<p>Rona  is a remote Scottish island in the North Atlantic. Rona is often referred to as North Rona in order to distinguish it from South Rona . It has an area of 109 hectare and a maximum elevation of 108 m.</p><br>
<p>The island lies 71 km north north-east of the Butt of Lewis and 18 km east of Sula Sgeir. More isolated than St Kilda, it is the most remote island in the British Isles to have ever been inhabited on a long-term basis. It is also the closest neighbour to the Faroe Islands. Because of the island&#39;s remote location and small area, it is omitted from many maps of the United Kingdom.</p><br>
<h2>Etymology</h2><br>
<p>The name "Rona" may come from hraun-øy, Old Norse for "rough island", a combination of ròn and øy, Gaelic and Old Norse for "seal" and "island" respectively, or it may have been named after Saint Ronan. The English language qualifier "North" is sometimes used to distinguish the island from Rona off Skye. In Gaelic it is also known as Rònaigh an Daimh which is literally "Rona of the stag" but may be derived from Rònaigh an Taibh, containing the Norse word tabh, meaning "ocean" and convey the meaning "Rona of the Atlantic".</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Rona is said to have been the residence of Saint Ronan in the eighth century. A tiny early Christian oratory which may be as early as this date, built of unmortared stone, survives virtually complete on the island - the best preserved structure of this type in Scotland. A number of simple cross-slabs of early medieval date are preserved within the structure, probably the grave-markers of Dark Age monks or hermits from Scotland or Ireland. The island continued to be inhabited until the entire population of thirty died shortly after 1685 after an infestation by rats, probably the black rat (Rattus rattus), which reached the island after a shipwreck. The rats raided the food stocks of barley meal and it is possible the inhabitants starved to death, although plague may have been a contributory factor. This occurred in a year in which it is reported that no further ships reached the isolated island to supply or trade. The rats themselves eventually starved to death, the huge swells the island experiences preventing their hunting along the rocky shores.</p><br>
<p>It was resettled, but again depopulated by around 1695 in some sort of boating tragedy, after which it remained home to a succession of shepherds and their families. It had a population of nine in 1764.</p><br>
<p>"On one occasion... a crew from Ness in Lewis had their boat wrecked in landing at Sula Sgeir in the month of June, and lived on the island for several weeks, sustaining themselves on the flesh of birds. Captain Oliver, who commanded the Revenue cruiser "Prince of Wales," visited Sula Sgeir in the month of August to look for the lost boat. He found the wreck of it, also an oar on end with an old pair of canvas trousers on it, and over the remains of a fire a pot containing birds&#39; flesh; but there being no trace of the men, it was thought they must have been picked up by a passing vessel. Nothing more was heard of them until the month of October following, when a Russian vessel on her homeward voyage met a Stornoway craft in the Orkneys, and informed the crew of the latter that they had taken the men off Sula Sgeir and landed them in Rona. Captain Oliver at once went to Rona, and found the crew consuming the last barrel of potatoes which the poor shepherd had. He took away the former, and left the latter sufficient provision for the winter." Captain Benjamin Oliver commanded the above vessel from 1811 until 1847.</p><br>
<p>"The last family which lived upon Rona was that of a shepherd named Donald MLeod, otherwise the King of Rona,&#39; who returned to Lewis in 1844." Sir James Matheson, who bought Lewis in 1844, offered the island to the Government for use as a penal settlement. The offer was refused.</p><br>
<p>Although farmers from Lewis have continued to graze sheep on Rona ever since, the island has remained uninhabited, apart from one brief and tragic episode in 1884–85. In June 1884, two men from Lewis, Malcolm MacDonald and Murdo Mackay, having reportedly had a dispute with the minister of their local church, went to stay on Rona to look after the sheep. In August, boatmen who had called at the island reported that the men were well and in good spirits, and had refused offers to take them back to Lewis. In April 1885, the next people to visit Rona made a grim discovery: the bodies of the two men from Lewis, who, a post-mortem subsequently showed, had fallen ill and died during the winter.</p><br>
<p>During World War I, the commander of German U-boat U-90, Walter Remy, stopped his submarine at North Rona during each of his wartime patrols, weather permitting, and sent crewmen onto the island to shoot sheep to obtain mutton for on-board consumption.</p><br>
<p>The island was occupied temporarily in 1938–39 by author and conservationist Frank Fraser Darling with his wife Bobbie and their son Alasdair, while they studied the grey seals and the breeding seabirds.</p><br>
<p>The island still boasts the Celtic ruins of St Ronans Chapel. It is now owned by Scottish Natural Heritage, and managed as a nature reserve, for its important grey seal and seabird colonies. These include the European storm-petrel and the larger Leachs storm-petrel, for which North Rona is an important breeding locality. Rona and Sula Sgeir form the most remote and least-visited National Nature Reserve in Britain.</p><br>
<p>In "Island at the edge of the world", the poet Kathleen Jamie describes a visit to the island, as well as in an essay in her collection Sightlines.</p><br>
<p>The island hosts an automatic light beacon, remotely monitored by the Northern Lighthouse Board.</p><br>
<p>Fairmount Park is the largest municipal park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the historic name for a group of parks located throughout the city. Fairmount Park consists of two park sections named East Park and West Park, divided by the Schuylkill River, with the two sections together totalling 2,052 acre.</p><br>
<p>Many other city parks had also been historically included in the Fairmount Park system prior to 2010, including Wissahickon Valley Park in Northwest Philadelphia, Pennypack Park in Northeast Philadelphia, Cobbs Creek Park in West Philadelphia, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Park in South Philadelphia and 58 additional parks, parkways, plazas, squares and public golf courses spread throughout the city. Since the 2010 merger, however, the term "Fairmount Park system" is no longer used by the Parks & Recreation department, and the adjacent Wissahickon Valley Park and all other park areas are considered completely separate entities.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Fairmount Park, Philadelphia&#39;s first park, occupies 2,052 acre adjacent to the banks of the Schuylkill River. Since 2010, Philadelphia Parks & Recreation divides the original park into East and West Fairmount parks. The original domain of Fairmount Park consisted of three areas: "South Park" or the South Garden immediately below the Fairmount Water Works extending to the Callowhill Street Bridge; "Old Park," which encompassed the former estates of Lemon Hill and Sedgeley; and West Park, the area including the Philadelphia Zoo and the Centennial Exposition grounds. The South Garden predated the establishment of the Park Commission in 1867, while Lemon Hill and Sedgeley were added in 1855–56. After the Civil War, work progressed on acquiring and laying out West Park. In the 1870s, the Fairmount Park Commission expropriated properties along the Wissahickon Creek to extend Fairmount Park. The Schuylkill River Trail is a modern paved multi-use trail by Kelly Drive in the East Park.</p><br>
<h3>Growth</h3><br>
<p>The park grew out of the Lemon Hill estate of Henry Pratt, whose land was originally owned by Robert Morris, signer of the Declaration of Independence. Purchased by the city in 1844, the estate was dedicated to the public by city councils ordinance on September 15, 1855. A series of state and local legislative acts over the next three years increased the holdings of the city. In 1858, the city held a design competition to re-landscape Lemon Hill and Sedgeley for public use as the best way to better protect the citys water supply.</p><br>
<p>As the site of the 1876 Centennial Exposition and the first zoo in the United States, the Philadelphia Zoo, Fairmount Park was placed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) on February 7, 1972. The adjacent Wissahickon Valley Park, located to the immediate northwest, was also included in the Fairmount Park NRHP registration document.</p><br>
<h2>Properties</h2><br>
<p>Park properties include the Centennial Arboretum, a Horticulture Center, Fairmount Water Works, Memorial Hall (home of the Please Touch Museum), Shofuso Japanese House and Garden, Boathouse Row, Smith Memorial Playground and Playhouse, recreation centers, reservoirs, statues and other pieces of art.</p><br>
<h3>Public art</h3><br>
<p>Fairmount Park is home to a large collection of public art, largely due to the efforts of the Association for Public Art (formerly the Fairmount Park Art Association), a non-profit organization founded in 1872 to embellish Fairmount Park with outdoor sculpture, including the Florentine Lions installed in 1887. The Art Association continues to commission and care for a large number of sculptures, in coordination with the park and city. In 2007, the Art Association installed Iroquois by Mark di Suvero near the Philadelphia Museum of Art on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.</p><br>
<h3>Historic houses</h3><br>
<p>Mount Pleasant, built in 1762–65 for a Scottish ship captain named John Macpherson, is administered by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Art Museum also administers Cedar Grove Mansion, a house built in 1748–50 in what later became the Frankford neighborhood of the city. Cedar Grove was relocated to the park in 1926–1928.</p><br>
<p>Other historic houses in the park, listed by year of construction, include Boelson Cottage (1678–84), The Lilacs (c. 1711), Letitia Street House (c. 1713), Ridgeland Mansion (1719), Belmont Mansion (1745), The Cliffs (1753; ruins since a fire in 1986), Woodford Mansion (1756), Hatfield House (1760), Randolph House (c. 1767; renamed Laurel Hill Mansion in 1976), Strawberry Mansion (c. 1783–89), The Solitude (1784; located within the zoo), Sweetbriar Mansion (1797), Ormiston Mansion (1798), Lemon Hill Mansion (1800), Chamounix Mansion (1802), Rockland Mansion (c. 1810), and the Ohio House which was built for the Centennial Exposition of 1876.</p><br>
<p>Sedgeley Mansion was built in 1799 on Lemon Hill, then abandoned and later demolished after being acquired through eminent domain by the city in 1857. The Sedgeley property also included a servants cottage constructed of stone which still exists. The cottage was designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe and is presently known as the Sedgeley Porters House.</p><br>
<p>The Mainland is the main island of Shetland, Scotland. The island contains Shetlands only burgh, Lerwick, and is the centre of Shetlands ferry and air connections.</p><br>
<p>It has an area of 374 square miles, making it the third-largest Scottish island and the fifth largest of the British Isles after Great Britain, Ireland, Lewis and Harris and Skye.</p><br>
<p>The mainland can be broadly divided into four sections.</p><br>
<p>The long southern peninsula, south of Lerwick, has a mixture of moorland and farmland and contains many important archaeological sites.</p><br>
<p>Bigton</p><br>
<p>Sandwick</p><br>
<p>Scalloway</p><br>
<p>Sumburgh</p><br>
<p>The Central Mainland has more farmland and some woodland plantations.</p><br>
<p>The West Mainland</p><br>
<p>Aith</p><br>
<p>Walls</p><br>
<p>Sandness</p><br>
<p>The North Mainland – in particular the large Northmavine peninsula, connected to Mainland by a narrow isthmus at Mavis Grind – is wild, with much moorland and coastal cliffs. The North Mainland contains Sullom Voe, whose oil terminal is an important source of employment for the islanders.</p><br>
<p>Brae</p><br>
<p>North Roe</p><br>
<p>Vidlin</p><br>
<p>This island is the second most populous of the Scottish islands, and had 18,765 residents in 2011 compared to 17,550 in 2001.</p><br>
<p>The Mainland is the main island of Orkney, Scotland. Both of Orkneys burghs, Kirkwall and Stromness, lie on the island, which is also the heart of Orkneys ferry and air connections.</p><br>
<p>Seventy-five per cent of Orkneys population live on the island, which is more densely populated than the other islands of the archipelago. The lengthy history of the islands occupation has provided numerous important archaeological sites and the sandstone bedrock provides a platform for fertile farmland. There is an abundance of wildlife, especially seabirds.</p><br>
<h2>Etymology</h2><br>
<p>The name Mainland is a corruption of the Old Norse Meginland. Formerly the island was also known as Hrossey meaning "Horse Island". The island is sometimes referred to as "Pomona" (or "Pomonia"), a name that stems from a sixteenth-century mis-translation by George Buchanan and which has rarely been used locally, although it is retained in the name of the Pomona Inn at Finstown in the parish of Firth, as well as a local cafe in the capital of Kirkwall also known as the Pomona.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The island is relatively densely populated and has much fertile farmland. The bulk of the Mainland is west of Kirkwall and is low-lying, with coastal cliffs to the north and west and two sizeable bodies of freshwater, the lochs of Stenness and Harray.</p><br>
<p>The eastern part of the Mainland is shaped like the letter "W", the easternmost peninsula being known as Deerness. To the south, causeways called Churchill Barriers connect the island to Burray and South Ronaldsay via Lamb Holm and Glims Holm.</p><br>
<p>Mainland effectively provides the core of the Orkney Islands, linking the northern members of the archipelago with the southern ones. At the east, and west ends, islands proceed to the north and south, somewhat in the shape of an "X". The western part of the island is part of the Hoy and West Mainland National Scenic Area, one of 40 in Scotland.</p><br>
<p>The population in 2011 was recorded as 17,162,</p><br>
<h3>Parishes</h3><br>
<p>There are 13 parishes on the island. Sandwick, Birsay and Stromness lie on the west coast, Rendall and Evie to the north west. Holm, Deerness and St Andrews are located to the east of central St Ola, which contains Kirkwall town. Firth, Orphir, Stenness and Harray lie west of Kirkwall and east of the westernmost parishes. Harray has the unique distinction of being the only landlocked parish in Orkney, although it too has a significant coast along the Loch of Harray, albeit a freshwater one.</p><br>
<h3>Main settlements</h3><br>
<p>The three main settlements on Mainland, in order of magnitude are Kirkwall and Stromness, both of which are burghs, and Finstown.</p><br>
<p>Kirkwall, the capital of the islands, is on the isthmus between west Mainland and east Mainland, which historically enabled it to have highly active harbours facing in two directions for the southern and northern Orkney Islands; the southern one, Scapa Flow, is a large, calm and immediately ocean-accessible natural harbour. Kirkwall has the seat of the Bishop of Orkney, and St. Magnus Cathedral is to be found there. It is also one of the island&#39;s ferry ports.</p><br>
<p>A long-established seaport that grew with the expansion of whaling, Stromness has a population of approximately 2,200 residents. The old town is clustered along the main street, flanked with houses and shops built from local stone, with narrow lanes and alleys branching off it. There is a ferry link to Scrabster in Caithness on the Scottish mainland as well as the Isle of Hoy.</p><br>
<p>Finstown is the third largest settlement, and used to be known as the "Toon o&#39; Firth". The origin of its name is thought to be from an Irishman named David Phin who came to the area in 1811. It is on the direct Stromness to Kirkwall road.</p><br>
<h3>Geology</h3><br>
<p>In common with most of the Orkney isles, Mainland rests almost entirely on a bedrock of Old Red Sandstone, which is about 400 million years old and was laid down in the Devonian period. These thick deposits accumulated as earlier Silurian rocks, uplifted by the formation of Pangaea, eroded and then deposited into river deltas. The freshwater Lake Orcadie existed on the edges of these eroding mountains, stretching from Shetland to the southern Moray Firth. As in nearby Caithness, these rocks rest upon the metamorphic rocks of the eastern schists, and in Mainland where a narrow strip is exposed between Stromness and Inganess, they are represented by grey gneiss and granite.</p><br>
<p>The Lower Old Red Sandstone is represented by well-bedded flagstones over most of the islands; in the south of Mainland these are faulted against an overlying series of massive red sandstones.</p><br>
<p>Many indications of glacial action exist in the form of striated surfaces in Kirkwall Bay, with boulder clay with marine shells, and many boulders of rocks foreign to the islands made of chalk, oolitic limestone, flint, &c. Local moraines are found in some of the valleys.</p><br>
<p>The soil generally is a sandy loam or a strong but friable clay, and very fertile. Large quantities of seaweed as well as lime and marl are available for manure.</p><br>
<h3>Surrounding islands</h3><br>
<p>The other islands in the Orkney Islands are generally classified as north or south of the Mainland. The exceptions are the remote islets of Sule Skerry and Sule Stack, which lie 37 mi west of the archipelago, but form part of Orkney for local government purposes.</p><br>
<h2>History and notable sites</h2><br>
<p>The western section of the island contains numerous Neolithic and Pictish constructions.</p><br>
<p>Most of the best known Neoloithic ancient monuments are located in west Mainland, which includes the "Heart of Neolithic Orkney", a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This comprises the large chambered tomb of Maes Howe, the ceremonial stone circles the Standing Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar and the Neolithic village of Skara Brae, together with a number of unexcavated burial, ceremonial and settlement sites. The group constitutes a major prehistoric cultural landscape which gives a graphic depiction of life in the north of Scotland some 5,000 years ago. Nearby is the Barnhouse Settlement, a smaller cluster of prehistoric buildings.</p><br>
<p>Other sites of interest include St. Magnus Cathedral and the ruin of the Bishops Palace in Kirkwall, the Earls Palace, a ruined 16th-century castle in Birsay parish, and Skaill House, a manor house and museum near Skara Brae.</p><br>
<p>Viking settlers comprehensively occupied Orkney, and Mainland became a possession of Norway until being given to Scotland during the 15th century as part of a dowry settlement. Evidence of the Viking presence is widespread, and includes the site of a settlement at the Brough of Birsay, the vast majority of place names, and runic inscriptions at Maeshowe and other ancient sites.</p><br>
<p>Stromness is of relatively recent origin, being first recorded as the site of an inn in the 16th century, although the name is of Norse origin. Stromness became important during the late 17th century, when England was at war with France and shipping was forced to avoid the English Channel. Ships of the Hudson&#39;s Bay Company were regular visitors, as were whaling fleets.</p><br>
<p>The Churchill Barriers are a series of four causeways with a total length of 1.5 mi. They link the south of Mainland in the north to the island of South Ronaldsay via Burray and the two smaller islands of Lamb Holm and Glimps Holm. On 14 October 1939, the Royal Navy battleship HMS Royal Oak was sunk at her moorings within the natural harbour of Scapa Flow, by the German U-boat U-47 under the command of Günther Prien. U-47 had entered Scapa Flow through Holm Sound, one of several eastern entrances to Scapa Flow. To prevent further attacks, Winston Churchill ordered the construction of permanent barriers. They now serve as road links, carrying the A961. Work began in May 1940 and the barriers were completed in September 1944, but were not officially opened until 12 May 1945, four days after the end of World War II in Europe.</p><br>
<h2>Climate</h2><br>
<p>The climate is remarkably temperate and steady for such a northerly latitude. The average temperature for the year is 8 &deg;C, for winter 4 &deg;C and for summer 12 &deg;C.</p><br>
<p>The average annual rainfall varies from 850 to 940 mm. Fogs occur during summer and early autumn, and furious gales may be expected four or five times in the year.</p><br>
<p>To tourists, one of the fascinations of the islands is their nightless summers. On the longest day, the sun rises at 03:00 and sets at 21:29 GMT and darkness is unknown. It is possible to read at midnight and very few stars can be seen in the night sky. Winter, however, is long. On the shortest day the sun rises at 09:05 and sets at 15:16.</p><br>
<h2>Transportation and infrastructure</h2><br>
<h3>Road</h3><br>
<p>Mainland contains the vast majority of the island&#39;s roads, and is also connected to those on the main south east islands, such as South Ronaldsay and Burray thanks to the Churchill Barriers.</p><br>
<p>There are ideas being discussed to build the Orkney Tunnel, an undersea tunnel between Orkney and the Scottish Mainland, at a length of about 9 - or (more likely) one connecting Orkney Mainland to Shapinsay. The Orkney-Caithness route would be connected to Mainland, via the Churchill Barriers, but would make landfall on South Ronaldsay, if constructed.</p><br>
<h3>Air</h3><br>
<p>The main airport in Orkney is Kirkwall Airport, operated by Highland and Islands Airports. Loganair, a franchise of Flybe provides services to the Scottish Mainland (Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness), as well as to Sumburgh Airport in Shetland. Most of the scheduled flights within Orkney depart/arrive at Kirkwall from one of the other islands.</p><br>
<h3>Ferry</h3><br>
<p>Ferries serve both to link Orkney to the rest of Scotland, and also to link together the various islands of the Orkney archipelago. Ferry services operate between Orkney and the Scottish Mainland and Shetland on the following routes:</p><br>
<p>Lerwick to Kirkwall (operated by NorthLink Ferries)</p><br>
<p>Aberdeen to Kirkwall (operated by NorthLink Ferries)</p><br>
<p>Scrabster to Stromness (operated by NorthLink Ferries)</p><br>
<p>Gills Bay to St Margaret&#39;s Hope (operated by Pentland Ferries)</p><br>
<p>Two services also connect Caithness, with South Ronaldsay, which is in turn connected to Mainland by road.</p><br>
<p>Inter-island ferry services connect all the inhabited islands to Orkney Mainland, and are operated by Orkney Ferries, a company owned by Orkney Islands Council.</p><br>
<h2>Flora and fauna</h2><br>
<p>Mainland has a great deal of marine life surrounding it, especially seabirds. Corncrakes can also be found in some parts. The Loch of Harray can host up to 10,000 wintering duck and is important for pochard.</p><br>
<p>There are few wild land mammals although there is an endemic sub-species of the common vole, the Orkney vole or cuttick, (Microtus arvalis orcadensis) found only in the Orkney archipelago. It may have been introduced by early settlers about 4,000 years ago. Brown hares and rabbits can be found and there are frogs, but no toads.</p><br>
<p>There are six hundred recorded species of plant on the Orkney Mainland. Two rarities to be found here are the oyster plant (Mertensia maritima) and the Scottish primrose (Primula scotica). The latter is endemic to the north coast of Scotland, including Orkney and nearby Caithness. It is closely related to the Arctic species Primula stricta and Primula scandinavica.</p><br>
<h2>Notable people from Mainland</h2><br>
<p>William Balfour Baikie, explorer, naturalist and philologist (Kirkwall)</p><br>
<p>Thomas Clouston, psychiatrist (Birsay)</p><br>
<p>Stanley Cursiter, painter (Kirkwall)</p><br>
<p>Magnus Erlendsson, Earl of Orkney</p><br>
<p>John Firth, author of Reminiscences of an Orkney Parish</p><br>
<p>Rögnvald Kali Kolsson, who initiated the building of St. Magnus Cathedral</p><br>
<p>George Mackay Brown, writer, (Stromness)</p><br>
<p>Ernest Marwick, antiquarian, (Evie)</p><br>
<p>Edwin Muir, writer and translator, (Deerness)</p><br>
<p>John Rae, Arctic explorer (Orphir)</p><br>
<p>Cameron Stout, TV personality (Stromness)</p><br>
<p>Thomas Stewart Traill, professor of medical jurisprudence at the University of Edinburgh (Kirkwall)</p><br>
<p>William Walls, lawyer, industrialist and Dean of Guild of Glasgow (Kirkwall)</p><br>
<p>The Eddystone, or the Eddystone Rocks, are a seaswept and heavily eroded group of rocks some 9 statute miles  southwest of Rame Head in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. Formerly a treacherous hazard for ships in the approaches to the English Channel and the port city of Plymouth, the rocks have played host to four iterations of the Eddystone Lighthouse, and are still home to the current lighthouse and the stub of its immediate predecessor.</p><br>
<p>Although the nearest point on the mainland to the Eddystone is in Cornwall, the rocks fall within the city limits of Plymouth, and hence within the county of Devon.</p><br>
<p>There have been four lighthouses on the Eddystone Rocks. Winstanley (two versions; the second however just replaced the top of the structure), Rudyard, Smeaton and finally the Douglass Lighthouse, which is the present one. When the Douglass Lighthouse was completed the people of Plymouth, grateful for the countless lives which had been saved since the introduction of the lighthouses, paid for the dismantling of the Smeaton Lighthouse from the red rocks of Eddystone and reassembly at Plymouth Hoe, where it is a popular tourist attraction today.</p><br>
<p>A traditional sea-shanty "The Eddystone Light" chronicles a fictional encounter between the lighthouse keeper and a mermaid. The Seekers, the Weavers, and Peter, Paul and Mary have recorded the shanty.</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>Eddystone rock is something of an anomaly in the geology of the South West region; it is composed of garnetiferous gneissic rock which is part of a considerable underwater outcrop of mica-schists and granitoid gneisses which have not been found elsewhere in South West England.</p><br>
<p>Isotopic ages suggest that the last period of deformation was during the end of the Devonian, but their highly metamorphosed state indicates they likely have an older ancestry, a relic of earlier tectonic activity, probably of Precambrian age.</p><br>
<p>Lough Erne is the name of two connected lakes in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland. It is the second-biggest lake system in Northern Ireland and Ulster, and the fourth biggest in Ireland. The lakes are widened sections of the River Erne, which flows north and then curves west into the Atlantic. The smaller southern lake is called the Upper Lough as it is higher up the river. The bigger northern lake is called the Lower Lough or Broad Lough. The town of Enniskillen lies on the short stretch of river between the lakes. The lake has 154 islands along with many coves and inlets. When windy, navigation on Lower Lough Erne, running for 26 miles almost to the Atlantic, can be something of a challenge with waves of open-sea dimensions. Shallow Upper Lough Erne, spreading southeast of Enniskillen for about 12 miles, is a maze of islands. The River Erne is 80ml  long and drains an area of about 4,350 km.</p><br>
<h2>Name, mythology and folklore</h2><br>
<p>Lough Erne (Loch Éirne) appears to be named after an ancient population group called the Érainn, or after a goddess from which the Érainn took their name. Since tribes were often named after a divine ancestor, T. F. ORahilly suggested that the Érainn took their name from a goddess named Érann and that Loch Éirne probably means "lake of (the goddess) Érann". ORahilly and other scholars have connected these names to Ériu (modern Éire), the goddess after which Ireland is named. He writes that the earlier forms of these goddess names were Everna/Iverna and Everiu/Iveriu and that both come from "the Indo-European root ei-, implying motion". In his view Érann and Ériu would thus appear to mean "she who travels regularly", explained as "the sun-goddess, for the sun was the great celestial Traveller". Alternatively, John T. Koch suggests that Ériu was a mother goddess whose name comes from an Indo-European word stem meaning "fat, rich, fertile".</p><br>
<p>In Irish mythology and folklore, there are three tales about the lakes origins. One says that it is named after a mythical woman named Erne, Queen Méabhs lady-in-waiting at Cruachan. Erne and her maidens were frightened away from Cruachan when a fearsome giant emerged from the cave of Oweynagat. They fled northward and drowned in a river or lake, their bodies dissolving to become Lough Erne. Patricia Monaghan notes that "The drowning of a goddess in a river is common in Irish mythology and typically represents the dissolving of her divine power into the water, which then gives life to the land". Another tale says that it was formed when a magical spring-well overflowed, similar to the tale of Lough Neagh. The third says that, during a battle between the Érainn and the army of High King Fíachu Labrainne, it burst from the ground and drowned the Érainn.</p><br>
<p>Lough Erne is the setting of a folk tale known as "The Story of Conn-eda" or "The Golden Apples of Lough Erne", which appears in Fairy and Folk Tales of the Irish Peasantry (1888). In the tale, Conn-eda goes on a quest to procure three golden apples, a black steed and a supernatural hound from a city underneath Lough Erne. The city is ruled by a king of the Fir Bolg.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Menapii are the only known Celtic tribe specifically named on Ptolemy’s 150 AD map of Ireland, where they located their first colony- Menapia – on the Leinster coast circa 216 BC. They later settled around Lough Erne, becoming known as the Fir Manach, and giving their name to Fermanagh and Monaghan. Mongán mac Fiachnai, a 7th century King of Ulster, is the protagonist of several legends linking him with Manannán mac Lir. They spread across Ireland, evolving into historic Irish (also Scottish and Manx) clans.</p><br>
<p>The Annals of Ulster were written in the late 15th century on Belle Isle, an island in Upper Lough Erne.</p><br>
<p>Interestingly, Fermanagh escaped the potato blight disease during the Great Famine better than any other county, as the county had so many islands. The potato blight had difficulty travelling over water, compared to the easier transmission across the green hills and fields of most of Ireland. Those Erne islands produced surprising amounts of potatoes (the staple diet on the island, from 1845–1849), whilst the mainland was largely starving in comparison.</p><br>
<p>During the Second World War, RAF Castle Archdale was based on Lough Erne, providing an essential airbase for the Battle of the Atlantic and the battle against U boats. A secret agreement with the Irish Government permitted flying boats based there to fly West straight across neutral Ireland to the Atlantic, avoiding the two-hour detour that would have been necessary for aeroplanes based in Northern Ireland. An example of the many ways Ireland assisted the allies while remaining neutral.</p><br>
<p>In November 2012, it was announced that the Lough Erne Resort, a hotel on the southern shore of the Lower Lough, would host the 39th G8 summit.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<h3>Islands</h3><br>
<p>The lakes contain many small islands and peninsulas, which are also called "islands" because of the highly convoluted shoreline and because many of them were islands prior to two extensive drainage schemes in the 1880s and the 1950s which dropped the water level by about 1.5 metres.</p><br>
<p>Islands in the lower lake include Boa Island, Cleenishmeen Island, Crevinishaughy Island, Cruninish Island, Devenish Island, Ely Island, Goat Island, Horse Island, Inish Doney, Inish Fovar, Inish Lougher, Inish More, Inis Rath, Inishmacsaint, Inishmakill, Lustybeg Island, Lustymore Island and White Island.</p><br>
<p>Those in the upper lake include Bleanish Island, Dernish Island, Inishcorkish, Inishcrevan, Inishfendra, Inishleague, Inishlught, Inishturk, Killygowan Island, Naan Island and Trannish. Several of the islands are privately owned, and occasionally come on to the open market. In 2007 Inishturk went on the market at the price of £695,000. In 2012 Inisliroo went on the market at the price of £600,000.</p><br>
<p>The lake islands are the main Irish stronghold of the scarce garden warbler.</p><br>
<h2>Administration</h2><br>
<p>Waterways Ireland, a cross-border organisation, established under the Belfast Agreement 1999, is responsible for navigation on the Erne System, as well the island of Ireland&#39;s other navigable waterways.</p><br>
<p>Rivers Agency, an executive agency within Northern Ireland&#39;s Department of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, retains ownership of the bed and foreshore and manages water levels within the ranges specified in the. The drainage scheme was designed by Percy Shepherd. Water level control is undertaken in conjunction with the Electricity Supply Board (ESB) in the Republic of Ireland under the terms of an agreement made in 1950 when the River Erne was harnessed for hydroelectric power generation. The agreement requires that levels are maintained in the Upper Lough between 150 ft. and 154 ft. (Apr. – Sept.) / 155 ft. (Oct. – Mar.), and in the Lower Lough between 147 ft. and 152 ft. These levels relate to the Irish grid datum at Poolbeg Lighthouse and is in imperial measurements of feet.</p><br>
<p>are managed by a control structures located at Portora in Enniskillen and by the hydro electric power station at Cliff between Belleek and Ballyshannon, in the Republic of Ireland. During the summer period it is aimed to keep the water level at the down steam side of Portora, at or above, 150 ft. to avoid the need for the gates to be closed requiring the use of the navigation lock. This is to prevent restriction to boat traffic using the navigation facilities at the peak tourist period.</p><br>
<p>Rapid draw down of water levels in the Upper Lough is prevented by the restricted capacity of the inter-lough channel section. This means that Rivers Agency must anticipate significant inflows by drawing down the loughs to ensure flood storage is available. In November 2009 the Erne system experienced a very significant flood event. The water levels were the highest recorded since the changes to the system in the 1950s.</p><br>
<p>The is a Rivers Trust NGO trying to help maintain the clean water in the Lough Erne catchment for all the flora and fauna.</p><br>
<h2>Sport and tourism</h2><br>
<p>Lough Erne is a particularly scenic waterway, renowned for its beautiful setting. The area is popular for angling and watersports, with waterskiing, Rowing and wakeboarding being amongst the most popular; the stretch of water alongside the Broadmeadow, Enniskillen, has hosted stages of the World Waterski Championships annually since 2005, and in 2007, a pro-wakeboard competition, Wakejam was hosted by the Erne Wakeboard Club (EWC) after successful national wakeboard competitions in the previous years. Canoeing is also a popular recreational sport on the Erne.</p><br>
<p>Lough Erne Yacht Club is based in Gublusk Bay. The Lough Erne Regatta is Ireland’s oldest event for racing under sail, with a lineage beyond 1820. The RNLI has an inland lifeboat and rescue watercraft based at Gublusk with a further station at Carrybridge on the Upper lake.</p><br>
<p>The Lough Erne Golf & Hotel Resort was opened in October 2007 by Irish businessman Jim Treacy. It is situated on a 600-acre peninsula between Castle Hume Lough and Lower Lough Erne. On 12 May 2011 it was announced that Castle Hume Leisure Limited – the owner of the hotel – had gone into administration, and as of May 2011 its future is uncertain.</p><br>
<p>The area also hosts the Lough Erne Challenge, a golf tournament.</p><br>
<p>Lough Erne Resort will also host the 2017 Irish Open (golf) golf tournament.</p><br>
<h2>Transport</h2><br>
<p>A canal, the Shannon–Erne Waterway, runs between the upper end of the River Shannon and the River Erne, allowing boat movements from the Shannon estuary in southwest Ireland, through the western midlands of the country, across to the northwest and out to the Atlantic again (although the final section to the Atlantic side of Belleek is not navigable).</p><br>
<p>The section of the Ulster Canal connecting Lough Erne to Clones is being planned for navigation to be restored by Waterways Ireland.</p><br>
<p>Isin  is an archaeological site in Al-Qādisiyyah Governorate, Iraq. Excavations have shown that it was an important city-state in the past.</p><br>
<h2>History of archaeological research</h2><br>
<p>Ishan al-Bahriyat was visited by Stephen Herbert Langdon for a day to conduct a sounding, while he was excavating at Kish in 1924. Most of the major archaeological work at Isin was accomplished in 11 seasons between 1973 and 1989 by a team of German archaeologists led by Barthel Hrouda. However, as was the case at many sites in Iraq, research was interrupted by the Gulf War (1990-1) and the Iraq War (2003 to 2011). Since the end of excavations, extensive looting is reported to have occurred at the site. Even when the German team began their work, the site had already been heavily looted.</p><br>
<h2>Isin and its environment</h2><br>
<p>Isin is located approximately 20 mi south of Nippur. It is a tell, or settlement mound, about 1.5 km across and with a maximum height of 8 m.</p><br>
<h2>History of occupation</h2><br>
<p>The site of Isin was occupied at least as early as the Early Dynastic period in the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, and possibly as far back as the Ubaid period. While cuneiform tablets from that time were found, the first epigraphic reference to Isin was not until the Ur III period.</p><br>
<p>When the deteriorating Third Dynasty of Ur (Ur III) finally collapsed at the hands of the Elamites at the end of the third millennium BC, a power vacuum was left that other city-states scrambled to fill. The last king of the Ur Dynasty, Ibbi-Sin, had not the resources nor the organized government needed to expel the Elamite invaders. One of his governmental officials, Ishbi-Erra, relocated from Ur to Isin, another city in the south of Mesopotamia, and established himself as a ruler there. One of Ishbi-Erra&#39;s year names reports his defeating Ibbi-Sin in battle.</p><br>
<p>Although he is not considered part of the Third Dynasty of Ur, Ishbi-Erra did make some attempts at continuing the trappings of that dynasty, most likely to justify his rule. Ishbi-Erra had ill luck expanding his kingdom, however, for other city-states in Mesopotamia rose to power as well. Eshnunna and Ashur were developing into powerful centers. However, he did succeed in repulsing the Elamites from the Ur region. This gave the Isin dynasty control over the culturally significant cities of Ur, Uruk, and the spiritual center of Nippur.</p><br>
<p>For over 100 years, Isin flourished. Remains of large buildings projects, such as temples, have been excavated. Many royal edicts and law-codes from that period have been discovered. The centralized political structure of Ur-III was largely continued, with Isin&#39;s rulers appointing governors and other local officials to carry out their will in the provinces. Lucrative trade routes to the Persian Gulf remained a crucial source of income for Isin.</p><br>
<p>The exact events surrounding Isins disintegration as a kingdom are mostly unknown, but some evidence can be pieced together. Documents indicate that access to water sources presented a huge problem for Isin. Isin also endured an internal coup of a sort when Gungunum the royally appointed governor of Larsa and Lagash province, seized the city of Ur. Ur had been the main center of the Gulf trade; thus this move economically crippled Isin. Additionally, Gungunums two successors Abisare and Sumuel (c. 1905 BC and 1894 BC) both sought to cut Isin off from its canals by rerouting them into Larsa. At some point, Nippur was also lost. Isin would never recover. Around 1860 BC, an outsider named Enlil-bani seized the throne of Isin, ending the hereditary dynasty established by Ishbi-Erra over 150 years earlier.</p><br>
<p>Although politically and economically weak, Isin maintained its independence from Larsa for at least another forty years, ultimately succumbing to Larsa&#39;s ruler Rim-Sin I.</p><br>
<p>After the First Dynasty of Babylon rose to power in the early 2nd millennium and captured Larsa, much significant construction occurred at Isin. This ended with a destruction dated to around the 27th year of the reign of Samsu-iluna, son of Hammurabi, based on tablets found there.</p><br>
<p>Later, the Kassites who took over in Babylon after its sack in 1531 BC, resumed building at Isin. The final significant stage of activity occurred during the Second Dynasty of Isin at the end of the 2nd millennium, most notably by king Adad-apla-iddina.</p><br>
<h3>Kings of Isin</h3><br>
<p>First Dynasty of Isin (short chronology)</p><br>
<h2>Culture and literature</h2><br>
<p>The city lay on the Isinnitum Canal, part of a set of waterways that connected the cities of Mesopotamia. The patron deity of Isin was Nintinuga (Gula) goddess of healing, and a temple to her was built there. The Isin king Enlil-bani reported building a temple to Gula named E-ni-dub-bi, a temple for Sud named E-dim-gal-an-na, a temple E-ur-gi-ra to Ninisina, as well as a temple for the god Ninbgal.</p><br>
<p>Ishbi-Erra continued many of the cultic practices that had flourished in the preceding Ur III period. He continued acting out the sacred marriage ritual each year. During this ritual, the king played the part of the mortal Dumuzi, and he had sex with a priestess who represented the goddess of love and war, Inanna (also known as Ishtar). This was thought to strengthen the king&#39;s relationship to the gods, which would then bring stability and prosperity on the entire country.</p><br>
<p>The Isin kings continued also the practice of appointing their daughters official priestesses of the moon god of Ur.</p><br>
<p>The literature of the period also continued in the line of the Ur III traditions when the Isin dynasty was first begun. For example, the royal hymn, a genre started in the preceding millennium, was continued. Many royal hymns written for the Isin rulers mirrored the themes, structure, and language of the Ur ones. Sometimes the hymns were written in the first person of a king&#39;s voice; other times, they were pleas of ordinary citizens meant for the ears of a king (sometimes an already dead one).</p><br>
<p>It was during this period that the Sumerian King List attained its final form, though it used many much earlier sources. The very compilation of the List seems to lead up to the Isin Dynasty itself, which would give it much legitimacy in the minds of the people because the dynasty would then be linked to earlier (albeit sometimes legendary) kings.</p><br>
<p>Belle-Île, Belle-Île-en-Mer, or Belle Isle  is a French island off the coast of Brittany in the département of Morbihan, and the largest of Brittany&#39;s islands. It is 14 km from the Quiberon peninsula.</p><br>
<p>Administratively, the island is divided into four communes:</p><br>
<p>Bangor</p><br>
<p>Le Palais</p><br>
<p>Locmaria</p><br>
<p>Sauzon</p><br>
<p>Belle-Île formed a canton until 2015 when it was merged into Quiberon as part of a general overhaul.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The island measures 17 km by 9 km and has an average altitude of 40 m. The area is about 84 km. The coasts are a mixture between dangerously sharp cliff edges on the southwest side, the Côte Sauvage (Wild coast), and placid beaches, the largest being les Grands Sables (The great sands) and navigable harbours on the northeast side. The island&#39;s climate is oceanic, having less rain and milder winters than on the mainland.</p><br>
<p>The two main ports are Le Palais (accessible by ferry from Quiberon, Port-Navalo and Vannes) and Sauzon (accessible by ferry from Quiberon and Lorient).</p><br>
<p>There used to be forests on the island, but these have long disappeared due to increasing agricultural use of the land.</p><br>
<h3>Climate</h3><br>
<h2>Demography</h2><br>
<p>At the 2009 census, the population of Belle Île was 4,920. However, in summer the population may increase to 25,000, with a peak af 35,000 between 15 July and 15 August due to tourist activity.</p><br>
<p>Evolution of Belle Île population between 1793 and 2008</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Belle Île was separated from the mainland about 6000 BC, earlier than the neighbouring islands of Houat and Hœdic. Archaeological finds from the Bronze Age suggest that the island enjoyed a large increase in population in this time, probably due to improvements in seafaring. It was then naval base for the Veneti (Gaul).</p><br>
<p>The Roman name of the island seems to have been Vindilis, which in the Middle Ages became corrupted to Guedel. During the ninth century Belle-Île belonged to the county of Cornouaille.</p><br>
<p>In 1572 the monks of the abbey of Ste Croix at Quimperlé ceded the island to the Retz family, in whose favour it was raised to a marquisate in the following year. It subsequently came into the hands of the family of Fouquet. The island&#39;s fortifications were erected by Vauban on behalf of Nicolas Fouquet, prior to Fouquet incurring the displeasure of Louis XIV; the land was ceded to the crown in 1718.</p><br>
<h3>Seven Years War</h3><br>
<p>The island was held by British troops from 1761, following its capture by an expedition sent out from England, to 1763, when it was returned to France in exchange for Menorca as part of the Peace of Paris.</p><br>
<p>The attacks on Belle Île and siege of Belle Île have been described by Olaudah Equiano (ca. 1745-ca. 1797) in his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African, 1789, June 1792. In 1761 Equiano was still a slave. His book was a bestseller in his own time. He became a central figure in the British abolitionist movement, as a forceful lecturer, exposing the barbarism and cruelties of slavery. Equiano gives a detailed eyewitness report of the attacks and siege.</p><br>
<p>Much of the island&#39;s current population is descended from repatriated Acadian colonists who returned to France after being expelled from Acadia (Nova Scotia) during the Great Upheaval (le Grand Dérangement).</p><br>
<p>Today, Belle-Île&#39;s population is about 4,000, and its economy is largely dependent on tourism and fishing.</p><br>
<h2>Culture</h2><br>
<p>During the summer the island&#39;s population increases dramatically, as many people own a second home on the island due to its secluded location and beaches.</p><br>
<p>Lyrique en Mer/Festival de Belle Île is the largest opera festival in western France. Founded in 1998 by American opera singer Richard Cowan, the festival produces two staged operas every summer, conducted by Music Director Philip Walsh and directed by Mr. Cowan, the Artistic Director. Additionally, there are sacred concerts in all four of the island&#39;s historic churches, as well as many smaller concerts and Master Classes. Lyrique en Mer has wide support from the French business community as well as from the Conseil Général, the Conseil Régional.</p><br>
<h3>Depictions</h3><br>
<p>The island has been a popular location for artists. Octave Penguilly LHaridons 1859 painting Les Petites mouettes ("Little Gulls") (1858, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes) depicts the island. It was praised by Maxime Du Camp and Charles Baudelaire, who referred to the sense of the uncanny, as though the rocks make "a portal open to infinity...a wound of white birds, and the solitude!" During the 1870s and 1880s, French Impressionist painter Claude Monet painted the rock formations at Belle Île. Monet’s series of paintings of the rocks at Belle Île astounded the Paris art world when he first exhibited them in 1887. Most notable are the Storm, Coast at Belle-Ile and Cliffs at Belle-Ile both rendered in 1886. The first time Auguste Rodin saw the ocean off the Brittany coast he exclaimed, “It’s a Monet."</p><br>
<p>Australian born artist John Peter Russell was a man of means and having married a beautiful Italian, Mariana Antoinetta Matiocco, he settled at Belle Île off the coast of Brittany where he established an artists&#39; colony.</p><br>
<p>Russell had met Vincent van Gogh in Paris and formed a friendship with him. Van Gogh spoke highly of Russells work, and after his first summer in Arles in 1888 he sent twelve drawings of his paintings to Russell, to inform him about the progress of his work. Monet often worked with Russell at Belle Île and influenced his style, though it has been said that Monet preferred some of Russells Belle Île seascapes to his own. Russell did not attempt to make his pictures known.</p><br>
<p>In 1897 and 1898 Henri Matisse visited Belle Île. Russell introduced him to impressionism and to the work of Van Gogh (who was relatively unknown at the time). Matisse&#39;s style changed radically, and he would later say "Russell was my teacher, and Russell explained colour theory to me."</p><br>
<p>The island is the setting for portions of the novel The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later, Alexandre Dumas, père&#39;s second sequel to The Three Musketeers. Dumas has his character Aramis fortify the island (in place of Vauban, historically) and Porthos dies there, in the caves of Locmaria.</p><br>
<p>Brookgreen Gardens is a sculpture garden and wildlife preserve, located just south of Murrells Inlet, in South Carolina. The 9,100 acre property includes several themed gardens with American figurative sculptures placed in them, the Lowcountry Zoo, and trails through several ecosystems in nature reserves on the property. It was founded by Archer Milton Huntington, stepson of railroad magnate Collis Potter Huntington, and his wife Anna Hyatt Huntington to feature sculptures by Anna and her sister Harriet Randolph Hyatt Mayor along with other American sculptors. Brookgreen Gardens was opened in 1932, and is built on four former rice plantations, taking its name from the former Brookgreen Plantation.</p><br>
<h2>Early history</h2><br>
<p>Originally, what is now Brookgreen Gardens was four rice plantations. The plantations from south to north were The Oaks, Brookgreen, Springfield, and Laurel Hill. The current gardens and surrounding facilities lie completely on the former Brookgreen Plantation, which was owned by Joshua John Ward, the largest American slaveholder.</p><br>
<p>Only a handful of relics survive on the former plantations. The Alston (or Allston) cemetery survives on the grounds of The Oaks plantation. Gov. Joseph Alston and his child are buried in the cemetery. The same grave is a memorial to the governor&#39;s wife Theodosia Burr Alston, daughter of Vice President Aaron Burr, who was lost at sea. Her ghost is said to haunt the Grand Strand, looking for her father. The rice mill at Laurel Hill is all that remains of the plantation today. During the American Civil War, Confederates built an earthen structure on the grounds to block Union Navy ships from coming into the tidal rivers.</p><br>
<h2>The Huntingtons</h2><br>
<p>It is the creation of Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington of Connecticut, who purchased four plantations to open the garden to showcase her sculptures. Situated on Waccamaw Neck in Georgetown County, South Carolina, between the Waccamaw River and the Atlantic coast, it is the country&#39;s first public sculpture garden and has the largest collection of figurative sculpture by American artists in an outdoor setting in the world. It is also a nature and historical preserve with a small zoo and a nature exhibition center.</p><br>
<p>Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington first visited the property in 1929. Because they were captivated by the beauty of it, they purchased nearly 9,100 acre of forest, swamp, rice fields and beachfront. They intended to establish a winter home on the coast, but Anna saw the potential of the property and they quickly began to develop her vision of making it the showcase for her sculptures. Archer, son of philanthropists Arabella Worsham Huntington and stepson of Collis Huntington, and Anna have donated property and contributed much to USA arts and culture in a number of states. Her sculpture of Joan of Arc is a feature of New York City&#39;s Riverside Park.</p><br>
<h2>Public landmark</h2><br>
<h3>Sculpture gardens</h3><br>
<p>About 1445 works of American figurative sculpture are displayed at the Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington Sculpture Garden. Many of the works are creations of sculptress Hyatt Huntington, but other artists are also featured. Walkways and garden paths link the sculptures in their distinctive garden, fountain, or landscape settings, with vistas of the scenery surrounding them.</p><br>
<p>A 1,600 acre area of Brookgreen Gardens was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978. The sculpture garden portion, 551 acre, of Brookgreen Gardens was included in the designation of Atalaya and Brookgreen Gardens as a National Historic Landmark in 1984. Atalaya Castle is just across USA 17 which cuts through the former combined Huntington property.</p><br>
<p>The sculpture gardens includes works by:</p><br>
<p>Robert Alexander Baillie</p><br>
<p>Gutzon Borglum</p><br>
<p>Joseph Lorkowski Boulton</p><br>
<p>Clio Hinton Bracken</p><br>
<p>Cornelia Van Auken Chapin</p><br>
<p>Henry Clews</p><br>
<p>Joseph Bailey Ellis</p><br>
<p>Sally James Farnham</p><br>
<p>Joseph Charles Fleri</p><br>
<p>Vincent Glinsky</p><br>
<p>Karl Gruppe</p><br>
<p>Ethel Painter Hood</p><br>
<p>Edith Howland</p><br>
<p>Cecil de Blaquiere Howard</p><br>
<p>Anna Hyatt Huntington</p><br>
<p>Leo Lentelli</p><br>
<p>Donald De Lue</p><br>
<p>Albino Manca</p><br>
<p>Edward Francis McCartan</p><br>
<p>Eleanor Mary Mellon</p><br>
<p>Roland Hinton Perry</p><br>
<p>Attilio Piccirilli</p><br>
<p>Furio Piccirilli</p><br>
<p>Horatio Piccirilli</p><br>
<p>Augustus Saint-Gaudens</p><br>
<p>Louis St. Gaudens</p><br>
<p>Marion Sanford</p><br>
<p>Amory Coffin Simons</p><br>
<p>Erwin Springweiler</p><br>
<p>Charles Eugene Tefft</p><br>
<h3>Lowcountry Trail</h3><br>
<p>Winner of the South Carolina Heritage Tourism Award, the Lowcountry Trail consists of a beautiful boardwalk that crosses the hillside overlooking Mainfield, a restored rice field of the former Brookgreen Plantation. For enslaved Africans on Brookgreen Plantation, this hill was a bridge between the world of daily work and the familiarity of life in the slave village beyond the crest of the hill. The rhythms of life – planting, growing, harvesting, threshing – changed seasonally for everyone on the rice plantation. Archaeological projects have revealed the remains of four structures on the hillside: the site of the overseers residence at the apex of the hill, and its kitchen, smokehouse and dependency closer to the edge of the rice field. Along the trail, interpretive panels that describe life on a rice plantation and four stainless steel figures have been placed to represent the Plantation Owner, the Overseer, and an Enslaved African Male and an Enslaved African Female. These figures, created in stainless steel by, serve as visually compelling landmarks to draw visitors along the trail and to interpret a revealing story about each ones role in the economic and social system of a Lowcountry plantation.</p><br>
<h4>Lowcountry Trail Audio Tour</h4><br>
<p>The Lowcountry Trail Audio Tour is a public education program that emphasizes historic preservation. The tour winds along the Ricefield Overlook and adjacent rice field and is free with garden admission. A 30-minute fictional story about life on Brookgreen Plantation unwinds progressively as listeners walk the trail.</p><br>
<h3>Zoo and plantation sites</h3><br>
<p>The Lowcountry Zoo and the Lowcountry Center are also on the property. This is where trekker tours are launched into the backroads of the former plantations. Recent Archeological efforts have unearthed the foundations of several buildings at The Oaks plantation. Ponds have been created from the former Brookgreen plantation house sites.</p><br>
<h3>Natural areas</h3><br>
<p>The Atlantic Coast side was later leased to South Carolina to form Huntington Beach State Park. There are boat tours with views of Sandy Island and a self-guided tour nature trail to show off the 2000 identified species of life, including majestic longleaf pines, Spanish moss draped live oaks, and vistas of the river and nearby marshland. The gardens make every effort to preserve the natural environment.</p><br>
<h2>Awards and recognitions</h2><br>
<p>Top 10 Public Gardens in the US by Coastal Living Magazine</p><br>
<p>The archaeological open-air museum Biskupin is an archaeological site and a life-size model of an Iron Age fortified settlement in Poland . When first discovered it was thought to be early evidence of Slavic settlement but archaeologists later confirmed it belonged to the Biskupin group of the Lusatian culture. The excavation and the reconstruction of the prehistoric settlement has played an instrumental part in Polish historical consciousness.</p><br>
<p>The Museum is situated on a marshy peninsula in Lake Biskupin, ca. 90 km northeast of Poznań, 8 km south of the small town of Żnin. It is a division of the National Museum of Archaeology in Warsaw.</p><br>
<p>The site is one of Poland&#39;s official national Historic Monuments (Pomnik historii), as designated September 16, 1994, and tracked by the National Heritage Board of Poland.</p><br>
<h2>History of the excavations</h2><br>
<p>In 1933 Polish archaeologists discovered remains of a Bronze Age fort/settlement in Wielkopolska (Greater Poland), the discovery became famous overnight. The site was excavated from 1934 onwards by the team from Poznań University, led by archaeologists Józef Kostrzewski (1885–1969) and Zdzisław Rajewski (1907–1974). The first report was published in 1936. By the beginning of 1939, ca. 2,500 m² had been excavated. Biskupin soon became famous, attracting numerous distinguished guests, including officials of the Marshal Piłsudski government, members of the military, and high churchmen such as the primate of Poland. The site soon became part of Polish national consciousness, the symbol of achievements of the Slavonic forebears in prehistoric times. It was called the "Polish Pompeii" or "Polish Herculaneum". The existence of a prehistoric fortress, 70 km from the German border, was used to show that the prehistoric "Poles" had held their own against foreign invaders and plunderers as early as the Iron Age. Biskupin came to feature in paintings and popular novels.</p><br>
<p>When the Germans occupied Poland in the autumn of 1939, Biskupin was renamed "Urstädt". In 1940, excavations were resumed by the SS-Ahnenerbe until 1942. When Germans were forced to retreat they flooded the site hoping to destroy it, but—ironically—it led to very good preservation of the ancient timbers. Excavations were resumed by Polish archaeologists after the war and continued until 1974.</p><br>
<h2>The site</h2><br>
<p>There are two settlement periods at Biskupin, which was located in the middle of a lake but is now situated on a peninsula, that follow each other without hiatus. Both settlements were laid out on a rectangular grid with eleven streets that are 3 m wide. The older settlement from early Iron Age was established on a slightly wet island of over 2 hectare and consisted of ca. 100 oak and pine log-houses that were of similar layouT, measuring ca. 8 x each. They consisted of two chambers and an open entrance-area. These houses were designed to accommodate 10–12 persons. An open hearth was located in the centre of the biggest room. There are no larger houses that could indicate social stratification. Because of the damp, boggy ground the streets were covered with wooden planks.</p><br>
<p>The settlement was surrounded by a tall wooden wall, or palisade, set on a rampart made up of both wood and earth. The rampart was constructed of oak trunks that form boxes filled with earth. The rampart is more than 450 m long and accompanied by a wooden breakwater in the lake. 6000 to 8000 m3 of wood was used in the construction of the rampart.</p><br>
<h2>Dating</h2><br>
<p>The settlement at Biskupin belongs to the Hallstatt C and D periods (early Iron Age, 800–650 BC and 650–475 BC). There are four Radiocarbon dates from Biskupin (all B.C.):</p><br>
<p>First settlement: 720±150 (Gif 494)</p><br>
<p>Later settlement: 560±150 (Gif 495)</p><br>
<p>Rampart: 620 ±150 (Gif 492)</p><br>
<p>A2 4C, VII: 620±150 (Gif 493)</p><br>
<p>However, dendrochronological analysis provided more accurate dating. It proved that oak wood used in the construction of the settlement was cut down between 747–722 B.C. Over half of the wood used was cut during the winter of 738/737 B.C.</p><br>
<h2>The model</h2><br>
<p>In 1936 the first life-size model (open-air museum) was built on the peninsula, but it was intentionally destroyed by retreating Germans near the end of World War II. After the war it was rebuilt, and the ramparts and one full street with houses on both sides were also added.</p><br>
<p>In the 2000s, a film prop "medieval" timber castle was constructed on a part of the original site.</p><br>
<h2>Bibliography</h2><br>
<p>Danuta Piotrowska, Biskupin 1933–1996: archaeology, politics and nationalism. Archaeologia Polona 35–36, 1997/98, 255–285, ISSN 0066-5924</p><br>
<p>Józef Kostrzewski "Osada bagienna w Biskupinie w pow. żnińskim", Poznań 1936</p><br>
<p>"Gród prasłowiański w Biskupinie", Poznań 1938,</p><br>
<p>Z. Rajewski "Biskupin – osiedle obronne sprzed 2500 lat", Arkady, Warszawa 1970,</p><br>
<p>Z. Rajewski "Osadnictwo ludności z kulturą łużycką we wczesnym okresie epoki żelaznej w Biskupinie i okolicy" Archeologia Polski, t. II 1958,</p><br>
<p>Z. Rajewski "10 000 lat Biskupina i jego okolic", Warszawa 1965,</p><br>
<p>The Hokianga is an area surrounding the Hokianga Harbour, also known as the Hokianga River, a long estuarine drowned valley on the west coast in the north of the North Island of New Zealand.</p><br>
<p>The original name, still used by local Māori, is Te Kohanga o Te Tai Tokerau ("the nest of the northern people") or Te Puna o Te Ao Marama ("the wellspring of moonlight"). The full name of the Harbour is Te Hokianga-nui-a-Kupe — "the place of Kupe&#39;s great return".</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The Hokianga is in the Far North District, which is in the Northland Region. The area is 120 km northwest of Whangarei—and 40 km west of Kaikohe—by road. The estuary extends inland for from the Tasman Sea. It is navigable for small craft for much of its length, although there is a bar across the mouth.</p><br>
<p>12,000 years ago, the Hokianga was a river valley flanked by steep bush-clad hills. As the last ice age regressed, the dramatic rise in sea level slowly flooded the valley turning it into a tidal saltwater harbour with abundant sheltered deep water anchorages. This was the harbour that the explorer Kupe left from, and in 1822 it was home to the first European timber entrepreneurs. Southern Right Whales possibly frequented the bay historically, prior to significant depletion of the species caused by commercial and illegal hunting. Today, large whales are rarely seen in the bay, although the harbour is a well-regarded area in which to watch smaller dolphins and killer whales.</p><br>
<p>The area around the harbour is divided in three by the estuary. To the south are the settlements of Waimamaku, Omapere, Opononi, Pakanae, Koutu, Whirinaki, Rawene, Waima, and Taheke; to the north are Broadwood, Pawarenga, Panguru, Mitimiti, and Rangi Point; and at the top of the harbour upstream from the narrows are Horeke, Kohukohu, and Mangamuka.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>According to Te Tai Tokerau tradition, Kupe, the legendary Polynesian navigator and explorer, settled in Hokianga in approximately 925 AD, after his journey of discovery from Hawaiiki aboard the waka (canoe) named Matahorua.</p><br>
<p>When Kupe left the area, he declared that this would be the place of his return, leaving several things behind—including the bailer of his canoe. Later, Kupe&#39;s grandson Nukutawhiti returned from Hawaiiki to settle in Hokianga.</p><br>
<p>In the 14th century, the great chief Puhi landed just south of the Bay of Islands. The tribe of Puhi, Ngāpuhi, slowly extended westwards to reach the west coast and to colonise both sides of Hokianga. Māori regard Hokianga as one of the oldest settlements in Aotearoa, and it remains a heartland for the people. Rahiri, the 17th-century founder of the Ngāpuhi iwi, was born at Whiria pā to the south of the harbour, where a monument stands to his memory. to the left and Hokianga Harbour to the right</p><br>
<p>In the course of expansion, Ngāpuhi created and maintained over centuries a complex network of walking tracks, many of which evolved into today&#39;s roads. Wesleyan (and, later, Anglican) missionaries were guided along these ancient routes to make their own discovery of Hokianga and its accessible timber resources. Their reports soon reached merchant captains in the Bay of Islands.</p><br>
<p>Captain James Herd of the Providence</p><br>
<p>responded first, and with disgraced missionary Thomas Kendall as guide and translator, crossed the bar and entered the harbour in 1822. His was the first European ship to do so, and it sailed away with the first shipment of timber from the Hokianga. His success inspired a strong following—the deforestation of Hokianga had begun and would be complete by the turn of the century.</p><br>
<p>The only disincentive to Hokianga&#39;s exploitation was the harbour bar. Of the hundreds of ships that successfully negotiated it, records show that 16 were lost. Most came to grief when leaving fully laden, becaming caught in the wind shadow cast by South Head, where deep water lay. A temporary lull or change in wind direction could cause a sailing ship to lose steerage way and be swept onto the rocky shore. In 1828, the missionary schooner Herald, built by Henry Williams and sailed by Gilbert Mair, foundered while trying to enter Hokianga Harbour. The last recorded shipwreck involved the schooner Isabella de Fraine, lost with all eight crew in July 1928 after capsizing on the bar at the entrance to the harbour.</p><br>
<p>In 1837, a French commoner with delusions of being an aristocrat, the self-titled "Baron" Charles de Thierry, sailed with 60 settlers into this hive of export activity to claim an immense tract of land that he believed he had purchased 15 years earlier in exchange for 36 axes. He was eventually granted about 1,000 acres at Rangiahua where he set up his colony, declaring himself "Sovereign Chief of New Zealand", a title that failed to endear him to Ngāpuhi. His project collapsed, and he left behind him a few ancient fruit trees and a lot of gouty DNA. His visit at least inspired the Colonial Service to get on with a treaty in the face of this implied Gallic threat.</p><br>
<p>The year after de Thierry arrived, another French connection, Bishop Jean Baptiste Pompallier, arrived, with the aim of establishing a Catholic mission. He found the southern shores firmly in the hands of Methodist and Anglican missionaries, but the northern side was ripe for conversion. His remains, recently claimed by Ngāpuhi, lie buried where the mission began. Today the harbour, like the Reformation itself, stands between Protestant and Catholic.</p><br>
<p>Within six days of the Waitangi signing, Governor Hobson, keen to secure full Ngāpuhi support, trekked across to the Mangungu Mission House near Horeke where 3000 were waiting. The second signing of the Treaty of Waitangi took place on 12 February 1840. With the appropriate signatures (and a few inappropriate entries) Hobson could immediately claim support from the biggest tribe in the country.</p><br>
<p>While the fate of the country was being signed into history, the axemen of Hokianga scarcely missed a beat. At any one time, as many as 20 ships could be loading Hokianga timber. Whole hillsides, suddenly bared of vegetation, began to slip into the harbour, choking its tributaries with mud.</p><br>
<p>The relationship between Māori and Pākehā (European) settlers was frequently tense, never more so than during the Dog Tax War of the 1890s, which largely centred around Hokianga.</p><br>
<p>By 1900, the bulk of the forest had sailed over the bar and the little topsoil that remained was turned to dairy farming for butter production. Most of the cream delivered to the Motukaraka Dairy Factory was carried there by a fleet of about fifty locally-built launches which criss-crossed the harbour daily, creating in the process a service for both passengers and freight. For half a century, the communities on both sides of the harbour were linked internally by sea transport, before improved roads in the 1950s finally displaced this energetic flotilla and the harbour once again divided the community.</p><br>
<p>By 1914, a rustic telephone system linked some of the Hokianga communities with each other and with the outside world. A government-subsidised, weekly coastal shipping service ran between Onehunga and Hokianga, bringing in freight and taking away butter.</p><br>
<p>The communities of Horeke and Rawene are the second- and third-oldest European settlements in New Zealand. Rawene is still the most important of the coastal settlements in the Hokianga and is where the base of Hokianga&#39;s community owned health services (Hauora Hokianga) is located, on top of the hill at the Hokianga Hospital.</p><br>
<h3>1918 influenza pandemic</h3><br>
<p>The influenza pandemic reached Hokianga in September 1918, and remote Waiotemarama was one of the first settlements to succumb. A soup kitchen was organised in each community. Mounted and armed guards stood at all crossroads to turn back would-be visitors and thus restrict the spread of the disease between settlements. Travellers wishing to enter Hokianga were simply stopped at the boundary. The rule was simple: anyone could leave, but no one could enter.</p><br>
<p>The local epidemic lasted six weeks and a significant number died. Each community attended to its own, and mass burials were commonplace. Few Maori deaths were recorded – the true impact of the epidemic on Maori is unknown.</p><br>
<h2>Industry</h2><br>
<p>The first major industry of the region was based around the kauri trees, both logging and the gum, the strong thick resin which came from the trees. After the forests started to thin, dairying and cheese production took over as the mainstay of the economy, but they too fell away after the closure of the Motukaraka Dairy Cooperative in 1953. For a while during the 1970s and 1980s, there was little economic base for the area, and it became a haven for alternative lifestylers.</p><br>
<p>In recent years, however, tourism has become of significance to the region. Attractions such as the great kauri trees of the Waipoua Forest (including the country&#39;s tallest tree, Tane Mahuta), the historic waterfront villages of Kohukohu and Rawene, cafes, the Horeke basalts, beaches, historic buildings, nature walks, horse trekking, boat trips, and fishing are bringing more visitors every year. In 2002 the first walking tracks were opened at the Wairere Boulders allowing a close inspection of the basalt rocks in the Wairere valley.</p><br>
<h2>Hokianga celebrities</h2><br>
<p>Two iconic and very different figures in New Zealand history have been closely associated with the Hokianga.</p><br>
<h3>Dame Whina Cooper</h3><br>
<p>Dame Whina Cooper was born at Te Karaka, Hokianga on 9 December 1895, the daughter of a leader of the Te Rarawa iwi.</p><br>
<p>From an early age she showed an interest in local community affairs and politics, and her flair and abilities led to her becoming the undisputed Māori leader of the northern Hokianga by her mid-30s.</p><br>
<p>In 1949 she moved to Auckland, and by 1951 she was elected first president of the new Māori Women’s Welfare League. The league’s success was largely due to Whina’s efforts, and she became well known throughout the country. In 1957 she stepped down as president and the annual conference rewarded her with the title Te Whaea o te Motu ("Mother of the Nation").</p><br>
<p>Whina Cooper continued to work for the community throughout the 1960s, but it was her 1975 leadership of a hikoi – a symbolic march – to protest against the loss of Māori land for which she is best remembered. The march, from the northern tip of the North Island to Parliament in Wellington at the other end of the island made her nationally recognised, with her determined figure, no longer strong in body but strong in mana and will, walking at the head of the march from Te Hapua to Wellington.</p><br>
<p>She was made a DBE in 1981 and a member of the Order of New Zealand in 1991. She had returned to Panguru in the Hokianga in 1983. She died there on 26 March 1994 at the age of 98.</p><br>
<h3>Opo the dolphin</h3><br>
<p>Opononi became famous throughout New Zealand during 1955 and 1956 due to the exploits of a bottlenose dolphin (nicknamed "Opo"). Opo was a wild dolphin who started following fishing boats around Opononi in early 1955 after her mother had been killed, and would swim daily in the bay close to town. She was originally named "Opononi Jack", based on Pelorus Jack, since she was presumed to be male. Unlike the majority of dolphins, she had no qualms about human company, and would perform stunts for locals, play with objects like beach balls and beer bottles, and allow children to swim alongside her and make contact.</p><br>
<p>The dolphin became a local celebrity but news of her soon spread, and visitors from throughout the country would come to watch her. On 8 March 1956 official protection for Opo, requested by locals, was made law, but on 9 March she was found dead in a rock crevice at Koutu Point. It is suspected that she was killed accidentally by fishermen fishing with gelignite. Her death was reported nationwide, and she was buried with full Māori honours in a special plot next to the town hall.</p><br>
<h2>Education</h2><br>
<p>There are composite (years 1–15) schools at Opononi, Panguru and Broadwood.</p><br>
<p>There are also primary schools at Mangamuka, Horeke, Kohukohu, Matihetihe, Omanaia, Pawarenga, Rawene, Waima, Whirinaki, and Umawera.</p><br>
<p>The Hocking River is a tributary of the Ohio River in southeastern Ohio in the United States.</p><br>
<p>The Hocking flows mostly on the unglaciated Allegheny Plateau, but its headwaters are in a glaciated region. It rises in Bloom Township in Fairfield County and flows generally southeastwardly through Fairfield, Hocking, and Athens Counties, through the Hocking Hills region and past the cities of Lancaster, Logan, Nelsonville, Athens and Coolville. It joins the Ohio River at Hockingport. The Hocking&#39;s tributaries also drain parts of Perry, Morgan, and Washington Counties.</p><br>
<p>Its name originally derives from a Native American name, roughly "Hokhokken" or "Hokhochen", which meant "bottle-shaped" or "gourd-shaped" and referred to the river&#39;s headwaters 7 miles north-west of present-day Lancaster, Ohio. The river begins as a small stream, then immediately goes over a water fall into a wide gorge. When viewed from above this feature looks like a bottle, which led to its name. The river was known as the Hockhocking River until the late 19th century.</p><br>
<p>The Hocking Canal once linked Athens to Lancaster and the Ohio and Erie Canal, but was destroyed by flooding and never rebuilt. Due to frequent flooding of Ohio University&#39;s campus, the Army Corps of Engineers re-channelized a section of the Hocking River in Athens during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Between Nelsonville and Athens, the Hocking today is roughly paralleled by a rail trail, the Hockhocking Adena Bikeway. The path serves as a major source of recreation for the residents of the area, especially the students of Ohio University and Hocking College.</p><br>
<p>Major tributaries to the Hocking include (downriver to upriver) Federal Creek, Margaret Creek, Sunday Creek, Monday Creek, Scott Creek, Oldtown Creek, Clear Creek, Rush Creek, Pleasant Run, Baldwin Run, and Hunters Run. Many of these tributaries are affected by acid mine drainage.</p><br>
<h2>Recreation</h2><br>
<p>Canoeing, kayaking, rafting, and tubing are very popular activities on the Hocking River. Hocking Hills Adventures and Hocking Hills Canoe Livery each operate trips suitable for all skill levels on the mid and upper sections of the river.</p><br>
<p>The mid and upper portions of the Hocking River serve as an above-average smallmouth bass fishery. Typical species of midwestern warmwater streams are generally found throughout the river.</p><br>
<p>The Hocking River Water Trail is now under development. There are currently river access points for fishing and for canoes and kayaks at Logan, Ohio, at Hocking College at Nelsonville, Ohio, on Hamley Run Road northwest of The Plains, Ohio, at West State Street Park in Athens, Ohio, at County Road 24A near Canaanville, Ohio, and at the Army Corps of Engineers&#39; Belleville Locks and Dam recreational access point on Frost Road near Coolville, Ohio.</p><br>
<h2>Nonprofit organizations</h2><br>
<p>There are two organizations particularly concerned with preserving the environment of the river and its adjacent lands, and with providing recreational access to the river: the Hocking River Commission, based in Athens County, Ohio, and the Friends of the Hocking River, based in Hocking County, Ohio. Friends of the Hocking River in conjunction with Hocking Hills Adventures sponsor an annual river cleanup. The event is usually held during the second Saturday in June and it concludes with a BBQ and music.</p><br>
<h2>Variant names</h2><br>
<p>The Shawnee language name is Withakakkwathiipi&#39;.</p><br>
<p>According to the Geographic Names Information System, the Hocking River has also been known as:</p><br>
<p>Big Hock-hocking River</p><br>
<p>Great Hock-hocking River</p><br>
<p>Hock-Hocking River</p><br>
<p>Hockhocken River</p><br>
<p>Hockhocking River</p><br>
<p>Hocking Hocking River</p><br>
<p>Hokhoking River</p><br>
<p>Big Hockhocking River</p><br>
<p>Big Hocking River</p><br>
<p>Great Hockhocking River</p><br>
<p>Hakhakkien River</p><br>
<p>Hockhoking River</p><br>
<p>The form "Hockhocking" was generally used for the first century of Ohio&#39;s statehood, as reflected on old maps, while the shorter "Hocking" River form has been used for about the past century.</p><br>
<h2>Flooding</h2><br>
<p>Flooding on the Hocking used to be a yearly occurrence for the residents of Athens, Ohio. The floods determined many aspects of the residents&#39; lives, for example where to build a house. Most of the houses in Athens are built up on the hills, or the higher ground. It wasn’t until the university needed to expand, due to an influx of students during the 1950s that anything was even built into the flood plain. Some mentionable floods were the 1907 flood, in which seven people died, and about twenty houses were swept away. Another notable flood took place in 1968 which was labeled "The worst flood in fifty five years". The 1968 flood is also of interest due to the fact that the re-routing of the Hocking River project began in 1969. The re-routing of the Hocking was undertaken by the US Army Corps of Engineers, and was paid for by the university. The project was completed by 1971 and reverted five miles of the river along the West Green.</p><br>
<h3>Flood of 1907</h3><br>
<p>This flood took place on March 14, 1907 and caused extensive damage throughout Athens and SE Ohio. According to the Athens Journal, seven people died during the flood and the rescue attempts which followed. The flood uprooted about twenty houses, as well as drowned countless heads of horse and cattle. Residents who owned rowboats spent the days after the flood rescuing as many people as possible from their flooded houses; many people were saved, but rescuers were among the seven people who died. Thousands of people were forced to leave their homes, and many people were arrested for looting in the days after the flood. Telegraph lines were ripped down due to the flood, leaving Athens residents with no way of communicating with the outside world in the days after the flood. The railroad, waterworks plant, and electric plant were flooded, leaving Athens residents without water or electricity.</p><br>
<h3>Flood of 1968</h3><br>
<p>The flood of 1968 was another bad one. Four inches of rain fell in twenty four hours, causing the river to crest at twenty five feet, eight feet above flood level. Students actually helped the National Guardsmen in rescue efforts and sandbagging in an attempt to control the flooding. The flood made national news, worrying parents and relatives who were tuning in. Students were also seen diving off the balcony in front of Brown Hall, and out dorm windows on the West Green. It was reportedly the worst flood in fifty five years, and caused $8.9 million in damage to Athens county, and $750,000 to Ohio Universities campus.</p><br>
<h3>Re-routing project</h3><br>
<p>A year after the 1968 flood the re-routing project began. The project was carried out by the Army Corps of Engineers, and was funded by Ohio University. The University needed to expand its campus into the flood plain without having to pay annual damages, and without putting students at risk. So the re-routing project, which had been proposed years earlier, became one of the only viable solutions for the university&#39;s dilemma. It has been speculated that the new river channel has three times the carrying capacity of the old one, and should reduce chances of flooding by 86%, preventing an estimated $800,000 annual flood loss. The project began on April 12, 1969. It was estimated to cost $11 million, and was to re-route a five-mile strip of river that ran along the West Green. Also, a four-laned bridge was constructed along Richland Ave, which can still be seen today. The project was completed by 1971, and OU reportedly paid $375,000 per year for twenty-two years. The project had a lasting effect on the campus of OU; the pre-1969 Hocking would have run directly through the bottom floor of the new Baker Center. US Army Corps has estimated that since the project was completed, $48 million in flood damage has been averted since completion. The project was put to the test in May, 1990 when heavy rains caused the river to crest at twenty- three feet in Athens. President Bush declared Athens and three other counties "Disaster Areas&quot the flood caused $4 million in damage to SE Ohio, but physical plant director Chuck Culp estimated that rerouting the river saved OU more than $500,000 in flood damage. The most visible change to Athens due to the rerouting project was the building of Baker Center. Baker Center is built right in the original flood plain of the Hocking river; the second floor of Baker would actually be stream level.</p><br>
<h2>Namesakes</h2><br>
<p>The Hocking Valley Railway was formed in 1870. Today, the Hocking Valley Scenic Railway still runs as a tourist attraction.</p><br>
<p>Hocking County, Ohio is named after the river, as are the Hocking Hills, which include Hocking State Forest and Hocking Hills State Park.</p><br>
<p>The Hocking Canal existed from 1838-1890.</p><br>
<p>Hocking College is a technical college located at Nelsonville, Ohio.</p><br>
<p>The Hocking Glass Company was formed in 1905, and merged to become Anchor Hocking by 1937.</p><br>
<p>General Hocking Brick Company, Hocking Iron Company, Hocking Valley Products Company and Hocking Valley Clay Company were all former manufacturers in the area.</p><br>
<p>The Hocking Rivers name was the inspiration for the call letters of Lancasters Country music radio station WHOK-FM (now WXMG).</p><br>
<p>Bilzingsleben  is a former stone quarry in Thuringia, Germany, notable for its wealth of palaeolithic human fossils and artifacts.</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>Bilzingsleben is located on the northern border of the Thuringian Basin, a depression made of triassic Keuper. To the North are the Kyffhäuser mountains, Hainleite and Schmücke that contain mainly Bunter sandstone and Muschelkalk deposits. The regions are separated by the local hercynian fault-line (Finne-Störung). The fault-line is the cause for numerous springs in this area. The emerging spring waters in turn have dissolved the local calcareous rocks and formed the interglacial travertine deposits that cover the Bilzingsleben site. The 400.000 year long conservation is attributed to the travertine&#39;s remarkable resilience to erosional processes.</p><br>
<p>The site itself was part of a fluvial terrace in Pleistocene, Central European river basin now situated 1.5 km south of the village of Bilzingsleben, Sömmerda district at 175 m above sea level in an old travertine quarry, called Steinrinne, where travertines have been quarried since early modern times and the material was used in the towns of the region, for example Kindelbrück&#39;s city wall.</p><br>
<h2>History of the excavation</h2><br>
<p>Fossilized bones at the site had already been found since the 13th century. In 1710 David Siegmund Büttner published his book "Rudera diluvii testes i.e. Zeichen und Zeugen der Sündfluth" (Signs and witnesses of the flood). In 1818 Freiherr Friedrich von Schlotheim (1765-1832) found a human skull covered by lime concretions. It is lost today. In 1908 geologist Ewald Wüst (1875-1934) of the University of Halle-Wittenberg published his first work on local flint artifacts. Amateur researcher Adolf Spengler took up work at the site in 1922.</p><br>
<p>In 1969 Dietrich Mania, later professor at the University of Jena, discovered numerous fossils and artifacts during a routine investigation. Under the auspices of the Halle State Museum of Prehistory a systematic excavation was launched in 1971 that lasted until 1992 during which 1,600 m&sup2; were documented and several human fossils were unearthed. Consequently administration of the site has been handed to the University of Jena.</p><br>
<h2>Dating</h2><br>
<p>The site belongs to the Reinsdorf interglacial, c. 370,000 BP</p><br>
<h2>Human remains</h2><br>
<p>In 1974 a piece of a human skull was identified among the finds. To date, 37 human bones and teeth have been found, mainly parts of the skull. They represent the remains of at least three individuals and have been classified as Homo erectus bilzingslebenensis by Emanuel Vlcek (Praha). The remains of the skulls show that they have been intentionally smashed postmortem, maybe as part of a burial rite.</p><br>
<h2>Environment</h2><br>
<p>Both plant impressions in the travertine and pollen remains allow the reconstruction of the local environment. There are two deposition phases. Both are dominated by woodland species. The first phase (limnic chalk mixed with travertine sand) is dominated by hazel (Corylus), ash (Fraxinus) and oak (Quercus). The second phase (pure limnic chalk) is dominated by hornbeam (Carpinus), alder (Alnus) and pine (Pinus).</p><br>
<p>36 plant species are attested by impressions in the travertine, among them 14 tree and shrub species:</p><br>
<p>Pedunculate oak (Quercus robur)</p><br>
<p>Field maple (Acer campestre) and sycamore maple (Acer pseudoplatanus)</p><br>
<p>Large-leaved linden (Tilia platyphyllos)</p><br>
<p>European ash (Fraxinus excelsior)</p><br>
<p>European cornel (Cornus mas)</p><br>
<p>Common hazel (Corylus avellana)</p><br>
<p>Aspen (Populus tremula)</p><br>
<p>Birch (Betula pubescens)</p><br>
<p>Box (Buxus sempervirens)</p><br>
<p>Barberry (Berberis vulgaris)</p><br>
<p>Lilac (Syringa josikaea)</p><br>
<p>Hackberry (Celtis australis)</p><br>
<p>Firethorn (Pyracantha coccinea)</p><br>
<p>Shrubby cinquefoil (Dasiphora fruticosa).</p><br>
<p>The woods were mainly made up of oaks and box (Buxo-Quercetum). Herbs like wormwood, sorrel, ferns and grasses attest the presence of open steppes or meadows. Sedges and rushes grew on the lakeshore, waterlilies and Sphagnum moss in the lakes.</p><br>
<p>The remains of 54 species of animals have been found in Bilzingsleben, 35 species of mammals, six kinds of birds, three reptiles, three amphibians and five kinds of fishes. Among the mammals are:</p><br>
<p>Straight-tusked elephant (Elephas antiquus)</p><br>
<p>Rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus kirchbergensis, Dicerorhinus hemitoechus)</p><br>
<p>Aurochs (Bos primigenius)</p><br>
<p>Steppe wisent (Bison priscus)</p><br>
<p>Horse (Equus sp.)</p><br>
<p>Red deer (Cervus elaphus)</p><br>
<p>Fallow deer (Dama dama)</p><br>
<p>Giant deer (Megaloceros sp.)</p><br>
<p>Roe deer (Capreolus suessenbornensis)</p><br>
<p>Bear (Ursus deningeri-spelaeus)</p><br>
<p>Lion (Panthera leo spelaea)</p><br>
<p>Wildcat (Felis silvestris)</p><br>
<p>Fox (Vulpes vulpes)</p><br>
<p>Wild boar (Sus scrofa)</p><br>
<p>Wolf (Canis lupus)</p><br>
<p>Macaque (Macaca sylvana)</p><br>
<p>A now extinct beaver (Trogontherium cuvieri).</p><br>
<p>Woodland animals predominate, but there are some species that prefer more open habitats as well, like rhinoceros, horse and bison. Mollusks attest to a climate that was warmer and wetter than today. The average annual temperature is supposed to have been 9° to 13°C, the annual precipitation 800 mm.</p><br>
<h3>Important finds</h3><br>
<p>The lithic industry is characterized by chopping tools of diminutive sizes. There are no true hand axes. The raw material is mainly flint, although quartzite, quartz and travertine have been used as well. There are numerous bone tools (hoes, scrapers, points and gougers). Some hoes are made of antler or ivory. Even wooden artefacts have been preserved.</p><br>
<p>One bone fragment, an elephant tibia, has two groups of 7 and 14 incised parallel lines and might represent an early example of art. The regular spacing of the incisions, their subequal lengths and V-like cross-sections suggest they were created at the same time, with a single stone tool. The tibia dates to between 350,000 and 400,000 years ago. The interpretation as an early calendar is a possibility.</p><br>
<h2>Structures</h2><br>
<p>D. Mania found large stones arranged in a circular manner. He thought that it probably was a base for a dwelling. However, ring-center analysis showed that the site was an open air site. C. Gamble proposed that humans congregated at the site around the fire.</p><br>
<h2>Further reading</h2><br>
<p>J. Burdukiewicz, The stratigraphy of Palaeolithic sites from Middle Pleistocene Poland. In: G. A. Wagner/D. Mania (eds.), Frühe Menschen in Mitteleuropa - Chronologie, Kultur, Umwelt (Aachen 2001), 15-26.</p><br>
<p>A. Forsten, A comparison of some mid- Pleistocene Equus dental samples, including that from Bilzingsleben. Ethnologisch Archäologische Zeitschrift 34, 1993, 598-600.</p><br>
<p>R.S Harmon/J. Glazek/K. Nowak, 230Th/234U-dating of travertine from Bilzingsleben archaeological site. Nature 284, 1980,132-135.</p><br>
<p>J. van der Made, A preliminary note on the cervids from Bilzingsleben. Praehistoria Thuringica 2 (Artern 1998), 108-122.</p><br>
<p>J. van der Made, A preliminary note on the rhinos from Bilzingsleben. Praehistoria Thuringica 4 (Artem 2000), 41-64.</p><br>
<p>D. Mania, The zonal division of the lower palaeolithic open-air site Bilzingsleben. Anthropologie 29 (Brno 1991), 17-24.</p><br>
<p>D. Mania, The earliest occupation of Europe: the Elbe- Saale region (Germany). In: W. Roebroeks/T. van Kolfschoten (eds.) The earliest occupation of Europe. Analecta Leidensia (Leiden) 1995, 85-101.</p><br>
<p>D. Mania, D. 1995, Bilzingsleben - middle Pleistocene site of Homo erectus. Travertine complex and fauna at Bilzingsleben. In: Quaternary field trips in Central Europe, 14. Congress INQUA (Berlin 1995), 738-740, 777-780, 1078-1079.</p><br>
<p>H. Meller (ed.), Geisteskraft. Alt- und Mittelpaläolithikum (Halle 2003).</p><br>
<h2>Footnotes</h2><br>
<p>Ross Castle  is a 15th-century tower house and keep on the edge of Lough Leane, in Killarney National Park, County Kerry, Ireland. It is the ancestral home of the O&#39;Donoghue clan, though it is better known for its association with the Brownes of Killarney who owned the castle until more recently.</p><br>
<p>The castle is operated by the Office of Public Works,</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Ross Castle was built in the late 15th century by local ruling clan the ODonoghues Mor (Ross), though ownership changed hands during the Second Desmond Rebellion of the 1580s to the MacCarthy Mór. He then leased the castle and the lands to Sir Valentine Browne, ancestor of the Earls of Kenmare. The castle was amongst the last to surrender to Oliver Cromwells Roundheads during the Irish Confederate Wars, and was only taken when artillery was brought by boat via the River Laune. Lord Muskerry (MacCarty) held the castle against Edmund Ludlow who marched to Ross with 4,000 foot soldiers and 200 horse; however, it was by water that he attacked the stronghold. The Irish had a prophecy that Ross could never be taken until a warship could swim on the lake, an unbelievable prospect.</p><br>
<p>The ships were built in Kinsale, brought by water to Killorglin and then dragged by oxen to Ross Castle. The sight of the ships unnerved the onlookers and the castle soon submitted.</p><br>
<p>At the end of the wars, the Brownes were able to show that their heir was too young to have taken part in the rebellion and they retained the lands. By about 1688, they had erected a mansion house near the castle, but their adherence to James II of England caused them to be exiled. The castle became a military barracks, which remained so until early in the 19th century. The Brownes did not return to live at Ross but built Kenmare House near Killarney.</p><br>
<p>There is a legend that ODonoghue leaped or was sucked out of the window of the grand chamber at the top of the castle and disappeared into the waters of the lake along with his horse, his table and his library. It is said that ODonoghue now lives in a great palace at the bottom of the lake where he keeps a close eye on everything that he sees.</p><br>
<h3>Governors</h3><br>
<p>Governors of the garrison at Ross Castle included:</p><br>
<p>-1652: Pierce Ferriter</p><br>
<p>Sir John Peyton, Bt (died 1675)</p><br>
<p>1679-1701: Colonel Sir John Edgeworth</p><br>
<p>c.1705-1714: Colonel Richard Hedges</p><br>
<p>1715: John Sterling</p><br>
<p>1721: William FitzMaurice, 2nd Earl of Kerry (died 1747)</p><br>
<p>1753-1762: Lieut-General John Folliot</p><br>
<p>1762: Sir Francis Lumm, Bt (died 1797) (High Sheriff of King&#39;s County, 1755)</p><br>
<p>-1801: Lieut-General Charles Eustace (1736-1801) (MP for Fethard, Wexford)</p><br>
<p>1801: Lieut-General Sir Henry Johnson</p><br>
<h2>Defensive features</h2><br>
<h3>Basic structure</h3><br>
<p>The castle is typical of strongholds of Irish chieftains built during the Middle Ages. The tower house had square bartizans on diagonally opposite corners and a thick end wall. The tower was originally surrounded by a square bawn defended by round corner towers on each end.</p><br>
<p>The structure is stacked and mortared stone with thick walls and providing five inner stories plus the roof.</p><br>
<h3>Front entrance</h3><br>
<p>The front entrance was a small anteroom secured by an iron grill or yett at the outer wall. The yett could be closed from inside via a chain that could then be secured even if the front door was closed. This room provided small side access holes and a "murder-hole" above which allowed the defenders to attack anybody in the room.</p><br>
<p>The front door, on the inside of the anteroom, was constructed of two layers of thick Irish oak, one layer 90 degrees to the other with the boards riveted together. If the door was a single layer with the wood fibres going in a single direction, it would have been possible to split the door. The second cross layer prevented that. The door opened inward and was backed by two heavy beams fitted into the stone structure.</p><br>
<h3>Windows</h3><br>
<p>Windows at the lower levels were vertical thin slits preventing entrance into the structure but allowing persons inside to aim and fire arrows or guns at attackers. The windows on the top levels were larger to allow in light. It was felt that attackers would not be able to scale to those heights so larger windows were safe.</p><br>
<h3>Staircase</h3><br>
<p>The spiral staircase, located in the front left corner, was built in a clockwise direction. Attackers, ascending up would have their sword in their right hand and would be impeded by the center structure of the staircase. Defenders, facing down, would have their swords swinging at the outer part of the staircase giving them an advantage.</p><br>
<p>In addition, the stairs were of uneven height to throw off an attacker&#39;s charge by interfering with his gait.</p><br>
<h3>Machicolation</h3><br>
<p>Machicolations were stone structures at the top of the castle protruding out from the wall with a hole in the floor. There are two on Ross Castle, one over the front door and another on the back wall. The one at the front would allow defenders to drop stones or boiling oil on attackers at the front door, the only entrance to the castle.</p><br>
<h3>Parapet</h3><br>
<p>The parapet at roof level is crenellated providing ups, merlons and downs, crenels, to allow defenders to hide behind the merlons while firing arrows or guns through the crenels.</p><br>
<h3>Inner rooms</h3><br>
<p>The first floor was used for storage.</p><br>
<p>The second floor was a living space for the house attendants and guards. Straw was spread on the floor to sleep on. There was typically no furniture.</p><br>
<p>The third floor was for food preparation and living and eating space for the house attendants and guards.</p><br>
<p>The fourth floor was the sleeping and living space for the chieftain and his family. The fourth floor had an arched stone roof supporting a stone floor of the fifth story as compared to the wood beam floors of the lower stories.</p><br>
<p>The fifth floor was the great room where the chieftain ate and entertained. This room was also the last sanctuary as it had a stone floor as a fire break from fire in the lower floors.</p><br>
<p>The Ramesseum is the memorial temple  of Pharaoh Ramesses II . It is located in the Theban necropolis in Upper Egypt, across the River Nile from the modern city of Luxor. The name – or at least its French form, Rhamesséion – was coined by Jean-François Champollion, who visited the ruins of the site in 1829 and first identified the hieroglyphs making up Ramessess names and titles on the walls. It was originally called the House of millions of years of Usermaatra-setepenra that unites with Thebes-the-city in the domain of Amon. Usermaatra-setepenra&#39; was the prenomen of Ramesses II.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Ramesses II modified, usurped, or constructed many buildings from the ground up, and the most splendid of these, in accordance with New Kingdom Royal burial practices, would have been his memorial temple: a place of worship dedicated to pharaoh, god on earth, where his memory would have been kept alive after his death. Surviving records indicate that work on the project began shortly after the start of his reign and continued for 20 years.</p><br>
<p>The design of Ramesses&#39;s mortuary temple adheres to the standard canons of New Kingdom temple architecture. Oriented northwest and southeast, the temple itself comprised two stone pylons (gateways, some 60 m wide), one after the other, each leading into a courtyard. Beyond the second courtyard, at the centre of the complex, was a covered 48-column hypostyle hall, surrounding the inner sanctuary.</p><br>
<p>An enormous pylon stood before the first court, with the royal palace at the left and the gigantic statue of the king looming up at the back.</p><br>
<p>As was customary, the pylons and outer walls were decorated with scenes commemorating pharaohs military victories and leaving due record of his dedication to, and kinship with, the gods. In Ramessess case, much importance is placed on the Battle of Kadesh (ca. 1274 BC); more intriguingly, however, one block atop the first pylon records his pillaging, in the eighth year of his reign, a city called "Shalem", which may or may not have been Jerusalem.</p><br>
<p>The scenes of the great pharaoh and his army triumphing over the Hittite forces fleeing before Kadesh, as portrayed in the canons of the "epic poem of Pentaur", can still be seen on the pylon.</p><br>
<p>Only fragments of the base and torso remain of the syenite statue of the enthroned pharaoh, 62 feet (19 metres) high and weighing more than 1000 tons. This was alleged to have been transported 170 miles over land. This is the largest remaining colossal statue (except statues done in situ) in the world. However fragments of 4 granite Colossi of Ramses were found in Tanis (northern Egypt). Estimated height is 69 to 92 feet (21 to 28 meters). Like four of the six colossi of Amenhotep III (Colossi of Memnon) there are no longer complete remains so it is based partly on unconfirmed estimates.</p><br>
<p>Remains of the second court include part of the internal façade of the pylon and a portion of the Osiride portico on the right. Scenes of war and the rout of the Hittites at Kadesh are repeated on the walls. In the upper registers, feast and honour of the phallic god Min, god of fertility. On the opposite side of the court the few Osiride pillars and columns still left can furnish an idea of the original grandeur. Scattered remains of the two statues of the seated king can also be seen, one in pink granite and the other in black granite, which once flanked the entrance to the temple. The head of one of these has been removed to the British Museum. Thirty-nine out of the forty-eight columns in the great hypostyle hall (m 41x 31) still stand in the central rows. They are decorated with the usual scenes of the king before various gods. Part of the ceiling decorated with gold stars on a blue ground has also been preserved. The sons and daughters of Ramesses appear in the procession on the few walls left. The sanctuary was composed of three consecutive rooms, with eight columns and the tetrastyle cell. Part of the first room, with the ceiling decorated with astral scenes, and few remains of the second room are all that is left.</p><br>
<p>Adjacent to the north of the hypostyle hall was a smaller temple; this was dedicated to Ramesses&#39;s mother, Tuya, and to his beloved chief wife, Nefertari. To the south of the first courtyard stood the temple palace. The complex was surrounded by various storerooms, granaries, workshops, and other ancillary buildings, some built as late as Roman times.</p><br>
<p>A temple of Seti I, of which nothing is now left but the foundations, once stood to the right of the hypostyle hall. It consisted of a peristyle court with two chapel shrines. The entire complex was enclosed in mud brick walls which started at the gigantic southeast pylon.</p><br>
<p>A cache of papyri and ostraca dating back to the third intermediate period (11th to 8th centuries BC) indicates that the temple was also the site of an important scribal school.</p><br>
<p>The site was in use before Ramesses had the first stone put in place: beneath the hypostyle hall, modern archaeologists have found a shaft tomb from the Middle Kingdom, yielding a rich hoard of religious and funerary artifacts.</p><br>
<h2>Remains</h2><br>
<p>Unlike the massive stone temples that Ramesses ordered carved from the face of the Nubian mountains at Abu Simbel, the inexorable passage of three millennia was not kind to his "temple of a million years" at Thebes. This was mostly due to its location on the very edge of the Nile floodplain, with the annual inundation gradually undermining the foundations of this temple, and its neighbours. Neglect and the arrival of new faiths also took their toll: for example, in the early years of the Christian Era, the temple was put into service as a Christian church.</p><br>
<p>This is all standard fare for a temple of its kind built at that time. Leaving aside the escalation of scale – whereby each successive New Kingdom pharaoh strove to outdo his predecessors in volume and scope – the Ramesseum is largely cast in the same mould as Ramesses III&#39;s Medinet Habu or the ruined temple of Amenhotep III that stood behind the "Colossi of Memnon" a kilometre or so away. Instead, the significance that the Ramesseum enjoys today owes more to the time and manner of its rediscovery by Europeans.</p><br>
<p>The Ramesseum king list is a minor list of kings which still remain in situ on the few remains of the second pylon.</p><br>
<h2>Excavation and studies</h2><br>
<p>The origins of modern Egyptology can be traced to the arrival in Egypt of Napoleon Bonaparte in the summer of 1798.</p><br>
<p>While undeniably an invasion by an alien imperialist power, this was nonetheless an invasion of its times, informed by Enlightenment ideas: alongside Napoleons troops went men of science, the same whose toil under the desert sun would later yield the seminal 23-volume Description de lÉgypte. Two French engineers, Jean-Baptiste Prosper Jollois and Édouard de Villiers du Terrage, were assigned to study the Ramesseum site, and it was with much fanfare that they identified it with the "Tomb of Ozymandias" or "Palace of Memnon" of which Diodorus of Sicily had written in the 1st century BC.</p><br>
<p>The next visitor of note was Giovanni Belzoni, a showman and engineer of Italian origin and, latterly, an archaeologist and antiques dealer. Belzonis travels took him in 1815 to Cairo, where he sold Mehemet Ali a hydraulic engine of his own invention. There he met British Consul General Henry Salt, who hired his services to collect from the temple in Thebes the so-called Younger Memnon, one of two colossal granite heads depicting Ramesses II, and transport it to England. Thanks to Belzonis hydraulics and his skill as an engineer (Napoleon&#39;s men had failed in the same endeavour a decade or so earlier), the 7-ton stone head arrived in London in 1818, where it was dubbed "The Younger Memnon" and, some years later, given pride of place in the British Museum.</p><br>
<p>It was against the backdrop of intense excitement surrounding the statues arrival, and having heard wondrous tales of other, less transportable treasures still in the desert, that the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley penned his sonnet "Ozymandias". In particular, one massive fallen statue at the Ramesseum is now inextricably linked with Shelley, because of the cartouche on its shoulder bearing Ramessess throne name, User-maat-re Setep-en-re, the first part of which Diodorus transliterated into Greek as "Ozymandias".</p><br>
<p>While Shelley&#39;s "vast and trunkless legs of stone" owe more to poetic license than to archaeology, the "half sunk... shattered visage" lying on the sand is an accurate description of part of the wrecked statue. The hands, and the feet, lie nearby. Were it still standing, the Ozymandias colossus would tower 19 m (62 ft) above the ground, rivalling the Colossi of Memnon and the statues of Ramesses carved into the mountain at Abu Simbel.</p><br>
<p>A joint French-Egyptian team has been exploring and restoring the Ramesseum and its environs since 1991.</p><br>
<p>Among their discoveries during excavations include kitchens, bakeries and supply rooms for the temple to the south, and a school where boys were taught to be scribes to the southeast. Some of the challenges in preserving the area have been the control of modern Egyptian farmers using the area for farming and encroaching on the ruins.</p><br>
<h3>Pictures from the Ramesseum</h3><br>
<p>The Bighorn Mountains  are a mountain range in northern Wyoming and southern Montana in the United States, forming a northwest-trending spur from the Rocky Mountains extending approximately 200 miles  northward on the Great Plains. They are separated from the Absaroka Range, which lie on the main branch of the Rockies in western Wyoming, by the Bighorn Basin.</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>The Bighorns were uplifted during the Laramide orogeny beginning approximately 70 million years ago. They consist of over 9,000 ft of sedimentary rock strata laid down before mountain-building began: the predominantly marine and near-shore sedimentary layers range from the Cambrian through the Lower Cretaceous, and are often rich in fossils. There is an unconformity where Silurian strata were exposed to erosion and are missing. Following the uplift, large volumes of sediments, rich in early Tertiary fossils, were deposited in the adjoining basins. Though many cirques, U-shaped valleys and glacial lakes can be found in the mountain range, the only remaining active glacier is the Cloud Peak Glacier, which is on the east slope of Cloud Peak.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The highest peaks within the Bighorns are located in Wyoming in the 1.12 million acre (4,500 km²) Bighorn National Forest. Two peaks rise to over 13,000 feet (3,960 m) Cloud Peak (13,175 ft, 4013 m) and Black Tooth Mountain (13,005 ft, 3964 m). There are a dozen more that rise to over 12,000 feet (3,650 m). From the east the mountains present a vertical relief of over 8,000 feet (2,450 m), rising abruptly from the plains. Overall, the Bighorns are more rounded than their sister mountain ranges to the west.</p><br>
<p>The Cloud Peak Wilderness is the centerpiece of a roadless block of land around 189,000 acres in size. The Wilderness is surrounded by unprotected acreage of U.S National Forest as well as Bureau of Land Management, state, and some private land. Most of the Cloud Peak Wilderness is above the tree line; the unprotected lands surrounding it are lower in elevation and covered in coniferous forests. Mule deer, elk, moose, black bear, and mountain lion are found throughout the area.</p><br>
<p>Two more large roadless areas remained in the Bighorns as of 1992. It is unknown whether these areas have since been reduced in size by road-building and other development. Both areas straddle the Montana-Wyoming state line, in the northern part of the range. One area, north of USA Route 14A and containing the headwaters of the Little Bighorn River, is 155,000 acres of National Forest land. This little-known region features subalpine terrain cut by steep canyons. Pronghorn inhabit the area, as it includes a portion of the Great Plains. What little human use it receives is from hunters and fishermen. The second roadless area is located mainly on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana; its 144,000 acres also includes 34,000 acres of Devils Canyon on the Bighorn N.F. in Wyoming. In this part of the range, semidesert prairie is cut by steep canyons leading to Yellowtail Reservoir, and high, Douglas-fir cloaked ridges top out at over 9,000. Colorful rock formations are common. Rocky Mountain juniper and limber pine are scattered on lower elevations, and wildlife includes pronghorn, rattlesnake, golden eagle, ferruginous hawk, and mule deer. The Crow Indians manage a wild bison herd on this portion of the Bighorns. The Crow lands are a sacred area, and thus are off-limits to non-tribal members.</p><br>
<p>The three highways traversing the Bighorns are designated Scenic Byways by the US Forest Service and the State of Wyoming. These include USA Routes 14, 14A, and 16.</p><br>
<p>The range is the location of the headwaters of the Little Bighorn, Tongue, and Powder rivers.</p><br>
<p>Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area consists of approximately 120,000 acre within the Bighorn Mountains. It includes Bighorn Lake, a reservoir damming the Bighorn River.</p><br>
<p>In 2015, a sudden, huge gash was found in Wyoming&#39;s Big Horn Mountains. The Wyoming Geological Survey studied the area and determined that "The Crack" may be the result of an "apparent active landslide" in the southern end of the Big Horn Mountains.</p><br>
<h2>Recreation and human culture</h2><br>
<p>The Bighorns are a popular destination for hiking, backpacking, fly fishing, horse back riding and increasingly ATV riding and snowmobiling. Trails wind through most of the national forest. The Cloud Peak Wilderness has a network of hiking trails to remote areas and alpine lakes. Higher trails are often covered with snow except from July through August. After Labor Day, there is a good chance of high country snow storms at any time.</p><br>
<p>The Bighorns are home to one of the elite ultramarathons in the nation. The Bighorn Trail Run is held every June.</p><br>
<p>The Sioux, Crow, and Cheyenne Indians have long considered the Bighorns sacred mountains.</p><br>
<p>Disko Island  is a large island in Baffin Bay, off the west coast of Greenland. It has an area of 8,578 km&sup2, making it the second largest island of Greenland  and one of the 100 largest islands in the world. The name Qeqertarsuaq means The Large Island .</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The island has a length of about 160 km, rising to an average height of 975 m, peaking at 1,919 m. The port of Qeqertarsuaq (named after the island, and also known as Godhavn) lies on its southern coast. Blæsedalen valley is north of Qeqertarsuaq.</p><br>
<p>The island is separated from Nuussuaq Peninsula in the northeast by the Sullorsuaq Strait. To the south of the island lies Disko Bay, an inlet bay of Baffin Island.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Eric the Red paid the first recorded visit to Disko Island at some time between 982 and 985; the island was used as a base for summer hunting and fishing by Viking colonists.Seaver, Kirsten A. “Greenland and Vinland.” The Frozen Echo: Greenland and the Exploration of North America, Ca. A.D. 1000-1500, Stanford University Press, 1998, pp. 28–29.</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>Mineral deposits, fossil finds and geological formations add to interest in the area. One of the interesting geological features is the native iron found at the island. A 22-ton lump mixture of iron and iron carbide (cohenite) has been found. There are only a few places on earth where native iron is found which is not of meteoric origin.</p><br>
<p>There are numerous hot springs on the island. The microscopic animal Limnognathia, the only known member of its phylum, was discovered in these springs.</p><br>
<h2>Biodiversity</h2><br>
<p>Several studies on the meiofauna show high marine interstitial diversity in Disko Island. For instance, the gastrotrich species Diuronotus aspetos is found in Iterdla and Kigdlugssaitsut and is so far reported only in Disko Island. It is associated with a rich diversity of other gastrotrichs like Chatonotus atrox, Halichaetonotus sp., Mesodasys sp., Paradasys sp., Tetranchyroderma sp., Thaumastoderma sp. and Turbanella sp.</p><br>
<p>Little Kennesaw Mountain is a mountain in Cobb County, Georgia, northwest of Marietta and south of Kennesaw. It is a sub-peak of Kennesaw Mountain, the site of the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain in the 1864 Atlanta Campaign of the American Civil War.</p><br>
<p>The defensive-minded Confederate general Joseph E. Johnston constructed a series of trenches from Kennesaw Mountain to Kolb Farm to prevent or delay Union general William T. Sherman&#39;s approach towards Atlanta, Georgia. For the purpose of defending the Confederate line, the Confederates constructed Fort McBride here, but Little Kennesaw Mountain experienced only skirmishes, with most of the fighting occurring to the south. Now a part of Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, the mountain is part of a popular trail that strings from Burnt Hickory Road to the park visitor center, traversing Pigeon Hill and both mountains.</p><br>
<p>The Clinton–Kalamazoo Canal is a canal in Michigan that was abandoned after being only partially completed. The canal was to connect Lake St. Clair with Lake Michigan. Project backers were inspired by the success of the Erie Canal in New York, which was completed in 1825. After gaining statehood in 1837, Michigan elected its first governor, Stevens Thomson Mason, who initiated an ambitious program of internal improvements, including three railroads and two canals.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Clinton–Kalamazoo Canal was to begin in Mount Clemens on the banks of the Clinton River and continue through Utica, Rochester, Pontiac, Howell, Hastings, and finally to the mouth of the Kalamazoo River. In all, the canal was to span 216 miles. From Pontiac westward, the canal would carry new settlers and supplies to the interior of the state and eventually connect with the "thriving" Lake Michigan port of Singapore (now a ghost town). Singapore was to ship passengers and freight to Chicago across Lake Michigan.</p><br>
<p>The valley of the Clinton river was thought to present a feasible water-route to Lake St. Clair, and the matter of improving the navigation of the river was pushed so persistently that the legislative council of the Territory passed an act (approved by the governor April 12, 1827) incorporating the Clinton River Navigation Company" for the purpose of removing obstructions from the Clinton river, and making such river navigable for boats from the village of Mount Clemens to Macks lower mills (so called), in the county of Oakland."</p><br>
<p>The length of this proposed improvement was about thirty miles, and it was calculated that it would afford invaluable shipping facilities to a large extent of rich agricultural country. It was the first incorporated company for similar purpose in the Territory and likely would have succeeded except that it was surpassed by railway construction. The incorporators of this company were Nathaniel Millard, Jonathan Kearsley, Levi Cook, Charles Larned, Ellis Doty, John R. Sheldon, Christian Clemens, Alfred Ashley, Jacob Tucker, Ignace Morass, and Joseph Hayes. The company were required, under the act of incorporation, to clear out the river to the east line of Oakland County, commencing on or before the first day of July, 1827, and when they had made it navigable for flat-bottomed boats or bateaux to the line of the county, they were to be entitled to collect toll, not exceeding fifty cents per ton for the whole distance, and proportionally for less distances. When the river was made navigable as far as Mack&#39;s mill, and a good tow-path constructed on one bank, the company were entitled to demand toll not exceeding seventy-five cents per ton for the whole distance, and in proportion for a less distance.</p><br>
<p>Parties owning water-power on the river below the east line of Oakland County were required to construct locks at every dam sufficient for the passage of the company&#39;s boats. The river above the said line was declared by the act of incorporation a public highway, but persons owning land extending across the river had the right to construct dams for water-power purposes by putting in the necessary locks, or the company could construct them at the expense of the parties owning the lands. The improvements were finally completed as far as Rochester, a portion of the State loan of five millions being appropriated to the work. Business was carried on to a small extent for a number of years, but the enterprise was never a prosperous one.</p><br>
<p>Construction began in 1838 with much fanfare. Financial troubles related to the Panic of 1837 caused funding for the canal to disappear. All construction stopped in 1843 after only 13 miles had been completed. Many workers who were unpaid destroyed parts of the canal and stole supplies. Engineering miscalculations also contributed to the canal&#39;s failure, as the canal was dug too shallow and too narrow for heavy freight barges.</p><br>
<p>About 1844, Amos Brown, of Rochester, constructed and launched a log flatboat, and, collecting a party of his friends, they proceeded to celebrate the occasion by a grand ride on the canal; but when they came- to the first lock they found their craft too wide to admit of a passage. The locks were constructed of logs, and the pressure of the superincumbent earth against their sides had sprung</p><br>
<p>them in, narrowing the space considerably. A fellow who had served a term in the State prison made quite a speculation by burning some of the locks and selling the old iron.</p><br>
<p>After construction ended, the canal quickly fell into disrepair. Portions were used as a millrace to power watermills that operated until the 1940s. The canal was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. The route of the canal has been marked by signs and historic markers.</p><br>
<h2>Today</h2><br>
<p>Remnants of the canal are still visible in Rochester Hills in Oakland County and in Shelby Township, Utica and Clinton Township in Macomb County. Much of the canal is clearly visible in parks and along Canal Road in Clinton Township. The remains of the aqueduct built over the Clinton River can be seen in Yates Park, and two wood dams can be seen in the river in Canal Park and Bloomer Park. No locks are visible along the canal but the locations of a few are known.</p><br>
<p>Xylokastro   is a seaside town or village and a former municipality in Corinthia in the Peloponnese, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Xylokastro-Evrostina, of which it is a unit or component. The municipal unit has an area of 310.252 km. In 2011 its population was 5,715 for the town and 13,277 for the municipal unit.</p><br>
<p>Geographic features include a large beach and semi-arid forests on varied terrain, scattered with early churches and evidence of early settlements and religious sites. It has narrowly separated upper and lower coastal roads and forms a medium-sized touristic village on the Gulf of Corinth.</p><br>
<h2>Subdivisions</h2><br>
<p>The municipal unit Xylokastro is subdivided into the following communities (2011 population and constituent villages in brackets):</p><br>
<p>Ano Trikala (104, Ano Trikala, Zireia)</p><br>
<p>Dendro (144)</p><br>
<p>Geliniatika (431, Geliniatika, Spartinaaika)</p><br>
<p>Kamari (903, Kamari, Kariotika)</p><br>
<p>Karya (597, Karya, Kariotika)</p><br>
<p>Kato Loutro (442, Kato Loutro, Ano Loutro)</p><br>
<p>Kato Synoikia Trikalon (254)</p><br>
<p>Korfiotissa (75)</p><br>
<p>Lagkadaiika (74, Lagkadaiika, Amfithea)</p><br>
<p>Manna (476)</p><br>
<p>Melissi (913)</p><br>
<p>Mesi Synoikia Trikalon (73)</p><br>
<p>Nees Vrysoules (76)</p><br>
<p>Panariti (349)</p><br>
<p>Pellini (82)</p><br>
<p>Pitsa (669, Ano Pitsa, Kato Pitsa)</p><br>
<p>Rethi (194)</p><br>
<p>Riza (429, Riza, Valtos, Georgantaiika, Sigeritsa, Chartsianika)</p><br>
<p>Sofiana (80)</p><br>
<p>Stylia (147)</p><br>
<p>Sykia (492)</p><br>
<p>Thalero (162)</p><br>
<p>Throfari (73)</p><br>
<p>Xanthochori (83)</p><br>
<p>Xylokastro (5,715, Xylokastro, Mertikaiika)</p><br>
<p>Zemeno (240)</p><br>
<h2>Population</h2><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Xylokastro is situated on the coast of the Gulf of Corinth, 30 km northwest of Corinth, near the mouth of the river Trikalitikos. Apart from the narrow strip of land along the coast, where the town Xylokastro lies, the municipal unit is mountainous. The Greek National Road 8a (Corinth - Patras) passes through the town.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The town took its name from a wooden castle (ξύλινο κάστρο), probably built in the 13th century. It was also known as Solo Castro. The village Stylia was known as Viladusa by the Venetians in the 18th century.</p><br>
<h2>People</h2><br>
<p>Vlassis Bonatsos (1949 - October 14, 2004 in Athens, Greece), a Greek actor</p><br>
<p>Panagis Tsaldaris (1932 - November 3, 1933 in Athens, Greece, former prime minister</p><br>
<p>Sotiris Krokidas (1922 - September 17, 1922 14 November in Athens. Greece former prime minister</p><br>
<p>Kifissia or Kifisia  is one of the most expensive northern suburbs of Athens, Greece, mainly accessed via Kifissias Avenue, running all the way from central Athens up to Theseos Avenue in the suburb of Nea Erythraia. It has traditionally been home to rich Greek families and major Greek political families.</p><br>
<h2>Municipality</h2><br>
<p>The municipality Kifisia was formed at the 2011 local government reform by the merger of the following 3 former municipalities, that became municipal units:</p><br>
<p>Ekali</p><br>
<p>Kifisia</p><br>
<p>Nea Erythraia</p><br>
<p>The municipality has an area of 35.100 km, the municipal unit 25.937 km.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Kifisia is situated in central Attica, at the western end of the forested Penteli mountain range. The small river Kifisos forms the western border of the municipality. Kifisia is situated 12 km northeast of Athens city centre. The built-up area of Kifisia is continuous with those of the neighbouring suburbs Lykovrysi, Nea Erythraia, Marousi and Pefki. Kifisia consists of the following neighbourhoods: Adames, Ano Kifisia, Kato Kifisia, Kefalari, Nea Kifisia and Politeia. It is a green suburb with many parks and tree-lined streets.</p><br>
<p>The main thoroughfare is Kifisias Avenue, which connects Kifisia with central Athens and the northern beltway Motorway 6. The Kifisia station is the north terminus of Athens Metro Line 1.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Antiquity</h3><br>
<p>Cephisia was a deme of ancient Attica. It was the home of the famous dramatist Menander (circa 342-291 BC).</p><br>
<p>Cephisia had become a famous retreat of philosophers during the reign of the Roman emperor Hadrian, when the wealthy Herodes Atticus of Marathon, Greece built the Villa Cephisia. In his Attic Nights, Aulus Gellius describes the unique ambiance of intellectual ferment and aristocratic leisure in an idyllic setting which he created there. It was also the practice of Herodes to provide free instruction in philosophy for selected youths from Athens.</p><br>
<p>The remains of some of his family funeral monuments lie at the centre of the town in Platonas Square. He also beautified a sanctuary to the Nymphs in the ravine of Kokkinara, in the nearby district of Kefalari.</p><br>
<h3>Medieval period</h3><br>
<p>The history of Kifisia during the medieval period is obscure, but the remains of a monastery church dedicated to the Virgin of the Swallow (Panagia Chelidonas) is associated with a story about a battle fought there between local people and unspecified "invaders". This chapel is a rare example of a monastery church originally provided with a fireplace, for the chimney remains.</p><br>
<h3>Ottoman Era</h3><br>
<p>During Ottoman period, in 1667, Kifisia was visited by the Turkish traveler Evliya Çelebi. He described a small country town set in a fertile plain of paradisaic beauty, with three hundred tile-roofed houses. Half the inhabitants of the town were Muslims and half were Christians. He records that there was a single mosque, without a minaret, and many small Christian chapels - some of which survive today.</p><br>
<h3>Post Greek Independence</h3><br>
<p>The temperature in Kifisia tends to be significantly lower than that of the city, so following the independence of Greece, it quickly became a summer resort of the ruling class of the new state.</p><br>
<p>Its popularity faded somewhat during the middle of the nineteenth century when the danger of raids by brigands who infested the nearby mountains was very real. However, the suppression of brigandage, and the arrival of the railway in 1885, led to the dramatic development of the area.</p><br>
<p>It became the fashion for wealthy Athenian families to build summer houses in Kifisia, and keen social competition led to the creation of a unique architectural ambiance, as villas in ever more exotic styles proliferated. For those unable to afford a summer house, many hotels were built, where the slightly less affluent could spend the holiday months rubbing shoulders with their social betters.</p><br>
<p>The heyday of Kifisia was probably during the inter-war period, when the leaders of the two main rival political parties frequented different hotels in the town together with their most important supporters.</p><br>
<h3>World War II and Civil War</h3><br>
<p>Following the liberation of Greece from German occupation in 1944, the British Royal Air Force ill-advisedly made its headquarters in Kefalari, taking over several hotels. With the outbreak of the Greek Civil War, the RAF personnel were first besieged, then forced to surrender, and marched across the mountains into northern Greece; being released in Trikala only after a truce had been arranged.</p><br>
<h2>Economy</h2><br>
<p>Accenture, Aegean Airlines, Barcleys, BP, Eurobank Ergasias, Eltrak, Ferrari Metaxa, Walmart, and Volvo have their head office in Kifisia.</p><br>
<h2>Sports</h2><br>
<p>Kifissia has several sport clubs in different sports. From them, most notable are ZAON, club with many Panhellenic titles in Greek women volleyball, Kifissia AC that plays almost constantly in men volleyball first division (A1 Ethniki) and Nea Kifissia B.C. that plays in basketball first division (Greek Basket League). The football team of Kifissia is Kifissia F.C., and plays in Football League 2 (third division). Kifissia also is the seat of Athina 90 (most times winner in Futsal League), AOH Hymettus (most times winner in Field Hockey League), and Iraklis Kifissias Presence in A1 Womans Category, with more than 200 athletes in Iraklis Kifissias Volleyball Academy.</p><br>
<h2>Historical population</h2><br>
<h2>Persons</h2><br>
<p>Menander (circa 342-291 BC), dramatist, born in Kifisia</p><br>
<p>Emmanuel Benakis, merchant and politician, died in Kifisia</p><br>
<p>Andreas Empeirikos (1901 in Romania - August 3, 1975), poet, died in Kifisia</p><br>
<p>Penelope Delta (1874 Alexandria – 27 April 1941)</p><br>
<p>Theodoros Pangalos, general, died in Kifisia</p><br>
<p>Themistoklis Sophoulis, politician, died in Kifisia</p><br>
<p>Evgenios Spatharis (1924–2009), shadow theatre artist, born in Kifisia</p><br>
<p>Chalandri  is a suburb in the northern part of the Athens agglomeration, Greece. It is a municipality of the Attica region.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Chalandri is a suburb in Northern Athens, around 12 km from the centre; its location corresponds with one of the 10 ancient demes (boroughs) of Athens, known as Phlya (Φλύα). The municipality has an area of 10.805 km. Chalandri was a small village until the rapid expansion of Athens during the 1960s and 1970s. Its built-up area is now continuous with those of the neighbouring suburbs Filothei, Marousi, Vrilissia, Agia Paraskevi, Cholargos, Neo Psychiko and Psychiko. Nevertheless, it has still a high ratio of open green areas per citizen in the Athens agglomeration. Several embassies are based in Chalandri. It is one of the largest suburbs in terms of population, with more than 70,000 residents. It holds an independent municipality status since 1944. Chalandri is served by the Chalandri metro station.</p><br>
<p>According to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Chalandri has a warm-summer Mediterranean climate, abbreviated "Csa" on climate maps.</p><br>
<h3>Neighborhoods</h3><br>
<p>Agia Varvara</p><br>
<p>Ano Chalandri</p><br>
<p>Doukissis Plakentias (Neo Chalandri)</p><br>
<p>Kato Chalandri</p><br>
<p>Patima</p><br>
<p>Metamorfosi</p><br>
<p>Polydroso</p><br>
<p>Toufa (or Fragoklisia)</p><br>
<p>Sidera</p><br>
<p>Synoikismos</p><br>
<h2>Historical population</h2><br>
<h2>Culture</h2><br>
<h3>Education</h3><br>
<p>American Community Schools is located in Chalandri.</p><br>
<h3>Health Care</h3><br>
<p>Municipal Infirmary of Chalandri</p><br>
<p>Gialvalis Clinic is located at Chalandri and specializes in thyroid gland.</p><br>
<h3>Sports</h3><br>
<p>Sport clubs of Chalandri with presence in Greek national divisions are AE Chalandriou (Athlitiki Enosi Chalandriou), GS Chalandriou (Gymnastikos Syllogos Chalandriou) and Nireas Chalandriou. The municipality of Chalandri has also created an extensive channel of sports installations such as tennis courts, football pitches, volleyball and basketball indoor and outdoor courts and also pools in order to enhance the athletic spirit of the inhabitants.</p><br>
<p>Also, due to the geographical convenience of the area of Chalandri there is an extensive bike route, covering the neighbourhoods from Doukissis Plakentias metro station, to Vrilissia and Gearakas area, reaching until Chalandri downtown city centre, providing safe transportations for families and individuals improving the life level of the area.</p><br>
<p>Agia Paraskevi  is a suburb and a municipality in the northeastern part of the Athens agglomeration, Greece. It is part of the North Athens regional unit. Agia Paraskevi was named after the main church of the town, which is dedicated to Saint Paraskevi of Rome.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Agia Paraskevi is situated near the northern edge of the forested Hymettus mountain range, 9 km northeast of Athens city centre. The municipality has an area of 7.935 km. The built-up area of Agia Paraskevi is continuous with those of the neighbouring Cholargos, Chalandri and Gerakas. Besides the central area around the Agia Paraskevi Square, Agia Paraskevi consists of 7 districts: Kontopefko, Nea Zoi, Tsakos, Stavros, Aigiannis, Pefkakia and Paradeisos. The nuclear research center Demokritos, which hosts the sole nuclear reactor in Greece, is situated in Agia Paraskevi. It is also home of the Greek Ministry of Agriculture.</p><br>
<p>The main thoroughfare is Mesogeion Avenue, which connects Agia Paraskevi with central Athens. The eastern beltway Motorway 64 passes through the southeastern part of the municipality. The municipality is served by several metro stations and a suburban railway station, located in adjacent municipalities.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Agia Paraskevi was part of the community of Chalandri until 1931, when it became a separate community. It became a municipality in 1963. Formerly a farmers&#39; village, it experienced much suburban development since the 1950s.</p><br>
<p>In 1993, there was considerable opposition from inhabitants of the suburb to the construction of the Hymettus ring road (Motorway 64). The ring road was to form a major highway on the mountainside linked directly to the Motorway 6, and the construction of both motorways were to commence immediately. The realization that this plan would demand the felling of a considerable number of trees, as well as spurring an increase in noise pollution, predictably aroused the opposition of the local population, who requested a different solution: a covered road. However, the government would not reverse the decision and, in fact, sent bulldozers to the mountainside. This led to a riot in April, 1993. Thousands of people travelled up the mountainside and faced the bulldozers, forcing the drivers to leave. At length police arrived and managed to force the demonstrators off the site; eventually the construction of the two highways began, and was completed in 2001. The road was covered only at a small section, that running over the Deree College.</p><br>
<h2>Sports</h2><br>
<p>The football team of the city is Agia Paraskevi F.C., known as "Santa", attracting devoted fans. During the Olympic games in 2004, a part of the historical Marathon passed through Agia Paraskevi over Mesogeion avenue. Agia Paraskevi hosts also two basketball clubs with earlier presence in the higher national divisions, Basketball Agia Paraskevi and GS Agia Paraskevi.</p><br>
<h2>Education</h2><br>
<p>The Lycée Franco-Hellénique Eugène Delacroix (LFH), a French international school, is in the town.</p><br>
<h2>Twin towns</h2><br>
<p>Agia Paraskevi is twinned with:</p><br>
<p>Saint-Brieuc, France (May 1992)</p><br>
<p>Grocka, Serbia</p><br>
<p>. Retrieved on 2007-06-18. (May 1994)</p><br>
<p>Geroskipou, Cyprus (May 1998)</p><br>
<h2>Historical population</h2><br>
<p>Cholargos  - alternate name, Holargos - is a suburb of Athens, Greece, located northeast of the city center and about 6 km away from Syntagma Square. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Papagou-Cholargos, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit. The municipal unit has an area of 3.950 km. The main thoroughfare is Mesogeion Avenue, which connects Cholargos with central Athens and the northern beltway Motorway 6.</p><br>
<p>Cholargos was the name of a deme of ancient Attica. The most prominent citizen of ancient Cholargos was Pericles. Cholargos was part of the community of Chalandri until 1933, when it became a separate community. It became a municipality in 1963.</p><br>
<h2>International relations</h2><br>
<p>Cholargos is twinned with:</p><br>
<p>Aveiro, Portugal</p><br>
<h2>Historical population</h2><br>
<h2>Government and infrastructure</h2><br>
<p>The headquarters of the Ministry of Infrastructure, Transport and Networks are in Cholargos.</p><br>
<p>Elliniko  is a suburb of Athens, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform, it is part of the municipality Elliniko-Argyroupoli, of which it is a municipal unit. Elliniko is known for the Hellinikon Olympic Complex, built on the grounds of the former Ellinikon International Airport for the 2004 Summer Olympics.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Elliniko is situated near the Saronic Gulf coast, 10 km south of Athens city centre. The municipality has an area of 7.127 km. The former airport is in the western part of the municipal unit, near the coast. Most of the residential area is in the eastern part, east of the former airport. The northern part of the airport has been converted to a sports complex. There are plans to convert the remaining part into a park.</p><br>
<p>Elliniko is well connected to the centre of Athens through a new line of the Athens metro (Elliniko station). The Athens Tram serves the coastal part of Elliniko.</p><br>
<h2>Economy</h2><br>
<p>Hellenic Imperial Airways has its head office in Elliniko. The Greek Civil Aviation Authority also has its head office in Elliniko.</p><br>
<h2>Climate</h2><br>
<p>According to the data provided by the Hellenic National Meteorological Service Elliniko has an average annual temperature of 18.5°C and receives 364.8 mm of precipitation per year thus it falls in the BSh hot semi-arid climate category with strong Mediterranean influences according to the Köppen climate classification.</p><br>
<h2>Sports</h2><br>
<p>Hellinikon Olympic Complex is located in Elliniko. It was built for the staging of the 2004 Summer Olympics and consists five venues. Elliniko also houses the basketball club Elliniko-Sourmena B.C. with many achievements in women&#39;s basketball.</p><br>
<h2>Historical population</h2><br>
<p>Korydallos  is a municipality in the Piraeus regional unit, Greece. It is a suburb of Athens.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Korydallos is situated southeast of the mountain Aegaleo. It is located 7 km west of central Athens and 3 km north of Piraeus. The municipality has an area of 4.324 km. The main street Taxiarchon has become a well known shopping center with many fashion shops and boutiques.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Korydallos was founded in ancient times, and was one of the 100 municipalities of ancient Athens democracy system at the end of the 6th century BC. Theophilos Corydalleus (1563–1646) was a philosopher who lived in Corydallos. 200 years later, Korydallos was known as Koutsoukari after the property owner of the greater area, Emmanouil Koutsikaris. After that it was renamed into Pachy after the next owner (Pachinas). In 1923, the town was renamed back into its ancient name, Korydallos. The population in 1928 was 2,500. Korydallos was part of the municipality of Piraeus until 1934, when it became a separate community. It was elevated to municipality status in 1946. The city now boasts a population of 63,000.</p><br>
<h2>Historical population</h2><br>
<h2>Football teams</h2><br>
<p>Aetos Korydallou</p><br>
<p>Kypros Korydallou</p><br>
<p>Thuella Korydallou</p><br>
<p>Ermis Korydallou</p><br>
<p>Nea Ionia  is a northern suburb of Athens, Greece, and a municipality of the Attica region. It was named after Ionia, the region in Anatolia from which many Greeks migrated in the 1920s as a part of the Population exchange between Greece and Turkey.</p><br>
<p>Nea Ionia is 7 km northeast of Athens city centre. The municipality has an area of 4.421 km. It is served by three STASY commuter rail stations: Nea Ionia, Pefkakia and Perissos.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>In the past, the area was named Podarades after a Byzantine family (Podaras family) which has farms in this place. The modern settlement was built after the Greco-Turkish War (1919-22) and the subsequent population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923. The suburb developed rapidly thanks to carpet handicrafts. The refugees carried their expertise in Athens and opened important carpet handicrafts. This branch was the main economical source for the residents of Nea Ionia for many years. Nea Ionia gradually increases its population and was expanded in a large area. The suburb today comprises the districts Perissos, Kalogreza, Alsoupoli, Pefkakia, Eleftheroupoli, Inepoli, Saframpoli and Neapoli.</p><br>
<h2>Sports</h2><br>
<p>Nea Ionia is the seat of the clubs O.F. Nea Ionia (Όμιλος Φιλάθλων Νέας Ιωνίας), club founded in 1926 with achievements in handball and Nea Ionia F.C. Other notable clubs are Eleftheroupoli F.C. with earlier presence in Beta Ethniki and DIKE.AS. Nea Ionia with current presence in A1 Ethniki handball. In the past there are also the important clubs PAO Saframpolis, PAO Kalogrezas and Ikaroi Neas Ionias which are inactive today.</p><br>
<h2>Historical population</h2><br>
<h2>Notable people</h2><br>
<p>Maria Farantouri (1947-), Greek singer</p><br>
<p>Stelios Kazantzidis (1931–2001), Greek singer</p><br>
<p>Nikos Xanthopoulos (1934-), Greek actor</p><br>
<p>Taki Tsan (1979-), Greek rapper</p><br>
<p>Pantelis Pantelidis (1983-2016), Greek Singer</p><br>
<p>Psychiko  is a suburb of Athens, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Filothei-Psychiko, of which it is the seat and a municipal unit. The municipality has an area of 2.776 km.</p><br>
<h2>Overview</h2><br>
<p>Psychiko is located 5 km northeast of Athens city centre. It is a strictly residential suburb of Athens, with commercial businesses allowed only within two small designated zones, the "Nea Agora" (New Market) and the "Palaia Agora" (Old Market), with current regulations also restricting buildings to full detachment, and a maximum of 3 floors. Psychiko was historically the home of aristocrats, members of the Greek royal family, and generally old money people. The area remains one of the wealthiest suburbs of Athens, with very high land value, and a number of embassies, particularly of rich Middle Eastern countries, to be found located in Psychiko, Neo Psychiko and neighbouring Filothei. This was once home to Queen Frederika of Greece, until the military coup détat of 1967. Andreas Papandreou and his wife Margaret also lived in Psychiko before the dictatorship. Later, when he became Prime Minister he left Psychiko and moved to Ekali. In recent decades however, many prominent families choose to build their houses in the southern, seaside suburbs, like Glyfada or Lagonisi. A number of Greek private schools are located in the area: the Athens College, the Moraitis School, the Arsakeio, and the areas most historic public school, the Varvakeio, in Neo Psychiko is also the prestigious Greek/French School "Ursulines". Public municipal facilities, for their part, include a very active cultural center, a 6-court tennis club, an indoor basketball/volleyball stadium, an outdoor basketball and volleyball venue, and a rollerskating rink.</p><br>
<h2>Name</h2><br>
<p>The name literally means "an act of charity". A popular legend about the battle of Marathon and the Marathon run was recorded by Andreas Karkavitsas in the 19th century, and also by Linos Politis.</p><br>
<h2>Historical population</h2><br>
<h2>Notable people</h2><br>
<p>Constantine II of Greece, former King of the Hellenes; also competed in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, winning a gold medal.</p><br>
<p>Sofía de Grecia, Queen of Spain, sister of Constantine II.</p><br>
<p>Nikos Dimou, writer.</p><br>
<h2>Embassies and consulates</h2><br>
<p>Psychiko is home to many embassies.</p><br>
<p>State</p><br>
<h3>Consulates</h3><br>
<p>Tripoli  is a city in the central part of the Peloponnese, in Greece. It is the capital of the Peloponnese region as well as of the regional unit of Arcadia. The homonym municipality has around 47,000 inhabitants.</p><br>
<h2>Etymology</h2><br>
<p>In the Middle Ages the place was known as Drobolitsa, Droboltsá, or Dorboglitza, either from the Greek Hydropolitsa, Water City or perhaps from the South Slavic for Plain of Oaks. The association made by 18th- and 19th-century scholars with the idea of the "three cities" (Τρίπολις, τρεις πόλεις "three cities": variously Callia, Dipoena and Nonacris, mentioned by Pausanias without geographical context, or Tegea, Mantineia and Pallantium, or Mouchli, Tegea and Mantineia or Nestani, Mouchli and Thana), were considered paretymologies by G.C. Miles. An Italian geographical atlas of 1687 notes the fort of Goriza e Mandi et Dorbogliza; a subsequent Italian geographical dictionary of 1827 attributes the name Dorbogliza to the ruins of Mantineia (Mandi) and states that it is located north of Tripolizza.</p><br>
<p>The Ottoman Turks referred to the town and the district as Tripoliçe.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>In spring 1770 during a Greek uprising known as Orlov Revolt, the revolutionary armies were halted out of Tripolitsa. As a retaliation of the Greek uprising Albanian mercenaries of the Ottomans slaughtered 3,000 Greeks in a few hours upon entering the city. Total massacre and destruction of the city was avoided after intervention of Osman bey, leader of the Albanian mercenaries.</p><br>
<p>Before the Greek War of Independence, under the Ottoman name of "Tripoliçe", it was one of the Ottoman administrative centers in the Peloponnese (the Morea Eyalet, often called "pashalik of Tripolitsa") and had large Muslim and Jewish populations. Tripolis was one of the main targets of the Greek insurgents in the Greek War of Independence, who stormed it on 17 October 1821, following the bloody Siege of Tripolitsa, and exterminated the Muslim and Jewish populations in revenge.</p><br>
<p>Ibrahim Pasha retook the city on June 22, 1825, after it had been abandoned by the Greeks. Before he evacuated the Peloponnese in early 1828, he destroyed the city and tore down its walls.</p><br>
<p>After the independent Greek state was established in 1830, Tripoli was rebuilt and was developed as one of the main cities of the Kingdom of Greece, serving as the capital of the Arcadia district. During the 19th and the 20th centuries the city emerged to be the administrative, economic, commercial and transportation center of central and south Peloponnese.</p><br>
<h2>Geography and climate</h2><br>
<p>The city of Tripolis has a mediterranean climate (Köppen: Csa). Ιt is in the center of the Peloponnese, in a broad montane basin at about 650 m in altitude and surrounded by thickly wooded mountains on all sides, the tallest and closest of which is Mount Mainalon to the northwest. The southwest of the Tripolis basin formerly consisted of wetlands which have now been drained and converted to farmland. Because of its inland location and high altitude, Tripolis has a transitional mediterranean/continental climate with hot dry summers and cold winters. Summer temperatures can exceed 38 &deg;C and in winter temperatures below -10 &deg;C have been observed. Snow or sleet can occur several times between late October and early April.</p><br>
<p>Its main plazas are aligned with the main street and with a highway linking to Pyrgos and Patras. One of them is named Kennedy, the other is named Georgiou B&#39; (George II). The southern part has its main street named Washington. The main section of the city is enclosed around the castle walls that were built during the Ottoman occupation of Greece. An industrial park has been built in the southwest.</p><br>
<h2>Municipality</h2><br>
<p>The municipality of Tripoli was formed at the 2011 local government reform by merging these 8 former municipalities, that became municipal units:</p><br>
<p>Falanthos</p><br>
<p>Korythio</p><br>
<p>Levidi</p><br>
<p>Mantineia</p><br>
<p>Skiritida</p><br>
<p>Tegea</p><br>
<p>Tripoli</p><br>
<p>Valtetsi</p><br>
<p>The municipality has an area of 1,475.805 km, the municipal unit 119.287 km.</p><br>
<h3>Subdivisions</h3><br>
<p>The municipal unit of Tripoli is subdivided into these communities:</p><br>
<p>Agios Vasileios</p><br>
<p>Agios Konstantinos</p><br>
<p>Evandro</p><br>
<p>Makri</p><br>
<p>Merkovouni</p><br>
<p>Pallantio</p><br>
<p>Pelagos</p><br>
<p>Perthori</p><br>
<p>Skopi</p><br>
<p>Thanas</p><br>
<p>Tripoli</p><br>
<h2>Education</h2><br>
<p>Tripoli is the seat of the recently founded University of the Peloponnese with two departments of the Sciences and Technology School and one department of the Economics and Administration School.</p><br>
<h2>Transportation</h2><br>
<p>Because it is at the centre of the Peloponnese, Tripolis is a transportation hub. Corinth is 75 km NE, Pyrgos 145 km E, Patras 144 km NW, Kalamata 65 km SW, and Sparti 60 km S.</p><br>
<p>Tripoli is mainly accessed from Athens and the rest of Greece through the Corinth-Tripoli-Kalamata motorway, known as the Moreas Motorway (A7). An alternative route is the GR-7 which used to be the main highway to Tripoli before the construction of the motorway. The city is also accessed by GR-74 and GR-76 from Pyrgos and by GR-39 from Sparta.</p><br>
<p>Tripoli is served by the metre gauge railway line from Corinth to Kalamata of the Hellenic Railways Organisation (OSE). The line was renovated and passenger services to Árgos and Corinth, which had been suspended for a few years, were reinstated in 2009. However, in December 2010 services ceased again due to the general suspension of railway services in the Peloponnese.</p><br>
<h2>Military</h2><br>
<p>Tripoli is home to the two largest Armed Forces bootcamp centers of Greece, one for the Hellenic Army and one for the Hellenic Air Force</p><br>
<p>251 Army Training Battalion (Greek)</p><br>
<p>124 Basic Training Wing (Greek)</p><br>
<h2>Sports</h2><br>
<p>Tripoli hosts three sport clubs with presence in the higher national divisions in Greek football and basketball. These clubs are shown below.</p><br>
<h2>In popular culture</h2><br>
<p>The Siege of Tripolitsa was made famous in the folk (Δημοτικό) song "40 παλικάρια από την Λιβαδειά" (Forty lads from Livadhia)</p><br>
<h2>Historical population</h2><br>
<h2>Famous people</h2><br>
<p>Konstantinos Georgakopoulos (1890–1978), lawyer and politician, Prime Minister of Greece</p><br>
<p>Moralı Enişte Hasan Pasha (1658–1713), Ottoman vizier and general</p><br>
<p>Yusuf Agah Efendi (1744–1824), the first permanent ambassador of the Ottoman Emprire in England</p><br>
<p>Kostas Karyotakis (1896–1928), poet</p><br>
<p>Theodoros Kolokotronis (3 April 1770 – 4 February 1843), general and pre-eminent leader of the Greek War of Independence</p><br>
<p>Ioannis Kossos, sculptor</p><br>
<p>Yiannis Kouros (1956), ultramarathon runner</p><br>
<p>Konstantinos Manetas (1879–1960), general and politician</p><br>
<p>Theodoros Manetas (1881–1947), general and politician</p><br>
<p>Alexandros Papanastasiou (1876–1936), politician and sociologist, Prime Minister of Greece</p><br>
<p>Electros aka Babis Vekris (1950) Artist / Sculptor</p><br>
<p>George Peponis, medical practitioner, sports administrator and former captain of the Australian Rugby League team was born in the town in 1953</p><br>
<p>Stavros Tsiolis (1937), film director</p><br>
<p>Petros Tatoulis (1953), politician</p><br>
<h2>International relations</h2><br>
<h3>Twin towns — sister cities</h3><br>
<p>Tripoli, Greece is twinned with:</p><br>
<p>Byblos, Lebanon</p><br>
<p>Peine, Germany</p><br>
<p>Vrilissia  is a suburban municipality of the North Athens regional unit, in the Attica region. It is located in the Athens basin, at the southwestern foot of the Penteli Mountain. At the 2011 census, the municipality had 30,741 residents.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The administrative limits of the municipality extend from the Chalandri gully up to foothills of the Penteli, known as Patima and Koufos Hills. Vrilissia lies approximately 10 km north-east of the centre of the Greek capital and 5 km northwest of the city of Pallini, centre of East Attica. The area of the Vrilissia municipality is 3.856 km&sup2;.</p><br>
<p>Among the municipalitys features one notices the low rise profile with four apartment floors maximum at the center, while particularly high is also the rate of private gardens. The centre of the municipality is built up around the Analipseos Main Church (Jesus Christs Ascension Church), while the commercial area mainly extends throughout the Penteli Avenue. The municipality is generally composed of residents among the median and upper income bands.</p><br>
<p>The municipality is connected with all urban and suburban means of transport of Attica. The Athens northern beltway Motorway 6 and the short Motorway 642 pass through the municipality. It is served by two commuter railway stations (Doukissis Plakentias station and Pentelis station) and a metro station (Doukissis Plakentias). Several (and relatively frequent) buses serve destinations to neighbouring suburbs as well as the centre of Athens. The main thoroughfare is Pentelis Avenue, which connects Vrilissia with Chalandri and central Athens.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>In antiquity the area of Vrilissia formed part of the deme of Phlya, which covered the land spanning from Psychiko to Agia Paraskevi and mainly centered on what is now known as the Municipality of Chalandri.</p><br>
<p>Vrilissia was part of the municipality of Chalandri until 1949, when it became a separate community. It became a municipality in 1990. The suburb experienced rapid development during 2004 as a result of city improvements for the Athens Olympic Games, with the citys peripheral road circuit completed, works of the citys regeneration, widening of the central avenue and diverting of the inner traffic. After long-lasting conflicts, the Naval Base region was transferred to the municipality with an official ceremony, while many small parks were created in each neighbourhood.</p><br>
<p>Tax Values of the land in 2007 fluctuate from €1.550 – 2.050 / m, in similar levels with the neighbouring Chalandri and Agia Paraskevi. Actual selling prices broke through the barrier of the €2.000 / m reaching between €2.200 and 3.000 / m.</p><br>
<p>Mayor of municipality since 2007 is Mr Kostas Ioannidis, while Mr Nikos Papadopoulos is granted with the title of Emeritus President of the Municipality as chairman of the Vrilissia Community for many years, assisting on local issues.</p><br>
<h2>Etymology</h2><br>
<p>One may come across many references of the "Vrilissos" (or alternatively "Vrilittos") name in some of Thucydides, Herodotus and Strabos writings. The name probably means "Great Rock" and derives from the words "vri" (βρι), meaning "forceful", from the verb "vriao" (βριάω), meaning "Im full of power", "li" (λη), from the word "laas" (λάας) meaning "rock", and the Pelasgic ending "sos" (σος). The Penteli Mountain was named that way because of the great white stones and beautiful marbles mined out and used for the magnificent world-renowned monuments of Acropolis in antiquity (as well as for the modern buildings of the 19th century in Athens), before the Great Penteli Abbey being set at the foot of the mountain in 1576 by the bishop of Evripos, Timotheos Mentelis.</p><br>
<p>The word "Vrilissia" is a plural form of a neuter noun (τα Βριλήσσια) referring to the land of the Great Rock Mountain (Penteli). The word is pronounced as "Vri-lί-ssi-a". The Greek form for Municipality of Vrilissia is "Δήμος Βριλησσίων".</p><br>
<p>The citys logo depicts a well known ancient Greek trove, whereas a boulder representing the municipalitys megalith-shaped form is placed at the main park of the city (Eleftherias Square, meaning Square of Freedom).</p><br>
<h2>Features</h2><br>
<p>Vrilissia is an affluent suburb with several schools spanning all grades, sporting grounds and parks; it is also home to a large commercial district with a number of banks and several malls within its territory. Two popular centres of activity are the two main squares, "Plateia Iroon" or Iroon Square and "Plateia Analipseos" or Analipseos Square, recently renovated and hosting several small coffee shops. Vrilissia has exceptionally wide, straight roads, in stark contrast to those typically found in Athens, and is also relatively green, with most houses/apartment blocks extending to gardens.</p><br>
<p>Vrilissia has a popular men&#39;s handball team, competing in the A1 league.</p><br>
<h2>Vrilissia suburban forest</h2><br>
<p>The administrative limits of the city at around 1950–1970 reached up to the foothills of the Pentelikon Mountain. In particular, the residential part at the urban design of the suburb in the old days reached to the peripheral road of Penteli, Anapafseoss Avenue. Over that avenue the woodland of Patima Hill (Footing Hill) spread, on which the Metamorphoseos tou Sotiros (Jesus Christ Saviors Metamorphosis) church was set, as well as a small space with pits placed for the neighbouring marble workshops. This space was progressively shaped for the settlement of the Vrilissia Municipal Damari (Pit) Theatre of Aliki Vougiouklaki.</p><br>
<p>At that time, Penteli constituted a popular destination for day excursions for Athenians, as well as picnics, walks in the forest, a stop for a coffee, or dinner at the local taverns. Despite the natural wealth of the mountain, it was never characterised as a "National Forest", as was the case with the neighbouring Parnitha Mountain, largely due to the landholding muniments of the Penteli Abbey since the 16th century, often sold or adopted by local mountaineer graziers working at the abbey&#39;s farm-lands, before the constitution of the modern Greek state. When urban housing projects began reaching Halandri, Vrilissia and Melissia, Penteli started to transform into a residential landscape. Features that had long started to creep in, since the time of the monks, the Sarakatsaneoi graziers and the Doukissa of Plakentia who lived there since the 18th century. The gradual rise in value of the region, caused by the build-up of the area, triggered individual or association claims, while the available pieces of land at the main Vrilissia area were rapidly taken up.</p><br>
<p>When the Penteli town plan began to take form, the claims increased, both in volume and intensity. Courts began to vindicate individual and association claims with a legal base of "good fidelity", and "usucaption". Vrilissia kept expanding into the hill, while it saw losses from each of its sides from the neighbouring suburbs of Melissia, New and Old Penteli. Around this time and in stark contrast to the lower-density provisions afforded for the Ano Vrilissia settlement below the Anapafseos Avenue, the hill was allowed multi-floor apartment blocks (up to five levels), in the process compromising the aesthetics of the Penteliko scenery.</p><br>
<p>The hill was residented during a period when the cadastre and the distinction of the urban and forestry areas were at a primal stage (and still are in 2007 for Greece). The south area of the hill looking at the Athens basin was included in the urban design of Vrilissia and the street layout approved was implemented. However, at the east of the Patima of Vrilissia residential settlement, beyond the steep Kalavriton (Kalavrita) Street, still lies a forestry area that has not been recognized nor by the plan of Vrilissia, neither by Penteli. This area is known as "Krassas Settlement", which has been a point of scepticism for the various municipal authorities that governed the suburb. The need for applying the law often stumbled at social dilemmas, with resulted to the few residents of the settlement being cut away from any form of transportation or other urban convenience applied, but with the municipality also being unable to utilise part of its forestry heritage. This area amounts roughly to 0.045 km&sup2, of which the 0.010 are inhabited. The latest proposals of the municipal council suggested concession of 500 m&sup2; per household to those who abide by the criteria of the law (that allocate titles of purchase of the land inhabited). The municipality, according to the same proposal, claims the remaining indisposed land at the region of 0.030 km&sup2; plus those that in collaboration with the forestry service of Penteli will be declared as forestry. As a result of the above, a few months before the summer of 2007 it had been forecast that 0.040 km&sup2; of forestry land would be acquired and utilised by the municipality. Still, some local papers forecast negative events, as this would stimulate the appetite of many.</p><br>
<p>Finally, a pine-clad area of 0.088 km&sup2; was preserved around the northern borders of the municipality, up to the neighbouring suburbs and reaching the Halandri gullies to the south, a natural protection of the city from the traffic and exhaust. The climate of Vrilissia has always been exceptional in a "cement city" as some parts of Athens are often characterized. Even today, with the important new transportation projects built, and the trading development, Vrilissia&#39;s climate is still considered to be clean, offering ideal conditions of living to its residents.</p><br>
<p>Nevertheless, during the last years many unfortunate incidents have threatened this particular feature of the region.</p><br>
<p>In the means of the 2000s (decade), members of the Building Association "Agios Theoklitos" (Saint Theoklitos) are introduced as owners of large pieces of the Patima forested land to the west of the Vrilissia built area (near the Penteli Avenue), claiming that their association bought this piece of land in 1965 from the Penteli Abbey. However, the Court of First Instance of Athens (Πολυμελές Πρωτοδικείο Αθηνών) by the 3537/2001 decision indicated that the Greek state was the owner of the sub judice piece of land, for the Penteli Abbey had never been the owner of the 88.542 m&sup2; sold to the Association. For another individual claim of 9.713 m at the same geographic region, the Court on the 7319/2005 decision indicated that at the same the individual had bought the sub judice piece of land at an auction sale (December 20, 1971) by the Penteli Abbey for 2.980.000 drachmas (δραχμές). The thought prevailed in the court was that the wide region of "Gerotsakouli" (Γεροτσακούλι) had been owned by the abbey since its foundation in 1578 by Saint Timotheos Mentelis, Bishop of Evripos partially by donations from devout Christians and by purchase in 1600 by the Ottoman from Karystos of Evia named Kagadis with muniments that were destroyed during the Greek liberation by the army of Omer Vryonis.</p><br>
<p>The recorded suggestions of the Greek state that the sub judice piece of land was characterized as forested since 1836 and that it constituted part of a wider region that came under its ownership by the Treaty of Konstantinoupoli on account of the "final distinction of the Greek borders" and by the 1830 protocols of London, as successor of the Turkish State, were not accepted by the court. On the contrary, the court decided that the Abbey from 1600 until 1955 owned in good faith those parts (among the rest) and became owner of this piece of public property on usucaption, since also public property may come under private ownership as long as this piece of property is used for 30 consecutive years in good faith, which was completed on 9/11 1915. However, it only until the July 2007 that the Appellate reached a verdict on the same case which vindicated the individual claims on the same argument and which did not even accept the procedural intervention of the Municipality at the Court. This particular verdict constitutes a critical decision for the irrevocable examination of the substance of the case because even attempting to exercise recantation would only affect jurisprudential matters of the case and not the substance of the verdict. In each case, however, the Greek state and the municipality are expected to examine any possible legal means left.</p><br>
<p>On June 29, 2007, only a few weeks after the announcement of the verdict and the refusal of the municipality to accept it, a great fire burst at that specific region, while the fire service was scattered around other great fires all over Greece. Fires consumed several residential buildings and forests, with the blaze lasting during the evening hours and drawing to an end following that. Another fire spread later in the summer, on August 16, 2007, and consumed tens more houses as flames spread on dry grass; if this had been removed, fire would not have spread to buildings. The conflagration entered the settlement in the evening hours. Firefighters arrived to battle the flames along with firetrucks, helicopters and airplanes. The fire burnt for several hours and ended at night. It is only some weeks after the black-letter day, the Great Parnitha Mountain was partially destroyed that this incident came to light. The government fights against the fire and manages to control it with the help of the residents only a few hours before the light comes down. However, that&#39;s not the end of the dark summer of 2007 that such incidents happen. The Vrilissia gully is also struck while evidence of arson is found. Even the great Naval Base, a junction of interests, is struck, although the greater part of its reformation project to turn it into a park is completed. Some days afterwards, Nea Penteli and the northern district of Melissia are also struck, while the Marousi Municipality rushes to characterize the great Syggros Park as "Syggros Forest" as smaller incidents of fire take place there. Adjacent Municipalities with forest heritage begin volunteer projects of surveillance by residents (such as Pefki and Vrilissia) while the Chalandri gully is also struck, only a few metres away from the local fire brigade department. The incidents around Attica are numerous (Kalivia Thorikou, Keratea, Imittos and Panio forests etc.) at the same time other Greek peripheries are in danger.</p><br>
<h2>Sports</h2><br>
<p>Vrilissia is the seat of two clubs with Panhellenic titles (championships or cups). ESN Vrilissia (Ekpolitistikos Omilos Neon Vrilissia) has won three titles in Greek Handball competitions and FO Vrilissia (Filathlitikos Omilos Vrilissia) has won titles in Women Volleyball Competitions.</p><br>
<h2>Population</h2><br>
<h2>Settlements</h2><br>
<p>Analipsi</p><br>
<p>Rematia</p><br>
<p>Ano Vrilissia</p><br>
<p>Patima Hill</p><br>
<p>Krassas Settlement</p><br>
<p>Doukissis Plakentias Belt</p><br>
<p>Pichincha is an active stratovolcano in the country of Ecuador, whose capital Quito wraps around its eastern slopes. The two highest peaks of the mountain are Wawa Pichincha   and Ruku Pichincha  . The active caldera is in Wawa Pichincha on the western side of the mountain.</p><br>
<h2>Description</h2><br>
<p>Both peaks are visible from the city of Quito and both are popular acclimatization climbs. Wawa Pichincha is usually accessed from the village of Lloa outside of Quito. Ruku is typically accessed from the TelefériQo on the western side of Quito. In October 1999, the volcano erupted and covered the city with several inches of ash. Prior to that, the last major eruptions were in 1553 and in 1660, when about 30 cm of ash fell on the city.</p><br>
<p>The province in which it is located takes its name from the mountain, as is the case for many of the other provinces in Ecuador (Cotopaxi, Chimborazo, Imbabura, etc.). On May 24, 1822, General Sucre&#39;s southern campaign, in the context of the Spanish-America war of independence, came to a climax when patriot forces defeated the Spanish colonial army on the south-east slopes of this volcano. The engagement, known as the Battle of Pichincha, secured the independence of the territories of present-day Ecuador.</p><br>
<h2>Geography and geology</h2><br>
<h2>Eruptions</h2><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The first recorded ascent of Guagua Pichincha was in 1582 by a group of locals led by José Ortiguera.</p><br>
<p>In 1737 several members of the French Geodesic Mission to the Equator, including Charles-Marie de La Condamine, Pierre Bouguer and Antonio de Ulloa, spent 23 days on the summit of Rucu Pichincha as part of their triangulation work to calculate the length of a degree of latitude.</p><br>
<p>On 17 June 1742, during the same mission, La Condamine and Bouguer made an ascent of Guagua Pichincha and looked down into the crater of the volcano, which had last erupted in 1660. La Condamine compared what he saw to the underworld.</p><br>
<p>Lake Quinault  is a lake on the Olympic Peninsula in western Washington state. It is located in the glacial-carved Quinault Valley of the Quinault River, at the southern edge of Olympic National Park in the northwestern United States. One of the most dominant features of Lake Quinault is being located within the Quinault Rain Forest, a temperate rain forest.</p><br>
<p>Lake Quinault is owned by the Quinault Indian Nation. The area is accessible from USA Route 101.</p><br>
<p>Area activities include fishing (with permit from the Quinaults), scenic drives (a loop around the lake is longer than 30 mi), and hiking. The southern side of the lake features a system of short hiking trails maintained by the USA Forest Service that are accessible to casual day hikers.</p><br>
<p>The southern side of the lake is home to the historic Lake Quinault Lodge and the Rain Forest Resort Village and is encompassed by the Olympic National Forest. The Quinault Loop Trail on the south side of the lake and the nearby Quinault Rain Forest Interpretive Trail connecting campgrounds, trails, and the lodge, with excellent temperate rainforest viewing. Each trail was designated a National Recreation Trail in 1979. The north side of the lake is bordered mainly by private homes and some small resorts located in Olympic National Park.</p><br>
<p>Lake Quinault receives an average of 332.92 centimeters (131.07 inches) of precipitation per year.</p><br>
<p>The Wudang Mountains consist of a small mountain range in the northwestern part of Hubei, China, just south of Shiyan. They are home to a famous complex of Taoist temples and monasteries associated with the god Xuanwu. The Wudang Mountains are renowned for the practice of Tai chi and Taoism as the Taoist counterpart to the Shaolin Monastery, which is affiliated with Chinese Chán Buddhism. The Wudang Mountains are one of the "Four Sacred Mountains of Taosim" in China, an important destination for taoist pilgrimages.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>On Chinese maps, the name "Wudangshan" is applied both to the entire mountain range (which runs east-west along the southern edge of the Han River, crossing several county-level divisions of Shiyan), and to the small group of peaks located within Wudangshan subdistrict of Danjiangkou, Shiyan. It is the latter specific area which is known as a Taoist center.</p><br>
<p>Modern maps show the elevation of the highest of the peaks in the Wudang Shan "proper" as 1612 meters; however, the entire Wudangshan range has somewhat higher elevations elsewhere.</p><br>
<p>Some consider the Wudang Mountains to be a "branch" of the Daba Mountains range, which is a major mountain system of the western Hubei, Shaanxi, Chongqing and Sichuan.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>For centuries, the mountains of Wudang have been known as an important center of Taoism, especially famous for its Taoist versions of martial arts or Taichi.</p><br>
<p>The first site of worship—the Five Dragons Temple—was constructed at the behest of Emperor Taizong of Tang. Further structures were added during the Song and Yuan dynasties, while the largest complex on the mountain was built during the Ming dynasty (14th–17th centuries) as the Yongle Emperor claimed to enjoy the protection of the god Beidi or Xuan Wu. Temples regularly had to be rebuilt, and not all survived; the oldest existant structures are the Golden Hall and the Ancient Bronze Shrine, made in 1307. Other noted structures include Nanyang Palace (built in 1285–1310 and extended in 1312), the stonewalled Forbidden City at the peak (built in 1419), and the Purple Cloud Temple (built in 1119–1126, rebuilt in 1413 and extended in 1803–1820).</p><br>
<p>The monasteries such as the Wudang Garden were made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994.</p><br>
<p>On January 19, 2003, the 600-year-old Yuzhengong Palace at the Wudang Mountains was accidentally burned down by an employee of a martial arts school. A fire broke out in the hall, reducing the three rooms that covered 200 square meters to ashes. A gold-plated statue of Zhang Sanfeng, which was usually housed in Yuzhengong, was moved to another building just before the fire, and so escaped destruction in the inferno.</p><br>
<h2>Association with martial arts</h2><br>
<p>At the first national martial arts tournament organized by the Central Guoshu Institute in 1928, participants were separated into practitioners of Shaolin and Wudang styles. Styles considered to belong to the latter group—called Wudangquan—are those with a strong element of Taoist neidan exercises. Typical examples of Wudangquan are Taijiquan, Xingyiquan and Baguazhang. According to legend, Taijiquan was created by the Taoist hermit Zhang Sanfeng, who lived in the Wudang mountains.</p><br>
<p>Wudangquan has been partly reformed to fit the PRC sport and health promotion program. The third biannual Traditional Wushu Festival was held in the Wudang Mountains from October 28 to November 2, 2008.</p><br>
<p>Lake St. Clair  is a freshwater lake that lies between the Canadian province of Ontario and the USA state of Michigan. It was named after Clare of Assisi, on whose feast day it was navigated and christened by French Catholic explorers in 1679. It is part of the Great Lakes system, and along with the St. Clair River and Detroit River, Lake St. Clair connects Lake Huron  with Lake Erie . It has a total surface area of about 430 square miles and average depth of just 11 ft; to ensure an uninterrupted waterway, government agencies on both sides of the lake have maintained a deep shipping channel through the shallow lake for more than a century.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>This lake is situated about 6 mi northeast of the downtown areas of Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario. Along with the St. Clair River and Detroit River, Lake St. Clair connects Lake Huron (to its north) with Lake Erie (to its south); the area is notable for the fact that the Canadian territory around the lake (Windsor metropolitan area) lies south of the adjacent United States territory.</p><br>
<p>Lake Saint Clair measures about 22.5 nmi from north to south and about 21 nmi from east to west. Its total surface area is about 430 square miles. This is a rather shallow lake for its size, with an average depth of about 11 ft, and a maximum natural depth of 21.3 ft. However, it is 27 ft deep in the navigation channel which has been dredged for lake freighter passage. The lake is fed by the St. Clair River, which flows southwards from Lake Huron and has an extensive river delta where it enters Lake Saint Clair. This is the largest delta of the Great Lakes System. Also, the Thames River and Sydenham River flow into Lake Saint Clair from Southwestern Ontario, and the Clinton River flows into it from Michigan. The outflow from Lake Saint Clair flows from its southwestern end into the Detroit River, and thence into Lake Erie.</p><br>
<p>The tarry time (i.e. the time between entering and leaving) of the water in Lake St. Clair averages about seven days, but this can vary from as little as two to as many as thirty days, depending on the direction of the winds, the water circulation patterns, and the amount of water that is flowing out of Lake Huron. If water flows through the navigation channel, which is maintained by the USA Army Corps of Engineers, the time the water remains in the lake is about two days.</p><br>
<p>This lake is part of the Great Lakes System. Because it is 17 times smaller in area than Lake Ontario, it is rarely included in the listings of the Great Lakes but is sometimes referred to as "the sixth Great Lake". There are isolated proposals for its official recognition as a Great Lake, which would affect its inclusion in scientific research projects, etc., designated as being for "The Great Lakes".</p><br>
<p>Carte du lac Sainte-Claire.jpg1702 map of Lake St. Clair</p><br>
<p>Michigan Macomb county Anchor Bay Selfridge AFB IMG 1812.JPGAerial view of Anchor Bay at Lake St. Clair</p><br>
<p>Lake Erie and Lake Saint Clair bathymetry map.pngLake Erie and Lake Saint Clair bathymetric shaded relief map</p><br>
<p>Frozen Lake St Clair.JPGFrozen Lake St Clair</p><br>
<p>Shoreline muck in Lake St. Clair (8741968452).jpgShoreline muck in Lake St. Clair</p><br>
<h2>Naming</h2><br>
<p>First Nations/Native Americans used the lake as part of their extensive navigation of the Great Lakes. The Mississaugas called present-day Lake St. Clair Waawiyaataan(ong), meaning "(at) the whirlpool", and the Wea tribes name derived from the lakes Miami cognate Waayaahtanonki. The Mississaugas established a village near the lake in the latter part of the 17th century. Early French mapmakers had identified the lake by a variety of French and Iroquois names, including Lac des Eaux de Mer; Lac Ganatchio ("kettle," for its shape), in French Lac de la Chaudière. A variety of Native names were associated with sweetness, as the lake was freshwater as opposed to saltwater. These included Otsiketa (sugar or candy), Kandequio or Kandekio (possibly candy), Oiatinatchiketo (probably a form of Otsiketa), and Oiatinonchikebo. Similarly, the Iroquois called present-day Lake Huron, "The Grand Lake of the Sweet Sea" (fresh water as opposed to salt water.) This association was conveyed on French maps as Mer Douce (sweet sea) and Dutch maps as the Latin Mare Dulce.</p><br>
<p>On August 12, 1679, the French explorer René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle arrived with an expedition. He named the body of water Lac Sainte-Claire as the expedition discovered it on the feast day of Saint Clare of Assisi. The historian on the voyage, Louis Hennepin, recorded that the Iroquois called the lake Otseketa.</p><br>
<p>As early as 1710, the English identified the lake on their maps as Saint Clare. By the Mitchell Map in 1755, the spelling appeared as St. Clair, the form that became most widely used. Some scholars credit the name as honoring the American Revolutionary War General Arthur St. Clair, later Governor of the Northwest Territory, but the name Lake St. Clair was in use with the current spelling long before St. Clair became a notable figure. Together the place name and generals name likely influenced settlers naming a proliferation of nearby political jurisdictions: the Michigan county and township of St. Clair, as well as the cities of St. Clair and St. Clair Shores.</p><br>
<p>The origin of the name has also been confused with one Patrick Sinclair, a British officer who purchased land on the St. Clair River at the outlet of the Pine River. There, in 1764, he built Fort Sinclair, which was in use for nearly twenty years before being abandoned.</p><br>
<p>Unlike most smaller lakes in the region &ndash; but like the Great Lakes &ndash; Lake comes at the front of its proper name, rather than the end; this is reflective of its French origins.</p><br>
<h2>Water quality</h2><br>
<p>Lake St Clair&#39;s location, downstream from the largest freshwater delta in the Great Lakes, has a large effect on its turbidity (clarity). Current water quality is quite good despite past incidents and a history of chemical bio-accumulation. A number of cities source drinking water from or just downstream of the lake and quality is closely monitored.</p><br>
<p>In the early 1970s, the Canadian and American governments closed the commercial fishery over concerns of bio-accumulation of mercury. The industry responsible for this contamination was the Dow Chemical Chlor-Alkali Plant in Sarnia, Ontario. Since 1949, Dow Chemical had been operating mercury cell plants for the production of chlorine and other chemicals. Through its production process, it discharged mercury into the river and contaminated the fishery. The fishery has since not been re-opened, although studies have now confirmed mercury levels are well within safe range.</p><br>
<p>Sport fishing remains popular in the lake, having some of the best fishing in the world. The governments on both sides of the lakes continue to monitor and publish guides for sport fish consumption.</p><br>
<h2>Boat clubs</h2><br>
<p>Many yacht clubs (boating and sailing clubs) are located along the shores. Some of which include:</p><br>
<p>Grosse Pointe Yacht Club in Grosse Pointe Shores, Michigan</p><br>
<p>The Old Club, on Harsens Island, Michigan</p><br>
<p>Crescent Sail Yacht Club in Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan</p><br>
<p>Grosse Pointe Club (Little Club) in Grosse Pointe, Michigan</p><br>
<p>Crescent Sail Yacht Club, Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan</p><br>
<p>Clinton River Boat Club (Club Island), near Harsens Island, Michigan</p><br>
<p>Albatross Yacht Club, Anchor Bay, Michigan</p><br>
<p>North Star Sail Club, on the Clinton River, Harrison Twp, Michigan</p><br>
<p>Lake Saint Clair Powerboat Club – Saint Clair Shores, Michigan</p><br>
<p>Lakeshore Sail Club, St. Clair Shores, Michigan</p><br>
<p>Windsor Yacht Club in Windsor, Ontario</p><br>
<p>Southport Sailing Club, Windsor, Ontario</p><br>
<p>St. Clair Sail Club, Belle River (now Lakeshore), Ontario</p><br>
<p>Thames River Yacht Club, Lighthouse Cove (now Lakeshore), Ontario</p><br>
<h2>Public beaches</h2><br>
<p>Mitchells Bay Beach - Mitchells Bay, Ontario is a small community located on the east shore of beautiful Lake St. Clair. The shallow warm water is great for windsurfing, kite surfing and swimming with kids.</p><br>
<p>New Baltimore - Beach at Walter and Mary Burke Park in Downtown New Baltimore, Michigan.</p><br>
<p>Belle Isle Beach – a half-mile long swimming beach located on the west side of Belle Isle, Michigan.</p><br>
<p>Sandpoint Beach – located in Windsor, Ontario near Riverside Dr. East and Florence Ave.</p><br>
<p>Marine City Beach – North end of Water Street in Marine City, Michigan.</p><br>
<p>Lake St Clair Metropark – Harrison Township, Michigan.</p><br>
<p>Belle Isle Beach – Belle Isle, Michigan. Located on the west side of the island, this beach provides a safe swimming area away from the currents of the Detroit River. The beach is well manicured with clear water and sandy bottom. Nice shade trees and grass border the beach.</p><br>
<p>The Northern Isles  is an archipelago comprising a chain of islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. The climate is cool and temperate and much influenced by the surrounding seas. There are two main island groups: Shetland and Orkney. There are a total of 26 inhabited islands with landscapes of the fertile agricultural islands of Orkney contrasting with the more rugged Shetland islands to the north, where the economy is more dependent on fishing and the oil wealth of the surrounding seas. Both have a developing renewable energy industry. They also share a common Pictish and Norse history. Both island groups were absorbed into the Kingdom of Scotland in the 15th century and remained part of the country following the formation of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707, and later the United Kingdom after 1801. The islands played a significant naval role during the world wars of the 20th century.</p><br>
<p>Tourism is important to both archipelagos, with their distinctive prehistoric ruins playing a key part in their attraction, and there are regular ferry and air connections with mainland Scotland. The Scandinavian influence remains strong, especially in relation to local folklore, and both island chains have strong, although distinct, local cultures. The place names of the islands are dominated by their Norse heritage, although some may retain pre-Celtic elements.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The phrase "Northern Isles" generally refers to the main islands of the Orkney and Shetland archipelagos. Stroma, which lies between mainland Scotland and Orkney, is part of Caithness, and so falls under Highland council area for local government purposes, not Orkney. It is, however, clearly one of the "northern isles" of Scotland. Fair Isle and Foula are outliers of Shetland, but would normally be considered as part of Shetland and thus the Northern Isles. Similarly, Sule Skerry and Sule Stack, although distant from the main group, are part of Orkney and technically amongst the Northern Isles. However, the other small islands that lie off the north coast of Scotland are in Highland and thus not usually considered to be part of the Northern Isles.</p><br>
<p>Orkney is situated 16 km north of the coast of mainland Scotland, from which it is separated by the waters of the Pentland Firth.</p><br>
<p>The largest island, known as the "Mainland" has an area of 523.25 km&sup2, making it the sixth largest Scottish island. The total population in 2001 was 19,245 and the largest town is Kirkwall. Shetland is around 170 km north of mainland Scotland, covers an area of 1,468 km&sup2; and has a coastline 2,702 km long. Lerwick, the capital and largest settlement, has a population of around 7,500 and about half of the archipelago&#39;s total population of 22,000 people live within 16 km of the town. Orkney has 20 inhabited islands and Shetland a total of 16.</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>The superficial rock of Orkney is almost entirely Old Red Sandstone, mostly of Middle Devonian age. As in the neighbouring mainland county of Caithness, this sandstone rests upon the metamorphic rocks of the Moine series, as may be seen on the Orkney Mainland, where a narrow strip of the older rock is exposed between Stromness and Inganess, and again on the small island of Graemsay.</p><br>
<p>Middle Devonian basaltic volcanic rocks are found on western Hoy, on Deerness in eastern Mainland and on Shapinsay. Correlation between the Hoy volcanics and the other two exposures has been proposed, but differences in chemistry means this remains uncertain. Lamprophyre dykes of Late Permian age are found throughout Orkney. Glacial striation and the presence of chalk and flint erratics that originated from the bed of the North Sea demonstrate the influence of ice action on the geomorphology of the islands. Boulder clay is also abundant and moraines cover substantial areas.</p><br>
<p>The geology of Shetland is quite different. It is extremely complex, with numerous faults and fold axes. These islands are the northern outpost of the Caledonian orogeny and there are outcrops of Lewisian, Dalriadan and Moine metamorphic rocks with similar histories to their equivalents on the Scottish mainland. There are also small Old Red Sandstone deposits and granite intrusions. The most distinctive feature is the ultrabasic ophiolite, peridotite and gabbro on Unst and Fetlar, which are remnants of the Iapetus Ocean floor. Much of Shetland&#39;s economy depends on the oil-bearing sediments in the surrounding seas.</p><br>
<p>Geological evidence shows that at around 6100 BC a tsunami caused by the Storegga Slides hit the Northern Isles, (as well as much of the east coast of Scotland), and may have created a wave of up to 25 m high in the voes of Shetland where modern populations are highest.</p><br>
<h2>Climate</h2><br>
<p>The Northern Isles have a cool, temperate climate that is remarkably mild and steady for such a northerly latitude, due to the influence of the surrounding seas and the Gulf Stream. In Shetland average peak temperatures are 5 &deg;C in February and 15 &deg;C in August and temperatures over 21 &deg;C are rare. The frost-free period may be as little as 3 months.</p><br>
<p>The average annual rainfall is 982 mm in Orkney and 1,168 mm in Shetland. Winds are a key feature of the climate and even in summer there are almost constant breezes. In winter, there are frequent strong winds, with an average of 52 hours of gales being recorded annually in Orkney. Burradale wind farm on Shetland, which operates with five Vestas V47 660 kW turbines, achieved a world record of 57.9% capacity over the course of 2005 due to the persistent strong winds.</p><br>
<p>Snowfall is usually confined to the period November to February and seldom lies on the ground for more than a day. Less rain falls from April to August although no month receives less than an average of 50 mm. Annual bright sunshine averages 1082 hours in Shetland and overcast days are common.</p><br>
<p>To tourists, one of the fascinations of the islands is their "nightless" summers. On the longest day in Shetland there are over 19 hours of daylight and complete darkness is unknown. This long twilight is known in the Northern Isles as the "simmer dim". Winter nights are correspondingly long with less than six hours of daylight at midwinter. At this time of year the aurora borealis can occasionally be seen on the northern horizon during moderate auroral activity.</p><br>
<h2>Prehistory</h2><br>
<p>There are numerous important prehistoric remains in Orkney, especially from the Neolithic period, four of which form the Heart of Neolithic Orkney UNESCO World Heritage Site that was inscribed in 1999: Skara Brae; Maes Howe; the Stones of Stenness; and Ring of Brodgar. The Knap of Howar Neolithic farmstead situated on the island of Papa Westray is probably the oldest preserved house in northern Europe. This structure was inhabited for 900 years from 3700 BC but was evidently built on the site of an even older settlement. Shetland is also extremely rich in physical remains of the prehistoric eras and there are over 5,000 archaeological sites all told. Funzie Girt is a remarkable Neolithic dividing wall that ran for 4 km across the island of Fetlar, although the Iron Age has provided the most outstanding archaeology on Shetland. Numerous brochs were erected at that time of which the Broch of Mousa is the finest preserved example of these round towers. In 2011 the collective site, "The Crucible of Iron Age Shetland" including Broch of Mousa, Old Scatness and Jarlshof joined the UK&#39;s "Tentative List" of World Heritage Sites.</p><br>
<h2>History, culture and politics</h2><br>
<h3>Pictish times</h3><br>
<p>The culture that built the brochs is unknown, but by the late Iron Age the Northern Isles were part of the Pictish kingdom. The main archaeological relics from these times are symbol stones. One of the best examples is located on the Brough of Birsay; it shows three warriors with spears and sword scabbards combined with traditional Pictish symbols. The St Ninians Isle Treasure was discovered in 1958. The silver bowls, jewellery and other pieces are believed to date from approximately 800 AD. ODell (1959) stated that "the treasure is the best survival of Scottish silver metalwork from the period" and that "the brooches show a variety of typical Pictish forms, with both animal-head and lobed geometrical forms of terminal".</p><br>
<p>Christianity probably arrived in Orkney in the 6th century and organised church authority emerged in the 8th century. The Buckquoy spindle-whorl found at a Pictish site on Birsay is an Ogham–inscribed artefact whose interpretation has caused controversy although it is now generally considered to be of Irish Christian origin.</p><br>
<h3>Norse era</h3><br>
<p>The 8th century was also the time the Viking invasions of the Scottish seaboard commenced and with them came the arrival of a new culture and language for the Northern Isles, the fate of the existing indigenous population being uncertain. According to the Orkneyinga Saga, Vikings then made the islands the headquarters of pirate expeditions carried out against Norway and the coasts of mainland Scotland. In response, Norwegian king Harald Hårfagre ("Harald Fair Hair") annexed the Northern Isles in 875 and Rognvald Eysteinsson received Orkney and Shetland from Harald as an earldom as reparation for the death of his son in battle in Scotland. (Some scholars believe that this story is apocryphal and based on the later voyages of Magnus Barelegs.)</p><br>
<p>The islands were fully Christianised by Olav Tryggvasson in 995 when he stopped at South Walls on his way from Ireland to Norway. The King summoned the jarl Sigurd the Stout and said, "I order you and all your subjects to be baptised. If you refuse, I&#39;ll have you killed on the spot and I swear I will ravage every island with fire and steel." Unsurprisingly, Sigurd agreed and the islands became Christian at a stroke, receiving their own bishop in the early 11th century.</p><br>
<h3>Norwegian rule to Scots rule</h3><br>
<p>In the 14th century Orkney and Shetland remained a Norwegian province, but Scottish influence was growing. Jon Haraldsson, who was murdered in Thurso in 1231, was the last of an unbroken line of Norse jarls, and thereafter the earls were Scots noblemen of the houses of Angus and St. Clair. In 1468 Shetland was pledged by Christian I, in his capacity as King of Norway, as security against the payment of the dowry of his daughter Margaret, betrothed to James III of Scotland. As the money was never paid, the connection with the crown of Scotland became permanent. In 1470 William Sinclair, 1st Earl of Caithness ceded his title to James III and the following year the Northern Isles were directly annexed to Scotland.</p><br>
<h3>Early British era</h3><br>
<p>From the early 15th century on the Shetlanders had sold their goods through the Hanseatic League of German merchantmen. This trade with the North German towns lasted until the 1707 Act of Union when high salt duties prohibited the German merchants from trading with Shetland. Shetland then went into an economic depression as the Scottish and local traders were not as skilled in trading with salted fish. However, some local merchant-lairds took up where the German merchants had left off, and fitted out their own ships to export fish from Shetland to the Continent. For the independent farmer/fishermen of Shetland this had negative consequences, as they now had to fish for these merchant-lairds.</p><br>
<p>British rule came at a price for many ordinary people as well as traders. The Shetlanders nautical skills were sought by the Royal Navy: some 3,000 served during the Napoleonic Wars from 1800 to 1815 and press gangs were rife. During this period 120 men were taken from Fetlar alone and only 20 of them returned home. By the late 19th century 90% of all Shetland was owned by just 32 people, and between 1861 and 1881 more than 8,000 Shetlanders emigrated. With the passing of the Crofters Act in 1886 the Liberal prime minister William Gladstone emancipated crofters from the rule of the landlords. The Act enabled those who had effectively been landowners&#39; serfs to become owner-occupiers of their own small farms.</p><br>
<p>The Orcadian experience was somewhat different. An influx of Scottish entrepreneurs helped to create a diverse and independent community that included farmers, fishermen and merchants that called themselves comunitatis Orcadie and who proved themselves increasing able to defend their rights against their feudal overlords. In the 17th century, Orcadians formed the overwhelming majority of employees of the Hudsons Bay Company in Canada. The harsh climate of Orkney and the Orcadian reputation for sobriety and their boat-handling skills made them ideal candidates for the rigours of the Canadian north. During this period, burning kelp briefly became a mainstay of the islands economy. For example, on Shapinsay over 3,048 t of burned seaweed were produced per annum to make soda ash, bringing in £20,000 to the local economy. Agricultural improvements beginning in the 17th century coincided with the enclosure of the commons and in the Victoria era the emergence of large and well-managed farms using a five-shift rotation system and producing high quality beef cattle. There is little evidence of an Orcadian fishing fleet until the 19th century but it grew rapidly and 700 boats were involved by the 1840s with Stronsay and then later Stromness becoming leading centres of development. Many Orcadian seamen became involved in whaling in Arctic waters during the 19th century, although the boats were generally based elsewhere in Britain.</p><br>
<h3>World Wars</h3><br>
<p>Orkney was the site of a navy base at Scapa Flow, which played a major role in World War I. After the Armistice in 1918, the German High Seas Fleet was transferred in its entirety to Scapa Flow while a decision was to be made on its future; however, the German sailors opened their sea-cocks and scuttled all the ships. During World War I the 10th Cruiser Squadron was stationed at Swarbacks Minn in Shetland and during a single year from March 1917 more than 4,500 ships sailed from Lerwick as part of an escorted convoy system. In total, Shetland lost more than 500 men, a higher proportion than any other part of Britain, and there were waves of emigration in the 1920s and 1930s.</p><br>
<p>One month into World War II, the Royal Navy battleship HMS Royal Oak was sunk by a German U-boat in Scapa Flow. As a result barriers were built to close most of the access channels; these had the additional advantage of creating causeways enabling travellers to go from island to island by road instead of being obliged to rely on ferries. The causeways were constructed by Italian prisoners of war, who also constructed the ornate Italian Chapel. The Scapa Flow base was run down after the war, eventually closing in 1957.</p><br>
<p>During World War II a Norwegian naval unit nicknamed the "Shetland Bus" was established by the Special Operations Executive in the autumn of 1940 with a base first at Lunna and later in Scalloway to conduct operations around the coast of Norway. About 30 fishing vessels used by Norwegian refugees were gathered and the Shetland Bus conducted covert operations, carrying intelligence agents, refugees, instructors for the resistance, and military supplies. It made over 200 trips across the sea with Leif Larsen, the most highly decorated allied naval officer of the war, making 52 of them.</p><br>
<p>The problem of a declining population was significant in the post-war years, although in the last decades of the 20th century there was a recovery and life in the islands focused on growing prosperity and the emergence of a relatively classless society.</p><br>
<h2>Modern times</h2><br>
<h3>Politics</h3><br>
<p>Due to their history, the islands have a Norse, rather than a Gaelic flavour, and have historic links with the Faroes, Iceland, and Norway. The similarities of both geography and history are matched by some elements of the current political process. Both Orkney and Shetland are represented in the House of Commons as constituting the Orkney and Shetland constituency, which elects one Member of Parliament (MP), the current incumbent being Alistair Carmichael. Both are also within the Highlands and Islands electoral region for the Scottish Parliament.</p><br>
<p>However there are also two separate constituencies that elect one Member of the Scottish Parliament each for Orkney and Shetland by the first past the post system. Orkney and Shetland also have separate local Councils which are dominated by independents, that is they are not members of a political party.</p><br>
<p>The Orkney Movement, a political party that supported devolution for Orkney from the rest of Scotland, contested the 1987 general election as the Orkney and Shetland Movement (a coalition of the Orkney movement and its equivalent for Shetland). Their candidate, John Goodlad, came 4th with 3,095 votes, 14.5% of those cast, but the experiment has not been repeated.</p><br>
<h3>Transport</h3><br>
<p>Ferry services link Orkney and Shetland to the rest of Scotland, the main routes being Scrabster harbour, Thurso to Stromness and Aberdeen to Lerwick, both operated by NorthLink Ferries. Inter-island ferry services are operated by Orkney Ferries and SIC Ferries, which are operated by the respective local authorities and Northlink also run a Lerwick to Kirkwall service. The archipelago is exposed to wind and tide, and there are numerous sites of wrecked ships. Lighthouses are sited as an aid to navigation at various locations.</p><br>
<p>The main airport in Orkney is at Kirkwall, operated by Highland and Islands Airports. Loganair, a franchise of Flybe, provides services to the Scottish mainland (Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness), as well as to Sumburgh Airport in Shetland. Similar services fly from Sumburgh to the Scottish mainland.</p><br>
<p>Inter-Island flights are available from Kirkwall to several Orkney islands and from the Shetland Mainland to most of the inhabited islands including those from Tingwall Airport. There are frequent charter flights from Aberdeen to Scatsta near Sullom Voe, which are used to transport oilfield workers and this small terminal has the fifth largest number of international passengers in Scotland. The scheduled air service between Westray and Papa Westray is reputedly the shortest in the world at two minutes&#39; duration.</p><br>
<h3>Economics</h3><br>
<p>The very different geologies of the two archipelagos have resulted in dissimilar local economies. In Shetland, the main revenue producers in Shetland are agriculture, aquaculture, fishing, renewable energy, the petroleum industry (offshore crude oil and natural gas production), the creative industries and tourism. Oil and gas was first landed at Sullom Voe in 1978, and it has subsequently become one of the largest oil terminals in Europe. Taxes from the oil have increased public sector spending in Shetland on social welfare, art, sport, environmental measures and financial development. Three quarters of the islands work force is employed in the service sector and Shetland Islands Council alone accounted for 27.9% of output in 2003. Fishing remains central to the islands economy today, with the total catch being 75767 to ton in 2009, valued at over £73.2 million.</p><br>
<p>By contrast, fishing has declined in Orkney since the 19th century and the impact of the oil industry has been much less significant. However, the soil of Orkney is generally very fertile and most of the land is taken up by farms, agriculture being by far the most important sector of the economy and providing employment for a quarter of the workforce. More than 90% of agricultural land is used for grazing for sheep and cattle, with cereal production utilising about 4% (4,200 hectare), although woodland occupies only 134 hectare.</p><br>
<p>Orkney and Shetland have significant wind and marine energy resources, and renewable energy has recently come into prominence. The European Marine Energy Centre is a Scottish Government-backed research facility that has installed a wave testing system at Billia Croo on the Orkney Mainland and a tidal power testing station on the island of Eday. This has been described as "the first of its kind in the world set up to provide developers of wave and tidal energy devices with a purpose-built performance testing facility."</p><br>
<h3>Culture</h3><br>
<p>The Northern Isles have a rich folklore. For example, there are many Orcadian tales concerning trows, a form of troll that draws on the islands&#39; Scandinavian connections. Local customs in the past included marriage ceremonies at the Odin Stone that forms part of the Stones of Stenness.</p><br>
<p>The best known literary figures from modern Orkney are the poet Edwin Muir, the poet and novelist George Mackay Brown and the novelist Eric Linklater.</p><br>
<p>Shetland has a strong tradition of local music. The Forty Fiddlers was formed in the 1950s to promote the traditional fiddle style, which is a vibrant part of local culture today. Notable exponents of Shetland folk music include Aly Bain and the late Tom Anderson and Peerie Willie Johnson. Thomas Fraser was a country musician who never released a commercial recording during his life, but whose work has become popular more than 20 years after his untimely death in 1978.</p><br>
<h3>Language</h3><br>
<p>The Norn language formerly spoken in the islands, a descendant of the Old Norse of the Vikings, became extinct in the 18th or 19th century. The local dialects of the Scots language, collectively known as Insular Scots, are highly distinctive and retain strong Norn influences.</p><br>
<h2>Island names</h2><br>
<p>The etymology of the island names is dominated by Norse influence. There follows a listing of the derivation of all the inhabited islands in the Northern Isles.</p><br>
<h3>Shetland</h3><br>
<p>The oldest version of the modern name Shetland is Hetlandensis recorded in 1190 becoming Hetland in 1431 after various intermediate transformations. This then became Hjaltland in the 16th century. As Shetlandic Norn was gradually replaced by Scots Hjaltland became Ȝetland. When use of the letter yogh was discontinued, it was often replaced by the similar-looking letter z, hence Zetland, the mispronounced form used to describe the pre-1975 county council. However the earlier name is Innse Chat – the island of the cats (or the cat tribe) as referred to in early Irish literature and it is just possible that this forms part of the Norse name.</p><br>
<p>The location of "Thule", first mentioned by Pytheas of Massilia when he visited Britain sometime between 322 and 285 BC is not known for certain. When Tacitus mentioned it in AD 98 it is clear he was referring to Shetland.</p><br>
<h3>Orkney</h3><br>
<p>Pytheas described Great Britain as being triangular in shape, with a northern tip called Orcas. This may have referred to Dunnet Head, from which Orkney is visible. Writing in the 1st century AD, the Roman geographer Pomponius Mela called the Orkney islands Orcades, as did Tacitus in AD 98 The old Irish Gaelic name for the islands was Insi Orc ("island of the pigs"). The ogham script on the Buckquoy spindle-whorl is also cited as evidence for the pre-Norse existence of Old Irish in Orkney. The Pictish association with Orkney is leant weight by the Norse name for the Pentland Firth – Pettaland-fjörðr i.e "Pictland Firth.</p><br>
<p>The Norse retained the earlier root but changed the meaning, providing the only definite example of an adaption of a pre-Norse place name in the Northern Isles. The islands became Orkneyar meaning "seal islands". An alternative name for Orkney is recorded in 1300—Hrossey, meaning "horse isle" and this may also contain a Pictish element of ros meaning "moor" or "plain".</p><br>
<p>Unlike most of the larger Orkney islands, the derivation of the name "Shapinsay" is not obvious. The final ay is from the Old Norse for island, but the first two syllables are more difficult to interpret. Haswell-Smith (2004) suggests the root may be hjalpandis-øy (helpful island) due to the presence of a good harbour, although anchorages are plentiful in the archipelago. The first written record dates from 1375 in a reference to Scalpandisay, which may suggest a derivation from "judges island". Another suggestion is "Hyalpandis island", although no one of that name is known to have been associated with Shapinsay.</p><br>
<h3>Uninhabited islands</h3><br>
<p>Stroma, from the Norse Straumøy means "current island"</p><br>
<p>or "island in the tidal stream", a reference to the strong currents in the Pentland Firth. The Norse often gave animal names to islands and these have been transferred into English in for example, the Calf of Flotta and Horse of Copinsay. Brother Isle is an anglicisation of the Norse breiðareøy meaning "broad beach island". The Norse holmr, meaning "a small islet" has become "Holm" in English and there are numerous examples of this use including Corn Holm, Thieves Holm and Little Holm. "Muckle" meaning large or big is one of few Scots words in the island names of the Nordreyar and appears in Muckle Roe and Muckle Flugga in Shetland and Muckle Green Holm and Muckle Skerry in Orkney. Many small islets and skerries have Scots or Insular Scots names such as Da Skerries o da Rokness and Da Buddle Stane in Shetland, and Kirk Rocks in Orkney.</p><br>
<p>Gullfoss  is a waterfall located in the canyon of Olfusa river in southwest Iceland.</p><br>
<p>Gullfoss is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Iceland. The wide Ölfusá river rushes southward, and about a kilometre above the falls it turns sharply to the right and flows down into a wide curved three-step "staircase" and then abruptly plunges in two stages (11 m, and 21 m) into a crevice 32 m deep. The crevice, about 20 m wide and 2.5 km in length, extends perpendicular to the flow of the river. The average amount of water running down the waterfall is 140 m&sup3; per second in the summer and 80 m&sup3; per second in the winter. The highest flood measured was 2,000 m&sup3; per second.</p><br>
<p>As one first approaches the falls, the edge is obscured from view, so that it appears that the river simply vanishes into the earth.</p><br>
<p>During the first half of the 20th century and some years into the late 20th century, there was much speculation about using Gullfoss to generate electricity. During this period, the waterfall was rented indirectly by its owners, Tómas Tómasson and Halldór Halldórsson, to foreign investors. However, the investors&#39; attempts were unsuccessful, partly due to lack of money. The waterfall was later sold to the state of Iceland, and is now protected.</p><br>
<p>Sigríður Tómasdóttir, the daughter of Tómas Tómasson, was determined to preserve the waterfall&#39;s condition and even threatened to throw herself down. Although it is widely believed, the very popular story that Sigríður saved the waterfall from exploitation is untrue. A stone memorial to Sigriður, located above the falls, depicts her profile.</p><br>
<p>Together with Þingvellir and the geysers of Haukadalur, Gullfoss forms part of the Golden Circle, a popular day excursion for tourists in Iceland.</p><br>
<h2>Gullfoss in popular culture</h2><br>
<p>Gullfoss appears on the cover of the album Porcupine by the British band Echo and the Bunnymen. Additionally, the falls are referenced in the novella The Odd Saga of the American and a Curious Icelandic Flock</p><br>
<p>during a dinner, Snorri expresses a preference for Gullfoss, while Dr. Gustafsson favors Glymur.</p><br>
<p>Gullfoss features in the music video for the single "Heaven" by the band Live. During the video a young man and a young woman separated by the Hvítá river exchange written messages carried on rocks that they throw to each other over the river and the falls. At the end of the video the young man attempts to swim across the Hvítá river downstream from the Gulfoss. His young lady friend is so horrified from seeing him being washed down in the river that she also jumps in in order to save him. They then float down the river holding onto each other.</p><br>
<p>The National Arts Centre   is a centre for the performing arts located in Ottawa, Ontario, between Elgin Street and the Rideau Canal. The National Arts Centre was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 2006.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Ottawa did not have a major performing arts venue after 1928 when the Russell Theatre was expropriated and demolished to make way for Confederation Square. Performers and orchestras visiting the capital were required to use the stage of the Capitol Cinema, which had been designed for vaudeville and films. In 1963, an organization named the National Capital Arts Alliance was founded by G. Hamilton Southam and Levi Pettler. They successfully convinced the city and government to build the new centre.</p><br>
<p>The NAC was one of a number of projects launched by the government of Lester B. Pearson to commemorate Canadas 1967 centenary. It opened its doors to the public for the first time on 31 May 1969 having cost C$46 million to build. The site at one time was home to Ottawa City Hall, and the city donated the land to the federal government. Conductor Jean-Marie Beaudet served as the NACs first music director (1969-1971). In June 2010 a life size bronze statue of the Canadian jazz pianist Oscar Peterson was unveiled outside the NAC by Queen Elizabeth II during her royal tour of Canada.</p><br>
<p>In February 2014, the centre unveiled a new logo and slogan, Canada is our stage, in preparation for its fiftieth anniversary in 2019. The former logo had been designed by Ernst Roch and was in use since the centre&#39;s opening.</p><br>
<h2>Architecture</h2><br>
<p>The building, designed by Fred Lebensold, is in the Brutalist style and based on the shape of a triangle and hexagon. The building is constructed of reinforced concrete. The exterior and many interior walls are faced with precast concrete panels containing exposed aggregate of crushed brown Laurentian granite. The center rises from a base that sits on a 950-space underground parking garage. The base houses offices, lobbies, dressing rooms, workshops and a restaurant. The site slopes from Elgin Street to the Rideau Canal allowing for a second underground level overlooking the canal. The roof of the base forms a multi-level terrace containing gardens that are open to the public and connects to the Mackenzie King Bridge. The three main performance spaces rise from the base as a series of hexagonal structures also faced with brown precast panels in a variety of textures. Windows are tall, narrow slits framed by vertical ribs. The hexagonal theme flows through the interior and appears in ceilings, light fixtures and flooring. Lobbies and stairwells house several major pieces of visual art.</p><br>
<p>Plans for the centre included an organ in Southam Hall; however, funding did not permit this. On 17 March 1970, the 25th anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands, a Dutch-Canadian Committee presented two organs purchased as the result of its Operation Thankyou Canada. The 21-stop concert organ and positiv organ were both constructed by the Flentrop Orgelbouw of Zaandam and given in gratitude for the role played by Canadian troops in the liberation of the Netherlands. The concert organ premiered in a recital 7 October 1973 by Albert de Klerk.</p><br>
<p>In 2000, the NAC was named by the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada as one of the top 500 buildings produced in Canada during the last millennium.</p><br>
<h2>Artistic aims and performances presented</h2><br>
<p>One of the largest performing arts facilities in Canada, at 1,158,000 ft&sup2, the NAC works with thousands of artists, both emerging and established, from across Canada and around the world, and collaborates with dozens of other arts organizations across the country. The NAC operates in the performing arts fields of classical music, English theatre, French theatre, dance, variety, and community programming. The NAC supports programs for young and emerging artists and programs for young audiences, and producing resources and study materials for teachers. The NAC is the only multidisciplinary, bilingual, performing arts centre in North America, and one of the largest in the world.</p><br>
<p>The National Arts Centre is home to the National Arts Centre Orchestra, considered one of the worlds leading classical-size orchestras. Alexander Shelley, a conductor, pianist, cellist and teacher, has been the orchestras music director since 2015. The artistic director of English Theatre is Jillian Keiley; the artistic director of French Theatre is Brigitte Haentjens; Cathy Levy is the executive producer of dance; Heather Moore is producer and executive director of the Scene Festivals; Heather Gibson is producer of NAC Presents. The National Arts Centre produces a French language podcast presented by Cathy Levy which interviews dancers and people involved in dance performances at the venue. The NAC has since created an Indigenous Theatre discipline. On June 15, 2017, Kevin Loring was announced as the first Artistic Director of Indigenous Theatre.</p><br>
<p>Kurt Waldele was executive chef for two decades, up to his death in 2009. His successor Michael Blackie, was responsible for creating "Celebrity Chefs of Canada" which ran for the both 2011 and 2012. In late 2012 Michael left the NAC to develop his own business in Ottawa located in the west end called NeXT. In 2013 John Morris was promoted to the position executive chef. John Morris worked under chefs David Garcelon, Michael Blackie and Steven Gugelmeier</p><br>
<p>The National Arts Centre is co-producer of the Canada Dance Festival and co-founder of the Magnetic North Theatre Festival, which it operates in partnership with the Canadian Theatre Festival Society. The Magnetic North Theatre Festival is an annual event first held in Ottawa in 2003, where it is held every second year, being held in other Canadian cities in the alternating years. The festival offers not only productions and performances for the theatre-going public, but offers workshops and seminars aimed at theatre students and professionals.</p><br>
<h2>Performance facilities</h2><br>
<p>The NAC has four stages:</p><br>
<p>Southam Hall, with 2,323 seats, is the largest stage and is home to the National Arts Centre Orchestra and the Ottawa Symphony Orchestra, Opera Lyra Ottawa, as well as ballet and other major visiting shows and productions.</p><br>
<p>The Theatre, with 897 seats, is mostly used for theatre and dance events. It has been home to the English-language and French-language theatre companies.</p><br>
<p>Studio, with 300 seats, is a theatre venue suited for performances requiring a more intimate space.</p><br>
<p>The Fourth Stage, with 150 seats, opened in 2001 and is home to a wide variety of community programming.</p><br>
<p>Nan Madol is an archaeological site adjacent to the eastern shore of the island of Pohnpei that was the capital of the Saudeleur Dynasty until about 1628. It is in the present day Madolenihmw district of Pohnpei state, in the Federated States of Micronesia in the western Pacific Ocean. The city, constructed in a lagoon, consists of a series of small artificial islands linked by a network of canals. The site core with its stone walls encloses an area approximately 1.5 km long by 0.5 km wide and it contains nearly 100 artificial islets—stone and coral fill platforms—bordered by tidal canals.</p><br>
<p>The name Nan Madol means "spaces between" and is a reference to the canals that crisscross the ruins. The original name was Soun Nan-leng (Reef of Heaven), according to Gene Ashby in his book Pohnpei, An Island Argosy. The ruined city is one of today&#39;s great archaeological enigmas and is sometimes called "Atlantis," the "eighth wonder of the world," or the "Venice of the Pacific".</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Nan Madol was the ceremonial and political seat of the Saudeleur Dynasty, which united Pohnpei&#39;s estimated 25,000 people until about 1628.</p><br>
<p>Little can be verified about the megalithic construction. Pohnpeian tradition claims that the builders of the Leluh archaeological site on Kosrae (likewise composed of huge stone buildings) migrated to Pohnpei, where they used their skills and experience to build the even more impressive Nan Madol complex. Radiocarbon dating indicates that Nan Madol predates Leluh and it is more likely that Nan Madol influenced Leluh.</p><br>
<p>According to Pohnpeian legend, Nan Madol was constructed by twin sorcerers Olisihpa and Olosohpa from the mythical Western Katau, or Kanamwayso. The brothers arrived in a large canoe seeking a place to build an altar so that they could worship Nahnisohn Sahpw, the god of agriculture. After several false starts, the two brothers successfully built an altar off Temwen Island, where they performed their rituals. In legend, these brothers levitated the huge stones with the aid of a flying dragon. When Olisihpa died of old age, Olosohpa became the first Saudeleur. Olosohpa married a local woman and sired twelve generations, producing sixteen other Saudeleur rulers of the Dipwilap ("Great") clan. The founders of the dynasty ruled kindly, though their successors placed ever increasing demands on their subjects. Their reign ended with the invasion by Isokelekel, who also resided at Nan Madol, though his successors abandoned the site.</p><br>
<p>The Polish ethnographer and oceanographer Jan Kubary (1846–1896) made the first detailed description of Nan Madol in 1874.</p><br>
<h2>Purpose and features</h2><br>
<p>The elite centre was a special place of residence for the nobility and of mortuary activities presided over by priests. Its population almost certainly did not exceed 1,000, and may have been less than half that. Although many of the residents were chiefs, the majority were commoners. Nan Madol served, in part, as a way for the ruling Saudeleur chiefs to organize and control potential rivals by requiring them to live in the city rather than in their home districts, where their activities were difficult to monitor.</p><br>
<p>Madol Powe, the mortuary sector, contains 58 islets in the northeastern area of Nan Madol. Most islets were once occupied by the dwellings of priests. Some islets served a special purpose: food preparation, canoe construction on Dapahu, and coconut oil preparation on Peinering. High walls surrounding tombs are located on Peinkitel, Karian, and Lemenkou, but the most prominent is the royal mortuary islet of Nandauwas, where walls 18 – high surround a central tomb enclosure within the main courtyard. This was built for the first Saudeleur.</p><br>
<h2>Food and water</h2><br>
<p>On Nan Madol there is no fresh water or food; water must be collected and food grown inland. During Saudeleur rule, Pohnpeians brought essential food and water by boat. The Saudeleur received food at a particular islet — first Peiniot, and later the closer Usennamw.</p><br>
<p>Around 1628, when Isokelekel overthrew the Saudeleurs and began the Nahnmwarki Era, the Nahnmwarkis lived at Nan Madol, but had to gather their own water and grow their own food. This is thought to have caused them eventually to abandon Nan Madol and move back to their own districts, although there are other explanations for the desertion of the complex, such as a sharp population decline.</p><br>
<h2>Archaeology</h2><br>
<p>Today Nan Madol forms an archaeological district covering more than 18 km² and includes the stone architecture built up on a coral reef flat along the shore of Temwen Island, several other artificial islets, and the adjacent Pohnpei main island coastline. The site core with its stone walls encloses an area approximately 1.5 km long by 0.5 km wide containing nearly 100 artificial islets—stone and coral fill platforms—bordered by tidal canals.</p><br>
<p>Carbon dating indicates that megalithic construction at Nan Madol began around 1180 AD when large basalt stones were taken from a volcanic plug on the opposite side of Pohnpei. The earliest settlement on Pohnpei was probably around 1 AD although radiocarbon dating only shows human activity starting around 80–200 AD.</p><br>
<p>In 1985 the ruins of Nan Madol were declared a National Historical Landmark. Currently, a greater effort is being made to preserve them.</p><br>
<h2>"Lost continent" theories</h2><br>
<p>Nan Madol has been interpreted as the remains of one of the "lost continents" of Lemuria or Mu, although this is today considered falsified by plate tectonics.</p><br>
<p>Nan Madol was one of the sites James Churchward identified as being part of the lost continent of Mu, starting in his 1926 book The Lost Continent of Mu Motherland of Man.</p><br>
<p>In his book Lost City of Stones (1978), writer Bill S. Ballinger theorizes that the city was built by Greek sailors c. 300 BC.</p><br>
<p>David Hatcher Childress, author and publisher, speculates that Nan Madol is connected to the lost continent of Lemuria.</p><br>
<p>The 1999 book The Coming Global Superstorm by Art Bell and Whitley Strieber, which predicts that global warming might produce sudden and catastrophic climatic effects, claims that the construction of Nan Madol, with exacting tolerances and extremely heavy basalt materials, necessitated a high degree of technical competency. Since no such society exists in the modern record - or, even, in legend - this society must have been destroyed by dramatic means.</p><br>
<p>See also Erich Von Daeniken (1973), The Gold of the Gods, Chapter 4: "Temuen, The Island They Call Nan Madol"</p><br>
<h2>In popular culture</h2><br>
<p>Nan Madol has inspired a number of works of fiction about lost civilizations:</p><br>
<h3>Literature</h3><br>
<p>The ruins of Nan Madol were used as the setting for a lost race story by A. Merritt, The Moon Pool (1918), in which the islands are called Nan-Tauach and the ruins are called the Nan-Matal.</p><br>
<p>Nan Madol and its history have been used as the basis of the novel Deep Fathom (2001) written by James Rollins.</p><br>
<p>The ruins of Nan Madol served as the inspiration for the city of Rlyeh in author H.P. Lovecrafts Cthulhu Mythos.</p><br>
<h3>Music</h3><br>
<p>Nan Madol (1974) is an album recorded by Edward Vesala</p><br>
<p>Nan Ma Dol is a song recorded by Endura (band) and released on their Liber Leviathan album (1996).</p><br>
<p>Ruins of Nan Madol (2014) is a song recorded by audiomachine</p><br>
<h3>Video Games</h3><br>
<p>Nan Madol is featured as a cultural city state in the 2016 PC game Civilization VI</p><br>
<p>Provincetown Harbor is a large natural harbor located in the town of Provincetown, Massachusetts. The harbor is mostly 30 to 90 ft deep and stretches roughly 1 mi from northwest to southeast and 2 mi from northeast to southwest – one large, deep basin with no dredged channel necessary for boats to enter and exit.</p><br>
<p>A tall green buoy east of Long Point (i.e., the tip of Cape Cod) marks the entrance to Provincetown Harbor from Cape Cod Bay.</p><br>
<h2>Geology</h2><br>
<p>Most of Cape Cod was created by the Laurentide Glacier between 18,000 and 15,000 years ago. However, the Provincetown Spit, i.e., the land surrounding Provincetown Harbor from High Head in North Truro through all of Provincetown, consists largely of marine deposits transported from farther up the shore during the last 6,000 years.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>A stone wall discovered in Provincetown in 1805 is thought to have been built by Viking Thorvald Eiriksson about 1007 AD, when according to Norse sagas, the keel of Ericson&#39;s ship was repaired in the harbor.</p><br>
<p>Bartholomew Gosnold explored the harbor in 1602, and his mate Gabriel Archer wrote: "The fifteenth day of May we had again sight of the land, which made ahead, being as we thought an island, by reason of a large sound that appeared westward between it and the main, for coming to the west end thereof, we did perceive a large opening, we called it Shoal Hope. Near this cape we came to anchor in fifteen fathoms, where we took great store of codfish, for which we altered the name, and called it Cape Cod. Here we saw sculls of herring, mackerel, and other small fish, in great abundance. This is a low sandy shoal, but without danger..."</p><br>
<p>John Smith explored the harbor in 1614 and wrote: "Cape Cod... is only a headland of high hills of sand, overgrown with shrubby pines, hurts, and such trash, but an excellent harbor for all weathers. This Cape is made by the main sea on the one side, and a great bay on the other, in form of a sickle..."</p><br>
<h3>Pilgrim's first landing</h3><br>
<p>Provincetown Harbor was the initial anchoring place of the Pilgrims traveling on the Mayflower in 1620, before they proceeded to Plymouth, Massachusetts. Thoreau later observed that Smiths description of the harbor may have been less colored by the hardships of transoceanic troubles than the Pilgrims. Mourt&#39;s Relation describes the harbor as:</p><br>
<p>The Mayflower held several different passengers in addition to the Pilgrims on its first transoceanic voyage. Before coming ashore at the extreme northwest corner of the harbor, the Pilgrims and other settlers signed the Mayflower Compact in the harbor on November 11, 1620. Dorothy Bradford, the first wife of William Bradford, was one of the first adult Pilgrims to die in the New World. According to the only known written description of her death from close to when it actually occurred, she fell overboard from the Mayflower in Provincetown Harbor on December 17, 1620 and drowned. Peregrine White, the first child born to the Pilgrims in New England, was born while they were in Provincetown Harbor.</p><br>
<h3>Village of Long Point</h3><br>
<p>From 1818 until the 1850s a fishing village existed at Long Point, complete with a post office, schoolhouse, 6 windmills for saltworks, and 38 homes for about 200 adults and 60 children. When the families left in the 1850s, they floated their homes a mile across the harbor, where many still stand today.</p><br>
<p>During the American Civil War, the military established defensive artillery battery positions at this location. The Long Point Battery would come to be known as "Fort Useless" and "Fort Ridiculous" by the local residents.</p><br>
<p>Today, Long Point is a ghost village, and nothing remains save for the Long Point Light, which had been replaced by a new light in 1875.</p><br>
<h3>East Harbor</h3><br>
<p>For the better part of modern history, the eastern part of Provincetown harbor was connected to yet another harbor, historically known as East Harbor. East Harbor was the most protected mooring place in the outer Cape for boats using Cape Cod Bay and the Gulf of Maine. East Harbor had a 1,000 ft inlet from Provincetown Harbor, as shown in the adjacent map from 1836.</p><br>
<p>Until the late 19th century, there was not a single road leading in or out of Provincetown – the only land route connecting Provincetown to points beyond was along a thin stretch of beach along the shore to the north (locally called the "backshore"). A wooden bridge was erected over the East Harbor in 1854, only to be destroyed by a winter storm and ice two years later. Although the bridge was replaced the following year, a traveler using it still had to traverse several miles over a sand route, which, along with the backshore route, would occasionally be washed out by storms. This made Provincetown much like an island, in that it relied almost entirely upon its harbor for its communication, travel, and commerce needs.</p><br>
<p>In 1868 the mouth of the East Harbor was diked, to facilitate the laying of track for the arrival of the railroad; the wooden bridge and sand road were finally replaced by a formal roadway in 1877, as shown in the accompanying map from 1887.</p><br>
<p>In the ensuing years, the dike became clogged with vegetation, beginning a trend of desalination and oxygen-depletion that resulted in the demise of native wildlife populations, occasionally in the form of fish kills. Tidal flow was successfully restored by the National Park Service working together with other local, state, and federal agencies. In 2005, for the first time since Abraham Lincoln was president, legal-size clams were found in East Harbor. In 2008, the USGS officially renamed Pilgrim Lake, restoring the original appellation of East Harbor.</p><br>
<h3>Other history</h3><br>
<p>The Portland gale of 1898 destroyed several wharves and fishing vessels within the harbor.</p><br>
<p>In 2002, Provincetown Harbor Beach was selected by the US Environmental Protection Agency as one of three for the state of Massachusetts that serve as models for beach managers in water quality monitoring and pollution assessments and because of its health.</p><br>
<p>The harbor is the southern boundary of the Provincetown historic district, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.</p><br>
<h2>Landmarks</h2><br>
<p>Two main parallel wharves dominated the center of the harbor in the late 19th century: Railroad Wharf and Steamboat Wharf. President Grant visited Provincetown for the opening of the railroad in 1874. Today, the wharves have been replaced by piers. Although rail and steamboat service to Provincetown both ended long ago, ferry service continues.</p><br>
<p>MacMillan Pier, the town pier of Provincetown, was significantly renovated and expanded during 2003-2005 with the help of a $1.95 million low interest loan from the Rural Development program of the USA Department of Agriculture. The pier primarily serves tourists and high-speed ferries to Boston and Plymouth that charge their passengers up to $44 per one-way trip. The Provincetown Public Pier Corporation (PPPC) entered into a 20-year lease agreement for MacMillan Pier operations in 2005. The pier is named after arctic explorer Donald B. MacMillan, a Provincetown native who retired to Provincetown and died there in 1970.</p><br>
<p>Immediately parallel to MacMillan Pier is Fishermans Wharf, also known to locals as Cabrals Pier. They Also Faced the Sea is an outdoor art installation of five large portraits of local Portuguese-American women photographed by Norma Holt hanging since 2003 on one side and one end of the old fish-packing plant on Cabral Pier.</p><br>
<p>In both 1907 and 1910, when the Pilgrim Monument began construction and when it was dedicated, the entire Atlantic fleet of the USA Navy was inside the harbor for large ceremonies led by Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, respectively.</p><br>
<p>In addition to a panoramic view of the whole town, the harbor affords views of three working lighthouses: Long Point Light, Wood End Light, and Highland (or Cape Cod) Light. All three are on land within the Cape Cod National Seashore. The harbor serves as the southern boundary of the nationally registered Provincetown historic district, which consists of some 3,000 acre, 1127 buildings, three structures, and five objects.</p><br>
<p>On the East End of Provincetown, Lewis Wharf was purchased by Mary Heaton Vorse, and its old fish shack converted into a theater which became the home of the Provincetown Players. Eugene O&#39;Neill debuted his first play, Bound East for Cardiff, there in 1916.</p><br>
<p>Captain Jack&#39;s Wharf is on the West End of Provincetown. At another theater on that wharf, Tennessee Williams debuted A Streetcar Named Desire with Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski before the play appeared on Broadway.</p><br>
<p>USA Coast Guard has administrative buildings and barracks at the base of a concrete pier on the harbor. The current station opened in 1979 and is responsible for safety and law enforcement in over 1,200 square miles of Cape Cod Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Noteworthy past disasters within this stations area include the wreck of the submarine S-4 in 1927. This station includes the first federal building to receive solar power. A frequent sight in the harbor is the stations 47-foot Motor Lifeboat.</p><br>
<p>The West End Breakwater, built in 1911 by the US Army Corps of Engineers, is open to the public for walking and exploring. Technically speaking, it is more of a dike than a breakwater. The harbor also has a "true" breakwater built between 1970 and 1972 and located 835 ft from the end of MacMillan Pier.</p><br>
<h2>Marine life</h2><br>
<p>Provincetown Harbor supports a wide variety of marine life from algae, seagrasses and plankton through bryozoa, hydroids, echinoderms, crustaceans, mollusks, fish, birds, marine mammals, and other animals.</p><br>
<p>The harbor is an amazingly diverse and productive habitat. The following tables list in no particular order 94 examples of marine life that are regularly observed within the harbor. A few landbirds are included that are common around MacMillan Pier, on the beaches, and on the breakwater.</p><br>
<h2>Historic annual events</h2><br>
<p>The each September preserves the harbor&#39;s history as a great sailing port.</p><br>
<p>A ceremony is held at the end of MacMillan Pier in late June, when all the boats operating in the harbor are blessed by a visiting bishop as part of the.</p><br>
<p>The occurs each September since 1988, which is a swim across the harbor to raise funds and awareness of HIV/AIDS, women’s health and community health.</p><br>
<h2>Commercial use</h2><br>
<p>Roughly a dozen fishing trawlers (locally known as "draggers"), ferries to Boston and Plymouth, Massachusetts, several different sportfishing boats, boat rentals, and other commercial boats also use the harbor today.</p><br>
<p>East Coast whale watching on Stellwagen Bank originated as a joint effort of the Dolphin Fleet and the Center for Coastal Studies leaving from MacMillan Pier in 1975. In addition, other tour boat operators offer a variety of tours of and from the harbor, including historical sightseeing tours, harbor marine life tours, sunset cruises and more.</p><br>
<h2>Further reading and other information</h2><br>
<p>Wikipedia List of Nationally Registered Historic Places in Provincetown</p><br>
<p>Oldale, R. N., 1992, Cape Cod and the Islands, the geologic story: Parnassus Imprints, East Orleans, Massachusetts, 208 p. see</p><br>
<p>Carl Christian Rafn, 1837. Antiquitates Americanæ. referred to by</p><br>
<p>Strahler, A. N., 1966, A Geologist&#39;s View of Cape Cod: Doubleday. Reprinted Parnassus Imprints (1988), Orleans, Massachusetts, 115 p.</p><br>
<p>Vorse, M.H.. 1942. Dial Press, New York, 372 p.</p><br>
<p>Mount Tarawera is the volcano responsible for one of New Zealand&#39;s largest historic eruptions. Located 24 kilometres southeast of Rotorua in the North Island, it consists of a series of rhyolitic lava domes that were fissured down the middle by an explosive basaltic eruption in 1886, which killed an estimated 120 people. These fissures run for about 17 kilometres northeast-southwest.</p><br>
<p>The volcano&#39;s component domes include Ruawahia Dome (the highest at 1111 metres), Tarawera Dome and Wahanga Dome. It is surrounded by several lakes, most of which were created or drastically altered by the 1886 eruption. These lakes include Lakes Tarawera, Rotomahana, Rerewhakaaitu, Okataina, Okareka, Tikitapu (Blue Lake) and Rotokakahi (Green Lake). The Tarawera River runs northeastwards across the northern flank of the mountain from Lake Tarawera.</p><br>
<h2>Circa 1315 eruption</h2><br>
<p>Mount Tarawera erupted around 1315. The ash thrown from this event may have affected temperatures around the globe and precipitated the Great Famine of 1315–17 in Europe.</p><br>
<h2>1886 eruption</h2><br>
<p>Shortly after midnight on the morning of 10 June 1886, a series of more than 30 increasingly strong earthquakes were felt in the Rotorua area and an unusual sheet lightning display was observed from the direction of Tarawera. At around 2:00 am a larger earthquake was felt and followed by the sound of an explosion. By 2:30 am Mount Tarawera&#39;s three peaks had erupted, blasting three distinct columns of smoke and ash thousands of metres into the sky. At around 3.30 am, the largest phase of the eruption commenced; vents at Rotomahana produced a pyroclastic surge that destroyed several villages within a 6 kilometre radius, and the Pink and White Terraces appeared to be obliterated.</p><br>
<p>The eruption was heard clearly as far away as Blenheim and the effects of the ash in the air were observed as far south as Christchurch, over 800 km away. In Auckland the sound of the eruption and the flashing sky was thought by some to be an attack by Russian warships.</p><br>
<p>Although the official contemporary death toll was 153, exhaustive research by physicist Ron Keam only identified 108 people killed by the eruption. Much of the discrepancy was due to misspelled names and other duplications. Allowing for some unnamed and unknown victims, he estimated that the true death toll was 120 at most. Some people claim that many more people died.</p><br>
<p>The eruption also buried many Māori villages, including Te Wairoa which has now become a tourist attraction (Buried Village of Te Wairoa,) and the world-famous Pink and White Terraces were thought lost. A small portion of the Pink Terraces was reportedly rediscovered under Lake Rotomahana 125 years later. In 2017, using a lost 1859 survey of the old lake and terraces, researchers finally georeferenced the old Lake Rotomahana and the original Pink and White Terrace locations. Approximately 2 cubic kilometres of tephra was erupted, more than Mount St. Helens ejected in 1980. Many of the lakes surrounding the mountain had their shapes and areas dramatically altered, especially the eventual enlargement of Lake Rotomahana, the largest crater involved in the eruption, as it re-filled with water. The rift created during the eruption extends 17 km across the mountain, Lake Rotomahana and through the Waimangu Volcanic Rift Valley. Some of the local survivors at Te Wairoa took shelter in a Maori meeting house, a wharenui, named Hinemihi, which was later taken to England and erected in the grounds of Clandon Park, the seat of the 4th Earl Onslow, who had been governor-general of New Zealand at the time.</p><br>
<h2>The phantom canoe</h2><br>
<p>One legend surrounding the 1886 eruption is that of the phantom canoe. Eleven days before the eruption, a boat full of tourists returning from the Terraces saw what appeared to be a war canoe approach their boat, only to disappear in the mist half a mile from them. One of the witnesses was a clergyman, a local Maori man from the Te Arawa iwi. Nobody around the lake owned such a war canoe, and nothing like it had been seen on the lake for many years.</p><br>
<p>It is possible that the rise and fall of the lake level caused by pre-eruption fissures had freed a burial waka (canoe) from its resting place. Traditionally dead chiefs were tied in an upright position. A number of letters have been published from the tourists who experienced the event.</p><br>
<p>Though skeptics maintained that it was a freak reflection seen on the mist, tribal elders at Te Wairoa claimed that it was a waka wairua (spirit canoe) and was a portent of doom. It has been suggested that the waka was actually a freak wave on the water, caused by seismic activity below the lake, but locals believe that a future eruption will be signaled by the reappearance of the canoe.</p><br>
<p>Heirisson Island is an island in the Swan River in Western Australia at the eastern end of Perth Water, between the suburbs of East Perth and Victoria Park. It occupies an area of 285,600 m&sup2;, and is connected to the two foreshores by The Causeway. The next upstream island is Kuljak Island, then Ron Courtney Island, with no islands in the Swan River downstream between Heirisson Island and the Indian Ocean.</p><br>
<p>Before development, there were several small islands, surrounded by mudflats. The Noongar name for the area is Matagarup (meaning "leg deep"), which has been retained for the single island after reclamation.</p><br>
<p>Over the years, dredging and reclamation has created a single island, which is now a landscaped nature reserve, with a 2 km walking path.</p><br>
<p>In 1998, five female western grey kangaroos were introduced onto the island, followed by a female with a male joey in 2000.</p><br>
<h2>Plans</h2><br>
<p>In 2008 a new master plan for Heirisson Island was adopted by the City of Perth. This plan integrates a proposed international quality sculpture park on the island and the construction of a footbridge over the northern channel of the Swan River. The footbridge will link Point Fraser to the island and provide a gateway to the proposed sculpture park. The sculpture park concept is being driven by a not for profit organisation Heirisson Island Sculpture Park Inc. with the support of the City of Perth.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The area around Heirisson Island is traditionally associated with the Beeloo Noongar people who knew the small islands and mud flats as Matagarup, referring to the river as being "one leg deep". The island located on either side of the current causeway bridge was known as Kakaroomup.</p><br>
<p>The Matagarup mud flats were the first major crossing point upriver from the river&#39;s mouth (at Fremantle) and were an important seasonal access way over which the Beeloo Nyungah gave other groups right of passage across the river.</p><br>
<p>The first European to visit the Heirisson Island area was the Flemish explorer Willem de Vlamingh in January 1697. He was exploring the Swan River in long-boats but only got as far as the Heirisson Island(s) because the mud flats impeded any further progress.</p><br>
<p>Heirisson Island was named after French midshipman François-Antoine Boniface Heirisson, who was on the French ship Le Naturaliste, which was a scientific expedition led by Nicolas Baudin between 1801 and 1804. The expedition made several journeys up the river from Fremantle in long-boats and made the first maps of the Swan River. The island was named in June 1801.</p><br>
<p>Captain James Stirling also investigated the area in 1827 just before the Swan River Colony was settled in 1829.</p><br>
<h2>Yagan's statue</h2><br>
<p>In September 1984 the Government of Western Australia erected a statue of Aboriginal warrior Yagan. In 1997 the statue&#39;s head was twice removed by vandals.</p><br>
<h2>Register of Aboriginal Sites</h2><br>
<p>Heirisson Island is listed on the Western Australia Department of Aboriginal Affairs&#39; Register of Aboriginal Sites, as ID 3589.</p><br>
<h2>Aboriginal protests</h2><br>
<h3>Tent embassy</h3><br>
<p>In 2012, the island was the site of a tent embassy, set up in February by Noongar people to raise community awareness about problems with a government plan to extinguish most of the native title land in the southwest of Western Australia that was recognized in 2006 by Justice Wilcox of the Federal Court of Australia. The Noongar Tent Embassy was intended to be a peaceful affirmation of native title to Nyoongar country and legitimate use of a state-registered Aboriginal Heritage Site, and was inspired by the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra. However, there were many claims made of rocks being thrown at passing boats. The tent embassy was removed by police in March 2012.</p><br>
<h3>Refugee camp</h3><br>
<p>In early March 2015, a group of Aboriginal activists set up what they referred to as a refugee camp after the state government announced plans to close some remote Western Australian Aboriginal communities. The camp was removed ten days later by City of Perth rangers, with police support, but gradually reassembled and was occupied by about 100 people when it was dismantled again by police and City of Perth rangers in late April 2015.</p><br>
<p>In January 2016 a group of about 60 peopleincluding some non-indigenous homeless peoplewere camping on the island again. By April 2016, the camp had grown to over 100 and it was again removed by police and rangers.</p><br>
<p>The Karawanks or Karavankas or Karavanks  are a mountain range of the Southern Limestone Alps on the border between Slovenia to the south and Austria to the north. With a total length of 120 km in an east-west direction, the Karawanks chain is one of the longest ranges in Europe. It is traversed by important trade routes and has a great tourist significance. Geographically and geologically, it is divided into the higher Western Karawanks and the lower-lying Eastern Karawanks. It is traversed by the Periadriatic Seam, separating the Apulian tectonic plate from the Eurasian Plate.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The Karawanks form the continuation of the Carnic Alps east of the Slizza stream near the tripoint of Austria, Slovenia and Italy at Arnoldstein. They are confined by the Drava Valley in the north (called Rosental/Rož) and the Sava in the south, separating it from the adjacent Julian Alps. In the east, they border on the Kamnik–Savinja Alps and Pohorje ranges.</p><br>
<p>A number of mountain passes on important trade routes cross the range, like Wurzen (Koreno), Loibl (Ljubelj) or Seeberg (Jezero), which have been used since prehistory. Nowadays the Austrian Karawanken Autobahn (A11) runs from Villach to the Karavanke motorway tunnel, which traverses the Western Karawanks connecting it with the Slovenian A2 motorway at Jesenice. A parallel railway line crosses the range through the Karawanks railway tunnel.</p><br>
<p>The Karawanks are a popular mountaineering area with numerous mountain huts. Many of the peaks offer a good view of the Klagenfurt basin on the Austrian side and the Ljubljana basin on the Slovene side. The northern Austrian side is rocky and precipitous while the Slovenian side is less steep, covered with spruce forests and low bushy pine at lower elevations with grass higher up.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Karawanks were settled already in the Stone Age, as indicated particularly by findings from the Potok Cave. In Roman times, they represented the southern border of the Noricum province, and later, of the Slavic principality of Carantania. The ancient geographer Claudius Ptolemy mentioned the Karwankas mountains about 150 AD. The name probably is derived from Celtic karv ("deer"), a tradition that has survived in the Košuta (Slovene for "hind") massif.</p><br>
<p>From the first half of the 11th century, the Karawanks formed the border between the territory of the Duchy of Carinthia and the adjacent March of Carniola in the south. After Carniola had been elevated to a duchy in 1364, both lands became part of Inner Austria and were crown lands of the Habsburg Monarchy from 1526 up to World War I. The northern slopes of the Karawanks had been historically settled by Carinthian Slovenes, nevertheless in October 1920, the Carinthian Plebiscite decided that the crest was the border between the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia); only the municipality of Jezersko had already passed from Carinthia to Yugoslavia.</p><br>
<p>In the final weeks of the Second World War the Karawanks passes witnessed intense fighting. The 24th SS Kampfgruppe (battlegroup) commanded by SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS (Brigadier) Heinz Harmel was ordered to keep the Karawanken passes open between Yugoslavia and Austria. This task was critical in allowing German forces to withdraw from Yugoslavia in order to surrender to British rather than Yugoslav forces. The Kampfgruppe succeeded in its final task, and was one of the last German units to surrender, when it encountered the British 6th Armoured Division on 9 May 1945.</p><br>
<p>After World War II the Karawanks remained the border between Austria and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and finally the independent Slovenia from 1991. Since the entry of Slovenia to the Schengen Area in 2007, a free movement of people and goods across the Karawanks has been allowed, and the two countries started to aim for an economic integration of their border areas.</p><br>
<h2>Notable peaks</h2><br>
<p>Several place names also have German names, and today the peaks along the main chain of the Karawanks are usually displayed in Slovene and German on hiking maps:</p><br>
<p>The Kamnik–Savinja Alps  are a mountain range of the Southern Limestone Alps. They lie in northern Slovenia, except for the northernmost part, which lies in Austria.</p><br>
<p>The western part of the range was named the Kamnik Alps (Steiner Alpen) in 1778 by the scientists Belsazar Hacquet and Franz Xaver von Wulfen, after the town of Kamnik (Stein) in the valley of the Kamnik Bistrica River. Its eastern part was named the Savinja Alps (Sanntaler Alpen) or Solčava Alps (Sulzbacher Alpen) by the mountaineer Johannes von Frischauf in 1875, after the settlement of Solčava (Sulzbach) and the main river, the upper Savinja (Sann).</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The Kamnik–Savinja Alps are located south of the Karawanks range at the border of Austria and Slovenia, stretching from the Sava River in the west to the Savinja in the east, where the adjacent Slovenian Prealps with the Pohorje range, the Celje Hills at the Dravinja River, as well as the Sava Hills are located. In the northwest, the valley of Vellach Creek (at 46&deg;22&prime;21&Prime;N latitude, 14&deg;33&prime;55&Prime;E longitude) leading to Bad Vellach is the southernmost point of both the Austrian state of Carinthia and Austria as a whole.</p><br>
<p>The entire main chain is today part of Slovenia. Historically it formed the border between the Inner Austrian duchies of Carinthia, Styria, and Carniola. The tripoint was located at the Carinthia Mount Rinka (Koroška Rinka).</p><br>
<p>There is also a small glacier below Mount Skuta, which is the easternmost glacier in the Southern Alps.</p><br>
<h2>Mountains and passes</h2><br>
<p>The most important peaks are:</p><br>
<p>Grintovec &ndash; 2,558 m</p><br>
<p>Jezersko Combe &ndash; 2,540 m</p><br>
<p>Skuta &ndash; 2,532 m</p><br>
<p>Ojstrica &ndash; 2,350 m</p><br>
<p>Storžič &ndash; 2,132 m</p><br>
<p>Planjava &ndash; 2,394 m</p><br>
<p>Brana &ndash; 2,253 m</p><br>
<p>Carinthia Mount Rinka &ndash; 2,433 m</p><br>
<p>Cold Mountain &ndash; 2,203 m</p><br>
<p>Krofička &ndash; 2,083 m</p><br>
<p>Kalce Ridge &ndash; 2,224 m</p><br>
<p>In total, 28 peaks surpass 2,000 m. The total area of the Slovene part is about 900 km². About three quarters of the surface are covered with forest, and many of the higher peaks are bleak and rocky.</p><br>
<p>The most important passes are the Seebergsattel (Jezersko sedlo) between Austrian Carinthia and Slovenia&#39;s Municipality of Jezersko, as well as the Pavlič Pass. On the Slovenian side, there is a skiing area, whereas tourism in the Vellach Valley focuses on health spas.</p><br>
<p>Dōgo is one of the Oki Islands in the Sea of Japan.</p><br>
<p>The island, 241.58 km² in area, has a population of approximately 14,849 persons. The island is administered by the town of Okinoshima in Shimane Prefecture. Much of the island is within the borders of Daisen-Oki National Park.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>Dōgo is the largest of the Oki Islands. It is located approximately 80 km north of Honshu coast. The island is of volcanic origin, and is roughly circular, with an approximate diameter of 20 km, with its highest point at the summit of Mount Daimanji at 608 m above sea level.</p><br>
<p>The climate of Dōgo is classified as a humid subtropical climate (Köppen climate classification Cfa) with very warm summers and cool winters. Precipitation is abundant throughout the year.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>The Oki Islands have been inhabited since the Japanese Paleolithic era, and numerous artifacts from the Jomon, Yayoi and Kofun periods have been found by archaeologists. The island of Dōgo is mentioned in the Nara period chronicles Kojiki and Nihon Shoki, and Dōgo was the location of the capital of ancient Oki Province.</p><br>
<p>Dōgo was used as a place of exile from the Nara period, but is well known as the place of exile for ex-Emperor Go-Toba, who died on Nakanoshima in 1239, and for Emperor Go-Daigo, who was exiled to Nishinoshima from 1331-1333 The island became tenryo territory directly under the control of the Tokugawa shogunate in the Edo period.</p><br>
<p>After the Meiji restoration, the Oki Islands became part of Tottori Prefecture in 1871, but were transferred to Shimane Prefecture in 1881.</p><br>
<p>In 1892, Lafcadio Hearn visited Dōgojima, spending a month there, and writing about his experiences in Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan. Dōgo was visited by the American naturalist Charles Henry Gilbert in 1906.</p><br>
<p>A lighthouse was erected on Cape Saigō in the southeast of the island in 1921. This lighthouse remained the only lighthouse in the Oki Islands until the 1950s.</p><br>
<p>On October 1, 2004, the town of Saigō merged with three neighboring villages to unify the island under the administration of the new town of Okinoshima.</p><br>
<h2>Transportation</h2><br>
<p>Dōgo is connected by regular ferry service from Saigo Port to points on mainland Japan. Oki Airport connects the island with Osaka (Itami) Airport, and Izumo by air.</p><br>
<h2>Economy</h2><br>
<p>The economy of the island is based on agriculture and commercial fishing. Seasonal tourism also plays a role in the local economy.</p><br>
<p>Old Pasadena, often referred to as Old Town Pasadena or just Old Town, is the original commercial center of Pasadena, a city in California, United States that arose from one of the most prosperous areas of the state, and had a latter day revitalization after a period of decay.</p><br>
<p>Old Pasadena began as the center of an industrial hub that gave rise to Caltech, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Beckman Instruments, Aerojet and numerous other important companies. The large concentration of such companies in the area gave it the nickname "Athens of the West".</p><br>
<p>The area was also an artistic center, the home to Andy Warhol&#39;s west coast debut, the Pasadena Museum of Modern Art (one of the earliest modern art museums in the country, now the Norton Simon Museum), and before that a center of suffragist and pacifist movements, and other liberal causes. By the late 1940s, the downtown area was blighted by flophouses, dive bars and pawn shops. It later became a hippie destination, with head shops, adult bookstores and massage parlors. By the late 1980s, Old Pasadena was undergoing a period of urban renewal and regeneration.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Fair Oaks and Colorado Boulevard</h3><br>
<p>Old Pasadenas center is the postal zero/zero intersection of all Pasadena of Fair Oaks Avenue (N-S) and Colorado Boulevard (E-W). The first of the businesses of the original Indiana Colony were established here. J. D. Hollingsworths general store served as the main supplier for the town as well as the post office when mail arrived from Los Angeles.</p><br>
<p>On the north-west corner was the Grand Hotel, in a building originally owned by Barney Williams, where the Williams family had run a general store on the ground floor. On the south-west corner (1 Fair Oaks Avenue) stood Williams Hall, also owned by the Williams family; this building was re-modeled in 1902 and became known as the Dodsworth Building, and now houses the Dodsworth Hotel.</p><br>
<p>The first meeting of Masons in Pasadena, later to become Pasadena Masonic Lodge No. 272, took place on 20 February 1883. A meeting in the library hall followed in October, at which the newly elected officials decided to make Williams Hall their permanent meeting place. An ornate front, similar to the facade of the present lodge, was erected on the upper story of the Colorado Boulevard building by H. Ridgway, an architect who was Master of the lodge in 1886. The Lodge continued to grow, and by 1917 it encompassed three separate lodges and fourteen affiliated bodies.</p><br>
<p>From the 1940s until the early 1970s, the Dodsworth Building, still displaying the masonic compass symbol on the inscribed stone in front of the building on its lower sides, contained a five-story furniture store belonging to Harry Steinberg and his son Albert Philip Steinberg, a 32nd degree mason and Shriner; that cornerstone now sits at the southwest corner of the Pasadena Masonic Temple at 200 S. Euclid Avenue.</p><br>
<h3>Schoolhouse Block</h3><br>
<p>In its infancy, the Indiana Colony was a quiet farming community centered around Orange Grove Boulevard, about a half mile west of Fair Oaks Avenue. Fair Oaks Avenue, just south of Colorado Boulevard, became the site of a new school, the Fair Oaks schoolhouse, a gift from Benjamin "Don Benito" Wilson. Fearing for the safety of children, the council of city fathers sought to move the schoolhouse away from the developing center of the town and its bustling activity, but Benjamin Wilson had died and his estate had passed to family members still living in the area. The council sought permission from the family on the understanding that the school would be moved immediately for the benefit of the children, but an improved school would be established somewhere outside Old Pasadena soon thereafter. The block of Fair Oaks Avenue, Colorado Boulevard, Raymond Avenue, and Green Street retained the name "schoolhouse block."</p><br>
<p>No record of the subsequent location of the school was retained in the records, but the location of the new school can be drawn from several historical accounts. Hiram Reid&#39;s History of Pasadena (1895) states that the schoolhouse was "moved several feet east to a frontage on Raymond 500 feet north of a line parallel to the north wall of the Post Office building." In 1895 the Post Office was in the Morgan Block just north of Kansas Street (Green Street). Reid goes on to say that "a beautiful new edifice stands there now," a reference to the Van der Vort building, built in 1894, replacing the schoolhouse. Eventually that building was sold to someone who moved it away for a residence, and a new Wilson School was later built outside of Old Pasadena, 4.2 miles to the east on Del Mar Boulevard and Madre Street.</p><br>
<h3>Castle Green</h3><br>
<p>In 1887 Edward C. Webster began construction of a hotel at 1929 Green Street, on the southeast corner of Raymond Avenue and Kansas Street. When he was unable to complete the job, a newcomer to the area, Colonel George Gill Green, took over the construction and finished the Green Hotel, which opened in 1888.</p><br>
<p>Green was a friend of Andrew McNally, a prominent printer from Chicago who had moved West and made his home in Altadena, California. McNally had invited Green to come out and join him in this new community. Together Green and McNally invested heavily in the short-lived Altadena Railroad, which provided them private sidings at their residences and which Green rode daily to the construction site of his new hotel. Green and Andrew McNally were next door neighbors on Mariposa Street just west of Lake Avenue. The McNally home still stands and the old Green Carriage house remains in use as a residence, and is visible from the rear parking lot of the Altadena Library, which stands on the site of the Green house.</p><br>
<p>The new Green Hotel was a 6-story edifice that faced Central Park on South Raymond, just north of the original Victorian Pasadena Train Station, where trains stopped between Chicago and Los Angeles. That station was replaced by the current station, in the Southwestern style.</p><br>
<p>In 1898, Green built a grander Mediterranean style hotel on the opposite side of Raymond. The first became referred to as the annex, and the second became the winter home for some of the most prominent industrial magnates in the Eastern United States. The two buildings were connected by a bridge across Raymond, and a tunnel under it. Guests arriving by train would pass through the annex, to the second floor, and be trammed across the bridge. In the main residence they would retire to their suites, and the luggage would follow via the tunnel. Many of the servants and attendants of the guests were forced to find accommodation in the adjacent buildings. In 1902 a new wing of the hotel was built along Kansas (now Green Street) to the P. G. Wooster Block, home of Throop University, (forerunner to Caltech).</p><br>
<p>In 1924 the hotel was converted into residential apartments. The original building (annex) was razed to its first floor. All that is left of that original hotel is a portico on the corner of Raymond and Green. The building is now owned by Stats Floral Supply. In 1970 the government&#39;s Department of Housing and Urban Development acquired the 1902 wing and separated the buildings into the Green Hotel on Green and the Castle Green on Raymond.</p><br>
<h3>Other developments</h3><br>
<p>In 1887, a Chicago land speculator named Morgan built a three story block next to the site of the County Jail. In 1895, John Woodbury built a modest office building for himself which he shared with Jared S. Torrance. This building was replaced by the Marsh Block in 1902 which took up the whole corner lot of Raymond and Kansas south of the Morgan. In 1894 Van der Vort constructed the building that still bears his name at 32 S. Raymond. In 1889, Robert MacComber built the MacComber block on the northwest corner of Raymond and Kansas. In 1906 Braley built a bike manufacturing building, which eventually became an Oldsmobile dealership.</p><br>
<p>In 1887 a three story Victorian red brick building with bay windows and a turret on the southeast corner was constructed at 107 South Fair Oaks on the northwest corner at Dayton Street. It was named the "Doty Block" and housed a stagecoach showroom. In later years it became The Mikado Hotel serving the Japanese American Community. It became a freight depot for the Pasadena and Los Angeles Railroad, which later became part of the Pacific Electric Railway. Above the second floor windows on the south wall the faint lettering "Pasadena and Los Angeles" that advertised that service can be seen today.</p><br>
<p>In the 1940s, the building became Pasadenas first Black-owned hotel, the Hotel Carver, when it was purchased and operated by Percy Clark and his sons Percy Jr., Robert, and Littleton. In the basement was a prominent jazz club known first as the Onyx Club and later as the Cobra Club. In 1970 the hotel was sold and the building was converted into artist and performance studios. Over the next fifteen years hundreds of artists, musicians, writers, dancers, and filmmakers rented space at the Hotel Carver. The building was best known during this period for the John Bull English Pub, operated by Danny and Denise Sharp, and for the quirky word mural by Paul Waszink on the north wall reading: "My people are the people of the dessert," said T.E. Lawrence, picking up his fork. Several art shows were held in the third floor ballroom and other parts of the building. In 1985 the artists were evicted and the building closed. The 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake caused the collapse of the building immediately to the north of the Carver, and caused a large section of bricks on the top of the north wall to fall to the ground, destroying part of Waszinks T.E. Lawrence mural. Following the earthquake, the north wall was re-bricked and the building remodeled and earthquake retrofitted, as part of the general redevelopment of Old Town.</p><br>
<p>Robertson Motors built an auto factory just south of the Green Hotel Annex, which is now occupied by Fishbeck Furnishings.</p><br>
<p>In 1911 City Hall occupied a building at Union Street and Fair Oaks Avenue. Since then City Hall has moved several times, and the building was lost, only to be replaced in 2003 by a quasi replica now known as the Container Store. The California National Guard used several buildings in Old Pasadena before they built The Armory on Raymond above Holly. The old brick building on Holly across from the senior center was a National Guard motor depot.</p><br>
<p>In 1929 Colorado Street (now Colorado Boulevard) was widened on the north side, and many of the elaborate Victorian facades of the buildings were lost to reconstruction and replaced with cheaper and more modern frontages. Colorado Street became 14 feet wider as a result. In 1929 Kansas Street was widened and renamed Green Street. Union and Holly Streets were part of a city gateway that were to lead toward City Hall (1933) from the statue and flag at Orange Grove Boulevard and Colorado Boulevard. The whole plan was scaled down, but the streets were put in.</p><br>
<h3>Historic District</h3><br>
<p>The Historic Old Pasadena District was designated in 1980 as a historic district of the Pasadena Charter, defined by its boundaries: to the North, Holly Street from Fair Oaks Avenue to Arroyo Parkway; to the East, Arroyo Parkway south to Green Street, moving half a block west to the old Santa Fe RR right-of-way; continuing south to encompass the Old Train Station and Central Park, then north on Fair Oaks Avenue to De Lacey Street, then west to Pasadena Avenue; on the West by Pasadena Avenue, north to Union Street, back to Fair Oaks Avenue, and north to Holly Street.</p><br>
<p>It was chartered as a means of revitalizing the oldest part of Pasadena which, though not abandoned, had fallen derelict and was economically and commercially barren. With this charter, a controlled redevelopment was established with federal tax incentives to qualifying investors. Under strict guidelines, buildings were stripped of old paint, revealing some of the early brickwork fasciae. All renovations and remodeling were overseen by a city commission which approved materials, colors and styles, most of which were to reflect the period from 1925 to 1940.</p><br>
<p>The Old Pasadena Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.</p><br>
<h2>Old Pasadena today</h2><br>
<p>Pasadena’s downtown declined between 1930 and 1980, but has since been revived as “Old Pasadena”, one of Southern California’s most popular shopping and entertainment destinations. Dedicating parking meter revenue to finance public improvements in the area since 1993 has played a major part in this revival.</p><br>
<p>Old Pasadena today is mostly a business district with some mixed use. It contains a shopping mall, up-market restaurants, a movie theater, nightclubs, shops, outdoor cafés, pubs, and comedy clubs, and has an active nightlife. Most of the buildings also have offices and apartments on the upper floors.</p><br>
<p>Old Pasadena is connected to Downtown Los Angeles via the Metro Gold Line light rail. Del Mar station is two blocks south of Colorado Boulevard, while Memorial Park station enters from Holly Street and Arroyo Parkway. The Norton Simon Museum is located at Orange Grove Boulevard and Colorado Boulevard. Pacific Oaks College Eureka campus is located at Fair Oaks Avenue and Eureka Street, the very north end of Old Pasadena. On New Year&#39;s Day, the Tournament of Roses Parade travels through Old Pasadena on Colorado Boulevard. The spectacle draws an average of 1.5 million spectators each year, thousands of whom camp overnight on the route to have a prime view of the parade.</p><br>
<p>ArtPerformance is an annual outdoor music event featuring free concerts on multiple stages throughout Old Pasadena, in conjunction with PasadenART Weekend, a three-day citywide event.</p><br>
<p>Two street intersections in Old Pasadena, Colorado/DeLacey and Colorado/Raymond, use the pedestrian scramble system, as used in Tokyo, Las Vegas Strip in Nevada, or on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.</p><br>
<h2>Notable residents</h2><br>
<p>Notable people who have lived or spent time in Old Pasadena include General George Patton, Alexander Calder, Upton Sinclair, L. Ron Hubbard, Jack Parsons, Albert Einstein, Bobby Fischer and David Lee Roth.</p><br>
<p>The Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum is a historic house museum located at 15415 East Don Julian Road in City of Industry, California, that features the homes and private cemetery that belonged to the pioneer Workman-Temple family.</p><br>
<h2>Workman House</h2><br>
<p>After his arrival in the San Gabriel Valley in 1841, William Workman (1799&ndash;1876) bought part of the Rancho La Puente and built his adobe house in 1842. It was enlarged over the years and, by 1870, was remodeled with the addition of brick wings and a second story, as well as impressive exterior decorative details. This renovation was said to have been designed by the first trained architect in Los Angeles, Ezra F. Kysor, designer of the extant Pico House hotel, St. Vibianas Cathedral, and the Perry House, all in Los Angeles, though there is no known documentation of Kysors work on the building. The Workman Adobe was placed on the National Register of Historic Landmarks on November 20, 1974 and was added to the California State Register of Historic Landmarks, No. 874, in conjunction with "El Campo Santo" Cemetery, with the marker placed on the site on 5 November 1976, the 135th anniversary of the arrival of the Workman family to the area.</p><br>
<p>The broad outlines, including large porches on the north and south sides, of the structure measure 19 deep by 72 wide and there are eight rooms on the first floor and three finished rooms (with three others evidently finished in the late 19th century) on the second story. The home was dramatically altered over the years, especially when it was used for military school classrooms from 1930 to 1935 and as a residence and then office and nurses&#39; quarters for El Encanto sanitarium from 1940 to 1963, when the home and cemetery were purchased by the City of Industry. Consequently, many original details have long been lost, though there are a few notable survivors, including the ca. 1870 interior staircase, two marble coal-burning fireplaces from the same period, and a ceiling cartouche from that era. Late 1970s-era restortation efforts were limited to the outside of the structure, including the reconstruction of the entire east wall, which was mostly of adobe and collapsed during work in 1977. There are two houses open for tours on the property admission is free as is parking. Each is a 45 minute guided only tour, several aspects of the house remain off limits the cellars, upstairs of the Workman home, dormitories of the military school.</p><br>
<h2>La Casa Nueva (Temple residence)</h2><br>
<p>The Homestead Museum also includes La Casa Nueva &mdash; a spectacular example of Spanish Colonial Revival style, built by the Temple family between 1922 and 1927. The family&#39;s own design was drawn up by the well-known Los Angeles architectural firm of Walker and Eisen, although in 1924, Beverly Hills-based architect Roy Selden Price was hired to reconfigure the design.</p><br>
<p>The structure is largely built of adobe bricks handmade by artisans led by Pablo Urzua of Guadalajara, Jalisco, while the supervising contractor was Sylvester Cook of Whittier. The home (9,000 square feet, as built, with 2,000 ft&sup2; of dormitory space constructed in 1930 for a military school using the home) contains twenty-six rooms, including nine bedrooms, six bathrooms, a barber shop, commercial size electric cold storage unit, basement with a late 1870s bank vault for storage, and other notable features such as hand painted designs on windows as well as a vibrant use of stained glass of the period. The home is also unique as it features a madonna with child, however not with a traditional face, the face is more contemporary; wearing makeup, facial structure changed etc. The home was lived in by the Temple family for only two full years (1928 and 1929) as a fully completed structure, the home was leased to Lawrence Lewis, who was headmaster of a boys&#39; military academy, Raenford (later Golden State), which moved from Redondo Beach and operated at the 92 acre ranch from 1930 to 1935. The home and property were then owned by the California Bank and occupied by caretakers until purchased in October 1940 by Harry and Lois Brown, operators of El Encanto, a sanitarium moved to the site from Monrovia. The Brown family took excellent care of the house until it was sold to the City of Industry in 1975.</p><br>
<p>Restoration took place in subsequent years with the home opened as part of the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum in May 1981. While most of the house was intact, some replication was done and the house was almost entirely furnished with acquired period pieces, though some original family furniture and artifacts have been donated by Temple descendants.</p><br>
<h2>El Campo Santo Cemetery</h2><br>
<p>The family cemetery, El Campo Santo, was established in the 1850s. The earliest documented date is the burial of founder William Workmans brother, David, in November 1855. A year later, artist Henry Miller, touring California to visit and sketch the Spanish and Mexican-era Roman Catholic missions, stayed at the Workman House and prepared sketches for a chapel contemplated by Workman. On 30 May 1857, the cornerstone to St. Nicholas Chapel (named in honor of Workmans wife, Nicolasa Urioste de Valencia) was laid and blessed by Bishop Thaddeus Amat. Construction of the Gothic Revival structure, which measured 24 x 48&#39; and featured gilt ceilings and stained glass windows, was completed by the early 1860s. The cemetery was used exclusively as a private burial ground for Workman and Temple family members and friends and masses were regularly heard, presumably by a priest visiting from Mission San Gabriel, at the chapel.</p><br>
<p>After the property, reduced from 24,000 to 75 acre after the familys bank failed in 1876, was lost by the family in 1900, the chapel was said to have burned and was razed, as were three of the original brick enclosure walls. Numerous gravestones were removed and the site desecrated. A lawsuit by Walter Temple, Workmans grandson, in 1907 halted the destruction, but the cemetery languished for a decade until Temple, newly enriched with oil revenue from his Montebello ranch, bought the ranch and cemetery. From 1919 to 1921, Temple&#39;s first priority on the ranch was the renovation of El Campo Santo and the building of a mausoleum, designed by the architectural firm of Garstang and Rea, on the site of the chapel. The reopening of the cemetery took place in April 1921, at which time the remains of the last governor of Alta California, Pío Pico, and his wife, Ygnacia Alvarado, were placed in the mausoleum. It also contains the remains of other prominent pioneer families. The Workman Home And Family Cemetery are designated California Historical Landmark No. 874.</p><br>
<p>The cemetery remained in use during the occupancy of the Temple family in the 1920s and during that of the Brown family from 1940 to 1981. In recent years there have been three burials. Walter P. Temple was relocated to the site in 2002 from Mission San Gabriel, where he was buried in 1938 after the cemeterys owner, California Bank, refused the Temples request to have him buried there. Temple&#39;s son, Walter, Jr., the last member of the family to have lived at the Homestead, and daughter-in-law, Nellie Didier, were buried in the cemetery in 1998. A spot is reserved for their daughter, after which the cemetery will cease being in active use.</p><br>
<h2>Public Access to the Homestead Museum</h2><br>
<p>The museum, opened 1 May 1981, is owned and fully funded by the City of Industry and its management is currently contracted to Historical Resources, Inc., owned by museum director Paul R. Spitzzeri. Guided public tours of the Workman Home, La Casa Nueva, and El Campo Santo Cemetery at the Homestead Museum are available on the hour from 1 to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday, excepting major holidays. The museum also maintains a full schedule of festivals, weekend living history tours, behind-the-scenes tours, workshops and other events throughout the year.</p><br>
<h2>Gallery of photographs from Homestead Museum</h2><br>
<p>The Out Skerries are an archipelago in Shetland, Scotland, lying to the east of the main Shetland Island group. Locally, they are usually called Da Skerries or just Skerries.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<p>The Out Skerries lie about four miles north east of Whalsay and Bound Skerry forms the easternmost part of Scotland, lying 320 km from Norway. The main islands are Housay, Bruray and Grunay.</p><br>
<p>A large number of islets and stacks surround the main group. These include the Hevda Skerries and Wether Holm to the north, the Holm to the south and Lamba Stack and Flat Lamba Stack to the east. Stoura Stack and the Hogg are to the south of Grunay. Bound Skerry, which has a lighthouse, is flanked by Little Bound Skerry and Horn Skerry.</p><br>
<p>Beyond Mio Ness at the south west tip of Housay are North and South Benelip and the Easter Skerries, as well as Filla, Short & Long Guen (the Guens), Bilia Skerry, and Swaba Stack. In an isolated group between the main Out Skerries and the Mainland, are Little Skerry and the Vongs, and Muckle Skerry is another outlier lying further north.</p><br>
<h2>Etymology</h2><br>
<p>Most of the Skerries placenames have a Norse origin. The "Out" name derives from one or both of two Old Norse words. Austr means "east" and may have been used to distinguish Out Skerries from Ve Skerries or "west skerries", and utsker means "outer". "Skerry" is from the Old Norse sker and refers to a small rocky island or a rocky reef.</p><br>
<p>Housay is from the Old Norse Húsey meaning "horse island" although this name is now little used by locals, who prefer "West Isle". Bruray may be from the Norse brú and mean "bridge island" due to its position between West Isle and Grunay, the latter meaning simply "green island". The derivation of Bound Skerry is more problematic but may be from bønn, meaning "forerunner", a reference to this being the first land a ship encounters en route to Shetland from Bergen.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Prehistory</h3><br>
<p>There is evidence of Neolithic inhabitation including two house sites at Queyness. The Battle Pund is a 13 m across rectangle marked out by boulders dating from the Bronze Age. It is similar to a structure at Hjaltadans in Fetlar, but its purpose is unknown.</p><br>
<p>There is a massive ruined structure on the north shore of Grunay known locally as "the broch" although it is not known if it dates from the Iron Age, when such structures were built throughout the far north of Scotland. The name "Benelips" possibly originating from the Old Norse bon meaning "to pray" hints at the existence of an early Christian hermitage on these remote islets.</p><br>
<p>Dey (1991) speculates that the folklore of the troll-like trows, and perhaps that of the selkie may be based in part on the Norse invasions of the Northern Isles. She states that the conquest by the Vikings sent the indigenous, dark-haired Picts into hiding and that "many stories exist in Shetland of these strange people, smaller and darker than the tall, blond Vikings who, having been driven off their land into sea caves, emerged at night to steal from the new land owners." The skerry of Trollsholm and its cleft of Trolli Geo indicate the presence of this folklore on Out Skerries.</p><br>
<h3>Historic period</h3><br>
<p>The Out Skerries have been permanently inhabited from the Norse period onwards.</p><br>
<p>There are a number of shipwrecks around the islands include the Dutch vessels Kemmerland (1664) and De Leifde (1711); and North Wind (1906), which was carrying wood which was salvaged and used by the islanders for their houses. Some of the gold from these wrecks was found in 1960.</p><br>
<p>Due to their remote and rugged nature, the islanders were accused of smuggling and wrecking. Tammy Tyrie&#39;s Hidey Hol was used by islanders to avoid press gangs.</p><br>
<p>Until the early 20th century, a lot of haaf fishing was conducted from sixareens.</p><br>
<h3>World War II</h3><br>
<p>Being so close to Norway, the islands were of strategic importance in World War II and were a regular landfall for Norwegian boats carrying escapees from the Nazi occupation. The local coastguard were responsible for the refugees and at one point during the war were issued with a tommy gun, although initially no-one knew how to use it. German planes frequently flew over at low altitudes, strafing the Grunay lighthouse shore station in 1941 and dropping a bomb in 1942. The latter attack killed Mary Anderson, the only local casualty of the war and Grunay was evacuated shortly thereafter. A month later a Canadian bomber crashed on Grunay and in 1990, a plaque was raised to commemorate this event. Dey (1991) states that the bomber was a "British" Blenheim bomber with a crew of two Canadians and one Englishman. The plaque ceremony was attended by the family of F/Sgt Jay Oliver, one of the two Canadian casualties and Peter Johnson, a local man who had witnessed the crash aged eight years. During the war an official letter was sent in secret to the local sub-postmistress with instructions that it be opened in the event of a German invasion. After the war it was returned, unopened.</p><br>
<h2>A very special place to live and visit</h2><br>
<p>Around 40 people live on the two main islands – Housay and Bruray – that comprise the Out Skerries, just east of the main Shetland Islands group. (A third island, Grunay currently uninhabited.) The two islands are linked by a bridge and boast a simple life with just 2 shops, an airstrip, a church, and a community hall where the famous Skerries dances are held (especially for the celebration for the annual Lerwick to Skerries Yacht Race held in August). One of the Out Skerries’ claim to fame is wildlife with frequent sightings of rare birds.In 2016 the school only had one child in. The story went viral and he received 10,000 Christmas cards that year from all around the world.</p><br>
<p>We are also home to the Scotlands smallest cinema, called Schoolhouse Cinema for whats on please visit http://schoolhousecinema.co.uk</p><br>
<p>More information abour Out Skerries can be found at http://www.discoveroutskerries.co.uk</p><br>
<h2>Economy and transport</h2><br>
<p>The soil in the islands is thin and infertile, but is heaped into riggs, for better cultivation of potatoes, carrots and swedes. Sheep farming still occurs, but is far less important than it once was. Tourism on the other hand has increased.</p><br>
<p>The islands have a primary school, two shops, a fish processing factory, an airstrip, and a church, and a police station. The previously open secondary school was the smallest in the UK; in 2010 the school had only three pupils. The secondary school was closed in 2014 by the approval of the Scottish government. The primary school in 2015 had just one pupil. The main industry on the islands is fishing. There is a church on Housay.</p><br>
<p>The old schoolhouse found reuse as the second-smallest cinema in the UK, which opened in 2017 and offers free admissions and free snacks. It has 20 seats, which were all taken when it showed its first film, Stuart Little 2, in late February 2017.</p><br>
<p>There is little peat on the Out Skerries, so the residents have been granted rights to cut it on Whalsay.</p><br>
<p>The Skerries Bridge, which links Bruray to Housay was built in 1957, replacing the first bridge built in 1899.</p><br>
<p>There is around a mile of road, along which most of the population lives.</p><br>
<p>There is a ferry to the islands from Vidlin and Lerwick.</p><br>
<p>Fogo Island is the largest of the offshore islands of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. It lies off the northeast coast of Newfoundland, northwest of Musgrave Harbour across Hamilton Sound, just east of the Change Islands. The island is about 25 km long and 14 km wide. The total area is 237.71 km&sup2;.</p><br>
<p>The island had a population of 2,706 people in the 2006 census, 2,395 in the 2011 census, and 2,244 in the 2016 census.</p><br>
<p>Though migratory French fishermen visited Fogo Island from the early 16th century until 1718, the first permanent settlement of the island took place in the 18th century. Fogo Harbour and Tilting Harbour were the first settlements on the island. The English and Irish descendants of the first inhabitants retained traces of their Elizabethan English and Old Irish dialects which can be heard on the island today. The island has many ancient folk customs brought from England and Ireland that are now disappearing.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<p>Fogo Island is one of the oldest named features on the coast of Newfoundland. The Bertius map from 1606 shows Fogo Island as one of only about a dozen important features around the coast of Newfoundland. On French maps of the 16th to 18th centuries, the island is referred to as Ile des Fougues. The island was likely named by Portuguese explorers and early fishing crews in the 16th century (Fogo means Fire in Portuguese).</p><br>
<p>Until 1783 Fogo Island was on an area of the coast called the French Shore. Though English and Irish were not supposed to settle here, under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht, they did settle, and by 1750 Fogo was a thriving part of the British mercantile system of fisheries, based out of West Country English towns such as Poole, in Dorset.</p><br>
<p>Tilting Harbour on Fogo Island is a National Cultural Landscape District of Canada and is Newfoundland and Labrador&#39;s first Provincial Heritage District. Tilting is unique for its Irish culture and, some people say, its Irish dialect. The Irish Cemetery in Tilting may be the oldest in North America.</p><br>
<p>Local oral history indicates that Tilting was originally a French harbour before becoming a venue of Irish settlement. This is highly likely, given the traditional commercial and cultural links between southern Irish and northern French fishing ports. The first Irish settled in Tilting in the 1750s, and uniquely for Newfoundland, Tilting evolved into an exclusively Irish and Catholic town by the 1780s.</p><br>
<p>Beothuk Indians traversed Fogo Island for many hundreds of years before Irish and English settlers arrived. The Beothuk pursued the seal and salmon fisheries in the area. They also travelled out to the Funk Islands to collect feathers and eggs from the birds there. In the early years of European settlement at Fogo, there were incidents of violence between the Beothuk and the Europeans. This contact ended around the year 1800. The Beothuk became extinct as a people in the late 1820s.</p><br>
<p>Fogo Island first attracted Europeans because of the extensive opportunities for commodity harvesting, including seal skins and oil, lumber, fur-bearing animals, salmon and of course cod. Over time, settlers on the island concentrated on processing dried cod, mainly because that was the product that most interested the merchants who dealt in the region of Fogo. From about 1850 until the widespread depletion of fish stocks in the 1990s, cod was king. In recent years the economy of the island has seen diversification away from solely fishing to tourism and cultural industries.</p><br>
<p>Fishing has always been a hard life. Before Confederation with Canada, the mercantile classes of St John&#39;s, Newfoundland became rich by holding a near-monopoly stranglehold on both the supply of goods to the Newfoundland outports and on the sale of fish from them.</p><br>
<p>In the early 20th century, the Fishermans Protective Union was formed in an attempt to break this stranglehold. It was a form of co-operative with general stores owned by fishermen for fishermen. One of the Fishermens Union stores still stands at Seldom-Come-By on Fogo Island, now open as a museum complete with general store, port installations, fishing implements and equipment for the manufacture of cod-liver oil.</p><br>
<p>Today the Fogo Island Cooperative continues to successfully stake footholds in new fish markets. Communities began recognising the appeal of their land and heritage as cultural tourism opportunities.</p><br>
<p>Crab and lobster fisheries have largely replaced the cod fishery; a fish-packing plant remains in operation in the town of Fogo.</p><br>
<p>A Marconi radio transmitting station was once operational atop a hill near the town of Fogo; operating with a spark-gap transmitter to establish maritime communications, the station was forced to close around the time that radio became common for household use as the spark-gap design generated unacceptable levels of radio interference. Efforts to rebuild this station as a historic site commenced in 2002.</p><br>
<p>In 1967, the island played a key role in the development of what came to be known as the "Fogo Process," a model for community media as a tool for addressing community concerns, when Colin Low shot 27 films with Fogo Islanders as part of the National Film Board of Canada&#39;s Challenge for Change program.</p><br>
<p>Residents defeated the Smallwood Government&#39;s plans to resettle Fogo Island in the 1950s but by 1967 a downturn in the inshore fishery had forced many to turn to welfare support. The northern cod fishery closed in 1992. While the island did recover from the downturn—in part owing to the Fogo Process—the depleted state of the fishery adversely affected islanders for years to come.</p><br>
<h2>Communities</h2><br>
<p>In the 2006 Census there were eleven communities on Fogo Island:</p><br>
<p>Stag Harbour 223 (2001 population)</p><br>
<p>Seldom (together with Little Seldom) 444</p><br>
<p>Little Seldom</p><br>
<p>Island Harbour 185 (2001 population)</p><br>
<p>Deep Bay 141 (2001 population)</p><br>
<p>Fogo Island Central 15 (2001 population)</p><br>
<p>Fogo 748</p><br>
<p>Joe Batts Arm (together with Barrd Islands and Shoal Bay) 778</p><br>
<p>Shoal Bay</p><br>
<p>Barr&#39;d Islands</p><br>
<p>Tilting 248</p><br>
<p>On March 1, 2011, the towns of Fogo, Joe Batts Arm-Barrd Islands-Shoal Bay, Seldom-Little Seldom and Tilting and a portion of the Fogo Island Region (Stag Harbour, Island Harbour, Deep Bay, and Fogo Island Central) amalgamated to form the Town of Fogo Island.</p><br>
<h2>Climate</h2><br>
<p>Fogo Island has a marine-based cold humid continental climate bordering on subarctic with cooler summers than inland areas of Newfoundland as well as milder winters than areas on the same parallels in interior Canada. However, due to the very cool characteristics of summer months, Fogo Island in many ways resembles the subarctic range. The fourth warmest month of June just straddles 10 &deg;C in mean temperature. As typical of Newfoundland and its surroundings precipitation is high and consistent year-round, which results in more three and a half metres of snowfall on average in winter. Due to the extreme seasonal lag autumn is much warmer than spring, and as such the coldest and warmest months are February and August, respectively.</p><br>
<h2>Name</h2><br>
<p>Fogo Island was once called Y del Fogo, meaning Isle of Fire. There are a number of theories for the name:</p><br>
<p>Many accidental or natural forest fires destroyed the dense forests of the northern part of the island.</p><br>
<p>European mariners often saw the burning fires of the Beothuk natives, when they were visiting from across the Atlantic.</p><br>
<p>The island may have been named Fogo after the Cape Verde Islands active volcano. Note that many Newfoundland geographical features were named by the Spanish, the Portuguese and the French before anglophones (the English, the Irish and the Scots) arrived. Cape Bonavista, Cape Spear, Cape Race, Trinity Bay, Placentia Bay, Notre Dame Bay, Cape St Francis, Baccalieu Island, Baie Verte, Taslow, Baie lArgente and even St John&#39;s or Catalina are place names that were originally named by non-English-speakers.</p><br>
<h2>Transportation</h2><br>
<p>Fogo Island is connected to mainland Newfoundland by the ferry MV Veteran, and served by Fogo Aerodrome.</p><br>
<h2>Brimstone Head Folk Festival</h2><br>
<p>The community of Fogo in Fogo Island is home to the, hosted by the Fogo Island Folk Alliance. This event attracts people from all over every year in early August. Performers consist of many bands which have included The Masterless Men, The Irish Descendants, Middle Tickle, The Fogo Island Accordion Group, Shores of Newfoundland, The Affections and many other local performers such as Aaron Brown, Sally Payne and Jason Hoven.</p><br>
<p>Brimstone Head was touted as one of the four corners of the world by the tongue-in-cheek Flat Earth Society of Canada (not related to the Flat Earth Society).</p><br>
<p>Along with the Brimstone Head Folk Festival, other communities have festivals as well. Joe Batts Arm hosts the Ethridges Point Seaside Fest, which usually takes place during the first weekend in August, the weekend before the Brimstone Head festival.</p><br>
<h2>Fogo Island Accordion Group</h2><br>
<p>Fogo Island is also home to the islands one and only Fogo Island Accordion Group which started up in the 1990s with five girls from the Fogo Island Central Academy with one of the islands teachers, Gerald Freake. The group has been recognised by various communities, the province of Newfoundland & Labrador, not only for their talent, but for their motto "keeping tradition alive" and travelling the country coast to coast, bringing Newfoundland music all over. The Fogo Island Accordion Group have also recorded several albums and three videos.</p><br>
<p>The group has been separated since 2001 since they have graduated from high school and moved on with their lives, spreading throughout Canada, getting jobs, but still playing their button accordions. They came together once again in 2006 for a reunion on Fogo Island, and were approached by CBC (Canadian Broadcast Company) - Land & Sea where they did a one-hour-long show, telling their stories about playing the accordion and keeping tradition alive once again.</p><br>
<p>Members of the Fogo Island Accordion Group:</p><br>
<p>Gerald Freake (Teacher, Group Manager, Guitarist)</p><br>
<p>Melanie Penton (Accordion Player)</p><br>
<p>Heather Penton (Accordion Player, Vocals)</p><br>
<p>Angie Penton (Accordion Player)</p><br>
<p>Serena Adams (Accordion Player)</p><br>
<p>Jennifer Furlong (Accordion Player, Lead Vocals)</p><br>
<p>Jamie Hancock (Guitarist, Vocals)</p><br>
<p>Various members of the past group still perform at both the Brimstone Head Festival and Ethridges Point Seaside Fest: Jamie Hancock who is seen every year playing in Joe Batts Arm with another band which he is a part of, as well as Melanie Penton who still lives on the island, and has played with her cousin who is also an accordionist.</p><br>
<p>Tur Abdin  is a hilly region situated in southeast Turkey, including the eastern half of the Mardin Province, and Şırnak Province west of the Tigris, on the border with Syria. The name &#39;Tur Abdin&#39; is derived from Syriac, meaning "mountain of the servants ". Tur Abdin is of great importance to Syriac Orthodox Christians, for whom the region used to be a monastic and cultural heartland. The Assyrian community of Tur Abdin call themselves Suroye and Suryoye, terms which derive etymologically from the earlier Assurayu  and traditionally speak a central Neo-Aramaic dialect called Turoyo.</p><br>
<h2>Geography</h2><br>
<h3>Settlements</h3><br>
<p>The town of Midyat and the villages of Hah, Bequsyone, Dayro da-Slibo, Salah (with the old monastery of Mor Yaqub), Iwardo (with Mor Huschabo), Anhel, Kafro, Arkah (Harabale, with Dayro Mor Malke), Beth Sbirino, Miden (Middo), Kerburan, Binkelbe with Mor Samun Zayte and Beth Zabday (Azech) were all important Syriac Orthodox places among with countless other villages. Hah has the ancient `Idto d&#39;Yoldath-Aloho, the Church of the Mother of God.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>Antiquity</h3><br>
<p>In the 9th century BCE the Assyrian King Ashurnasirpal II described crossing the plateau of Tur Abdin (which he calls "Kashyari") on his way to attack the region of Nairi. Assyrian source from the 9th century BC; where it is called "Kashyari". In 586 B.C. the prophet Ezekiel mentions the famed wine of Izlo, on the southern edge of the plateau of Tur Abdin, in his prophecy against Tyre. The Mor Gabriel Monastery, the oldest Syriac (Syrian Orthodox) church in the world, was founded in 397 by the ascetic Mor Shmuel (Samuel) and his student Mor Shemun (Simon). According to tradition, Shemun had a dream in which an Angel commanded him to build a House of Prayer in a located marked with three large stone blocks. When they Shemun awoke, he took his teacher to the place and found the stone the angel had placed. At this spot Mor Gabriel Monastery built.</p><br>
<h3>Modern</h3><br>
<p>During World War I, 750,000 Aramean & Assyrian Christians were killed in the Ottoman Empires Assyrian Genocide (called in Syriac Sayfo, simply the sword&#39;). In the last few decades, caught between Turkish assimilation policies against Kurds, and Kurdish resistance, many Aramean & Assyrians have fled the region or been killed. Today there are only 5,000, a quarter of the Christian population thirty years ago. Most have fled to Syria (where the city of Qamishli was built by them), Europe (particularly Sweden, Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands), Australia and the United States. In the past few years, a few families have returned to Tur Abdin.</p><br>
<h3>Recent conflicts</h3><br>
<p>On 10 February 2006 and the following day, large demonstrations took place in the city of Midyat in Tur Abdin. Muslims angry about the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons gathered in Estel, the new part of the city, and started to march towards the old part of Midyat (6 kilometers away), where the Christians live. The mob was stopped by the police before reaching old Midyat.</p><br>
<p>In 2008 a series of legal challenges were made against the monastery of Mor Gabriel. Some local Kurdish villages sought to claim land on which the monastery had paid taxes since the 1930s as belonging to the villages, and made other accusations against the monastery. This led to considerable diplomatic and Human Rights action throughout Europe and within Turkey.</p><br>
<h2>Monasteries</h2><br>
<p>The most important Syriac Orthodox centre in Tur Abdin is the monastery of Dayro d-Mor Hananyo, 6 km south east of Mardin, in the west of the region. Built from yellow rock, the monastery is affectionately known as Dayro d Kurkmo in Syriac, Dayr al-Zafaran in Arabic, or Deyrülzafarân in Turkish: the Safron Monastery. Founded in AD 493, the monastery was the residence of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch from 1160 to 1932. Although the patriarch now lives in Damascus the monastery still contains the patriarchal throne and tombs of seven patriarchs and metropolitans. Today the monastery is led by a bishop and a monk and some lay assistants, and is a school for orphans. The bishop of Mor Hananyo is also the patriarchal vicar of Mardin. His goal is to rebuild the monastery and to preserve the history of the Syriac Orthodox church. The Dayro d-Mor Hananyo is part of the UNESCO world cultural heritage and was visited by numerous celebrities e.g. like Prince Charles.</p><br>
<p>In the centre of the Tur Abdin region, a few miles south of Midyat, is Dayro d-Mor Gabriel. Built in AD 397, Mor Gabriel monastery, is the oldest functioning Syriac Orthodox monastery on earth. It is the residence of the Metropolitan Bishop of Tur Abdin, seven nuns, four monks and a host of guests, assistants and students. The monastery is charged with keeping the flame of Syriac Orthodox faith alive in Tur Abdin, for which it is as much a fortress as a church.</p><br>
<p>The Saffron and Mor Gabriel monasteries are the most important of the region, existing along with six or seven other active monasteries:</p><br>
<p>The Mor Augin Monastery, located on the southern slope of Mt. Izla, has only been recently revived. It has a historical significance to the region. As evidence of that, a Syriac Orthodox Bishop in the Netherlands took the name Augin in respect for the founder of the monastery.</p><br>
<p>The Mor Abroham Monastery is located less than a mile east of Midyat, and it is known for having a large amount of farmland, some of which they donated to house Syrian refugees. Directly adjacent to the monastery lies the Turabdin Hotel and winery, which uses the monasteries vineyards to produce unique Syriac wines endemic to the region.</p><br>
<p>The St. Meryemana (Mary) Monastery, located next to the village of Antili, functions as the religious center for the remaining Christians of the village, and has a school for Syriac children.</p><br>
<p>The Mor Yakup (Jacob) Monastery is located next to the village of Baristepe, and, like the St Mary Monastery, functions as the religious center for the remaining Christians of the village.</p><br>
<p>A second Mor Yakup Monastery is located in the village of Dibek (Syriac Badibe), having been rebuilt and occupied in 2013.</p><br>
<p>The Mor Malke Monastery is located on the northern slope of Mount Izla and is a few miles south of the village of Üçköy; it is connected by road to the village. Mor Malke is one of the newer monasteries of the region in terms of architecture, as it was rebuilt in the 30s. The monastery has a school, a church, and some farmlands.</p><br>
<p>One Monastery known as The Mor Aho Monastery was abandoned during the 1900s, but was later turned into a small walled village, when two dozen or so Syriac villagers built houses in the courtyard of the Monastery because its high walls allowed for better security and defense than what their nearby village provided. The Monastery has one Nun, but as it has no monks or consistent liturgy held in its church it is technically not a monastery.</p><br>
<h2>Notable people</h2><br>
<p>Ibrahim Baylan, Swedish minister, born in Tur Abdin</p><br>
<p>Yacoub Hanna Shamoun</p><br>
<p>The Wisconsin State Capitol, in Madison, Wisconsin, houses both chambers of the Wisconsin legislature along with the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the Office of the Governor. Completed in 1917, the building is the fifth to serve as the Wisconsin capitol since the first territorial legislature convened in 1836 and the third building since Wisconsin was granted statehood in 1848. The Wisconsin State Capitol is the tallest building in Madison, a distinction that has been preserved by legislation that prohibits buildings taller than the columns surrounding the dome . The Capitol is located at the southwestern end of the Madison Isthmus. The streets surrounding the building form the Capitol Square, which is home to many restaurants and shops.</p><br>
<h2>History</h2><br>
<h3>First capitol</h3><br>
<p>The first capitol was a prefabricated wood-frame council house without heat or water that had been sent hastily to Belmont. Legislators met there for 42 days after Belmont was designated the capital of Wisconsin Territory. The session chose Madison as the site of the capitol, and Burlington, Iowa as the site of further legislative sessions until Madison could be ready. The council house and an associated lodging house still stand and are operated by the Wisconsin Historical Society as the First Capitol Historic Site.</p><br>
<h3>Second capitol</h3><br>
<p>The second capitol was constructed during 1837 in Madison of stone cut from Maple Bluff and oak cut locally. Located on the site of the present capitol, it was a small but typical frontier capitol that cost $60,000 to build.</p><br>
<h3>Third capitol</h3><br>
<p>Growing government needs forced the state to construct a new capitol, also on the site of the present capitol. This structure, with a similar USA Capitol-inspired dome, was built between 1857 and 1869. During 1882, it was expanded at a cost of $900,000, with two wings to the north and south. During 1903, however, a commission began researching replacement of the structure.</p><br>
<h3>1904 fire</h3><br>
<p>On the night of February 26, 1904, a gas jet ignited a newly varnished ceiling in the third capitol building. Although the building had an advanced fire-fighting system, the nearby University of Wisconsin–Madisons reservoir, which supplied the capitol, was empty, allowing the fire to spread substantially before the switch to alternate city water supplies could be made. Madison firefighters could not handle the blaze on their own, so additional men and equipment had to be brought from Milwaukee. The effectiveness of the reinforcements was initially hampered by very cold temperatures; by the time they reached Madison, their equipment had frozen and needed to be thawed. As a result, the entire structure, except the north wing, burned to the ground. Numerous records, books, and historical artifacts were lost, including the mount of Old Abe, a Civil War mascot. However, through the efforts of university students, much of the state law library was saved. The fire occurred just five weeks after the state legislature had voted to cancel the capitols fire insurance policy.</p><br>
<h3>Current building</h3><br>
<p>Construction of the present capitol, the third in Madison, began in late 1906 and was completed in 1917 at a cost of $7.25 million. The architect was George B. Post & Sons from New York. Because of financial limitations and the need for immediate office space to house state government employees, the construction of the new building was extended over several years and emphasized building one wing at a time.</p><br>
<p>The Capitol is 284 feet, 5 inches tall from the ground floor to the top of the "Wisconsin" statue headdress on the dome.</p><br>
<p>The "Wisconsin" statue on the dome was sculpted during 1920 by Daniel Chester French of New York. Its left hand holds a globe surmounted by an eagle and her right arm is outstretched to symbolize the state motto, "Forward". It wears a helmet with the state animal, the badger, on top. It is made of hollow bronze covered with gold leaf. "Wisconsin" is 15 feet, 5 inches tall and weighs three tons. The statue is commonly misidentified as "Lady Forward" or "Miss Forward", which is the name of another statue on the capitol grounds.</p><br>
<p>The capitol was constructed of 43 types of stone from six countries and eight states. The exterior stone is Bethel white granite from Vermont, making the exterior dome the largest granite dome in the world. The corridor floors, walls and columns are of marble from the states of Tennessee, Missouri, Vermont, Georgia, New York, and Maryland; granite from the states of Wisconsin and Minnesota; and limestone from the states of Minnesota and Illinois. Marble from the countries of France, Italy, Greece, Algeria and Germany, and syenite from Norway are also represented. Other Wisconsin granites are located throughout the public hallways on the ground, first, and second floors.</p><br>
<p>The building was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2001. A 1990 state law prevents any building within one mile of the capitol from being taller than the base of the columns surrounding and supporting its dome.</p><br>
<h3>Restoration and renovation</h3><br>
<p>From 1988 to 2002 the capitol underwent a renovation and restoration project costing $158.8 million. The project was performed wing by wing, the same as the original construction of the capitol. The purpose of the project was to convert the capitol into a modern working building, while restoring and preserving its original 1917 appearance. Remodeling projects of the 1960s and 70s had introduced features out of character with the architecture of the building, such as dropped ceilings, movable partitions and fluorescent light fixtures, and many original decorative stencils were painted over. The restoration project returned public spaces to their original appearance. Original decorative stencils were repaired or recreated; gold leaf was replaced or restored, and marble surfaces were cleaned. Murals were cleaned and conserved in the public spaces. Skylights over the third and fourth floor interior offices and stairs, which had been sealed during the 1970s, were uncovered. The exterior granite was cleaned and repaired by workers who rappelled down from the dome. The renovation plan also included integrating modern technology into the original architecture. Electrical, mechanical (such as plumbing and heating), and communications systems were upgraded; asbestos was removed, and air conditioning was added. The capitol basement floor was lowered two feet to provide additional usable office space. Legislative offices were rebuilt as two-room suites (originally legislators did not have offices in the capitol, only their desks in the Senate and Assembly chambers). Modern office furniture was designed to look like the original oak furniture.</p><br>
<h2>Wisconsin Capitol sculpture program</h2><br>
<p>Architect Post planned an elaborate sculpture program for the building. Initially the statue of Wisconsin on the top of the dome was promised to Helen Farnsworth Mears but when Daniel Chester French agreed to produce the finial figure, the commission was switched to him. This work, often referred to as the "Golden Lady", consists of an allegorical figure reminiscent of Athena, dressed in Greek garb, and wearing a helmet topped by a badger, the Wisconsin state totem. In the left hand it holds a globe with an eagle perched on top. Across its chest is a large W, for Wisconsin.</p><br>
<p>Post&#39;s original concept for the building required four small domes to be placed at the base of the large one, but the plans were changed and the domes were replaced by four sculptural groups by Karl Bitter. These groups (again, in Greek clothing) symbolized Faith, Strength, Prosperity and Abundance.</p><br>
<p>Each of the four wings of the building is fronted by a pediment whose figures relate to the principal activities that were to occur within. Thus the east wing, housing the Supreme Court, features a pediment by Bitter entitled Law; the south has Adolph Alexander Weinmans Virtues and Traits of Character, for the wing containing the State Senate. Bitters other pediment, the west, is Agriculture, while Attilio Piccirilli&#39;s Wisdom and Learning of the World adorns the north pediment. The carving of all these sculptures is attributed to the Piccirilli Brothers.</p><br>
<h2>Fossils</h2><br>
<p>Naturally occurring fossils are found throughout the capitol:</p><br>
<p>Starfish: North wing, left grand stairs, 1st to 2nd floor, fourth step from bottom</p><br>
<p>Coral: West wing, second floor, railing overlooking central corridor, outside of Assembly chamber</p><br>
<p>Nautiloid: North wing, second floor, left of north hearing room entrance</p><br>
<p>Gastropod: West wing, left grand stairs; 1st to 2nd floor railing, above 9th step from top</p><br>
<p>Ammonoid: North wing, second floor, north hearing room</p><br>
<p>Bryozoan: South wing, second floor, left grand stairs, top step</p><br>
<p>Burrows: Northwest, second floor, wall to right room 225 NW</p><br>
<p>Brachiopods: East wing, ground floor, pillars near entrance</p><br>
<h2>Images</h2><br>
