source of drinking water for three million people and it is named in Iroquoian or Seneca, Ohi, yó, lit. Good River or Shawnee, Pelewathiipi and Spelewathiipi, the river had great significance in the history of the Native Americans, as numerous civilizations formed along its valley. For thousands of years, Native Americans used the river as a major transportation, in 1669, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle led a French expedition to the Ohio River, becoming the first Europeans to see it. After European-American settlement, the served as a border between present-day Kentucky and Indian Territories. It was a transportation route for pioneers during the westward expansion of the early U. S. In his Notes on the State of Virginia published in 1781–82, Thomas Jefferson stated and its current gentle, waters clear, and bosom smooth and unbroken by rocks and rapids, a single instance only excepted. During the 19th century, the river was the boundary of the Northwest Territory. Where the river was narrow, it was the way to freedom for thousands of slaves escaping to the North, many helped by free blacks and whites of the Underground Railroad resistance movement. The Ohio River is a transition area, as its water runs along the periphery of the humid subtropical. It is inhabited by fauna and flora of both climates, in winter, it regularly freezes over at Pittsburgh but rarely further south toward Cincinnati and Louisville. At Paducah, Kentucky, in the south, near the Ohios confluence with the Mississippi, Paducah was founded there because it is the northernmost ice-free reach of the Ohio. The Ohio River is formed by the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers at Point State Park in Pittsburgh, from there, it flows northwest through Allegheny and Beaver counties, before making an abrupt turn to the south-southwest at the West Virginia–Ohio–Pennsylvania triple-state line. From there, it forms the border between West Virginia and Ohio, upstream of Wheeling, West Virginia, the river then follows a roughly southwest and then west-northwest course until Cincinnati, before bending to a west-southwest course for most of its length. The course forms the borders of West Virginia and Kentucky. The Ohio drains parts of 15 states in four regions, northeast New York, a small area of the southern border along the headwaters of the Allegheny. Pennsylvania, a corridor from the corner to north central border
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Alexandria, Virginia
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Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is coterminous with the U. S. Census Bureau-census-designated place of Arlington, as a result, the county is often referred to in the region simply as Arlington or Arlington, Virginia. In 2015, the population was estimated at 229,164. The land that became Arlington was originally donated by Virginia to the United States government to form part of the new federal district of Columbia. In 1846, Congress returned the land southwest of the Potomac River donated by Virginia due to issues involving Congressional representation, the General Assembly of Virginia changed the countys name to Arlington in 1920 to avoid confusion with the adjacent City of Alexandria. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the bank of the Potomac River directly across from Washington. Arlington is also bordered by Fairfax County and City of Falls Church to the northwest, west and southwest, as of the 2010 census, the population was 207,627. Due to the proximity to downtown Washington, D. C. It is also home to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, the many federal agencies, government contractors, and service industries contribute to Arlingtons stable economy. It is the county in the United States by median family income. According to a 2016 study by Bankrate. com, Arlington is the best place to retire, the area that now constitutes Arlington County was originally part of Fairfax County in the Colony of Virginia. Land grants from the British monarch were awarded to prominent Englishmen in exchange for political favors, one of the grantees was Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, who lends his name to both Fairfax County and the City of Fairfax. George Washington Parke Custis, grandson of First Lady Martha Washington, the estate was eventually passed down to Mary Anna Custis Lee, wife of General Robert E. Lee. The property later became Arlington National Cemetery during the American Civil War, the area that now contains Arlington County was ceded to the new United States federal government by the Commonwealth of Virginia. With the passage of the Residence Act in 1790, Congress approved a new permanent capital to be located on the Potomac River, the Residence Act originally only allowed the President to select a location within Maryland as far east as what is now the Anacostia River. However, President Washington shifted the federal territorys borders to the southeast in order to include the city of Alexandria at the Districts southern tip. In 1791, Congress amended the Residence Act to approve the new site, however, this amendment to the Residence Act specifically prohibited the erection of the public buildings otherwise than on the Maryland side of the River Potomac. As permitted by the U. S. Constitution, the shape of the federal district was a square, measuring 10 miles on each side
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Buzzards Bay
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Buzzards Bay is a bay of the Atlantic Ocean adjacent to the U. S. state of Massachusetts. It is approximately 28 miles long by 8 miles wide and it is a popular destination for fishing, boating, and tourism. Since 1914, Buzzards Bay has been connected to Cape Cod Bay by the Cape Cod Canal and it is surrounded by the Elizabeth Islands on the south, by Cape Cod on the east, and the southern coasts of Bristol and Plymouth counties in Massachusetts to the northwest. To the southwest, the bay is connected to Rhode Island Sound, the city of New Bedford, Massachusetts is a historically significant port on Buzzards Bay, it was the worlds most successful whaling port during the early- and mid-19th century. Buzzards Bay was created during the portion of the Pleistocene epoch through the interplay of glacial. One such moraine forms Cape Cod, which is most of the shoreline of Buzzards Bay. In addition to the moraines, the ice sheet produced extensive outwash plains composed of mixed sediments. Melting ice blocks in the outwash deposits formed distinctive circular features called kettle lakes, numerous examples of kettle lakes can be found to the northwest of the Cape Cod Canal. Finally, waters released from the ice sheet raised sea level by sixty to one-hundred-twenty meters. Toward the end of the last ice age, fifteen years ago until about six thousand years ago. Like many estuaries, however, increasing development and land-use changes by the communities are accompanied by nutrient runoff leading to eutrophication in the smaller embayments. Decreases in eelgrass, scallops, and herring have also been noted, coordinated management efforts in Buzzards Bay have helped to decrease shellfish closures, conserve habitat for sea birds, and preserve open space. The name was given to this bay by colonists who saw a bird that they called a buzzard near its shores. The first naval engagement of the American Revolution, the Battle off Fairhaven, on 14 May 1775, American Captain Daniel Egery and Capt. Nathaniel Pope of Fairhaven in the sloop Success retrieved two vessels captured by the British crew of Captain John Linzee, Royal Navy commander of HMS Falcon. Crew member Noah Stoddard and the others took the first naval prisoners of the war,13 British crew, the bay was the location of one of only three documented fatal shark attacks in the states history in 1936. In 1991, towns located on Buzzards Bay suffered the worst effects from the surge of Hurricane Bob. The Buzzards Bay disaster happened on April 27,2003, an oil spill destroyed much of the shellfish business and killed many birds
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Boston
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Boston is the capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. Boston is also the seat of Suffolk County, although the county government was disbanded on July 1,1999. The city proper covers 48 square miles with a population of 667,137 in 2015, making it the largest city in New England. Alternately, as a Combined Statistical Area, this wider commuting region is home to some 8.1 million people, One of the oldest cities in the United States, Boston was founded on the Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by Puritan settlers from England. It was the scene of several key events of the American Revolution, such as the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the Siege of Boston. Upon U. S. independence from Great Britain, it continued to be an important port and manufacturing hub as well as a center for education, through land reclamation and municipal annexation, Boston has expanded beyond the original peninsula. Its rich history attracts many tourists, with Faneuil Hall alone drawing over 20 million visitors per year, Bostons many firsts include the United States first public school, Boston Latin School, first subway system, the Tremont Street Subway, and first public park, Boston Common. Bostons economic base also includes finance, professional and business services, biotechnology, information technology, the city has one of the highest costs of living in the United States as it has undergone gentrification, though it remains high on world livability rankings. Bostons early European settlers had first called the area Trimountaine but later renamed it Boston after Boston, Lincolnshire, England, the renaming on September 7,1630 was by Puritan colonists from England who had moved over from Charlestown earlier that year in quest of fresh water. Their settlement was limited to the Shawmut Peninsula, at that time surrounded by the Massachusetts Bay and Charles River. The peninsula is thought to have been inhabited as early as 5000 BC, in 1629, the Massachusetts Bay Colonys first governor John Winthrop led the signing of the Cambridge Agreement, a key founding document of the city. Puritan ethics and their focus on education influenced its early history, over the next 130 years, the city participated in four French and Indian Wars, until the British defeated the French and their Indian allies in North America. Boston was the largest town in British America until Philadelphia grew larger in the mid-18th century, Bostons harbor activity was significantly curtailed by the Embargo Act of 1807 and the War of 1812. Foreign trade returned after these hostilities, but Bostons merchants had found alternatives for their investments in the interim. Manufacturing became an important component of the economy, and the citys industrial manufacturing overtook international trade in economic importance by the mid-19th century. Boston remained one of the nations largest manufacturing centers until the early 20th century, a network of small rivers bordering the city and connecting it to the surrounding region facilitated shipment of goods and led to a proliferation of mills and factories. Later, a network of railroads furthered the regions industry. Boston was a port of the Atlantic triangular slave trade in the New England colonies
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USS LST-510
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USS Buncombe County was an LST-491-class tank landing ship built for the United States Navy during World War II. Named for Buncombe County, North Carolina, she was the only U. S. Naval vessel to bear the name and she currently serves as a ferry between New London, Connecticut, and Orient, Long Island. After fitting out, LST-510 carried out an abbreviated shakedown cruise to the vicinity of Panama City, Florida, on 1 March LST-510 loaded the 150-ton tank landing craft LCT-709 onto her upper deck. She then headed to New York City, where she embarked additional crewmen, from there, she proceeded via Boston to Halifax, Nova Scotia and then left North American waters on 29 March in a 64-ship convoy. Like most passages of the North Atlantic during World War II, in one three-day period, she endured fog, sleet, and a wind that drove 50-foot waves over her bow. Then, there was the occasional iceberg, yet, undoubtedly, U-boats caused the greatest anxiety. They torpedoed four ships in the convoy, one of them just 400 yards away on LST-510s port quarter, on one occasion, maneuvers to evade the unseen enemy briefly threw the convoy into disorder in dense fog. To make matters worse, LST-510s engines broke down, all on board shared the certain fear that a torpedo would soon set off her explosive cargo until successful repairs allowed her to resume her harried voyage. LST-510 reached Derry, Northern Ireland safely on 13 April, from there, LST-510 crossed the Irish Sea and stopped briefly at Milford Haven, Wales before proceeding on to Plymouth, England where she delivered LCT-709. During May,1944 LST-510 outfitted at Falmouth and Fowey for her mission while scuttlebutt over the nature of that assignment flew furiously. Orders to load vehicles only heightened the excitement and accelerated the pace of work, then, on 1 June 1944, LST-510 embarked 200 men and 70 vehicles of the 29th Infantry Division, and the ship backed out into the bay and anchored. From that moment on, no one was allowed off the ship, at 0337 on 4 June, LST-510 weighed anchor and got underway, bound for the coast of France, but put about to return to Plymouth when foul weather compelled postponement. Finally, at 0355 on 5 June, LST-510 again shaped a course for France, by daybreak, LST-510 had formed up with Convoy B1 of the 4, 000-vessel Western Task Force. Neither LST-510 nor her embarked soldiers took part in the assault at Normandy. The invasion was already eight hours old when she began approaching Omaha Beach and she could not get all the way in to the beach itself, so LST-510 unloaded her cargo and disembarked her men via LCTs and Rhino pontoon barges. That night, LST-510 endured her first air raid, but her only loss proved to be sleep, the raids continued sporadically throughout the night. Even before all of LST-510s cargo had been unloaded, she began embarking wounded men for treatment. In late September, on her 21st passage across the channel, LST-510 beached over a hollow on the bottom which produced abnormal stresses on her hull, forced to return to England on one engine, the tank landing ship was drydocked for repairs at Plymouth for a month
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Orient, New York
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Orient is a hamlet and census-designated place in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, United States. The CDPs population was 743 at the 2010 census, Orient and Orient Point are used almost interchangeably. However, Orient Point refers specifically to the point at the end of the North Fork of Long Island. Orient is the eastern-most town on Long Islands picturesque North Fork and it was originally named Poquatuck, after the name of the local Native American tribe that resided along the inland waterways, then named Oyster Ponds because of the nearby oyster beds. Orient and East Marion were originally called Oysterponds because of the abundance of shellfish in the area, what is now Orient was known as Lower Neck, while East Marion was called Upper Neck. The communities separated in 1836 and East Marion was named for Revolutionary War Gen. Francis Marion, East was tacked onto Marion because of an existing Marion upstate. The name Orient was chosen to reflect that areas easternmost position on the North Fork, Orients winter population swells to well over 1000 in the summer months. Other than a post office, a gas station, a store. Many make a living at the US Governments Department of Agriculture lab on nearby Plum Island, truck farming and commercial fishing industry remain as well. Definitely New England in style and flavor, the hamlet of Orient has homes built over the last three centuries, locals joke that a new house is anything built since World War II. Later, Orient was used as a base of operations by British commanders such as Benedict Arnold, among Benedict Arnolds headquarters was a local tavern owned and operated by the Vail family on what is now known as Village Lane. Many of the older structures are included in the Orient Historic District. Ferry Service has connected Orient Point to southern New England for over a century, the Cross Sound Ferry currently operates a vehicle/passenger ferry service between Orient Point and New London, Connecticut. This service has expanded in recent years with Sea Jet service being provided to the Foxwoods Casino. According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has an area of 6.1 square miles. Though Orients climate is influenced by both subtropical and continental air, it is due to the Atlantic Ocean current. The climate borders on humid continental and humid subtropical The CDP experiences moderately cold, damp winters and warm, the temperatures tend to be cooler than other parts of the island due to the CDPs coastal location and a constant onshore flow. As of the census of 2000, there were 709 people,330 households, the population density was 139.2 per square mile
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New London, Connecticut
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New London is a seaport city and a port of entry on the northeast coast of the United States. It is located at the mouth of the Thames River in New London County, for several decades beginning in the early 19th century, New London was one of the worlds three busiest whaling ports, along with Nantucket and New Bedford, Massachusetts. The wealth that whaling brought into the city furnished the capital to fund much of the present architecture. New London subsequently became home to shipping and manufacturing industries. New London is now known in Connecticut for its wealth of art. The city is home to the United States Coast Guard Academy, Connecticut College, Mitchell College, the Coast Guard Station New London and New London Harbor is home port to the U. S. Coast Guard Cutter Chinook and the Coast Guards tall ship Eagle. New London had a population of 27,620 at the 2010 census, the Norwich-New London metropolitan area includes twenty-one towns and 274,055 people. The area was called Nameaug by the Pequot Indians, John Winthrop, Jr. founded the first English settlement here in 1646, making it about the 13th town settled in Connecticut. Inhabitants informally referred to it as Nameaug or as Pequot after the tribe, in the 1650s, the colonists wanted to give the town the official name of London after London, England, but the Connecticut General Assembly wanted to name it Faire Harbour. The citizens protested, declaring that they would prefer it to be called Nameaug if it couldnt be officially named London, the legislature relented, and the town was officially named New London on March 10,1658. The harbor was considered to be the best deep water harbor on Long Island Sound, famous New Londoners during the American Revolution include Nathan Hale, William Coit, Richard Douglass, Thomas & Nathaniel Shaw, Gen. Samuel Parsons, printer Timothy Green, and Samuel Seabury. It is often noted that this raid on New London and Groton was intended to divert General Washington, the main defensive fort for New London was Fort Griswold, located across the Thames River in Groton. It was well known to Arnold, who sold its secrets to the British fleet so that they could avoid its artillery fire, after overrunning New Londons Fort Trumbull, Ft. All told, more than 52 British soldiers and 83 militia were killed, New London suffered over 6 militia killed and 24 wounded, while Arnold and the British and Hessian raiding party suffered an equal amount. Connecticuts independent legislature made New London one of the first two cities brought from de facto to formalized incorporations in its January session of 1784, along with New Haven, during the War of 1812, torpedoes were employed in attempts to destroy British vessels and protect American harbors. In fact, a torpedo was used in an unsuccessful attempt to destroy HMS Ramillies while in New Londons harbor. Hardy to warn the Americans to cease efforts with the use of any boat in this cruel and unheard-of warfare. For several decades beginning in the early 19th century, New London was one of the three busiest whaling ports in the world, along with Nantucket and New Bedford, Massachusetts
United States
Greece
City of Evansville
