1.
Netherlands
–
The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
2.
North Brabant
–
Noord Brabant, also unofficially called Brabant, is a province in the south of the Netherlands. It borders the provinces of South Holland and Gelderland to the north, Limburg to the east, Zeeland to the west, the northern border follows the Meuse river westward to its mouth in the Hollands Diep strait, part of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. The Duchy of Brabant was a state of the Holy Roman Empire established in 1183 or 1190. Until the 17th century, the area that now makes up the province of North Brabant was mostly part of the Duchy of Brabant, of which the southern part is now in Belgium. In the 14th and 15th century, the experienced a golden age, especially the cities of Brussel, Mechelen, Leuven, Antwerpen, Breda, Bergen op Zoom. After the Union of Utrecht was signed in 1579, Brabant became a battlefield between the Protestant Dutch Republic and Catholic Spain, which occupied the southern Netherlands, attempts to introduce Protestantism into the region were largely unsuccessful, North Brabant remained strongly Roman Catholic. For over a century, North Brabant served mainly as a buffer zone. In 1796, when confederate Dutch Republic became the unitary Batavian Republic and this status ended with the reorganisation by the French, and the area was divided over several departments. This boundary between the Netherlands and Belgium is special in that it does not form a contiguous line, a few of these irregularities were corrected, Huijbergen became totally Dutch, but some remain, notably Baarle-Hertog and Baarle-Nassau. The period from 1900 until the late 1960s is called Het Rijke Roomse Leven, in those days every village in North Brabant had a convent from which the nuns operated. Politically, the province was dominated by Catholic parties, the Roomsch-Katholieke Staatspartij and its successor, the Katholieke Volkspartij. The influence of Het Rijke Roomse Leven remains in the form of education where some schools are still Roman Catholic, a cultural divide is still found between the Catholic south and the Protestant north, but with a total of 1. In the province of North Brabant Catholics are no longer a majority of the population as of 2010, only 1–2% of the total population of Catholic area attend mass, and these churchgoers consist mostly of people over 65 years old. With a population density of 501/km², North-Brabant is above average urbanized, the urbanization is at the center of the province at largest, where the kite is located, the rest of the province has a more rural character. The province has preserved some of its scenic nature well, also, south of Eindhoven named De Kempen is a beautiful area with farmlands and forests. In Heeze, also south of Eindhoven, are the areas the Groote Heide. The Strabrechtse Heide holds also the largest fen of the Netherlands, like most of the Netherlands, North Brabant is mostly flat but nearly every part of North Brabant is above sea level, therefore, there are not as many canals as in the lower parts of The Netherlands. Although most of the lives in urban areas, the province is scattered with villages around which most of the land is cultivated
3.
Christian Democratic Appeal
–
The Christian Democratic Appeal is a Christian-democratic political party in the Netherlands. Sybrand van Haersma Buma has been the party leader since 18 May 2012, the party suffered severe losses in the 2010 general election, losing half of its seats and falling to fourth place in the House of Representatives. Subsequently, the CDA again lost a number of seats in the 2012 general election. Since 1880 the sizeable Catholic and Protestant parties had worked together in the so-called Coalitie and they shared a common interest in public funding of religious schools. In 1888 they formed the first Christian-democratic government, led by the Anti-Revolutionary Æneas Baron Mackay, the cooperation was not without problems and in 1894 the more anti-papist and aristocratic conservatives left the Protestant Anti Revolutionary Party, to found the Christian Historical Union. The main issues dividing Protestants and Catholics was the position of the Dutch Representation at the Holy See, the General League evolved into the Roman Catholic State Party by 1926, and the Catholic Peoples Party in 1945. From 1918 to 1967, the three Christian Democratic parties had a majority in both houses of the States General, and at least two of them were included in every cabinet, the KVP and its antecedents had been in government without interruption since 1918. In the sixties, the Dutch society became more secularized and the pillars faded, in 1963 general election the three parties held 51% of the vote, whilst in 1972 general election they held only 32%. This decline forced the three parties to work closer together, in 1967 the Group of Eighteen was formed, it was a think-tank of six prominent politicians per party that planned the future cooperation of the three parties. In 1968 the three leaders of the parties (Norbert Schmelzer, Barend Biesheuvel and Jur Mellema made a public appearance. This caused progressive forces within the three parties, especially the ARP and KVP, to regret their political affiliation, in 1968 they founded the Political Party of Radicals, a left-wing party that sought cooperation with the Labour Party. Locally and provincially however the three parties had long cooperated well, in areas they formed one Christian-democratic parliamentary party. In the 1971 general election, the three presented a common political program, which lay the foundation for the first Biesheuvel cabinet. After the disastrous elections of 1972 the cooperation was given new momentum, in 1973 this federation was officially formed, with Steenkamp as chairperson. The cooperation was frustrated by the formation of the Den Uyl cabinet, established by the leader of the social-democratic PvdA, Den Uyl refused to allow members of the CHU in the cabinet that he would lead. This led to a situation where the CHU, ARP and KVP sat as a faction in both houses of parliament, but only the KVP and ARP supplied ministers and junior ministers. The cabinet Den Uyl was riddled with political and personal conflicts, another issue that split the three parties was the place that the Bible would take in the new party. In 1976, the three announced that they would field a single list at the 1977 general election under the name Christian Democratic Appeal
4.
Metropoolregio Eindhoven
–
The Metropoolregio Eindhoven, until 1 January 2014 the Samenwerkingsverband Regio Eindhoven is a regional governmental agency for the city region of Eindhoven, Netherlands. The MRE comprises 21 municipalities in the Eindhoven agglomeration, with an area of 1,457.81 square kilometers. The region has three quarters of a million inhabitants and some 35.000 companies. The MRE is a city region, which means that it is primarily a cooperation of municipalities, final control over the MRE lies with the Regional Council, which consists of representatives of the participating municipalities. The Council sets the parameters and long-term guidelines within which the MRE operates. The Council also provides overview of the Daily Management, which is responsible for the running of the MRE. The MRE is involved with many areas of administration that are cross-border concerns for the member municipalities, in order to facilitate this, the responsible aldermen for these areas meet six times a year in a meeting. In the area of administration, the MRE has three types of responsibilities, City region responsibilities and these are responsibilities that have been appointed to the MRE by mandate of being a city region. Examples of these responsibilities are contracting public transportation and child care, most of these responsibilities have been moved to the MRE from the province. Responsibilities as an extension to municipal administration and these are responsibilities that all member municipalities have delegated jointly to the MRE. Responsibilities that one or more member municipalities have unilaterally delegated to the MRE, the City and Regional Transportation in North-Brabant is not entirely the legidomain of the province of North-Brabant. Being a city region, MRE is the concession granter for public transportation in the southeast of the province, the current concession holder is Hermes. The MRE also commissioned the creation of the Phileas, a bus which runs on the rapid transit lines to Meerhoven, Eindhoven Airport
5.
Falcon
–
Falcons are birds of prey in the genus Falco, which includes about 40 species. Falcons are widely distributed on all continents of the world except Antarctica, adult falcons have thin, tapered wings, which enable them to fly at high speed and change direction rapidly. Fledgling falcons, in their first year of flying, have flight feathers. This makes flying easier while learning the skills required to be effective hunters as adults. The falcons are the largest genus in the Falconinae subfamily of Falconidae, which also includes another subfamily comprising caracaras. All these birds kill with their beaks, using a tooth on the side of their beaks—unlike the hawks, eagles, and other birds of prey in the Accipitridae, the largest falcon is the gyrfalcon at up to 65 cm in length. The smallest falcons are the kestrels, of which the Seychelles kestrel measures just 25 cm, as with hawks and owls, falcons exhibit sexual dimorphism, with the females typically larger than the males, thus allowing a wider range of prey species. Some small falcons with long, narrow wings are called hobbies, as is the case with many birds of prey, falcons have exceptional powers of vision, the visual acuity of one species has been measured at 2.6 times that of a normal human. Peregrine falcons have been recorded diving at speeds of 200 miles per hour, the Late Latin falco is believed to derive from falx as meaning a sickle, referencing the claws of the bird. In Middle English and Old French, the term faucon refers generically to several captive raptor species, the traditional term for a male falcon is tercel or tiercel, from the Latin tertius because of the belief that only one in three eggs hatched a male bird. Some sources give the etymology as deriving from the fact that a falcon is about one-third smaller than a female. A falcon chick, especially one reared for falconry, still in its stage, is known as an eyas. The word arose by mistaken division of Old French un niais, the technique of hunting with trained captive birds of prey is known as falconry. Compared to other birds of prey, the record of the falcons is not well distributed in time. The oldest fossils tentatively assigned to this genus are from the Late Miocene and this coincides with a period in which many modern genera of birds became recognizable in the fossil record. Falcons are roughly divisible into three or four groups, kestrels feed chiefly on terrestrial vertebrates and invertebrates of appropriate size, such as rodents, reptiles, or insects. The second group contains slightly larger species, the hobbies and relatives and these birds are characterized by considerable amounts of dark slate-grey in their plumage, their malar areas are nearly always black. They feed mainly on smaller birds, third are the peregrine falcon and its relatives, variably sized powerful birds that also have a black malar area, and often a black cap, as well
6.
Cigar
–
A cigar is a tightly-rolled bundle of dried and fermented tobacco leaf, rolled in a series of types and sizes, that is ignited so that its smoke may be drawn into the mouth. The origins of cigar smoking are still unknown, in Guatemala, a ceramic pot dating back to the tenth century features a Mayan smoking tobacco leaves tied together with a string. Sikar, the term for smoking used by the Maya, may have inspired the name cigar, the word cigar originated from the Spanish cigarro, which in turn probably derives from the Mayan sicar. There is also a possible derivation, or at least an influence, from the Spanish cigarra, the English word came into general use in 1730. Explorer Christopher Columbus is generally credited with the introduction of tobacco to Europe, Tobacco was widely diffused among all of the islands of the Caribbean and therefore they again encountered it in Cuba where Columbus and his men had settled. His sailors reported that the Taínos on the island of Cuba smoked a primitive form of cigar, later, the hobby spread to Italy and, after Sir Walter Raleighs voyages to the Americas, to Britain. Smoking became familiar throughout Europe—in pipes in Britain—by the mid-16th century, in 1542, tobacco started to be grown commercially in America, when the Spaniards established the first cigar factory on the island of Cuba. Tobacco was originally thought to have medicinal qualities, but there were some who considered it evil and it was denounced by Philip II of Spain and James I of England. Around 1592, the Spanish galleon San Clemente brought 50 kilograms of seed to the Philippines over the Acapulco-Manila trade route. The seed was then distributed among the Roman Catholic missionaries, where the clerics found excellent climates, in the 19th century, cigar smoking was common, while cigarettes were still comparatively rare. In the early 20th century, Rudyard Kipling wrote his famous smoking poem, the cigar business was an important industry and factories employed many people before mechanized manufacturing of cigars became practical. Other manufacturers followed, and Key West became another important cigar manufacturing center, in 1885, Ybor moved again, buying land near the then-small city of Tampa, Florida and building the largest cigar factory in the world at the time in the new company town of Ybor City. Thousands of Cuban and Spanish tabaqueros came to the area from Key West, Cuba, local output peaked in 1929, when workers in Ybor City and West Tampa rolled over 500,000,000 clear Havana cigars, earning the town the nickname Cigar Capital of the World. In New York, cigars were made by working in their own homes. It was reported that as of 1883, cigars were being manufactured in 127 apartment houses in New York, employing 1,962 families and 7,924 individuals. A state statute banning the practice, passed late that year at the urging of trade unions on the basis that the practice suppressed wages, was ruled unconstitutional less than four months later. The industry, which had relocated to Brooklyn and other places on Long Island while the law was in effect, as of 1905, there were 80,000 cigar-making operations in the United States, most of them small, family-operated shops where cigars were rolled and sold immediately. Boxes of hand-rolled cigars bear the phrase totalmente a mano or hecho a mano and these premium hand-rolled cigars are significantly different from the machine-made cigars sold in packs at drugstores or gas stations
.svg)
pronunciation (help·info)) is a municipality and a town in the southern Netherlands, in the Metropoolregio Eindhoven of the province of North Brabant. The municipality had a population of 30,615 in 2017 and spans an area of 56.49 km2 (21.81 sq mi) of which 1.48 km2 (0.57 sq mi) is water.
Tienen (Belgium)
Salvaterra de Magos (Portugal)
Media related to Valkenswaard at Wikimedia Commons
Valkenswaard
