League of Nations
The League of Nations, abbreviated as LN or LoN, was an intergovernmental organisation founded on 10 January 1920 as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace, its primary goals, as stated in its Covenant, included preventing wars through collective security and disarmament and settling international disputes through negotiation and arbitration. Other issues in this and related treaties included labour conditions, just treatment of native inhabitants and drug trafficking, the arms trade, global health, prisoners of war, protection of minorities in Europe. At its greatest extent from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, it had 58 members; the diplomatic philosophy behind the League represented a fundamental shift from the preceding hundred years. The League lacked its own armed force and depended on the victorious Great Powers of World War I to enforce its resolutions, keep to its economic sanctions, or provide an army when needed.
The Great Powers were reluctant to do so. Sanctions could hurt League members, so they were reluctant to comply with them. During the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, when the League accused Italian soldiers of targeting Red Cross medical tents, Benito Mussolini responded that "the League is well when sparrows shout, but no good at all when eagles fall out."After some notable successes and some early failures in the 1920s, the League proved incapable of preventing aggression by the Axis powers in the 1930s. The credibility of the organization was weakened by the fact that the United States never joined the League and the Soviet Union joined late and only briefly. Germany withdrew from the League, as did Japan, Italy and others; the onset of the Second World War showed that the League had failed its primary purpose, to prevent any future world war. The League lasted for 26 years; the concept of a peaceful community of nations had been proposed as far back as 1795, when Immanuel Kant's Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch outlined the idea of a league of nations to control conflict and promote peace between states.
Kant argued for the establishment of a peaceful world community, not in a sense of a global government, but in the hope that each state would declare itself a free state that respects its citizens and welcomes foreign visitors as fellow rational beings, thus promoting peaceful society worldwide. International co-operation to promote collective security originated in the Concert of Europe that developed after the Napoleonic Wars in the 19th century in an attempt to maintain the status quo between European states and so avoid war; this period saw the development of international law, with the first Geneva Conventions establishing laws dealing with humanitarian relief during wartime, the international Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 governing rules of war and the peaceful settlement of international disputes. As historians William H. Harbaugh and Ronald E. Powaski point out, Theodore Roosevelt was the first American President to call for an international league. At the acceptance for his Nobel Prize, Roosevelt said: "it would be a masterstroke if those great powers bent on peace would form a League of Peace."The forerunner of the League of Nations, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, was formed by the peace activists William Randal Cremer and Frédéric Passy in 1889 The IPU was founded with an international scope, with a third of the members of parliaments serving as members of the IPU by 1914.
Its foundational aims were to encourage governments to solve international disputes by peaceful means. Annual conferences were established to help governments refine the process of international arbitration, its structure was designed as a council headed by a president, which would be reflected in the structure of the League. At the start of the First World War the first schemes for international organisation to prevent future wars began to gain considerable public support in Great Britain and the United States. Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, a British political scientist, coined the term "League of Nations" in 1914 and drafted a scheme for its organisation. Together with Lord Bryce, he played a leading role in the founding of the group of internationalist pacifists known as the Bryce Group the League of Nations Union; the group became more influential among the public and as a pressure group within the governing Liberal Party. In Dickinson's 1915 pamphlet After the War he wrote of his "League of Peace" as being an organisation for arbitration and conciliation.
He felt that the secret diplomacy of the early twentieth century had brought about war and thus could write that, "the impossibility of war, I believe, would be increased in proportion as the issues of foreign policy should be known to and controlled by public opinion." The ‘Proposals’ of the Bryce Group were circulated both in England and the US, where they had a profound influence on the nascent international movement. Within two weeks of the start of the war, feminists began to mobilise against the war. Having been barred from participating in prior peace organizations, American women formed a Women
Palestine Police Force
The Palestine Police Force was a British colonial police service established in Mandatory Palestine on 1 July 1920, when High Commissioner Herbert Samuel's civil administration took over responsibility for security from General Allenby's Occupied Enemy Territory Administration. The Egyptian Expeditionary Force had won the decisive Battle of Gaza in November 1917 under the newly appointed Commander-in-Chief of Palestine, Edmund Allenby. Following the Battle of Jerusalem in December, Allenby accepted the surrender of the city, placed under martial law, guards were posted at several points within the city and in Bethlehem to protect sites held sacred by the Christian and Jewish religions. Following a decisive British victory at the Battle of Megiddo, the Ottoman Empire formally surrendered on 30 October 1918, leaving the British in complete control of Palestine. Headquarters of the police in Jerusalem were set up in the Russian Compound, along Jaffa Road, where assistant provost marshal was assisted by the British Military Police.
Palestine was administered in the southern district of the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration. The Palestine Police was founded with the establishment in July 1920 of the civilian administration of the British Mandate under high commissioner Herbert Samuel; the first police commander was Lieutenant Colonel P. B. Bramley, OBE, with the title of Director of Public Security and with the rank of Commandant of Police and Prisons; the police force at the time consisted of 18 British officers supported by 55 Palestinian officers and 1,144 rank and file, whose duties were described as: "Besides fulfilling the ordinary duties of a constabulary, such as the preservation of law and order and the prevention and detection of crime, act as their numbers will allow as escorts for the protection of tax collectors, serve summonses issued by the judicial authorities, distribute Government notices and escort Government treasure throughout the country." Legislative authority was granted eight months after-the-fact with Police Ordinance 1921, although the PPF's authority was never challenged legally.
In 1926 the two Gendarmeries were disbanded, their members transferring to the British and Palestinian sections of the Palestine Police while most of the remainder joined a new Corps, the Transjordan Frontier Force. By 1928 the Force had 2,143 officers: 1293 Muslim Arabs and 471 Christian Arabs. In January 1930, Herbert Dowbiggin, colonial Inspector General of Police of Ceylon, was sent to Palestine to advise on the re-organization of the Palestine Police Force, his report was submitted in May of that year, it was a confidential document which it was considered impossible to publish at the time. On his advice, the British and Palestine Sections of the Police were reinforced, deployed so that no important Jewish settlement or group of Jewish farms was without a detachment, with access to sealed armories, furnished with Greener guns; each colony was provided with a telephone and the road network was improved to give the Police greater mobility. During the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine additional forces were established in Palestine by the British including the Jewish Settlement Police, Jewish Supernumerary Police and the joint British-Jewish Special Night Squads.
The Colonial Office wanted Charles Tegart to become Inspector-General of the Force in 1937. He refused but joined Sir David Petrie in visiting the territory to advise on dealing with Arab guerrillas. Tegart forts are a style of militarized police fortress constructed throughout Palestine during the British mandate; the forts are named after British police officer and engineer Sir Charles Tegart, who designed them in 1938 based on his experiences in the Indian insurgency. Tens of the reinforced concrete block structures were built to the same basic plan, both along the so-called Tegart's Wall of the northern border with Lebanon and Syria, at strategic intersections in the interior of Palestine. Many of them stand to this day, some continue to be used as jails and police stations. On 27 May 1942, the Police became a military force eligible to be deployed on military operations inside Palestine and in Syria and Iraq. In 1944, the Police Mobile Force was created as a militarized strike force, part of and under the command of the Palestine Police.
Established with 800 British servicemen, on active wartime service in Italy, North Africa, Britain, the PMF was organized and equipped along military lines. Members were trained in a special training depot based in Jenin. By the time of the 1947 UN Partition Plan the British members of the Force alone numbered 4,000; the British mandate over Palestine was due to expire on 15 May 1948, but Jewish Leadership led by future Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, declared independence on 14 May. Members of the Palestine Police Force withdrew with the remainder of the British Forces in Palestine. However, the influence of the Palestine Police reached its peak after the force was disbanded on 15 May as around 1,400 policeman obtained postings elsewhere. In particular, a Special Constabulary of 500 former Palestine Police was established in Malaya after the state of emergency was declared in June 1948. Officers who served in Malaya transferred to colonial police forces in Kenya), Hong Kong and Tanganyika.
Percy Bramley, Commandant of Police, July 1920 - March 1923. Arthur Mavrogordato, Commandant of Police, March 1923 - July 1931. R. G. B. Spicer, July 1931 - November 1937. Alan Saunders, November 1937 - August,1943. John Rymer-Jones, August 1943 - March 1946. Nicol Gray, March 1946 - May 1948. Gawain Bell, District Superintendent Ralph Cairns, commander of CID's Jewish Section. Assassinated
Turkey
Turkey the Republic of Turkey, is a transcontinental country located in Western Asia, with a smaller portion on the Balkan Peninsula in Southeast Europe. East Thrace, located in Europe, is separated from Anatolia by the Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorous strait and the Dardanelles. Turkey is bordered by Bulgaria to its northwest. Istanbul is the largest city. 70 to 80 per cent of the country's citizens identify as Turkish. Kurds are the largest minority. At various points in its history, the region has been inhabited by diverse civilizations including the Assyrians, Thracians, Phrygians and Armenians. Hellenization continued into the Byzantine era; the Seljuk Turks began migrating into the area in the 11th century, their victory over the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 symbolizes the start and foundation of Turkey. The Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm ruled Anatolia until the Mongol invasion in 1243, when it disintegrated into small Turkish principalities. Beginning in the late 13th-century, the Ottomans started uniting these Turkish principalities.
After Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453, Ottoman expansion continued under Selim I. During the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent the Ottoman Empire encompassed much of Southeast Europe, West Asia and North Africa and became a world power. In the following centuries the state entered a period of decline with a gradual loss of territories and wars. In an effort to consolidate the weakening social and political foundations of the empire, Mahmut II started a period of modernisation in the early 19th century, bringing reforms in all areas of the state including the military and bureaucracy along with the emancipation of all citizens. In 1913, a coup d'état put the country under the control of the Three Pashas. During World War I, the Ottoman government committed genocides against its Armenian and Pontic Greek subjects. Following the war, the conglomeration of territories and peoples that comprised the Ottoman Empire was partitioned into several new states; the Turkish War of Independence, initiated by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his colleagues against occupying Allied Powers, resulted in the abolition of monarchy in 1922 and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, with Atatürk as its first president.
Atatürk enacted numerous reforms, many of which incorporated various aspects of Western thought and customs into the new form of Turkish government. The Kurdish–Turkish conflict, an armed conflict between the Republic of Turkey and Kurdish insurgents, has been active since 1984 in the southeast of the country. Various Kurdish groups demand separation from Turkey to create an independent Kurdistan or to have autonomy and greater political and cultural rights for Kurds in Turkey. Turkey is a charter member of the UN, an early member of NATO, the IMF and the World Bank, a founding member of the OECD, OSCE, BSEC, OIC and G-20. After becoming one of the first members of the Council of Europe in 1949, Turkey became an associate member of the EEC in 1963, joined the EU Customs Union in 1995 and started accession negotiations with the European Union in 2005 which have been stopped by the EU in 2017 due to "Turkey's path toward autocratic rule". Turkey's economy and diplomatic initiatives led to its recognition as a regional power while its location has given it geopolitical and strategic importance throughout history.
Turkey is a secular, unitary parliamentary republic which adopted a presidential system with a referendum in 2017. Turkey's current administration headed by president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of the AKP has enacted measures to increase the influence of Islam, undermine Kemalist policies and freedom of the press; the English name of Turkey means "land of the Turks". Middle English usage of Turkye is evidenced in an early work by Chaucer called The Book of the Duchess; the phrase land of Torke is used in the 15th-century Digby Mysteries. Usages can be found in the Dunbar poems, the 16th century Manipulus Vocabulorum and Francis Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum; the modern spelling "Turkey" dates back to at least 1719. The Turkish name Türkiye was adopted in 1923 under the influence of European usage; the Anatolian peninsula, comprising most of modern Turkey, is one of the oldest permanently settled regions in the world. Various ancient Anatolian populations have lived in Anatolia, from at least the Neolithic period until the Hellenistic period.
Many of these peoples spoke the Anatolian languages, a branch of the larger Indo-European language family. In fact, given the antiquity of the Indo-European Hittite and Luwian languages, some scholars have proposed Anatolia as the hypothetical centre from which the Indo-European languages radiated; the European part of Turkey, called Eastern Thrace, has been inhabited since at least forty thousand years ago, is known to have been in the Neolithic era by about 6000 BC. Göbekli Tepe is the site of the oldest known man-made religious structure, a temple dating to circa 10,000 BC, while Çatalhöyük is a large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately
Abdullah I of Jordan
Abdullah I bin Al-Hussein was the ruler of Jordan and its predecessor state, from 1921 until his assassination in 1951. He was Emir of Transjordan from 21 April 1921 to 25 May 1946 under a British mandate, was king of an independent nation from 25 May 1946 until his assassination. According to Abdullah, he was a 38th-generation direct descendant of Muhammad as he belongs to the Hashemite family. Born in Mecca, Ottoman Empire, Abdullah was the second of three sons of Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca and his first wife Abdiyya bint Abdullah, he was educated in Hejaz. From 1909 to 1914, Abdullah sat in the Ottoman legislature, as deputy for Mecca, but allied with Britain during World War I. Between 1916 and 1918, he played a key role as architect and planner of the Great Arab Revolt against Ottoman rule, led by his father Sharif Hussein. Abdullah lead guerrilla raids on garrisons. Abdullah became emir to the Emirate of Transjordan in April 1921, which he established by his own initiative, became king to its successor state, after it gained its independence in 1948.
Abdullah ruled until 1951 when he was assassinated in Jerusalem while attending Friday prayers at the entrance of the Al-Aqsa mosque by a Palestinian who feared that the King was going to make peace with Israel. He was succeeded by his eldest son Talal. In 1910, Abdullah persuaded his father to stand for Grand Sharif of Mecca, a post for which Hussein acquired British support. In the following year, he became deputy for Mecca in the parliament established by the Young Turks, acting as an intermediary between his father and the Ottoman government. In 1914, Abdullah paid a clandestine visit to Cairo to meet Lord Kitchener to seek British support for his father's ambitions in Arabia. Abdullah maintained contact with the British throughout the First World War and in 1915 encouraged his father to enter into correspondence with Sir Henry McMahon, British high commissioner in Egypt, about Arab independence from Turkish rule.. This correspondence in turn led to the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans. During the Arab Revolt of 1916–18, Abdullah commanded the Arab Eastern Army.
Abdullah began his role in the Revolt by attacking the Ottoman garrison at Ta'if on 10 June 1916. The garrison consisted of 3,000 men with ten 75-mm Krupp guns. Abdullah led a force of 5,000 tribesmen but they did not have the weapons or discipline for a full attack. Instead, he laid siege to town. In July, he received reinforcements from Egypt in the form of howitzer batteries manned by Egyptian personnel, he joined the siege of Medina commanding a force of 4,000 men based to the east and north-east of the town. In early 1917, Abdullah ambushed an Ottoman convoy in the desert, captured £20,000 worth of gold coins that were intended to bribe the Bedouin into loyalty to the Sultan. In August 1917, Abdullah worked with the French Captain Muhammand Ould Ali Raho in sabotaging the Hejaz Railway. Abdullah's relations with the British Captain T. E. Lawrence were not good, as a result, Lawrence spent most of his time in the Hejaz serving with Abdullah's brother, who commanded the Arab Northern Army; when French forces captured Damascus at the Battle of Maysalun and expelled his brother Faisal, Abdullah moved his forces from Hejaz into Transjordan with a view to liberating Damascus, where his brother had been proclaimed King in 1918.
Having heard of Abdullah's plans, Winston Churchill invited Abdullah to a famous "tea party" where he convinced Abdullah to stay put and not attack Britain's allies, the French. Churchill told Abdullah that French forces were superior to his and that the British did not want any trouble with the French. On 8 March 1920, Abdullah was proclaimed King of Iraq by the Iraqi Congress but he refused the position. After his refusal, his brother who had just been defeated in Syria, accepted the position. Abdullah headed to north to Transjordan and established an emirate there after being welcomed into the country by its inhabitants. Although Abdullah established a legislative council in 1928, its role remained advisory, leaving him to rule as an autocrat. Prime Ministers under Abdullah formed 18 governments during the 23 years of the Emirate. Abdullah set about the task of building Transjordan with the help of a reserve force headed by Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick Peake, seconded from the Palestine police in 1921.
The force, renamed the Arab Legion in 1923, was led by John Bagot Glubb between 1930 and 1956. During World War II, Abdullah was a faithful British ally, maintaining strict order within Transjordan, helping to suppress a pro-Axis uprising in Iraq; the Arab Legion assisted in the occupation of Syria. Abdullah negotiated with Britain to gain independence. On 25 May 1946, the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan was proclaimed independent and Abdullah crowned king in Amman. Abdullah, alone among the Arab leaders of his generation, was considered a moderate by the West, it is possible that he might have been willing to sign a separate peace agreement with Israel, but for the Arab League's militant opposition. Because of his dream for a Greater Syria within the borders of what was Transjordan, Syria and the British Mandate for Palestine under a Hashemite dynasty with "a throne in Damascus," many Arab countries distrusted Abdullah and saw him as both "a threat to the independence of their countries and they suspected him of being in cahoots with the enemy" and in return, Abdullah distrusted the leaders of other Arab countries.
Abdullah supported the Peel Commission in 1937, which proposed that Palestine be split up int
Istanbul
Istanbul known as Byzantium and Constantinople, is the most populous city in Turkey and the country's economic and historic center. Istanbul is a transcontinental city in Eurasia, straddling the Bosporus strait between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea, its commercial and historical center lies on the European side and about a third of its population lives in suburbs on the Asian side of the Bosporus. With a total population of around 15 million residents in its metropolitan area, Istanbul is one of the world's most populous cities, ranking as the world's fourth largest city proper and the largest European city; the city is the administrative center of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality. Istanbul is viewed as a bridge between the West. Founded under the name of Byzantion on the Sarayburnu promontory around 660 BCE, the city grew in size and influence, becoming one of the most important cities in history. After its reestablishment as Constantinople in 330 CE, it served as an imperial capital for 16 centuries, during the Roman/Byzantine, Palaiologos Byzantine and Ottoman empires.
It was instrumental in the advancement of Christianity during Roman and Byzantine times, before the Ottomans conquered the city in 1453 CE and transformed it into an Islamic stronghold and the seat of the Ottoman Caliphate. The city's strategic position on the historic Silk Road, rail networks to Europe and the Middle East, the only sea route between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean have produced a cosmopolitan populace. While Ankara was chosen instead as the new Turkish capital after the Turkish War of Independence, the city's name was changed to Istanbul, the city has maintained its prominence in geopolitical and cultural affairs; the population of the city has increased tenfold since the 1950s, as migrants from across Anatolia have moved in and city limits have expanded to accommodate them. Arts, music and cultural festivals were established towards the end of the 20th century and continue to be hosted by the city today. Infrastructure improvements have produced a complex transportation network in the city.
12.56 million foreign visitors arrived in Istanbul in 2015, five years after it was named a European Capital of Culture, making the city the world's fifth most popular tourist destination. The city's biggest attraction is its historic center listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, its cultural and entertainment hub is across the city's natural harbor, the Golden Horn, in the Beyoğlu district. Considered a global city, Istanbul has one of the fastest-growing metropolitan economies in the world, it hosts the headquarters of many Turkish companies and media outlets and accounts for more than a quarter of the country's gross domestic product. Hoping to capitalize on its revitalization and rapid expansion, Istanbul has bid for the Summer Olympics five times in twenty years; the first known name of the city is Byzantium, the name given to it at its foundation by Megarean colonists around 660 BCE. The name is thought to be derived from Byzas. Ancient Greek tradition refers to a legendary king of that name as the leader of the Greek colonists.
Modern scholars have hypothesized that the name of Byzas was of local Thracian or Illyrian origin and hence predated the Megarean settlement. After Constantine the Great made it the new eastern capital of the Roman Empire in 330 CE, the city became known as Constantinople, which, as the Latinized form of "Κωνσταντινούπολις", means the "City of Constantine", he attempted to promote the name "Nova Roma" and its Greek version "Νέα Ῥώμη" Nea Romē, but this did not enter widespread usage. Constantinople remained the most common name for the city in the West until the establishment of the Turkish Republic, which urged other countries to use Istanbul. Kostantiniyye and Be Makam-e Qonstantiniyyah al-Mahmiyyah and İstanbul were the names used alternatively by the Ottomans during their rule; the use of Constantinople to refer to the city during the Ottoman period is now considered politically incorrect if not inaccurate, by Turks. By the 19th century, the city had acquired other names used by Turks. Europeans used Constantinople to refer to the whole of the city, but used the name Stamboul—as the Turks did—to describe the walled peninsula between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara.
Pera was used to describe the area between the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, but Turks used the name Beyoğlu. The name İstanbul is held to derive from the Medieval Greek phrase "εἰς τὴν Πόλιν", which means "to the city" and is how Constantinople was referred to by the local Greeks; this reflected its status as the only major city in the vicinity. The importance of Constantinople in the Ottoman world was reflected by its Ottoman name'Der Saadet' meaning the'gate to Prosperity' in Ottoman. An alternative view is that the name evolved directly from the name Constantinople, with the first and third syllables dropped. A Turkish folk etymology traces the name to Islam bol "plenty of Islam" because the city was called Islambol or Islambul as the capital of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, it is first attested shortly after the conquest
France
France the French Republic, is a country whose territory consists of metropolitan France in Western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The metropolitan area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean, it is bordered by Belgium and Germany to the northeast and Italy to the east, Andorra and Spain to the south. The overseas territories include French Guiana in South America and several islands in the Atlantic and Indian oceans; the country's 18 integral regions span a combined area of 643,801 square kilometres and a total population of 67.3 million. France, a sovereign state, is a unitary semi-presidential republic with its capital in Paris, the country's largest city and main cultural and commercial centre. Other major urban areas include Lyon, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Nice. During the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by a Celtic people. Rome annexed the area in 51 BC, holding it until the arrival of Germanic Franks in 476, who formed the Kingdom of Francia.
The Treaty of Verdun of 843 partitioned Francia into Middle Francia and West Francia. West Francia which became the Kingdom of France in 987 emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages following its victory in the Hundred Years' War. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a global colonial empire was established, which by the 20th century would become the second largest in the world; the 16th century was dominated by religious civil wars between Protestants. France became Europe's dominant cultural and military power in the 17th century under Louis XIV. In the late 18th century, the French Revolution overthrew the absolute monarchy, established one of modern history's earliest republics, saw the drafting of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which expresses the nation's ideals to this day. In the 19th century, Napoleon established the First French Empire, his subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a tumultuous succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870.
France was a major participant in World War I, from which it emerged victorious, was one of the Allies in World War II, but came under occupation by the Axis powers in 1940. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and dissolved in the course of the Algerian War; the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, remains today. Algeria and nearly all the other colonies became independent in the 1960s and retained close economic and military connections with France. France has long been a global centre of art and philosophy, it hosts the world's fourth-largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites and is the leading tourist destination, receiving around 83 million foreign visitors annually. France is a developed country with the world's sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP, tenth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of aggregate household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, human development.
France is considered a great power in global affairs, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a leading member state of the European Union and the Eurozone, a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, La Francophonie. Applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name "France" comes from the Latin "Francia", or "country of the Franks". Modern France is still named today "Francia" in Italian and Spanish, "Frankreich" in German and "Frankrijk" in Dutch, all of which have more or less the same historical meaning. There are various theories as to the origin of the name Frank. Following the precedents of Edward Gibbon and Jacob Grimm, the name of the Franks has been linked with the word frank in English, it has been suggested that the meaning of "free" was adopted because, after the conquest of Gaul, only Franks were free of taxation.
Another theory is that it is derived from the Proto-Germanic word frankon, which translates as javelin or lance as the throwing axe of the Franks was known as a francisca. However, it has been determined that these weapons were named because of their use by the Franks, not the other way around; the oldest traces of human life in what is now France date from 1.8 million years ago. Over the ensuing millennia, Humans were confronted by a harsh and variable climate, marked by several glacial eras. Early hominids led a nomadic hunter-gatherer life. France has a large number of decorated caves from the upper Palaeolithic era, including one of the most famous and best preserved, Lascaux. At the end of the last glacial period, the climate became milder. After strong demographic and agricultural development between the 4th and 3rd millennia, metallurgy appeared at the end of the 3rd millennium working gold and bronze, iron. France has numerous megalithic sites from the Neolithic period, including the exceptiona
Ashford, Kent
Ashford is a town in the county of Kent, England. It lies on the River Great Stour at the south edge of the North Downs, about 61 miles southeast of central London and 15.3 miles northwest of Folkestone by road. In the 2011 census, it had a population of 74,204; the name comes from the Old English æscet. It has been a market town since the Middle Ages, a regular market continues to be held. St Mary's Church in Ashford has been a local landmark since the 13th century, expanded in the 15th. Today, the church functions in a dual role as a centre for entertainment. Ashford has two grammar schools; the town has been a communications hub and has stood at the centre of five railway lines since the 19th century. The arrival of the railways contributed to the town's growth. With the opening of the international passenger station it is now a European communications centre, with new lines running between London and the Channel Tunnel; the M20 motorway links Ashford to those two destinations for road traffic.
Ashford has been marked as a place for expansion since the 1960s and appeared on several Government plans for growth. Changes have included the County Square shopping centre, the redevelopment of the Templer Barracks at Repton Park, the award-winning Ashford Designer Outlet. In the 1970s, a controversial ring road scheme and construction of the multi-storey Charter House building destroyed significant parts of the old town, though some areas were spared and preserved. There has been evidence of human habitation around Ashford since the Iron Age, with a barrow on what is now Barrow Hill dating back to 1500 BC. Two axes from the Lower Paleolithic period have been found near Ashford. During the construction of the Park Farm estate in the late 1990s, excavation in the area revealed tools from the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic period dating back to the 7th millennium BC. A number of other Mesolithic tools were discovered during construction of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link through Ashford. During Roman Britain, iron ore was mined in the Weald and transported to Ashford where two ironworks processed the ore into a workable metal.
Archaeological studies have revealed the existence of a Roman town to the north of the current centre at the junction of Albert Road and Wall Road. The present town originates from an original settlement established in 893 AD by inhabitants escaping a Danish Viking raid, who were granted land by a Saxon Lord for their resistance; the name comes from the Old English æscet. At the time of the Domesday Book of 1086 it was still known by its original Saxon name of Essetesford; the manor was owned by Hugh de Montfort, Constable of England and companion of William the Conqueror, had a church, two mills and a value of 150 shillings at the time. One of the earliest houses in the area still in existence is Lake House at Eastwell Park to the north of the town, which contains the grave of Richard Plantagenet. Ashford's importance as an agricultural and market town grew in the 13th century, in 1243, King Henry III granted the town a charter to hold a market for livestock; the pottery industry expanded in the 13th and 14th centuries, with the main works based at what is now Potter's Corner, a few miles west of the town centre.
Evidence from examining waste suggests that production was on a large scale. The Kent Archaeological society have discovered sandy ware at this location dating from around 1125 – 1250. Jack Cade, who led the Cade's Rebellion against corrupt Royal officials in 1450, is believed to be from Ashford. In William Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2, Cade is shown conversing with "Dick, the Butcher from Ashford". In the 16th and 17th centuries, Ashford became known for nonconformism. A local resident, John Brown, was executed for heresy in 1511, may have inspired the namesake of the song "John Brown's Body". Thomas Smythe acquired the manor of Ashford as dowry from Queen Elizabeth I in the mid-16th century, is buried in the parish church. Dr John Wallis, the internationally recognised mathematician and one of Isaac Newton's main tutors was born in Ashford in 1616, but moved to Tenterden in 1625 to avoid the plague, he was a promising student, subsequently graduated from Emmanuel College, Cambridge. By the 1780s, local farmers had begun to hold informal market days, advertised the town's ideal location between London and the Kent Coast.
The market was held in the High Street until 1856, when local farmers and businessmen relocated to Elwick Road and formed a market company, the oldest surviving registered company in England and Wales. There is still a regular street market in the town, but the market company relocated outside Ashford town centre after part of the 19th-century site was demolished to make way for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, it is still used by around 5,000 farmers. The Army first established a presence in Ashford in 1797 when it built a garrison on Barrow Hill, storerooms along what is now Magazine Road; the military presence was scaled back during the 19th century, though the town was still considered strategically important in the event of an invasion. The Territorial Army established a presence in Ashford in 1910. During World War I, Ashford's importance as a transport hub and its location between the continent and London made it a target for aerial bombing. A bomb fell on the railway works on 25 March 1917, killing 61 people, while the town was a target in the Battle of Britain during World War II, including an attack on 15 September 1940.
During the latter war 94 civilians were
United Kingdom
British Army
