By assigning places as World Heritage Sites, UNESCO wants to help to pass them on to future generations. Its motivation is that “[h]eritage is our legacy from the past, what we live with today” and that both cultural and natural heritage are “irreplaceable sources of life and inspiration”. UNESCO's mission with respect to World Heritage consists of eight sub targets. These include encouraging the commitment of countries and local population to World Heritage conservation in various ways, providing emergency assistance for sites in danger, offering technical assistance and professional training, and supporting States Parties' public awareness-building activities.
Being listed as a World Heritage Site can positively affect the site, its environment, and interactions between them. A listed site gains international recognition and legal protection, and can obtain funds from among others the World Heritage Fund to facilitate its conservation under certain conditions. UNESCO reckons the restorations of the following four sites among its success stories: Angkor in Cambodia, the Old City of Dubrovnik in Croatia, the Wieliczka Salt Mine near Kraków in Poland, and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania. Additionally, the local population around a site may benefit from significantly increased tourism revenue. When there are significant interactions between people and the natural environment, these can be recognised as "cultural landscapes".


A country must first identify its significant cultural and natural sites in a document known as the Tentative List. Next, it can place sites selected from that list into a Nomination File, which is evaluated by the International Council on Monuments and Sites and the World Conservation Union. A country may not nominate sites that have not been first included on its Tentative List. The two international bodies make recommendations to the World Heritage Committee for new designations. The Committee meets once a year to determine what nominated properties to add to the World Heritage List; sometimes it defers its decision or requests more information from the country that nominated the site. There are ten selection criteria – a site must meet at least one to be included on the list.


A country may request to extend or reduce the boundaries, modify the official name, or change the selection criteria of one of its already listed sites. Any proposal for a significant boundary change or to modify the site's selection criteria must be submitted as if it were a new nomination, including first placing it on the Tentative List and then onto the Nomination File. A request for a minor boundary change, one that does not have a significant impact on the extent of the property or affect its "outstanding universal value", is also evaluated by the advisory bodies before being sent to the committee. Such proposals can be rejected by either the advisory bodies or the Committee if they judge it to be a significant change instead of a minor one. Proposals to change a site's official name are sent directly to the committee.


"To contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance"
"To be outstanding examples representing major stages of earth's history, including the record of life, significant on-going geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features"
"To be outstanding examples representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals"
"To contain the most important and significant natural habitats for in-situ conservation of biological diversity, including those containing threatened species of outstanding universal value from the point of view of science or conservation"


"To represent a masterpiece of human creative genius"
"To exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning or landscape design"
"To bear a unique or at least exceptional testimony to a cultural tradition or to a civilization which is living or which has disappeared"
"To be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history"
"To be an outstanding example of a traditional human settlement, land-use, or sea-use which is representative of a culture (or cultures), or human interaction with the environment especially when it has become vulnerable under the impact of irreversible change"
"To be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or with beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance"


Until 2004, there were six sets of criteria for cultural heritage and four for natural heritage. In 2005, UNESCO modified these and now has one set of ten criteria. Nominated sites must be of "outstanding universal value" and must meet at least one of the ten criteria.


January 7 – Polish-Swedish War: Battle of Wallhof in Latvia – Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden, defeats a Polish army.
January 9 – Peter Minuit sails from Texel Island for America's New Netherland colony, with two ships of Dutch emigrants.
February 2 – King Charles I of England is crowned, but without his wife, Henrietta Maria, who declines to participate in a non-Catholic ceremony.
February 2–10 – Battle of Ningyuan in Xingcheng, Liaoning, China: With a much smaller force, the Ming dynasty commander Yuan Chonghuan defeats the Manchu tribal leader Nurhaci, who dies soon after and is succeeded by Huang Taiji.
February 5 – The Huguenot rebels and the French government sign the Treaty of Paris, ending the second Huguenot rebellion.
February 11 – Emperor Susenyos of Ethiopia and Patriarch Afonso Mendes declare the primacy of the Roman See over the Ethiopian Church, and Roman Catholicism the state religion of Ethiopia.
April 25 – Thirty Years' War: Battle of Dessau Bridge – Albrecht von Wallenstein defeats Ernst von Mansfelds army.
May 4 – Peter Minuit becomes director-general of New Netherland, for the Dutch West India Company.
May 24 – Peter Minuit buys Manhattan from a Native American tribe (Lenape or Shinnecock) for trade goods, valued at 60 guilders ($24.00).
May 30 – Wanggongchang Explosion in Beijing, China: a gunpowder factory explosion destroys part of the city and kills 20,000.
June 15 – King Charles I of England dissolves the English Parliament.


1626 (MDCXXVI) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar, the 1626th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 626th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 26th  year of the 17th century, and the  7th   year of the 1620s decade. As of the start of 1626, the Gregorian calendar was 10 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


April 16 – Robert Harley, English politician (d. 1673)
April 10 – Franz Egon of Fürstenberg, German count in the Holy Roman Empire (d. 1682)
April 23 – Maurice Henry, Prince of Nassau-Hadamar (1653–1679) (d. 1679)
April 25 – Sigmund von Birken, German Baroque poet (d. 1681)
May 10 – Jan Jacobszoon Hinlopen, Dutch art collector and merchant (d. 1666)
May 12 – Louis Hennepin, Roman Catholic priest, missionary of the Franciscan Recollet Order (French (d. 1704)
May 14 – Willem Joseph van Ghent, Dutch admiral (d. 1672)
May 16 – Andrea Carlone, Italian painter (d. 1697)
May 17 – Countess Palatine Eleonora Catherine of Zweibrücken, sister of King Charles X of Sweden (d. 1692)
May 21 – Wolfgang Carl Briegel, German organist and composer (d. 1712)
May 27 – William II, Prince of Orange (d. 1650)
June 8 – William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford, member of England's House of Lords (d. 1695)
June 9 – Sir John Newton, 2nd Baronet, English Member of Parliament (d. 1699)
June 18 – John Mordaunt, 1st Viscount Mordaunt, English politician (d. 1675)
June 29 – Jeffrey Daniel, English politician (d. 1681)


The usage and treatment of altarpieces were never formalised by the Catholic Church, and therefore their appearance can vary significantly. Occasionally, the demarcation between what constitutes the altarpiece and what constitutes other forms of decoration can be unclear. Altarpieces can still broadly be divided into two types, the reredos, which signifies a large and often complex wooden or stone altarpiece, and the retable, an altarpiece with panels either painted or with reliefs. Retables are placed directly on the altar or on a surface behind it; a reredos typically rises from the floor.
Retable-type altarpieces are often made up of two or more separate panels created using a technique known as panel painting. The panels can also display reliefs or sculpture in the round, either polychrome or un-painted. It is then called a diptych, triptych or polyptych for two, three, and multiple panels respectively. In the 13th century, each panel was usually surmounted with a pinnacle, but during the Renaissance, single-panel pala altarpieces became the norm. In both cases, the supporting plinth (predella) often featured supplementary and related paintings.
If the altar stands free in the choir, both sides of the altarpiece can be covered with painting. The screen, retable or reredos are  commonly decorated. Groups of statuary can also be placed on an altar. A single church can furthermore house several altarpieces on side-altars in chapels. Sometimes the altarpiece is set on the altar itself and sometimes in front of it.
Much smaller private altarpieces, often portable, were made for wealthy individuals to use at home, often as folding diptychs or triptychs for safe transport. In the Middle Ages, very small diptychs or triptychs carved in ivory or other materials were popular.


The population of East Lothian as of 2019 is 105,790. This is an increase of over 6,000 since 2011 and this is projected to reach over 120,000 by the 2030s. The fastest growing district in East Lothian is the Tranent, Wallyford and Macmerry ward which is expected to see its population of just over 20,000 increase to just under 30,000 by 2026.


Following the end of the Roman occupation of Britain, Lothian was populated by Brythonic-speaking Ancient Britons and formed part of the kingdom of the Gododdin, within the Hen Ogledd or Old North. In the 7th century, all of the Gododdin's territory fell to the Angles, with Lothian becoming part of the kingdom of Bernicia.
Bernicia united into the Kingdom of Northumbria which itself became part of the early Kingdom of England. Lothian came under the control of the Scottish monarchy in the 10th century.
The earliest reference to Haddingtonshire as a county of Scotland occurred in the 12th century, in two charters issued by King David.


The A1 road travels through East Lothian where it meets the Scottish Borders southbound and Edinburgh northbound. The A1 throughout East Lothian is dual carriageway and major junctions include Dunbar, Haddington, Tranent, Prestonpans and Musselburgh.
Starting in Leith, the A199 road also travels through East Lothian beginning at Musselburgh and passing through Wallyford, Tranent, Macmerry and Haddington before joining the A1 in West Barns.
Some non-primary routes in East Lothian are the A198, A1087, A6093 and A6137 roads.


The city of Padang is divided into eleven districts (kecamatan), listed below with their areas and their populations at the 2010 Census and the 2020 Census.


Padang ([ˈpadaŋ]) is the capital and largest city of the Indonesian province of West Sumatra. With a Census population of 909,040  as of 2020, it is the 16th most populous city in Indonesia and the most populous city on the west coast of Sumatra. The Padang metropolitan area is the third most populous metropolitan area in Sumatra with a population of over 1.4 million. Padang is widely known for its Minangkabau culture, cuisine, and sunset beaches.
The city had historically been a trading center since the pre-colonial era, trading in pepper and gold. The Dutch made contact with the city in the mid 17th century, eventually constructing a fortress and taking over control of the city from the Pagaruyung Kingdom. Save for several interruptions of British rule, Padang remained part of the Dutch East Indies as one of its major cities until Indonesian independence. In 1906, Padang along with Palembang became the first populated places in Sumatra to achieve city status (gemeente).


Padang features a tropical rainforest climate under Köppen's climate classification. Since this tropical rainforest climate is more subject to the Intertropical Convergence Zone than the trade winds and cyclones are very rare, it is equatorial. Padang is one of Indonesia's wettest cities, with frequent rainfall throughout the course of the year. The city averages roughly 4300 mm of rain per year. Padang's driest month is February, where 250 mm of precipitation on average is observed. The city temperatures are relatively constant throughout the year, with an average of 26 degrees Celsius. Padang has 21 rivers, with the longest being Batang Kandis with a length of 20 km. In 1980 two-thirds of the city was flooded because the city's drainage which primarily empties to Batang Arau could not contain the water.


The election took place on November 5, 1996 and ended with Clinton gaining 379 electoral votes and Dole garnering 159 electoral votes.
With 379 electoral votes, President Bill Clinton won the 1996 Presidential Election.  Clinton received over 47 million popular votes.


The 1996 presidential campaign of Bill Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States, announced his candidacy for re-election as president on April 14, 1995. On August 29, 1996, he again became the nominee of the Democratic Party for the 1996 presidential election. Along with his running mate, Vice President Al Gore, Bill Clinton was opposed in the general election by former U.S. Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, minor candidates from other parties. The election took place on Tuesday, November 5, 1996.
This was the first time since 1944, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt won re-election, that a Democratic president had won two consecutive presidential elections.


Year 561 (DLXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 561 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.


Although no surviving historical records deal directly with the founding of Venice, tradition and the available evidence have led several historians to agree that the original population of Venice consisted of refugees—from nearby Roman cities such as Padua, Aquileia, Treviso, Altino, and Concordia (modern Portogruaro), as well as from the undefended countryside—who were fleeing successive waves of Germanic and Hun invasions. This is further supported by the documentation on the so-called "apostolic families", the twelve founding families of Venice who elected the first doge, who in most cases trace their lineage back to Roman families. Some late Roman sources reveal the existence of fishermen, on the islands in the original marshy lagoons, who were referred to as incolae lacunae ("lagoon dwellers"). The traditional founding is identified with the dedication of the first church, that of San Giacomo on the islet of Rialto (Rivoalto, "High Shore")—said to have taken place at the stroke of noon on 25 March 421 (the Feast of the Annunciation).
Beginning as early as AD 166–168, the Quadi and Marcomanni destroyed the main Roman town in the area, present-day Oderzo. This part of Roman Italy was again overrun in the early 5th century by the Visigoths and, some 50 years later, by the Huns led by Attila. The last and most enduring immigration into the north of the Italian peninsula, that of the Lombards in 568, left the Eastern Roman Empire only a small strip of coastline in the current Veneto, including Venice. The Roman/Byzantine territory was organized as the Exarchate of Ravenna, administered from that ancient port and overseen by a viceroy (the Exarch) appointed by the Emperor in Constantinople. Ravenna and Venice were connected only by sea routes, and with the Venetians' isolation came increasing autonomy. New ports were built, including those at Malamocco and Torcello in the Venetian lagoon. The tribuni maiores formed the earliest central standing governing committee of the islands in the lagoon, dating from c. 568.
The traditional first doge of Venice, Paolo Lucio Anafesto (Anafestus Paulicius), was elected in 697, as written in the oldest chronicle by John, deacon of Venice c. 1008. Some modern historians claim Paolo Lucio Anafesto was actually the Exarch Paul, and Paul's successor, Marcello Tegalliano, was Paul's magister militum (or "general"), literally "master of soldiers". In 726 the soldiers and citizens of the exarchate rose in a rebellion over the iconoclastic controversy, at the urging of Pope Gregory II. The exarch, held responsible for the acts of his master, Byzantine Emperor Leo III, was murdered, and many officials were put to flight in the chaos. At about this time, the people of the lagoon elected their own independent leader for the first time, although the relationship of this to the uprisings is not clear. Ursus was the first of 117 "doges" (doge is the Venetian dialectal equivalent of the Latin dux ("leader"); the corresponding word in English is duke, in standard Italian duca.  (See also "duce".) Whatever his original views, Ursus supported Emperor Leo III's successful military expedition to recover Ravenna, sending both men and ships. In recognition of this, Venice was "granted numerous privileges and concessions" and Ursus, who had personally taken the field, was confirmed by Leo as dux. and given the added title of hypatus (from the Greek for "consul").
In 751, the Lombard King Aistulf conquered most of the Exarchate of Ravenna, leaving Venice a lonely and increasingly autonomous Byzantine outpost. During this period, the seat of the local Byzantine governor (the "duke/dux", later "doge"), was at Malamocco. Settlement on the islands in the lagoon probably increased with the Lombard conquest of other Byzantine territories, as refugees sought asylum in the area. In 775/6, the episcopal seat of Olivolo (San Pietro di Castello, namely Helipolis) was created. During the reign of duke Agnello Particiaco (811–827) the ducal seat moved from Malamocco to the more protected Rialto, within present-day Venice. The monastery of St. Zachary and the first ducal palace and basilica of St. Mark, as well as a walled defense (civitatis murus) between Olivolo and Rialto, were subsequently built here.
Charlemagne sought to subdue the city to his rule. He ordered the pope to expel the Venetians from the Pentapolis along the Adriatic coast; Charlemagne's own son Pepin of Italy, king of the Lombards, under the authority of his father, embarked on a siege of Venice itself. This, however, proved a costly failure. The siege lasted six months, with Pepin's army ravaged by the diseases of the local swamps and eventually forced to withdraw in 810. A few months later, Pepin himself died, apparently as a result of a disease contracted there. In the aftermath, an agreement between Charlemagne and the Byzantine Emperor Nicephorus in 814 recognized Venice as Byzantine territory, and granted the city trading rights along the Adriatic coast.
In 828 the new city's prestige increased with the acquisition, from Alexandria, of relics claimed to be of St Mark the Evangelist; these were placed in the new basilica. Winged lions—visible throughout Venice—are the emblem of St Mark.  The patriarchal seat was also moved to Rialto. As the community continued to develop, and as Byzantine power waned, its own autonomy grew, leading to eventual independence.


Subsidence, the gradual lowering of the surface of Venice, has contributed—along with other factors—to the seasonal Acqua alta ("high water") when much of the city's surface is occasionally covered at high tide.


From the 9th to the 12th centuries, Venice developed into a powerful maritime empire (an Italian thalassocracy known also as repubblica marinara), in addition to Venice there were seven others: the most important ones were Genoa, Pisa, and Amalfi; and the lesser known were Ragusa, Ancona, Gaeta and Noli. Its own strategic position at the head of the Adriatic made Venetian naval and commercial power almost invulnerable. With the elimination of pirates along the Dalmatian coast, the city became a flourishing trade center between Western Europe and the rest of the world—especially with the Byzantine Empire and Asia), where its navy protected sea routes against piracy.
The Republic of Venice seized a number of places on the eastern shores of the Adriatic before 1200, mostly for commercial reasons, because pirates based there were a menace to trade. The doge already possessed the titles of Duke of Dalmatia and Duke of Istria. Later mainland possessions, which extended across Lake Garda as far west as the Adda River, were known as the Terraferma; they were acquired partly as a buffer against belligerent neighbours, partly to guarantee Alpine trade routes, and partly to ensure the supply of mainland wheat (on which the city depended). In building its maritime commercial empire, Venice dominated the trade in salt, acquired control of most of the islands in the Aegean, including Crete, and Cyprus in the Mediterranean, and
became a major power-broker in the Near East. By the standards of the time, Venice's stewardship of its mainland territories was relatively enlightened and the citizens of such towns as Bergamo, Brescia, and Verona rallied to the defence of Venetian sovereignty when it was threatened by invaders.
Venice remained closely associated with Constantinople, being twice granted trading privileges in the Eastern Roman Empire, through the so-called golden bulls or "chrysobulls", in return for aiding the Eastern Empire to resist Norman and Turkish incursions. In the first chrysobull, Venice acknowledged its homage to the empire; but not in the second, reflecting the decline of Byzantium and the rise of Venice's power.
Venice became an imperial power following the Fourth Crusade, which, having veered off course, culminated in 1204 by capturing and sacking Constantinople and establishing the Latin Empire. As a result of this conquest, considerable Byzantine plunder was brought back to Venice. This plunder included the gilt bronze horses from the Hippodrome of Constantinople, which were originally placed above the entrance to the cathedral of Venice, St Mark's Basilica (The originals have been replaced with replicas, and are now stored within the basilica.)  After the fall of Constantinople, the former Eastern Roman Empire was partitioned among the Latin crusaders and the Venetians. Venice subsequently carved out a sphere of influence in the Mediterranean known as the Duchy of the Archipelago, and captured Crete.
The seizure of Constantinople proved as decisive a factor in ending the Byzantine Empire as the loss of the Anatolian themes, after Manzikert. Although the Byzantines recovered control of the ravaged city a half-century later, the Byzantine Empire was terminally weakened, and existed as a ghost of its old self, until Sultan Mehmet The Conqueror took the city in 1453.
Situated on the Adriatic Sea, Venice had always traded extensively with the Byzantine Empire and the Middle East. By the late 13th century, Venice was the most prosperous city in all of Europe. At the peak of its power and wealth, it had 36,000 sailors operating 3,300 ships, dominating Mediterranean commerce. Venice's leading families vied with each other to build the grandest palaces and to support the work of the greatest and most talented artists. The city was governed by the Great Council, which was made up of members of the noble families of Venice. The Great Council appointed all public officials, and elected a Senate of 200 to 300 individuals. Since this group was too large for efficient administration, a Council of Ten (also called the Ducal Council, or the Signoria), controlled much of the administration of the city. One member of the great council was elected "doge", or duke, to be the chief executive; he would usually hold the title until his death, although several Doges were forced, by pressure from their oligarchical peers, to resign and retire into monastic seclusion, when they were felt to have been discredited by political failure.
The Venetian governmental structure was similar in some ways to the republican system of ancient Rome, with an elected chief executive (the doge), a senator-like assembly of nobles, and the general citizenry with limited political power, who originally had the power to grant or withhold their approval of each newly elected doge. Church and various private property was tied to military service, although there was no knight tenure within the city itself. The Cavalieri di San Marco was the only order of chivalry ever instituted in Venice, and no citizen could accept or join a foreign order without the government's consent. Venice remained a republic throughout its independent period, and politics and the military were kept separate, except when on occasion the Doge personally headed the military. War was regarded as a continuation of commerce by other means. Therefore, the city's early employment of large numbers of mercenaries for service elsewhere, and later its reliance on foreign mercenaries when the ruling class was preoccupied with commerce.
Although the people of Venice generally remained orthodox Roman Catholics, the state of Venice was notable for its freedom from religious fanaticism, and executed nobody for religious heresy during the Counter-Reformation. This apparent lack of zeal contributed to Venice's frequent conflicts with the papacy. In this context, the writings of the Anglican divine William Bedell are particularly illuminating. Venice was threatened with the interdict on a number of occasions and twice suffered its imposition. The second, most noted, occasion was in 1606, by order of Pope Paul V.
The newly invented German printing press spread rapidly throughout Europe in the 15th century, and Venice was quick to adopt it. By 1482, Venice was the printing capital of the world; the leading printer was Aldus Manutius, who invented paperback books that could be carried in a saddlebag. His Aldine Editions included translations of nearly all the known Greek manuscripts of the era.


Venice (/ˈvɛnɪs/ VEH-niss; Italian: Venezia [veˈnɛttsja] (listen); Venetian: Venesia or Venexia [veˈnɛsja]) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The islands are in the shallow Venetian Lagoon, an enclosed bay lying between the mouths of the Po and the Piave rivers (more exactly between the Brenta and the Sile). In 2020, around 258,685 people resided in greater Venice or the Comune di Venezia, of whom around 55,000 live in the historical island city of Venice (centro storico) and the rest on the mainland (terraferma). Together with the cities of Padua and Treviso, Venice is included in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area (PATREVE), which is considered a statistical metropolitan area, with a total population of 2.6 million.
The name is derived from the ancient Veneti people who inhabited the region by the 10th century BC. The city was historically the capital of the Republic of Venice for over a millennium, from 697 to 1797. It was a major financial and maritime power during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and a staging area for the Crusades and the Battle of Lepanto, as well as an important center of commerce—especially silk, grain, and spice, and of art from the 13th century to the end of the 17th. The city-state of Venice is considered to have been the first real international financial center, emerging in the 9th century and reaching its greatest prominence in the 14th century. This made Venice a wealthy city throughout most of its history. For centuries Venice possessed numerous territories along the Adriatic Sea and within the Italian peninsula, leaving a significant impact on the architecture and culture that can still be seen today. The sovereignty of Venice came to an end in 1797, in the hands of Napoleon. Subsequently, in 1866, the city become part of the Kingdom of Italy.
Venice has been known as "La Dominante", "La Serenissima", "Queen of the Adriatic", "City of Water", "City of Masks", "City of Bridges", "The Floating City", and "City of Canals". The lagoon and a part of the city are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Parts of Venice are renowned for the beauty of their settings, their architecture, and artwork. Venice is known for several important artistic movements—especially during the Renaissance period—and has played an important role in the history of instrumental and operatic music, and is the birthplace of Baroque composers Tomaso Albinoni and Antonio Vivaldi.
Although the city is facing some challenges (including an excessive number of tourists and problems caused by pollution, tide peaks and cruise ships sailing too close to buildings), Venice remains a very popular tourist destination, a major cultural centre, and has been ranked many times the most beautiful city in the world. It has been described by the Times Online as one of Europe's most romantic cities and by The New York Times as "undoubtedly the most beautiful city built by man".


Those fleeing barbarian invasions who found refuge on the sandy islands of Torcello, Iesolo, and Malamocco, in this coastal lagoon, learned to build by driving closely spaced piles consisting of the trunks of alder trees, a wood noted for its water resistance, into the mud and sand, until they reached a much harder layer of compressed clay. Building foundations rested on plates of Istrian limestone placed on top of the piles.


Venice's long decline started in the 15th century. Venice confronted the Ottoman Empire in the Siege of Thessalonica (1422–1430) and sent ships to help defend Constantinople against the besieging Turks in 1453. After the Fall of Constantinople Sultan Mehmed II declared the first of a series of Ottoman-Venetian wars that cost Venice much of its eastern Mediterranean possessions. Vasco da Gama's 1497–1499 voyage opened a sea route to India around the Cape of Good Hope and destroyed Venice's monopoly. Venice's oared vessels  were at a disadvantage when it came to traversing oceans, therefore Venice was left behind in the race for colonies.
The Black Death devastated Venice in 1348 and struck again between 1575 and 1577. In three years, the plague killed some 50,000 people. In 1630, the Italian plague of 1629–31 killed a third of Venice's 150,000 citizens.
Venice began to lose its position as a center of international trade during the later part of the Renaissance as Portugal became Europe's principal intermediary in the trade with the East, striking at the very foundation of Venice's great wealth. France and Spain fought for hegemony over Italy in the Italian Wars, marginalising its political influence. However, Venice remained a major exporter of agricultural products and until the mid-18th century, a significant manufacturing center.


Dubai and the other "Trucial States" had long been a British protectorate where the British government took care of foreign policy and defence, as well as arbitrating between the rulers of the Eastern Gulf, the result of a treaty signed in 1892 named the "Exclusive Agreement". This was to change with PM Harold Wilson's announcement, on 16 January 1968, that all British troops were to be withdrawn from "East of Aden". The decision was to pitch the coastal emirates, together with Qatar and Bahrain, into fevered negotiations to fill the political vacuum that the British withdrawal would leave behind.
The principle of union was first agreed upon between the ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, and Sheikh Rashid of Dubai on 18 February 1968 meeting in an encampment at Argoub Al Sedirah, near Al Semeih, a desert stop between the two emirates. The two agreed to work towards bringing the other emirates, including Qatar and Bahrain, into the union. Over the next two years, negotiations and meetings of the rulers followed -often stormy- as a form of union was thrashed out. The nine-state union was never to recover from the October 1969 meeting where heavy-handed British intervention resulted in a walk-out by Qatar and Ras Al Khaimah. Bahrain and Qatar dropped out of talks, leaving six of the seven "trucial" emirates to agree on union on 18 July 1971.
On 2 December 1971, Dubai, together with Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm al-Quwain and Fujairah joined in the Act of Union to form the United Arab Emirates. The seventh emirate, Ras Al Khaimah, joined the UAE on 10 February 1972, following Iran's annexation of the RAK-claimed Tunbs islands.
In 1973, Dubai joined the other emirates to adopt a uniform currency: the UAE dirham. In that same year, the prior monetary union with Qatar was dissolved and the UAE Dirham was introduced throughout the Emirates.


The history of human settlement in the area now defined by the United Arab Emirates is rich and  complex, and points to extensive trading links between the civilisations of the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia, but also as far afield as the Levant. Archaeological finds in the emirate of Dubai, particularly at Al-Ashoosh, Al Sufouh and the notably rich trove from Saruq Al Hadid show settlement through the Ubaid and Hafit periods, the Umm Al Nar and Wadi Suq periods and the three Iron Ages in the UAE. The area was known to the Sumerians as Magan, and was a source for metallic goods, notably copper and bronze.
The area was covered with sand about 5,000 years ago as the coast retreated inland, becoming part of the city's present coastline. Pre-Islamic ceramics have been found from the 3rd and 4th centuries. Prior to the introduction of Islam to the area, the people in this region worshiped Bajir (or Bajar). After the spread of Islam in the region, the Umayyad Caliph of the eastern Islamic world invaded south-east Arabia and drove out the Sassanians. Excavations by the Dubai Museum in the region of Al-Jumayra (Jumeirah) found several artefacts from the Umayyad period.
An early mention of Dubai is in 1095 in the Book of Geography by the Andalusian-Arab geographer Abu Abdullah al-Bakri. The Venetian pearl merchant Gasparo Balbi visited the area in 1580 and mentioned Dubai (Dibei) for its pearling industry.


The marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile in 1469 united the two royal lines. Madrid became the centre of political power whilst the colonisation of the Americas reduced the financial importance (at least in relative terms) of Mediterranean trade. Barcelona was a centre of Catalan separatism, including the Catalan Revolt (1640–52) against Philip IV of Spain. The great plague of 1650–1654 halved the city's population.
In the 18th century, a fortress was built at Montjuïc that overlooked the harbour. In 1794, this fortress was used by the French astronomer Pierre François André Méchain for observations relating to a survey stretching to Dunkirk that provided the official basis of the measurement of a metre. The definitive metre bar, manufactured from platinum, was presented to the French legislative assembly on 22 June 1799. Much of Barcelona was negatively affected by the Napoleonic wars, but the start of industrialisation saw the fortunes of the province improve.


In about 15 BC, the Romans redrew the town as a castrum (Roman military camp) centred on the "Mons Taber", a little hill near the Generalitat (Catalan Government) and city hall buildings. The Roman Forum, at the crossing of the Cardo Maximus and Decumanus Maximus, was approximately placed where current Plaça de Sant Jaume is. Thus, the political center of the city, Catalonia, and its domains has remained in the same place for over 2000 years.
Under the Romans, it was a colony with the surname of Faventia, or, in full, Colonia Faventia Julia Augusta Pia Barcino or Colonia Julia Augusta Faventia Paterna Barcino. Pomponius Mela mentions it among the small towns of the district, probably as it was eclipsed by its neighbour Tarraco (modern Tarragona), but it may be gathered from later writers that it gradually grew in wealth and consequence, favoured as it was with a beautiful situation and an excellent harbour. It enjoyed immunity from imperial burdens. The city minted its own coins; some from the era of Galba survive.
Important Roman vestiges are displayed in Plaça del Rei underground, as a part of the Barcelona City History Museum (MUHBA); the typically Roman grid plan is still visible today in the layout of the historical centre, the Barri Gòtic (Gothic Quarter). Some remaining fragments of the Roman walls have been incorporated into the cathedral. The cathedral, known very formally by the long name of Catedral Basílica Metropolitana de Barcelona, is also sometimes called La Seu, which simply means cathedral (and see, among other things) in Catalan. It is said to have been founded in 343.


During the Spanish Civil War, the city, and Catalonia in general, were resolutely Republican. Many enterprises and public services were collectivised by the CNT and UGT unions. As the power of the Republican government and the Generalitat diminished, much of the city was under the effective control of anarchist groups. The anarchists lost control of the city to their own allies, the Communists and official government troops, after the street fighting of the Barcelona May Days. The fall of the city on 26 January 1939, caused a mass exodus of civilians who fled to the French border. The resistance of Barcelona to Franco's coup d'état was to have lasting effects after the defeat of the Republican government. The autonomous institutions of Catalonia were abolished, and the use of the Catalan language in public life was suppressed. Barcelona remained the second largest city in Spain, at the heart of a region which was relatively industrialised and prosperous, despite the devastation of the civil war. The result was a large-scale immigration from poorer regions of Spain (particularly Andalusia, Murcia and Galicia), which in turn led to rapid urbanisation.


The name Barcelona comes from the ancient Iberian Baŕkeno, attested in an ancient coin inscription found on the right side of the coin in Iberian script as , in ancient Greek sources as Βαρκινών, Barkinṓn; and in Latin as Barcino, Barcilonum and Barcenona.
Some older sources suggest that the city may have been named after the Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca, who was supposed to have founded the city in the 3rd century BC, but there is no evidence that Barcelona was ever a Carthaginian settlement, or that its name in antiquity, Barcino, had any connection with the Barcid family of Hamilcar.
During the Middle Ages, the city was variously known as Barchinona, Barçalona, Barchelonaa, and Barchenona.
Internationally as well as domestically, Barcelona's name is abbreviated colloquially to 'Barça' in reference to the football club FC Barcelona, whose anthem is the Cant del Barça "Barça chant". A common abbreviated form used by locals for the city is Barna.
Another common abbreviation is 'BCN', which is also the IATA airport code of the Barcelona-El Prat Airport.
The city is referred to as the Ciutat Comtal in Catalan and Ciudad Condal in Spanish (i.e., "Comital City" or "City of Counts"), owing to its past as the seat of the Count of Barcelona.


The city was conquered by the Visigoths in the early 5th century, becoming for a few years the capital of all Hispania. After being conquered by the Arabs in the early 8th century, it was conquered after a siege in 801 by Charlemagne's son Louis, who made Barcelona the seat of the Carolingian "Hispanic March" (Marca Hispanica), a buffer zone ruled by the Count of Barcelona.
The Counts of Barcelona became increasingly independent and expanded their territory to include much of modern Catalonia, although on 6 July 985, Barcelona was sacked by the army of Almanzor. The sack was so traumatic that most of Barcelona's population was either killed or enslaved. In 1137, Aragon and the County of Barcelona merged in dynastic union by the marriage of Ramon Berenguer IV and Petronilla of Aragon, their titles finally borne by only one person when their son Alfonso II of Aragon ascended to the throne in 1162. His territories were later to be known as the Crown of Aragon, which conquered many overseas possessions and ruled the western Mediterranean Sea with outlying territories in Naples and Sicily and as far as Athens in the 13th century.
Barcelona was the leading slave trade centre of the Crown of Aragon up until the 15th century, when it was eclipsed by Valencia. It initially fed from eastern and balkan slave stock later drawing from a Maghribian and, ultimately, Subsaharan pool of slaves.
The Bank of Barcelona or Taula de canvi, often viewed as the oldest public bank in Europe, was established by the city magistrates in 1401. It originated from necessities of the state, as did the Bank of Venice (1402) and the Bank of Genoa (1407).


Barcelona (/ˌbɑːrsəˈloʊnə/ BAR-sə-LOH-nə, Catalan: [bəɾsəˈlonə], Spanish: [baɾθeˈlona]) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within city limits, its urban area extends to numerous neighbouring municipalities within the Province of Barcelona and is home to around 4.8 million people, making it the fifth most populous urban area in the European Union after Paris, the Ruhr area, Madrid, and Milan. It is one of the largest metropolises on the Mediterranean Sea, located on the coast between the mouths of the rivers Llobregat and Besòs, and bounded to the west by the Serra de Collserola mountain range, the tallest peak of which is 512 metres (1,680 feet) high.
Founded as a Roman city, in the Middle Ages Barcelona became the capital of the County of Barcelona. After joining with the Kingdom of Aragon to form the confederation of the Crown of Aragon, Barcelona, which continued to be the capital of the Principality of Catalonia, became the most important city in the Crown of Aragon and the main economic and administrative centre of the Crown, only to be overtaken by Valencia, wrested from Arab domination by the Catalans, shortly before the dynastic union between the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon in 1492. Barcelona has a rich cultural heritage and is today an important cultural centre and a major tourist destination. Particularly renowned are the architectural works of Antoni Gaudí and Lluís Domènech i Montaner, which have been designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The city is home to two of the most prestigious universities in Spain: the University of Barcelona and Pompeu Fabra University. The headquarters of the Union for the Mediterranean are located in Barcelona. The city is known for hosting the 1992 Summer Olympics as well as world-class conferences and expositions and also many international sport tournaments.
Barcelona is a major cultural, economic, and financial centre in southwestern Europe, as well as the main biotech hub in Spain. As a leading world city, Barcelona's influence in global socio-economic affairs qualifies it for global city status (Beta +).
Barcelona is a transport hub, with the Port of Barcelona being one of Europe's principal seaports and busiest European passenger port, an international airport, Barcelona–El Prat Airport, which handles over 50 million passengers per year, an extensive motorway network, and a high-speed rail line with a link to France and the rest of Europe.


The municipal limits of Gósol includes, most notably, the village of Sorribes. Other settlements include Bonner, la Collada, Molí d'en Güell, Moripol, Castell de Termes, Font Terrers, and Torrent Senta.


Pèsol negre, a local variety of 'black pea'
Blat de moro escairat, or 'peeled corn', often cooked in a pork broth
Patates emmascarades, or "Masked Potatoes", mashed potatoes cooked with blood or black pudding
All i oli with pork, eaten during the swine-harvest in fall
Veal with wild mushrooms
Wild boar


Gósol is a village and municipality located in the northwest of the comarca of Berguedà in Catalonia, in the Pyrenees. It is within the confines of Cadí-Moixeró Natural Park, to the west of Pedraforca.
Gósol is the only municipality in Berguedà which is in the province of Lleida rather than that of Barcelona. It is also a party to the Judicial district of La Seu d'Urgell.


The present town is centered in the eponymous valley of Gósol, which is enclosed by the Serra del Cadí and Pedraforca, in the Pyrenees. The ruins of the former town and castle, dating from the 11th century, overlook the Gósol from an adjacent hill.


Saldes is a municipality in the comarca of the Berguedà in Catalonia, Spain. It is situated at the foot of the Pedraforca mountain (2497 m) in the north of the comarca. Deposits of lignite are extracted commercially. The village is linked to Guardiola de Berguedà by a local road. The monastery Sant Sebastià del Sull is located in Saldes.


WikiWeb_Gettysburg National Military Park_0

The Gettysburg National Military Park protects and interprets the landscape of the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. Located in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the park is managed by the National Park Service.  The GNMP properties include most of the Gettysburg Battlefield, many of the battle's support areas during the battle (e.g., reserve, supply, and hospital locations), and several other non-battle areas associated with the battle's "aftermath and commemoration," including the Gettysburg National Cemetery. Many of the park's 43,000 American Civil War artifacts are displayed in the Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center.
The park has more wooded land than in 1863, and the National Park Service has an ongoing program to restore portions of the battlefield to their historical non-wooded conditions, as well as to replant historic orchards and woodlots that are now missing. In addition, the NPS is restoring native plants to meadows and edges of roads, to encourage habitat as well as provide for historic landscape. There are also considerably more roads and facilities for the benefit of tourists visiting the battlefield park.
Attendance in 2018 was 950,000, a decline of 86% since 1970. The five major Civil War battlefield parks operated by the National Park Service (Gettysburg, Antietam, Shiloh, Chickamauga/Chattanooga and Vicksburg) had a combined 3.1 million visitors in 2018, down 70% from 10.2 million in 1970.
The park was added to the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966.


WikiWeb_Gettysburg National Military Park_1

The 1864 Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association and later veteran's associations acquired land for memorials and preservation (e.g., the 72nd Pennsylvania Infantry Monument tract with the statuary memorial depicted on the 2011 America the Beautiful Quarter dollar). Federal acquisition of land that would become the 1895 national park began on June 7, 1893, with nine monument tracts of 625 sq ft (58.1 m²) each and a larger 10th lot of 1.2 acres (4,900 m²) from the Association, as well as 0.275 acres (1,110 m²) from Samuel M Bushman. In addition to land purchases, federal eminent domain takings include the Gettysburg Electric Railway right-of-ways in 1917 (cf. 1896 United States v. Gettysburg Electric Ry. Co.). Donated land included 160 acres from the 1959 Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association and 264 acres (107 ha) from the W. Alton Jones Foundation. The Gettysburg Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit philanthropic, educational organization that operates in partnership with the National Park Service to preserve Gettysburg National Military Park and the Eisenhower National Historic Site, and to educate the public about their significance. (e.g., the Foundation raised funds for and built the new Museum and Visitor Center, opened in 2008, and secured funds for the creation of a new cannon shop that daily preserves the nearly 400 cannons representing actual artillery lines on the battlefield. In addition, the Gettysburg Foundation has provided approximately $20 million in direct support of the National Park Service just since 2009. The Visitor Center houses the Gettysburg Museum of the American Civil War and the 19th century, painting in the round, the Gettysburg Cyclorama)
The park officially came under federal control on February 11, 1895, with a piece of legislation titled, “An Act To establish a national military park at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.” This piece of legislation officially allowed the transfer of the deed for the park to go from the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial National Park Association, to the Secretary of War.
In February 2009, The David Wills House where Lincoln completed his Gettysburg Address was added to the national park by Public Law 106-290 and is operated by Gettysburg Foundation. In 2010, an effort to expand the amount of the federally-owned GNMP land failed in Congress.


WikiWeb_Gettysburg National Military Park_2

The Park has been a highly symbolic venue for memorials and remembrance. On November 19, 1963, a parade and ceremony was held in Gettysburg commemorating the centennial of President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, given less than five months after the Battle of Gettysburg. The actor, Raymond H. Massey, playing the role of President Lincoln, arrived by 1860s period steam train at the Gettysburg station. He rode, in the parade as did Lincoln, on horseback to the National cemetery where actor Massey gave the President's famous address (this time for brevity, Edward Everett's preceding two-hour speech was not read). The parade followed the same route that President Lincoln and Gov. Andrew G. Curtin took 100 years before. Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower—who lived nearby—was there, accompanied by Gov. William W. Scranton. The attendance at the 1963 commemoration was lower than the 20,000 to 30,000 persons who attended the original address by President Lincoln in 1863. Thousands of photographers attended the 1963 event while U.S. Air Force aircraft passed overhead. Also attending the event were the 28th Division of the Pennsylvania National Guard headed by Maj. Gen. Henry F. Fluck, the U.S. Marine Band, and the 3rd Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) of the U.S. Army. The parade ended at the rear entrance into the Gettysburg National Cemetery. It was not until the installation of a monument to General Lee in 1917 that Confederate memorials were included, which first took the form of individual monuments symbolizing a specific Confederate state.


WikiWeb_Gettysburg National Military Park_4

As the Gettysburg National Military Park increases in popularity it has run into ecological changes caused by this popularity and also natural causes.
There are an estimated annual 2 million people visiting the park a year, and with this large influx of visitors concerns have arisen on its effects on the environment. Natural areas like wooded areas, thickets and wetlands, have been stressed by pollution caused by traffic, and the issue of invasive species threatening the ecology of the park.


The earliest inhabitants of the widest Lake Ohrid region were the Illyrian tribes of Enchele and Dassaretii. According to a tradition the town, called Lychnidos (Ancient Greek: Λυχνιδός) in classical antiquity, was founded by the Phoenician king of Thebes, Cadmus who, banished from Thebes, in Boeotia, fled to the Enchele to the north and founded Lychnidus on the shore of Lake Ohrid and Budva in Montenegro. Lychnidos was the capital city of the Illyrian Dassaretii.
According to recent excavations this was a town as early as of the era of king Philip II of Macedon. They conclude that Samuil's Fortress was built on the place of an earlier fortification, dated to 4th century BC. In 210 BCE, Philip V of Macedon raided a number of southern Illyrian communities. He maintained a garrison at Lychnidus but lost control of the settlement in 208 BCE, when its commander joined local leader Aeropus and invited the Dardani in the region. During the Roman conquests, towards the end of 3rd and the beginning of 2nd century BC, Lychnidus is mentioned as a town near or within Dassaretia. In Roman times it was located along the Via Egnatia, which connected the Adriatic port Dyrrachion (present-day Durrës) with Byzantium. Archaeological excavations (e.g., the Polyconch Basilica from 5th century) prove early adoption of Christianity in the area. Bishops from Lychnidos participated in multiple ecumenical councils.


Ohrid (Macedonian: Охрид [ˈɔxrit] (listen)) is a city in North Macedonia and is the seat of the Ohrid Municipality. It is the largest city on Lake Ohrid and the eighth-largest city in the country, with the municipality recording a population of over 42,000 inhabitants as of 2002. Ohrid is known for once having 365 churches, one for each day of the year, and has been referred to as a "Jerusalem of the Balkans". The city is rich in picturesque houses and monuments, and tourism is predominant. It is located southwest of Skopje, west of Resen and Bitola. In 1979 and in 1980 respectively, Ohrid and Lake Ohrid were accepted as Cultural and Natural World Heritage Sites by UNESCO. Ohrid is one of only 28 sites that are part of UNESCO's World Heritage that are Cultural as well as Natural sites.


Before 1912, Ohrid was a township center bounded to Monastir sanjak in Manastir Vilayet (present-day Bitola). The city remained under Ottoman rule until 29 November 1912, when the Serbian army took control of the city during the Balkan Wars and later made it the capital of Ohrid district. In Ohrid, Serbian forces killed 150 Bulgarians and 500 people consisting of Albanians and Turks. In September 1913 local Albanian and pro-Bulgarian Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization leaders rebelled against the Kingdom of Serbia. It was occupied by Kingdom of Bulgaria between 1915 and 1918 during World War I.
During Kingdom of Yugoslavia Ohrid continued to be as an independent district (Охридског округа) (1918-1922), then it became a part of Bitola Oblast (1920-1929), and then from 1929 to 1941, Ohrid was part of the Vardar Banovina. It was occupied again by Bulgaria between 1941 and 1944 during World War II. Since the days of SFR Yugoslavia Ohrid has been the municipal seat of Municipality of Ohrid (Општина Охрид). Since 1991 the town was part of the Republic of Macedonia (now North Macedonia).
On 20 November 1993, Avioimpex Flight 110 crashed near Ohrid, killing all 116 people on board. It is the deadliest aviation disaster to occur in North Macedonia.


The first record of the existence of a settlement at Plymouth was in the Domesday Book in 1086 as Sudtone, Saxon for south farm, located at the present-day Barbican. From Saxon times, it was in the hundred of Roborough. In 1254 it gained status as a town and in 1439, became the first town in England to be granted a Charter by Parliament. Between 1439 and 1934, Plymouth had a Mayor. In 1914 the county boroughs of Plymouth and Devonport, and the urban district of East Stonehouse merged to form a single county borough of Plymouth. Collectively they were referred to as "The Three Towns".
In 1919, Nancy Astor was elected the first-ever female member of parliament to take office in the British Houses of Parliament for the constituency of Plymouth Sutton. Taking over office from her husband Waldorf Astor, Lady Astor was a vibrantly active campaigner for her resident constituents. Plymouth was granted city status on 18 October 1928. The city's first Lord Mayor was appointed in 1935 and its boundaries further expanded in 1967 to include the town of Plympton and the parish of Plymstock.
In 1945, Plymouth-born Michael Foot was elected Labour MP for the war-torn constituency of Plymouth Devonport which he represented until 1955. After serving as Secretary of State for Education and being responsible for the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act, went on to become the leader of the Labour Party (1980–1983).
The 1971 Local Government White Paper proposed abolishing county boroughs, which would have left Plymouth, a town of 250,000 people, being administered from a council based at the smaller Exeter, on the other side of the county. This led to Plymouth lobbying for the creation of a Tamarside county, to include Plymouth, Torpoint, Saltash, and the rural hinterland. The campaign was not successful, and Plymouth ceased to be a county borough on 1 April 1974 with responsibility for education, social services, highways and libraries transferred to Devon County Council. All powers returned when the city become a unitary authority on 1 April 1998 under recommendations of the Banham Commission.
In the Parliament of the United Kingdom, Plymouth is represented by the three constituencies of Plymouth Moor View, Plymouth Sutton and Devonport and South West Devon. Prior to Brexit in 2020 it was represented within the European Parliament as South West England. In the 2017 general election the city two returned Conservative MPs, who were Gary Streeter (for South West Devon) and Johnny Mercer (for Moor View), and one Labour MP, Luke Pollard (for Sutton and Devonport), .


Beginning in 1964 with the United States Coast Guard, many coast guards around the world have adopted high visibility color schemes to differentiate their coast guard vessels from the vessels of their respective navies.  A frequent element is a high contrast "racing stripe" on the outer hull.  While no international agreement exists to adopt it as a uniform marking, the 2009/2010 edition of Jane's Fighting Ships showed 61 nations had adopted some form of this stripe pattern for their coastal patrol and rescue vessels.


1709 (MDCCIX) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar, the 1709th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 709th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 9th  year of the 18th century, and the  10th  and last year of the 1700s decade. As of the start of 1709, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
  In the Swedish calendar it was a common year starting on Friday, one day ahead of the Julian and ten days behind the Gregorian calendar.


Herculaneum, an ancient town in Ercolano, Campania, Italy and buried under volcanic ash and pumice in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, is discovered by accident when attempts to drill a well for a monastery encountered marble and other materials.
The first modern edition of William Shakespeare's plays is published in London, edited by Nicholas Rowe.
The first piano is exhibited in Florence by its inventor Bartolomeo di Francesco Cristofori (1655-1731), who named it "gravicembalo col piano e forte", a name which was subsequently shortened to "pianoforte" and then "piano".
A collapsible umbrella is introduced in Paris.
Trinity School is founded as the charity school of Trinity Church, in New York City.
The second Eddystone Lighthouse, erected off the south west coast of England by John Rudyerd, is completed.
De Nostri Temporis Studiorum Ratione (On the Study Methods of Our Times) is published by Neapolitan philosopher Giambattista Vico.
Priceless medieval altarpieces, created by Tyrolese sculptor Michael Pacher, are destroyed.
Basil Lazarus III becomes Syriac Orthodox Maphrian of the East.


Air pollution is a major issue in Sarajevo. According to the 2016 World Health Organization's Ambient Air Pollution Database, the annual average PM2.5 concentration in 2010 was estimated to be 30 μg/m³ based on PM10 measurement, which is 3 times higher than recommended by WHO Air Quality Guidelines for the annual average PM2.5. There are no recent direct long-term PM2.5 measurements available in Sarajevo and only estimates can be made from PM10, which is the less health-relevant than PM2.5. Real-time air quality data in the form of PM10, ozone, NO₂, CO and SO₂ by the Federal Hydrometeorological Institute Archived 13 September 2018 at the Wayback Machine.


During the Middle Ages, Sarajevo was part of the Bosnian province of Vrhbosna near the traditional center of the Kingdom of Bosnia. Though a city named Vrhbosna existed, the exact settlement in Sarajevo at this time is debated. Various documents note a place called Tornik in the region, most likely in the area of the Marijin Dvor neighborhood. By all indications, Tornik was a very small marketplace surrounded by a proportionally small village, and was not considered very important by Ragusan merchants.
Other scholars say that Vrhbosna was a major town in the wider area of modern-day Sarajevo. Papal documents say that in 1238, a cathedral dedicated to Saint Paul was built in the area. Disciples of the notable saints Cyril and Methodius stopped in the region, founding a church near Vrelo Bosne. Whether or not the town was somewhere in the area of modern-day Sarajevo, the documents attest to its and the region's importance. There was also a citadel Hodidjed north-east to the Old City, dating from around 1263 until it was occupied by the Ottoman Empire in 1429.


The name Sarajevo derives from the Turkish noun saray, meaning "palace" or "mansion" (from Persian sarāy, سرای, of the same meaning). Scholars disagree on the origin of the evo attached to the end. In Slavic languages, the addition of "evo" may indicate a possessive noun, thereby making the name of Sarajevo, 'city of the palace."
One theory is that the name may have been derived from the Ottoman Turkish term saray ovası, first recorded in 1455, meaning "the plains around the palace" or simply "palace plains".
However, in his Dictionary of Turkish Loanwords, Abdulah Škaljić maintains that the evo ending is more likely to have come from the widespread Slavic suffix evo used to indicate place names, than from the Turkish ending ova. The first mention of the name Sarajevo was in a 1507 letter written by Firuz Bey. The official name during the 400 years of Ottoman rule was Saraybosna ("Palace of Bosnia"), which remains the city's name in Modern Turkish.
Sarajevo has had many nicknames. The earliest is Šeher, the term Isa-Beg Ishaković used to describe the town he was going to build—which is Turkish for "city" (şehir), in turn coming from the Persian shahr (شهر, meaning "city"). As Sarajevo developed, numerous nicknames came from comparisons to other cities in the Islamic world, i.e. "Damascus of the North" and "European Jerusalem"; the latter being the most popular.


One of the earliest findings of settlement in the Sarajevo area is that of the Neolithic Butmir culture. The discoveries at Butmir were made on the grounds of the modern-day Sarajevo suburb Ilidža in 1893 by Austro-Hungarian authorities during the construction of an agricultural school. The area's richness in flint was attractive to Neolithic humans, and the settlement flourished. The settlement developed unique ceramics and pottery designs, which characterize the Butmir people as a unique culture, as described at the International Congress of Archaeologists and Anthropologists meeting in Sarajevo in 1894.
The next prominent culture in Sarajevo were the Illyrians. The ancient people, who considered most of the Western Balkans as their homeland, had several key settlements in the region, mostly around the river Miljacka and the Sarajevo valley. The Illyrians in the Sarajevo region belonged to the Daesitiates, the last Illyrian people in Bosnia and Herzegovina to resist Roman occupation. Their defeat by the Roman emperor Tiberius in 9 AD marks the start of Roman rule in the region. The Romans never built up the region of modern-day Bosnia, but the Roman colony of Aquae Sulphurae was near the top of present-day Ilidža, and was the most important settlement of the time. After the Romans, the Goths settled the area, followed by the Slavs in the 7th century.


Following World War I, Bosnia and Herzegovina joined the South Slav Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (soon renamed Yugoslavia). Political life in Bosnia at this time was marked by two major trends: social and economic unrest over property redistribution and the formation of several political parties that frequently changed coalitions and alliances with parties in other Yugoslav regions.
The dominant ideological conflict of the Yugoslav state, between Croatian regionalism and Serbian centralization, was approached differently by Bosnia's major ethnic groups and was dependent on the overall political atmosphere. The political reforms brought about in the newly established Yugoslavian kingdom saw few benefits for the Bosniaks; according to the 1910 final census of land ownership and population according to religious affiliation conducted in Austro-Hungary, Muslims (Bosniaks) owned 91.1%, Orthodox Serbians owned 6.0%, Croatian Catholics owned 2.6% and others, 0.3% of the property. Following the reforms Bosnian Muslims were dispossessed of a total of 1,175,305 hectares of agricultural and forest land.
Although the initial split of the country into 33 oblasts erased the presence of traditional geographic entities from the map, the efforts of Bosnian politicians, such as Mehmed Spaho, ensured the six oblasts carved up from Bosnia and Herzegovina corresponded to the six sanjaks from Ottoman times and, thus, matched the country's traditional boundary as a whole.
The establishment of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929, however, brought the redrawing of administrative regions into banates or banovinas that purposely avoided all historical and ethnic lines, removing any trace of a Bosnian entity. Serbo-Croat tensions over the structuring of the Yugoslav state continued, with the concept of a separate Bosnian division receiving little or no consideration.
The Cvetković-Maček Agreement that created the Croatian banate in 1939 encouraged what was essentially a partition of Bosnia between Croatia and Serbia. However the rising threat of Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany forced Yugoslav politicians to shift their attention. Following a period that saw attempts at appeasement, the signing of the Tripartite Treaty, and a coup d'état, Yugoslavia was finally invaded by Germany on 6 April 1941.


The first preserved widely acknowledged mention of a form of the name "Bosnia" is in De Administrando Imperio, a politico-geographical handbook written by the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII in the mid-10th century (between 948 and 952) describing the "small land" (χωρίον in Greek) of "Bosona" (Βοσώνα), where the Serbs dwell.
The name is believed to derive from the hydronym of the river Bosna that courses through the Bosnian heartland. According to philologist Anton Mayer, the name Bosna could derive from Illyrian *"Bass-an-as", which in turn could derive from the Proto-Indo-European root "bos" or "bogh", meaning "the running water". According to the English medievalist William Miller, the Slavic settlers in Bosnia "adapted the Latin designation ... Basante, to their own idiom by calling the stream Bosna and themselves Bosniaks".
The name Herzegovina means "herzog's [land]", and "herzog" derives from the German word for "duke". It originates from the title of a 15th-century Bosnian magnate, Stjepan Vukčić Kosača, which was "Herceg [Herzog] of Hum and the Coast" (1448). Hum (formerly called Zachlumia) was an early medieval principality that had been conquered by the Bosnian Banate in the first half of the 14th century. When the Ottomans took over administration of the region, they called it the Sanjak of Herzegovina (Hersek). It was included within the Bosnia Eyalet until the formation of the short-lived Herzegovina Eyalet in the 1830s, which reemerged in the 1850s, after which the administrative region became commonly known as Bosnia and Herzegovina.
On initial proclamation of independence in 1992, the country's official name was the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but following the 1995 Dayton Agreement and the new constitution that accompanied it, the official name was changed to Bosnia and Herzegovina.


Year 271 (CCLXXI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Aurelianus and Bassus (or, less frequently, year 1024 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 271 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.


Directly before the lyrical section, there is a hidden message isolated on the left channel of the song. When heard normally, it appears to be nonsense. If played backwards, the following can be heard:
–Hello looker...
–Congratulations, You have just discovered the secret message.
–Please send your answer to Old Pink, care of the Funny Farm, Chalfont...
–Roger, Carolyne's on the phone!
–Okay.
Roger Waters congratulates the listener for finding this message, and jokes that they can send their answer to "Old Pink" (being either a reference to Syd Barrett, or a foreshadowing of Pink's eventual insanity), who lives in a funny farm (a term to describe a psychiatric hospital) somewhere in Chalfont. Before he can reveal the exact location, however, he gets interrupted by producer James Guthrie in the background who says Carolyne (Waters' then wife) is on the phone.


The Wall tells the story of Pink, an alienated and embittered rock star. At this point in the narrative, Pink is now grown up and married, but he and his wife are having relationship problems because of his physical distance and nearly complete emotional "wall". Pink asks himself how he should complete its construction.


The song is in the key of E minor, and is two minutes, eight seconds in length. It features a long introductory section, with solo guitar and a repetitive drumbeat, and an airport announcement, as a reference to Pink heading for a concert tour. The song reaches a climax of tension, at which point Roger Waters plays a descending blues scale over the minor dominant, B minor, cueing the start of the vocals. Roger Waters sings a short verse, ending on the phrase "How shall I complete the wall?" This track shares a backing track with "What Shall We Do Now?", sped up from D to E, with new guitar and vocals. The last beat introduces the next song, "Young Lust".


The assertion that the Holocaust was a unique event was important to the historiography of the Holocaust, but has come under increasing challenge in the twenty-first century. Related claims include that the Holocaust is external to history, beyond human understanding, a civilizational rupture (German: Zivilisationsbruch), and something that should not be compared to other historical events. Uniqueness approaches to the Holocaust also coincide with the view that antisemitism is not another form of racism and prejudice but is eternal and teleologically culminates in the Holocaust, a frame that is preferred by Zionist narratives.


The uniqueness of the Holocaust was advanced while it was ongoing by the World Jewish Congress (WJC), but rejected by governments of countries in German-occupied Europe. In the early decades of Holocaust studies, scholars approached the Holocaust as a genocide unique in its reach and specificity. Holocaust uniqueness became a subject for scholars in the 1970s and 1980s, in response to efforts to historicize the Holocaust via such concepts as totalitarianism, fascism, functionalism, modernity, and genocide.
In West Germany, the Historikerstreit ("historians' dispute") erupted in the late 1980s over attempts to challenge the position of the Holocaust in West German historiography and compare Nazi Germany with the Soviet Union. Critics saw this challenge as an attempt to relativize the Holocaust. In the 1980s and 1990s, a set of scholars, including Emil Fackenheim, Lucy Dawidowicz, Saul Friedländer, Yehuda Bauer, Steven Katz, Deborah Lipstadt, and Daniel Goldhagen—mostly from the field of Jewish studies—authored various studies to prove the Holocaust's uniqueness. They were challenged by another set of scholars from a wide diversity of viewpoints that rejected the uniqueness of the Holocaust and compared it to other events, which was then met with an angry backlash from uniqueness supporters. Around the turn of the twenty-first century, polemical approaches for the debate were exchanged for analytical ones relating to claims of uniqueness in Holocaust memory.
In the twenty-first century, several scholars including Alon Confino and Doris Bergen have described uniqueness claims regarding the Holocaust as outdated or no longer relevant to academic debate. In 2021, A. Dirk Moses initiated the catechism debate, challenging the uniqueness of the Holocaust in German Holocaust memory. The same year, in his book The Problems of Genocide, Moses argued that the development of the concept of genocide based on the Holocaust led to disregard of other forms of mass civilian death that could not be analogized to the Holocaust.


The Uskok War (1615–18) continues between the Austrians and Spanish (Habsburg Empire) on one side, and the Venetians, Dutch, and English on the other. An Austro-Turkish treaty is signed in Belgrade, under which the Austrians are granted the right to navigate the middle and lower Danube River by the Ottoman Empire.


1616 (MDCXVI) was a leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar, the 1616th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 616th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 16th  year of the 17th century, and the  7th   year of the 1610s decade. As of the start of 1616, the Gregorian calendar was 10 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


July 6 – First recorded eruption of Manam Volcano (erupting frequently since), forming a 10-km-wide island in the Bismarck Sea, 13 km (8.1 mi) off coast of Papua New Guinea, in the southwestern part of the Pacific Ring of Fire.
July 20 – The death of Hugh O'Neill, 2nd Earl of Tyrone, in exile in Rome, ends the Flight of the Earls from Ireland.
August 8 – The Tokugawa shogunate (Bakufu) in Japan forbids foreigners other than Chinese from traveling freely, or trading outside of the ports of Nagasaki and Hirado.
September – Sakazaki Naomori of Iwami Tsuwano han fails to kidnap Princess Sen, and commits suicide.
September 15 – The first non-aristocratic, free public school in Europe is opened in Frascati, Italy.
October
John Donne is appointed as Reader in Divinity, at his old inn of court in London, Lincoln's Inn.
King James's School at Knaresborough in Yorkshire is founded by Dr. Robert Chaloner, and the charter is signed by King James I of England.
October/November – Ben Jonson's satirical five-act comedy, The Devil is an Ass, is produced at the Blackfriars Theatre in London by the King's Men, poking fun at contemporary credence in witchcraft and Middlesex juries.
October 25 – Dirk Hartog makes the second recorded landfall by a European on Australian soil, at Dirk Hartog Island, off the Western Australian coast. The pewter Hartog Plate, left to mark the landfall of the Dutch ship Eendracht, is now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
November
Peter Paul Rubens begins work on classical tapestries, when a contract is signed in Antwerp with cloth dyers Jan Raes and Frans Sweerts in Brussels, and the Genoese merchant Franco Cattaneo.
René Descartes, at age 20, graduates in civil and canon law at the University of Poitiers, where he becomes disillusioned with books, preferring to seek truths from "le grand livre du monde." His thesis defense may have been written in December.
With small profits to show, the Virginia Company decides to distribute land in Virginia to shareholders according to the number of shares owned. Each stockholder can set up a "particular" plantation and pay associated expenses, receiving 100 acres (0.40 km²) of land for each share and 50 acres (200,000 m²) for each person transported (the "headrights" system).
Author Robert Burton is made vicar of St. Thomas in the west suburbs of London.
November 4 – Prince Charles (15-year-old surviving son of James I of England and Anne of Denmark) is invested as Prince of Wales at Whitehall in London, the last such investiture until 1911.
November 5 – Bishop Lancelot Andrewes preaches the annual Gunpowder Treason sermon before King James I of England at Whitehall (both were intended victims).
November 6 – 25 – Ben Jonson's works are published in a collected folio edition (the first of any English playwright).
November 6 – Captain William Murray is granted a royal patent, giving him the sole privilege of importing tobacco to Scotland for a period of 21 years. Continuing from the reign of Elizabeth I of England, the creation of grants and patents reaches a new highwater mark from 1614 to 1621, during the reign of James I of England.
November 13 – Italian artist Guido Reni's famous Pietà, commissioned by the Senate of Bologna, is placed on the greater altar of the church of Santa Maria della Pietà.
November 14 – In England, Sir Edward Coke is dismissed as Chief Justice of the King's Bench by royal prerogative.
November 16 – Marco Antonio de Dominis, Roman Catholic Archbishop of the See of Spalato and Primate of Dalmatia,  having run afoul of Pope Paul V over secular matters relating to Venice, submits to King James I of England and later becomes Dean of Windsor.
November 30 – Cardinal Richelieu, Armand-Jean du Plessis, is named French Secretary of State by young king Louis XIII. Richelieu will change France into a unified centralised state, able to resist both England and the Habsburg Empire.
December – In the Middle East, traveller Pietro Della Valle marries Jowaya, daughter of a Nestorian Christian father and an Armenian mother, in Baghdad. The couple then sets off (1617) to find the Shah in Isfahan.
December 10 – An ordinance establishes parish schools in Scotland. The same act of the Privy Council commends the abolition of Gaelic.
December 18 – A widely reported earthquake occurs in Leipzig, Germany (also dated December 22).
December 22 – An Indian youth (called one of "the first fruits of India") is baptized with the name "Peter" in London at the St. Dionis Backchurch, in a ceremony attended by the Lord Mayor, the Privy Council, city aldermen, and officials of the Honourable East India Company. Peter thus becomes the first convert to the Anglican Church in India. He returns to India as a missionary, schooled in English and Latin.
December 25
"Father Christmas" is a main character of Christmas, His Masque, written by Ben Jonson and presented at the court of King James I of England. Father Christmas is considered a papist symbol by Puritans, and later banished from England until the English Restoration. The traditional, comical costume for this jolly figure, as well as regional names, indicate that he is descended from the presenter of the medieval Feast of Fools.
Captain Nathaniel Courthope reaches the nutmeg-rich island of Run in the Moluccas, to defend it against the Dutch East India Company. A contract with the inhabitants, accepting James I of England as their sovereign, makes it part of the English colonial empire.


Vishnu (or Viṣṇu, Sanskrit: विष्णु) means 'all pervasive' and, according to Medhātith (c. 1000 CE), 'one who is everything and inside everything'. Vedanga scholar Yaska (4th century BCE) in the Nirukta defines Vishnu as viṣṇur viṣvater vā vyaśnoter vā ('one who enters everywhere'); also adding atha yad viṣito bhavati tad viṣnurbhavati ('that which is free from fetters and bondage is Vishnu').
In the tenth part of the Padma Purana (4-15th century CE), Danta (Son of Bhīma and King of Vidarbha) lists 108 names of Vishnu (17.98–102). These include the ten primary avatars (see Dashavarara, below) and descriptions of the qualities, attributes, or aspects of God.
The Garuda Purana (chapter XV) and the "Anushasana Parva" of the Mahabharata both list over 1000 names for Vishnu, each name describing a quality, attribute, or aspect of God. Known as the Vishnu Sahasranama, Vishnu here is defined as 'the omnipresent'.
Other notable names in this list include :
Hari
Lakshmikanta
Jagannatha
Janardana
Govinda
Hrishikesha
Padmanabha
Mukunda


Many of the natives died from new infectious diseases, such as influenza and probably smallpox, to which they lacked resistance or acquired immunity. The new colonists intermarried with the local native population. For a century after the conquest, many new colonists settled on the island, including immigrants from the diverse territories of the growing Spanish Empire, such as Flanders, Italy, and Germany.
As the population grew, it cleared Tenerife's pine forests for fuel and to make fields for agriculture for crops both for local consumption and for export. Sugar cane was introduced in the 1520s as a commodity crop on major plantations; it was a labor-intensive crop in all phases of cultivation and processing. In the following centuries, planters cultivated wine grapes, cochineal for making dyes, and plantains for use and export.


The formal demonym used to refer to the people of Tenerife is Tinerfeño/a; also used colloquially is the term chicharrero/a. In modern society, the latter term is generally applied only to inhabitants of the capital, Santa Cruz. The term chicharrero was once a derogatory term used by the people of La Laguna when it was the capital, to refer to the poorer inhabitants and fishermen of Santa Cruz. The fishermen typically caught mackerel and other residents ate potatoes, assumed to be of low quality by the elite of La Laguna. As Santa Cruz grew in commerce and status, it replaced La Laguna as capital of Tenerife in 1833 during the reign of Fernando VII. Then the inhabitants of Santa Cruz used the former insult to identify as residents of the new capital, at La Laguna's expense.


Further housing developments in the private and public sector took place after the Second World War, partly to accommodate the growing population of the city and also to replace condemned and bomb damaged properties, including a major prefabricated housing district in West Canley which still exists today.
In the post-war years Coventry was largely rebuilt under the general direction of the Gibson Plan, gaining a new pedestrianised shopping precinct (the first of its kind in Europe on such a scale) and in 1962 Sir Basil Spence's much-celebrated new St Michael's Cathedral (incorporating one of the world's largest tapestries) was consecrated. Its prefabricated steel spire (flèche) was lowered into place by helicopter.
Major expansion to Coventry had taken place previously, in the 1920s and 1930s, to provide housing for the large influx of workers who came to work in the city's booming factories. The areas which were expanded or created in this development included Radford, Coundon, Canley, Cheylesmore and Stoke Heath.
Coventry's motor industry boomed during the 1950s and 1960s and Coventry enjoyed a 'golden age'. During this period the disposable income of Coventrians was amongst the highest in the country and both the sports and the arts benefited. A new sports centre, with one of the few Olympic standard swimming pools in the UK, was constructed and Coventry City Football Club reached the First Division of English Football. The Belgrade Theatre was also constructed along with the Herbert Art Gallery. Coventry's pedestrianised Precinct shopping area came into its own and was considered one of the finest retail experiences outside London. In 1965 the new University of Warwick campus was opened to students, and rapidly became one of the country's leading higher-education institutions.
Coventry's large industrial base made it attractive to the wave of Asian and Caribbean immigrants who arrived from Commonwealth colonies after 1948. In 1960, one of Britain's first mosques—and the very first in Coventry—was opened on Eagle Street to serve the city's growing Islamic community. The 1970s, however, saw a decline in the British motor industry and Coventry suffered particularly badly, especially towards the end of that decade. By the early 1980s, Coventry had one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. Some 30 years later, Coventry is now considered one of the UK's safer major cities and has gradually recovered economically with newer industries locating there, although the motor industry continues to decline. By 2008, only one motor manufacturing plant was operational, that of LTI Ltd, producing the popular TX4 taxi cabs. On 17 March 2010 LTI announced they would no longer be producing bodies and chassis in Coventry, instead producing them in China and shipping them in for final assembly in Coventry.
On the sporting scene, Coventry Rugby Football Club was consistently among the nation's leading rugby football sides from the early 20th century, peaking in the 1970s and 1980s. Association football, on the other hand, was scarcely a claim to fame until 1967, when Coventry City F.C. finally won promotion to the top flight of English football as champions of the Football League Second Division. They would stay among the elite for the next 34 years, reaching their pinnacle with FA Cup glory in 1987—the first and to date only major trophy in the club's history. Their long stay in the top flight of English football ended in relegation in 2001, and in 2012 they were relegated again to the third tier of English football. Highfield Road, to the east of the city centre, was Coventry City's home for 106 years from 1899. They finally departed from the stadium in 2005 on their relocation to the 32,600-seat Ricoh Arena some three miles (4.8 kilometres) to the north of the city centre, in the Rowleys Green district. Since 2000, the city has also been home to one of the most successful ice hockey teams in the country, the Coventry Blaze who are four time Elite League champions, and play their home games at the SkyDome Arena.


Alderman's Green
Allesley
Allesley Green
Allesley Park
Ash Green
Ball Hill
Bannerbrook Park
Bell Green
Binley
Bishopsgate Green
Brownshill Green
Canley & Canley Gardens
Cannon Park
Chapelfields
Cheylesmore
Church End
Clifford Park
Copsewood
Coundon
Courthouse Green
Daimler Green
Earlsdon
Eastern Green
Edgwick (or Edgewick)
Ernesford (or Ernsford) Grange
Finham
Fenside
Foleshill
Gibbet Hill
Gosford Green
Great Heath
Hearsall Common
Henley Green
Hillfields
Holbrooks
Keresley
Little Heath
Longford
Middle Stoke
Monks Park
Mount Nod
Nailcote Grange
Pinley
Potters Green
Radford
Spon End
Stoke
Stoke Heath
Stoke Aldermoor
Stivichall (or Styvechale)
Tanyard Farm
Tile Hill
Toll Bar End
Upper Stoke
Victoria Farm
Walsgrave-on-Sowe
Westwood Heath
Whitley
Whitmore Park
Whoberley
Willenhall
Wood End
Woodway Park
Wyken


The growing influence of the Church during the Middle Ages gradually turned Aarhus, with its bishopric, into a prosperous religious centre. Many public and religious buildings were built in and around the town; notably Aarhus Cathedral was initiated in the late 12th century by the influential bishop Peder Vognsen, and around 1200, Aros had a total of four churches. The 13th century also marks a thorough reorganisation, erasing most of the town's original layout with new streets, relocations, dismantling and new constructions. The Church clearly had the upper hand in the Aarhus region during medieval times, and the large bishopric of Aarhus prospered and expanded territory, reaching as far as Viborg in extent. In 1441, Christopher III issued the oldest known charter granting market town status, although similar privileges may have existed as far back as the 12th century. The charter is the first official recognition of the town as a regional power and is by some considered Aarhus's birth certificate.
The commercial and religious status spurred town growth so in 1477 the defensive earthen ramparts, ringing the town since the Viking Age, were abandoned to accommodate expansion. Parts of the ramparts are still in existence today and can be experienced as steep slopes at the riverside and they have also survived in some place names of the inner city, including the streets of Volden (The Rampart) and Graven (The Moat). Aarhus grew to become one of the largest cities in the country by the early 16th century. In 1657, octroi was imposed in larger Danish cities which changed the layout and face of Aarhus over the following decades. Wooden city walls were erected to prevent smuggling, with gates and toll booths on the major thoroughfares, Mejlgade and Studsgade. The city gates funnelled most traffic through a few streets where merchant quarters were built.
In the 17th century, Aarhus entered a period of recession as it suffered blockades and bombardments during the Swedish wars and trade was dampened by the preferential treatment of the capital by the state. It was not until the middle of the 18th century growth returned in large part due to trade with the large agricultural catchment areas around the city; particularly grain proved to be a remunerative export. The first factories were established at this time as the industrial revolution reached the country and in 1810 the harbour was expanded to accommodate growing trade.


Founded in the early Viking Age, Aarhus is one of the oldest cities in Denmark, along with Ribe and Hedeby. The original Aros settlement was situated on the northern shores of a fjord by the mouth of the Aarhus River, right where the city center is today. It quickly became a hub for sea-going trade due to its position on intersecting trade routes in the Danish straits and the fertile countryside. The trade, however, was not nearly as prominent as that in Ribe and Hedeby during the Viking Age, and it was primarily linked to Norway as evidenced by archaeological finds. A shipbuilding yard from the Viking Age was uncovered upriver in 2002 by archaeologists. It was located at a place formerly known as Snekkeeng, or Snekke Meadow in English ('Snekke' is a type of longship), east of the Brabrand Lake close to Viby, and it was in use for more than 400 years from the late 700s till around the mid-1200s.
Archaeological evidence indicate Aarhus was a town as early as the last quarter of the 8th century. Discoveries after a 2003 archaeological dig, includes half-buried longhouses, firepits, glass pearls and a road dated to the late 700s. Several excavations in the inner city since the 1960s, has revealed wells, streets, homes and workshops, and inside the buildings and adjoining archaeological layers, everyday utensils like combs, jewellery and basic multi-purpose tools from approximately the year 900 has been unearthed. The early town was fortified with defensive earthen ramparts in the first part of the 900s, possibly in the year 934 on order from king Gorm the Old. The fortifications were later improved and expanded by his son Harald Bluetooth, encircling the settlement much like the defence structures found at Viking ring fortresses elsewhere. Together with the town's geographical placement, this suggests that Aros became an important military centre in the Viking Age. There are also strong indications of a former royal residence from the same period in Viby, a few kilometres south of the Aarhus city centre.
The centre of Aarhus was originally a pagan burial site until Aarhus's first Christian church, Holy Trinity Church, a timber structure, was built upon it during the reign of Frode, King of Jutland, around 900. The bishopric of Aarhus dates back to at least 948 when Adam of Bremen reported that the missionary bishop Reginbrand of Aros attended the synod of Ingelheim in Germany, but the late Viking Age during the Christianization of Scandinavia was a turbulent and violent time with several naval attacks on the town, such as Harald Hardrada's assault around 1050, when the Holy Trinity Church was burned to the ground. Despite the conflicts, Aarhus continued to prosper from the trade and the finding of six runestones in and around Aarhus indicates the city had some significance around the year 1000, as only wealthy nobles traditionally used them. The bishopric diocese was obliterated for almost a hundred years after Reginbrand in 988, but in 1060 a new bishop Christian was ordained and he founded a new church in Aarhus, Sankt Nicolai Domkirke (St. Nicholas Cathedral), this time in stone. It was erected outside the town fortifications, and stood finished in 1070 at the site where Church of Our Lady stands today, but only an underground crypt remains.


The name originates from the city's location at the mouth of Aarhus Å (Aarhus River). It is a compound of the two words ár, genitive of á ("river", Modern Danish å), and oss ("mouth", in Modern Icelandic this word, spelt ós, is still used for "river delta"). In Valdemar's Census Book (1231) the city was called Arus, and in Icelandic it was known as Aros, later written as Aars.


In 1711, parliament passed an Act for the building of Fifty New Churches in the Cities of London and Westminster or the Suburbs thereof, which established a commission which included Christopher Wren, John Vanbrugh, Thomas Archer and a number of churchmen. The commission appointed Hawksmoor and William Dickinson as its surveyors. As supervising architects they were not necessarily expected to design all the churches themselves. Dickinson left his post in 1713 and was replaced by James Gibbs. Gibbs was removed in 1716 and replaced by John James. James and Hawksmoor remained in office until the commission was wound up in 1733. The declining enthusiasm of the Commission, and the expense of the buildings, meant that only twelve churches were completed, six designed by Hawksmoor, and two by James in collaboration with Hawksmoor. The two collaborations were St Luke Old Street (1727–33) and St John Horsleydown (1727–33), to which Hawksmoor's contribution seems to have been largely confined to the towers with their extraordinary steeples.
The six churches wholly designed by Hawksmoor were St Alfege's Church, Greenwich, St George's Church, Bloomsbury, Christ Church, Spitalfields, St George in the East, Wapping, St Mary Woolnoth and St Anne's Limehouse. They are his best-known independent works of architecture, and compare in their complexity of interpenetrating internal spaces with contemporaneous work in Italy by Francesco Borromini. Their spires are essentially Gothic outlines executed in innovative and imaginative Classical detail. Although Hawksmoor and John James terminated the commission by 1733, they were still being paid "for carrying on and finishing the works under their care" until James's death.
After the death of Wren in 1723, Hawksmoor was appointed Surveyor to Westminster Abbey. Parliament had voted £100 for the repair and completion of the Abbey in 1698. The west towers of the Abbey were designed by Hawksmoor but not completed until after his death.


Wren, hearing of his "early skill and genius" for architecture, took him on as his clerk at about the age of 18. A surviving early sketch-book contains sketches and notes, some dated 1680 and 1683, of buildings in Nottingham, Coventry, Warwick, Bath, Bristol, Oxford and Northampton. These somewhat amateur drawings, now in the Royal Institute of British Architects Drawings Collection, show that he was still learning the techniques of his new profession at the age of 22. His first official post was as Deputy Surveyor to Wren at Winchester Palace from 1683 until February 1685. Hawksmoor's signature appears on a brickmaker's contract for Winchester Palace in November 1684. Wren was paying him 2 shillings a day in 1685 as assistant in his office in Whitehall.
From about 1684 to about 1700, Hawksmoor worked with Christopher Wren on projects including Chelsea Hospital, St Paul's Cathedral, Hampton Court Palace and Greenwich Hospital. Thanks to Wren's influence as Surveyor-General, Hawksmoor was named Clerk of the Works at Kensington Palace (1689) and Deputy Surveyor of Works at Greenwich (1705). In 1718, when Wren was superseded by the new, amateur Surveyor, William Benson, Hawksmoor was deprived of his double post to provide places for Benson's brother. "Poor Hawksmoor," wrote Vanbrugh in 1721. "What a Barbarous Age have his fine, ingenious Parts fallen into. What wou'd Monsr: Colbert in France have given for such a man?" Only in 1726 after William Benson's successor Hewett died, was Hawksmoor restored to the secretaryship, though not the clerkship which was given to Filtcroft. In 1696, Hawksmoor was appointed surveyor to the Commissioners of Sewers for Westminster, but was dismissed in 1700, having neglected to attend the Court several days last past.