1.
Prague
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Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. It is the 14th largest city in the European Union and it is also the historical capital of Bohemia. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city has a temperate climate, with warm summers and chilly winters. Prague has been a political, cultural, and economic centre of central Europe with waxing and waning fortunes during its history and it was an important city to the Habsburg Monarchy and its Austro-Hungarian Empire. Prague is home to a number of cultural attractions, many of which survived the violence. Main attractions include the Prague Castle, the Charles Bridge, Old Town Square with the Prague astronomical clock, since 1992, the extensive historic centre of Prague has been included in the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. The city has more than ten major museums, along with theatres, galleries, cinemas. An extensive modern public transportation system connects the city, also, it is home to a wide range of public and private schools, including Charles University in Prague, the oldest university in Central Europe. Prague is classified as an Alpha- global city according to GaWC studies, Prague ranked sixth in the Tripadvisor world list of best destinations in 2016. Its rich history makes it a popular tourist destination, and the city more than 6.4 million international visitors annually. Prague is the fifth most visited European city after London, Paris, Istanbul, the region was settled as early as the Paleolithic age. In the last century BC, the Celts were slowly driven away by Germanic tribes, around the area where present-day Prague stands, the 2nd century map of Ptolemaios mentioned a Germanic city called Casurgis. In the following century, the Czech tribes built several fortified settlements in the area, most notably in Levý Hradec, Butovice and in the Šárka valley. The construction of what came to be known as the Prague Castle began near the end of the 9th century, the first masonry under Prague Castle dates from the year 885 at the latest. The other prominent Prague fort, the Přemyslid fort Vyšehrad, was founded in the 10th century, Prague Castle is dominated by the cathedral, which was founded in 1344, but completed in the 20th century. The legendary origins of Prague attribute its foundation to the 8th century Czech duchess and prophetess Libuše and her husband, Přemysl, legend says that Libuše came out on a rocky cliff high above the Vltava and prophesied, I see a great city whose glory will touch the stars. She ordered a castle and a town called Praha to be built on the site, a 17th century Jewish chronicler David Solomon Ganz, citing Cyriacus Spangenberg, claimed that the city was founded as Boihaem in c.1306 BC by an ancient king, Boyya. The region became the seat of the dukes, and later kings of Bohemia, under Roman Emperor Otto II the area became a bishopric in 973
2.
District heating
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District heating is a system for distributing heat generated in a centralized location for residential and commercial heating requirements such as space heating and water heating. District heating plants can provide higher efficiencies and better control than localized boilers. A combination of CHP and centralized heat pumps are used in the Stockholm multi energy system, the core element of many district heating systems is a heat-only boiler station. Additionally a cogeneration plant is added in parallel with the boilers. Both have in common that they are based on combustion of primary energy carriers. In the case of a fossil fueled cogeneration plant, the output is typically sized to meet half of the peak heat load. The boiler capacity will be able to meet the entire heat demand unaided and it is not economic to size the cogeneration plant alone to be able to meet the full heat load. In the New York City steam system, that is around 2.5 GW, Germany has the largest amount of CHP in Europe. The combination of cogeneration and district heating is very energy efficient, a simple thermal power station can be 20–35% efficient, whereas a more advanced facility with the ability to recover waste heat can reach total energy efficiency of nearly 80%. Some may exceed 100% based on the heating value by condensing the flue gas as well. Waste heat from nuclear plants is sometimes used for district heating. The principles for a combination of cogeneration and district heating applies the same for nuclear as it does for a thermal power station. Russia has several cogeneration nuclear plants which together provided 11.4 PJ of district heat in 2005, Russian nuclear district heating is planned to nearly triple within a decade as new plants are built. Other nuclear-powered heating from cogeneration plants are in Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, one use of nuclear heat generation was with the Ågesta Nuclear Power Plant in Sweden closed in 1974. In Switzerland, the Beznau Nuclear Power Plant provides heat to about 20,000 people, history Geothermal district heating was used in Pompeii, and in Chaudes-Aigues since the 14th Century. In 1890, the first wells were drilled to access a hot water resource outside of Boise, in 1892, after routing the water to homes and businesses in the area via a wooden pipeline, the first geothermal district heating system was created. As of a 2007 study, there were 22 geothermal district heating systems in the United States, as of 2010, two of those systems have shut down. The table below describes the 20 GDHS currently operational in America, use of solar heat for district heating has been increasing in Denmark and Germany in recent years
3.
Optical fiber
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An optical fiber or optical fibre is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Fibers are also used for illumination, and are wrapped in bundles so that they may be used to carry images, thus allowing viewing in confined spaces, as in the case of a fiberscope. Specially designed fibers are used for a variety of other applications, some of them being fiber optic sensors. Optical fibers typically include a transparent core surrounded by a transparent cladding material with an index of refraction. Light is kept in the core by the phenomenon of internal reflection which causes the fiber to act as a waveguide. Fibers that support many propagation paths or transverse modes are called multi-mode fibers, multi-mode fibers generally have a wider core diameter and are used for short-distance communication links and for applications where high power must be transmitted. Single-mode fibers are used for most communication links longer than 1,000 meters, being able to join optical fibers with low loss is important in fiber optic communication. This is more complex than joining electrical wire or cable and involves careful cleaving of the fibers, precise alignment of the cores. For applications that demand a permanent connection a fusion splice is common, in this technique, an electric arc is used to melt the ends of the fibers together. Another common technique is a splice, where the ends of the fibers are held in contact by mechanical force. Temporary or semi-permanent connections are made by means of specialized optical fiber connectors, the field of applied science and engineering concerned with the design and application of optical fibers is known as fiber optics. The term was coined by Indian physicist Narinder Singh Kapany who is acknowledged as the father of fiber optics. Guiding of light by refraction, the principle that makes fiber optics possible, was first demonstrated by Daniel Colladon, John Tyndall included a demonstration of it in his public lectures in London,12 years later. When the ray passes from water to air it is bent from the perpendicular. If the angle which the ray in water encloses with the perpendicular to the surface be greater than 48 degrees, the angle which marks the limit where total reflection begins is called the limiting angle of the medium. For water this angle is 48°27′, for flint glass it is 38°41′, unpigmented human hairs have also been shown to act as an optical fiber. Practical applications, such as close internal illumination during dentistry, appeared early in the twentieth century, image transmission through tubes was demonstrated independently by the radio experimenter Clarence Hansell and the television pioneer John Logie Baird in the 1920s. The principle was first used for medical examinations by Heinrich Lamm in the following decade
4.
Cable television
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This contrasts with broadcast television, in which the television signal is transmitted over the air by radio waves and received by a television antenna attached to the television. FM radio programming, high-speed Internet, telephone services, and similar non-television services may also be provided through these cables, analog television was standard in the 20th century, but since the 2000s, cable systems have been upgraded to digital cable operation. A cable channel is a television network available via cable television, alternative terms include non-broadcast channel or programming service, the latter being mainly used in legal contexts. Examples of cable/satellite channels/cable networks available in many countries are HBO, MTV, Cartoon Network, E. Eurosport, the abbreviation CATV is often used for cable television. It originally stood for Community Access Television or Community Antenna Television, in areas where over-the-air TV reception was limited by distance from transmitters or mountainous terrain, large community antennas were constructed, and cable was run from them to individual homes. The origins of cable broadcasting for radio are even older as radio programming was distributed by cable in some European cities as far back as 1924, Cable television has gone through a series of steps of evolution in the United States and Canada. Particularly in Canada, communities with their own signals were fertile cable markets, as viewers wanted to receive American signals. Early systems carried only a maximum of seven channels, using 2,4,5 or 6,7,9,11 and 13, as the equipment was unable to confine the signal discreetly within the assigned channel bandwidth. The reason 4 and 5 along with 6 and 7 could be used together was because of the 4 MHz gap between 4 and 5 and the nearly 90 MHz gap between 6 and 7. Even though eight channels are listed, in systems that maximized 7 channels. As equipment improved, all channels could be utilized, except where a local VHF television station broadcast. Local broadcast channels were not usable for signals deemed to be priority, later, the cable operators began to carry FM radio stations, and encouraged subscribers to connect their FM stereo sets to cable. Before stereo and bilingual TV sound became common, Pay-TV channel sound was added to the FM stereo cable line-ups, about this time, operators expanded beyond the 12-channel dial to use the midband and superband VHF channels adjacent to the high band 7-13 of North American television frequencies. Some operators as in Cornwall, Ontario, used a dual distribution network with Channels 2-13 on each of the two cables, during the 1980s, United States regulations not unlike public, educational, and government access created the beginning of cable-originated live television programming. These stations evolved partially into todays over-the-air digital subchannels, where a main broadcast TV station e. g, many live local programs with local interests were subsequently created all over the United States in most major television markets in the early 1980s. This evolved into todays many cable-only broadcasts of diverse programming, including cable-only produced television movies and miniseries, Cable specialty channels, starting with channels oriented to show movies and large sporting or performance events, diversified further, and narrowcasting became common. By the late 1980s, cable-only signals outnumbered broadcast signals on cable systems, by the mid-1980s in Canada, cable operators were allowed by the regulator to enter into distribution contracts with cable networks on their own. By the 1990s, tiers became common, with customers able to subscribe to different tiers to obtain different selections of additional channels above the basic selection, by subscribing to additional tiers, customers could get specialty channels, movie channels, and foreign channels
5.
Telephone
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A telephone, or phone, is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be heard directly. In 1876, Scottish emigrant Alexander Graham Bell was the first to be granted a United States patent for a device that produced clearly intelligible replication of the human voice and this instrument was further developed by many others. The telephone was the first device in history that people to talk directly with each other across large distances. Telephones rapidly became indispensable to businesses, government, and households, the essential elements of a telephone are a microphone to speak into and an earphone which reproduces the voice in a distant location. Until approximately the 1970s most telephones used a dial, which was superseded by the modern DTMF push-button dial. The receiver and transmitter are usually built into a handset which is held up to the ear, the dial may be located either on the handset, or on a base unit to which the handset is connected. The transmitter converts the sound waves to electrical signals which are sent through the network to the receiving phone. The receiving telephone converts the signals into audible sound in the receiver, telephones permit duplex communication, meaning they allow the people on both ends to talk simultaneously. The first telephones were connected to each other from one customers office or residence to another customers location. Being impractical beyond just a few customers, these systems were replaced by manually operated centrally located switchboards. For greater mobility, various systems were developed for transmission between mobile stations on ships and automobiles in the middle 20th century. Hand-held mobile phone]s was introduced for personal service starting in 1973, by the late 1970s several mobile telephone networks operated around the world. In 1983, the Advanced Mobile Phone System was launched, offering a standardized technology providing portability for users far beyond the residence or office. These analog cellular system evolved into digital networks with better security, greater capacity, better regional coverage, the public switched telephone network, with its hierarchical system of many switching centers, interconnects telephones around the world for communication with each other. With the standardized international numbering system, E.164, each line has an identifying telephone number. Although originally designed for voice communications, convergence has enabled most modern cell phones to have many additional capabilities. Since 1999, the trend for mobile phones is smartphones that integrate all mobile communication, a traditional landline telephone system, also known as plain old telephone service, commonly carries both control and audio signals on the same twisted pair of insulated wires, the telephone line. The control and signaling equipment consists of three components, the ringer, the hookswitch, and a dial, the ringer, or beeper, light or other device, alerts the user to incoming calls
6.
Direct-buried cable
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Most direct-buried cable is built to specific tolerances to heat, moisture, conductivity, and soil acidity. DBC is preferable in some areas since it is resistant to being the focus of lightning discharges. Most cable of this kind is coaxial or bundled fiber-optic in nature, direct-buried cable is cheaper and easier to lay than other kinds of cable that require protection from the earth. However, DBC is also cut during digging or other excavations. As a result, most direct-buried cable is found on side roads, some power cabling is also direct-buried. This kind of cabling must follow strict regulatory procedures regarding installation and this is usually used for undergrounding in areas where overhead cabling is impractical or dangerous. Guide to direct buried cabling procedures
7.
Alaska
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Alaska is a U. S. state located in the northwest extremity of North America. To the north are the Chukchi and Beaufort seas–the southern parts of the Arctic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean lies to the south and southwest. Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area, the 3rd least populous, approximately half of Alaskas residents live within the Anchorage metropolitan area. Alaskas economy is dominated by the fishing, natural gas, military bases and tourism are also a significant part of the economy. The United States purchased Alaska from the Russian Empire on March 30,1867, the area went through several administrative changes before becoming organized as a territory on May 11,1912. It was admitted as the 49th state of the U. S. on January 3,1959, the name Alaska was introduced in the Russian colonial period when it was used to refer to the peninsula. It was derived from an Aleut, or Unangam idiom, which refers to the mainland of Alaska. Literally, it means object to which the action of the sea is directed, Alaska is the northernmost and westernmost state in the United States and has the most easterly longitude in the United States because the Aleutian Islands extend into the Eastern Hemisphere. Alaska is the only non-contiguous U. S. state on continental North America and it is technically part of the continental U. S. but is sometimes not included in colloquial use, Alaska is not part of the contiguous U. S. often called the Lower 48. The capital city, Juneau, is situated on the mainland of the North American continent but is not connected by road to the rest of the North American highway system. Alaskas territorial waters touch Russias territorial waters in the Bering Strait, as the Russian Big Diomede Island, Alaska has a longer coastline than all the other U. S. states combined. Alaska is the largest state in the United States by total area at 663,268 square miles, over twice the size of Texas, Alaska is larger than all but 18 sovereign countries. Counting territorial waters, Alaska is larger than the area of the next three largest states, Texas, California, and Montana. It is also larger than the area of the 22 smallest U. S. states. Also referred to as the Panhandle or Inside Passage, this is the region of Alaska closest to the rest of the United States, as such, this was where most of the initial non-indigenous settlement occurred in the years following the Alaska Purchase. The region is dominated by the Alexander Archipelago as well as the Tongass National Forest and it contains the state capital Juneau, the former capital Sitka, and Ketchikan, at one time Alaskas largest city. The Alaska Marine Highway provides a vital transportation link throughout the area. The Interior is the largest region of Alaska, much of it is uninhabited wilderness, Fairbanks is the only large city in the region
8.
Permafrost
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In geology, permafrost is ground, including rock or soil, at or below the freezing point of water 0 °C for two or more years. Most permafrost is located in high latitudes, but alpine permafrost may exist at altitudes in much lower latitudes. Ground ice is not always present, as may be in the case of nonporous bedrock, Permafrost accounts for 0. 022% of total water on earth and exists in 24% of exposed land in the Northern Hemisphere. It also occurs subsea on the shelves of the continents surrounding the Arctic Ocean, portions of which were exposed during the last glacial period. A global temperature rise of 1.5 °C above current levels would be enough to start the thawing of permafrost in Siberia, Permafrost is soil, rock or sediment that is frozen for more than two consecutive years. In areas not overlain by ice, it exists beneath a layer of soil, rock or sediment, in practice, this means that permafrost occurs at an average air temperature of -2 °C or colder. Active layer thickness varies with the season, but is 0.3 to 4 meters thick, in the Northern Hemisphere, 24% of the ice-free land area, equivalent to 19 million square kilometers, is more or less influenced by permafrost. Most of this area is found in Siberia, northern Canada, Alaska, beneath the active layer annual temperature swings of permafrost become smaller with depth. The deepest depth of permafrost occurs where geothermal heat maintains a temperature above freezing, above that bottom limit there may be permafrost, whose temperature doesnt change annually—isothermal permafrost. The extent of permafrost varies with the climate, today, a considerable area of the Arctic is covered by permafrost. Overlying permafrost is an active layer that seasonally thaws during the summer. Plant life can be supported only within the active layer since growth can occur only in soil that is fully thawed for some part of the year, thickness of the active layer varies by year and location, but is typically 0. 6–4 m thick. In areas of continuous permafrost and harsh winters, the depth of the permafrost can exceed 1,400 m, Permafrost can also store carbon, both as peat and as methane. Work investigating the permafrost carbon pool size estimates that 1400–1700 Gt of carbon is stored in the northern circumpolar permafrost region, while a recent study that includes stores of the Tibetan Plateau, estimates total carbon pools in the permafrost of the Northern Hemisphere to be 1832 Gt. This large carbon pool represents more carbon than currently exists in all living things, Permafrost typically forms in any climate where the mean annual air temperature is less than the freezing point of water. Exceptions are found in moist-wintered forest climates, such as in Northern Scandinavia and the North-Eastern part of European Russia west of the Urals, fossil cold anomalies in the Geothermal gradient in areas where deep permafrost developed during the Pleistocene persist down to several hundred metres. This is evident from temperature measurements in boreholes in North America, typically, the below-ground temperature varies less from season to season than the air temperature, with mean annual temperatures tending to increase with depth. Thus, if the annual air temperature is only slightly below 0 °C
9.
Water table
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The water table is the upper surface of the zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with water, the water table is the surface where the water pressure head is equal to the atmospheric pressure. It may be visualized as the surface of the materials that are saturated with groundwater in a given vicinity. The groundwater may be from precipitation or from groundwater flowing into the aquifer, in areas with sufficient precipitation, water infiltrates through pore spaces in the soil, passing through the unsaturated zone. At increasing depths water fills in more of the spaces in the soils. Below the water table, in the zone, layers of permeable rock that yield groundwater are called aquifers. In less permeable soils, such as tight bedrock formations and historic lakebed deposits, the water table should not be confused with the water level in a deeper well. The elevation of the water in this well is dependent upon the pressure in the deeper aquifer and is referred to as the potentiometric surface. The water table may vary due to changes such as precipitation and evapotranspiration. Springs, rivers, lakes and oases occur when the table reaches the surface. Springs commonly form on hillsides, where the Earths slanting surface may intersect with the water table, Groundwater entering rivers and lakes accounts for the base-flow water levels in water bodies. Within an aquifer, the table is rarely horizontal, but reflects the surface relief due to the capillary effect in soils, sediments. In the aquifer, groundwater flows from points of pressure to points of lower pressure. The slope of the table is known as the hydraulic gradient, which depends on the rate at which water is added to and removed from the aquifer. This occurs when there is a layer of rock or sediment or relatively impermeable layer above the main water table/aquifer. If a perched aquifers flow intersects the Earths dry surface, at a wall for example. On low-lying oceanic islands with porous soil, freshwater tends to collect in lenticular pools on top of the denser seawater intruding from the sides of the islands, such an islands freshwater lens, and thus the water table, rises and falls with the tides. In some regions, for example, Great Britain or California, winter precipitation is higher than summer precipitation
10.
Utility pole
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It can be referred to as a transmission pole, telephone pole, telecommunication pole, power pole, hydro pole, telegraph pole, or telegraph post, depending on its application. A stobie pole is a pole made of two steel joists held apart by a slab of concrete in the middle, generally found in South Australia. Electrical wires and cables are routed overhead on utility poles as a way to keep them insulated from the ground and out of the way of people. Utility poles can be made of wood, metal, concrete, today, underground distribution lines are increasingly used as an alternative to utility poles in residential neighborhoods, due to poles perceived ugliness. Utility poles are used to carry two types of electric power lines, distribution lines and subtransmission lines. Distribution lines carry power from local substations to customers, a service drop carries this lower voltage to the customers premises. Subtransmission lines carry higher power from regional substations to local substations. They usually carry 46 kV,69 kV, or 115 kV for distances up to 60 miles,230 kV lines are often supported on H-shaped towers made with two or three poles. Transmission lines carrying voltages of above 230 kV are usually not supported by poles, telecommunication cables are usually carried on the same poles that support power lines, poles shared in this fashion are known as joint-use poles, but may have their own dedicated poles. The standard utility pole in the United States is about 40 ft long and is buried about 6 ft in the ground, however, poles can reach heights of 120 ft or more to satisfy clearance requirements. They are typically spaced about 125 ft apart in urban areas, or about 300 ft in rural areas, joint-use poles are usually owned by one utility, which leases space on it for other cables. Most utility poles are made of wood, pressure-treated with some type of preservative for protection against rot, fungi, woodpecker damage to wood poles is the most significant cause of pole deterioration in the U. S. Other common utility pole materials are steel and concrete, with composites also becoming more prevalent, one particular patented utility pole variant used in Australia is the Stobie pole, made up of two vertical steel posts with a slab of concrete between them. In southern Switzerland along various lakes, telephone poles are made of granite, starting in the early 1900s, these 18-foot poles were originally used for telegraph wires and later for telephone wires. Because they are made of granite, the poles last indefinitely, on poles carrying both, the electric power distribution lines and associated equipment are mounted at the top of the pole above the communication cables, for safety. The vertical space on the reserved for this equipment is called the supply space. The wires themselves are usually uninsulated, and supported by insulators, power is transmitted using the three-phase system, with three wires, or phases, labeled A, B, and C. Subtransmission lines comprise only these 3 wires, plus sometimes a ground wire, also called a static line or a neutral
11.
Earthquake
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An earthquake is the shaking of the surface of the Earth, resulting from the sudden release of energy in the Earths lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in size from those that are so weak that they cannot be felt to those violent enough to people around. The seismicity or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type, Earthquakes are measured using measurements from seismometers. The moment magnitude is the most common scale on which earthquakes larger than approximately 5 are reported for the entire globe and these two scales are numerically similar over their range of validity. Magnitude 3 or lower earthquakes are mostly imperceptible or weak and magnitude 7 and over potentially cause damage over larger areas. The largest earthquakes in historic times have been of magnitude slightly over 9, intensity of shaking is measured on the modified Mercalli scale. The shallower an earthquake, the damage to structures it causes. At the Earths surface, earthquakes manifest themselves by shaking and sometimes displacement of the ground, when the epicenter of a large earthquake is located offshore, the seabed may be displaced sufficiently to cause a tsunami. Earthquakes can also trigger landslides, and occasionally volcanic activity, in its most general sense, the word earthquake is used to describe any seismic event — whether natural or caused by humans — that generates seismic waves. Earthquakes are caused mostly by rupture of faults, but also by other events such as volcanic activity, landslides, mine blasts. An earthquakes point of rupture is called its focus or hypocenter. The epicenter is the point at ground level directly above the hypocenter, tectonic earthquakes occur anywhere in the earth where there is sufficient stored elastic strain energy to drive fracture propagation along a fault plane. The sides of a fault move past each other smoothly and aseismically only if there are no irregularities or asperities along the surface that increase the frictional resistance. Most fault surfaces do have such asperities and this leads to a form of stick-slip behavior, once the fault has locked, continued relative motion between the plates leads to increasing stress and therefore, stored strain energy in the volume around the fault surface. This continues until the stress has risen sufficiently to break through the asperity, suddenly allowing sliding over the portion of the fault. This energy is released as a combination of radiated elastic strain seismic waves, frictional heating of the fault surface and this process of gradual build-up of strain and stress punctuated by occasional sudden earthquake failure is referred to as the elastic-rebound theory. It is estimated that only 10 percent or less of a total energy is radiated as seismic energy. Most of the energy is used to power the earthquake fracture growth or is converted into heat generated by friction
12.
Tokyo
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Tokyo, officially Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan and one of its 47 prefectures. The Greater Tokyo Area is the most populous area in the world. It is the seat of the Emperor of Japan and the Japanese government, Tokyo is in the Kantō region on the southeastern side of the main island Honshu and includes the Izu Islands and Ogasawara Islands. Formerly known as Edo, it has been the de facto seat of government since 1603 when Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu made the city his headquarters. It officially became the capital after Emperor Meiji moved his seat to the city from the old capital of Kyoto in 1868, Tokyo Metropolis was formed in 1943 from the merger of the former Tokyo Prefecture and the city of Tokyo. The Tokyo metropolitan government administers the 23 Special Wards of Tokyo, the metropolitan government also administers 39 municipalities in the western part of the prefecture and the two outlying island chains. The population of the wards is over 9 million people. The prefecture is part of the worlds most populous metropolitan area with upwards of 37.8 million people, the city hosts 51 of the Fortune Global 500 companies, the highest number of any city in the world. Tokyo ranked third in the International Financial Centres Development IndexEdit, the city is also home to various television networks such as Fuji TV, Tokyo MX, TV Tokyo, TV Asahi, Nippon Television, NHK and the Tokyo Broadcasting System. Tokyo ranked first in the Global Economic Power Index and fourth in the Global Cities Index. The city is considered a world city – as listed by the GaWCs 2008 inventory – and in 2014. In 2015, Tokyo was named the Most Liveable City in the world by the magazine Monocle, the Michelin Guide has awarded Tokyo by far the most Michelin stars of any city in the world. Tokyo ranked first in the world in the Safe Cities Index, the 2016 edition of QS Best Student Cities ranked Tokyo as the 3rd-best city in the world to be a university student. Tokyo hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics, the 1979 G-7 summit, the 1986 G-7 summit, and the 1993 G-7 summit, and will host the 2020 Summer Olympics, Tokyo was originally known as Edo, which means estuary. During the early Meiji period, the city was also called Tōkei, some surviving official English documents use the spelling Tokei. However, this pronunciation is now obsolete, the name Tokyo was first suggested in 1813 in the book Kondō Hisaku, written by Satō Nobuhiro. When Ōkubo Toshimichi proposed the renaming to the government during the Meiji Restoration, according to Oda Kanshi, Tokyo was originally a small fishing village named Edo, in what was formerly part of the old Musashi Province. Edo was first fortified by the Edo clan, in the twelfth century
13.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, often cited as one of the worlds most prestigious universities. Researchers worked on computers, radar, and inertial guidance during World War II, post-war defense research contributed to the rapid expansion of the faculty and campus under James Killian. The current 168-acre campus opened in 1916 and extends over 1 mile along the bank of the Charles River basin. The Institute is traditionally known for its research and education in the sciences and engineering, and more recently in biology, economics, linguistics. Air Force and 6 Fields Medalists have been affiliated with MIT, the school has a strong entrepreneurial culture, and the aggregated revenues of companies founded by MIT alumni would rank as the eleventh-largest economy in the world. In 1859, a proposal was submitted to the Massachusetts General Court to use newly filled lands in Back Bay, Boston for a Conservatory of Art and Science, but the proposal failed. A charter for the incorporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rogers, a professor from the University of Virginia, wanted to establish an institution to address rapid scientific and technological advances. The Rogers Plan reflected the German research university model, emphasizing an independent faculty engaged in research, as well as instruction oriented around seminars, two days after the charter was issued, the first battle of the Civil War broke out. After a long delay through the war years, MITs first classes were held in the Mercantile Building in Boston in 1865, in 1863 under the same act, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts founded the Massachusetts Agricultural College, which developed as the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In 1866, the proceeds from sales went toward new buildings in the Back Bay. MIT was informally called Boston Tech, the institute adopted the European polytechnic university model and emphasized laboratory instruction from an early date. Despite chronic financial problems, the institute saw growth in the last two decades of the 19th century under President Francis Amasa Walker. Programs in electrical, chemical, marine, and sanitary engineering were introduced, new buildings were built, the curriculum drifted to a vocational emphasis, with less focus on theoretical science. The fledgling school still suffered from chronic financial shortages which diverted the attention of the MIT leadership, during these Boston Tech years, MIT faculty and alumni rebuffed Harvard University president Charles W. Eliots repeated attempts to merge MIT with Harvard Colleges Lawrence Scientific School. There would be at least six attempts to absorb MIT into Harvard, in its cramped Back Bay location, MIT could not afford to expand its overcrowded facilities, driving a desperate search for a new campus and funding. Eventually the MIT Corporation approved an agreement to merge with Harvard, over the vehement objections of MIT faculty, students. However, a 1917 decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court effectively put an end to the merger scheme, the neoclassical New Technology campus was designed by William W. Bosworth and had been funded largely by anonymous donations from a mysterious Mr. Smith, starting in 1912. In January 1920, the donor was revealed to be the industrialist George Eastman of Rochester, New York, who had invented methods of production and processing
14.
Czech Republic
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The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, is a nation state in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west, Austria to the south, Slovakia to the east and Poland to the northeast. The Czech Republic covers an area of 78,866 square kilometres with mostly temperate continental climate and it is a unitary parliamentary republic, has 10.5 million inhabitants and the capital and largest city is Prague, with over 1.2 million residents. The Czech Republic includes the territories of Bohemia, Moravia. The Czech state was formed in the late 9th century as the Duchy of Bohemia under the Great Moravian Empire, after the fall of the Empire in 907, the centre of power transferred from Moravia to Bohemia under the Přemyslid dynasty. In 1002, the duchy was formally recognized as part of the Holy Roman Empire, becoming the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1198 and reaching its greatest territorial extent in the 14th century. Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the whole Crown of Bohemia was gradually integrated into the Habsburg Monarchy alongside the Archduchy of Austria, the Protestant Bohemian Revolt against the Catholic Habsburgs led to the Thirty Years War. After the Battle of the White Mountain, the Habsburgs consolidated their rule, reimposed Roman Catholicism, the Czech part of Czechoslovakia was occupied by Germany in World War II, and was liberated in 1945 by the armies of the Soviet Union and the United States. The Czech country lost the majority of its German-speaking inhabitants after they were expelled following the war, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia won the 1946 elections. Following the 1948 coup détat, Czechoslovakia became a one-party communist state under Soviet influence, in 1968, increasing dissatisfaction with the regime culminated in a reform movement known as the Prague Spring, which ended in a Soviet-led invasion. Czechoslovakia remained occupied until the 1989 Velvet Revolution, when the communist regime collapsed, on 6 March 1990, the Czech Socialistic Republic was renamed to the Czech Republic. On 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully dissolved, with its constituent states becoming the independent states of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. The Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999 and the European Union in 2004, it is a member of the United Nations, the OECD, the OSCE, and it is a developed country with an advanced, high income economy and high living standards. The UNDP ranks the country 14th in inequality-adjusted human development, the Czech Republic also ranks as the 6th most peaceful country, while achieving strong performance in democratic governance. It has the lowest unemployment rate in the European Union, the traditional English name Bohemia derives from Latin Boiohaemum, which means home of the Boii. The current name comes from the endonym Čech, spelled Cžech until the reform in 1842. The name comes from the Slavic tribe and, according to legend, their leader Čech, the etymology of the word Čech can be traced back to the Proto-Slavic root *čel-, meaning member of the people, kinsman, thus making it cognate to the Czech word člověk. The country has traditionally divided into three lands, namely Bohemia in the west, Moravia in the southeast, and Czech Silesia in the northeast. Following the dissolution of Czechoslovakia at the end of 1992, the Czech part of the former nation found itself without a common single-word geographical name in English, the name Czechia /ˈtʃɛkiə/ was recommended by the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs
15.
Urban exploration
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Urban exploration is the exploration of man-made structures, usually abandoned ruins or not usually seen components of the man-made environment. Photography and historical interest/documentation are heavily featured in the hobby and, although it may sometimes involve trespassing onto private property, informally named urbexing, the popular activity is engaged with by people of all ages, even the elderly. Urbex (or urban exploration may also be referred to as draining, urban spelunking, urban rock climbing, urban caving, the nature of this activity presents various risks, including both physical danger and the possibility of arrest and punishment. Some activities associated with urban exploration may violate local or regional laws, ventures into abandoned structures are perhaps the most common example of urban exploration. At times, sites are entered first by locals and may suffer from large amounts of graffiti, in Japan, abandoned infrastructure is known as haikyo, but the term is synonymous with the practice of urban exploration. Haikyo are particularly common in Japan because of its rapid industrialization, damage during World War II, the 1980s real estate bubble, Abandoned sites are also popular among historians, preservationists, architects, archaeologists, industrial archaeologists, and ghost hunters. The term infiltration is often associated with the exploration of active structures, people entering restricted areas may be committing trespass and civil prosecution may result. Catacombs such as found in Paris, Rome, Odessa. Explorers of these are known as cataphiles, entry into storm drains, or draining, is another common form of urban exploration. Groups devoted to the task have arisen, such as the Cave Clan in Australia, draining has a specialized set of guidelines, the foremost of which is When it rains, no drains. The dangers of becoming entrapped, washed away, or killed increase dramatically during a heavy rainfall, a small subset of explorers enter sanitary sewers. Sometimes they are the connection to caves or other subterranean features. Sewers are among the most dangerous locations to explore owing to risk of poisoning by buildups of toxic gas, Exploring active and abandoned subway and underground railway tunnels, bores and stations is often considered to be trespassing and can result in civil prosecution. As a result, this type of exploration is rarely publicized, one important exception to this is the abandoned subway of Rochester, New York, the only American city to have an abandoned, formerly used, subway system. Universities, and other institutions such as hospitals, often distribute hazardous superheated steam for heating or cooling buildings from a central heating plant. These pipes are run through utility tunnels, which are often intended to be accessible solely for the purposes of maintenance. Nevertheless, many of steam tunnels, especially those on college campuses. This practice was once called vadding at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, though students there now refer to it as roof, some steam tunnels have dirt floors, poor lighting and temperatures upwards of 45 °C
16.
Disney utilidor system
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In Disney theme parks, the utilidor system is a system of some of the worlds largest utility tunnels, mainly for Walt Disney Worlds Magic Kingdom in Florida. The utilidors, short for utility corridors, are a part of Disneys backstage area and they allow Disney employees to perform park support operations, such as trash removal, out of the sight of guests to avoid ruining the illusion that is being created. They were first built for Magic Kingdom, smaller utilidor systems are built under the central section of Epcots Future World, primarily beneath Spaceship Earth and Innoventions, and formerly at Pleasure Island. Disneyland, in California, also has a small utilidor through Tomorrowland, according to modern legend, Walt Disney was bothered by the sight of a cowboy walking through California Disneylands Tomorrowland en route to his post in Frontierland. He felt that such a sight was jarring, and detracted from the guest experience, since the California Disneyland was small, such a tunnel system could not be feasibly implemented. When the new Florida Disney park was being planned, engineers designed utilidors to keep park operations out of guests sight, the largest system of utilidors is beneath Walt Disney Worlds Magic Kingdom, but they are not a basement. Because of a water table, most of these tunnels were actually built at ground level. All the guests of the park see streets that are elevated by one story, parts of Fantasyland, including the Cinderella Castle, are at third-story-level. The grounds incline is so gradual that guests do not realize they are ascending to the second, the Magic Kingdom is built upon soil which was removed from what is now the Seven Seas Lagoon. The utilidors are built on 9 acres, and the plan is a circle with a path down the middle. The utilidors can be accessed from a tunnel entrance located behind Fantasyland. Magic Kingdom cast members park about 1 mile away and are transported via a Disney bus to the tunnel, some shops, restaurants and attractions have direct access to the utilidors. Cast members navigate the tunnels on foot or in battery-operated vehicles that resemble golf carts, gasoline-powered vehicles are not allowed in the utilidors, with the exception of armored cash pickup trucks and, in extreme emergencies, ambulances. Guests are not allowed in the utilidors, unless they join the Keys to the Kingdom tour, the utilidors have been referred to as an underground city, the functions of which include, Waste removal, The Magic Kingdom uses an automated vacuum collection system for waste removal. Custodians remove trash from the park twenty-four hours a day, then dump it into AVAC system processors throughout the park, the trash then travels through pneumatic tubes to a central location where it is processed and compressed for transfer to a landfill or recycling plant. Electrical operations, The parks computer system, the Digital Animation Control Systems, is operated and monitored from control rooms in the utilidors. This system monitors everything in the park, from systems to attractions, Audio-Animatronic figures to parades, fire prevention. Deliveries and storage warehouses, Deliveries are received, processed, and this ensures that guests do not see delivery trucks, nor do they see cast members carting merchandise through the park
17.
The Walt Disney Company
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The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney, is an American diversified multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate, headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, California. It is the second largest media conglomerate in terms of revenue. Disney was founded on October 16,1923 – by brothers Walt Disney, the company also operated under the names The Walt Disney Studio and then Walt Disney Productions. Taking on its current name in 1986, it expanded its operations and also started divisions focused upon theater, radio, music, publishing. In addition, Disney has since created corporate divisions in order to more mature content than is typically associated with its flagship family-oriented brands. The company is best known for the products of its studio, Walt Disney Studios. Disneys other three divisions are Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, Disney Media Networks, and Disney Consumer Products. The company has been a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average since May 6,1991, Mickey Mouse, an early and well-known cartoon creation of the company, is a primary symbol and mascot for Disney. In early 1923, Kansas City, Missouri, animator Walt Disney created a film entitled Alices Wonderland. After the bankruptcy in 1923 of his previous firm, Laugh-O-Gram Studios, Disney moved to Hollywood to join his brother, Walt and Roy Disney formed Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio that same year. More animated films followed after Alice, in January 1926, with the completion of the Disney studio on Hyperion Street, the Disney Brothers Studios name was changed to the Walt Disney Studio. The distributor owned Oswald, so Disney only made a few hundred dollars, Disney completed 26 Oswald shorts before losing the contract in February 1928, due to a legal loophole, when Winklers husband Charles Mintz took over their distribution company. After failing to take over the Disney Studio, Mintz hired away four of Disneys primary animators to start his own animation studio, Snappy Comedies. In 1928, to recover from the loss of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, Disney came up with the idea of a character named Mortimer while on a train headed to California. The mouse was later renamed Mickey Mouse and starred in several Disney produced films, ub Iwerks refined Disneys initial design of Mickey Mouse. Disneys first sound film Steamboat Willie, a cartoon starring Mickey, was released on November 18,1928 through Pat Powers distribution company and it was the first Mickey Mouse sound cartoon released, but the third to be created, behind Plane Crazy and The Gallopin Gaucho. Disney used Pat Powers Cinephone system, created by Powers using Lee De Forests Phonofilm system, Steamboat Willie premiered at B. S. Mosss Colony Theater in New York City, now The Broadway Theatre. Disneys Plane Crazy and The Galloping Gaucho were then retrofitted with synchronized sound tracks, Disney continued to produce cartoons with Mickey Mouse and other characters, and began the Silly Symphonies series with Columbia Pictures signing on as Symphonies distributor in August 1929
18.
Amusement park
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An amusement park or theme park is a group of entertainment attractions, rides, and other events in a location for the enjoyment of large numbers of people. Theme parks, a type of amusement park, are usually much more intricately themed to a certain subject or group of subjects than normal amusement parks. Amusement parks evolved from European fairs and pleasure gardens, which were created for peoples recreation, Worlds fairs and expositions were another influence on the development of the amusement park industry. In common language, the theme park and amusement park are often synonymous. However, a park can be regarded as a distinct style of amusement park. A theme park has landscaping, buildings, and attractions that are based on one or more specific themes or stories. The amusement park evolved from three earlier traditions, the oldest being the periodic fair of the Middle Ages - one of the earliest was the Bartholomew Fair in England, the worlds oldest amusement park appeared in the Continent. Bakken at Klampenborg, north of Copenhagen, Denmark, opened in 1583, a wave of innovation in the 1860s and 1870s created mechanical rides, such as the steam-powered carousel, and its derivatives. This inaugurated the era of the modern funfair ride, as the classes were increasingly able to spend their surplus wages on entertainment. The second influence was the pleasure garden, one of the earliest gardens was the Vauxhall Gardens, founded in 1661 in London. By the late 18th century, the site had a fee for its many attractions. It regularly drew crowds, with its paths being noted for romantic assignations, tightrope walkers, hot air balloon ascents, concerts. Although the gardens were designed for the elites, they soon became places of great social diversity. Public firework displays were put on at Marylebone Gardens, and Cremorne Gardens offered music, dancing, prater in Vienna, Austria, was opened in 1766. The concept of a park for amusement was further developed with the beginning of the worlds fairs. The first World fair began in 1851 with the construction of the landmark Crystal Palace in London, the purpose of the exposition was to celebrate the industrial achievement of the nations of the world and it was designed to educate and entertain the visitors. American cities and business saw the worlds fair as a way of demonstrating economic. The Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, Illinois was an precursor to the modern amusement park
19.
Walt Disney World
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The Walt Disney World Resort is an entertainment complex in Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, Florida, near Orlando and Kissimmee, Florida. The resort is the destination of Disneys worldwide corporate enterprise. Opened on October 1,1971, Walt Disney World is the most visited vacation resort in the world, the resort is owned and operated by Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, a division of The Walt Disney Company. It was initially operated by Walt Disney World Company, Magic Kingdom was the first theme park to open in the complex, in 1971, followed by Epcot in 1982, Disneys Hollywood Studios in 1989, and the most recent, Disneys Animal Kingdom in 1998. Designed to supplement Disneyland in Anaheim, California, which had opened in 1955, the Florida Project, as it was known, was intended to present a distinct vision with its own diverse set of rides. Walt Disneys original plans called for the inclusion of an Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. Walt Disney died on December 15,1966, before construction began, without Disney spearheading the construction, the company created a resort similar to Disneyland, abandoning experimental concepts for a planned community. In 1959, Walt Disney Productions began looking for land to house a second resort to supplement Disneyland in Anaheim, California, which had opened in 1955. Market surveys at the revealed that only 5% of Disneylands visitors came from east of the Mississippi River. Additionally, Walt Disney disliked the businesses that had sprung up around Disneyland, Walt Disney flew over a potential site in Orlando, Florida – one of many – in November 1963. To avoid a burst of land speculation, Walt Disney World Company used various dummy corporations to acquire 30,500 acres of land, in May 1965, some of these major land transactions were recorded a few miles southwest of Orlando in Osceola County. In addition, two tracts totaling $1. Some are now memorialized on a window above Main Street, U. S. A. in Magic Kingdom, the smaller parcels of land acquired were called outs. They were 5-acre lots platted in 1912 by the Munger Land Company, most of the owners in the 1960s were happy to get rid of the land, which was mostly swamp at the time. Another issue was the rights to the land, which were owned by Tufts University. Without the transfer of rights, Tufts could come in at any time. Eventually, Disneys team negotiated a deal with Tufts to buy the rights for $15,000. Working strictly in secrecy, real estate agents unaware of their clients identity began making offers to landowners in April 1964 in parts of southwest Orange and northwest Osceola counties
20.
Magic Kingdom
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Magic Kingdom is a theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida, near Orlando. Owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Parks and Resorts division, initialized by Walt Disney and designed by WED Enterprises, its layout and attractions are based on Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California, and is dedicated to fairy tales and Disney characters. The park is represented by Cinderella Castle, inspired by the fairy tale castle seen in the 1950 film, Walt Disney World is a tribute to the philosophy and life of Walter Elias Disney. And to the talents, the dedication, and the loyalty of the entire Disney organization that made Walt Disneys dream come true, may Walt Disney World bring Joy and Inspiration and New Knowledge to all who come to this happy place. A Magic Kingdom where the young at heart of all ages can laugh and play, although Walt Disney had been highly involved in planning the Florida Project, Walt Disney Productions began construction on Magic Kingdom and the entire resort in 1967 after his death. The park was built as a larger, improved version of Disneyland Park in California, there are several anecdotes relating to reasons for some of the features of Walt Disney World, and Magic Kingdom specifically. According to one story, Walt Disney once saw a Frontierland cowboy walking through Tomorrowland at Disneyland and he disliked that the cowboy intruded on the futuristic setting of Tomorrowland and wanted to avoid situations like this in the new park. The area around the utilidors was filled in with dirt removed from the Seven Seas Lagoon, the utilidors were built in the initial construction and were not extended as the park expanded. The tunnels were intended to be designed into all subsequent Walt Disney World parks, future World at Epcot and Pleasure Island each have a smaller network of utilidors. Magic Kingdom opened as the first part of the Walt Disney World Resort on October 1,1971, commencing concurrently with Disneys Contemporary Resort, the Walt Disney Company promised to increase this number with a combination of replicas and unique attractions. While there is no dedication to Magic Kingdom, the dedication by Roy O. Disney for the entire resort was placed within its gates. The first, and as of today, only added to the original roster of lands in the park was Mickeys Toontown Fair. The land originally opened in 1988 as Mickeys Birthdayland to celebrate Mickey Mouses 60th birthday, later the land was renovated as Mickeys Starland and eventually to Mickeys Toontown Fair. The land was home to such as Mickeys Country House, Minnies Country House, The Barnstormer at Goofys Wiseacre Farm. It closed on February 12,2011, to make way for the expansion of Fantasyland, the Walt Disney World Railroad station in Mickeys Toontown Fair, which opened with Mickeys Birthdayland in 1988, was closed for the duration of the construction. In 2012, the space where Mickeys Toontown Fair sat reopened as a part of Fantasyland, in a called the Storybook Circus. The Barnstormer was retained and was re-themed to The Great Goofini, since opening day, Magic Kingdom has been closed temporarily because of six hurricanes, Floyd, Frances, Charley, Jeanne, Wilma, and Matthew. It was also closed in the middle of the day on September 11,2001, in addition, there are four phases of park closure when Magic Kingdom exceeds capacity, ranging from restricted access for most guests to full closure for everyone, even cast members
21.
Florida
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Florida /ˈflɒrᵻdə/ is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, Florida is the 22nd-most extensive, the 3rd-most populous, and the 8th-most densely populated of the U. S. states. Jacksonville is the most populous municipality in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States, the Miami metropolitan area is Floridas most populous urban area. The city of Tallahassee is the state capital, much of the state is at or near sea level and is characterized by sedimentary soil. The climate varies from subtropical in the north to tropical in the south, the American alligator, American crocodile, Florida panther, and manatee can be found in the Everglades National Park. It was a location of the Seminole Wars against the Native Americans. Today, Florida is distinctive for its large Cuban expatriate community and high population growth, the states economy relies mainly on tourism, agriculture, and transportation, which developed in the late 19th century. Florida is also renowned for amusement parks, orange crops, the Kennedy Space Center, Florida has attracted many writers such as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams, and continues to attract celebrities and athletes. It is internationally known for golf, tennis, auto racing, by the 16th century, the earliest time for which there is a historical record, major Native American groups included the Apalachee, the Timucua, the Ais, the Tocobaga, the Calusa and the Tequesta. Florida was the first part of the continental United States to be visited and settled by Europeans, the earliest known European explorers came with the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León. Ponce de León spotted and landed on the peninsula on April 2,1513 and he named the region La Florida. The story that he was searching for the Fountain of Youth is a myth, in May 1539, Conquistador Hernando de Soto skirted the coast of Florida, searching for a deep harbor to land. He described seeing a wall of red mangroves spread mile after mile, some reaching as high as 70 feet. Very soon, many smokes appeared along the whole coast, billowing against the sky, the Spanish introduced Christianity, cattle, horses, sheep, the Spanish language, and more to Florida. Both the Spanish and French established settlements in Florida, with varying degrees of success, in 1559, Don Tristán de Luna y Arellano established a settlement at present-day Pensacola, making it the first attempted settlement in Florida, but it was abandoned by 1561. Spain maintained tenuous control over the region by converting the tribes to Christianity. The area of Spanish Florida diminished with the establishment of English settlements to the north, the English attacked St. Augustine, burning the city and its cathedral to the ground several times. Florida attracted numerous Africans and African-Americans from adjacent British colonies who sought freedom from slavery, in 1738, Governor Manuel de Montiano established Fort Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose near St
22.
Epcot
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Epcot is a theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida, near Orlando. It is owned and operated by the Walt Disney Company through its Parks, inspired by an unrealized concept developed by Walt Disney, the park opened on October 1,1982, and was the second of four theme parks built at Walt Disney World, after the Magic Kingdom. The park is divided two sections, Future World, made up eight pavilions, and World Showcase, themed to eleven world nations. In 2015, the park hosted approximately 11.98 million guests, ranking it the third most visited park in North America. The park is represented by Spaceship Earth, a sphere that also serves as an attraction. Epcot was known as EPCOT Center until 1994 when it was later renamed Epcot 94, then Epcot 95, the theme park opened on October 1,1982. The dedication plaque near the states, To all who come to this place of joy, hope and friendship. Epcot Center is inspired by Walt Disneys creative genius, here, human achievements are celebrated through imagination, the wonders of enterprise, and concepts of a future that promises new and exciting benefits for all. May Epcot Center entertain, inform and inspire, and, above all, may it instill a new sense of belief and pride in mans ability to shape a world that offers hope to people everywhere. The parks name, EPCOT, is an acronym for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, in Walt Disneys words, EPCOT will take its cue from the new ideas and new technologies that are now emerging from the creative centers of American industry. It will be a community of tomorrow that will never be completed but will always be introducing and testing, and EPCOT will always be a showcase to the world of the ingenuity and imagination of American free enterprise. His original vision was for a community which would have been home to twenty thousand residents. This radial plan concept is influenced by British planner Ebenezer Howard. Transportation would have been provided by monorails and PeopleMovers Automobile traffic would be kept underground, the remaining portion of the model is visible on the left behind glass. Walt Disney was not able to obtain funding and permission to work on his Florida property until he agreed to first build Magic Kingdom. He died nearly five years before Magic Kingdom opened, after Disneys death, Walt Disney Productions decided that it did not want to be in the business of running a city without Walts guidance. The original plans for the park showed indecision over the parks purpose, some Imagineers wanted it to represent the cutting edge of technology, while others wanted it to showcase international cultures and customs. At one point, a model of the park was pushed together against a model of a Worlds Fair international theme
23.
Spaceship Earth (Epcot)
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Spaceship Earth is the iconic and symbolic structure of Epcot, the second of four theme parks built at the Walt Disney World Resort. The 15-minute dark ride demonstrates to guests how advancements in human communication have helped to create the one step at a time. At the conclusion of the ride, passengers have the chance to design their own future using touch screens that are embedded into the ride cars. The structure is similar in texture to the United States pavilion from Expo 67 in Montreal, the architectural design was conceived by Wallace Floyd Design Group. The structural designs of both Expo 67 and Spaceship Earth were completed by Simpson Gumpertz & Heger Inc. of Boston, geometrically, Spaceship Earth is derived from the Class 2 geodesic polyhedron with frequency of division equal to 8. Each face of the polyhedron is divided into three isosceles triangles to form each point, in theory, there are 11,520 total isosceles triangles forming 3840 points. In reality, some of those triangles are partially or fully nonexistent due to supports and doors, there are actually only 11,324 silvered facets, the appearance of being a monolithic sphere is an architectural goal that was achieved through a structural trick. Spaceship Earth is in two structural domes. Six legs are supported on groups that are driven up to 160 feet into Central Floridas soft earth. Those legs support a steel box-shaped ring at the spheres perimeter, the upper structural dome sits on this ring. A grid of trusses inside the ring supports two structures of the ride and show system. Below the ring, a dome is hung from the bottom. The ring and trusses form a structure which separates the upper dome from the lower. Supported by and about three feet off the structural domes is a sphere to which the shiny Alucobond panels. The cladding was designed so that when it rains, no water pours off the sides onto the ground, all water is collected through one-inch gaps in the facets into a gutter system, and finally channeled into the World Showcase Lagoon. The structure was designed with the help of science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, the term Spaceship Earth was popularised by Buckminster Fuller, who also popularized the geodesic dome. Extending upwards from the table are quadropod structures, which support smaller beams which form the shell of the steel skeleton, pipes stand the aluminum skin panels away from the skeleton and provide space for utilities. A small service car is parked in the space between the structural and cladding surfaces, and can carry a prone technician down the sides to access repair locations
24.
Innoventions (Epcot)
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Innoventions is a museum at Epcot in Walt Disney World, Florida. It focuses on technological advancements and their applications in everyday life. Innoventions is a portmanteau of the innovation and invention. Innoventions first opened in 1994 which prominently displayed Sega Genesis, Sega Game Gear, Sega 32X, Sega CD, there were some virtual reality displays. Innoventions in Epcot replaced the original tenant of its two buildings, CommuniCore. Epcots version is divided into two known as Innoventions East and Innoventions West. In 1999, Innoventions had a renovation for the parks Millennium Celebration. MIDI Oracle Corporations Information Highway Web Site Construction Zone, sponsored by GO, VISION HOUSE, presented by Green Builder Media On April 30,2015, Innoventions West closed for a major overhaul. It is being used as an extension of Epcot Character Spot for the time being, rockin Robots sponsored by KUKA Industrial Robots The Great Piggy Bank Adventure, sponsored by T. He was removed in the 2007-2008 renovation, tom Morrow 2.0 recently made an appearance at the Odyssey Building which also features Figment from the original Journey into Imagination ride, and one of the characters from Kitchen Kabaret. The area music played at Epcot is about 20 minutes long, the rest of the music was composed by Russell Brower for Walt Disney Imagineering and is not commercially available. Brower, along with Arkenstone, would compose the music for the World of Warcraft games. Epcot attraction and entertainment history Innoventions Official website Walt Disney World Resort - Innoventions
25.
Pleasure Island (Walt Disney World)
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Pleasure Island was an area of the Disney Springs shopping, dining and entertainment district at Walt Disney World Resort. It officially opened on May 1,1989, in September 2008, all of its clubs were closed, but its retail stores and restaurants remained open. The area is now called The Landing as is the part of Disney Springs. Pleasure Island opened emulating Church Street Station in Downtown Orlando, Florida, at that time, this was a highly successful gated attraction which offered admission to multiple clubs for one price. The legend the Disney Company created is that Pleasure Island was based on the owner, Merriweather Adam Pleasure. Every night at midnight, New Years Eve was celebrated at Pleasure Island with a fireworks show and this tradition lasted from 1990 through New Years Eve 2005. On June 27,2008, Walt Disney World Resort announced that over the two years, Pleasure Islands night clubs would be replaced with new stores and restaurants. Disney denied rumors that these changes were due to a decrease in attendance there, the entertainment venues, including night clubs and comedy clubs, ceased operations on September 27,2008. On November 18,2010, Disney announced that it would be renamed and rethemed to Hyperion Wharf and this revitalization project was expected to be completed by spring 2013. During 2014, Disney closed access to the Pleasure Island portion of Downtown Disney, as additional retailers, Disney ultimately decided against using the name Hyperion Wharf. Instead, in April 2015, Disney reopened Pleasure Island as the link of the Downtown Disney shopping area. This section of the complex is now called The Landing, the former dance clubs, jazz club and Adventurers Club are no longer part of the concept. Instead, the focuses on retail and restaurants. Former coaches from the Fort Wilderness Railroad, which operated from 1973–1977, were used as ticket booths located at the entrance to the island, effective January 1,2007, the dance clubs reverted to a policy which required guests to be age 21 or older. Minors could still visit the Comedy Warehouse and Adventurers Club, as well as the shops, major renovations to Pleasure Island were made in March 2006 in an attempt to reverse declining attendance. These changes included the closing and dismantling of the West End Stage, since there was no longer an entry fee, the free entertainment provided by these stages was attracting large groups of local teens which was considered undesirable. The removal of the Hub Stage opened an area to a view of the lagoon located behind Pleasure Island. In late June 2006, a life-size Jessica Rabbit sign above the facility of Pleasure Island Tonight, the construction of new docks allow boat transportation links between West Side, Pleasure Island, Marketplace, and Disney resorts across the lagoon and up the Sassagoula River
26.
Disneyland
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Disneyland Park, originally Disneyland, is the first of two theme parks built at the Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, California, opened on July 17,1955. It is the theme park designed and built under the direct supervision of Walt Disney. It was originally the attraction on the property, its name was changed to Disneyland Park to distinguish it from the expanding complex in the 1990s. Walt Disney came up with the concept of Disneyland after visiting various amusement parks with his daughters in the 1930s and 1940s. He initially envisioned building a tourist attraction adjacent to his studios in Burbank to entertain fans who wished to visit, however, after hiring a consultant to help him determine an appropriate site for his project, Disney bought a 160-acre site near Anaheim in 1953. Construction began in 1954 and the park was unveiled during a televised press event on the ABC Television Network on July 17,1955. Opened in 2001, Disney California Adventure Park was built on the site of Disneylands original parking lot, Disneyland has a larger cumulative attendance than any other theme park in the world, with over 650 million guests since it opened. In 2013, the park hosted approximately 16.2 million guests, according to a March 2005 Disney report,65,700 jobs are supported by the Disneyland Resort, including about 20,000 direct Disney employees and 3,800 third-party employees. To all who come to this place, Welcome. Here age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the facts that have created America, with the hope that it will be a source of joy. The concept for Disneyland began when Walt Disney was visiting Griffith Park in Los Angeles with his daughters Diane and Sharon. While watching them ride the merry-go-round, he came up with the idea of a place where adults and their children could go and have fun together and he may have also been influenced by his fathers memories of the Worlds Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago. Another likely influence was Benton Harbor, Michigans nationally famous House of Davids Eden Springs Park, Disney visited the park and ultimately bought one of the older miniature trains originally used there, the colony had the largest miniature railway setup in the world at the time. His ideas evolved to a play park with a boat ride. The initial concept, the Mickey Mouse Park, started with an 8-acre plot across Riverside Drive and his designers began working on concepts, though the project grew much larger than the land could hold. Disney hired Harrison Price from Stanford Research Institute to gauge the proper area to locate the theme based on the areas potential growth. Based on Prices analysis, Disney acquired 160 acres of groves and walnut trees in Anaheim
27.
Tomorrowland
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Tomorrowland is one of the many themed lands featured at all of the Magic Kingdom styled Disney theme parks around the world owned or licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Each version of the land is different and features attractions that depict views of the future. Disneyland Park in Paris includes an area called Discoveryland, which shares some elements with other Tomorrowlands. Walt Disney was known for his futurist views and, through his television programs, Tomorrowland was the realized culmination of his views. In his own words, Tomorrow can be a wonderful age and our scientists today are opening the doors of the Space Age to achievements that will benefit our children and generations to come. The Tomorrowland attractions have been designed to give you an opportunity to participate in adventures that are a living blueprint of our future and it is this movement into the future that has, on occasion, left Tomorrowland mired in the past. Disneylands Tomorrowland is now in its generation, and the Magic Kingdoms Tomorrowland is in its second. The Walt Disney Company has mentioned that it wanted to keep Tomorrowland from becoming Yesterdayland, a vista into a world of wondrous ideas, signifying Mans achievements. A step into the future, with predictions of constructed things to come, Tomorrow offers new frontiers in science, adventure and ideals. The Atomic Age, the challenge of Outer Space and the hope for a peaceful, during the dedication, Walt Disney started speaking, was told that he wasnt yet on air, and then had to restart once the television viewers were watching. The first Tomorrowland opened at Disneyland on July 17,1955, with several of its planned attractions open. The construction of the park was rushed, so Tomorrowland was the last land to be finished and it became something of a corporate showcase, despite Walt Disneys reluctance. Monsanto Company, American Motors, Richfield Oil, and Dutch Boy Paint were some of the companies to open showcases in Tomorrowland in the first few years. Since the park was on a budget, one cost-cutting idea was to reuse the sets of the Nautilus from Disneys 1954 movie 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as a walkthrough attraction. For the first four years, most of Tomorrowland was generally open space, however, the area gained more attractions as time passed, many of which have since been removed. When Disneyland opened, Tomorrowland represented the future in the year 1986, Tomorrowlands showpiece was the TWA Moonliner, derived from Disneys Man In Space television episodes developed in the 1950s. The Moonliner was the tallest structure in the park at the time, the Moonliner hosted Rocket To The Moon which was a ride to the moon. The entrance showpiece was the clock of the showing the time anywhere on earth
28.
Flin Flon
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Flin Flon is a mining city in Canada. It is located on the boundary of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, with the majority of the city located within Manitoba, Flin Flon was founded in 1927 by Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting to exploit the large copper and zinc ore resources in the region. In the 1920s, HBM&S invested in a railway, mine, smelter, by 1928 the rail line reached the mine. The town grew considerably during the 1930s as farmers, who were impoverished by the Great Depression, abandoned their farms, the municipality was incorporated on January 1,1933, and in 1970, the community reached city status. The city has continued to be a centre with the development of several mines adding to its industrial base. With a scenic setting and a number of lakes, Flin Flon has also become a moderately popular tourist destination. The towns name is taken from the character in a paperback novel. Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin piloted a submarine through a lake where he passed into a strange underground world through a hole lined with gold. A copy of the book was found and read by prospector Tom Creighton. When Tom Creighton discovered a high-grade exposure of copper, he thought of the book and called it Flin Flons mine, Flin Flon shares with Tarzana, California, the distinction of being named after a character in a science fiction novel. A statue representing Flinty was designed by cartoonist Al Capp and is one of the points of interest of the city, in 1978, the National Film Board of Canada produced the short documentary Canada Vignettes, Flin Flon about the origin of the citys name. Flin Flon straddles the boundary of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, with the majority of the city being located in Manitoba. Due to the nature of the Saskatchewan-Manitoba boundary, the Saskatchewan section of town lies south of the Manitoba section. The citys Main Street crosses the boundary just south of its intersection with Church Street. The town of Creighton, Saskatchewan, is adjacent to Flin Flon. The majority of Flin Flons surface topology is exposed Canadian Shield bedrock, due to this and climatic factors, agriculture is generally not possible, although grain farming is found 130 kilometres southeast in The Pas, Manitoba. Flin Flon experiences a continental climate. There is a range in seasonal temperatures, with warm summers
29.
Manitoba
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Manitoba is a province at the longitudinal centre of Canada. It is one of the three provinces and Canadas fifth-most populous province with its estimated 1.3 million people. Manitoba covers 649,950 square kilometres with a varied landscape. Aboriginal peoples have inhabited what is now Manitoba for thousands of years, in the late 17th century, fur traders arrived in the area when it was part of Ruperts Land and owned by the Hudsons Bay Company. In 1869, negotiations for the creation of the province of Manitoba led to an uprising of the Métis people against the Government of Canada. The rebellions resolution led to the Parliament of Canada passing the Manitoba Act in 1870 that created the province, Manitobas capital and largest city, Winnipeg, is Canadas eighth-largest census metropolitan area. Winnipeg is the seat of government, home to the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, four of the provinces five universities and all four of its professional sports teams are in Winnipeg. The name Manitoba is believed to be derived from the Cree, the name derives from Cree manitou-wapow or Ojibwa manidoobaa, both meaning straits of Manitou, the Great Spirit, a place referring to what are now called The Narrows in the centre of Lake Manitoba. It may also be from the Assiniboine for Lake of the Prairie, the lake was known to French explorers as Lac des Prairies. Thomas Spence chose the name to refer to a new republic he proposed for the south of the lake. Métis leader Louis Riel also chose the name, and it was accepted in Ottawa under the Manitoba Act of 1870 and it adjoins Hudson Bay to the northeast, and is the only prairie province to have a saltwater coastline. The Port of Churchill is Canadas only Arctic deep-water port and the shortest shipping route between North America and Asia, Lake Winnipeg is the tenth-largest freshwater lake in the world. Hudson Bay is the worlds second-largest bay, Manitoba is at the heart of the giant Hudson Bay watershed, once known as Ruperts Land. It was a area of the Hudsons Bay Company, with many rivers. The province has a saltwater coastline bordering Hudson Bay and more than 110,000 lakes, Manitobas major lakes are Lake Manitoba, Lake Winnipegosis, and Lake Winnipeg, the tenth-largest freshwater lake in the world. Some traditional Native lands and boreal forest on Lake Winnipegs east side are a proposed UNESCO World Heritage Site. Manitoba is at the centre of the Hudson Bay drainage basin, with a volume of the water draining into Lake Winnipeg. This basins rivers reach far west to the mountains, far south into the United States, major watercourses include the Red, Assiniboine, Nelson, Winnipeg, Hayes, Whiteshell and Churchill rivers
30.
Inuvik
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Inuvik /ᵻˈnuːvɪk/ is a town in the Northwest Territories of Canada and is the administrative centre for the Inuvik Region. The population as of the 2011 Census was 3,484, the two previous census counts show wide fluctuations due to economic conditions,2,894 in 2001 and 3,296 in 1996. In 2012 the Government of the Northwest Territories reported that the population was 3,321 with a yearly growth rate of 0. 2% from 2001. Inuvik was conceived in 1953 as a replacement administrative centre for the hamlet of Aklavik on the west of the Mackenzie Delta, initially called New Aklavik, it was renamed Inuvik in 1958. The school was built in 1959 and the hospital, government offices and staff residences in 1960, naval Radio Station Inuvik, callsign CFV, was commissioned on 10 September 1963 after operations had been successfully transferred from NRS Aklavik. Station CFV was part of the SUPRAD network of intercept and direction finding stations, CFS Inuvik closed on 1 April 1986 and the site was transferred to the Dept. of Transport for use as a telecommunications station. Nothing remains of CFS Inuvik today, even now, many people of all backgrounds still lament its closing. The Navy Operations base at the end of Navy Road was completely dismantled and removed, Inuvik achieved village status in 1967 and became a full town in 1979 with an elected mayor and council. This all collapsed in 1990 for a variety of reasons, including disappearing government subsidies, local resistance to petroleum exploration, on 10 February 2010, the Google Street View imaging service uploaded images of most Inuvik streets. Local CBC Radio broadcasts an hour of programming a day in each of these languages, there are also about 100 Muslims, most of whom came there for economic opportunities. A small mosque was established in 2010, Inuvik is located on the East Channel of the Mackenzie Delta, approximately 100 km from the Arctic Ocean and approximately 200 km north of the Arctic Circle. Due to its location, Inuvik experiences an average of 56 days of continuous sunlight every summer and 30 days of polar night every winter. Access is via the Dempster Highway for the majority of the year, the highway relies on ferries and ice bridges to get across the rivers. It is thus closed during the time of freeze-up, for ice to form and allow ice bridges, at these times, there is air access only. The main airport is Inuvik Airport and there is a general aviation airport, when the Mackenzie River is ice-free, Northern Transportation Company Limited provides a commercial barge service from Hay River, on Great Slave Lake to the regional terminal in Inuvik. The annual sealift moves supplies as far east as Taloyoak, Nunavut and west to Barrow, a distinct feature of Inuvik is the use of utilidors – above-ground utility conduits carrying water and sewage – which are covered by corrugated steel. They run throughout town connecting most buildings, and as a result there are small bridges and underpasses. The utilidors are necessary because of the permafrost underlying the town, another feature is an inukhuk placed outside the Mackenzie Hotel, which was rebuilt in 2006
31.
Northwest Territories
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The Northwest Territories is a territory of Canada. At a land area of approximately 1,144,000 km2 and its estimated population as of 2016 is 44,291. Yellowknife became the capital in 1967, following recommendations by the Carrothers Commission. The Northwest Territories are bordered by Canadas two other territories, Nunavut to the east and Yukon to the west, and by the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan to the south. The name is descriptive, adopted by the British government during the era to indicate where it lay in relation to Ruperts Land. It is shortened from North-Western Territory, in Inuktitut, the Northwest Territories are referred to as ᓄᓇᑦᓯᐊᖅ, beautiful land. There was some discussion of changing the name of the Northwest Territories after the splitting off of Nunavut, one proposal was Denendeh, as advocated by the former premier Stephen Kakfwi, among others. One of the most popular proposals for a new name – one to name the territory Bob – began as a prank, in the end a poll conducted prior to division showed that strong support remained to keep the name Northwest Territories. This name arguably became more appropriate following division than it had been when the territories extended far into Canadas north-central and it possibly meets Manitoba at a quadripoint to the extreme southeast, though surveys have not been completed. It has an area of 1,183,085 km2. Territorial islands in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago include Banks Island, Borden Island, Prince Patrick Island and its highest point is Mount Nirvana near the border with Yukon at an elevation of 2,773 m. The Northwest Territories extends for more than 1,300,000 km2 and has a large climate variant from south to north, the southern part of the territory has a subarctic climate, while the islands and northern coast have a polar climate. Summers in the north are short and cool, with highs in the mid teens Celsius. Winters are long and harsh, daytime highs in the mid −20 °C, extremes are common with summer highs in the south reaching 36 °C and lows reaching into the negatives. In winter in the south, it is not uncommon for the temperatures to reach −40 °C, in the north, temperatures can reach highs of 30 °C, and lows can reach into the low negatives. In winter in the north it is not uncommon for the temperatures to reach −50 °C, thunderstorms are not rare in the south. In the north they are rare, but do occur. Tornadoes are extremely rare but have happened with the most notable one happening just outside Yellowknife that destroyed a communications tower, the Territory has a fairly dry climate due to the mountains in the west
32.
Iqaluit
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Iqaluit /iˈkæluːɪt/ ih-KAL-oo-it is the capital of the Canadian territory of Nunavut, its largest community, and its only city. Until 1987, the city was known as Frobisher Bay, after the bay on the coast of which the city is situated. In 1999, Iqaluit became the capital of Nunavut after the division of the Northwest Territories into two separate territories, before this event, Iqaluit was an insignificant city and not well-known outside of the Canadian Arctic or Canada, with population and economic growth highly limited. As of the 2016 census the population was 7,740, Iqaluit has the lowest population of any capital city in Canada. Inhabitants of Iqaluit are called Iqalummiut, Iqaluit has been a traditional fishing place used by Inuit for thousands of years, hence the name Iqaluit, which means place of many fish. In 1942 an American air base was built there, intended to provide a stop-over, Iqaluits first permanent resident was Nakasuk, an Inuk guide who helped American Air Force planners to choose a site with a large flat area suitable for a landing strip. The wartime airstrip was known as Crystal Two and was part of the Crimson Route, for the history of the air base, see Frobisher Bay Air Base. The Hudsons Bay Company moved its south Baffin operations to the valley of Niaqunngut, officially called Apex. The population of Frobisher Bay increased rapidly during the construction of the Distant Early Warning Line in the mid-1950s, in 1957,489 of the towns 1,200 residents were reported to be Inuit. After 1959, the Canadian government established permanent services at Frobisher Bay, including full-time doctors, the Inuit population grew rapidly in response, as the government encouraged Inuit to settle permanently in communities with government services. Naval Radio Station Frobisher Bay, callsign CFI, was established in July 1954 as a result of the closure of NRS Chimo, Station CFI was part of the Supplementary Radio network. Because of its remoteness and size, it was expensive to operate. Advancing technology eventually forced the closure of CFI in 1967, in 1964, the first elections were held for a community council, and in 1979 for the first mayor. The founding of the Gordon Robertson Educational Centre, now Inuksuk High School, at the time of its founding, it was the sole high school operating in more than one-seventh of Canadian territory. On 1 January 1987, the name of the municipality was changed from Frobisher Bay to Iqaluit – aligning official usage with the name that the Inuit population had always used. In December 1995, Iqaluit was selected to serve as Nunavuts future capital in a territory-wide referendum, on 19 April 2001, it was redesignated as a city. Iqaluit was designated by Canada as the host city for the 2010 meeting of the G7 finance ministers, the meeting strained the northern communications technology infrastructure. 1576 – Englishman Martin Frobisher sails into Frobisher Bay believing he has found the route to China, First Anglican/Episcopalian church service in North America
33.
Nunavut
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Nunavut is the newest, largest, and northernmost territory of Canada. The creation of Nunavut resulted in the first major change to Canadas political map since the incorporation of the province of Newfoundland, Nunavut comprises a major portion of Northern Canada, and most of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Its vast territory makes it the fifth-largest country subdivision in the world, the capital Iqaluit, on Baffin Island in the east, was chosen by the 1995 capital plebiscite. Other major communities include the regional centres of Rankin Inlet and Cambridge Bay and it is Canadas only geo-political region that is not connected to the rest of North America by highway. Nunavut is the largest in area and the second least populous of Canadas provinces and territories. One of the worlds most remote, sparsely settled regions, it has a population of 35,944, mostly Inuit, spread over an area of just over 1,750,000 km2, Nunavut is also home to the worlds northernmost permanently inhabited place, Alert. A weather station farther down Ellesmere Island, Eureka, has the lowest average temperature of any Canadian weather station. Nunavut means our land in Inuktitut, Nunavut covers 1,877,787 km2 of land and 160,935 km2 of water in Northern Canada. This makes it the fifth largest subnational entity in the world, if Nunavut were a country, it would rank 15th in area. It also shares borders with Greenland and the provinces of Quebec, Ontario. Nunavuts highest point is Barbeau Peak on Ellesmere Island, the population density is 0.019 persons/km2, one of the lowest in the world. By comparison, Greenland has approximately the area and nearly twice the population. Nunavut experiences a climate in most regions, owing to its high latitude. In more southerly continental areas very cold climates can be found. The region now known as Nunavut has supported an indigenous population for approximately 4,000 years. Most historians identify the coast of Baffin Island with the Helluland described in Norse sagas, the materials were collected in five seasons of excavation at Cape Tanfield. Scholars determined that these provide evidence of European traders and possibly settlers on Baffin Island and they seem to indicate prolonged contact, possibly up to 1450. So you have to consider the possibility that as remote as it may seem, the ore turned out to be worthless, but Frobisher made the first recorded European contact with the Inuit
34.
Snowmobile
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A snowmobile, also known as a snowmachine, is a vehicle designed for winter travel and recreation on snow. It is designed to be operated on snow and ice and does not require a road or trail, snowmobiling is a sport that many people have taken on as a serious hobby. Older snowmobiles could generally accommodate two people, however, most snowmobiles manufactured in the last twenty-five years have been designed for a single rider. Snowmobiles built with the ability to carry two riders are referred to as 2-up snowmobiles or touring models and make up a small share of the market. Snowmobiles do not have any enclosures, except for a windshield, skis at the front provide directional control. Early snowmobiles used rubber tracks, but modern snowmobiles tracks are made of a Kevlar composite. Originally, snowmobiles were powered by two-stroke gasoline internal combustion engines, the second half of the 20th century saw the rise of recreational snowmobiling, whose riders are called snowmobilers or sledders. Recreational riding is known as snowcross/racing, trail riding, freestyle, mountain climbing, boondocking, carving, ditchbanging, in the summertime snowmobilers can drag race on grass, asphalt strips, or even across water. Many individuals later modified Ford Model Ts with the undercarriage replaced by tracks and they were popular for rural mail delivery for a time. The common name for these conversion of cars and small trucks was Snowflyers, where early designs had 10 horsepower two-stroke engines, there has been a move toward newer style 2-stroke and 4-stroke gasoline engines, some with over 200 hp. It parallels the development of the automobile and later aviation, often using the same components for a different use. In the first races held near Three Lakes in 1926,104 of these snowbuggies started, eliason made 40 snowmobiles, patented in 1927. Upon receiving an order for 200 from Finland, he sold his patent to the FWD Company of Clintonville and they made 300 for military use, then transferred the patent to a Canadian subsidiary. The American Motor Sleigh was a short-lived novelty vehicle produced in Boston in 1905, designed for travel on snow, it consisted of a sleigh body mounted on a framework that held an engine, a drive-shaft system, and runners. Although considered a novelty, sales were low and production ceased in 1906. The Aerosani, propeller-driven and running on skis, was built in 1909–1910 by Russian inventor Igor Sikorsky of helicopter fame, Aerosanis were used by the Soviet Red Army during the Winter War and World War II. There is some dispute over whether Aerosanis count as snowmobiles because they were not propelled by tracks, adolphe Kégresse designed an original caterpillar tracks system, called the Kégresse track, while working for Tsar Nicholas II of Russia between 1906 and 1916. These used a belt rather than interlocking metal segments and could be fitted to a conventional car or truck to turn it into a half-track, suitable for use over soft ground
35.
All-terrain vehicle
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As the name implies, it is designed to handle a wider variety of terrain than most other vehicles. Although it is a vehicle in some countries, it is not street-legal within most states and provinces of Australia. By the current ANSI definition, ATVs are intended for use by an operator, although some companies have developed ATVs intended for use by the operator. These ATVs are referred to as tandem ATVs, the rider sits on and operates these vehicles like a motorcycle, but the extra wheels give more stability at slower speeds. Although equipped with three or four wheels, six-wheel models exist for specialized applications, engine sizes of ATVs currently for sale in the United States, range from 49 to 1,000 cc. Royal Enfield built and sold the first powered quadracycle in 1893. It had many components, including handle bars. The Royal Enfield resembles a modern ATV-style quad bike but was designed as a form of carriage for road use. With the introduction of straddle ridden ATVs, the term AATV was introduced to define the original amphibious ATV category, the first three-wheeled ATV was the Sperry-Rand Tricart. It was designed in 1967 as a project of John Plessinger at the Cranbrook Academy of Arts near Detroit. The Tricart was straddle-ridden with a rather than sit-on style. In 1968 Plessinger sold the Tricart patents and design rights to Sperry-Rand New Holland who manufactured them commercially, numerous small American manufacturers of 3-wheelers followed. I. and Hart to Hart. Dubbed the US90 and later—when Honda acquired the trademark on the term—the ATC90, clearly influenced by earlier ATVs, it featured large balloon tires instead of a mechanical suspension. By the early 1980s, suspension and lower-profile tires were introduced, the 1982 Honda ATC200E Big Red was a landmark model. It featured both suspension and racks, making it the first utility three-wheeled ATV, the ability to go anywhere on terrain that most other vehicles could not cross soon made them popular with US and Canadian hunters, and those just looking for a good trail ride. Soon other manufacturers introduced their own models, sport models were also developed by Honda, which had a virtual monopoly in the market due to effective patents on design and engine placement. The 1981 ATC250R was the first high-performance three-wheeler, featuring full suspension, a 248 cc air cooled engine, a five-speed transmission with manual clutch. For the sporting trail rider, the 1983 ATC200X was another landmark machine and it used an easy-to-handle 192 cc four-stroke that was ideal for new participants in the sport. Today, ATC200Xs can be found on the market in all conditions and prices, in 1985, Honda also introduced the new ATC350X
36.
Manhole
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Manhole closings are protected by a manhole cover, a flat plug designed to prevent accidental or unauthorized access to the manhole. Those plugs are made of metal, but may be constructed from precast concrete. Manholes are usually outfitted with metal, polypropylene, or fiberglass steps installed in the side of the wall to allow easy descent into the utility space. The access openings are usually circular in shape to prevent accidental fall of the cover into the hole, manholes are generally found in urban areas, in streets and occasionally under sidewalks. In rural and undeveloped areas, services such as telephone and electricity are usually carried on utility poles or even pylons rather than underground, in 2004, Jodie S. Lane was electrocuted after stepping on a metal manhole cover, while walking her dog in New York City. Glass-reinforced plastic Manhole cover Stray voltage Packaged Metering Manhole Isles, Paul, dover Life Magazine Ascher, Kate, researched by Wendy Marech. The works, anatomy of a city
37.
Electric power transmission
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Electric power transmission is the bulk movement of electrical energy from a generating site, such as a power plant, to an electrical substation. The interconnected lines which facilitate this movement are known as a transmission network and this is distinct from the local wiring between high-voltage substations and customers, which is typically referred to as electric power distribution. The combined transmission and distribution network is known as the grid in North America. In the United Kingdom, the network is known as the National Grid, for example, there are four major interconnections in North America, and one large grid for most of continental Europe. Most transmission lines are high-voltage three-phase alternating current, although single phase AC is sometimes used in railway electrification systems, high-voltage direct-current technology is used for greater efficiency over very long distances. HVDC technology is used in submarine power cables, and in the interchange of power between grids that are not mutually synchronized. HVDC links are used to large power distribution networks where sudden new loads, or blackouts, in one part of a network can result in synchronization problems. Electricity is transmitted at high voltages to reduce the loss which occurs in long-distance transmission. Power is usually transmitted through overhead power lines, underground power transmission has a significantly higher installation cost and greater operational limitations, but reduced maintenance costs. Underground transmission is used in urban areas or environmentally sensitive locations. A lack of energy storage facilities in transmission systems leads to a key limitation. Electrical energy must be generated at the rate at which it is consumed. A sophisticated control system is required to ensure that the power generation very closely matches the demand, if the demand for power exceeds supply, the imbalance can cause generation plant and transmission equipment to automatically disconnect and/or shut down to prevent damage. In the worst case, this may lead to a series of shut downs. Examples include the US Northeast blackouts of 1965,1977,2003, Transmission companies determine the maximum reliable capacity of each line to ensure that spare capacity is available in the event of a failure in another part of the network. High-voltage overhead conductors are not covered by insulation, the conductor material is nearly always an aluminum alloy, made into several strands and possibly reinforced with steel strands. Copper was sometimes used for transmission, but aluminum is lighter, yields only marginally reduced performance. Overhead conductors are a commodity supplied by companies worldwide
38.
Road
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Roads consist of one or two roadways, each with one or more lanes and any associated sidewalks and road verges. Roads that are available for use by the public may be referred to as parkways, avenues, freeways, interstates, highways, or primary, secondary, and tertiary local roads. In urban areas roads may diverge through a city or village and be named as streets, serving a function as urban space easement. Modern roads are normally smoothed, paved, or otherwise prepared to allow easy travel, historically many roads were simply recognizable routes without any formal construction or maintenance. In the United Kingdom there is ambiguity between the terms highway and road. The Highway code details rules for road users and this includes footpaths, bridleways and cycle tracks, and also road and driveways on private land and many car parks. Vehicle Excise Duty, a use tax, is payable on some vehicles used on the public road. The definition of a road depends on the definition of a highway, in the United States, laws distinguish between public roads, which are open to public use, and private roads, which are privately controlled. The assertion that the first pathways were the trails made by animals has not been universally accepted, others believe that some roads originated from following animal trails. The Icknield Way is given as an example of type of road origination. By about 10,000 BC, rough roads/pathways were used by human travelers, the worlds oldest known paved road was constructed in Egypt some time between 2600 and 2200 BC. Stone-paved streets are found in the city of Ur in the Middle East dating back to 4000 BC, corduroy roads are found dating to 4000 BC in Glastonbury, England. The Sweet Track, a timber causeway in England, is one of the oldest engineered roads discovered. Built in winter 3807 BC or spring 3806 BC, tree-ring dating enabled very precise dating and it was claimed to be the oldest road in the world until the 2009 discovery of a 6, 000-year-old trackway in Plumstead, London. Brick-paved streets were used in India as early as 3000 BC, in 500 BC, Darius I the Great started an extensive road system for Persia, including the Royal Road, which was one of the finest highways of its time. The road remained in use after Roman times, a hybrid of road transport and ship transport beginning in about 1740 is the horse-drawn boat in which the horse follows a cleared path along the river bank. From about 312 BC, the Roman Empire built straight strong stone Roman roads throughout Europe and North Africa, at its peak the Roman Empire was connected by 29 major roads moving out from Rome and covering 78,000 kilometers or 52,964 Roman miles of paved roads. In the 8th century AD, many roads were built throughout the Arab Empire, the most sophisticated roads were those in Baghdad, which were paved with tar
39.
Emergency
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An emergency is a situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property, or environment. While some emergencies are self-evident, many smaller incidents require that an observer decide whether it qualifies as an emergency, state statutes typically define an emergency as. a condition where life, health, or property is in jeopardy, and the prompt summoning of aid is essential. Whilst most emergency services agree on protecting human health, life and property and this also extends to areas such as animal welfare, where some emergency organisations cover this element through the property definition, where animals owned by a person are threatened. This means that agencies do not mount an emergency response where it endangers wild animals or environment. The attitude of the agencies involved is likely to reflect the predominant opinion of the government of the area, many emergencies cause an immediate danger to the life of people involved. Most agencies consider these the highest priority emergency, which follows the school of thought that nothing is more important than human life. Some emergencies are not necessarily immediately threatening to life, but might have implications for the continued health. Many life emergencies, such as cardiac arrest, are also health emergencies, some emergencies do not immediately endanger life, health or property, but do affect the natural environment and creatures living within it. Not all agencies consider this an emergency, but it can have far-reaching effects on animals. Examples would include forest fires and marine oil spills, agencies across the world have different systems for classifying incidents, but all of them serve to help them allocate finite resource, by prioritising between different emergencies. The first stage of any classification is likely to define whether the incident qualifies as an emergency, some agencies may still respond to non-emergency calls, depending on their remit and availability of resource. An example of this would be a fire department responding to help retrieve a cat from a tree, following this, many agencies assign a sub-classification to the emergency, prioritising incidents that have the most potential for risk to life, health or property. For instance, many ambulance services use a system called the Advanced Medical Priority Dispatch System or a similar solution, the AMPDS categorises all calls to the ambulance service using it as either A category, B Category or C category. Some services have a category, where they believe that no response is required after clinical questions are asked. Another system for prioritizing medical calls is known as Emergency Medical Dispatch, other systems use objective measures to direct resource. Two such systems are SAD CHALET and ETHANE, which are both mnemonics to help emergency services staff classify incidents, and direct resource, each of these acronyms helps ascertain the number of casualties, how the incident has occurred, and what emergency services are required. Most developed countries have a number of services operating within them. Most developed countries operate three core emergency services, Police – who deal with security of person and property, which can all three categories of emergency
40.
Natural disaster
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An adverse event will not rise to the level of a disaster if it occurs in an area without vulnerable population. In a vulnerable area, however, such as Nepal during the 2015 earthquake, a landslide is described as an outward and downward slope movement of an abundance of slope-forming materials including rock, soil, artificial, or even a combination of these things. During World War I, an estimated 40,000 to 80,000 soldiers died as a result of avalanches during the campaign in the Alps at the Austrian-Italian front. Many of the avalanches were caused by artillery fire, an earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earths crust that creates seismic waves. At the Earths surface earthquakes manifest themselves by vibration, shaking, earthquakes are caused by slippage within geological faults. The underground point of origin of the earthquake is called the seismic focus, the point directly above the focus on the surface is called the epicenter. Earthquakes by themselves rarely kill people or wildlife and it is usually the secondary events that they trigger such as building collapse, fires, tsunamis and volcanoes. Many of these could possibly be avoided by better construction, safety systems, when natural erosion or human mining makes the ground too weak to support the structures built on it, the ground can collapse and produce a sinkhole. Volcanoes can cause destruction and consequent disaster in several ways. The effects include the eruption itself that may cause harm following the explosion of the volcano or falling rocks. Second, lava may be produced during the eruption of a volcano, third, volcanic ash generally meaning the cooled ash – may form a cloud, and settle thickly in nearby locations. When mixed with water forms a concrete-like material. In sufficient quantity ash may cause roofs to collapse under its weight, since the ash has the consistency of ground glass it causes abrasion damage to moving parts such as engines. It is believed that Pompeii was destroyed by a pyroclastic flow, a lahar is a volcanic mudflow or landslide. The 1953 Tangiwai disaster was caused by a lahar, as was the 1985 Armero tragedy in which the town of Armero was buried, a specific type of volcano is the supervolcano. It also killed three-quarters of all plant life in the northern hemisphere, the main danger from a supervolcano is the immense cloud of ash, which has a disastrous global effect on climate and temperature for many years. It is a violent, sudden and destructive change either in quality of water or in distribution or movement of water on land below the surface or in atmosphere. A flood is an overflow of water that submerges land, the EU Floods Directive defines a flood as a temporary covering by water of land which is usually not covered by water
41.
Tropical cyclone
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Depending on its location and strength, a tropical cyclone is referred to by names such as hurricane, typhoon /taɪˈfuːn/, tropical storm, cyclonic storm, tropical depression, and simply cyclone. A hurricane is a storm that occurs in the Atlantic Ocean and northeastern Pacific Ocean, a typhoon occurs in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, Tropical cyclones typically form over large bodies of relatively warm water. They derive their energy through the evaporation of water from the ocean surface and this energy source differs from that of mid-latitude cyclonic storms, such as noreasters and European windstorms, which are fueled primarily by horizontal temperature contrasts. The strong rotating winds of a tropical cyclone are a result of the conservation of momentum imparted by the Earths rotation as air flows inwards toward the axis of rotation. As a result, they form within 5° of the equator. Tropical cyclones are typically between 100 and 2,000 km in diameter, Tropical refers to the geographical origin of these systems, which form almost exclusively over tropical seas. Cyclone refers to their nature, with wind blowing counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere. The opposite direction of circulation is due to the Coriolis effect, in addition to strong winds and rain, tropical cyclones are capable of generating high waves, damaging storm surge, and tornadoes. They typically weaken rapidly over land where they are cut off from their energy source. For this reason, coastal regions are vulnerable to damage from a tropical cyclone as compared to inland regions. Heavy rains, however, can cause significant flooding inland, though their effects on human populations are often devastating, tropical cyclones can relieve drought conditions. They also carry heat away from the tropics and transport it toward temperate latitudes. Tropical cyclones are areas of low pressure in the troposphere. On Earth, the pressures recorded at the centers of tropical cyclones are among the lowest ever observed at sea level, the environment near the center of tropical cyclones is warmer than the surroundings at all altitudes, thus they are characterized as warm core systems. The near-surface wind field of a cyclone is characterized by air rotating rapidly around a center of circulation while also flowing radially inwards. At the outer edge of the storm, air may be nearly calm, however, due to the Earths rotation, as air flows radially inward, it begins to rotate cyclonically in order to conserve angular momentum. At an inner radius, air begins to ascend to the top of the troposphere and this radius is typically coincident with the inner radius of the eyewall, and has the strongest near-surface winds of the storm, consequently, it is known as the radius of maximum winds. Once aloft, air flows away from the center, producing a shield of cirrus clouds
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Tsunami
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A tsunami or tidal wave, also known as a seismic sea wave, is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Unlike normal ocean waves which are generated by wind, or tides which are generated by the pull of the Moon and Sun. Tsunami waves do not resemble normal undersea currents or sea waves, Tsunamis generally consist of a series of waves with periods ranging from minutes to hours, arriving in a so-called internal wave train. Wave heights of tens of metres can be generated by large events, numerous terms are used in the English language to describe waves created in a body of water by the displacement of water, however, none of the terms in frequent use are entirely accurate. The term tsunami, meaning harbour wave in literal translation, comes from the Japanese 津波, while not entirely accurate, as tsunami are not restricted to harbours, tsunami is currently the term most widely accepted by geologists and oceanographers. Tsunami are sometimes referred to as tidal waves and this once-popular term derives from the most common appearance of tsunami, which is that of an extraordinarily high tidal bore. Although the meanings of tidal include resembling or having the form or character of the tides, use of the tidal wave is discouraged by geologists. The term seismic sea wave also is used to refer to the phenomenon, prior to the rise of the use of the term tsunami in English-speaking countries, scientists generally encouraged the use of the term seismic sea wave rather than tidal wave. The Sumatran region is not unused to tsunamis either, with earthquakes of varying magnitudes regularly occurring off the coast of the island, Tsunamis are an often underestimated hazard in the Mediterranean Sea and parts of Europe. The tsunami claimed more than 123,000 lives in Sicily, the Storegga Slide in the Norwegian sea and some examples of tsunamis affecting the British Isles refer to landslide and meteotsunamis predominantly and less to earthquake-induced waves. The cause, in my opinion, of this phenomenon must be sought in the earthquake, at the point where its shock has been the most violent the sea is driven back, and suddenly recoiling with redoubled force, causes the inundation. Without an earthquake I do not see how such an accident could happen, the principal generation mechanism of a tsunami is the displacement of a substantial volume of water or perturbation of the sea. This displacement of water is attributed to either earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, glacier calvings or more rarely by meteorites. The waves formed in this way are then sustained by gravity, tides do not play any part in the generation of tsunamis. Tsunami can be generated when the sea floor abruptly deforms and vertically displaces the overlying water and they grow in height when they reach shallower water, in a wave shoaling process described below. A tsunami can occur in any state and even at low tide can still inundate coastal areas. On April 1,1946, the 8.6 Mw Aleutian Islands earthquake occurred with a maximum Mercalli intensity of VI and it generated a tsunami which inundated Hilo on the island of Hawaii with a 14-metre high surge. Between 165 and 173 were killed, the area where the earthquake occurred is where the Pacific Ocean floor is subducting under Alaska
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Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon
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Plate tectonics
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The theoretical model builds on the concept of continental drift developed during the first few decades of the 20th century. The geoscientific community accepted plate-tectonic theory after seafloor spreading was validated in the late 1950s, the lithosphere, which is the rigid outermost shell of a planet, is broken up into tectonic plates. The Earths lithosphere is composed of seven or eight major plates, where the plates meet, their relative motion determines the type of boundary, convergent, divergent, or transform. Earthquakes, volcanic activity, mountain-building, and oceanic trench formation occur along plate boundaries. The relative movement of the plates typically ranges from zero to 100 mm annually, tectonic plates are composed of oceanic lithosphere and thicker continental lithosphere, each topped by its own kind of crust. Along convergent boundaries, subduction carries plates into the mantle, the material lost is balanced by the formation of new crust along divergent margins by seafloor spreading. In this way, the surface of the lithosphere remains the same. This prediction of plate tectonics is also referred to as the conveyor belt principle, earlier theories, since disproven, proposed gradual shrinking or gradual expansion of the globe. Tectonic plates are able to move because the Earths lithosphere has greater strength than the underlying asthenosphere. Lateral density variations in the result in convection. Plate movement is thought to be driven by a combination of the motion of the seafloor away from the ridge and drag, with downward suction. Another explanation lies in the different forces generated by forces of the Sun. The relative importance of each of these factors and their relationship to other is unclear. The outer layers of the Earth are divided into the lithosphere and asthenosphere and this is based on differences in mechanical properties and in the method for the transfer of heat. Mechanically, the lithosphere is cooler and more rigid, while the asthenosphere is hotter, in terms of heat transfer, the lithosphere loses heat by conduction, whereas the asthenosphere also transfers heat by convection and has a nearly adiabatic temperature gradient. The key principle of plate tectonics is that the lithosphere exists as separate and distinct tectonic plates, Plate motions range up to a typical 10–40 mm/year, to about 160 mm/year. The driving mechanism behind this movement is described below, tectonic lithosphere plates consist of lithospheric mantle overlain by either or both of two types of crustal material, oceanic crust and continental crust. Average oceanic lithosphere is typically 100 km thick, its thickness is a function of its age, as passes, it conductively cools
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Taipei Metro
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The Taipei Metro, also known as the MRT or formally as the Taipei Rapid Transit System, is a rapid transit system serving metropolitan Taipei, Taiwan. It consists of 108 stations and 5 main routes, operating on 131.1 kilometres of revenue track, the system carried an average of around 2.10 million passengers per day in March 2016. The Taipei Metro is Taiwans first metro system, since it first began operations in 1996, the system has been effective in relieving some of Taipeis traffic congestion problems. The system has proved effective as a catalyst for urban renewal. Conversions to existing lines were made to integrate them into the metro system. The system operates according to a spoke-hub distribution paradigm, with most rail lines running radially outward from central Taipei, the MRT system operates from 6 am to midnight daily, with extended services during special events. Trains operate at intervals of 1.5 to 15 minutes depending on the line, smoking is forbidden in the entire metro system, while eating, drinking, chewing gum and betel nuts are forbidden within the paid area. Stations become extremely crowded during rush hours, especially at transfer stations such as Taipei Main Station, Zhongxiao Fuxing, automated station announcements are recorded in Mandarin, English, Taiwanese, and Hakka. Line 1, The Wenshan and Neihu Lines connect through to each other, the route utilizes four-car configurations, although the platform lengths allow for six-car configurations. Line 2, The Xinyi and Tamsui Lines connect through to each other, during regular service hours, trains run alternatively on routes and. During rush hour, additional trains run on a route, Line 3, The Songshan and Xindian Lines connect through to each other. During regular service hours, trains run alternatively on routes and, during rush hour, additional trains run on a route. Line 4, The Xinzhuang and Luzhou Lines currently run on two routes, and. Line 5, The Nangang, Banqiao, and Tucheng Lines connect through to each other, during regular service hours, trains run alternatively on routes and. During rush hour, additional trains run on a route, Xiaobitan Branch Line, RFID single journey tokens and rechargeable IC cards are used to collect fares for day-to-day use, with the exception of group tickets and bicycle access tickets. Fares range from NT$20 to NT$65 with most locations accessible for around NT$20–30, beginning April 1,2011, senior citizens and physically challenged individuals will be entitled to a 50% discount on fares. The fare for the first 5 km on a ticket is NT$20. A 20% discount is taken with use of an IC card, the table below shows fare amounts versus distance
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