February 1 – Hassan Al-Turabi, Sudanese spiritual leader (d. 2016)
February 3
Peggy Ann Garner, American actress (d. 1984)
Blaise Rabetafika, Malagasy diplomat (d. 2000)
February 5 – Cesare Maldini, Italian football player and manager (d. 2016)
February 6
François Truffaut, French film director (d. 1984)
Camilo Cienfuegos, Cuban revolutionary leader (d. 1959)
February 7
Gay Talese, American author
Alfred Worden, American astronaut (d. 2020)
February 8 – John Williams, American composer and conductor
February 9 – Gerhard Richter, German painter
February 11 – Margit Carlqvist, Swedish actress
February 13 – Susan Oliver, American actress (d. 1990)
February 14 – Alexander Kluge, German author and film director
February 16
Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, former President of Sierra Leone (d. 2014)
Aharon Appelfeld, Ukrainian-born Israeli writer (d. 2018)
February 18 – Miloš Forman, Czech-American film director (d. 2018)
February 19 – Alberto Dines, Brazilian journalist and writer (d. 2018)
February 20 – Adrian Cristobal, Filipino writer (d. 2007)
February 22
Ted Kennedy, American politician (d. 2009)
Robert Opron, French automotive designer (d. 2021)
February 23 – Irene Jai Narayan, Fiji politician (d. 2011)
February 24
John Vernon, Canadian actor (d. 2005)
Michel Legrand, French composer (d. 2019)
Zell Miller, American politician (d. 2018)
M. S. Rajeswari, Indian singer (d. 2018)
February 25
Augusto Polo Campos, Peruvian composer (d. 2018)
Faron Young, American country singer (d. 1996)
Tony Brooks, British racing driver (d. 2022)
February 26 – Johnny Cash, American country singer (d. 2003)
February 27 – Dame Elizabeth Taylor, British-American actress (d. 2011)
February 28 – Don Francks, Canadian actor, musician and singer (d. 2016)


Zero-length springs are invented, revolutionizing seismometers and gravimeters.
Geneticist J. B. S. Haldane publishes The Causes of Evolution, unifying the findings of Mendelian genetics with those of evolutionary science.
The heath hen becomes extinct in North America.
Walter B. Pitkin publishes Life Begins at Forty in the United States.
SPAR, the global retail brand, is founded in Zegwaart, Netherlands.
Unemployment in the United States – ca. 33% – 14 million. A similar level of unemployment affects Germany. Many people in depressed countries do not receive unemployment benefit due to governments not being able to afford benefit payments.


Due to Oklahoma's location at the confluence of many geographic regions, the state's climatic regions have a high rate of biodiversity. Forests cover 24 percent of Oklahoma and prairie grasslands composed of shortgrass, mixed-grass, and tallgrass prairie, harbor expansive ecosystems in the state's central and western portions, although cropland has largely replaced native grasses. Where rainfall is sparse in the state's western regions, shortgrass prairie and shrublands are the most prominent ecosystems, though pinyon pines, red cedar (junipers), and ponderosa pines grow near rivers and creek beds in the panhandle's far western reaches. Southwestern Oklahoma contains many rare, disjunct species including sugar maple, bigtooth maple, nolina and Texas live oak.
Marshlands, cypress forests and mixtures of shortleaf pine, loblolly pine, blue palmetto, and deciduous forests dominate the state's southeastern quarter, while mixtures of largely post oak, elm, red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) and pine forests cover northeastern Oklahoma.
The state holds populations of white-tailed deer, mule deer, antelope, coyotes, mountain lions, bobcats, elk, and birds such as quail, doves, cardinals, bald eagles, red-tailed hawks, and pheasants. In prairie ecosystems, American bison, greater prairie chickens, badgers, and armadillo are common, and some of the nation's largest prairie dog towns inhabit shortgrass prairie in the state's panhandle. The Cross Timbers, a region transitioning from prairie to woodlands in Central Oklahoma, harbors 351 vertebrate species. The Ouachita Mountains are home to black bear, red fox, gray fox, and river otter populations, which coexist with 328 vertebrate species in southeastern Oklahoma. Also, in southeastern Oklahoma lives the American alligator.


Oklahoma is between the Great Plains and the Ozark Plateau in the Gulf of Mexico watershed, generally sloping from the high plains of its western boundary to the low wetlands of its southeastern boundary. Its highest and lowest points follow this trend, with its highest peak, Black Mesa, at 4,973 feet (1,516 m) above sea level, situated near its far northwest corner in the Oklahoma Panhandle. The state's lowest point is on the Little River near its far southeastern boundary near the town of Idabel, which dips to 289 feet (88 m) above sea level.
Among the most geographically diverse states, Oklahoma is one of four to harbor more than 10 distinct ecological regions, with 11 in its borders—more per square mile than in any other state. Its western and eastern halves, however, are marked by extreme differences in geographical diversity: Eastern Oklahoma touches eight ecological regions and its western half contains three. Although having fewer ecological regions Western Oklahoma contains many rare, relic species.
Oklahoma has four primary mountain ranges: the Ouachita Mountains, the Arbuckle Mountains, the Wichita Mountains, and the Ozark Mountains. Contained within the U.S. Interior Highlands region, the Ozark and Ouachita Mountains are the only major mountainous region between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians. A portion of the Flint Hills stretches into north-central Oklahoma, and near the state's eastern border, The Oklahoma Tourism & Recreation Department regards Cavanal Hill as the world's tallest hill; at 1,999 feet (609 m), it fails their definition of a mountain by one foot.
The semi-arid high plains in the state's northwestern corner harbor few natural forests; the region has a rolling to flat landscape with intermittent canyons and mesa ranges like the Glass Mountains. Partial plains interrupted by small, sky island mountain ranges like the Antelope Hills and the Wichita Mountains dot southwestern Oklahoma; transitional prairie and oak savannas cover the central portion of the state. The Ozark and Ouachita Mountains rise from west to east over the state's eastern third, gradually increasing in elevation in an eastward direction.
More than 500 named creeks and rivers make up Oklahoma's waterways, and with 200 lakes created by dams, it holds the nation's highest number of artificial reservoirs. Most of the state lies in two primary drainage basins belonging to the Red and Arkansas rivers, though the Lee and Little rivers also contain significant drainage basins.


Attempts to create an all-Indian state named Oklahoma and a later attempt to create an all-Indian state named Sequoyah failed but the Sequoyah Statehood Convention of 1905 eventually laid the groundwork for the Oklahoma Statehood Convention, which took place two years later. On June 16, 1906, Congress enacted a statute authorizing the people of the Oklahoma and Indian Territories (as well what would become the states of Arizona and New Mexico) to form a constitution and state government in order to be admitted as a state. On November 16, 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt issued Presidential Proclamation no. 780, establishing Oklahoma as the 46th state in the Union.
The new state became a focal point for the emerging oil industry, as discoveries of oil pools prompted towns to grow rapidly in population and wealth. Tulsa eventually became known as the "Oil Capital of the World" for most of the 20th century and oil investments fueled much of the state's early economy. In 1927, Oklahoman businessman Cyrus Avery, known as the "Father of Route 66", began the campaign to create U.S. Route 66. Using a stretch of highway from Amarillo, Texas to Tulsa, Oklahoma to form the original portion of Highway 66, Avery spearheaded the creation of the U.S. Highway 66 Association to oversee the planning of Route 66, based in his hometown of Tulsa.
Oklahoma also has a rich African-American history. Many Black towns, founded by the Freedmen of the Five Tribes during Reconstruction, thrived in the early 20th century with the arrival of Black Exodusters who migrated from neighboring states, especially Kansas. The politician Edward P. McCabe encouraged Black settlers to come to what was then Indian Territory. McCabe discussed with President Theodore Roosevelt the possibility of making Oklahoma a majority-Black state.
By the early 20th century, the Greenwood district of Tulsa was one of the most prosperous African-American communities in the United States. Jim Crow laws had established racial segregation since before the start of the 20th century, but Tulsa's Black residents had created a thriving area.
Social tensions were exacerbated by the revival of the Ku Klux Klan after 1915. The Tulsa race massacre broke out in 1921, with White mobs attacking Black people and carrying out a pogrom in Greenwood. In one of the costliest episodes of racist violence in American history, sixteen hours of rioting resulted in 35 city blocks destroyed, $1.8 million in property damage, and a death toll estimated at between 75 and 300 people. By the late 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan had declined to negligible influence within the state.
During the 1930s, parts of the state began suffering the consequences of poor farming practices. This period was known as the Dust Bowl, throughout which areas of Kansas, Texas, New Mexico and northwestern Oklahoma were hampered by long periods of little rainfall, strong winds, abnormally high temperatures, and most notably, severe dust storms sending thousands of farmers into poverty and forcing them to relocate to more fertile areas of the western United States. Over a twenty-year period ending in 1950, the state saw its only historical decline in population, dropping 6.9 percent as impoverished families migrated out of the state after the Dust Bowl.
Soil and water conservation projects markedly changed practices in the state and led to the construction of massive flood control systems and dams; they built hundreds of reservoirs and man-made lakes to supply water for domestic needs and agricultural irrigation. By the 1960s, Oklahoma had created more than 200 lakes, the most in the nation.
In 1995, Oklahoma City was the site of the most destructive act of domestic terrorism in American history. The Oklahoma City bombing of April 19, 1995, in which Timothy McVeigh detonated a large, crude explosive device outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killed 168 people, including 19 children. For his crime, McVeigh was executed by the federal government on June 11, 2001. His accomplice, Terry Nichols, is serving life in prison without parole for helping plan the attack and prepare the explosive.
On May 31, 2016, several cities experienced record setting flooding.
On July 9, 2020, the Supreme Court of the United States determined in McGirt v. Oklahoma that the reservations of the Five Tribes, comprising much of Eastern Oklahoma, were never disestablished by Congress and thus are still "Indian Country" for the purposes of criminal law.


Indigenous peoples were present in what is now Oklahoma by the last ice age. Ancestors of the Wichita and Affiliated Tribes (including Teyas and Escanjaques and Tawakoni), Tonkawa, and Caddo (including Kichai) lived in what is now Oklahoma. Southern Plains villagers lived in the central and west of the state, with a subgroup, the Panhandle culture people living in the panhandle region. Caddoan Mississippian culture peoples lived in the eastern part of the state. Spiro Mounds, in what is now Spiro, Oklahoma, was a major Mississippian mound complex that flourished between AD 850 and 1450. Plains Apache people settled in the Southern Plains and in Oklahoma between 1300 and 1500.
The Expedition of Spaniard Francisco Vázquez de Coronado traveled through the state in 1541, but French explorers claimed the area in the early 18th century. By the 18th century, Comanche and Kiowa entered the region from the west and Quapaw and Osage peoples moved into what is now eastern Oklahoma. French colonists claimed the region until 1803, when all the French territory west of the Mississippi River was acquired by the United States in the Louisiana Purchase. The territory was a part of the Arkansas Territory from 1819 until 1828.
During the 19th century, the US federal government forcibly removed tens of thousands of Native Americans from their homelands from across North America and transported them to the area including and surrounding present-day Oklahoma. The Choctaw was the first of the Five Civilized Tribes to be removed from the Southeastern United States. The phrase "Trail of Tears" originated from a description of the removal of the Choctaw Nation in 1831, although the term is usually used for the Cherokee removal.
Seventeen thousand Cherokees and 2,000 of their black slaves were deported. The area, already occupied by Osage and Quapaw tribes, was called for the Choctaw Nation until revised Native American and then later American policy redefined the boundaries to include other Native Americans. By 1890, more than 30 Native American nations and tribes had been concentrated on land within Indian Territory or "Indian Country".
All Five Civilized Tribes supported and signed treaties with the Confederate military during the American Civil War. The Cherokee Nation had an internal civil war. Slavery in Indian Territory was not abolished until 1866.
In the period between 1866 and 1899, cattle ranches in Texas strove to meet the demands for food in eastern cities and railroads in Kansas promised to deliver in a timely manner. Cattle trails and cattle ranches developed as cowboys either drove their product north or settled illegally in Indian Territory. In 1881, four of five major cattle trails on the western frontier traveled through Indian Territory.
Increased presence of white settlers in Indian Territory prompted the United States Government to establish the Dawes Act in 1887, which divided the lands of individual tribes into allotments for individual families, encouraging farming and private land ownership among Native Americans but expropriating land to the federal government. In the process, railroad companies took nearly half of Indian-held land within the territory for outside settlers and for purchase.
Major land runs, including the Land Run of 1889, were held for settlers where certain territories were opened to settlement starting at a precise time. Usually land was open to settlers on a first come first served basis. Those who broke the rules by crossing the border into the territory before the official opening time were said to have been crossing the border sooner, leading to the term sooners, which eventually became the state's official nickname. Deliberations to make the territory into a state began near the end of the 19th century, when the Curtis Act continued the allotment of Indian tribal land.


Oklahoma is the 20th-largest state in the United States, covering an area of 69,899 square miles (181,040 km²), with 68,595 square miles (177,660 km²) of land and 1,304 square miles (3,380 km²) of water. It lies partly in the Great Plains near the geographical center of the 48 contiguous states. It is bordered on the east by Arkansas and Missouri, on the north by Kansas, on the northwest by Colorado, on the far west by New Mexico, and on the south and near-west by Texas.


Oklahoma has fifty-one state parks, six national parks or protected regions, two national protected forests or grasslands, and a network of wildlife preserves and conservation areas. Six percent of the state's 10 million acres (40,000 km²) of forest is public land, including the western portions of the Ouachita National Forest, the largest and oldest national forest in the Southern United States.
With 39,000 acres (160 km²), the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in north-central Oklahoma is the largest protected area of tallgrass prairie in the world and is part of an ecosystem that encompasses only ten percent of its former land area, once covering fourteen states. In addition, the Black Kettle National Grassland covers 31,300 acres (127 km²) of prairie in southwestern Oklahoma. The Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge is the oldest and largest of nine National Wildlife Refuges in the state and was founded in 1901, encompassing 59,020 acres (238.8 km²).
Of Oklahoma's federally protected parks or recreational sites, the Chickasaw National Recreation Area is the largest, with 9,898.63 acres (40.0583 km²). Other sites include the Santa Fe and Trail of Tears national historic trails, the Fort Smith and Washita Battlefield national historic sites, and the Oklahoma City National Memorial.


Oklahoma (/ˌoʊkləˈhoʊmə/ (listen); Choctaw: Oklahumma) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New Mexico on the west, and Colorado on the northwest. Partially in the western extreme of the Upland South, it is the 20th-most extensive and the 28th-most populous of the 50 United States. Its residents are known as Oklahomans (or colloquially "Okies"), and its capital and largest city is Oklahoma City.
The state's name is derived from the Choctaw words okla, 'people' and humma, which translates as 'red'. Oklahoma is also known informally by its nickname, "The Sooner State", in reference to the settlers who staked their claims on land before the official opening date of lands in the western Oklahoma Territory or before the Indian Appropriations Act of 1889, which increased European-American settlement in the eastern Indian Territory. Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory were merged into the State of Oklahoma when it became the 46th state to enter the union on November 16, 1907.
With ancient mountain ranges, prairie, mesas, and eastern forests, most of Oklahoma lies in the Great Plains, Cross Timbers, and the U.S. Interior Highlands, all regions prone to severe weather. Oklahoma is at a confluence of three major American cultural regions. Historically it served as a government-sanctioned territory for Native Americans removed from east of the Mississippi River, a route for cattle drives from Texas and related regions, and a destination for Southern migrant settlers. There are currently twenty-five Native American languages still spoken in Oklahoma.
A major producer of natural gas, oil, and agricultural products, Oklahoma relies on an economic base of aviation, energy, telecommunications, and biotechnology. Oklahoma City and Tulsa serve as Oklahoma's primary economic anchors, with nearly two-thirds of Oklahomans living within their metropolitan statistical areas.


Many taxonomists only include the Lycaeninae, Theclinae, Polyommatinae, Poritiinae, Miletinae, and Curetinae under the Lycaenidae.
The Aphnaeinae, which used to be a tribe (Aphnaeini) within the Theclinae, were recently given subfamily rank too.
Curetinae – sunbeams (Oriental or Palaearctic). Selected species:
Curetis thetis – Indian sunbeam
Miletinae – harvesters (mostly African, or Oriental, one Nearctic), probably all feed on aphids or their secretions. Selected species:
Liphyra brassolis – moth butterfly (largest lycaenid)
Poritiinae (Oriental and Afrotropical)
Aphnaeinae (Afrotropical and Oriental)
Theclinae – hairstreaks (usually tailed) and elfins (not tailed) (global). Selected species:
Arhopala – oakblues
Atlides halesus – great purple hairstreak
Eumaeus atala – Atala
Satyrium pruni – black hairstreak
Lycaeninae – coppers (Holarctic). Selected species:
Iophanus pyrrhias – Guatemalan copper
Lycaena boldenarum – boulder copper
Lycaena epixanthe – bog copper
Lycaena rauparaha – Rauparaha's copper
Lycaena dispar – large copper
Lycaena phlaeas – small copper
Lycaena heteronea – blue copper
Polyommatinae – blues (global). Selected species:
Celastrina ladon – spring azure
Chilades – jewel blues
Cupido comyntas – eastern tailed-blue
Cupido minimus – small blue
Cyaniris semiargus – mazarine blue
Euphilotes battoides allyni – El Segundo blue
Euphilotes pallescens arenamontana – Sand Mountain blue
Glaucopsyche lygdamus – silvery blue
Glaucopsyche lygdamus palosverdesensis – Palos Verdes blue
Glaucopsyche xerces (extinct) – Xerces blue
Icaricia icarioides fenderi – Fender's blue
Phengaris arion – large blue
Polyommatus icarus – common blue
Pseudozizeeria maha – pale grass blue
Plebejus argus – silver-studded blue
Talicada nyseus – red Pierrot
Some older classifications used to include other subfamilies such as Liphyrinae (now Liphyrini, a tribe within Miletinae), Lipteninae (now Liptenini, a tribe within Poritiinae), or Riodininae (now a separate family: Riodinidae).
The fossil genus Lithodryas is usually (but not unequivocally) placed here; Lithopsyche is sometimes placed here, but sometimes in the Riodininae.


Adults are small, under 5 cm usually, and brightly coloured, sometimes with a metallic gloss.
Larvae are often flattened rather than cylindrical, with glands that may produce secretions that attract and subdue ants. Their cuticles tend to be thickened. Some larvae are capable of producing vibrations and low sounds that are transmitted through the substrates they inhabit. They use these sounds to communicate with ants.
Adult individuals often have hairy antenna-like tails complete with black and white annulated (ringed) appearance. Many species also have a spot at the base of the tail and some turn around upon landing to confuse potential predators from recognizing the true head orientation. This causes predators to approach from the true head end resulting in early visual detection.
Lycaenids are diverse in their food habits and apart from phytophagy, some of them are entomophagous, feeding on aphids, scale insects, and ant larvae. Some lycaenids even exploit their association with ants by inducing ants to feed them by regurgitation, a process called trophallaxis. Not all lycaenid butterflies need ants, but about 75% of species associate with ants, a relationship called myrmecophily. These associations can be mutualistic, parasitic, or predatory depending on the species.
In some species, larvae are attended and protected by ants while feeding on the host plant, and the ants receive sugar-rich honeydew from them, throughout the larval life, and in some species during the pupal stage. In other species, only the first few instars are spent on the plant, and the remainder of the larval lifespan is spent as a predator within the ant nest. It becomes a parasite, feeding on ant regurgitations, or a predator on the ant larvae. The caterpillars pupate inside the ants' nest and the ants continue to look after the pupae. Just before the adults emerge, the wings of the butterfly inside the pupal case detach from it, and the pupa becomes silvery. The adult butterfly emerges from the pupa after three to four weeks, still inside the ant nest. The butterfly must crawl out of the ant nest before it can expand its wings.
Several evolutionary adaptations enable these associations, including small glands on the skin of the caterpillars called "pore cupola organs". Caterpillars of many species have a gland on the seventh abdominal segment that produces honeydew and is called the "dorsal nectary gland" (also called "Newcomer's gland"). An eversible organ called the "tentacular organ" is present on the eighth abdominal segment and this is cylindrical and topped with a ring of spikes and emits chemical signals which are believed to help in communicating with ants.


Lycaenidae is the second-largest family of butterflies (behind Nymphalidae, brush-footed butterflies), with over 6,000 species worldwide, whose members are also called gossamer-winged butterflies. They constitute about 30% of the known butterfly species.
The family comprises seven subfamilies, including the blues (Polyommatinae), the coppers (Lycaeninae), the hairstreaks (Theclinae), and the harvesters (Miletinae).


January 5 – Dreyfus affair: French officer Alfred Dreyfus is stripped of his army rank, and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island.
January 12 – The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty is founded in England by Octavia Hill, Robert Hunter and Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley.
January 13 – First Italo-Ethiopian War: Battle of Coatit – Italian forces defeat the Ethiopians.
January 17 – Félix Faure is elected President of the French Republic, after the resignation of Jean Casimir-Perier.
February 9 – Mintonette, later known as volleyball, is created by William G. Morgan at Holyoke, Massachusetts.
February 11 – The lowest ever UK temperature of −27.2 °C (−17.0 °F) is recorded at Braemar, in Aberdeenshire. This record is equalled in 1982, and again in 1995.
February 14 – Oscar Wilde's last play, the comedy The Importance of Being Earnest, is first shown at St James's Theatre in London.
February 20
The gold reserve of the U.S. Treasury is saved, when J. P. Morgan and the Rothschilds loan $65 million worth of gold to the United States government.  The offering of syndicate bonds sells out only 22 minutes after the New York market opens, and just two hours after going on sale in London.
Venezuelan crisis of 1895: U.S. President Grover Cleveland signs into law a bill resulting from the proposition of House Resolution 252, by William Lindsay Scruggs and Congressman Leonidas Livingston, to the third session of the 53rd Congress of the United States of America. The bill recommends that Venezuela and Great Britain settle their dispute by arbitration.
February 25 – The first rebellions of the Cuban War of Independence break out.
March 1 – William Lyne Wilson is appointed United States Postmaster General.
March 3 – In Munich, Germany, bicyclists have to pass a test and display license plates.
March 4 – Japanese troops capture Liaoyang, and land in Taiwan.
March 15
Bridget Cleary is killed and her body burned in County Tipperary, Ireland, by her husband, Michael; he is subsequently convicted and imprisoned for manslaughter, his defence being a belief that he had killed a changeling left in his wife's place after she had been abducted by fairies.
Heian Shrine is completed in Kyoto, Japan.
March 18 –  The first worldwide gasoline bus route is started in Germany, between Siegen and Netphen.
March 30 – Rudolf Diesel patents the Diesel engine in Germany.


July 10–11 – The Doukhobors' pacifist protests culminate in the "burning of the arms" in the South Caucasus.
July 15 – Archie MacLaren scores an English County Championship cricket record innings of 424 for Lancashire, against Somerset, at Taunton. This record lasted until 1994.
July 31 – The Basque Nationalist Party (Euzko Alderdi Jeltzalea-Partido Nacionalista Vasco) is founded by Sabino Arana.
August 7 – The Aljaž Tower, a symbol of the Slovenes, is erected on Mount Triglav.
August 10 – The first ever indoor promenade concert, origin of The Proms, is held at the Queen's Hall in London, opening a series conducted by Henry Wood.
August 19 – American frontier murderer and outlaw John Wesley Hardin is killed by an off-duty policeman, in a saloon in El Paso, Texas.
August 29
The Northern Rugby Football Union (the modern-day Rugby Football League) is formed at a meeting of 21 rugby clubs at the George Hotel, Huddersfield, in the north of England, leading to the creation of the sport of rugby league football.
The Mat Salleh Rebellion in North Borneo is incited.
September – Shelbourne F.C. is founded in Dublin, Ireland.
September 3 – The first professional American football game is played, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, between the Latrobe YMCA and the Jeannette Athletic Club (Latrobe wins 12–0).
September 7 – The first game of what will become known as rugby league football is played in England, starting the 1895–96 Northern Rugby Football Union season.
September 18
Booker T. Washington delivers the Atlanta Compromise speech.
Daniel David Palmer performs the first chiropractic spinal adjustment, on Harvey Lillard, whose complaint was partial deafness after an injury.
September 24–October 3 – the Automobile Club de France sponsors the longest race to date, a 1,710 km (1,060 mi) event, from Bordeaux to Agen and back. Because it is held in ten stages, it can be considered the first rally. The first three places are taken by two Panhards and a three-wheeler De Dion-Bouton.


Calochortus flowers have six tepals. Unlike most other Liliaceae, Calochortus tepals are in two series that differ in size and color. The outer three are generally narrower and more sepal-like, while the inner three are larger, usually with bright marks at the base.  They may be described as petals. The flowers are borne on a stem that arises from a bulb, generally in the spring or early summer.  Flowers can be white, yellow, pink, purple, bluish, or streaked. The insides of the petals are often very 'hairy'. These hairs, along with the nectaries, are often used in distinguishing species from each other.
Species
Calochortus albus white globelily - CA, Baja California
Calochortus amabilis short lily - CA
Calochortus ambiguus doubting mariposa lily - UT AZ NM Sonora
Calochortus amoenus purple globelily - CA
Calochortus apiculatus pointedtip mariposa lily - British Columbia, Alberta, WA OR ID MT WY
Calochortus argillosus - CA
Calochortus aureus golden mariposa lily - UT CO AZ NM
Calochortus balsensis - Oaxaca, Guerrero
Calochortus barbatus yellow globe lily - from Chihuahua to Oaxaca
Calochortus bruneaunis Bruneau mariposa lily - CA OR NV UT ID MT
Calochortus catalinae Santa Catalina mariposa lily — (threatened by development) CA
Calochortus cernuus - Morelos
Calochortus ciscoensis - UT
Calochortus clavatus clubhair mariposa lily - CA
Calochortus clavatus var. avius -rare,
Calochortus clavatus var. gracilis
Calochortus clavatus ssp. clavatus
Calochortus clavatus ssp. pallidus
Calochortus clavatus ssp. recurvifolius — rare
Calochortus coeruleus beavertail grass - CA
Calochortus concolor goldenbowl mariposa lily - CA, Baja California
Calochortus coxii Cox's mariposa lily - OR
Calochortus dunnii Dunn's mariposa lily  — rare - CA, Baja California
Calochortus elegans northwestern mariposa lily; star tulip - CA OR WA ID MT
Calochortus elegans var. elegans elegant mariposa lily
Calochortus elegans var. nanus
Calochortus elegans var. oreophilus elegant mariposa lily
Calochortus elegans var. selwayensis Selway mariposa lily
Calochortus eurycarpus white mariposa lily - OR WA NV ID MT WY
Calochortus excavatus Inyo mariposa lily — (threatened by groundwater development) - CA
Calochortus exilis - Hidalgo
Calochortus fimbriatus late-blooming mariposa lily  — rare - CA
Calochortus flexuosus winding mariposa lily - CA NV UT CO AZ NM Baja California, Sonora
Calochortus foliosus - Michoacán
Calochortus fuscus - Mexico
Calochortus greenei Green's mariposa lily  — rare - CA OR
Calochortus ghiesbreghtii - Mexico, Guatemala
Calochortus gunnisonii Gunnison's mariposa lily - ID MT WY SD NE CO UT AZ NM
Calochortus gunnisonii var. gunnisonii
Calochortus gunnisonii var. perpulcher
Calochortus hartwegii - Aguascalientes, Nayarit, Jalisco
Calochortus howellii Howell's mariposa lily - OR
†Calochortus indecorus Sexton Mountain mariposa lily - OR - extinct
Calochortus invenustus plain mariposa lily - CA NV
Calochortus kennedyi desert mariposa lily - CA NV AZ Sonora, Chihuahua
Calochortus kennedyi var. kennedyi
Calochortus kennedyi var. munzii
Calochortus leichtlinii smokey mariposa - CA NV OR
Calochortus longibarbatus longbeard mariposa lily - CA OR WA
Calochortus longibarbatus var. longibarbatus —  (threatened by grazing)
Calochortus longibarbatus var. peckii
Calochortus luteus yellow mariposa lily - CA
Calochortus lyallii Lyall's mariposa lily - WA, British Columbia
Calochortus macrocarpus sagebrush mariposa lily - CA NV OR WA ID MT, British Columbia
Calochortus macrocarpus var. macrocarpus
Calochortus macrocarpus var. maculosus Nez Perce mariposa lily
Calochortus marcellae - Nuevo León, Coahuila, Tamaulipas
Calochortus mendozae - Querétaro, San Luis Potosí
Calochortus minimus Sierran mariposa lily - CA
†Calochortus monanthus Shasta River mariposa lily — CA (presumed extinct)
Calochortus monophyllus yellow startulip - CA OR
Calochortus nigrescens - Oaxaca
Calochortus nitidus broadfruit mariposa lily - WA OR ID
Calochortus nudus naked mariposa lily - CA OR
Calochortus nuttallii sego lily, (state flower of Utah)  - ND SD NE MT ID CO UT NV AZ NM
Calochortus obispoensis San Luis mariposa lily - CA
Calochortus palmeri  Palmer's mariposa lily - CA
Calochortus palmeri var. munzii Munz's mariposa lily
Calochortus palmeri var. palmeri  — rare
Calochortus panamintensis Panamint Mountain mariposa lily  — rare ca NV
Calochortus persistens Siskiyou mariposa lily  — rare - CA OR
Calochortus plummerae Plummer's mariposa lily  — rare - CA
Calochortus pringlei - Morelos, Puebla, Jalisco, Oaxaca
Calochortus pulchellus Mount Diablo globelily - CA
Calochortus raichei Cedars mariposa lily - CA
Calochortus simulans San Luis Obispo mariposa lily - CA
Calochortus spatulatus - Mexico
Calochortus splendens splendid mariposa lily - CA, Baja California
Calochortus striatus alkali mariposa lily - CA NV
Calochortus subalpinus subalpine mariposa lily, Cascade mariposa lily, cat's ear lily - WA OR
Calochortus superbus superb mariposa - CA
Calochortus syntrophus Callahan's mariposa lily - CA
Calochortus tiburonensis Tiburon mariposa - CA
Calochortus tolmiei Tolmie's star-tulip, hairy pussy ears  - CA OR WA
Calochortus umbellatus Oakland mariposa lily - CA
Calochortus umpquaensis Umpqua mariposa lily - OR
Calochortus uniflorus mariposa 'Cupido' - CA OR
Calochortus venustulus - Mexico
Calochortus venustus butterfly mariposa, white mariposa - CA
Calochortus vestae Vesta's mariposa, Coast Range mariposa - CA
Calochortus weedii Weed's mariposa - CA, Baja Calilfornia
Calochortus westonii Shirley Meadow star-tulip, Weston's mariposa - CA


Tropicos, Calochortus Pursh
Kew World Checklist of Selected Plant Families
"Calochortus". Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House. Retrieved 2016-01-22.
Sunset Western Garden Book, 1995:606–607
Flora of North America, Vol. 26 Page 119 Calochortus Pursh, Fl. Amer. Sept. 1: 240. 1814.
Pursh, Frederick Traugott. 1813.  Flora Americae Septentrionalis; or, A systematic arrangement and description of the plants of North America. Containing, besides what have been described by preceding authors, many new and rare species, collected during twelve years travels and residence in that country 1: 240 in English and Latin
Dale, Nancy; Flowering Plants of the Santa Monica Mountains, Capra Press, 1986; pg. 28
Mathew, Brian (1987). The Smaller Bulbs. London: B.T. Batsford. p. 22. ISBN 978-0-7134-4922-8.
Taylor, Ronald J. (1994) [1992]. Sagebrush Country: A Wildflower Sanctuary (rev. ed.). Missoula, MT: Mountain Press Pub. Co. p. 74. ISBN 0-87842-280-3. OCLC 25708726.
Gerritsen, Mary E and Parsons, R. Calochortus. Mariposa Lilies and Their Relatives. Timber Press, 2007.
Biota of North America Program 2034 county distribution maps
Espejo Serena, A. & López-Ferrari, A.R. (1994). Las Monocotiledóneas Mexicanas una Sinopsis Florística 1(3): 1-74. Consejo Nacional de la Flora de México, México D.F..
Gerritsen, M.E. & Parsons, R. (2007). Calochortus: Mariposa lilies & their relatives: 1-232. Timber press, Inc. Portland, U.S.A.
USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service, Plant Profile for Calochortus Pursh; Data contributed by John K. Kartesz and USDA-NRCS National Plant Data Center
P. L. Fiedler & R. K. Zebell, Flora of North America; 18. Calochortus Pursh, Fl. Amer. Sept. 1: 240. 1814.
"University of Michigan at Dearborn, Native American Ethnobotany: Calochortus". Archived from the original on 2013-12-04. Retrieved 2015-04-17.
Telos Rare Bulbs Nursery database: Calochortus


Unrest among wheat farmers, especially among Norwegian immigrants, led to a populist political movement centered in the Non Partisan League ("NPL") around the time of World War I. The NPL ran candidates on the Republican ticket (but merged into the Democratic Party after World War II). It tried to insulate North Dakota from the power of out-of-state banks and corporations.
In addition to founding the state-owned Bank of North Dakota and North Dakota Mill and Elevator (both still in existence), the NPL established a state-owned railroad line (later sold to the Soo Line Railroad). Anti-corporate laws virtually prohibited a corporation or bank from owning title to land zoned as farmland. These laws, still in force today, after having been upheld by state and federal courts, make it almost impossible to foreclose on farmland, as even after foreclosure, the property title cannot be held by a bank or mortgage company. Furthermore, the Bank of North Dakota, having powers similar to a Federal Reserve branch bank, exercised its power to limit the issuance of subprime mortgages and their collateralization in the form of derivative instruments, and so prevented a collapse of housing prices within the state in the wake of 2008's financial crisis.
The original North Dakota State Capitol in Bismarck burned to the ground on December 28, 1930. It was replaced by a limestone-faced art-deco skyscraper that still stands today. A round of federal investment and construction projects began in the 1950s, including the Garrison Dam and the Minot and Grand Forks Air Force bases.
Western North Dakota saw a boom in oil exploration in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as rising petroleum prices made development profitable. This boom came to an end after petroleum prices declined.
In recent years, the state has had lower rates of unemployment than the national average, and increased job and population growth. Much of the growth has been based on development of the Bakken oil fields in the western part of the state. Estimates as to the remaining amount of oil in the area vary, with some estimating over 100 years' worth.
For decades, North Dakota's annual murder and violent crime rates were regularly the lowest in the United States. In recent years, however, while still below the national average, crime has risen sharply. In 2016, the violent crime rate was three times higher than in 2004, with the rise occurring mostly in the late 2000s, coinciding with the oil boom era. This happened at a time when the national violent crime rate declined slightly. Workers in the oil boom towns have been blamed for much of the increase.


The first European to reach the area was the French-Canadian trader Pierre Gaultier, sieur de La Vérendrye, who led an exploration and trading party to the Mandan villages in 1738 guided by Assiniboine Indians.
From 1762 to 1802, the region formed part of Spanish Louisiana.


North Dakota ( /- dəˈkoʊtə/ (listen)) is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south, and Montana to the west. It is believed to host the geographic center of North America, Rugby, and is home to the tallest man-made structure in the Western Hemisphere, the KVLY-TV mast.
North Dakota is the nineteenth largest state, but with a population of less than 780,000 as of 2020, it is the fourth least populous and fourth most sparsely populated. The capital is Bismarck while the largest city is Fargo, which accounts for nearly a fifth of the state's population; both cities are among the fastest-growing in the U.S., although half of all residents live in rural areas. The state is part of the Great Plains region, with broad prairies, steppe, temperate savanna, badlands, and farmland being defining characteristics.
What is now North Dakota was inhabited for thousands of years by various Native American tribes, including the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara along the Missouri River; the Ojibwa and Cree in the northeast; and several Sioux groups (the Assiniboine, Yankton, Wahpeton, and Teton) across the rest of the state. European explorers and traders first arrived in the early 18th century, mostly in pursuit of lucrative furs. The United States acquired the region in the early 19th century, gradually settling it amid growing resistance by increasingly displaced natives.
The Dakota Territory, established in 1861, became central to American pioneers, with the Homestead Act of 1862 precipitating significant population growth and development. The traditional fur trade declined in favor of farming, particularly of wheat; the subsequent Dakota Boom from 1878 to 1886 saw giant farms stretched across the rolling prairies, with the territory becoming a key breadbasket and regional economic engine. The Northern Pacific and Great Northern railway companies competed for access to lucrative grain centers; farmers banded together in political and socioeconomic alliances that were core to the broader Populist Movement of the Midwest.
North Dakota was admitted to the Union on November 2, 1889, along with neighboring South Dakota, as the 39th and 40th states. President Benjamin Harrison shuffled the statehood papers before signing them so that no one could tell which became a state first; consequently, the two states are officially numbered in alphabetical order. Statehood marked the gradual winding down of the pioneer period, with the state fully settled by around 1920. Subsequent decades saw a rise in radical agrarian movements and economic cooperatives, of which one legacy is the Bank of North Dakota, the only state-run bank in the U.S.
Beginning in the mid 20th century, North Dakota's rich natural resources became more critical to economic development; into the 21st century, oil extraction from the Bakken formation in the northwest has played a major role in the state's prosperity. Such development has led to unprecedented population growth (along with high birth rates) and reduced unemployment, with North Dakota having the second lowest unemployment rate in the U.S. (after Hawaii).  It ranks relatively well in metrics such as infrastructure, quality of life, economic opportunity, and public safety.


North Dakota is located in the Upper Midwest region of the United States. It lies at the center of the North American continent and borders Canada to the north. The geographic center of North America is near the town of Center. Bismarck is the capital of North Dakota, and Fargo is the largest city.
Soil is North Dakota's most precious resource. It is the base of the state's great agricultural wealth. North Dakota also has enormous mineral resources. These mineral resources include billions of tons of lignite coal. In addition, North Dakota has large oil reserves. Petroleum was discovered in the state in 1951 and quickly became one of North Dakota's most valuable mineral resources. In the early 2000s, the emergence of hydraulic fracturing technologies enabled mining companies to extract huge amounts of oil from the Bakken shale rock formation in the western part of the state.
North Dakota's economy is based more heavily on farming than the economies of most other states. Many North Dakota factories process farm products or manufacture farm equipment. Many of the state's merchants also rely on agriculture.
Farms and ranches cover nearly all of North Dakota. They stretch from the flat Red River Valley in the east, across rolling plains, to the rugged Badlands in the west. The chief crop, wheat, is grown in nearly every county. North Dakota harvests more than 90 percent of the nation's canola and flaxseed. It is also the country's top producer of barley and sunflower seeds and a leader in the production of beans, honey, lentils, oats, peas, and sugar beets.
Few white settlers came to the North Dakota region before the 1870s because railroads had not yet entered the area. During the early 1870s, the Northern Pacific Railroad began to push across the Dakota Territory. Large-scale farming also began during the 1870s. Eastern corporations and some families established huge wheat farms covering large areas of land in the Red River Valley. The farms made such enormous profits they were called bonanza farms. White settlers, attracted by the success of the bonanza farms, flocked to North Dakota, rapidly increasing the territory's population. In 1870, North Dakota had 2,405 people. By 1890, the population had grown to 190,983.
North Dakota was named for the Sioux people who once lived in the territory. The Sioux called themselves Dakota or Lakota, meaning allies or friends. One of North Dakota's nicknames is the Peace Garden State. This nickname honors the International Peace Garden, which lies on the state's border with Manitoba, Canada. North Dakota is also called the Flickertail State because of the many flickertail ground squirrels (Richardson's ground squirrel) that live in the central part of the state.
North Dakota is in the U.S. region known as the Great Plains. The state shares the Red River of the North with Minnesota to the east. South Dakota is to the south, Montana is to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba are to the north. North Dakota is near the middle of North America with a stone marker in Rugby, North Dakota marking the "Geographic Center of the North American Continent". With an area of 70,762 square miles (183,273 km²), 69,001 square miles (178,712 km²) of which is land, North Dakota is the 19th largest state.
The western half of the state consists of the hilly Great Plains as well as the northern part of the Badlands, which are to the west of the Missouri River. The state's high point, White Butte at 3,506 feet (1,069 m), and Theodore Roosevelt National Park are in the Badlands. The region is abundant in fossil fuels including natural gas, crude oil and lignite coal. The Missouri River forms Lake Sakakawea, the third largest artificial lake in the United States, behind the Garrison Dam.
The central region of the state is divided into the Drift Prairie and the Missouri Plateau. The eastern part of the state consists of the flat Red River Valley, the bottom of glacial Lake Agassiz. Its fertile soil, drained by the meandering Red River flowing northward into Lake Winnipeg, supports a large agriculture industry. Devils Lake, the largest natural lake in the state, is also found in the east.
Most of the state is covered in grassland; crops cover most of eastern North Dakota but become increasingly sparse in the center and farther west. Natural trees in North Dakota are found usually where there is good drainage, such as the ravines and valley near the Pembina Gorge and Killdeer Mountains, the Turtle Mountains, the hills around Devils Lake, in the dunes area of McHenry County in central North Dakota, and along the Sheyenne Valley slopes and the Sheyenne delta. This diverse terrain supports nearly 2,000 species of plants.


2019 (MMXIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2019th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 19th  year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the  10th  and last year of the 2010s decade.

2019 was designated as International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements by the United Nations General Assembly given that it coincided with the 150th anniversary of its creation by Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869.
2019 is noted as the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding the pandemic which began the following year.


Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in London in 1968. They are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal and modern hard rock, but their musical approach has changed over the years. Originally formed as a psychedelic rock and progressive rock band, they shifted to a heavier sound with their 1970 album Deep Purple in Rock. Deep Purple, together with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, have been referred to as the "unholy trinity of British hard rock and heavy metal in the early to mid- seventies". They were listed in the 1975 Guinness Book of World Records as "the globe's loudest band" for a 1972 concert at London's Rainbow Theatre and have sold over 100 million albums worldwide.
Deep Purple have had several line-up changes and an eight-year hiatus (1976–1984). The 1968–1976 line-ups are commonly labelled Mark I, II, III and IV. Their second and most commercially successful line-up consisted of Ian Gillan (vocals) and Roger Glover (bass), who joined founder members Jon Lord (keyboards), Ian Paice (drums) and Ritchie Blackmore (guitar). This line-up was active from 1969 to 1973 and was revived from 1984 to 1989 and again from 1992 to 1993. The band achieved more modest success in the intervening periods between 1968 and 1969 with the line-up including Rod Evans (lead vocals) and Nick Simper (bass, backing vocals), between 1974 and 1976 with the line-up including David Coverdale (lead vocals) and Glenn Hughes (bass, vocals) (and Tommy Bolin replacing Blackmore in 1975), and between 1989 and 1992 with the line-up including Joe Lynn Turner (vocals). Deep Purple went through several more member changes – including Gillan once again rejoining in 1992, followed by Blackmore's second departure in the following year (he was replaced temporarily by Joe Satriani and then permanently by Steve Morse) – before settling on its longest-running lineup, which consisted of Paice, Glover, Gillan, Morse and keyboardist Don Airey, the latter of whom replaced Lord in 2002. This lineup remained the same until 23 July 2022, when Morse announced his departure from the band.
Deep Purple were ranked number 22 on VH1's Greatest Artists of Hard Rock programme, and a poll on radio station Planet Rock ranked them 5th among the "most influential bands ever". The band received the Legend Award at the 2008 World Music Awards. Deep Purple (specifically Blackmore, Lord, Paice, Gillan, Glover, Coverdale, Evans, and Hughes) were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016.


The band hired Midlands bassist/vocalist Glenn Hughes, formerly of Trapeze. According to Paice, Glover told him and Lord a few months before his official termination that he wanted to leave the band, so they had started to drop in on Trapeze shows. After acquiring Hughes, they debated continuing as a four-piece, with Hughes as bassist and lead vocalist. According to Hughes, he was persuaded because the band was bringing in Paul Rodgers of Free as a co-lead vocalist, but by that time Rodgers had just started Bad Company. "They did ask", Rodgers recalled, "and I spoke to all of them at length about the possibility. Purple had toured Australia with Free's final lineup. I didn't do it because I was very much into the idea of forming Bad Company." Instead, auditions were held for lead vocal replacements. They settled on David Coverdale, an unknown singer from Saltburn in north-east England, primarily because Blackmore liked his masculine, blues-tinged voice.
This new lineup continued into 1974, and their spring tour included shows at Madison Square Garden, New York, on 13 March, and Nassau Coliseum four days later. The band co-headlined (with Emerson, Lake & Palmer) the California Jam festival at Ontario Motor Speedway in Ontario, southern California, on 6 April 1974. Attracting over 250,000 fans, the festival also included 1970s rock giants Black Sabbath, Eagles and Earth, Wind & Fire. Portions of the show were telecast on ABC Television in the US, exposing the band to a wider audience. A month later, the band's 22 May performance at the Gaumont State Cinema in Kilburn, London, was recorded for the live album Live in London.
This lineup's first studio album, released in February 1974 and titled Burn, was highly successful, reaching No. 3 in the UK and No. 9 in the US, and was followed by another world tour. The title track, which opens the album and would open most concerts during the Mark III era, was a conscious effort by the band to embrace the progressive rock movement, which was popularised at the time by bands such as Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Genesis and Gentle Giant. Hughes and Coverdale provided vocal harmonies and elements of funk and blues, respectively, to the music, a sound that was even more apparent on the late 1974 release Stormbringer. Besides the title track, the Stormbringer album had a number of songs that received much radio play, such as "Lady Double Dealer", "The Gypsy" and "Soldier of Fortune", and the album reached No. 6 in the UK and No. 20 on the US Billboard chart. However, Blackmore publicly disliked the album and the funky soul elements, even calling it "shoeshine music". As a result, he left the band on 21 June 1975 to form his own band with Ronnie James Dio of Elf, called Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, shortened to Rainbow after the first album.


July 2 – Russo-Turkish War (1828–29): Russian Field-Marshal Hans Karl von Diebitsch launches the Trans-Balkan Offensive, which brings the Russian army within 68 kilometres (42 mi) of Istanbul.
July 4 – George Shillibeer begins operating the first bus service in London.
July 23 – In the United States, William Burt obtains the first patent for a form of typewriter, the typographer.
August 3 – Gioacchino Rossini's opera William Tell (Guillaume Tell) is first performed, in Paris.
August 8 – France: The Prince de Polignac succeeds the Vicomte de Martignac as Prime Minister of France.
August 10 – Finsteraarhorn, the highest summit of the Bernese Alps, is first ascended.
August 12 – Mrs. Helen Dance, wife of the captain of the ship Sulphur, cuts down a tree to mark the founding day of the town of Perth, Western Australia.
August 14 – King's College London is founded by Royal Charter, under the patronage of King George IV and the Prime Minister, The Duke of Wellington.
September 14 – The Ottoman Empire signs the Treaty of Adrianople with Russia, thus ending the Russo-Turkish War.
September 28 – African-American abolitionist David Walker publishes his Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, in Boston, Massachusetts.


April–September– Felix Mendelssohn pays his first visit to Britain. This includes the first London performance of his concert overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream, and his trip to Fingal's Cave.
April 1 – Vicente Guerrero becomes president of Mexico.
April 4 – The Mexican city of Cuautla, Morelos, is founded.
April 13 – The Catholic Relief Act is passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, granting a substantial measure of Catholic emancipation in Britain and Ireland.
May 6 – The patent for an instrument called the accordion is applied for by Cyrill Demian (officially approved on May 23).
May 15 – Joseph Smith claims to have received the Aaronic Priesthood from John the Baptist.
June 1 – The Philadelphia Inquirer is founded, as The Pennsylvania Inquirer.
June 3 – The Swan River Colony (later to become the cities of Perth and Fremantle) is founded in Western Australia. This secures the western third of the Australian landmass for the British.
June 5 – Slave trade: HMS Pickle captures the armed slave ship Voladora off the coast of Cuba.
June 10 – The Oxford University Boat Club wins the first inter-university Boat Race, rowed at Henley-on-Thames.
June 19 – Robert Peel establishes the Metropolitan Police Service in London, the first modern police force. The first officers, known by the nickname "bobbies", go on patrol on September 29.


1829 (MDCCCXXIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar, the 1829th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 829th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 29th  year of the 19th century, and the  10th  and last year of the 1820s decade. As of the start of 1829, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


Vigors was born at Old Leighlin, County Carlow on 1785 as first son from Capt. Nicholas Aylward Vigors which served in  29th (Worcestershire) Regiment and, his first wife, Catherine Vigors,  daughter of Solomon Richards of Solsborough. He matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford on November 1803 before he was admitted at Lincoln's Inn on November 1806. Without completing his studies, he served in the army during the Peninsular War from 1809 to 1811 and wounded in Battle of Barossa on 5 March 1811. Though, he haven't completed his studies yet, he still published "An inquiry into the nature and extent of poetick licence"  in London at 1810.  He then returned to Oxford to continued his studies and achieved his Bachelor of Arts on 1817 and Master of Arts on 1818.  He practiced as a barrister and became a Doctor of Civil Law in 1832.


Nicholas Aylward Vigors (1785 – 26 October 1840) was an Irish zoologist and politician. He popularized the classification of birds on the basis of the quinarian system.


The Calopterygidae are a family of damselflies, in the suborder Zygoptera.
They are commonly known as the broad-winged damselflies, demoiselles, or jewelwings. These rather large damselflies have wingspans of 50–80 mm (compared to about 44 mm in the common bluetail damselfly, Ischnura elegans), are often metallic-coloured, and can be differentiated from other damselflies by the broader connection between the wings and the body, as opposed to the abrupt narrowing seen in other damselfly families. The family contains some 150 species.
The Calopterygidae are found on every continent except Antarctica. They live along rivers and streams.


The name is derived from Greek kalos meaning beautiful and ptery meaning winged.


The adults have metallic bodies; their wings are broader, with wider bases than other damselflies, and at rest hold their wings parallel to the body, slightly elevated. Some species have conspicuously colored wings; in males, the wings are usually blue, without pterostigmas, in females green or brown. Species are often quite variable in color and patterning, and they are sexually dimorphic. Color intensity may fade with age. The wings are heavily veined, having often 18 or more antenodal veins. The first segment of their antennae is longer than the combined length of the other segments. They have a jerky, skipping form of flight similar to the flight pattern of a butterfly (fluttering, rather than hovering stably like many other damselfly and dragonfly families). At least one species of Calopterygiadae has shown morphological plasticity in wing length due to the closeness of a forest to the river or stream where they live with a further forest correlating to greater wing length. They perch horizontally on twigs near the water's edge.
Calopterygidae nymphs have lateral gills are longer than the median gills. The nymphs have a flattened, pentagonal-shaped head, a long first antennal segment and long legs. They are found among submerged aquatic plants, woody debris and the exposed roots of streamside plants. There is a single generation per year. The time spent in the larval stage is influenced by both biotic factors, such as fat reserves, and abiotic factors, such as temperature, so they have the highest chances of surviving and reproducing.


April 7
Seiichi Itō, Japanese admiral (lost in action) (b. 1890)
Aruga Kōsaku, Japanese admiral (lost in action) (b. 1897)
April 9
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German theologian (executed) (b. 1906)
Wilhelm Canaris, German admiral, head of the Abwehr (executed) (b. 1887)
Hans von Dohnanyi, Hungarian-born German lawyer, member of the German Resistance, 20 July Plotter (executed) (b. 1902)
April 10
Gloria Dickson, American actress (fire victim) (b. 1917)
Hendrik Nicolaas Werkman, Dutch artist and printer (b. 1882)
April 11 – Frederick Lugard, 1st Baron Lugard, British colonial administrator (b. 1858)
April 12 – Franklin D. Roosevelt, American political leader and statesman, 32nd President of the United States (b. 1882)
April 13 – Ernst Cassirer, German philosopher (b. 1874)
April 15 – Joachim Albrecht Eggeling, German SS general (suicide) (b. 1884)
April 18
Sir Ambrose Fleming, British electrical engineer and physicist (b. 1849)
Ernie Pyle, American journalist (killed in action) (b. 1900)
William, Prince of Albania (b. 1876)
April 21 – Walter Model, German field marshal (suicide) (b. 1891)
April 22 – Käthe Kollwitz, German artist (b. 1867)
April 23 – Klaus Bonhoeffer, German resistance fighter, 20 July Plotter (executed) (b. 1901)
April 24 – Ernst-Robert Grawitz, German SS Reichsphysician (suicide) (b. 1899)
April 28
Executed:
Hermann Fegelein, German SS general (b. 1906)
Benito Mussolini, Italian politician, journalist, 27th Prime Minister of Italy and Duce of Fascism (b. 1883)
Clara Petacci, mistress of Benito Mussolini (b. 1912)
Nicola Bombacci, Italian Fascist politician (b. 1879)
Roberto Farinacci, Italian Fascist politician (b. 1892)
Alessandro Pavolini, Italian Fascist politician (b. 1903)
April 29 – Achille Starace, Italian Fascist politician (executed) (b. 1889)
April 30
Luisa Ferida, Italian actress (executed) (b. 1914)
Adolf Hitler, Austrian-born German politician, Führer of Germany (suicide) (b. 1889)
Eva Braun, wife of Adolf Hitler (suicide) (b. 1912)


March 1
Fritz Goerdeler, German resistance member (executed) (b. 1886)
Lothar Sieber, German test pilot (killed in aviation accident) (b. 1922)
March 2 – Emily Carr, Canadian painter (b. 1871)
March 3
Gheorghe Avramescu, Romanian general (in custody) (b. 1884)
Aleksandra Samusenko, Soviet WWII tank commander (died of wounds) (b. 1922)
March 4
Charles W. Bryan, American politician (b. 1867)
Lucille La Verne, American actress (b. 1872)
Mark Sandrich, American film director (b. 1900)
March 5
Rupert Downes, Australian general (killed in military aircraft accident) (b. 1885)
Albert Richards, British war artist (killed in action) (b. 1919)
George Vasey, Australian general (killed in military aircraft accident) (b. 1895)
Hasso von Boehmer, German Lieutenant Colonel, July 20 Plotter (executed) (b. 1904)
March 7 – Ralph Ignatowski, American WWII hero (killed in action) (b. 1926)
March 8 – Sadasue Senda, Imperial Japanese Army lieutenant general, battle of iwo jima  (killed in action) (b. 1892)
March 12 – Friedrich Fromm, German Nazi official (executed) (b. 1888)
March 14 – Antônio Francisco Braga, Brazilian composer (b. 1868)
March 15 – Sava Caracaș, Romanian general (b. 1890)
March 18 – William Grover-Williams, British/French racing driver, war hero (executed) (b. 1903)
March 19 – Marcel Callo, French Roman Catholic layman, martyr and blessed (in concentration camp) (b. 1921)
March 20
Lord Alfred Douglas, English poet (b. 1870)
Maria Lacerda de Moura, Brazilian feminist, anarchist, teacher, journalist and teacher (b. 1887)
March 22
Eliyahu Bet-Zuri, Israeli assassin (executed) (b. 1922)
Eliyahu Hakim, Israeli assassin (executed) (b. 1925)
Enrico Caviglia, Italian marshal (b. 1862)
Branca de Gonta Colaço, Portuguese writer, scholar and linguist (b. 1880)
Heinrich Maier, Austrian Roman Catholic priest and blessed (b. 1908)
Takeichi Nishi, Japanese equestrian gold medalist (1932), tank commander at Battle of Iwo Jima (killed in action) (b. 1902)
March 23 – Élisabeth de Rothschild, French WWII heroine (b. 1902)
March 26
David Lloyd George, British politician and statesman, 51st Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1863)
Ichimaru Toshinosuke, Japanese naval aviator, commander at Battle of Iwo Jima (b. 1891)
Tadamichi Kuribayashi, Imperial Japanese Army general, commander of the battle of Iwo Jima (probably killed in action) (b. 1891)
Boris Shaposhnikov, Soviet military leader, Marshal of the Soviet Union (b. 1882)
March 27 – Halid Ziya Uşaklıgil, Turkish author (b. 1867)
March 29 – Ferenc Csik, Hungarian swimmer (air raid victim) (b. 1913)
March 30
Élise Rivet, French nun, war heroine (murdered in concentration camp) (b. 1890)
Maurice Rose, American general (killed in action) (b. 1899)
March 31
Hans Fischer, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (suicide) (b. 1881)
Harriet Boyd Hawes, American archaeologist (b. 1871)
Torgny Segerstedt, Swedish newspaper editor, publicist (b. 1876)
Maria Skobtsova, Soviet Orthodox nun and saint (killed by poison) (b. 1891)
Natalia Tulasiewicz, Polish teacher and Roman Catholic blessed (murdered in concentration camp) (b. 1906)


Monaco's name comes from the nearby 6th-century BC Phocaean Greek colony. Referred to by the Ligurians as Monoikos, from the Greek "μόνοικος", "single house", from "μόνος" (monos) "alone, single" + "οἶκος" (oikos) "house". According to an ancient myth, Hercules passed through the Monaco area and turned away the previous gods. As a result, a temple was constructed there. Because this "House" of Hercules was the only temple in the area, the city was called Monoikos. It ended up in the hands of the Holy Roman Empire, which gave it to the Genoese.
An ousted branch of a Genoese family, the Grimaldi, contested it for a hundred years before actually gaining control. Though the Republic of Genoa would last until the 19th century, they allowed the Grimaldi family to keep Monaco, and, likewise, both France and Spain left it alone for hundreds of years. France did not annex it until the French Revolution, but after the defeat of Napoleon it was put under the care of the Kingdom of Sardinia.
In the 19th century, when Sardinia became a part of Italy, the region came under French influence but France allowed it to remain independent. Like France, Monaco was overrun by the Axis powers during the Second World War and for a short time was administered by Italy, then the Third Reich, before finally being liberated. Although the occupation lasted for just a short time, it resulted in the deportation of the Jewish population and execution of several resistance members from Monaco. Since then Monaco has been independent. It has taken some steps towards integration with the European Union.


Until the Monégasque Revolution of 1910 forced the adoption of the 1911 Constitution of Monaco, the princes of Monaco were absolute rulers. The new constitution, however, barely reduced the autocratic rule of the Grimaldi family and Prince Albert I soon suspended it during the First World War.
In July 1918, a new Franco-Monégasque Treaty was signed, providing for limited French protection over Monaco. The treaty, endorsed in 1919 by the Treaty of Versailles, established that Monégasque international policy would be aligned with French political, military and economic interests. It also resolved the Monaco succession crisis.
In 1943, the Italian Army invaded and occupied Monaco, forming a fascist administration. In September 1943, after Mussolini's fall from power, the German Wehrmacht occupied Italy and Monaco, and the Nazi deportation of the Jewish population began. René Blum, the prominent French Jew who founded the Ballet de l'Opéra in Monte Carlo, was arrested in his Paris home and held in the Drancy deportation camp outside the French capital before being transported to Auschwitz, where he was later killed. Blum's colleague Raoul Gunsbourg, the director of the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, helped by the French Resistance, escaped arrest and fled to Switzerland. In August 1944, the Germans executed René Borghini, Joseph-Henri Lajoux and Esther Poggio, who were Resistance leaders.
Rainier III, who ruled until 2005, succeeded to the throne on the death of his grandfather, Prince Louis II, in 1949. On 19 April 1956, Prince Rainier married the American actress Grace Kelly, an event that was widely televised and covered in the popular press, focusing the world's attention on the tiny principality.
A 1962 amendment to the constitution abolished capital punishment, provided for women's suffrage and established a Supreme Court of Monaco to guarantee fundamental liberties. In 1963, a crisis developed when Charles de Gaulle blockaded Monaco, angered by its status as a tax haven for wealthy French citizens. The 2014 film Grace of Monaco is loosely based on this crisis.
In 1993, the Principality of Monaco became a member of the United Nations, with full voting rights.


The word Iberia is a noun adapted from the Latin word "Hiberia" originating in the Ancient Greek word Ἰβηρία (Ibēríā), used by Greek geographers under the rule of the Roman Empire to refer to what is known today in English as the Iberian Peninsula. At that time, the name did not describe a single geographical entity or a distinct population; the same name was used for the Kingdom of Iberia, natively known as Kartli in the Caucasus, the core region of what would later become the Kingdom of Georgia. It was Strabo who first reported the delineation of "Iberia" from Gaul (Keltikē) by the Pyrenees and included the entire land mass southwest (he says "west") from there. With the fall of the Roman Empire and the consolidation of romanic languages, the word "Iberia" continued the Roman word "Hiberia" and the Greek word "Ἰβηρία".
The ancient Greeks reached the Iberian Peninsula, of which they had heard from the Phoenicians, by voyaging westward on the Mediterranean. Hecataeus of Miletus was the first known to use the term Iberia, which he wrote about circa 500 BC. Herodotus of Halicarnassus says of the Phocaeans that "it was they who made the Greeks acquainted with […] Iberia." According to Strabo, prior historians used Iberia to mean the country "this side of the Ἶβηρος" (Ibēros, the Ebro) as far north as the Rhône, but in his day they set the Pyrenees as the limit. Polybius respects that limit, but identifies Iberia as the Mediterranean side as far south as Gibraltar, with the Atlantic side having no name. Elsewhere he says that Saguntum is "on the seaward foot of the range of hills connecting Iberia and Celtiberia."
Strabo refers to the Carretanians as people "of the Iberian stock" living in the Pyrenees, who are distinct from either Celts or Celtiberians.


In 1492, Christopher Columbus became the first European to record his arrival at the islands, where he is believed by historians to have first set foot on land in The Bahamas. After the first of the voyages of Christopher Columbus to the Americas, Europeans began to use the term West Indies to distinguish this region from both the original "Indies" (i.e. India) and the East Indies of South Asia and Southeast Asia.
Tulane University professor Rosanne Adderly says:
[T]he phrase "West Indies" distinguished the territories encountered by Columbus and claimed by Spain from discovery claims by other powers in [Asia's] "East Indies"... The term "West Indies" was eventually used by all European nations to describe their own acquired territories in the continent of America... considering British Caribbean colonies collectively as the "West Indies" had its greatest political importance in the 1950s with the movement to create a federation of those colonies that could ultimately become an independent nation... Despite the collapse of the Federation [in the early 1960s]... the West Indies continues to field a joint cricket team for international competition.
The West Indies cricket team includes participants from Guyana, which is geographically located in South America.


The West Indies are a geologically complex island system consisting of 7,000 islands and islets stretching over 3,000 km from the Florida peninsula of North America south-southeast to the northern coast of Venezuela. These islands include active volcanoes, low-lying atolls, raised limestone islands, and large fragments of continental crust containing tall mountains and insular rivers. Each of the three archipelagos of the West Indies has a unique origin and geologic composition.


Poisoning can cause a variety of unpleasant symptoms including abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhoea, muscle tremors, seizures, and death. Death can be caused by hemorrhages in the lungs, respiratory failure, or cardiac failure. Symptoms can begin as early as two hours after ingestion, and may persist for hours or days. Ingestion is not always lethal, and plants in the genus Calotropis have long been used as a folk remedy in India.


Central Texas is a region in the U.S. state of Texas surrounding Austin and roughly bordered by San Saba to Bryan and San Marcos to Hillsboro. Central Texas overlaps with and includes part of the Texas Hill Country and corresponds to a physiographic section designation within the Edwards Plateau, in a geographic context.
Central Texas includes the Austin–Round Rock, Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood, Bryan–College Station, and Waco metropolitan areas.  The Austin–Round Rock and Killeen-Temple-Fort Hood areas are among the fastest-growing metropolitan areas in the state. The Greater Austin and Greater San Antonio areas are separated from each other by approximately 80 miles (129 km) along Interstate 35. It is anticipated that both regions may form a new metroplex similar to Dallas and Fort Worth.  Some of the largest cities in the region are Austin, College Station, Killeen, Round Rock, and Waco. The largest U.S. Army installation in the country, Fort Hood, is located near Killeen.


Convolvulaceae can be recognized by their funnel-shaped, radially symmetrical corolla; the floral formula for the family has five sepals, five fused petals, five epipetalous stamens (stamens fused to the petals), and a two-part syncarpous and superior gynoecium. The stems of these plants are usually winding, hence their Latin name (from convolvere, "to wind"). The leaves are simple and alternate, without stipules. In parasitic Cuscuta (dodder) they are reduced to scales. The fruit can be a capsule, berry, or nut, all containing only two seeds per one locule (one ovule/ovary).
The leaves and starchy, tuberous roots of some species are used as foodstuffs (e.g. sweet potato and water spinach), and the seeds are exploited for their medicinal value as purgatives. Some species contain ergoline alkaloids that are likely responsible for the use of these species as ingredients in psychedelic drugs (e.g. ololiuhqui). The presence of ergolines in some species of this family is due to infection by fungi related to the ergot fungi of the genus Claviceps. A recent study of Convolvulaceae species, Ipomoea asarifolia, and its associated fungi showed the presence of a fungus, identified by DNA sequencing of 18s and ITS ribosomal DNA and phylogenetic analysis to be closely related to fungi in the family Clavicipitaceae, was always associated with the presence of ergoline alkaloids in the plant. The identified fungus appears to be a seed-transmitted, obligate biotroph growing epiphytically on its host. This finding strongly suggests the unique presence of ergoline alkaloids in some species of the family Convolvulaceae is due to symbiosis with clavicipitaceous fungi. Moreover, another group of compounds, loline alkaloids, commonly produced by some members of the clavicipitaceous fungi (genus Neotyphodium), has been identified in a convolvulaceous species, but the origin of the loline alkaloids in this species is unknown.
Members of the family are well known as showy garden plants (e.g. morning glory) and as troublesome weeds (e.g. bindweed (mainly Convolvulus and Calystegia) and dodder), while Humbertia madagascariensis is a medium-sized tree and Ipomoea carnea is an erect shrub. Some parasitic members of this family are also used medicinally.


Convolvulaceae (US: /kənvɒlvjʊˈleɪsieɪ/), known commonly as the bindweed or morning glory family, is a family of about 60 genera and more than 1,650 species of mostly herbaceous vines, but also trees, shrubs and herbs, and also including the sweet potato and a few other food tubers.


The spread of L. japonica in North America began in the United States in 1806, when it was widely cultivated by the 1860s. It was first discovered in Canada in Ontario forests in 1976, and became invasive by 2007. L. japonica was introduced in Australia between 1820-40.
Several species of honeysuckle have become invasive when introduced outside their native range, particularly in North America, Europe, South America, Australia, and Africa.  Invasive species include L. japonica, L. maackii, L. morrowii, L. tatarica, and the hybrid between the last two, L. × bella.


Honeysuckles (Lonicera, /lɒˈnɪsərə/; syn. Caprifolium Mill.) are arching shrubs or twining vines in the family Caprifoliaceae, native to northern latitudes in North America and Eurasia. Approximately 180 species of honeysuckle have been identified in North America and Eurasia. Widely known species include Lonicera periclymenum (common honeysuckle or woodbine), Lonicera japonica (Japanese honeysuckle, white honeysuckle, or Chinese honeysuckle) and Lonicera sempervirens (coral honeysuckle, trumpet honeysuckle, or woodbine honeysuckle). L. japonica is an aggressive, highly invasive species considered a significant pest on the continents of North America, Europe, South America, Australia, and Africa.
Some species are highly fragrant and colorful, so are cultivated as ornamental garden plants. In North America, hummingbirds are attracted to the flowers, especially L. sempervirens and L. ciliosa (orange honeysuckle). Honeysuckle derives its name from the edible sweet nectar obtainable from its tubular flowers. The name Lonicera stems from Adam Lonicer, a Renaissance botanist.


Honeysuckle is renowned for its colorful, fragrant flowers and variously colored fruit, indicating the presence of complex phytochemicals underlying these properties. Component analyses of berries from 27 different cultivars and 3 genotypes of edible honeysuckle (Lonicera caerulea var. kamtschatica) showed the presence of iridoids, anthocyanins, flavonols, flavanonols, flavones, flavan-3-ols, and phenolic acids. While sugars determine the level of sweetness in the berries, organic acids and polyphenols are responsible for the sour taste and tartness. Some 51 of the same compounds in berries are found in flowers, although the proportions of these compounds varied among cultivars studied.


Honeysuckles are valued as garden plants, for their ability to cover unsightly walls and outbuildings, their profuse tubular flowers in early summer, and the intense fragrance of many varieties. The hardy climbing types need their roots in shade, and their flowering tops in sunlight or very light shade. Varieties need to be chosen with care, as they can become substantial. Cultivars of the dense, small-leaved L. nitida are used as low, narrow hedges.
The following hybrids have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit:
L. × heckrottii ‘Gold Flame’
L. ‘Mandarin’
L. × purpusii 'Winter Beauty'
L. × tellmanniana
Other cultivars are dealt with under their species names.
The honeysuckle species Lonicera japonica is grown as a commercial crop for traditional Chinese medicine use.


Most species of Lonicera are hardy twining climbers, with a minority of shrubby habit. Some species (including Lonicera hildebrandiana from the Himalayan foothills and L. etrusca from the Mediterranean) are tender and can only be grown outside in subtropical zones. The leaves are opposite, simple oval, 1–10 cm long; most are deciduous but some are evergreen. Many of the species have sweetly scented, bilaterally symmetrical flowers that produce a sweet, edible nectar, and most flowers are borne in clusters of two (leading to the common name of "twinberry" for certain North American species). Both shrubby and vining sorts have strongly fibrous stems which have been used for binding and textiles. The fruit is a red, blue or black spherical or elongated berry containing several seeds; in most species the berries are mildly poisonous, but in a few (notably Lonicera caerulea) they are edible and grown for home use and commerce. Most honeysuckle berries are attractive to wildlife, which has led to species such as L. japonica and L. maackii spreading invasively outside of their home ranges. Many species of Lonicera are eaten by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species—see a list of Lepidoptera that feed on honeysuckles.


The Sagas of Icelanders say that a Norwegian named Naddodd (or Naddador) was the first Norseman to reach Iceland, and in the ninth century, he named it Snæland or "snow land" because it was snowing. Following Naddodd, the Swede Garðar Svavarsson arrived, and so the island was then called Garðarshólmur which means "Garðar's Isle".
Then came a Viking named Flóki Vilgerðarson; his daughter drowned en route, then his livestock starved to death. The sagas say that the rather despondent Flóki climbed a mountain and saw a fjord (Arnarfjörður) full of icebergs, which led him to give the island its new and present name. The notion that Iceland's Viking settlers chose that name to discourage the settlement of their verdant isle is a myth.


On 31 December 1943, the Danish–Icelandic Act of Union expired after 25 years. Beginning on 20 May 1944, Icelanders voted in a four-day plebiscite on whether to terminate the personal union with Denmark, abolish the monarchy, and establish a republic. The vote was 97% to end the union, and 95% in favour of the new republican constitution. Iceland formally became a republic on 17 June 1944, with Sveinn Björnsson as its first president.
In 1946, the US Defence Force Allied left Iceland. The nation formally became a member of NATO on 30 March 1949, amid domestic controversy and riots. On 5 May 1951, a defence agreement was signed with the United States. American troops returned to Iceland as the Iceland Defence Force and remained throughout the Cold War. The US withdrew the last of its forces on 30 September 2006.
Iceland prospered during the Second World War. The immediate post-war period was followed by substantial economic growth, driven by the industrialisation of the fishing industry and the US Marshall Plan programme, through which Icelanders received the most aid per capita of any European country (at US$209, with the war-ravaged Netherlands a distant second at US$109).
Vigdis Finnbogadottir assumed Iceland's presidency on August 1, 1980, making her the first elected female head of state in the world.
The 1970s were marked by the Cod Wars—several disputes with the United Kingdom over Iceland's extension of its fishing limits to 200 nmi (370 km) offshore. Iceland hosted a summit in Reykjavík in 1986 between United States President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, during which they took significant steps towards nuclear disarmament. A few years later, Iceland became the first country to recognise the independence of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania as they broke away from the USSR. Throughout the 1990s, the country expanded its international role and developed a foreign policy orientated towards humanitarian and peacekeeping causes. To that end, Iceland provided aid and expertise to various NATO-led interventions in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Iraq.
Iceland joined the European Economic Area in 1994, after which the economy was greatly diversified and liberalised. International economic relations increased further after 2001 when Iceland's newly deregulated banks began to raise great amounts of external debt, contributing to a 32% increase in Iceland's gross national income between 2002 and 2007.


According to both Landnámabók and Íslendingabók, monks known as the Papar lived in Iceland before Scandinavian settlers arrived, possibly members of a Hiberno-Scottish mission. Recent archaeological excavations have revealed the ruins of a cabin in Hafnir on the Reykjanes peninsula. Carbon dating indicates that it was abandoned sometime between 770 and 880. In 2016, archaeologists uncovered a longhouse in Stöðvarfjörður that has been dated to as early as 800.
Swedish Viking explorer Garðar Svavarsson was the first to circumnavigate Iceland in 870 and establish that it was an island. He stayed during the winter and built a house in Húsavík. Garðar departed the following summer, but one of his men, Náttfari, decided to stay behind with two slaves. Náttfari settled in what is now known as Náttfaravík, and he and his slaves became the first permanent residents of Iceland to be documented.
The Norwegian-Norse chieftain Ingólfr Arnarson built his homestead in present-day Reykjavík in 874. Ingólfr was followed by many other emigrant settlers, largely Scandinavians and their thralls, many of whom were Irish or Scottish. By 930, most arable land on the island had been claimed; the Althing, a legislative and judicial assembly was initiated to regulate the Icelandic Commonwealth. The lack of arable land also served as an impetus to the settlement of Greenland starting in 986. The period of these early settlements coincided with the Medieval Warm Period, when temperatures were similar to those of the early 20th century. At this time about 25% of Iceland was covered with forest, compared to 1% in the present day. Christianity was adopted by consensus around 999–1000, although Norse paganism persisted among segments of the population for some years afterward.


The Danish–Icelandic Act of Union, an agreement with Denmark signed on 1 December 1918 and valid for 25 years, recognised Iceland as a fully sovereign and independent state in a personal union with Denmark. The Government of Iceland established an embassy in Copenhagen and requested that Denmark carry out on its behalf certain defence and foreign affairs matters, subject to consultation with the Althing. Danish embassies around the world displayed two coats of arms and two flags: those of the Kingdom of Denmark and those of the Kingdom of Iceland. Iceland's legal position became comparable to those of countries belonging to the Commonwealth of Nations, such as Canada, whose sovereign is Queen Elizabeth II.
During World War II, Iceland joined Denmark in asserting neutrality. After the German occupation of Denmark on 9 April 1940, the Althing replaced the King with a regent and declared that the Icelandic government would take control of its own defence and foreign affairs. A month later, British armed forces conducted Operation Fork, the invasion and occupation of the country, violating Icelandic neutrality. In 1941, the Government of Iceland, friendly to Britain, invited the then-neutral United States to take over its defence so that Britain could use its troops elsewhere.


Panama (/ˈpænəmɑː/ (listen) PAN-ə-mah, /pænəˈmɑː/ pan-ə-MAH; Spanish: Panamá IPA: [panaˈma] (listen)), officially the Republic of Panama (Spanish: República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the central part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the south. Its capital and largest city is Panama City, whose metropolitan area is home to nearly half the country's 4 million people.
Panama was inhabited by indigenous tribes before Spanish colonists arrived in the 16th century. It broke away from Spain in 1821 and joined the Republic of Gran Colombia, a union of Nueva Granada, Ecuador, and Venezuela. After Gran Colombia dissolved in 1831, Panama and Nueva Granada eventually became the Republic of Colombia. With the backing of the United States, Panama seceded from Colombia in 1903, allowing the construction of the Panama Canal to be completed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers between 1904 and 1914. The 1977 Torrijos–Carter Treaties agreed to transfer the canal from the United States to Panama on December 31, 1999. The surrounding territory was first returned in 1979.
Revenue from canal tolls continues to represent a significant portion of Panama's GDP, although commerce, banking, and tourism are major and growing sectors. It is regarded as having a high-income economy. In 2019 Panama ranked 57th in the world in terms of the Human Development Index. In 2018, Panama was ranked the seventh-most competitive economy in Latin America, according to the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Index. Covering around 40 percent of its land area, Panama's jungles are home to an abundance of tropical plants and animals – some of them found nowhere else on earth. Panama is a founding member of the United Nations and other international organizations such as OAS, LAIA, G77, WHO, and NAM.


The Isthmus of Panama was formed about three million years ago when the land bridge between North and South America finally became complete, and plants and animals gradually crossed it in both directions. The existence of the isthmus affected the dispersal of people, agriculture and technology throughout the American continent from the appearance of the first hunters and collectors to the era of villages and cities.
The earliest discovered artifacts of indigenous peoples in Panama include Paleo-Indian projectile points. Later central Panama was home to some of the first pottery-making in the Americas, for example the cultures at Monagrillo, which date back to 2500–1700 BC. These evolved into significant populations best known through their spectacular burials (dating to c. 500–900 AD) at the Monagrillo archaeological site, and their beautiful Gran Coclé style polychrome pottery. The monumental monolithic sculptures at the Barriles (Chiriqui) site are also important traces of these ancient isthmian cultures.
Before Europeans arrived Panama was widely settled by Chibchan, Chocoan, and Cueva peoples. The largest group were the Cueva (whose specific language affiliation is poorly documented). The size of the indigenous population of the isthmus at the time of European colonization is uncertain. Estimates range as high as two million people, but more recent studies place that number closer to 200,000. Archaeological finds and testimonials by early European explorers describe diverse native isthmian groups exhibiting cultural variety and suggesting people developed by regular regional routes of commerce.
When Panama was colonized, the indigenous peoples fled into the forest and nearby islands. Scholars believe that infectious disease was the primary cause of the population decline of American natives. The indigenous peoples had no acquired immunity to diseases such as smallpox which had been chronic in Eurasian populations for centuries.


At the time of the arrival of the Spanish in the 16th century, the known inhabitants of Panama included the Cuevas and the Coclé tribes. These people have nearly disappeared, as they had no immunity from European infectious diseases.


The definite origin of the name Panama is unknown. There are several theories. One states that the country was named after a commonly found species of tree (Sterculia apetala, the Panama tree). Another states that the first settlers arrived in Panama in August, when butterflies are abundant, and that the name means "many butterflies" in one or several of the indigenous Amerindian languages that were spoken in the territory prior to Spanish colonization. Another theory states that the word is a castilianization of the Kuna language word "bannaba" which means "distant" or "far away".
A commonly relayed legend in Panama is that there was a fishing village that bore the name "Panamá", which purportedly meant "an abundance of fish", when the Spanish colonizers first landed in the area. The exact location of the village is unknown. The legend is usually corroborated by Captain Antonio Tello de Guzmán's diary entries, who reports landing at an unnamed village while exploring the Pacific coast of Panama in 1515; he only describes the village as a "same small indigenous fishing town". In 1517, Don Gaspar de Espinosa, a Spanish lieutenant, decided to settle a post in the same location Guzmán described. In 1519, Pedro Arias Dávila decided to establish the Spanish Empire's Pacific port at the site. The new settlement replaced Santa María la Antigua del Darién, which had lost its function within the Crown's global plan after the Spanish exploitation of the riches in the Pacific began.
The official definition and origin of the name as promoted by Panama's Ministry of Education is the "abundance of fish, trees and butterflies". This is the usual description given in social studies textbooks.


In the 80 years following independence from Spain, Panama was a subdivision of Gran Colombia, after voluntarily joining the country at the end of 1821.
The people of the isthmus made over 80 attempts to secede from Colombia. They came close to success in 1831, then again during the Thousand Days' War of 1899–1902, understood among indigenous Panamanians as a struggle for land rights under the leadership of Victoriano Lorenzo.
The US intent to influence the area, especially the Panama Canal's construction and control, led to the separation of Panama from Colombia in 1903 and its establishment as a nation. When the Senate of Colombia rejected the Hay–Herrán Treaty on January 22, 1903, the United States decided to support and encourage the Panamanian separatist movement
In November 1903 Panama, tacitly supported by the United States, proclaimed its independence and concluded the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty with the United States without the presence of a single Panamanian. Philippe Bunau-Varilla, a French engineer and lobbyist represented Panama even though Panama's president and a delegation had arrived in New York to negotiate the treaty. The treaty was quickly drafted and signed the night before the Panamanian delegation arrived in Washington. Mr. Bunau-Varilla was in the employ of the French Canal company that had failed and was now bankrupt.
The treaty granted rights to the United States "as if it were sovereign" in a zone roughly 16 km (10 mi) wide and 80 km (50 mi) long. In that zone, the US would build a canal, then administer, fortify, and defend it "in perpetuity".
In 1914 the United States completed the existing 83-kilometer-long (52-mile) canal.
Because of the strategic importance of the canal during World War II, the US extensively fortified access to it.
From 1903 to 1968, Panama was a constitutional democracy dominated by a commercially oriented oligarchy. During the 1950s, the Panamanian military began to challenge the oligarchy's political hegemony. The early 1960s saw also the beginning of sustained pressure in Panama for the renegotiation of the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty, including riots that broke out in early 1964, resulting in widespread looting and dozens of deaths, and the evacuation of the American embassy.
Amid negotiations for the Robles–Johnson treaty, Panama held elections in 1968. The candidates were:
Dr. Arnulfo Arias Madrid, Unión Nacional (National Union)
Antonio González Revilla, Democracia Cristiana (Christian Democrats)
Engr. David Samudio, Alianza del Pueblo (People's Alliance) who had the government's support.
Arias Madrid was declared the winner of elections that were marked by violence and accusations of fraud against Alianza del Pueblo. On October 1, 1968, Arias Madrid took office as president of Panama, promising to lead a government of "national union" that would end the reigning corruption and pave the way for a new Panama. A week and a half later, on October 11, 1968, the National Guard (Guardia Nacional) ousted Arias and initiated the downward spiral that would culminate with the United States' invasion in 1989. Arias, who had promised to respect the hierarchy of the National Guard, broke the pact and started a large restructuring of the Guard. To preserve the Guard's and his vested interests, Lieutenant Colonel Omar Torrijos Herrera and Major Boris Martínez commanded another military coup against the government.
The military justified itself by declaring that Arias Madrid was trying to install a dictatorship, and promised a return to constitutional rule. In the meantime, the Guard began a series of populist measures that would gain support for the coup. Among them were:
Price freezing on food, medicine and other goods until January 31, 1969
rent level freeze
legalization of the permanence of squatting families in boroughs surrounding the historic site of Panama Viejo
Parallel to this, the military began a policy of repression against the opposition, who were labeled communists. The military appointed a Provisional Government Junta that was to arrange new elections. However, the National Guard would prove to be very reluctant to abandon power and soon began calling itself El Gobierno Revolucionario (The Revolutionary Government).


The original name for the island in the Arawaks' language was Iëre which meant "Land of the Hummingbird". Christopher Columbus renamed it La Isla de la Trinidad ('The Island of the Trinity'), fulfilling a vow he had made before setting out on his third voyage. This has since been shortened to Trinidad.


Major landforms include the hills of the Northern, Central and Southern Ranges (Dinah ranges), the Caroni, Nariva and Oropouche Swamps, and the Caroni and Naparima Plains. Major river systems include the Caroni, North and South Oropouche and Ortoire Rivers. There are many other natural landforms such as beaches and waterfalls.
Trinidad has two seasons per the calendar year: the rainy season and the dry season. El Cerro del Aripo, at 940 metres (3,084 ft), is the highest point in Trinidad. It is part of the Aripo Massif and is located in the Northern Range on the island, northeast of the town of Arima.


Caribs and Arawaks lived in Trinidad long before Christopher Columbus encountered the islands on his third voyage on 31 July 1498. The island remained Spanish until 1797, but it was largely settled by French colonists from the French Caribbean, especially Martinique. In 1889 the two islands became a single British Crown colony. Trinidad and Tobago was granted self-governance in 1958 and independence from the United Kingdom in August 1962. and eventually became a republic on August 1976.


The Celastraceae (staff-vine or bittersweet) are a family of 97 genera and 1,350 species of herbs, vines, shrubs and small trees, belonging to the order Celastrales. The great majority of the genera are tropical, with only Celastrus (the staff vines), Euonymus (the spindles) and Maytenus widespread in temperate climates, and Parnassia (bog-stars) found in alpine and arctic climates.
Of the 97 currently recognized genera of the family Celastraceae, 19 are native to Madagascar and these include at least 57 currently recognized species. Six of these 19 genera (Brexiella, Evonymopsis, Hartogiopsis, Polycardia, Ptelidium, and Salvadoropsis) are endemic to Madagascar.


Under the Köppen climate classification, Cayenne has a tropical monsoon climate (Am) bordering on an equatorial climate (Af). Average high and low temperatures are nearly identical throughout the course of the year, averaging about 30 °C (86 °F) and 23 °C (73 °F) respectively, although temperatures are somewhat cooler in the wet season than in the dry season. Cayenne sees copious precipitation during the year, with its weather being more strongly affected by the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) than the trade winds. The city experiences a very lengthy wet season and a very short dry season - the dry season covers only September and October, while the wet season covers the remainder of the year. Some precipitation is seen even during the dry season, a trait common in tropical climates. Cayenne averages roughly 3,500 millimetres (140 in) of rain each year.