The 1870s (pronounced "eighteen-seventies") was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1870, and ended on December 31, 1879.
The trends of the previous decade continued into this one, as new empires, imperialism and militarism rose in Europe and Asia. The United States was recovering from the American Civil War, though the Reconstruction era introduced its own legacies of bitterness and racial segregation in the country. Germany unified as a nation in 1871 and became the German Empire. Changing social conditions led workforces to cooperate in the form of labor unions in order to demand better pay and working conditions, with strikes occurring worldwide in the later part of the decade and continuing until World War I. The decade was also a period of significant technological advancement; the phonograph, telephone, and electric light bulb were all invented during the 1870s, though it would take several more decades before they became household items.


The German Empire and Alliance System emerged.
Racial and economic politics at the height of America's Reconstruction Era were bitter, pessimistic, and sometimes violent.
The Gilded Age began in 1877, lasting until 1896.
The First Spanish Republic rises and promptly ends (1873–1874).
The first Ottoman Constitution is promulgated in 1876, starting the First Constitutional Era (1876–1878).
Contested US presidential election of 1876


Jules Verne (France) publishes Around The World in Eighty Days.
Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, and Sisley organized the Société Anonyme Coopérative des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs ("Cooperative and Anonymous Association of Painters, Sculptors, and Engravers") for the purpose of exhibiting their artworks independently. Members of the association, which soon included Cézanne, Berthe Morisot, and Edgar Degas, were expected to forswear participation in the Salon. The organizers invited a number of other progressive artists to join them in their inaugural exhibition, including the slightly older Eugène Boudin, whose example had first persuaded Monet to take up plein air painting years before. Another painter who greatly influenced Monet and his friends, Johan Jongkind, declined to participate, as did Manet. In total, thirty artists participated in their first exhibition, held in April 1874 at the studio of the photographer Nadar. The group soon became known as the Impressionists.
Jeanne Calment, born 1875, would eventually become the longest-living human being with a verified lifespan. She lived until 1997, at the age of 122. She still holds the record as of 2022.
Lewis Carroll publishes Through the Looking-Glass.
Mark Twain publishes ‘’The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’’ in 1876.
Henrik Ibsen releases A Doll's House in 1879.


Dungan Revolt (1862–1877), Hui uprising against the Qing Empire which resulted in 20 million deaths and a Qing victory
Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), resulted in the collapse of the Second French Empire and in the formation of both the French Third Republic and the German Empire
Third Anglo-Ashanti War, also known as the "First Ashanti Expedition" (1873–1874), ended with the destruction of the royal palace at Kumasi and the signing of the Treaty of Fomena, which secured British trading rights in the area
The Third Carlist War (1872–1876), the last of the Carlist Wars in Spain
Ethiopian–Egyptian War (1874–1876), a resource conflict over access to the Nile River basin between the Ethiopian Empire and the Khedivate of Egypt, resulting in an Ethiopian victory
Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), resulted in Serbia, Romania, and Montenegro becoming completely independent from the Ottoman Empire, while Bulgaria became autonomous
In the United States, post-Civil War Reconstruction continued until its conclusion under President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877
Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–1880), fought between the British Raj and the Emirate of Afghanistan
Anglo-Zulu War (11 January – 5 July 1879)
War of the Pacific (1879–1884), fought over resource-rich territory along the Pacific coast between Chile and an alliance of Bolivia and Peru


The city attracted international attention in 2003 when it became the centre of a major SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak. Public health attempts to prevent the disease from spreading elsewhere temporarily dampened the local economy. From August 14–17, 2003, the city was hit by a massive blackout which affected millions of Torontonians (it also affected most of Southern Ontario and parts of the United States), stranding some hundreds of people in tall buildings, knocking out traffic lights and suspending subway and streetcar service across the city during those aforementioned days.
On March 6, 2009, the city celebrated the 175th anniversary of its inception as the City of Toronto in 1834. Toronto hosted the 4th G20 summit during June 26–27, 2010. This included the largest security operation in Canadian history. Following large-scale protests and rioting, law enforcement conducted the largest mass arrest (more than a thousand people) in Canadian history.
On July 8, 2013, severe flash flooding hit Toronto after an afternoon of slow-moving, intense thunderstorms. Toronto Hydro estimated 450,000 people were without power after the storm and Toronto Pearson International Airport reported 126 mm (5 in) of rain had fallen over five hours, more than during Hurricane Hazel. Within six months, from December 20 to 22, 2013, Toronto was brought to a near halt by the worst ice storm in the city's history, rivalling the severity of the 1998 Ice Storm (which mostly affected southeastern Ontario, and Quebec). At the height of the storm, over 300,000 Toronto Hydro customers had no electricity or heating. Toronto hosted WorldPride in June 2014, and the Pan American Games in 2015.
The city continues to grow and attract immigrants. A 2019 study by Toronto Metropolitan University (then known as Ryerson University) showed that Toronto was the fastest-growing city in North America. The city added 77,435 people between July 2017 and July 2018. The Toronto metropolitan area was the second-fastest-growing metropolitan area in North America, adding 125,298 persons, compared with 131,767 in the Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metroplex in Texas. The large growth in the Toronto metropolitan area is attributed to international migration to Toronto.
The COVID-19 pandemic in Canada first occurred in Toronto and is among the hotspots in the country.
Toronto will host some games in the group stage of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, also to be held in various other cities across North America.


The office towers comprise five buildings named Towers One through Five with four containing 45 stories and one 18 stories. The latter has 28,000 square feet of net lettable floor area on each floor while the 45-storey towers consist of floor plates ranging from 10,000 to 14,000 square feet. In total, there are about 2.3 million square feet of office space. Tower One to Four is 45-storey representing the 4 fingers and Tower 5 is 18-storey representing the thumb.
Suntec City Office Towers houses a number of foreign diplomatic/non-diplomatic missions that are resident in Singapore. Embassy of Spain on the 39th floor of Tower 1, Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office on the 34th floor of Tower 2, Embassy of Rwanda on the 14th floor of Tower 3, Embassy of Chile on the 24th floor of Tower 3, Embassy of Qatar on the 41st floor of Tower 3, and the Taiwan Trade Center on the 9th floor of Tower 4.


With his next album, the new decade found Morrison following his muse into uncharted territory and sometimes merciless reviews. In February 1980, Morrison and a group of musicians travelled to Super Bear, a studio in the French Alps, to record (on the site of a former abbey) what is considered to be the most controversial album in his discography; later "Morrison admitted his original concept was even more esoteric than the final product." The album, Common One, consisted of six songs; the longest, "Summertime in England", lasted fifteen and a half minutes and ended with the words,"Can you feel the silence?". NME magazine's Paul Du Noyer called the album "colossally smug and cosmically dull; an interminable, vacuous and drearily egotistical stab at spirituality: Into the muzak." Greil Marcus, whose previous writings had been favourably inclined towards Morrison, critically remarked: "It's Van acting the part of the 'mystic poet' he thinks he's supposed to be." Morrison insisted the album was never "meant to be a commercial album." Biographer Clinton Heylin concludes: "He would not attempt anything so ambitious again. Henceforth every radical idea would be tempered by some notion of commerciality." Later, critics reassessed the album more favourably with the success of "Summertime in England". Lester Bangs wrote in 1982, "Van was making holy music even though he thought he was, and us rock critics had made our usual mistake of paying too much attention to the lyrics."
Morrison's next album, Beautiful Vision, released in 1982, had him returning once again to the music of his Northern Irish roots. Well received by the critics and public, it produced a minor UK hit single, "Cleaning Windows", that referenced one of Morrison's first jobs after leaving school. Several other songs on the album, "Vanlose Stairway", "She Gives Me Religion", and the instrumental, "Scandinavia" show the presence of a new personal muse in his life: a Danish public relations agent, who would share Morrison's spiritual interests and serve as a steadying influence on him throughout most of the 1980s. "Scandinavia", with Morrison on piano, was nominated in the Best Rock Instrumental Performance category for the 25th Annual Grammy Awards.
Much of the music Morrison released throughout the 1980s continued to focus on the themes of spirituality and faith. His 1983 album, Inarticulate Speech of the Heart was "a move towards creating music for meditation" with synthesisers, uilleann pipes and flute sounds and four of the tracks were instrumentals. The titling of the album and the presence of the instrumentals were noted to be indicative of Morrison's long-held belief that "it's not the words one uses but the force of conviction behind those words that matters." During this period of time, Morrison had studied Scientology and gave "Special Thanks" to L. Ron Hubbard on the album's credits.
A Sense of Wonder, Morrison's 1985 album, pulled together the spiritual themes contained in his last four albums, which were defined in a Rolling Stone review as: "rebirth (Into the Music), deep contemplation and meditation (Common One); ecstasy and humility (Beautiful Vision); and blissful, mantra like languor (Inarticulate Speech of the Heart)." The single, "Tore Down a la Rimbaud" was a reference to Rimbaud and an earlier bout of writer's block that Morrison had encountered in 1974. In 1985, Morrison also wrote the musical score for the movie, Lamb starring Liam Neeson.
Morrison's 1986 release, No Guru, No Method, No Teacher, was said to contain a "genuine holiness ... and musical freshness that needs to be set in context to understand." Critical response was favourable with a Sounds reviewer calling the album "his most intriguingly involved since Astral Weeks" and "Morrison at his most mystical, magical best." It contains the song, "In the Garden" that, according to Morrison, had a "definite meditation process which is a 'form' of transcendental meditation as its basis. It's not TM". He entitled the album as a rebuttal to media attempts to place him in various creeds. In an interview in the Observer he told Anthony Denselow:
There have been many lies put out about me and this finally states my position. I have never joined any organisation, nor plan to. I am not affiliated to any guru, don't subscribe to any method and for those people who don't know what a guru is, I don't have a teacher either.
After releasing the "No Guru" album, Morrison's music appeared less gritty and more adult contemporary with the well-received 1987 album, Poetic Champions Compose, considered to be one of his recording highlights of the 1980s. The romantic ballad from this album, "Someone Like You", has been featured subsequently in the soundtracks of several movies, including 1995's French Kiss, and in 2001, both Someone Like You and Bridget Jones's Diary.
In 1988, he released Irish Heartbeat, a collection of traditional Irish folk songs recorded with the Irish group the Chieftains, which reached number 18 in the UK album charts. The title song, "Irish Heartbeat", was originally recorded on his 1983 album Inarticulate Speech of the Heart.
The 1989 album, Avalon Sunset, which featured the hit duet with Cliff Richard "Whenever God Shines His Light" and the ballad "Have I Told You Lately" (on which "earthly love transmutes into that for God"(Hinton)), reached 13 on the UK album chart. Although considered to be a deeply spiritual album, it also contained "Daring Night", which "deals with full, blazing sex, whatever its churchy organ and gentle lilt suggest"(Hinton). Morrison's familiar themes of "God, woman, his childhood in Belfast and those enchanted moments when time stands still" were prominent in the songs. He can be heard calling out the change of tempo at the end of this song, repeating the numbers "1 – 4" to cue the chord changes (the first and fourth chord in the key of the music). He often completed albums in two days, frequently releasing first takes.


In November 2004, Minogue released her second official greatest hits album, entitled Ultimate Kylie. The album yielded two singles: "I Believe in You" and "Giving You Up". "I Believe in You" was later nominated for a Grammy Award in the category of "Best Dance Recording". In March 2005, Minogue commenced her Showgirl: The Greatest Hits Tour. After performing in Europe, she travelled to Melbourne, where she was diagnosed with breast cancer, forcing her to cancel the tour. She underwent surgery in May 2005 and commenced chemotherapy treatment soon after. It was announced in January 2006 that she had finished chemotherapy and the disease "had no recurrence" after the surgery. She would continue her treatment for the next months. In December 2005, Minogue released a digital-only single, "Over the Rainbow", a live recording from her Showgirl tour. Her children's book, The Showgirl Princess, written during her period of convalescence, was published in October 2006, and her perfume, "Darling", was launched in November. The range was later augmented by eau de toilettes including Pink Sparkle, Couture and Inverse.
Minogue resumed her then cancelled tour in November 2006, under the title Showgirl: The Homecoming Tour. Her dance routines had been reworked to accommodate her medical condition, with slower costume changes and longer breaks introduced between sections of the show to conserve her strength. The media reported that Minogue performed energetically, with the Sydney Morning Herald describing the show as an "extravaganza" and "nothing less than a triumph". She voiced Florence in the animated film The Magic Roundabout, based on the television series of the same name. She finished her voice role back in 2002, before it was released in 2005 in Europe. A year later, she reprised the role and recorded the theme song for the American edition, re-titled as Doogal, which grossed $26,691,243 worldwide.
In November 2007, Minogue released her tenth and much-discussed "comeback" album, X. The electro-styled album included contributions from Guy Chambers, Cathy Dennis, Bloodshy & Avant and Calvin Harris. The album received some criticism for the triviality of its subject matter in light of Minogue's experiences with breast cancer. X and its lead single, "2 Hearts", entered at number one on the Australian albums and singles charts, respectively. In the United Kingdom, X initially attracted lukewarm sales, although its commercial performance eventually improved. Follow-up singles from the album, "In My Arms" and "Wow", both peaked inside the top ten of the UK Singles Chart. In the US, the album was nominated at the 2009 Grammy Awards for Best Electronic/Dance Album.
Minogue began a relationship with French actor Olivier Martinez after meeting him at the 2003 Grammy Awards ceremony. They ended their relationship in February 2007, but remained on friendly terms. Minogue was reported to have been "saddened by false [media] accusations of [Martinez's] disloyalty". She defended Martinez, and acknowledged the support he had given during her treatment for breast cancer. As part of the promotion of her album, Minogue was featured in White Diamond, a documentary filmed during 2006 and 2007 as she resumed her Showgirl: The Homecoming Tour. She also appeared in The Kylie Show, which featured her performances as well as comedy sketches. She co-starred in the 2007 Doctor Who Christmas special episode, "Voyage of the Damned", as Astrid Peth. The episode was watched by 13.31 million viewers, which was the show's highest viewing figure since 1979.
In May 2008, Minogue embarked on the European leg of the KylieX2008 tour, her most expensive tour to date with production costs of £10 million. The tour was generally acclaimed and sold well. She was then appointed a Chevalier of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the junior grade of France's highest cultural honour. In July, she was officially invested by The Prince of Wales as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. She also won the "Best International Female Solo Artist" award at the 2008 BRIT Awards. In September, she made her Middle East debut as the headline act at the opening of Atlantis, The Palm, an exclusive hotel resort in Dubai, and from November, she continued her KylieX2008 tour, taking the show to cities across South America, Asia and Australia. The tour visited 21 countries, and was considered a success, with ticket sales estimated at $70,000,000. In 2009, Minogue hosted the BRIT Awards with James Corden and Mathew Horne. She then embarked on the For You, for Me tour which was her first North American concert tour. She was also featured in the Hindi movie, Blue, performing an A. R. Rahman song. Minogue was in a relationship with model Andrés Velencoso from 2008 to 2013.


Kylie Ann Minogue was born in Melbourne on 28 May 1968, the daughter of former ballet dancer  Carol Ann Minogue (née Jones) and car company accountant Ronald Charles Minogue. Minogue is of English and Welsh descent (though her surname is of Irish origin), and was named after the Nyungar word for "boomerang". She is the eldest of three children: her brother, Brendan Minogue, is a news cameraman in Australia, and her sister, Dannii Minogue, followed her steps and is a singer and television host. The family frequently moved around various suburbs in Melbourne to sustain their living expenses, which Minogue found unsettling as a child. She would often stay at home reading, sewing, and learning to play violin and piano. When they moved to Surrey Hills, Victoria, she went on to Camberwell High School. During her schooling years, she found it difficult to make friends. She got her HSC with subjects including Arts and Graphics and English. Minogue described herself as being of "average intelligence" and "quite modest" during her high school years. Growing up, she and her sister Dannii took singing and dancing lessons.
A 10-year-old Minogue accompanied Dannii to a hearing arranged by the sisters' aunt, Suzette, and, while producers found Dannii too young, Alan Hardy gave Minogue a minor role in soap opera The Sullivans (1979). She also appeared in another small role in Skyways (1980). In 1985, she was cast in one of the lead roles in The Henderson Kids. Minogue took time off school to film The Henderson Kids and while Carol was not impressed, Minogue felt that she needed the independence to make it into the entertainment industry. During filming, co-star Nadine Garner labelled Minogue "fragile" after producers yelled at her for forgetting her lines; she would often cry on set. Minogue was dropped from the second season of the show after producer Alan Hardy felt the need for her character to be "written off". In retrospect, Hardy stated that removing her from the showing "turned out to be the best thing for her". Interested in following a career in music, Minogue made a demo tape for the producers of weekly music program Young Talent Time, which featured Dannii as a regular performer. Minogue gave her first television singing performance on the show in 1985 but was not invited to join the cast. Minogue was cast in the soap opera Neighbours in 1986, as Charlene Mitchell, a schoolgirl turned garage mechanic. Neighbours achieved popularity in the UK, and a story arc that created a romance between her character and the character played by Jason Donovan culminated in a wedding episode in 1987 that attracted an audience of 20 million viewers. Minogue became the first person to win four Logie Awards in one year and was the youngest recipient of the "Gold Logie" as the country's "Most Popular Television Performer", with the result determined by public vote. She was in a relationship with Donovan for three years, until 1989.


In July 2010, Minogue released her eleventh studio album, Aphrodite. The album featured new songwriters and producers including Stuart Price as executive producer. Price also contributed to song writing along with Minogue, Calvin Harris, Jake Shears, Nerina Pallot, Pascal Gabriel, Lucas Secon, Keane's Tim Rice-Oxley and Kish Mauve. The album received favourable reviews from most music critics; Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone labelled the album Minogue's "finest work since 1997's underrated Impossible Princess" and Tim Sendra from Allmusic commended Minogue's choice of collaborators and producers, commenting that the album is the "work of someone who knows exactly what her skills are and who to hire to help showcase them to perfection". Aphrodite debuted at number-one in the United Kingdom, exactly 22 years after her first number one hit in the United Kingdom. The album's lead single, "All the Lovers," was a success and became her 33rd top ten single in the United Kingdom, though subsequent singles from the album—"Get Outta My Way", "Better than Today", and "Put Your Hands Up"—failed to reach the top ten of the UK Singles Chart. However, all the singles released from the album have topped the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs chart.
Minogue recorded a duet with synthpop duo Hurts on their song "Devotion", which was included on the group's album Happiness. She was then featured on Taio Cruz's single "Higher". The result was successful, peaking inside the top 20 in several charts and impacting the US Hot Dance Club Charts. In February 2011, Minogue became the first act to hold two of the top three spots on the US Dance/Club Play Songs survey, with "Better Than Today" at number one and "Higher" at number 3. To conclude her recordings in 2010, she released the extended play A Kylie Christmas, which included covers of Christmas songs including "Let It Snow" and "Santa Baby". Minogue embarked on the Aphrodite: Les Folies Tour in February 2011, travelling to Europe, North America, Asia, Australia and Africa. With a stage set inspired by the birth of the love goddess Aphrodite and Grecian culture and history, it was greeted with positive reviews from critics, who praised the concept and the stage production. The tour was a commercial success, grossing US$60 million and ranking at number six and 21 on the mid-year and annual Pollstar Top Concert Tours of 2011 respectively.
In March 2012, Minogue began a year-long celebration for her 25 years in the music industry, which was often called "K25". The anniversary started with her embarking on the Anti Tour in England and Australia, which featured b-sides, demos and rarities from her music catalogue. The tour was positively received for its intimate atmosphere and was a commercial success, grossing over two million dollars from four shows. She then released the single "Timebomb" in May, the greatest hits compilation album, The Best of Kylie Minogue in June and the singles box-set, K25 Time Capsule in October. She performed at various events around the world, including Sydney Mardi Gras, Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee Concert, and BBC Proms in the Park London 2012. Minogue released the compilation album The Abbey Road Sessions in October. The album contained reworked and orchestral versions of her previous songs. It was recorded at London's Abbey Road Studios and was produced by Steve Anderson and Colin Elliot. The album received favourable reviews from music critics and debuted at number-two in the United Kingdom. The album spawned two singles, "Flower" and "On a Night Like This". Minogue returned to acting and starred in two films: a cameo appearance in the American independent film Jack & Diane and a lead role in the French film Holy Motors. Jack & Diane opened at the Tribeca Film Festival on 20 April 2012, while Holy Motors opened at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival, which Minogue attended.


Under pressure from British minister Sir Harry Parkes to fulfil its obligations under the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of Amity and Commerce to make the waters and harbors of Japan safe for shipping, the Tokugawa shogunate hired the Edinburgh-based firm of D. and T. Stevenson to chart coastal waters and to build lighthouses where appropriate. Richard Henry Brunton was sent from Edinburgh in August 1868 to head the project after being recommended to the Japanese government by the Stevensons, Over the next seven and a half years he designed and supervised the building of 26 Japanese lighthouses in the Western style, along with two lightvessels. Brunton also established a system of lighthouse keepers, modeled on the Northern Lighthouse Board in Scotland. Initially under the jurisdiction of the Imperial Japanese Navy, the responsibility for maintaining lighthouses came under the Maritime Safety Agency following World War 2. In 2006 Meshima Lighthouse became the last of Japan's 3,337 lighthouses to become automated.
There are five lighthouses along the coasts of the Malay Peninsula, all managed by the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore. Of those five, two were still regularly staffed by lighthouse keepers as of the end of 2015. Raffles Lighthouse, on Singapore's southernmost island, and Pulau Pisang Lighthouse, which is technically located within the neighbouring country of Malaysia, are both crewed by a rotating staff of eight lighthouse keepers who work 10-day shifts in pairs.


The Bronze Age is the earliest period in which some civilizations have reached the end of prehistory, by introducing written records. The Bronze Age or parts thereof are thus considered to be part of prehistory only for the regions and civilizations who adopted or developed a system of keeping written records during later periods.  The invention of writing coincides in some areas with the early beginnings of the Bronze Age. Soon after the appearance of writing, people started creating texts including written accounts of events and records of administrative matters.
The term Bronze Age refers to a period in human cultural development when the most advanced metalworking (at least in systematic and widespread use) included techniques for smelting copper and tin from naturally occurring outcroppings of ores, and then combining them to cast bronze. These naturally occurring ores typically included arsenic as a common impurity. Copper and tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact that there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before 3000 BCE. The Bronze Age forms part of the three-age system for prehistoric societies. In this system, it follows the Neolithic in some areas of the world.
While copper is a common ore, deposits of tin are rare in the Old World, and often had to be traded or carried considerable distances from the few mines, stimulating the creation of extensive trading routes. In many areas as far apart as China and England, the valuable new material was used for weapons but for a long time apparently not available for agricultural tools. Much of it seems to have been hoarded by social elites, and sometimes deposited in extravagant quantities, from Chinese ritual bronzes and Indian copper hoards to European hoards of unused axe-heads.
By the end of the Bronze Age large states, which are often called empires, had arisen in Egypt, China, Anatolia (the Hittites), and Mesopotamia, all of them literate.


"Palaeolithic" means "Old Stone Age", and begins with the first use of stone tools. The Paleolithic is the earliest period of the Stone Age. It extends from the earliest known use of stone tools by hominins c. 3.3 million years ago, to the end of the Pleistocene c. 11,650 BP (before the present period).
The early part of the Palaeolithic is called the Lower Palaeolithic, beginning with the earliest stone tools dated to around 3.3 million years ago at the Lomekwi site in Kenya. These tools predate the genus Homo and were probably used by Kenyanthropus. Evidence of control of fire by early hominins during the Lower Palaeolithic Era is uncertain and has at best limited scholarly support. The most widely accepted claim is that H. erectus or H. ergaster made fires between 790,000 and 690,000 BP in a site at Bnot Ya'akov Bridge, Israel. The use of fire enabled early humans to cook food, provide warmth, and have a light source at night.
Early Homo sapiens originated some 200,000 years ago, ushering in the Middle Palaeolithic. Anatomic changes indicating modern language capacity also arise during the Middle Palaeolithic. During the Middle Palaeolithic Era, there is the first definitive evidence of human use of fire. Sites in Zambia have charred bone and wood that have been dated to 61,000 BP. The systematic burial of the dead, music, early art, and the use of increasingly sophisticated multi-part tools are highlights of the Middle Paleolithic.
Throughout the Palaeolithic, humans generally lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers. Hunter-gatherer societies tended to be very small and egalitarian, although hunter-gatherer societies with abundant resources or advanced food-storage techniques sometimes developed sedentary lifestyles with complex social structures such as chiefdoms, and social stratification. Long-distance contacts may have been established, as in the case of Indigenous Australian "highways" known as songlines.


The main source of information for prehistory is archaeology (a branch of anthropology), but some scholars are beginning to make more use of evidence from the natural and social sciences.
The primary researchers into human prehistory are archaeologists and physical anthropologists who use excavation, geologic and geographic surveys, and other scientific analysis to reveal and interpret the nature and behavior of pre-literate and non-literate peoples. Human population geneticists and historical linguists are also providing valuable insight. Cultural anthropologists help provide context for societal interactions, by which objects of human origin pass among people, allowing an analysis of any article that arises in a human prehistoric context. Therefore, data about prehistory is provided by a wide variety of natural and social sciences, such as anthropology, archaeology, archaeoastronomy, comparative linguistics, biology, geology, molecular genetics, paleontology, palynology, physical anthropology, and many others.
Human prehistory differs from history not only in terms of its chronology, but in the way it deals with the activities of archaeological cultures rather than named nations or individuals. Restricted to material processes, remains, and artifacts rather than written records, prehistory is anonymous. Because of this, reference terms that prehistorians use, such as "Neanderthal" or "Iron Age", are modern labels with definitions sometimes subject to debate.


1608 (MDCVIII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar, the 1608th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 608th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 8th  year of the 17th century, and the  9th   year of the 1600s decade. As of the start of 1608, the Gregorian calendar was 10 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


October 11 – Giovanni Ambrogio Figino, Italian painter (b. c. 1549)
October 17 – Luca Bati, Italian composer (b. 1546)
October 19
Martin Delrio, Flemish theologian and occultist (b. 1551)
Geoffrey Fenton, English writer and politician (b. 1539)
Maria Pypelinckx, Dutch writer (b. 1538)
October 26 – Philipp Nicolai, German Lutheran pastor (b. 1556)
October 29 – John Smith, English politician (b. 1557)
November 24 – Giovanni Battista Giorgi, Italian Catholic prelate who served as Bishop of Ston (1606–1608) (b. 1536)
December 21 – William Davison, secretary to Queen Elizabeth I of England (b. c. 1541)
December 29 – Martin Schalling the Younger, German theologian (b. 1532)


Millions of people attend the festival, which has existed for more than two centuries. It is said that the festival originated when feudal lord Bhagwan Chaudhary dreamed that he could offer a blood sacrifice to the goddess Gadhimai in order to be freed from jail. Animal sacrifice at the festival attracts people from Nepal and India.


Participants believe that sacrificing animals to the Hindu goddess Gadhimai can end evil and bring prosperity. This has prompted numerous protests by animal rights activists and Nepalese Hindus from Hill region.
In 2009, activists made several attempts to stop the ritual; this included Brigitte Bardot and Maneka Gandhi, who wrote to the Nepalese government, asking it to stop the killings. A government official commented that they would not "interfere in the centuries-old tradition of the Madheshi people". Ram Bahadur Bomjon, claimed by some of his supporters to be the reincarnation of the Buddha, said that he would attempt to stop the sacrifice at the festival, preaching nonviolence and offering a blessing at the place. His promise prompted the government to send additional forces to prevent any incident. A month before the festival, Madheshi politicians realized there would be a "severe shortage" of goats for the ritual sacrifice, as well as for the consumption of mutton during the festival. They began a radio campaign urging farmers to sell their animals.
The festival started in the first week of November 2009 and ended in the first week of December (up to makar sankranti). Sacrificial animals included white mice, pigeons, roosters, ducks, swine, and male water buffalo. More than 20,000 buffalo were sacrificed on the first day. It is estimated that 250,000 animals were sacrificed during the Gadhimai festival of 2009. The ritual killings were performed by more than two hundred men in a concrete slaughterhouse near the temple. After the festival, the meat, bones, and hides of the animals were sold to companies in India and Nepal.
In October 2014, Gauri Maulekhi (People for Animals Uttarakhand trustee and Humane Society International [HSI] consultant) filed a petition against the illegal transportation of animals from India to Nepal for slaughter. After this, the Supreme Court of India passed an interim order directing the Government of India to prevent animals from being illegally transported across the border for sacrifice at Gadhimai. The court also asked animal protection groups and others to devise an action plan to ensure the court order would be implemented. NG Jayasimha, HSI India representative, visited Nepal to ensure the ban was being adhered to. In an interview with the Times of India, he said, "I am very pleased that we were able to sit down with the Nepali politicians, to speak up for the hundreds of thousands of innocent animals who are condemned to an utterly unjustified beheading at Gadhimai. We also spoke directly to the Gadhimai temple and the local magistrate, so they can be in no doubt of the overwhelming call for compassion. We sincerely hope that they will act to stop this unnecessary bloodshed". The Indian Ministry of Home Affairs directed the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to monitor and make sure no animals got to Nepal for the festival. It was later reported that 30,000 to 200,000 animals were slaughtered during the 2014 event.
Nepal's temple trust announced the cancellation of all future animal sacrifices at the country's Gadhimai festival in July 2015. The event was also "banned" by HSI India, though this had no legal force.
In 2019, it was reported that the festival took place but this time, the sacrifice involved goats, rats, chickens, pigs, and pigeons.


Gadhimai festival is a religious festival held every five years in Nepal at the Gadhimai Temple of Bariyarpur, in Bara District, about 160 kilometres (99 mi) south of the capital Kathmandu, and about 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) east of the city of Kalaiya, near the Indo-Nepal border. It is primarily celebrated by Madhesi people. The event involves large-scale sacrificial slaughter of animals, including water buffalo, pigs, goats, chickens, and pigeons, with the goal of pleasing Gadhimai, the goddess of power. People also offer coconuts, sweets, red-coloured clothes, etc. The festival has been described as the world's largest animal sacrifice event or one of the largest.
It is estimated that 250,000 animals were sacrificed during the Gadhimai festival of 2009. In 2015, it was erroneously reported that Nepal's temple trust planned to cancel all future animal sacrifices at the festival.


A cloister (from Latin claustrum, "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cathedral or church, commonly against a warm southern flank, usually indicates that it is (or once was) part of a monastic foundation, "forming a continuous and solid architectural barrier... that effectively separates the world of the monks from that of the serfs and workmen, whose lives and works went forward outside and around the cloister."
Cloistered (or claustral) life is also another name for the monastic life of a monk or nun. The English term enclosure is used in contemporary Catholic church law translations to mean cloistered, and  some form of the Latin parent word "claustrum" is frequently used as a metonymic name for monastery in languages such as German.


Historically, the early medieval cloister had several antecedents, the peristyle court of the Greco-Roman domus, the atrium and its expanded version that served as forecourt to early Christian basilicas, and certain semi-galleried courts attached to the flanks of early Syrian churches.  Walter Horn suggests that the earliest coenobitic communities, which were established in Egypt by Saint Pachomius, did not result in cloister construction, as there were no lay serfs attached to the community of monks, thus no separation within the walled community was required; Horn finds the earliest prototypical cloisters in some exceptional late fifth-century monastic churches in southern Syria, such as the Convent of Saints Sergius and Bacchus, at Umm-is-Surab (AD 489), and the colonnaded forecourt of the convent of Id-Dêr, but nothing similar appeared in the semieremitic Irish monasteries' clustered roundhouses nor in the earliest Benedictine collective communities of the West.
In the time of Charlemagne the requirements of a separate monastic community within an extended and scattered manorial estate created this "monastery within a monastery" in the form of the locked cloister, an architectural solution allowing the monks to perform their sacred tasks apart from the distractions of laymen and servants. Horn offers as early examples Abbot Gundeland's  "Altenmünster" of Lorsch abbey (765–74), as revealed in the excavations by Frederich Behn; Lorsch was adapted without substantial alteration from a Frankish nobleman's villa rustica, in a tradition unbroken from late Roman times. Another early cloister, that of the abbey of Saint-Riquier (790–99), took a triangular shape, with chapels at the corners, in conscious representation of the Trinity. A square cloister sited against the flank of the abbey church was built at Inden (816) and the abbey of St. Wandrille at Fontenelle (823–33).  At Fulda, a new cloister (819) was sited to the liturgical west of the church "in the Roman manner" familiar from the forecourt of Old St. Peter's Basilica  because it would be closer to the relics.


For most of its 1,200 year history, Bremen was an independent city within the confederal jurisdiction of Germany's Holy Roman Empire. Its governing merchants and guilds were at the centre of the Hanseatic League that sought to monopolise the North Sea and Baltic Sea trade. To enlarge and confirm its independence, the city had, until the Reformation, to contend with the temporal power of the Church, and after the Thirty Years War with Sweden, the masters of the surrounding Duchy of Bremen-Verden.
In the late nineteenth century, Bremen was drawn by Prussia into the German Empire. With its new sea anchorage and wharves at Bremerhaven, it was the principal port of embarkation for German and central European emigrants to the Americas, and an entrepôt for Germany's late developing colonial trade. The Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL), founded in Bremen in 1857, became one of the world's leading shipping companies.
In the twentieth century, Bremen, a broadly liberal and social-democratic city, lost its autonomy under the Hitler regime. After World War Two, in which almost two thirds of the city's fabric was destroyed, this was restored. Bremen became one of the founding Bundesländer (or states) of the German Federal Republic.


The Stadtbürgerschaft (municipal assembly) is made up of 68 of the 83 legislators of the state legislature, the Bremische Bürgerschaft who reside in the city of Bremen. The legislature is elected by the citizens of Bremen every four years.
Bremen has a reputation as a left-wing city. The port, shipyards and related industries sustained a large and unionised working class. This translated into support for the Social Democrats, considered Bremen's natural governing party. However, in the 1980s mechanization of the port and closure of the city's leading shipbuilder induced an employment crisis and shook the confidence of the party's traditional voter base. The SPD, which had still polled 51% in 1987, lost its effective majority. The once dominant left-liberal vote split, and coalition government became the norm. The state today is governed by a coalition of the Social Democratic Party, The Greens and The Left.
In November 2019 the right-wing group Phalanx 18 was banned by the city-state of Bremen.
One of the two mayors (Bürgermeister) is elected President of the Senate (Präsident des Senats) and serves as head of the city and the state. The current mayor is Andreas Bovenschulte.


The variation in the altitude of the region, which in a short distance ranges from sea level to 2,600 meters in the mountains, leads to a great deal of diversity in vegetation and a large number of biomes.
Cantabria has vegetation typical of the Atlantic side of the Iberian Peninsula. It is characterized by forests of leafy deciduous trees such as oak and European beech. Nevertheless, human intervention dating back to ancient times has favored the creation of pastures, allowing the existence of large areas of grassland and prairies suitable for grazing cattle. These grasslands are mingled with plantations of eucalyptus and native oak. The southern part of Cantabria, including the comarca of Campoo the fringes of the Castilian plateau, is characterized by the transition to drier vegetation. Another diversifying factor which contributes to local variation within the region is the Mediterranean ecotone, giving rise to species unique to the region, such as the holm oak and arbutus trees, which are found in poor limestone soils with little moisture.
In Cantabria there are several zones of plant life:
The coastal strip, including sandy dunes with minimal vegetation. Adjacent to these are steep cliffs with plants unique to that type of terrain.
The maritime region, near the coast and including altitudes up to 500 metres. Originally it had mixed deciduous forests containing ash, linden, bay laurel, hazel, maple, oak, poplar, birch, holm oak, and others. The riparian parts were filled with forests of alder and willow. Today these native forests have almost completely disappeared, leaving only reserves in area of poor arability. In their place there are grasslands which are quite productive in the temperate climate and which sustain the economy of rural Cantabria. Next to these are very large monoculture plantations of eucalyptus for paper production, of disastrous ecological consequences to the biodiversity and climate of the region.
During the last two decades of the 20th century, and due mainly to European agricultural policies (CAP), many farmers substituted forestry for livestock farming, so as to avoid unemployment and poverty. This provoked a surge of eucalyptus – see eucalyptus article on Spanish Wikipedia – plantations (and to a less extent of pines) which often hid the illegal destruction of native forests, just as the spread of livestock farming had done in the past by the endemic conversion of forest into prairie. These acts have been laxly controlled by the local councils or the central governments, in a process that clearly follows the saying: "Pan para hoy, hambre para mañana" (which translates as 'Bread for today, hunger for tomorrow'; i.e., "short-term gain, long-term pain").
The plantation of pines has given way in the last decades to that of eucalyptus because this non-indigenous species has no natural attacker within the European ecosystem (while pines are highly vulnerable to the pine processionary).
Both in relative and absolute terms the use of woods for forestry has increased in Cantabria, and is now almost 70% of all woods in the region.
The foothills, from 500 to 1,100 metres altitude are colonized by monoculture forests of oak (Quercus robur and Quercus petraea) on the sunnier slopes. In more shaded areas and especially from about 800 metres there are forests of European beech which are the main food source in winter for many animal species.
The subalpine plane, in this high country, the plant life is composed of birch, scrub, and grasses which are especially important for the economy because during the summer they serve as pasture for grazing cattle and horses.
Along with these characteristics it would also be necessary to mention peculiarities of the comarca of Liébana, which has a microclimate very similar to the Mediterranean, allowing to grow cork oaks, vines and olives, and which is still very well conserved from human activity.
The other remarkable comarca is Campoo, in southern Cantabria, with its Pyrenean oak.


There are seven natural areas in this autonomous community designated as Natural or national parks:
Picos de Europa National Park
Collados del Asón Natural Park
Santoña, Victoria and Joyel Marshes Natural Park
Macizo de Peña Cabarga Natural Park
Oyambre Natural Park
Saja-Besaya Natural Park
Dunes of Liencres Natural Park
The most important of these is the Picos de Europa National Park, which affects Castile and León and Asturias in addition to Cantabria, the three autonomous communities sharing its management.
Santoña, Victoria and Joyel marshes are also Special Protection Areas for the birds (ZEPA).
Furthermore, nine Sites of Community Importance (LIC) have been declared: Western Mountain, Eastern Mountain, Western Rias and Oyambre Dunes, Dunes of Liencres and Estuary of the Pas, El Puntal Dunes and Estuary of the Miera, Ria de Ajo, Marshes of Noja-Santoña, Escudo de Cabuérniga Range and several caves with important bat colonies.


Due to the gulf stream, Cantabria, as well as the rest of "Green Spain", has a much more temperate climate than might be expected for its latitude, which is comparable to that of Oregon. The region has a humid oceanic climate, with warm summers and mild winters. Annual precipitation is around 1,200 mm at the coasts and higher in the mountains. The mean temperature is about 14 °C (57.2 °F). Snow is frequent in the higher zones of Cantabria between the months of October and March. Some zones of Picos de Europa, over 2,500 metres high, have an alpine climate with snow persisting year round. The driest months are July and August. The mountainous relief of Cantabria has a dominant effect on local microclimate in Cantabria. It is the main cause of the peculiar meteorologic situations like the so-called "suradas" (Ábrego wind), due to the foehn effect: the southerly wind coming down from the mountains blows strongly and dry, increasing the temperature closer to the coast. This causes a decrease in air humidity and rainfall. These conditions are more frequent in autumn and winter, and the temperatures are commonly higher than 20 °C (68 °F). Fires are often helped by this type of wind: one example is the fire that destroyed part of the city of Santander in the winter of 1941. In these specific cases in the southern part of the mountain range the dry adiabatic gradient produces different conditions to the rest of the region: the wind there is fresher and more humid, and there is more rain.


Cantabria (/kænˈteɪbriə/, also UK: /-ˈtæb-/, Spanish: [kanˈtaβɾja], Cantabrian: Asturian: [kanˈtaβɾja]) is an autonomous community in northern Spain with Santander as its capital city. It is called a comunidad histórica, a historic community, in its current Statute of Autonomy. It is bordered on the east by the Basque autonomous community (province of Biscay), on the south by Castile and León (provinces of León, Palencia and Burgos), on the west by the Principality of Asturias, and on the north by the Cantabrian Sea (Bay of Biscay).
Cantabria belongs to Green Spain, the name given to the strip of land between the Bay of Biscay and the Cantabrian Mountains, so called because of its particularly lush vegetation, due to the wet and moderate oceanic climate. The climate is strongly influenced by Atlantic Ocean winds trapped by the mountains; the average annual precipitation is about 1,200 mm (47 inches).
Cantabria has archaeological sites from the Upper Paleolithic period, although the first signs of human occupation date from the Lower Paleolithic. The most significant site for cave paintings is that in the cave of Altamira, dating from about 37,000 BC and declared, along with nine other Cantabrian caves, as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO.
The modern Province of Cantabria was constituted on 28 July 1778 at Puente San Miguel, Reocín. The yearly Day of the Institutions holiday on 28 July celebrates this. The Organic Law of the Autonomy Statute of Cantabria, approved on 30 December 1981, gave the region its own institutions of self-government.


Bath Stone was mined underground at Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines, in Somerset; and as a result of cutting the Box Tunnel, at various locations in Wiltshire, including Box and Corsham.
In the early 18th century, Ralph Allen promoted the use of the stone in Bath itself, and demonstrated its potential by using it for his own mansion at Prior Park. Following a failed bid to supply stone to buildings in London, Allen wanted a building which would show off the properties of Bath Stone as a building material.
He acquired the stone quarries at Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines. Hitherto, the quarry masons had always hewn stone roughly providing blocks of varying size. Wood required stone blocks to be cut with crisp, clean edges for his distinctive classical façades. The distinctive honey-coloured Bath Stone was used to build the Georgian city. Stone was extracted by the "room and pillar" method, by which chambers were mined, leaving pillars of stone to support the roof. Allen built a railway line from his mine on Combe Down which carried the stone down the hill, now known as Ralph Allen Drive, which runs beside Prior Park, to a wharf he constructed at Bath Locks on the Kennet and Avon Canal to transport stone to London.
In the 18th century mines at Budbury near Bradford on Avon and Corsham the mines were developed by the Methuen and Northey families. The mine at Monkton Farleigh was leased to quarrymen by the Diocese of Salisbury.
Underground extraction of Bath Stone continues in the Corsham area but on a smaller scale than previously.  For example, Hanson Bath & Portland Stone, part of the HeidelbergCement Group, operates Hartham Park Underground Quarry in the Hudswell district (southwest of Pickwick). The Bath Stone Group operates the Stoke Hill mine.


During the 1930s there was a recognition of a need to provide secure storage for munitions in the south of the United Kingdom, and a large area of the quarries around the Corsham area was renovated by the Royal Engineers as one of three major munitions stockpiles.  This ammunition depot was serviced by a spur railway line from the main London to Bristol line, branching off just outside the eastern entrance to Box Tunnel. A portion of the underground quarry complex was developed as a 'shadow factory' for aircraft engines, to act as a fallback should the Bristol Engine company Factory at Filton be taken out of action by hostile bombing.  In practice this factory was never used.
In another part of the quarry area, Royal Air Force Box was established as the Headquarters of No10 Fighter Group, Royal Air Force. RAF Box was later renamed RAF Rudloe Manor and expanded to encompass a number of communications functions, including No1 Signal Unit, Controller Defence Communications Network, No1001 Signal Unit Detachment and Headquarters RAF Provost & Security Service. No1SU and CDCN were both housed in bunkers within the quarry complex, which also included an RAF Regional Command Centre for the South West of England.
British defence doctrine during the early Cold War period indicated a requirement for a fallback location for central government outside London, to assume national control in the event of London being destroyed. The quarry complex at Corsham was chosen for this location and development of the site commenced in the 1950s. In the event of an imminent nuclear attack, it was assumed that the government would be evacuated from London by rail or helicopter. The facility would provide a safe haven for the Prime Minister, the Cabinet, commanders of the Royal Air Force, Royal Navy, and British Army and supporting civil servants and military personnel. Facilities inside the complex included accommodation and catering for nearly 4,000 people, including a hospital, organic electrical generation and the ability to seal the complex from the outside environment, contaminated by radiation or other threat.
The defence facilities known by various code names like Stockwell, Turnstile, Hawthorn and Burlington have been built in quarries include Military Command & Control, storage and a fallback seat of national government. Some areas of the quarry complex were hardened and provided with support measures to ensure resilience in the event of a nuclear attack. The site was decommissioned and placed in a state of care & maintenance in the mid 1990s following the fragmentation of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war. The site has been offered for sale, conditional on a Private Finance Initiative for the continued use of above ground facilities.
Corsham Computer Centre was built into Hudswell Quarry during the 1980s and current examples of other uses include not only defence establishments, but also a wine cellar at Eastlays (near Gastard) and storage for magnetic media (for Off-site Data Protection) at Monk's Park (near Neston).
The mine at Monkton Farleigh was used as a Central Ammunition Depot during World War II. Part of the site which was not used by the military is now a part of the Brown's Folly site of special scientific interest.


Bath Stone is an oolitic limestone comprising granular fragments of calcium carbonate laid down during the Jurassic Period (195 to 135 million years ago) when the region that is now Bath was under a shallow sea. Layers of marine sediment were deposited, and individual spherical grains were coated with lime as they rolled around the sea bed, forming the Bathonian Series of rocks. Under the microscope, these grains or ooliths (egg stones) are sedimentary rock formed from ooids: spherical grains composed of concentric layers. That name derives from the Hellenic word òoion for egg.  Strictly, oolites consist of ooids of diameter 0.25–2 mm. Rocks composed of ooids larger than 2 mm are called pisolites. They frequently contain minute fragments of shell or rock, and sometimes even decayed skeletons of marine life. Bath stone was taken from the Bath Oolite Member and the Combe Down Member of the Chalfield Oolite Formation, part of the Great Oolite Group.


China expels foreign missionaries.
Blenheim Palace construction is completed in England. It is presented as a gift from the nation to the Duke of Marlborough, for his involvement in the Battle of Blenheim in 1704.
The Austrian Netherlands agree to the Pragmatic Sanction.
Shah Mahmud Hotaki of Afghanistan goes insane.
Longman, the oldest surviving publishing house in England, is founded.
The Kaitokudō academy merchant school, as predecessor for part of Ōsaka University was founded in Ōsaka, Japan.


1724 (MDCCXXIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar, the 1724th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 724th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 24th  year of the 18th century, and the  5th   year of the 1720s decade. As of the start of 1724, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


Bergen ([ˈbæ̀rɡn̩] (listen)), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. As of 2021, its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers 465 square kilometres (180 sq mi) and is on the peninsula of Bergenshalvøyen. The city centre and northern neighbourhoods are on Byfjorden, 'the city fjord', and the city is surrounded by mountains; Bergen is known as the "city of seven mountains". Many of the extra-municipal suburbs are on islands. Bergen is the administrative centre of Vestland county.  The city consists of eight boroughs: Arna, Bergenhus, Fana, Fyllingsdalen, Laksevåg, Ytrebygda, Årstad, and Åsane.
Trading in Bergen may have started as early as the 1020s. According to tradition, the city was founded in 1070 by King Olav Kyrre and was named Bjørgvin, 'the green meadow among the mountains'. It served as Norway's capital in the 13th century, and from the end of the 13th century became a bureau city of the Hanseatic League. Until 1789, Bergen enjoyed exclusive rights to mediate trade between Northern Norway and abroad and it was the largest city in Norway until the 1830s when it was overtaken by the capital, Christiania (now known as Oslo). What remains of the quays, Bryggen, is a World Heritage Site. The city was hit by numerous fires over the years. The Bergen School of Meteorology was developed at the Geophysical Institute starting in 1917, the Norwegian School of Economics was founded in 1936, and the University of Bergen in 1946. From 1831 to 1972, Bergen was its own county. In 1972 the municipality absorbed four surrounding municipalities and became a part of Hordaland county.
The city is an international center for aquaculture, shipping, the offshore petroleum industry and subsea technology, and a national centre for higher education, media, tourism and finance. Bergen Port is Norway's busiest in terms of both freight and passengers, with over 300 cruise ship calls a year bringing nearly a half a million passengers to Bergen, a number that has doubled in 10 years. Almost half of the passengers are German or British. The city's main football team is SK Brann and a unique tradition of the city is the buekorps. Natives speak a distinct dialect, known as Bergensk. The city features Bergen Airport, Flesland and Bergen Light Rail, and is the terminus of the Bergen Line. Four large bridges connect Bergen to its suburban municipalities.
Bergen has a mild winter climate, though with a lot of precipitation. From December to March, Bergen can, in rare cases, be up to 20 °C warmer than Oslo, even though both cities are at about 60° North. The Gulf Stream keeps the sea relatively warm, considering the latitude, and the mountains protect the city from cold winds from the north, north-east and east.


Bergen occupies most of the peninsula of Bergenshalvøyen in the district of Midthordland in mid-western Hordaland. The municipality covers an area of 465 square kilometres (180 square miles). Most of the urban area is on or close to a fjord or bay, although the urban area has several mountains. The city centre is surrounded by the Seven Mountains, although there is disagreement as to which of the nine mountains constitute these. Ulriken, Fløyen, Løvstakken and Damsgårdsfjellet are always included as well as three of Lyderhorn, Sandviksfjellet, Blåmanen, Rundemanen and Kolbeinsvarden. Gullfjellet is Bergen's highest mountain, at 987 metres (3,238 ft) above mean sea level.
Bergen is sheltered from the North Sea by the islands Askøy, Holsnøy (the municipality of Meland) and Sotra (the municipalities of Fjell and Sund). Bergen borders the municipalities Alver and Osterøy to the north, Vaksdal and Samnanger to the east, Os (Bjørnafjorden) and Austevoll to the south, and Øygarden and Askøy to the west.


The city of Bergen was traditionally thought to have been founded by king Olav Kyrre, son of Harald Hardråde in 1070 AD, four years after the Viking Age in England ended with the Battle of Stamford Bridge. Modern research has, however, discovered that a trading settlement had already been established in the 1020s or 1030s.
Bergen gradually assumed the function of capital of Norway in the early 13th century, as the first city where a rudimentary central administration was established. The city's cathedral was the site of the first royal coronation in Norway in the 1150s, and continued to host royal coronations throughout the 13th century. Bergenhus fortress dates from the 1240s and guards the entrance to the harbour in Bergen. The functions of the capital city were lost to Oslo during the reign of King Haakon V (1299–1319).

In the middle of the 14th century, North German merchants, who had already been present in substantial numbers since the 13th century, founded one of the four Kontore of the Hanseatic League at Bryggen in Bergen. The principal export traded from Bergen was dried cod from the northern Norwegian coast, which started around 1100. The city was granted a monopoly for trade from the north of Norway by King Håkon Håkonsson (1217–1263). Stockfish was the main reason that the city became one of North Europe's largest centres for trade. By the late 14th century, Bergen had established itself as the centre of the trade in Norway. The Hanseatic merchants lived in their own separate quarter of the town, where Middle Low German was used, enjoying exclusive rights to trade with the northern fishermen who each summer sailed to Bergen. The Hansa community resented Scottish merchants who settled in Bergen, and on 9 November 1523 several Scottish households were targeted by German residents. Today, Bergen's old quayside, Bryggen, is on UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites.
In 1349, the Black Death was brought to Norway by an English ship arriving in Bergen. Later outbreaks occurred in 1618, 1629 and 1637, on each occasion taking about 3,000 lives. In the 15th century, the city was attacked several times by the Victual Brothers, and in 1429 they succeeded in burning the royal castle and much of the city. In 1665, the city's harbour was the site of the Battle of Vågen, when an English naval flotilla attacked a Dutch merchant and treasure fleet supported by the city's garrison. Accidental fires sometimes got out of control, and one in 1702 reduced most of the town to ashes.
Throughout the 15th and 16th centuries, Bergen remained one of the largest cities in Scandinavia, and it was Norway's biggest city until the 1830s, when the capital city of Oslo became the largest. From around 1600, the Hanseatic dominance of the city's trade gradually declined in favour of Norwegian merchants (often of Hanseatic ancestry), and in the 1750s, the Hanseatic Kontor finally closed. Bergen retained its monopoly of trade with northern Norway until 1789. The Bergen stock exchange, the Bergen børs, was established in 1813.


Bergen is pronounced in English /ˈbɜːrɡən/ or /ˈbɛərɡən/ and in Norwegian [ˈbæ̀rɡn̩] (listen) (in the local dialect [ˈbæ̂ʁɡɛn]). The Old Norse forms of the name were Bergvin [ˈberɡˌwin] and Bjǫrgvin [ˈbjɔrɡˌwin] (and in Icelandic and Faroese the city is still called Björgvin). The first element is berg (n.) or bjǫrg (n.), which translates as 'mountain(s)'. The last element is vin (f.), which means a new settlement where there used to be a pasture or meadow. The full meaning is then "the meadow among the mountains". This is a suitable name: Bergen is often called "the city among the seven mountains". It was the playwright Ludvig Holberg who felt so inspired by the seven hills of Rome, that he decided that his home town must be blessed with a corresponding seven mountains – and locals still argue which seven they are.
In 1918, there was a campaign to reintroduce the Norse form Bjørgvin as the name of the city. This was turned down – but as a compromise, the name of the diocese was changed to Bjørgvin bispedømme.


Bergen has an oceanic climate (Köppen: Cfb), with plentiful rainfall in all seasons; with intermittent snowfall during winter, but the snow usually melts quickly in the city. Average annual precipitation during 1961–90 was 2,250 mm (89 in). This is because Bergen is surrounded by mountains that cause moist North Atlantic air to undergo orographic lift, yielding abundant rainfall. It rained every day from 29 October 2006 to 21 January 2007: 85 consecutive days. The highest temperature ever recorded was 33.4 °C (92.1 °F) on 26 July 2019, beating the previous record from 2018 at 32.6 degrees, and the lowest was −16.3 °C (2.7 °F) in January 1987. Bergen is considered the rainiest city in Europe, although it is not the wettest "place" on the continent.
Bergen's weather is much warmer than the city's latitude (60.4° N) might suggest. Temperatures below −10 °C (14 °F) are rare. Summer temperatures sometimes reach the upper 20s, temperatures over 30 °C were previously only seen a few days each decade. The growing season in Bergen is exceptionally long for its latitude, with more than 200 days. Its mild winters and proximity to the Gulf stream move the plant hardiness zone between 8b and 9a depending on location.
The high precipitation is often used in the marketing of the city, and features to a degree on postcards sold in the city. Compared to areas behind the mountains on the Scandinavian peninsula, Bergen is much wetter and has a more narrow range of temperature, with mild summers and cool winters. In fact, winters are very mild considering its high latitude, though not warmer than Denmark despite its coastal location and as much as 6 °C (11 °F) milder than on the Baltic Sea coasts of Sweden and Finland on the same latitude. Summers tend to be significantly more variable. The old sunshine hours data was from the met office in the city; at this location sunlight is obscured by mountains, especially by Ulriken. A new sunrecorder was established by met.no at Bergen Airport Flesland (less terrain obscuring the sun) in December 2015, and this recorded on average 1,598 hours of sun annually during 2016–2020.


Hereford (/ˈhɛrɪfərd/ (listen)) is a cathedral city, civil parish and the county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately 16 miles (26 km) east of the border with Wales, 24 miles (39 km) south-west of Worcester and 23 miles (37 km) north-west of Gloucester. With a population of 60,800, it is by far the largest settlement in Herefordshire.
An early town charter from 1189, granted by Richard I of England, describes it as "Hereford in Wales". Hereford has been recognised as a city since time immemorial, with the status being reconfirmed as recently as October 2000.
It is now known chiefly as a trading centre for a wider agricultural and rural area. Products from Hereford include cider, beer, leather goods, nickel alloys, poultry, chemicals and sausage rolls, as well as the famous Hereford breed of cattle.


Hereford, as an ancient crossing over the River Wye, has long been important within the regional and national transport network. Today, the town is served by several major routes, including:
 | Southbound: Ross-on-Wye. | Northbound: Leominster and Shrewsbury.
 | Westbound: Hay-on-Wye and Brecon. | Eastbound: Ledbury and Tewkesbury.
 | South-west: Abergavenny and Merthyr Tydfil. | North-east: Bromyard.
 | North-east: Worcester.
The nearest motorway is the , which passes to the south of Ledbury.
Along the northern rim of the City, the A4103 is named Roman Road, running in a straight line from east to west.
Only one of these major routes crosses the River Wye, the A49/Victoria Street, which is carried by Greyfriars Bridge.
In 2017, Hereford was named Britain's second slowest city, with an average traffic speed of 14.09 mph. Cambridge topped the list, whilst London came third with vehicles travelling at an average 14.59 mph.


Year 1538 (MDXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.


The historic county of Monmouthshire was formed from the Welsh Marches by the Laws in Wales Act 1535 bordering Gloucestershire to the east, Herefordshire to the northeast, Brecknockshire to the north, and Glamorgan to the west. The Laws in Wales Act 1542 enumerated the counties of Wales and omitted Monmouthshire, implying that the county was no longer to be treated as part of Wales. However, for all purposes Wales had become part of the Kingdom of England, and the difference had little practical effect.
For several centuries, acts of the Parliament of England (in which Wales was represented) often referred to "Wales and Monmouthshire". However, the Local Government Act 1972, which came into effect in April 1974, confirmed the county as part of Wales, with the administrative county of Monmouthshire and its associated lieutenancy being abolished. Most of its area was transferred to a new local government and ceremonial county called Gwent, with the same eastern and southern boundaries as the historic county, the River Wye and the Severn Estuary. The western two-fifths are now administered by other principal areas: Blaenau Gwent, Torfaen, Caerphilly, and Newport.


Monmouthshire (Welsh: Sir Fynwy) is a county in the south-east of Wales. The name derives from the historic county of the same name; the modern county covers the eastern three-fifths of the historic county. The largest town is Abergavenny, with other towns and large villages being: Caldicot, Chepstow, Monmouth, Magor and Usk. It borders Torfaen, Newport and Blaenau Gwent to the west; Herefordshire and Gloucestershire to the east; and Powys to the north.


The current unitary authority of Monmouthshire was created on 1 April 1996 as a successor to the district of Monmouth along with the Llanelly community from Blaenau Gwent, both of which were districts of Gwent.
The use of the name "Monmouthshire" rather than "Monmouth" for the area was controversial, being supported by the MP for Monmouth, Roger Evans, but being opposed by Paul Murphy, MP for Torfaen (inside the historic county of Monmouthshire but being reconstituted as a separate unitary authority). By area it covers some 60% of the historic county, but only 20% of the population.
A new council headquarters building at the site of Coleg Gwent, Usk was proposed and developed. The new county hall in Usk was opened in 2013.
Under the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994, Monmouthshire is styled as a County.
In comparison to the pre-1974 areas it covers:
the former boroughs of Abergavenny and Monmouth
the former urban districts of Chepstow and Usk
the former rural districts of Abergavenny Rural District, Chepstow and Monmouth Rural District
the former rural district of Pontypool, except the community of Llanfrechfa Lower
the parish of Llanelly from the former Crickhowell Rural District in Brecknockshire


Much of Monmouthshire is hilly, particularly the western area adjoining the industrial South Wales Valleys and the Black Mountains to the north. Two major river valleys dominate the lowlands - the scenic gorge of the Wye Valley along the border with Gloucestershire adjoining the Forest of Dean, and the valley of the River Usk between Abergavenny and Newport. Both rivers flow south to the Severn Estuary. The River Monnow is a tributary of the River Wye and forms part of the border with Herefordshire and England, passing through the town of Monmouth. The Black Mountains are part of the Brecon Beacons National Park, whilst the Wye Valley is a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) which straddles the England-Wales border.
The highest point (county top) of the county is Chwarel y Fan in the Black Mountains with a height of 679 metres (2,228 ft). The Sugar Loaf (Welsh: Mynydd Pen-y-fâl or Y Fâl), located three kilometres (two miles) northwest of Abergavenny, is probably the best known hill in the county. Although its height is only 596 metres (1,955 ft), its isolation and distinctive peak shape makes it a prominent landmark for many miles around.


Year 547 (DXLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 547 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.


Stockholm (Swedish: [ˈstɔ̂kː(h)ɔlm] (listen)) is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropolitan area. The city stretches across fourteen islands where Lake Mälaren flows into the Baltic Sea. Outside the city to the east, and along the coast, is the island chain of the Stockholm archipelago. The area has been settled since the Stone Age, in the 6th millennium BC, and was founded as a city in 1252 by Swedish statesman Birger Jarl. It is also the county seat of Stockholm County. For several hundred years, Stockholm was the capital of Finland as well (Finnish: Tukholma), which then was a part of Sweden. The population of the municipality of Stockholm is expected to reach one million people in 2022.
Stockholm is the cultural, media, political, and economic centre of Sweden. The Stockholm region alone accounts for over a third of the country's GDP, and is among the top 10 regions in Europe by GDP per capita. Ranked as an alpha-global city, it is the largest in Scandinavia and the main centre for corporate headquarters in the Nordic region. The city is home to some of Europe's top ranking universities, such as the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm School of Economics, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Stockholm University. It hosts the annual Nobel Prize ceremonies and banquet at the Stockholm Concert Hall and Stockholm City Hall. One of the city's most prized museums, the Vasa Museum, is the most visited non-art museum in Scandinavia. The Stockholm metro, opened in 1950, is well known for the decor of its stations; it has been called the longest art gallery in the world. Sweden's national football arena is located north of the city centre, in Solna. Avicii Arena, the national indoor arena, is in the southern part of the city. The city was the host of the 1912 Summer Olympics.
Stockholm is the seat of the Swedish government and most of its agencies, including the highest courts in the judiciary, and the official residencies of the Swedish monarch and the Prime Minister. The government has its seat in the Rosenbad building, the Riksdag (Swedish parliament) is seated in the Parliament House, and the Prime Minister's residence is adjacent at Sager House. Stockholm Palace is the official residence and principal workplace of the Swedish monarch, while Drottningholm Palace in neighboring Ekerö serves as the Royal Family's private residence.


Stockholm Municipality is an administrative unit defined by geographical borders. The semi-official name for the municipality is City of Stockholm (Stockholms stad in Swedish). As a municipality, the City of Stockholm is subdivided into district councils, which carry responsibility for primary schools, social, leisure and cultural services within their respective areas. The municipality is usually described in terms of its three main parts: Innerstaden (Stockholm City Centre), Söderort (Southern Stockholm) and Västerort (Western Stockholm). The districts of these parts are:


Kaub (old spelling: Caub) is a town in Germany, state Rhineland-Palatinate, district Rhein-Lahn-Kreis. It is part of the municipality (Verbandsgemeinde) Loreley. It is located on the right bank of the Rhine, approx. 50 km west from Wiesbaden. It is connected to Wiesbaden and Koblenz by railway. Population 1100. It has a Roman Catholic and an Evangelical church, and a statue of General Blücher. Historically, trade mainly consisted of the wines of the district.
Kaub is known for the castle Pfalz, or Burg Pfalzgrafenstein, situated on a rock in the middle of the Rhine. According to legend, the Palatine countesses awaited their confinement in the Pfalz, but in reality the castle served as a toll-gate for merchandise on the Rhine. The restored castle Gutenfels sits on a hill above the town.
Kaub, first mentioned in the year 983, originally belonged to the lords of Falkenstein, in 1260 the Counts of Katzenelnbogen divided their county and selected the inhabitants of Kaub, then passed in 1277 to the Rhenish Electorate of the Palatinate, and attained civic rights in 1324. In 1477 Kaub was passed as deposit to the Counts of Katzenelnbogen again. In 1479 this family died out. It was at Kaub that Blücher crossed the Rhine with the Prussian and Russian armies, on New Years night 1813–1814, in pursuit of the French.


The honorary mayor is Martin Buschfort, elected in May 2019. His predecessor was Karl-Heinz Lachmann (SPD), in office between 2009 and 2019. From 1989 to 2009 Heribert Werr (KBL) was the mayor. Lachmann was reelected in 2014.
Kaub was part of the temporary state Free State of Bottleneck (German: Freistaat Flaschenhals) from 1919 to 1923.


Direktwahlen 2019, Rhein-Lahn-Kreis, Landeswahlleiter Rheinland-Pfalz, accessed 5 August 2021.
 "Bevölkerungsstand 2020, Kreise, Gemeinden, Verbandsgemeinden". Statistisches Landesamt Rheinland-Pfalz (in German). 2021.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Caub". Encyclopædia Britannica. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 545–546.
http://www.graf-von-katzenelnbogen.de/ Kaub, The County of Katzenelnbogen and the First Riesling of the World
fr-online vom 26. Juni 2009: Bürgermeisterwahl in Kaub: SPD im Glück
"Statistisches Landesamt: Direktwahlen der Orts- und Stadtbürgermeister sowie der Ortsvorsteher". Archived from the original on 2016-11-16. Retrieved 2017-03-05.
http://www.wahlen.rlp.de/kw/dw/direkt_ab_2009/Ortsbuergermeister/1410000000.htm
Picture of Pfalzgrafenstein, J.F. Dielmann, A. Fay, J. Becker (painter): F.C. Vogels Panorama des Rheins, Bilder des rechten und linken Rheinufers, Lithographische Anstalt F.C. Vogel, Frankfurt 1833
Picture of Kaub, J.F. Dielmann, A. Fay, J. Becker (painter): F.C. Vogels Panorama des Rheins, Bilder des rechten und linken Rheinufers, Lithographische Anstalt F.C. Vogel, Frankfurt 1833
Picture 2 of Kaub, J.F. Dielmann, A. Fay, J. Becker (painter): F.C. Vogels Panorama des Rheins, Bilder des rechten und linken Rheinufers, Lithographische Anstalt F.C. Vogel, Frankfurt 1833


The town of Kristinestad, named after Queen Christina of Sweden, is founded in Ostrobothnia by Count Per Brahe the Younger.
Mughal–Safavid War (1649–53) begins.
Dutch ousted from São Tomé.
Qing armies reconquer Jiangxi during Manchu conquest of China.
Serfdom in Russia: Sobornoye Ulozhenie (Соборное уложение, "Code of Law") in the Tsardom of Russia gives serfs to estates.
Dutch artist Frans Hals paints a portrait of René Descartes.


1649 (MDCXLIX) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar, the 1649th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 649th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 49th  year of the 17th century, and the  10th  and last year of the 1640s decade. As of the start of 1649, the Gregorian calendar was 10 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


January 4 – English Civil War: The Rump Parliament passes an ordinance to set up a High Court of Justice, to try Charles I for high treason.
January 17 – The Second Ormonde Peace concludes an alliance between the Irish Royalists and the Irish Confederates during the War of the Three Kingdoms. Later in the year the alliance is decisively defeated during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland.
January 20 – Charles I of England goes on trial, for treason and other "high crimes".
January 27 – King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland is found guilty of high treason in a public session.  He is beheaded three days later, outside the Banqueting Hall in the Palace of Whitehall, London.
January 30
Following the execution of King Charles I, the Commonwealth of England, a republican form of government, replaces the monarchy as the form of government of England, and later of Scotland and Ireland. Members of the Long Parliament serve as government.
Charles, Prince of Wales becomes King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland. At the time, none of the three kingdoms recognize him as ruler.
February 5 – In Edinburgh, Scotland claimant King Charles II of England is declared King in his absence. Scotland is the first of the three Kingdoms to recognize his claim to the throne.
March 11 – The rebel Frondeurs and the French government sign the Peace of Rueil.
March 15 – The city of Lappeenranta (Swedish: Villmanstrand) is founded by Queen Christina of Sweden.
March 16 – An over 1,000 strong war party of Haudenosaunee invade and burn the Huron mission villages of St. Ignace and St. Louis in present-day Simcoe County, Ontario, killing about 300 people.
March 19 – The House of Commons of England passes an act abolishing the House of Lords, declaring that it is "useless and dangerous to the people of England".
March – French colonists from Martinique land in a lagoon and found Fort Annunciation on Grenada but soon abandon this fort to cross the lagoon and found Fort Royal which eventually becomes St. George's, Grenada
March – Robert Blake is promoted to become a General at Sea of the English fleet.
Apr 21 – The Maryland Toleration Act is passed in the American colony, allowing all freedom of worship.
By May 1  – The Wendat burn 15 of their own villages, to prevent their stores from being taken by the Haudenosaunee.  Almost all the remaining people (approximately 10,000) become refugees, on a path that eventually brings them to Wendake.
May 17 – The Banbury mutiny in England ends – leaders of the Leveller mutineers in the New Model Army are hanged.
May 19 – An act declaring England to be a Commonwealth is passed by the Rump Parliament.
May 22 – October – Robert Blake blockades Prince Rupert's fleet in Kinsale, Ireland.
June 1 – Russian Tsar Alexis throws English merchants out of Moscow.
June 1 – Sumuroy Revolt (1649–50) begins in Northern Samar. Agustin Sumuroy, a Waray, and some of his followers revolt over the polo y servicio (forced labor system).


1765 (MDCCLXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar, the 1765th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 765th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 65th  year of the 18th century, and the  6th   year of the 1760s decade. As of the start of 1765, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


July 10 – King George III dismisses George Grenville from the office of Prime Minister of Great Britain, and replaces him with another Whig Party statesman, Charles Watson-Wentworth, Lord Rockingham.
July 12 – On orders of Chief Pontiac, War Chief Wahpesah of the Kickapoo people releases British Indian Affairs negotiator George Croghan from 35 days of detention.  At the same time, Pontiac authorizes a Shawnee Chief, Nanicksah, to sign a treaty with the British on behalf of the Great Lakes tribes, settling the French and Indian War.
July 13 – Qianlong, the Emperor of China issues a decree that copper engravings be made to depict all of his victories in battle.  In the interest of amity with the Chinese, King George III of Great Britain gives priority to the sale of British copper, and King Louis XV of France assents to the use of French artisans.
July 21 – Having eliminated all of his rivals for leadership of Persia, Karim Khan Zand returns in triumph to his home in Shiraz and makes it his capital then begins construction of citadels, mosques, schools and other buildings.
July 23 – Headed by Odawa Chief Pontiac and George Croghan, a party of Great Lakes tribesmen and British soldiers travel along the Wabash River and obtain the release of all white prisoners of war remaining in the Miami people and Odawa villages between Ouiatenon (near modern-day Granville, Indiana) and Detroit.
July 30 – At Yale College, eight students attack the residence of Yale's President Thomas Clap because of his promotion of "New Light" Calvinist doctrine; and "with Evil Intent" and "with Strong hand burst and take off the gates of the yard of the mansion house and Carry away and with Screaming and Shouting... throw into said House Numbers of large stones with Cattles Horns into the windows of said House." The students plead guilty and pay nominal fines, and Clap resigns at the end of the 1765–66 school year.
August 9 – Russian Empress Catherine II issues a decree authorizing the new way to produce vodka (by freezing).
August 16 – The Treaty of Allahabad is signed. The Treaty marks the political and constitutional involvement and the beginning of Company rule in India.
August 14 – In protest at the Stamp Act, Bostonians attack the home of official Andrew Oliver.
August 18 – Joseph II becomes Holy Roman Emperor.
August 26 – In protest of the Stamp Act, Bostonians destroy the home of lieutenant governor Thomas Hutchinson.
September 6 – Jean-Jacques Rousseau's house in Switzerland is stoned by a mob.
September 21 – François Antoine announces he has killed the Beast of Gévaudan.
October 17 – The Pennsylvania Gazette reports that a Mr. McCullough, the Distributor of Stamps for the Royal Colony of North Carolina, has resigned his post in protest at the Stamp Act. A Dr. Huston is appointed to the position.
November 1 – The Stamp Act goes into effect in the thirteen American colonies.
December 12 – The Pennsylvania Gazette reports that Dr. Huston, the recently instated Distributor of Stamps for the Royal Colony of North Carolina, has resigned his post in protest at the Stamp Act.


A summer bus service, the Transmoor link (no. 82 bus) between Plymouth and Exeter, used to pass through the village but was axed, but in 2021 the Dartmoor Explorer started operation, running across the moor to Moretonhampstead and onwards to Exeter. There is a daytime service (no. 98 bus) linking Princetown to Yelverton and Tavistock, but only three times a day.


The village is located on the B3212 road between Yelverton and Two Bridges and is surrounded by moorland. Several footpaths across the moor pass through the village, including one leading west to Sampford Spiney and one leading south to Nun's Cross and Erme Head.
Tor Royal Lane is a dead end road which leads down from the village to the site of the disused Whiteworks tin mine, about 2 miles or 3 km to the south-east, which overlooks Fox Tor Mires, the presumed site of the Grimpen Mire to be found in Arthur Conan Doyle's tale The Hound of the Baskervilles. Conan Doyle stayed at the former Duchy Hotel whilst writing and researching the story with his friend, Bertram Fletcher Robinson. The hotel has long since closed and the building now houses the National Park Visitor Centre which is an all-weather centre and activity hub, with interactive displays, films, exhibitions and a children's discovery area.
Other points of interest in the village include the prison museum which was formerly the prison dairy  and behind the prison, two cemeteries - one for French prisoners of war and the other for American prisoners of war who died in the prison when it was a war depot during the Napoleonic War in the 19th century. The cemetery around the Church of St Michael and All Angels includes the graves of convicts who died during their incarceration in the prison. The Church of St Michael has the distinction of being the only one in England constructed by POWs and is dedicated, as are many churches in high locations, to St. Michael. It was taken out of use due to structural problems and damp and is now maintained by the Churches Conservation Trust, although the building has been stabilised and made safe. The United Church of Princetown can be found at the other end of the village.
The village is overlooked from the north-west by North Hessary Tor upon which is a tall transmitting mast that provides a useful guide point for walkers from miles around.


April 22 – Under pressure from the English Army in London, which has assembled troops outside of Westminster, Richard Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland, dissolves the Third Protectorate Parliament, the last for the Commonwealth.
May 6 – English Army General Hezekiah Haynes, joined by officers Charles Fleetwood, John Lambert, James Berry, Robert Lilburne, Thomas Kelsey, William Goffe and William Packer, presents the manifesto A Declaration of the Officers of the Army, advocating that Lord Protector Cromwell step down after restoring the "Rump Parliament" to administer England.  Cromwell restores the parliament rule the next day and decides to step down.
May 21 – The Kingdom of France, the Commonwealth of England and the Dutch Republic sign the Concert of The Hague.
May 25 – Richard Cromwell resigns as English Lord Protector, submitting "a letter that may have been dictated to him."  In the letter, signed by Cromwell in front of Sir Gilbert Pickering and Lord Chief-Justice St. John, "I have perused the Resolve and Declaration, which you were pleased to deliver to me the other Night," and after listing his personal debts to be paid in return for stepping down, "As to that Part of the Resolve, whereby the Committee are to inform themselves, How far I do acquiesce in the Government of this Commonwealth, as it is declared by this Parliament; I trust, my past Carriage hitherto hath manifested my Acquiescence in the Will and Disposition of God; and that I love and value the Peace of this Commonwealth much above my own Concernments: And I desire, that by this, a Measure of my future Deportment may be taken; which, thro' the Assistance of God, shall be such as shall bear the same Witness; having, I hope, in some degree, learned rather to reverence and submit to the Hand of God, than to be unquiet under it: And, as to the late Providences that have fallen out amongst us, however, in respect of the particular Engagements that lay upon me, I could not be active in making a Change in the Government of these Nations, yet through the Goodness of God, I can freely acquiesce in it, being made; and do hold myself obliged."  The executive government is replaced by the restored Council of State, dominated by Generals John Lambert, Charles Fleetwood, and John Desborough.  The Council of State is dismissed by the Rump Parliament on October 13 and replaced by the "Committee of Safety" on October 25.
May 31 – The Netherlands, England, and France sign the Treaty of The Hague.
June 10 – Dara Shikoh, at one time the heir apparent for the Mughal Empire, is betrayed by an Afghan chieftain, Junaid Khan Barozai, who had initially given him refuge from pursuit from the new emperor, Aurangzeb.  Turned over to Aurangzeb's men, Dara Shikoh is killed on August 30.
June 29 – In the Battle of Konotop, fought near the Ukrainian city of Konotop during the Russo-Polish War, Polish Cossack hetman Ivan Vyhovsky and his allies defeat the armies of the Tsardom of Russia, led by Aleksey Trubetskoy.


1659 (MDCLIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar, the 1659th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 659th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 59th  year of the 17th century, and the  10th  and last year of the 1650s decade. As of the start of 1659, the Gregorian calendar was 10 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


July 5 – Five women are executed by hanging at Rome after being convicted of murder by distributing the powerful Aqua Tofana poison, sold primarily to women wishing to get rid of their husbands.  Put to death on the same day are Gironima Spana, Giovanna De Grandis, Maria Spinola, Graziosa Farina and Laura Crispoldi, put to death in the public square at the Campo de' Fiori.
July 16 – Princess Henriette Catherine of Nassau marries John George II, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, in Groningen.
July 31 – Devaraja Wodeyar I becomes the new maharaja of the Kingdom of Mysore (now part of India's Karnataka state) upon the death of his cousin, Kanthirava Narasaraja I. He is crowned on August 19.
July – Christiaan Huygens's important work on astronomy, Systema Saturnium, is published.
August 3 – Booth's Uprising, led by George Booth, begins in the city of Chester as 3,000 royalists attempt a revolt against the military government of England.  English Army troops begin marching on August 5 to suppress the rebellion.
August 7 – As Booth's Uprising spreads to Liverpool, Thomas Myddelton, Randolph Egerton and fellow royalists take control of the city of Wrexham in Wales and proclaim Charles II to be King.
August 15 – Two English warships block the entrance to the River Dee to prevent supplies from reaching Booth's rebels in Chester, while Major General John Lambert of the English Army advances into Cheshire at Nantwich.
August 19 – At the Battle of Winnington Bridge, the Protectorate Army of 5,000 troops, dispatched by Parliament and under the command of Major General Lambert, routs the 4,000 anti-government rebels commanded by George Booth of England and Edward Broughton of Wales.  Lambert and his forces, exhausted from their rapid march and the battle, elect not to pursue the fleeing rebels and less than 30 rebels are killed.
August 30 – Poland's army of over 12,000 troops under the command of Jerzy Sebastian Lubomirski and Krzysztof Grodzicki, takes back the city of Grudziadz, which had been under Sweden's control since the end of 1655, after a siege of seven days.  Much of the town is left in ruins after a fire and bombardment from Polish cannons.
September 20 – War between Dutch settlers and the native Lenape Indians, of the Esopus tribe, in what is now Ulster County, New York in the U.S., as a group of Dutch settlers from the village of Wiltwijck, New Netherland fires their guns at a group of Esopus men who had been sitting around a campfire.  For the next ten months, the Esopus warriors, commanded by Chief Papequanaehen, fight a war with the Dutch that is finally settled with a peace treaty on July 15, 1660.
September 22 – The Ottoman-ruled island of Kizilhisar (called Castelrosso by Italy and now the island of Kastellorizo in Greece) is captured from the Ottoman Empire by the navy of the Republic of Venice after nearly 150 years of Ottoman rule that had started in 1512.
September 30 – Peter Stuyvesant of New Netherland forbids tennis playing during religious services, marking the first mention of tennis in what will become the United States.


In 1396, Iași is mentioned by the German crusader Johann Schiltberger (a participant in the Battle of Nicopolis). The name of the city is first found in an official document in 1408. This is a grant of certain commercial privileges by the Moldavian Prince Alexander to the Polish merchants of Lvov. However, as buildings older than 1408 still exist, e.g. the Armenian Church believed to be originally built in 1395, it is certain that the city existed before its first surviving written mention.


Scholars have different theories on the origin of the name "Iași". Some argue that the name originates with the Sarmatian tribe Iazyges (of Iranian origin), one mentioned by Ovid as Latin: "Ipse vides onerata ferox ut ducata Iasyx/ Per media Histri plaustra bubulcus aquas" and "Iazyges et Colchi Metereaque turba Getaque/ Danubii mediis vix prohibentur aquis".
A now lost inscription on a Roman milestone found near Osijek, Croatia by Matija Petar Katančić in the 18th century, mentions the existence of a Jassiorum municipium, or Municipium Dacorum-Iassiorum from other sources.
Other explanations show that the name originated from the Iranian Alanic tribe of Jassi, having the same origin with the Yazyges tribes Jassic people. In medieval times the Prut river was known as Alanus fluvius and the city as Forum Philistinorum. From this population derived the plural of the town name, "Iașii".
Another historian wrote that the Iasians lived among the Cumans and that they left the Caucasus after the first Mongolian campaign in the West, settling temporarily near the Prut. He asserts that the ethnic name of Jasz which is given to the Iasians by the Hungarians has been erroneously identified with the Jazyges; also he shows that the word jasz is a Slavic loan word.  The Hungarian name of the city (Jászvásár) literally means "Jassic Market"; the antiquated Romanian name, Târgul Ieșilor (and the once-favoured Iașii), and the German Jassenmarkt, may indicate the same meaning.