1.
Rio Grande do Sul
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Rio Grande do Sul is a state located in the southern region of Brazil. It is the fifth most populous state and the ninth largest by area, the capital and largest city is Porto Alegre. The state has a Gaúcho culture like its foreign neighbors and it was originally inhabited by Guarani people. The first Europeans there were Jesuits, followed by settlers from the Azores, in the 19th century it was the scene of conflicts including the Farroupilha Revolution and the Paraguayan War. Large waves of German and Italian migration have shaped the state, Rio Grande do Sul is bordered to the north by the Brazilian State of Santa Catarina, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by Uruguay, and to the west by Argentina. A range of low mountains extends southward from the Serra do Mar of Santa Catarina, west of this range is a vast grassy plain devoted principally to stock-raising – the northern and most elevated part being suitable in pasturage and climate for sheep, and the southern for cattle. The coast is one great sand beach, broken only by the outlet of the two lakes, called the Rio Grande, which affords an entrance to navigable inland waters and several ports. There are two river systems in Rio Grande do Sul – that of the eastern slope draining to the lagoons. The larger rivers of the group are the Jacuí, Sinos, Caí, Gravataí and Camaquã, which flow into the Lagoa dos Patos. The Guaíba River is broad, comparatively deep and about 56 kilometres long, the Jaguarão, which forms part of the boundary line with Uruguay, is navigable 42 km up to and beyond the town of Jaguarão. Its width varies from 35 to 58 km, the lake is comparatively shallow and filled with sand banks, making its navigable channels tortuous and difficult. The Lagoa Mirim occupies a position farther south, on the Uruguayan border. It is more irregular in outline and discharges into Lagoa dos Patos through a channel known as the São Gonçalo Channel. A part of the lies in Uruguayan territory, but its navigation, as determined by treaty. Both of these lakes are evidently the remains of an ancient depression in the coastline shut in by sand beaches built up by the action of wind. They are of the level as the ocean, but their waters are affected by the tides and are brackish only a short distance above the Rio Grande outlet. Fully one-third of the state belongs to the Río de la Plata drainage basin, the Uruguay River itself is formed by the confluence of the Canoas and Pelotas rivers. Rio Grande do Sul lies within the temperate zone and is predominantly humid subtropical
2.
Brazil
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Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. As the worlds fifth-largest country by area and population, it is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language. Its Amazon River basin includes a vast tropical forest, home to wildlife, a variety of ecological systems. This unique environmental heritage makes Brazil one of 17 megadiverse countries, Brazil was inhabited by numerous tribal nations prior to the landing in 1500 of explorer Pedro Álvares Cabral, who claimed the area for the Portuguese Empire. Brazil remained a Portuguese colony until 1808, when the capital of the empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, in 1815, the colony was elevated to the rank of kingdom upon the formation of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. Independence was achieved in 1822 with the creation of the Empire of Brazil, a state governed under a constitutional monarchy. The ratification of the first constitution in 1824 led to the formation of a bicameral legislature, the country became a presidential republic in 1889 following a military coup détat. An authoritarian military junta came to power in 1964 and ruled until 1985, Brazils current constitution, formulated in 1988, defines it as a democratic federal republic. The federation is composed of the union of the Federal District, the 26 states, Brazils economy is the worlds ninth-largest by nominal GDP and seventh-largest by GDP as of 2015. A member of the BRICS group, Brazil until 2010 had one of the worlds fastest growing economies, with its economic reforms giving the country new international recognition. Brazils national development bank plays an important role for the economic growth. Brazil is a member of the United Nations, the G20, BRICS, Unasul, Mercosul, Organization of American States, Organization of Ibero-American States, CPLP. Brazil is a power in Latin America and a middle power in international affairs. One of the worlds major breadbaskets, Brazil has been the largest producer of coffee for the last 150 years and it is likely that the word Brazil comes from the Portuguese word for brazilwood, a tree that once grew plentifully along the Brazilian coast. In Portuguese, brazilwood is called pau-brasil, with the word brasil commonly given the etymology red like an ember, formed from Latin brasa and the suffix -il. As brazilwood produces a red dye, it was highly valued by the European cloth industry and was the earliest commercially exploited product from Brazil. The popular appellation eclipsed and eventually supplanted the official Portuguese name, early sailors sometimes also called it the Land of Parrots. In the Guarani language, a language of Paraguay, Brazil is called Pindorama
3.
GMT
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Greenwich Mean Time is the mean solar time at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London. GMT was formerly used as the civil time standard, now superseded in that function by Coordinated Universal Time. Today GMT is considered equivalent to UTC for UK civil purposes and for navigation is considered equivalent to UT1, consequently, the term GMT should not be used for precise purposes. Due to Earths uneven speed in its orbit and its axial tilt, noon GMT is rarely the exact moment the sun crosses the Greenwich meridian. This event may occur up to 16 minutes before or after noon GMT, noon GMT is the annual average moment of this event, which accounts for the word mean in Greenwich Mean Time. Originally, astronomers considered a GMT day to start at noon while for almost everyone else it started at midnight, to avoid confusion, the name Universal Time was introduced to denote GMT as counted from midnight. Astronomers preferred the old convention to simplify their observational data, so each night was logged under a single calendar date. Today Universal Time usually refers to UTC or UT1, in some countries Greenwich Mean Time is the legal time in the winter and the population uses the term. For an explanation of why this is, see GMT in legislation below, synchronisation of the chronometer on GMT did not affect shipboard time, which was still solar time. Most time zones were based upon GMT, as an offset of a number of hours ahead of GMT or behind GMT and it was gradually adopted for other purposes, but a legal case in 1858 held local mean time to be the official time. On 14 May 1880, a signed by Clerk to Justices appeared in The Times, stating that Greenwich time is now kept almost throughout England. For example, our polling booths were opened, say, at 813 and closed at 413 PM. This was changed later in 1880, GMT was adopted on the Isle of Man in 1883, Jersey in 1898 and Guernsey in 1913. Ireland adopted GMT in 1916, supplanting Dublin Mean Time, hourly time signals from Greenwich Observatory were first broadcast on 5 February 1924, rendering the time ball at the observatory redundant in the process. The daily rotation of the Earth is irregular and constantly slows, on 1 January 1972, GMT was superseded as the international civil time standard by Coordinated Universal Time, maintained by an ensemble of atomic clocks around the world. Indeed, even the Greenwich meridian itself is not quite what it used to be—defined by the centre of the instrument at the Observatory at Greenwich. Nevertheless, the line in the old observatorys courtyard today differs no more than a few metres from that line which is now the prime meridian of the world. Historically GMT has been used two different conventions for numbering hours. The long-standing astronomical convention dating from the work of Ptolemy, was to refer to noon as zero hours and this contrasted with the civil convention of referring to midnight as zero hours dating from the Romans
4.
Stock Car Brasil
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Stock Car Brasil, also known as Stock Car V8, is a touring car auto racing series based in Brazil. It is considered to be one of the major South American motorsports series, the series was created in 1979 to be an alternative to the former Division 1 championship that competed with Chevrolet Opala and Ford Maverick. The dominance of Chevrolet over Ford models was causing a lack of public interest, General Motors then created a new category, with a name reminiscent of the famous NASCAR with standardized performance and improvements for all the competitors. The first race was run on April 22,1979 at the Autódromo Internacional de Tarumã, Rio Grande do Sul with 19 cars competing, the pole position was held by José Carlos Palhares, and the race was won by Affonso Giaffone. This decade saw the emergence of several rivalries between drivers, in 1982 two races were held for the first time at the Autodromo do Estoril, Portugal. The first major change in the Stock Car standard occurred in 1987, with the support of General Motors, a fairing designed and built by coachbuilder Caio was adopted, which was adapted to the Opalas chassis. The car exhibited improved aerodynamics and performance, in 1990 General Motors renewed its interest in the category and built a prototype intended to replace the Caio/Hidroplas model. In 1994 the championship returned to the old rules and Chevrolet announced that the Chevrolet Omega would be introduced as the new standard model and this decade marked a dominant era for Ingo Hoffmann with eight titles, three in partnership with Ângelo Giombell. His only serious challenges came from Paulo Gomes in 1995 and Chico Serra in 1999, from 2000 on, General Motors departed the series and Vicar Promoções Desportivas, owned by former racing driver Carlos Col, took over the organization. This ushered in a period of modernization and improved security as the category started to use a chassis designated JL G-09. The project engineer was Edgardo Fernandez, who did something similar for the Argentina category Top Race V6, the chassis was built by Zeca Giaffones JL Racing. General Motors participated in the series with the Vectra, in 2005 Mitsubishi entered the series with the Mitsubishi Lancer. October 30 of that year marked the first race held in Argentina at Autódromo Juan y Oscar Gálvez. Giuliano Losacco was the winner, with Mateus Greipel second and Luciano Burti coming in third. In 2006, Volkswagen entered in the series with the Bora, at the end of the season, the 10 best drivers were automatically qualified to run the 4 final races, called Super Final, similar to the Chase for the Sprint Cup. In 2007, the category gained another manufacturer with the entrance of Peugeot with its 307 Sedan, Volkswagen announced it was withdrawing from the category in 2008, with two-time champion Mitsubishi doing the same one year later. For 2010 the category will use ethanol as fuel and engines with electronic injection, in 2011, Peugeot re-entered the championship announced with the 408 sedan model, replacing the 307. In 2012, Chevrolet introduced the Chevrolet Sonic as its competing model, the category announced changes for 2012 season, dropping the Super Final system
5.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
6.
Road racing
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In North America, road racing is motor racing held on a paved closed circuit with both left and right turns. Road racing is therefore distinct from both off-road racing and oval racing, the latter is common in North America and involves turning in only one direction. Road racing may be on purpose-built race tracks or on circuits, such as closed-off airport runways and public roads. A roval is a road course incorporating parts of a track and its infield. Some officially-sanctioned races are held on roads, that are closed for the duration of the event. This form of racing was banned in Great Britain in 1925 due to an accident at the Kop Hill Climb. The North West 200 and Ulster Grand Prix races are popular, the ban in Great Britain does not extend to the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland. Sometimes the term real road racing is used to distinguish this form of racing from that which takes place on purpose-built paved circuits. Global road-racing series such as Formula One, FIA WEC and MotoGP are almost always conducted on dedicated tracks, such as Spa-Francorchamps, Suzuka, Monza. Expansion of these series has resulted in dedicated tracks being built in Qatar in the Middle East, Sepang in Malaysia, events for many types of motorized vehicles are held at road racing tracks. There was a tradition of road racing on real streets in North America. The terms definition has shifted over time, however, with the dominance of Oval racing. A permanent, purpose-built, road racing circuit, is described as a natural or proper road course in the U. S. After a few decades of such events three sons of Barron Collier—Barron, Miles, and Samuel—founded the Automobile Racing Club of America in 1933 and that organization became the Sports Car Club of America in 1944. Throughout its history, American race car drivers such as Briggs Cunningham, Lake Underwood, Carroll Shelby, the Road Racing Drivers Club was formed and invited members by nomination alone. Its presidents have been, Walt Hansgen, Dolph Vilardi, John Gorden Benett, Robert Grossman, Lake Underwood, Mark Donohue, Bob Sharp, Skip Barber, Dave Ammen, Bob Akin, Brian Redman, and Bobby Rahal. Additionally, racing over public streets is making something of a comeback, other famous street circuits in North America include events held in Saint Petersburg, Florida, Montreal, Québec, Detroit, Michigan, and Toronto, Ontario. More recently, the Edmonton Indy is held on the runways of Edmonton City Centre Airport in Edmonton, Oval track Roval Dragstrip Traditional Road Racing 944 Cup
