William III widely known as William of Orange, was sovereign Prince of Orange from birth, Stadtholder of Holland, Utrecht and Overijssel in the Dutch Republic from the 1670s and King of England and Scotland from 1689 until his death. Popular histories refer to his joint reign with his wife, Queen Mary II, as that of William and Mary; as King of Scotland, he is known as William II. He is sometimes informally known as "King Billy" in Northern Ireland and Scotland, where his victory at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 is still commemorated by Unionists and Ulster loyalists. William was the only child of William II, Prince of Orange, who died a week before his birth, Mary, Princess of Orange, the daughter of King Charles I of England. In 1677, during the reign of his uncle King Charles II of England, he married his cousin Mary, the fifteen-year-old daughter of Charles II's brother James, Duke of York. A Protestant, William participated in several wars against the powerful Catholic King Louis XIV of France, in coalition with Protestant and Catholic powers in Europe.

Many Protestants heralded him as a champion of their faith. In 1685, his Catholic uncle and father-in-law, became King of England and Ireland. James's reign was unpopular with the Protestant majority in Britain, who feared a revival of Catholicism. Supported by a group of influential British political and religious leaders, William invaded England in what became known as the Glorious Revolution. In 1688, he landed at the south-western English port of Brixham. Shortly afterwards, James was deposed. William's reputation as a staunch Protestant enabled his wife to take power. During the early years of his reign, he was occupied abroad with the Nine Years' War. Queen Mary II died in 1694. In 1696, the Jacobites plotted unsuccessfully to assassinate William and return his father-in-law to the throne. William's lack of children and the death in 1700 of his sister-in-law Anne's last surviving child Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, threatened the Protestant succession; the danger was averted by placing the Protestant Hanoverians, in line.

Upon his death in 1702, the king was succeeded in Britain by Anne and as titular Prince of Orange by his cousin, John William Friso. William III was born in The Hague in the Dutch Republic on 4 November 1650. Baptised William Henry, he was the only child of Mary, Princess Royal and stadtholder William II, Prince of Orange, his mother was the eldest daughter of King Charles I of England and Ireland and sister of King Charles II and King James II and VII. Eight days before William was born, his father died of smallpox. A conflict ensued between his mother and paternal grandmother, Amalia of Solms-Braunfels, over the name to be given to the infant. Mary wanted to name him Charles after her brother, but her mother-in-law insisted on giving him the name William to bolster his prospects of becoming stadtholder. William II had appointed his wife as their son's guardian in his will. On 13 August 1651, the Hoge Raad van Holland en Zeeland ruled that guardianship would be shared between his mother, his paternal grandmother and Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg, whose wife, Louise Henriette, was William II's eldest sister.

William's mother showed little personal interest in her son, sometimes being absent for years, had always deliberately kept herself apart from Dutch society. William's education was first laid in the hands of several Dutch governesses, some of English descent, including Walburg Howard and the Scottish noblewoman, Lady Anna Mackenzie. From April 1656, the prince received daily instruction in the Reformed religion from the Calvinist preacher Cornelis Trigland, a follower of the Contra-Remonstrant theologian Gisbertus Voetius; the ideal education for William was described in Discours sur la nourriture de S. H. Monseigneur le Prince d'Orange, a short treatise by one of William's tutors, Constantijn Huygens. In these lessons, the prince was taught that he was predestined to become an instrument of Divine Providence, fulfilling the historical destiny of the House of Orange-Nassau. From early 1659, William spent seven years at the University of Leiden for a formal education, under the guidance of ethics professor Hendrik Bornius.

While residing in the Prinsenhof at Delft, William had a small personal retinue including Hans Willem Bentinck, a new governor, Frederick Nassau de Zuylenstein, his paternal uncle. Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt and his uncle Cornelis de Graeff pushed the States of Holland to take charge of William's education and ensure that he would acquire the skills to serve in a future—though undetermined—state function; this first involvement of the authorities did not last long. On 23 December 1660, when William was ten years old, his mother died of smallpox at Whitehall Palace, while visiting her brother, the restored King Charles II. In her will, Mary requested that Charles look after William's interests, Charles now demanded that the States of Holland end their interference. To appease Charles, they complied on 30 September 1661; that year, Zuylenstein began to work for Charles and induced William to write letters to his uncle asking him to help William become stadtholder someday. After his mother's death, William's education and guardianship became a point of contention between his dynasty's supporters and the

The geology of Slovakia is structurally complex, with a varied array of mountain ranges and belts formed during the Paleozoic through the Cenozoic. Most of Slovakia is situated within the West Carpathian orogenic belt, except for the east of the country, in the East Carpathians; the Transdanubian Mid-Mountain Range occupies a small area in the south, forming the basement rocks of the Danube Basin. The Eastern Alps-Western Carpathian boundary runs through Slovakia. Carpathian Foredeep: Foredeeps formed during the Hercynian orogeny, filled with sedimentary rocks from the Carboniferous through the Oligocene. A Miocene-age nappe, made up of folded Cretaceous and Paleogene sedimentary rocks, known as the Flysch Belt covers most of the foredeep. Pieniny Klippen Belt: A narrow 15 kilometer wide compressed zone with layers of Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous limestone "klippen" surrounded by more plastic Cretaceous marl; the belt records signs of oblique collision in the Albian and separation of crystalline rock, nappe stacking in the Campanian and subduction of the Pieniny exotic ridge in the Senonian.

Gemericum: Cambrian or Ordovician through Triassic age phyllite, metaquartzite and crystalline limestone replaced with siderite belonging to the Gelnica and Radovec Group, five to 10 kilometers thick in the Spissko-gemerske rudoharie Mountains. Contains marine rocks from the Carboniferous and Permian volcanic rocks. Meliata Unit: Permian gypsum, Triassic limestone and basic volcanites and Jurassic olistrosomes—sedimentation in a trough with a basement of oceanic crust; this unit shows through as "windows" within the Silica Nappe. Borka Nappe: A narrow belt between Slovak Karst and Gemericum with glaucophanitized basic volcanites from the Triassic. Rudabanyaicum: Slightly metamorphosed small Triassic nappe units extending into Slovakia from Hungary. Silica Nappe: A large nappe, with 1.2 kilometer thick Triassic Wetterstein Limestone. The karst plain of the Slovak Karst are formed within the Silica Nappe, it did include Jurassic rocks, but these have eroded away. In the Paleogene, at the beginning of the Cenozoic, a marine transgression flooded the region from the vicinity of the Flysch Belt into the area of the Central West Carpathians.

Paleogene sediments are found in the Orava, Spiš, Zilina and Podhale depressions. In the Peri Klippen Zone, sedimentation began such as the Kambühel Limestone. Conglomerate is common as the bottom strata, overlain by flysch. At the edge of the subducting Flysch Belt, sedimentary rocks are up to four kilometers thick. Central Carpathian rocks are not folded. Molasse deposits laid down in the Oligocene span into southern Slovakia from the Pannonian Basin in Hungary; the back-arc molasse formed several large basins, including the Vienna Basin, Danube Basin, South Slovak Basin and East Slovak Basin in the Neogene. The basins are filled with the sediments associated with the Paratethys Ocean, up to five kilometers thick. Marl is common, intercalated with sandstone, tuff and algal limestone. Sediments became brackish over time as the Paratethys was isolated from the rest of the world's oceans. Overall, the basins are split up by numerous faults and small grabens, such as the Turiec Basin, Ziar Basin and Orava Basin filled with lake sediments.

There was limited volcanic activity in the Cenozoic, including a swarm of andesite dikes in the Outer Carpathians. Geophysical research and boreholes have shed light buried volcanic rocks in the southwest Danube Basin and volcanic rocks are found throughout the Central Western Carpathians and eastern Slovakia. Peat, eolian wind-blown sands, fluvial sand and gravel and loess are all typical Quaternary sediments, formed in the past 2.5 million years old and dominating the surface of Slovak lowlands. The Váh River has up to seven terraces of gravel. Travertine is common, including travertine which preserved a cranial mold of a Neanderthal from Gánovce. Moraine formations remain in the high mountains from the Pleistocene glaciations; the moderately metamorphosed Spišsko-gemerské rudohorie hosts veins of siderite and tetrahydrite along with the Veitsch-type magnesite, the Kremnica-Štiavnica Mountains have polymettalic lead, copper and silver veins. Permian rocks hold uranium ore. Halite is found in the Neogene East Slovak Basin and brown coal is extracted from both the Handlová-Nováky Basin and the Modrý Kameň-Potor Basin.

There are small deposits of natural gas and oil in the Neogene strata of the Vienna Basin together with older Triassic rocks

Scott Savitt is a former foreign correspondent for The Los Angeles Times, although according to Los Angeles Times records he has never held a staff position there, United Press International in Beijing. His articles have been published in The Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, many other publications, he has been interviewed on ABC's Nightline and the CBS News. He is the in-house Chinese-English translator for numerous human rights organizations. In 1994, he founded China's first independent weekly newspaper. In 2003 he published China Now magazine. Http://www.chinanowmag.com He’s the founding editor of the award-winning Contexts magazine http://www.contexts.org. He was a visiting scholar at Duke University until his recent relocation to Michigan. Crashing the Party: An American Reporter in China http://www.scottsavitt.com/