Many species of plants from the family Apocynaceae have some toxicity, with some being extremely poisonous if parts are ingested, or if they are not handled properly. Genera containing cardiac glycosides—  Cerbera, Nerium, Asclepias, Cascabela, Strophanthus, Acokanthera, Apocynum, Thevetia, etc.—have therapeutic ranges, but are often associated with accidental poisonings, in many cases lethal (see below). Alkaloid-producing species like Rauvolfia serpentina, Catharanthus roseus, and Tabernanthe iboga are likewise the source of compounds with  therapeutic ranges, but which have significant associated toxicities if not taken in appropriate doses and in controlled fashion. (See below)


The dogbane/milkweed family includes annual plants, perennial herbs, stem succulents, woody shrubs, trees, or vines. Most exude a milky latex when cut.


Flowers have radial symmetry (actinomorphic), and are borne in heads that are cymes or racemes, or  are solitary in axils. They are perfect (bisexual), with a synsepalous, five-lobed calyx united into a tube at the base. Inflorescences are terminal or axillary. Five petals are united into a tube with four or five epipetalous stamens. The style head is swollen. The pollen is transported in foam. The ovary is usually superior, bicarpellary, and apocarpous, with a common fused style and stigma. (Fig. 5. and Fig.6. in the illustration of Rhigospira quadrangularis show  a typical tripartite style which divides into three zones (specialised for pollen deposition, viscin secretion, and the reception of pollen)
The fruit is a drupe, a berry, a capsule, or a (frequently paired) follicle. The seeds are  often winged or have appendages of long silky hairs.


Leaves are simple. They may appear one at a time (singly) with each occurrence on alternating sides of the stem (alternate), but usually occur in pairs (and rarely in whorls). When paired, they occur on opposite sides of the stem (opposite), with each pair occurring at an angle rotated 90° to the pair below it (decussate).
There is no stipule (a small leaf-like structure at the base of the leaf stem), or stipules are small and sometimes fingerlike.


Phytochemicals are chemicals of plant origin. Phytochemicals (from Greek phyto, meaning "plant") are chemicals produced by plants through primary or secondary metabolism. They generally have biological activity in the plant host and play a role in plant growth or defense against competitors, pathogens, or predators.
Phytochemicals are generally regarded as research compounds rather than essential nutrients because proof of their possible health effects has not been established yet. Phytochemicals under research can be classified into major categories, such as carotenoids and polyphenols, which include phenolic acids, flavonoids, stilbenes or lignans. Flavonoids can be further divided into groups based on their similar chemical structure, such as anthocyanins, flavones, flavanones, isoflavones, and flavanols. Flavanols are further classified as catechins, epicatechins, and proanthocyanidins. In total, between 50,000 and 130,000 phytochemicals have been discovered.
Phytochemists study phytochemicals by first extracting and isolating compounds from the origin plant, followed by defining their structure or testing in laboratory model systems, such as in vitro studies using cell lines or in vivo studies using laboratory animals. Challenges in that field include isolating specific compounds and determining their structures, which are often complex, and identifying what specific phytochemical is primarily responsible for any given biological activity.


The phytochemical category includes compounds recognized as essential nutrients, which are naturally contained in plants and are required for normal physiological functions, so must be obtained from the diet in humans.
Some phytochemicals are known phytotoxins that are toxic to humans; for example aristolochic acid is carcinogenic at low doses. Some phytochemicals are antinutrients that interfere with the absorption of nutrients. Others, such as some polyphenols and flavonoids, may be pro-oxidants in high ingested amounts.
Non-digestible dietary fibers from plant foods, often considered as a phytochemical, are now generally regarded as a nutrient group having approved health claims for reducing the risk of some types of cancer and coronary heart disease.
Eating a diet high in fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes and plant-based beverages has long-term health benefits, but there is no evidence that taking dietary supplements of non-nutrient phytochemicals extracted from plants similarly benefits health. Phytochemical supplements are neither recommended by health authorities for improving health nor approved by regulatory agencies for health claims on product labels.


Without specific knowledge of their cellular actions or mechanisms, phytochemicals have been used as poison and in traditional medicine. For example, salicin, having anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving properties, was originally extracted from the bark of the white willow tree and later synthetically produced to become the common, over-the-counter drug, aspirin. The tropane alkaloids of Atropa belladonna were used as poisons, and early humans made poisonous arrows from the plant. In Ancient Rome, it was used as a poison by Agrippina the Younger, wife of Emperor Claudius on advice of Locusta, a lady specialized in poisons, and Livia, who is rumored to have used it to kill her husband Emperor Augustus.
The English yew tree was long known to be extremely and immediately toxic to animals that grazed on its leaves or children who ate its berries; however, in 1971, paclitaxel was isolated from it, subsequently becoming an important cancer drug.
As of 2017, the biological activities for most phytochemicals are unknown or poorly understood, in isolation or as part of foods. Phytochemicals with established roles in the body are classified as essential nutrients.


A small number of alleged hypogea (underground structures carved into rocks) have been identified on the islands of Corvo, Santa Maria, and Terceira by Portuguese archaeologist Nuno Ribeiro, who speculated that they might date back 2,000 years, implying a human presence on the island before the Portuguese. These structures have been used by settlers in the Azores to store grain and the suggestion by Ribeiro that they might be burial sites are unconfirmed. Detailed examination and dating to authenticate the validity of these speculations is lacking; thus it is unclear whether these structures are natural or human-made and whether they predate the 15th century Portuguese colonization of the Azores.
According to a 2015 paper published in Journal of Evolutionary Biology, research based on mouse mitochondrial DNA points to a Scandinavian rather than Portuguese origin of the local mouse population. Some years later, a paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2021, using data from lake sediment core sampling suggests brush-clearing was undertaken and animal husbandry introduced between 700 and 850 C.E. Together, these findings may be explained by a brief period of Norse settlement and the 2021 paper further cites climate simulations carried out that suggest the dominant winds in the North Atlantic Ocean in that period blew from the northeast, which would have taken Viking ships heading southwest from Scandinavia more or less directly to the Azores.


The islands were known to Europeans in the 14th century; parts of them appear in the Catalan Atlas, created in 1375. In 1427, a captain sailing for Prince Henry the Navigator, possibly Gonçalo Velho, may have rediscovered the Azores but this is not certain. In Thomas Ashe's 1813 work, A History of the Azores, the author identified a Fleming, Joshua Vander Berg of Bruges, who made landfall in the archipelago during a storm on his way to Lisbon. Ashe stated that the Portuguese explored the area and claimed it for Portugal. Other writers note the discovery of the first islands (São Miguel, Santa Maria and Terceira) by sailors in the service of Henry the Navigator, although there are few documents to support the claims.
Although it is commonly said that the archipelago received its name from açor (Portuguese for goshawk, a common bird at the time of discovery) it is unlikely that the bird ever nested or hunted on the islands. There were no large animals on Santa Maria; after its discovery and before settlement began, sheep were let loose on the island to supply future settlers with food.


The archipelago was largely settled from mainland Portugal but settlement did not take place right away, Gonçalo Velho Cabral gathered resources and settlers for the next three years (1433–1436) and sailed to establish colonies, first on Santa Maria and then on São Miguel. Settlers built houses, established villages and cleared bush and rocks to plant crops, grain, grapevines, sugar cane and other plants suitable for local use and for export. They brought domesticated animals, such as chickens, rabbits, cattle, sheep, goats and pigs. The settlement of the unoccupied islands started in 1439 with people mainly from the continental provinces of Algarve and Alentejo, in mainland Portugal. São Miguel was first settled in 1449, the settlers – mainly from the Estremadura, Alto Alentejo and Algarve areas of mainland Portugal – under the command of Gonçalo Velho Cabral, who landed at the site of modern-day Povoação.


On the basis of its belief that it was an extension of Hokkaido, both geographically and culturally, Japan again proclaimed sovereignty over the whole island (as well as the Kuril Islands chain) in 1845, in the face of competing claims from Russia. In 1849, however, the Russian navigator Gennady Nevelskoy recorded the existence and navigability of the strait later given his name, and Russian settlers began establishing coal mines, administration facilities, schools, and churches on the island. In 1853–54, Nikolay Rudanovsky surveyed and mapped the island.
In 1855, Russia and Japan signed the Treaty of Shimoda, which declared that nationals of both countries could inhabit the island: Russians in the north, and Japanese in the south, without a clearly defined boundary between. Russia also agreed to dismantle its military base at Ootomari. Following the Opium War, Russia forced China to sign the Treaty of Aigun (1858) and the Convention of Peking (1860), under which China lost to Russia all claims to territories north of Heilongjiang (Amur) and east of Ussuri.
In 1857 the Russians established a penal colony. The island remained under shared sovereignty until the signing of the 1875 Treaty of Saint Petersburg, in which Japan surrendered its claims in Sakhalin to Russia. In 1890 the distinguished author Anton Chekhov visited the penal colony on Sakhalin and published a memoir of his journey.


The first European known to visit Sakhalin was Martin Gerritz de Vries, who mapped Cape Patience and Cape Aniva on the island's east coast in 1643. The Dutch captain, however, was unaware that it was an island, and 17th-century maps usually showed these points (and often Hokkaido as well) as part of the mainland. As part of a nationwide Sino-French cartographic program, Jesuits Jean-Baptiste Régis, Pierre Jartoux, and Xavier Ehrenbert Fridelli joined a Chinese team visiting the lower Amur (known to them under its Manchu name, Sahaliyan Ula, i.e. the "Black River"), in 1709, and learned of the existence of the nearby offshore island from the Ke tcheng natives of the lower Amur.
The Jesuits did not have a chance to visit the island, and the geographical information provided by the Ke tcheng people and Manchus who had been to the island was insufficient to allow them to identify it as the land visited by de Vries in 1643. As a result, many 17th-century maps showed a rather strangely shaped Sakhalin, which included only the northern half of the island (with Cape Patience), while Cape Aniva, discovered by de Vries, and the "Black Cape" (Cape Crillon) were thought to form part of the mainland.
Only with the 1787 expedition of  Jean-François de La Pérouse did the island began to resemble something of its true shape on European maps. Though unable to pass through its northern "bottleneck" due to contrary winds, La Perouse charted most of the Strait of Tartary, and islanders he encountered near today's Strait of Nevelskoy told him that the island was called "Tchoka" (or at least that is how he recorded the name in French), and "Tchoka" appears on some maps thereafter.


Humans lived on Sakhalin in the Neolithic Stone Age. Flint implements such as those found in Siberia have been found at Dui and Kusunai in great numbers, as well as polished stone hatchets similar to European examples, primitive pottery with decorations like those of the Olonets, and stone weights used with fishing nets. A later population familiar with bronze left traces in earthen walls and kitchen-middens on Aniva Bay.
Indigenous people of Sakhalin include the Ainu in the southern half, the Oroks in the central region, and the Nivkhs in the north.


After the Mongols  conquered the Jin dynasty (1234), they suffered raids by the  Nivkh and Udege peoples. In response, the Mongols established an administration post at Nurgan (present-day Tyr, Russia) at the junction of the Amur and Amgun rivers in 1263, and forced the submission of the two peoples.
From the Nivkh perspective, their surrender to the Mongols essentially established a military alliance against the Ainu who had invaded their lands. According to the History of Yuan, a group of people known as the Guwei (骨嵬; Gǔwéi, the Nivkh name for Ainu), from Sakhalin invaded and fought with the Jilimi (Nivkh people) every year. On 30 November 1264, the Mongols attacked the Ainu. The Ainu resisted Mongol rule and rebelled in 1284, but by 1308 had been subdued. They paid tribute to the Mongol Yuan dynasty at posts in Wuliehe, Nanghar, and Boluohe.
The Chinese Ming dynasty of 1368 to 1644 placed Sakhalin under its "system for subjugated peoples" (ximin tizhi). From 1409 to 1411 the Ming established an outpost called the Nurgan Regional Military Commission near the ruins of Tyr on the Siberian mainland, which continued operating until the mid-1430s. There is some evidence that the Ming eunuch Admiral Yishiha reached Sakhalin in 1413 during one of his expeditions to the lower Amur, and granted Ming titles to a local chieftain.
The Ming recruited headmen from Sakhalin for administrative posts such as commander (指揮使; zhǐhuīshǐ), assistant commander (指揮僉事; zhǐhuī qiānshì), and "official charged with subjugation" (衛鎮撫; wèizhènfǔ). In 1431 one such assistant commander, Alige, brought marten pelts as tribute to the Wuliehe post. In 1437 four other assistant commanders (Zhaluha, Sanchiha, Tuolingha, and Alingge) also presented tribute. According to the Ming Shilu, these posts, like the position of headman, were hereditary and passed down the patrilineal line. During these tributary missions, the headmen would bring their sons, who later inherited their titles. In return for tribute, the Ming awarded them with silk uniforms.
Nivkh women in Sakhalin married Han Chinese Ming officials when the Ming took tribute from Sakhalin and the Amur river region.


Year 446 (CDXLVI) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Aetius and Symmachus (or, less frequently, year 1199 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 446 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.


The Latin names in Pliny's text gave rise to different forms in medieval Germanic texts. In Jordanes' history of the Goths (AD 551), the form Scandza is the name used for their original home, separated by sea from the land of Europe (chapter 1, 4). Where Jordanes meant to locate this quasi-legendary island is still a hotly debated issue, both in scholarly discussions and in the nationalistic discourse of various European countries. The form Scadinavia as the original home of the Langobards appears in Paulus Diaconus' Historia Langobardorum, but in other versions of Historia Langobardorum appear the forms Scadan, Scandanan, Scadanan and Scatenauge. Frankish sources used Sconaowe and Aethelweard, an Anglo-Saxon historian, used Scani. In Beowulf, the forms Scedenige and Scedeland are used while the Alfredian translation of Orosius and Wulfstan's travel accounts used the Old English Sconeg.


The term Scandinavia in local usage covers the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. The majority national languages of these three belong to the Scandinavian dialect continuum, and are mutually intelligible North Germanic languages.
The words Scandinavia and Scania (Skåne, the southernmost province of Sweden) are both thought to go back to the Proto-Germanic compound *Skaðin-awjō (the ð represented in Latin by t or d), which appears later in Old English as Scedenig and in Old Norse as Skáney. The earliest identified source for the name Scandinavia is Pliny the Elder's Natural History, dated to the first century AD.
Various references to the region can also be found in Pytheas, Pomponius Mela, Tacitus, Ptolemy, Procopius and Jordanes, usually in the form of Scandza. It is believed that the name used by Pliny may be of West Germanic origin, originally denoting Scania. According to some scholars, the Germanic stem can be reconstructed as *skaðan- and meaning "danger" or "damage". The second segment of the name has been reconstructed as *awjō, meaning "land on the water" or "island". The name Scandinavia would then mean "dangerous island", which is considered to refer to the treacherous sandbanks surrounding Scania. Skanör in Scania, with its long Falsterbo reef, has the same stem (skan) combined with -ör, which means "sandbanks".
Alternatively, Sca(n)dinavia and Skáney, along with the Old Norse goddess name Skaði, may be related to Proto-Germanic *skaðwa- (meaning "shadow"). John McKinnell comments that this etymology suggests that the goddess Skaði may have once been a personification of the geographical region of Scandinavia or associated with the underworld.
Another possibility is that all or part of the segments of the name came from the pre-Germanic Mesolithic people inhabiting the region. In modernity, Scandinavia is a peninsula, but between approximately 10,300 and 9,500 years ago the southern part of Scandinavia was an island separated from the northern peninsula, with water exiting the Baltic Sea through the area where Stockholm is now located.


Scandinavia (/ˌskændɪˈneɪviə/ SKAN-di-NAY-vee-ə) is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, Scandinavia most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also refer more narrowly to the Scandinavian Peninsula (which excludes Denmark but includes part of Finland), or more broadly to include Finland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands.
The geography of the region is varied, from the Norwegian fjords in the west and Scandinavians mountains covering parts of Norway and Sweden, to the low and flat areas of Denmark in the south, as well as archipelagos and lakes in the east. Most of the population in the region live in the more temperate southern regions, with the northern parts having cold and long winters.
The region became notable during the Viking Age which lasted approximately 793–1066 AD. During this time, Scandinavian peoples participated in large scale raiding, conquest, colonization and trading mostly throughout Europe. They also utilized their longships for exploration, becoming the first Europeans to reach North America. These exploits saw the establishment of the North Sea Empire which comprised large parts of Scandinavia and Great Britain, though it was relatively short-lived. Scandinavia was eventually Christianized, and the coming centuries saw various unions of Scandinavian nations, most notably the Kalmar Union of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, which lasted for over 100 years until the Swedish king Gustav Vasa led Sweden to independence. It also saw numerous wars between the nations, which shaped the modern borders. The most recent union was the union between Sweden and Norway, which ended in 1905.
In modern times the region has prospered, with the economies of the countries being amongst the strongest in Europe. Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland all maintain welfare systems considered to be generous, with the economic and social policies of the countries being dubbed the ″Nordic model″.


By September 2013, the U.S. Army had over 8,000 CROWS systems in use. The new CROWS III incorporates a laser dazzler to temporarily blind suspicious individuals rather than needing to open fire, additional cameras on the side and rear of the turret to expand situational awareness without rotating the turret, and an infrared laser pointer to paint objects at night. The larger version of CROWS is equipped with a Javelin missile launcher.
Even though Kongsberg Gruppen enjoyed record profits during this time, the decision was made to merge subsidiaries, Kongsberg Defense and Kongsberg Protech Systems in an effort to save 100 Million NOK or $10,285,500 by terminating the contracts of several employees from these divisions.


The first supplier for the CROWS program was Recon Optical (Barrington, IL) with their RAVEN SRWS Archived 26 January 2021 at the Wayback Machine product. As part of the first CROWS contract, the Recon Optical RAVEN R-400 RWS were fielded in 2004 in Iraq, employed by special forces, military police, infantry and transport units.


In medicine, diuretics are used to treat heart failure, liver cirrhosis, hypertension, influenza, water poisoning, and certain kidney diseases. Some diuretics, such as acetazolamide, help to make the urine more alkaline and are helpful in increasing excretion of substances such as aspirin in cases of overdose or poisoning. Diuretics are sometimes abused by people with an eating disorder, especially people with bulimia nervosa, with the goal of losing weight.
The antihypertensive actions of some diuretics (thiazides and loop diuretics in particular) are independent of their diuretic effect. That is, the reduction in blood pressure is not due to decreased blood volume resulting from increased urine production, but occurs through other mechanisms and at lower doses than that required to produce diuresis. Indapamide was specifically designed with this in mind, and has a larger therapeutic window for hypertension (without pronounced diuresis) than most other diuretics.


A diuretic (/ˌdaɪjʊˈrɛtɪk/) is any substance that promotes diuresis, the increased production of urine. This includes forced diuresis. A diuretic tablet is sometimes colloquially called a water tablet. There are several categories of diuretics. All diuretics increase the excretion of water from the body, through the kidneys. There exist several classes of diuretic, and each works in a distinct way. Alternatively, an antidiuretic, such as vasopressin (antidiuretic hormone), is an agent or drug which reduces the excretion of water in urine.


Thiazide-type diuretics such as hydrochlorothiazide act on the distal convoluted tubule and inhibit the sodium-chloride symporter leading to a retention of water in the urine, as water normally follows penetrating solutes. Frequent urination is due to the increased loss of water that has not been retained from the body as a result of a concomitant relationship with sodium loss from the convoluted tubule.
The short-term anti-hypertensive action is based on the fact that thiazides decrease preload, decreasing blood pressure. On the other hand, the long-term effect is due to an unknown vasodilator effect that decreases blood pressure by decreasing resistance.


According to Māori mythology, the North and South Islands of New Zealand arose through the actions of the demigod Māui. Māui and his brothers were fishing from their canoe (the South Island) when he caught a great fish and pulled it right up from the sea. While he was not looking his brothers fought over the fish and chopped it up. This great fish became the North Island and thus a Māori name for the North Island is Te Ika-a-Māui ("The Fish of Māui"). The mountains and valleys are believed to have been formed as a result of Māui's brothers' hacking at the fish. Until the early 20th Century, Aotearoa was an alternative Māori name for the North Island. In present usage, Aotearoa is a collective Māori name for New Zealand as a whole.


The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is 113,729 square kilometres (43,911 sq mi), making it the world's 14th-largest island. It has a population of 3,925,800 (June 2021), accounting for approximately 77% of the total residents of New Zealand.
Twelve main urban areas (half of them officially cities) are in the North Island. From north to south, they are Whangārei, Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, Rotorua, Gisborne, New Plymouth, Napier, Hastings, Whanganui, Palmerston North, and New Zealand's capital city Wellington, which is located at the south-west tip of the island.


During the Last Glacial Period when sea levels were over 100 metres lower than present day levels, the North and South islands were connected by a vast coastal plain which formed at the South Taranaki Bight. During this period, most of the North Island was covered in thorn scrubland and forest, while the modern-day Northland Peninsula was a subtropical rainforest. Sea levels began to rise 7,000 years ago, eventually separating the islands and linking the Cook Strait to the Tasman Sea.


Egmont National Park
Tongariro National Park
Waipoua Kauri Forest
Whanganui National Park
and many forest parks of New Zealand


1844 (MDCCCXLIV) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar, the 1844th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 844th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 44th  year of the 19th century, and the  5th   year of the 1840s decade. As of the start of 1844, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.

In the Philippines, it was the only leap year with 365 days, as December 31 was skipped when 1845 began after December 30.


In botany and dendrology, a rhizome (/ˈraɪzoʊm/; from Ancient Greek  ῥίζωμα (rhízōma) 'mass of roots', from  ῥιζόω (rhizóō) 'cause to strike root') is a modified subterranean plant stem that sends out roots and shoots from its nodes. Rhizomes are also called creeping rootstalks or just rootstalks. Rhizomes develop from axillary buds and grow horizontally. The rhizome also retains the ability to allow new shoots to grow upwards.
A rhizome is the main stem of the plant that runs underground horizontally. A stolon is similar to a rhizome, but a stolon sprouts from an existing stem, has long internodes, and generates new shoots at the end, such as in the strawberry plant. In general, rhizomes have short internodes, send out roots from the bottom of the nodes, and generate new upward-growing shoots from the top of the nodes.
A stem tuber is a thickened part of a rhizome or stolon that has been enlarged for use as a storage organ. In general, a tuber is high in starch, e.g. the potato, which is a modified stolon. The term "tuber" is often used imprecisely and is sometimes applied to plants with rhizomes.
If a rhizome is separated each piece may be able to give rise to a new plant. The plant uses the rhizome to store starches, proteins, and other nutrients. These nutrients become useful for the plant when new shoots must be formed or when the plant dies back for the winter. This is a process known as vegetative reproduction and is used by farmers and gardeners to propagate certain plants. This also allows for lateral spread of grasses like bamboo and bunch grasses. Examples of plants that are propagated this way include hops, asparagus, ginger, irises, lily of the valley, cannas, and sympodial orchids.
Stored rhizomes are subject to bacterial and fungal infections, making them unsuitable for replanting and greatly diminishing stocks. However, rhizomes can also be produced artificially from tissue cultures. The ability to easily grow rhizomes from tissue cultures leads to better stocks for replanting and greater yields. The plant hormones ethylene and jasmonic acid have been found to help induce and regulate the growth of rhizomes, specifically in rhubarb. Ethylene that was applied externally was found to affect internal ethylene levels, allowing easy manipulations of ethylene concentrations. Knowledge of how to use these hormones to induce rhizome growth could help farmers and biologists to produce plants grown from rhizomes, and more easily cultivate and grow better plants.
Some plants have rhizomes that grow above ground or that lie at the soil surface, including some Iris species, and ferns, whose spreading stems are rhizomes. Plants with underground rhizomes include gingers, bamboo, snake plant, the Venus flytrap, Chinese lantern, western poison-oak, hops, and Alstroemeria, and the weeds Johnson grass, Bermuda grass, and purple nut sedge. Rhizomes generally form a single layer, but in giant horsetails, can be multi-tiered.
Many rhizomes have culinary value, and some, such as zhe'ergen, are commonly consumed raw. Some rhizomes that are used directly in cooking include ginger, turmeric, galangal, fingerroot, and lotus.


1743 (MDCCXLIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar, the 1743rd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 743rd  year of the 2nd millennium, the 43rd  year of the 18th century, and the  4th   year of the 1740s decade. As of the start of 1743, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


July 3 – As a concession to Russia, Sweden's parliament ratifies the election of Adolphus Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp, a great-grandson of King Charles XI, to be heir to the throne of Sweden.  Adolphus becomes king on the death of King Frederick on April 5, 1751, marking the end of the Hesse-Kassel dynasty and the start of the dynasty of the Holstein-Gottorp that will rule Sweden from 1751 to 1818
July 13 – All 276 people on board the Dutch East India Company ship Hollandia drown after the ship strikes a rock off of the Isles of Scilly in England near Cornwall. The wreckage is located in 1971.
July 20 – Lord Anson captures the Philippine galleon Nuestra Señora de Covadonga and its treasure of 1,313,843 Spanish dollars at Manila along with a treasure of 2 1/2 million dollars, and proceeds back toward Mexico, then returns to Britain in 1744
July 23 – James Oglethorpe departs from Georgia to England and returns there in September.
July 28 – France and the Allies of Britain conclude a treaty to provide care for each other's wounded.
July 31 – At a summit in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the British colonies of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania conclude a treaty with the Six Nations, conceding that the member tribes are entitled to the territory west of the Appalachian mountains and north of the Ohio River.
August 18  (August 7 Old Style) – Russia and Sweden sign the Treaty of Åbo.
August 24 – The War of the Hats: The Swedish army surrendered to the Russians in Helsinki, ending the war and starting Lesser Wrath.
August 27 – Henry Pelham becomes Prime Minister of Great Britain.
September 11 – Russian noble Natalia Lopukhina is flogged in front of the Twelve Collegia building in Saint Petersburg, bringing a conclusion to the "Lopukhina Affair" plotted by France and the Duchy of Holstein.
September 13 – The Treaty of Worms is signed between Great Britain, Austria and Sardinia.


January 1 – The Verendrye brothers, probably Louis-Joseph and François de La Vérendrye, become the first white persons to see the Rocky Mountains from the eastern side   (the Spanish conquistadors had seen the Rockies from the west side).
January 8 – King Augustus III of Poland, acting in his capacity as Elector of Saxony, signs an agreement with Austria pledging help in war in return for part of Silesia to be conveyed to Saxony.
January 12
The Verendryes, and two members of the Mandan Indian tribe, reach the foot of the mountains, near the site of what is now Helena, Montana.
An earthquake strikes the Philippines
January 16 –Cardinal André-Hercule de Fleury turns his effects over to King Louis XV of France, 13 days before his death on January 29.
January 23 –With mediation by France, Sweden and Russia begin peace negotiations at Åbo to end the Russo-Swedish War.  By August 17, Sweden cedes all of its claims to southern Finland.
February 21 – George Frideric Handel's oratorio, Samson, premieres in London.
March 2 – A British expeditionary fleet under Sir Charles Knowles is defeated by the Spanish in the Battle of La Guaira.


May 2 – Peter and the Wolf, a Russian fairy tale of Sergei Prokofiev's composition, debuts at the Nezlobin Theater in Moscow, Soviet Union.
May 5 – March of the Iron Will: Italian forces occupy Addis Ababa unopposed.
May 7 – Italy annexes Ethiopia.
May 9 – Italian East Africa is formed from the Italian territories of Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Italian Somaliland.
May 12 – The Santa Fe railroad in the United States inaugurates the all-Pullman Super Chief passenger train, between Chicago and Los Angeles.
May 25 – The Remington Rand strike of 1936–37 begins, spawning the notorious Mohawk Valley formula, a corporate plan for strikebreaking.
May 27 – British luxury liner RMS Queen Mary leaves Southampton on her maiden voyage across the Atlantic.
June 7 – The general strike in France is ended by the Matignon Agreements.
June 15 – An army ammunition depot explosion kills 63 people in Männiku, Estonia.
June 19 – Max Schmeling knocks out Joe Louis in the 12th round of their heavyweight boxing match, at Yankee Stadium in New York City.
June 19 – Per Albin Hansson resigns as Prime Minister of Sweden, over the issue of defence policy. He is replaced by the leader of the Farmer's League (Bondeförbundet) Axel Pehrsson-Bramstorp, who also becomes Minister of Agriculture.
June 19 – The total solar eclipse of June 19, 1936 is visible in Greece, Turkey, Russia and Japan. It is part of Solar Saros 126; Gamma is a value of 0.53889.
June 26 – Focke-Wulf Fw 61, the first fully controllable helicopter, makes its maiden flight.


March 1 – Construction of Hoover Dam is completed in the United States.
March 7 – In violation of the Treaty of Versailles and Locarno Treaties, Nazi Germany reoccupies the Rhineland. Hitler and other Nazis later admit that the French army alone could have destroyed the Wehrmacht.
March 9 – Pro-democratic militarist Keisuke Okada steps down as Prime Minister of Japan, and is replaced by radical militarist Kōki Hirota.
March 15 – Austrian ski jumper Josef Bradl set the world record at 101.5 metres (333 ft) on Bloudkova velikanka hill in Planica and became the first man in history, to stand jump over one hundred metres.
April 5 – A tornado hits Tupelo, Mississippi, killing 216 people and injuring over 700 (the 4th deadliest tornado in U.S. history).
April 15 – The Tulkarm shooting begins the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine against the British government, and opposition to Jewish immigration.


West China Famine: An estimated five million people die.
Nestlé introduce the white chocolate Milkybar (called Galak in Continental Europe and elsewhere).


The term calcareous can be applied to a sediment, sedimentary rock, or soil type which is formed from, or contains a high proportion of, calcium carbonate in the form of calcite or aragonite.


The term is used in pathology, for example in calcareous conjunctivitis, and when referring to calcareous metastasis or calcareous deposits, which may both be removed surgically.


Calcareous soils are relatively alkaline, in other words they have a high pH. This is because of the very weak acidity of carbonic acid. Note that this is not the only reason for a high soil pH. They are characterized by the presence of calcium carbonate in the parent material and may have a calcic horizon, a layer of secondary accumulation of carbonates (usually calcium or Mg) in excess of 15% calcium carbonate equivalent and at least 5% more carbonate than an underlying layer.


Calcareous grassland is a form of grassland characteristic of soils containing much calcium carbonate from underlying chalk or limestone rock.


Calcareous (/kælˈkɛəriəs/) is an adjective meaning "mostly or partly composed of calcium carbonate", in other words, containing lime or being chalky. The term is  used in a wide variety of scientific disciplines.


Calcareous sediments are usually deposited in shallow water near land, since the carbonate is precipitated by marine organisms that need land-derived nutrients. Generally speaking, the farther from land sediments fall, the less calcareous they are. Some areas can have interbedded calcareous sediments due to storms, or changes in ocean currents.
Calcareous ooze is a form of calcium carbonate derived from planktonic organisms that accumulates on the sea floor. This can only occur if the ocean is shallower than the carbonate compensation depth (CCD). Below this depth, calcium carbonate begins to dissolve in the ocean, and only non-calcareous sediments are stable, such as siliceous ooze or pelagic red clay.


March 1 - Eskom, the largest electricity producer in Africa, is established in South Africa.
March 6 – The Egyptian Feminist Union (Arabic: الاتحاد النسائي المصري), the first nationwide feminist movement in Egypt, is founded at the home of activist Huda Sha'arawi.
March 9 – Vladimir Lenin suffers his third stroke, which renders him bedridden and unable to speak; consequently he retires from his position as Chairman of the Soviet government.
March 17 – Dobrolyot is formed as the first Soviet civil aviation service; it will become part of flag carrier Aeroflot.
March 28 – Regia Aeronautica, the air force of Fascist Italy, is founded.
April 6 – The first Prefects Board in Southeast Asia is formed, in Victoria Institution, Federated Malay States.
April 12 – The Kandersteg International Scout Centre comes into existence in Switzerland.
April 19
Hjalmar Branting leaves office as Prime Minister of Sweden, after the Swedish Riksdag has rejected a government proposal regarding unemployment benefits. Right-wing academic and jurist Ernst Trygger succeeds him.
The Egyptian Constitution of 1923 is adopted, introducing a parliamentary system of democracy in the country.
April 23 – The Gdynia seaport is inaugurated, on the Polish Corridor.
April 26 – Prince Albert, Duke of York (later George VI, King of the United Kingdom) marries Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (later Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother) in Westminster Abbey.
April 28 – The original Wembley Stadium in London, England, opens its doors to the public for the first time, staging the FA Cup Final between Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United.


January 9 – Lithuania begins the Klaipėda Revolt to annex the Klaipėda Region (Memel Territory).
January 11 – Despite strong British protests, troops from France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr area, to force Germany to make reparation payments.
January 17 (or 9) – First flight of the first rotorcraft, Juan de la Cierva's Cierva C.4 autogyro, in Spain. (It is first demonstrated to the military on January 31.)
February 5 – Australian cricketer Bill Ponsford makes 429 runs to break the world record for the highest first-class cricket score for the first time in his third match at this level, at Melbourne Cricket Ground, giving the Victoria cricket team an innings total of 1,059.
February 9 – Billy Hughes, having resigned as Prime Minister of Australia, after the Country Party refuses to govern in coalition with him as the leader of the Nationalist Party, is succeeded by Stanley Bruce. A Liberal–National Coalition will persist in the politics of Australia for at least 95 years.
February 23 - The American Law Institute is incorporated in the United States.


November 1
The Finnish flag carrier airline Finnair is started, as Aero oy.
The 1923 Victorian Police strike begins in Australia, with half of the Victoria Police force standing down over the use of labor spies. Rioting and looting take place in Melbourne city centre.
November 8 – Beer Hall Putsch: In Munich, Adolf Hitler leads the Nazis in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the Bavarian government; police and troops crush the attempt the next day. 20 people die as a result of associated violence.
November 11 – Adolf Hitler is arrested for his leading role in the Beer Hall Putsch.
November 12 – Her Highness Princess Maud of Fife marries Captain Charles Alexander Carnegie, in Wellington Barracks, London.
November 15 – Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic: Hyperinflation in Germany reaches its height. One United States dollar is worth 4,200,000,000,000 Papiermark (4.2 trillion on the short scale). Gustav Stresemann abolishes the old currency and replaces it with the Rentenmark, at an exchange rate of one Rentenmark to 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion on the short scale) Papiermark (effective November 20).
November 23 – Gustav Stresemann's coalition government collapses in Germany.
December 1 – In Italy, the Gleno Dam on the Gleno River, in the Valle di Scalve in the northern province of Bergamo bursts, killing at least 356 people.
December 6 –
1923 United Kingdom general election: The governing Conservatives under Stanley Baldwin are reduced to a minority status, with the Labour party gaining second party status.
Calvin Coolidge addresses Congress in the first radio broadcast from a U.S. President.
December 21 – The Nepal–Britain Treaty is the first to define the international status of Nepal as an independent sovereign country.
December 27 – The crown prince of Japan survives an assassination attempt in Tokyo.
December 29 – Vladimir K. Zworykin files his first patent (in the United States) for "television systems".


May 9
Southeastern Michigan receives a record 15 centimetres (5.9 in) of snow, after temperatures plummeted from 17 to 1 degrees between 1 and 6 pm on the previous day.
The premiere of Bertolt Brecht's play In the Jungle (Im Dickicht), at the Residenztheater in Munich, is interrupted by Nazi demonstrators.
May 20 – British Prime Minister Bonar Law resigns, due to ill health.
May 23
Stanley Baldwin is appointed British Prime Minister.
Belgium's Sabena Airlines is created.
May 24 – The Irish Civil War ends.
May 26 – The first 24 Hours of Le Mans motor race is held, and is won by André Lagache and René Léonard.
May 27 – The Ku Klux Klan in the United States defies a law requiring publication of its membership.
June 9 – A military coup in Bulgaria ousts prime minister Aleksandar Stamboliyski (he is killed June 14).
June 12 – William Walton's Façade is performed for the first time, in London.
June 13 – President Li Yuanhong of China abandons his residence because a warlord has commanded forces to surround the mansion and cut off its water and electric supplies in order to force him to abandon his post.
June 16 – The storming of Ayan, Siberia concludes the Yakut Revolt and the Russian Civil War.
June 18 – Mount Etna erupts in Italy, making 60,000 homeless.


July 10 – Large hailstones kill 23 people in Rostov, Soviet Union.
July 13
The Hollywood Sign is inaugurated in California (originally reading Hollywoodland).
American explorer Roy Chapman Andrews discovers the first dinosaur eggs near Flaming Cliffs, Mongolia.
July 20 – Pancho Villa is assassinated at Hidalgo del Parral, Chihuahua.
July 24 – The Treaty of Lausanne (1923), settling the boundaries of the modern Republic of Turkey, is signed in Switzerland by Greece, Bulgaria and other countries that fought in the First World War, bringing an end to the Ottoman Empire after 624 years.
July – Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic (Germany) has seen the number of marks needed to purchase a single American dollar reach 353,000 – more than 200 times the amount needed at the start of the year.
August 3 – Vice President Calvin Coolidge is sworn in as the 30th President of the United States as a result of the sudden death of President Warren G. Harding in San Francisco a day earlier.
August 13
The first major seagoing ship arrives at Gdynia, the newly constructed Polish seaport.
Gustav Stresemann is named Chancellor of Germany, and founds a coalition government for the Weimar Republic, where hyperinflation means that more than 4,600,000 marks are now needed to buy a single American dollar.
August 18 – The first British Track & Field championships for women are held in London.
August 30 – Hurricane season begins, with a tropical storm northeast of the Turks and Caicos Islands.
August 31 – The Italian navy occupies Corfu, in retaliation for the murder of an Italian officer. The League of Nations protests, and the occupation ends on September 30.


2020 (MMXX) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2020th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 20th  year of the 3rd millennium and the 21st century, and the  1st   year of the 2020s decade.

2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global social and economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, worldwide lockdowns and the largest economic recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s. Geospatial World also called 2020 "the worst year in terms of climate change" in part due to major climate disasters worldwide, including major bushfires in Australia and the western United States, as well as extreme tropical cyclone activity affecting large parts of North America. A United Nations progress report published in December 2020 indicated that none of the international Sustainable Development Goals for 2020 were achieved. Time magazine used its fifth ever Red X cover to declare 2020 "the worst year ever", although the cover article itself did not go as far, instead saying "There have been worse years in U.S. history, and certainly worse years in world history, but most of us alive today have seen nothing like this one."
2020 was declared the "International Year of Plant Health" by the United Nations and "Year of the Nurse and Midwife" by the World Health Organization.


During the summer of 2020, the worst drought in almost a decade hits the Western, Midwestern and Northeastern United States.


Many groups of species have been separated from Asplenium as segregate genera. These include Camptosorus, Ceterach, Phyllitis, and Tarachia, but these species can form hybrids with other Asplenium species and because of this are usually included in a more broadly defined Asplenium.
Some of the older classifications elevate the Aspleniaceae to the taxonomic rank of order as Aspleniales. The newer classifications place it in the subordinal group called eupolypods within the order Polypodiales. Within the eupolypods, Aspleniaceae belongs to a clade informally and provisionally known as eupolypods II.
It has been found that in some species, the chloroplast genome has evolved in complex and highly unusual ways. This makes standard cladistic analyses unsuited to resolve the phylogeny of that particular group of ferns, and even very sophisticated computational phylogenetics methods yield little information. In addition to hybridization running rampant in parts of this genus, there are also some species like the mother spleenwort (A. bulbiferum) or A. viviparum which mainly reproduce asexually, essentially cloning themselves over and over again. While most are diploid or tetraploid, some species (e.g. A. shuttleworthianum) are octoploid.


Asplenium is a genus of about 700 species of ferns, often treated as the only genus in the family Aspleniaceae, though other authors consider Hymenasplenium separate, based on molecular phylogenetic analysis of DNA sequences, a different chromosome count, and structural differences in the rhizomes. The type species for the genus is Asplenium marinum.
The most common vernacular name is spleenworts, applied to the more "typical" species. A. nidus and several similar species are called bird's-nest ferns, the Camptosorus group is known as walking ferns, and distinct names are applied to some other particularly well-known species.


There are various definitions of Northern Europe which often include the British Isles, the Nordic countries and the Baltic states and sometimes Greenland, northern Germany, northern Belarus and northwest Russia.


The northern region of Europe has several definitions. A restrictive definiton may describe Northern Europe as being roughly north of the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, which is about 54°N, or may be based on other geographical factors such as climate and ecology.
During the Early Middle Ages, the Roman Catholic Church expanded into Northern Europe and spread Christianity among the Germanic peoples. Christianity reached the peoples of Scandinavia and the Baltic region in later centuries. The Latin alphabet along with the influence of Western Christianity spread northward from Rome, leading to written English, German, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, Latvian, Estonian, Finnish and Sami languages. During the Protestant Reformation, which began in Northern Europe according to some looser definitions of the region, Protestantism was embraced in Northern Europe to an extent unseen in other parts of Europe,  and the vast majority of Northern European countries, by any definition, are mostly Protestant historically.


EuroVoc is a multilingual thesaurus maintained by the Publications Office of the European Union, giving definitions of terms for official use. In the definition of "Northern Europe", the following countries are included:
Estonia
Latvia
Lithuania
Denmark
Finland
Iceland
Norway
Sweden
as well as the dependent area:
Faroe Islands
In this classification Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, the United Kingdom and Ireland are included in Western Europe.


The World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions is a biogeographical system developed by the international Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) organization, formerly the International Working Group on Taxonomic Databases. The WGSRPD standards, like other standards for data fields in botanical databases, were developed to promote "the wider and more effective dissemination of information about the world's heritage of biological organisms for the benefit of the world at large". The system provides clear definitions and codes for recording plant distributions at four scales or levels, from "botanical continents" down to parts of large countries. The following countries are included in their classification of "Northern Europe":
Denmark
Finland
Iceland
Ireland
Norway
Sweden
United Kingdom
as well as the dependent areas:
Åland
Faroe Islands
Isle of Man
Jan Mayen
Svalbard


Northern Europe might be defined roughly to include some or all of the following areas: British Isles, Fennoscandia, the peninsula of Jutland, the Baltic plain that lies to the east and the many islands that lie offshore from mainland Northern Europe and the main European continent. In some cases, Greenland is also included, although it is only politically European, comprising part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and not considered to be geographically in Europe.
The area is partly mountainous, including the northern volcanic islands of Iceland and Jan Mayen, and the mountainous western seaboard, Scotland and Scandinavia, and also often includes part of the large plain east of the Baltic sea.
The entire region's climate is at least mildly affected by the Gulf Stream. From the west climates vary from maritime and maritime subarctic climates. In the north and central climates are generally subarctic or Arctic and to the east climates are mostly subarctic and temperate/continental.
Just as both climate and relief are variable across the region, so too is vegetation, with sparse tundra in the north and high mountains, boreal forest on the north-eastern and central regions temperate coniferous forests (formerly of which a majority was in the Scottish Highlands and south west Norway) and temperate broadleaf forests growing in the south, west and temperate east.


While the eastern geographical boundaries of Europe are well defined, the boundary between Eastern and Western Europe is not geographical but historical, religious and cultural and is harder to designate.
The Ural Mountains, Ural River, and the Caucasus Mountains are the geographical land border of the eastern edge of Europe. E.g. Kazakhstan, which is mainly located in Central Asia with the most western parts of it located west of the Ural River also shares a part of Eastern Europe.
In the west, however, the historical and cultural boundaries of "Eastern Europe" are subject to some overlap and, most importantly, have undergone historical fluctuations, which makes a precise definition of the western geographic boundaries of Eastern Europe and the geographical midpoint of Europe somewhat difficult.


The parts of Eastern Europe which remained Eastern Orthodox was dominated by Byzantine cultural influence; after the East–West Schism in 1054, significant parts of Eastern Europe developed cultural unity and resistance to the Catholic (and later also Protestant) Western Europe within the framework of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Church Slavonic language and the Cyrillic alphabet.
Western Europe according to this point of view is formed by countries with dominant Roman Catholic and Protestant churches (including Central European countries such as Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia).
A large part of Eastern Europe is formed by countries with dominant Orthodox churches, like Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Russia, Serbia, and Ukraine, for instance. The Eastern Orthodox Church has played a prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe.
The schism is the break of communion and theology between what are now the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Roman Catholic from the 11th century, as well as from the 16th century also Protestant) churches. This division dominated Europe for centuries, in opposition to the rather short-lived Cold War division of four decades.
Since the Great Schism of 1054, Europe has been divided between Roman Catholic (and later additionally Protestant) churches in the West, and the Eastern Orthodox Christian (often incorrectly labelled "Greek Orthodox") churches in the east. Due to this religious cleavage, Eastern Orthodox countries are often associated with Eastern Europe. A cleavage of this sort is, however, often problematic; for example, Greece is overwhelmingly Orthodox, but is very rarely included in "Eastern Europe", for a variety of reasons, the most prominent being that Greece's history, for the most part, was more influenced by Mediterranean cultures and contact.


Eastern Europe is an ambiguous term that refers to the eastern portions of the European continent. There is no consistent definition of the precise area it covers, partly because the term has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural, and socio-economic connotations. Russia, a transcontinental country with around 23 percent of its landmass situated in Eastern Europe, is the largest European country by area, spanning roughly 40 percent of Europe's total landmass; it is also the most populous European country, with the majority of its citizens residing in its European portion and consequently comprising over 15 percent of the continent's population.
According to the Center for Educational Technologies at Wheeling University in the United States, there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"; a related paper published by the United Nations adds that "every assessment of spatial identities is essentially a social and cultural construct".
One prominent definition describes Eastern Europe as an entity representing a significant part of European culture: the region of Europe with its main socio-cultural characteristics consisting of Slavic and Greek traditions as well as the influence of Eastern Christianity, historically developed through the post-split Eastern Roman Empire; and, to a lesser extent, Ottoman-era Turkish influence. Another definition was created during the Cold War and used more or less alike with the geopolitical term Eastern Bloc. Similarly, an alternative definition of the same era designates the then-communist European states outside of the former Soviet Union as comprising Eastern Europe. Such definitions are often seen as outdated since the end of the Cold War in 1991, but are still sometimes used for statistical purposes or in colloquial discussions.


Wyoming (/waɪˈoʊmɪŋ/ (listen)) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. The 10th largest state by area, it is the least densely populated state in the contiguous United States.
Wyoming is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the south. Its population was 576,851 in the 2020 United States census, making it the least populous state. The state capital and most populous city is Cheyenne, which had an estimated population of 63,957 in 2018.
Wyoming's western half is covered mostly by the ranges and rangelands of the Rocky Mountains, while the eastern half of the state is high-elevation prairie called the High Plains. It is drier and windier than the rest of the country, being split between semi-arid and continental climates with greater temperature extremes. Almost half of the land in Wyoming is owned by the federal government, generally protected for public uses. The state ranks 6th by area and fifth by proportion of a state's land owned by the federal government. Federal lands include two national parks (Grand Teton and Yellowstone), two national recreation areas, two national monuments, several national forests, historic sites, fish hatcheries, and wildlife refuges.
Indigenous peoples inhabited the region for thousands of years. Historic and current federally recognized tribes include the Arapaho, Crow, Lakota, and Shoshone. During European exploration, the Spanish Empire was the first to "claim" Southern Wyoming. With Mexican independence, it became part of that republic. After defeat in the Mexican–American War, Mexico ceded this territory to the U.S. in 1848.
The region was named "Wyoming" in a bill introduced to Congress in 1865 to provide a temporary government for the territory of Wyoming. It had been used earlier by colonists for the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania, and is derived from the Lenape language Munsee word xwé:wamənk, meaning "at the big river flat".
Bills for Wyoming Territory's admission to the union were introduced in both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives in December 1889. On March 27, 1890, the House passed the bill and President Benjamin Harrison signed Wyoming's statehood bill; Wyoming became the 44th state in the union.
Historically, European Americans farmed and ranched here, with shepherds and cattle ranchers in conflict over lands. Today Wyoming's economy is largely based on tourism and the extraction of minerals such as coal, natural gas, oil, and trona. Agricultural commodities include barley, hay, livestock, sugar beets, wheat, and wool. It was the first state to allow women the right to vote and the right to assume elected office, as well as the first state to elect a female governor. Due to this part of its history, its main nickname is "The Equality State" and its official state motto is "Equal Rights". It has been a politically conservative state since the 1950s. The Republican presidential nominee has carried the state in every election since 1968.


Wyoming has 32 named islands; the majority are in Jackson Lake and Yellowstone Lake, within Yellowstone National Park in the northwest portion of the state. The Green River in the southwest also contains a number of islands.


As specified in the designating legislation for the Territory of Wyoming, Wyoming's borders are lines of latitude 41°N and 45°N, and longitude 104°3'W and 111°3'W (27 and 34 west of the Washington Meridian)—a geodesic quadrangle. Wyoming is one of only three states (the others being Colorado and Utah) to have borders defined by only "straight" lines. Due to surveying inaccuracies during the 19th century, Wyoming's legal border deviates from the true latitude and longitude lines by up to half of a mile (0.8 km) in some spots, especially in the mountainous region along the 45th parallel. Wyoming is bordered on the north by Montana, on the east by South Dakota and Nebraska, on the south by Colorado, on the southwest by Utah, and on the west by Idaho. It is the tenth largest state in the United States in total area, containing 97,814 square miles (253,340 km²) and is made up of 23 counties. From the north border to the south border it is 276 miles (444 km); and from the east to the west border is 365 miles (587 km) at its south end and 342 miles (550 km) at the north end.


The Great Plains meet the Rocky Mountains in Wyoming. The state is a great plateau broken by many mountain ranges. Surface elevations range from the summit of Gannett Peak in the Wind River Mountain Range, at 13,804 feet (4,207 m), to the Belle Fourche River valley in the state's northeast corner, at 3,125 feet (952 m). In the northwest are the Absaroka, Owl Creek, Gros Ventre, Wind River, and the Teton ranges. In the north central are the Big Horn Mountains; in the northeast, the Black Hills; and in the southern region the Laramie, Snowy, and Sierra Madre ranges.
The Snowy Range in the south central part of the state is an extension of the Colorado Rockies both in geology and in appearance. The Wind River Range in the west central part of the state is remote and includes more than 40 mountain peaks in excess of 13,000 ft (4,000 m) tall in addition to Gannett Peak, the highest peak in the state. The Big Horn Mountains in the north central portion are somewhat isolated from the bulk of the Rocky Mountains.
The Teton Range in the northwest extends for 50 miles (80 km), part of which is included in Grand Teton National Park. The park includes the Grand Teton, the second highest peak in the state.
The Continental Divide spans north–south across the central portion of the state. Rivers east of the divide drain into the Missouri River Basin and eventually the Gulf of Mexico. They are the North Platte, Wind, Big Horn and the Yellowstone rivers. The Snake River in northwest Wyoming eventually drains into the Columbia River and the Pacific Ocean, as does the Green River through the Colorado River Basin.
The Continental Divide forks in the south central part of the state in an area known as the Great Divide Basin where water that precipitates onto or flows into it cannot reach an ocean—it all sinks into the soil and eventually evaporates.
Several rivers begin in or flow through the state, including the Yellowstone River, Bighorn River, Green River, and the Snake River.


The state of Wyoming has 23 counties.
Wyoming license plates have a number on the left that indicates the county where the vehicle is registered, ranked by an earlier census. Specifically, the numbers are representative of the property values of the counties in 1930. The county license plate numbers are:


Wyoming's climate is generally semi-arid and continental (Köppen climate classification BSk), and is drier and windier in comparison to most of the United States with greater temperature extremes. Much of this is due to the topography of the state. Summers in Wyoming are warm with July high temperatures averaging between 80 and 90 °F (27 and 32 °C) in most of the state. With increasing elevation, however, this average drops rapidly with locations above 9,000 feet (2,700 m) averaging around 70 °F (21 °C). Summer nights throughout the state are characterized by a rapid cooldown with even the hottest locations averaging in the 50–60 °F (10–16 °C) range at night. In most of the state, most of the precipitation tends to fall in the late spring and early summer. Winters are cold, but are variable with periods of sometimes extreme cold interspersed between generally mild periods, with Chinook winds providing unusually warm temperatures in some locations.
Wyoming is a dry state with much of the land receiving less than 10 inches (250 mm) of rainfall per year. Precipitation depends on elevation with lower areas in the Big Horn Basin averaging 5–8 inches (130–200 mm), making the area nearly a true desert. The lower areas in the North and on the eastern plains typically average around 10–12 inches (250–300 mm), making the climate there semi-arid. Some mountain areas do receive a good amount of precipitation, 20 inches (510 mm) or more, much of it as snow, sometimes 200 inches (510 cm) or more annually. The state's highest recorded temperature is 114 °F (46 °C) at Basin on July 12, 1900, and the lowest recorded temperature is −66 °F (−54 °C) at Riverside on February 9, 1933.
The number of thunderstorm days vary across the state with the southeastern plains of the state having the most days of thunderstorm activity. Thunderstorm activity in the state is highest during the late spring and early summer. The southeastern corner of the state is the most vulnerable part of the state to tornado activity. Moving away from that point and westwards, the incidence of tornadoes drops dramatically with the west part of the state showing little vulnerability. Tornadoes, where they occur, tend to be small and brief, unlike some of those that occur farther east.


The Mojave Desert was likely under shallow water for most of the time of its formation. Under this shallow coat of water, a large volume of sedimentary processes were likely taking place, causing in large deposits of limestones, silicates, and dolomites. During the Paleozoic Era, the area that is now the Mojave was again likely submerged under a greater sea. During the Mesozoic era, major tectonic activities such as thrust faulting and folding resulted in distinctive shaping as well as intrusion. During the Cenozoic, more tectonic deformation occurred whilst the Mojave was partly submerged. Major volcanic activity is thought to have occurred during the Oligocene. Large downpours during the Miocene likely significantly eroded the rock in the Mojave and accelerated deposition.


The Mojave Desert is bordered by the San Andreas fault to the Southwest and the Garlock fault to the North. The mountains elevated along the length of the San Andreas fault provide a clear border between the Mojave desert and the coastal regions to the West. The Garlock fault separates the Mojave Desert from the Sierra Nevada and Tehachapi mountains, which provides a natural border to the Mojave Desert. There are also abundant alluvial fans, which are called bajadas, that form around the mountains within the Mojave desert and extend down toward the low altitude basins, which contain dried lake beds called playas, where water generally collects and evaporates, leaving large volumes of salt. These playas include Rogers Dry Lake, and China Lake. Dry lakes are a noted feature of the Mojave landscape. The Mojave Desert is also home to the Devils Playground, about 40 miles (64 km) of dunes and salt flats going in a northwest-southeasterly direction. The Devil's Playground is a part of the Mojave National Preserve and is between the town of Baker, California and Providence Mountains. The Cronese Mountains are within the Devil's Playground.
Relatively, there is not much riverine activity in the Mojave Desert. The intermittent Mojave River, which begins on the San Bernardino mountains and disappears deeper into the Mojave Desert flows through the Mojave generally underground. The Amargosa River also flows partly through the Mojave Desert along a southward path. The Manix, Mojave, and the Little Mojave lakes are all large but shallow. Soda Lake is the principal saline basine of the Mojave desert. Natural springs are typically rare throughout the Mojave desert, however, there are two notable springs, Ash Meadows, and Oasis Valley. Ash Meadows is formed from several other springs, which all draw from deep underground. Oasis Valley draws from the nearby Amargosa River.
The Mojave Desert is also a source of various minerals and metallic materials. Due to the climate, there is accumulation of weathered bedrock, fine sand and silt, both sand and silt sediments becoming converted into colluvium. The deposits of gold, tungsten, and silver have been mined frequently prior to the Second World War. Additionally, there have been deposits of copper, tin, lead-zinc, manganese, iron, and various radioactive substances but they have not been mined for commercial use.


In recent years, human development in the Mojave desert has become increasingly present. Human development at the major urban and suburban centers of Las Vegas and Los Angeles has had an increasingly damaging effect on the wildlife of the Mojave Desert. An added demand for landfill space as a result of the large metropolitan centers of Las Vegas and Los Angeles also has the real potential to drastically affect the flora and fauna of the Mojave Desert. Agricultural development along the Colorado river, which is close to the Eastern boundary of the Mojave Desert also causes habitat loss and degradation. Areas that are particularly affected by human development include Ward Valley and Riverside county. The United States military also maintains installations in the Mojave Desert, making the Mojave a critical training location for the United States Department of Defense.


The Mojave Desert (/moʊˈhɑːvi, mə-/ moh-HAH-vee, mə-; Mohave: Hayikwiir Mat'aar; Spanish: Desierto de Mojave) is a xeric desert in the rain shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountains in the Southwestern United States. It is named for the indigenous Mojave people. It is located primarily in southeastern California and southwestern Nevada, with small portions extending into Arizona and Utah.
The Mojave Desert, together with the Sonoran, Chihuahuan, and Great Basin deserts, forms a larger North American Desert. Of these, the Mojave is the smallest and driest. The Mojave Desert is bordered to the west by the Sierra Nevada mountain range and the California montane chaparral and woodlands, and to the south and east by the Sonoran Desert. The boundaries to the east of the Mojave Desert are less distinctive than the other boundaries because there is no presence of an indicator species, such as the Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia), which is endemic to the Mojave Desert. The Mojave Desert is distinguished from the Sonoran Desert and other deserts adjacent to it by its warm temperate climate, as well as flora and fauna such as ironwood (Olneya tesota), blue Palo Verde (Parkinsonia florida), chuparosa (Justicia californica), spiny menodora (Menodora spinescens), desert senna (Cassia armata), California dalea (Psorothamnus arborescens), and goldenhead (Acamptopappus shockleyi). Along with these other factors, these plants differentiate the Mojave from the nearby Sonoran desert. The Mojave Desert displays typical basin and range topography, generally having a pattern of a series of parallel mountain ranges and valleys. The Mojave Desert contains various silver, tungsten, iron and gold deposits. It is also the site of Death Valley, which is the lowest elevation in North America. The Mojave Desert is often colloquially called the "high desert", as most of it lies between 2,000 and 4,000 feet (610 and 1,220 m).
The spelling Mojave originates from the Spanish language while the spelling Mohave comes from modern English. Both are used today, although the Mojave Tribal Nation officially uses the spelling Mojave. Mojave is a shortened form of Hamakhaave, an endonym in their native language, which means "beside the water".


The Mojave Desert is one of the most popular spots for tourism in North America, primarily because of the gambling destination of Las Vegas. The Mojave is also known for its scenery, playing host to Death Valley National Park, Joshua Tree National Park, and the Mojave National Preserve. Lakes Mead, Mohave, and Havasu provide water sports recreation, and vast off-road areas entice off-road enthusiasts. The Mojave Desert also includes three California State Parks, the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, in Lancaster, Saddleback Butte State Park, in Hi Vista and Red Rock Canyon State Park. Mojave Narrows Park, operated by San Bernardino County, is a former ranch along the Mojave River.
Several attractions and natural features are in the Calico Mountains. Calico Ghost Town, in Yermo, is administered by San Bernardino County. The ghost town has several shops and attractions, and inspired Walter Knott to build Knott's Berry Farm. The Bureau of Land Management also administers Rainbow Basin and Owl Canyon. The Calico Early Man Site, in the Calico Hills east of Yermo, is believed by some archaeologists, including the late Louis Leakey, to show the earliest evidence with lithic stone tools found here of human activity in North America.


Most of Southern California has a Mediterranean-like climate, with warm and dry summers, mild and wet winters, where cool weather and freezing temperatures are rare. Southern California contains other types of climates, including semi-arid, desert and mountain, with infrequent rain and many sunny days. Summers are hot or warm, and dry, while winters are mild, and rainfall is low to moderate depending on the area. Although heavy rain can occur, it is unusual. This climatic pattern was alluded to in the hit song "It Never Rains (In Southern California)". While snow is very rare in lower elevations, mountains above 5,000 feet (1,500 m) receive plentiful snowfall in the winter.
Since the first decade of the 21st century, droughts and wildfires have increased in frequency as a result of climate change.


Within Southern California are two major cities, Los Angeles and San Diego, as well as three of the country's largest metropolitan areas. With a population of approximately 4 million, Los Angeles is the most populous city in California and the second most populous in the United States. South of Los Angeles and with a population of approximately 1.4 million is San Diego, the second most populous city in the state and the eighth most populous in the nation.
The counties of Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino are the five most populous in the state, and are among the top 15 most populous counties in the United States.
The motion picture, television and music industry are centered in the Los Angeles area in Southern California. Hollywood, a district of Los Angeles, gives its name to the American motion picture industry, which is synonymous with the neighborhood name. Headquartered in Southern California are The Walt Disney Company (which owns ABC), Sony Pictures, Universal Pictures, MGM, Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. Universal, Warner Bros. and Sony also run major record companies.
Southern California is also home to a large homegrown surf and skateboard culture. Companies such as Vans, Volcom, Quiksilver, No Fear, Stüssy, RVCA and Body Glove are all headquartered here. Skateboarder Tony Hawk; surfers Rob Machado, Timmy Curran, Bobby Martinez, Pat O'Connell, Dane Reynolds, and Chris Ward live in Southern California. Some of the most famous surf locations are in Southern California as well, including Trestles, Rincon, The Wedge, Huntington Beach and Malibu. Some of the world's largest action sports events, including the X Games, Boost Mobile Pro, and the U.S. Open of Surfing, are held in Southern California. The region is also important to the world of yachting with premier events including the annual Transpacific Yacht Race, or Transpac, from Los Angeles to Hawaii. The San Diego Yacht Club held the America's Cup, the most prestigious prize in yachting, from 1988 to 1995 and hosted three America's Cup races during that time. The first modern-era triathlon was held in San Diego's Mission Bay in 1974. Since then, Southern California, and San Diego in particular, have become a mecca for triathlon and multi-sport racing, products and culture.
Southern California is home to many sports franchises and sports networks such as Fox Sports Net.
Many locals and tourists frequent the Southern California coast for its beaches. Some of southern California's most popular beaches are Malibu, Laguna Beach, La Jolla, Manhattan Beach, and Hermosa Beach. Southern California is also known for its mountain resort communities, such as Big Bear Lake, Lake Arrowhead, and Wrightwood, and their ski resorts, like Bear Mountain, Snow Summit, Snow Valley Mountain Resort, and Mountain High. The inland desert city of Palm Springs is also popular.


Southern California is not a formal geographic designation, and definitions of what constitutes Southern California vary. Geographically, California's north–south midway point lies at exactly 37° 9' 58.23" latitude, around 11 miles (18 km) south of San Jose; however, this does not coincide with the popular use of the term. When the state is divided into two areas (Northern and Southern California), the term Southern California usually refers to the 10 southernmost counties of the state. This definition coincides neatly with the county lines at 35° 47′ 28″ North latitude, which form the northern borders of San Luis Obispo, Kern, and San Bernardino counties. That closely matches the lower one-third of California's span of latitude. Another definition for Southern California uses Point Conception and the Tehachapi Mountains as geographical landmarks for the northern boundary.
Though there is no official definition for the northern boundary of Southern California, such a division has existed from the time when Mexico ruled California and political disputes raged between the Californios of Monterey in the upper part and Los Angeles in the lower part of Alta California. Following the acquisition of California by the United States, the division continued as part of the attempt by several pro-slavery politicians to arrange the division of Alta California at 36 degrees, 30 minutes, the line of the Missouri Compromise. Instead, the passing of the Compromise of 1850 enabled California to be admitted to the Union as a free state, preventing the southern half California from becoming its own separate slave state.
Subsequently, Californians (dissatisfied with inequitable taxes and land laws) and pro-slavery Southerners in the lightly populated "cow counties" of southern California attempted three times in the 1850s to achieve a separate statehood or territorial status separate from Northern California. The last attempt, the Pico Act of 1859, was passed by the California State Legislature and signed by State Governor John B. Weller. It was approved overwhelmingly by nearly 75 percent of voters in the proposed Territory of Colorado. This territory was to include all the counties up to the then much larger Tulare County (that included what is now Kings, most of Kern, and part of Inyo counties) and San Luis Obispo County. The proposal was sent to Washington, D.C. with a strong advocate in Senator Milton Latham. However, the secession crisis following the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and the subsequent American Civil War led to the proposal never coming to a vote.
In 1900, the Los Angeles Times defined Southern California as including "the seven counties of Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Orange, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura and Santa Barbara." In 1999, the Times added a newer county, Imperial, to that list.
Southern California was the name of a proposed new state which failed to get on the 2018 California ballot. The ballot measure proposed splitting the existing state into three parts.
The state is most commonly divided and promoted by its regional tourism groups, consisting of northern, central, and southern California regions. The two American Automobile Association (AAA) Auto Clubs of the state, the California State Automobile Association, and the Automobile Club of Southern California, choose to simplify matters by dividing the state along the lines where their jurisdictions for membership apply, as either Northern or Southern California, in contrast to the three-region point of view. Another influence is the geographical phrase South of the Tehachapis, which would split the southern region off at the crest of that transverse range, but in that definition, the desert portions of north Los Angeles County and eastern Kern and San Bernardino Counties would be included in the Southern California region due to their remoteness from the central valley and interior desert landscape.
In December 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the state government led by Governor Gavin Newsom divided the state into five regions for the purpose of issuing stay-at-home orders. The Southern California region consists of the following counties: Imperial, Inyo, Los Angeles, Mono, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara and Ventura.


Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most populous urban agglomeration in the United States. The region generally contains ten of California's 58 counties: Imperial, Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Ventura counties.
The Colorado Desert and the Colorado River are located on Southern California's eastern border with Arizona, and San Bernardino County shares a border with Nevada to the northeast. Southern California's southern border with Baja California is part of the Mexico–United States border.


Southern California consists of a heavily developed urban environment, home to some of the largest urban areas in the state, along with vast areas that have been left undeveloped. It is the third most populated megalopolis in the United States, after the Great Lakes Megalopolis and the Northeast Megalopolis. Much of Southern California is famous for its large, spread-out, suburban communities and use of automobiles and highways. The dominant areas are Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, and Riverside-San Bernardino, each of which are the centers of their respective metropolitan areas, composed of numerous smaller cities and communities. The urban area is also host to an international San Diego–Tijuana metropolitan region, created by the urban area spilling over into Baja California.
Travelling south on Interstate 5, the main barrier to continued urbanization is Camp Pendleton. The cities and communities along Interstate 15 and Interstate 215 are so interrelated that Temecula and Murrieta have as much connection with the San Diego metropolitan area as they do with the Inland Empire. To the east, the United States Census Bureau considers the San Bernardino and Riverside County areas, Riverside-San Bernardino area as a separate metropolitan area from Los Angeles County. Newly developed exurbs formed in the Antelope Valley, north of Los Angeles, the Victor Valley, and the Coachella Valley with the Imperial Valley. Also, population growth was high in the Bakersfield-Kern County, Santa Maria and San Luis Obispo areas.


Southern California includes the heavily built-up urban area which stretches along the Pacific coast from Ventura through Greater Los Angeles down to Greater San Diego (the contiguous urban area in fact continuing into Tijuana, Mexico), and inland to the Inland Empire and Coachella Valley (Palm Springs area). It encompasses eight metropolitan areas (MSAs), three of which together form the Greater Los Angeles Combined Statistical Area (CSA) with over 18 million people, the second-biggest CSA after the New York CSA. These three MSAs are: the Los Angeles metropolitan area (Los Angeles and Orange counties, with 13.3 million people), the Inland Empire ((Riverside and San Bernardino counties, including the Coachella Valley cities, with 4.3 million people), and the Oxnard–Thousand Oaks–Ventura metropolitan area (0.8 million people). In addition, southern California contains the San Diego metropolitan area with 3.3 million people, Bakersfield metro area with 0.9 million, and the Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and El Centro (Imperial County) metropolitan areas.
The Southern California Megaregion (or megalopolis) is larger still, extending northeast into Las Vegas, Nevada and south across the Mexican border into Tijuana.


Southern California consists of one of the more varied collections of geologic, topographic, and natural ecosystem landscapes in a diversity outnumbering other major regions in the state and country. The region spans from Pacific Ocean islands, shorelines, beaches, and coastal plains, through the Transverse and Peninsular Ranges with their peaks, and into the large and small interior valleys, to the vast deserts of California.
Introductory categories include:
Category: Beaches of southern California
Category: Mountain ranges of Southern California
Category: Rivers of Southern California
Category: Deserts of California
Category: Parks in Southern California


The nucleobases are classified into two types: the purines, A and G, which are fused five- and six-membered heterocyclic compounds, and the pyrimidines, the six-membered rings C and T. A fifth pyrimidine nucleobase, uracil (U), usually takes the place of thymine in RNA and differs from thymine by lacking a methyl group on its ring. In addition to RNA and DNA, many artificial nucleic acid analogues have been created to study the properties of nucleic acids, or for use in biotechnology.


Deoxyribonucleic acid (/diːˈɒksɪˌraɪboʊnjuːˌkliːɪk, -ˌkleɪ-/ (listen); DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix carrying genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of all known organisms and many viruses. DNA and ribonucleic acid (RNA) are nucleic acids. Alongside proteins, lipids and complex carbohydrates (polysaccharides), nucleic acids are one of the four major types of macromolecules that are essential for all known forms of life.
The two DNA strands are known as polynucleotides as they are composed of simpler monomeric units called nucleotides. Each nucleotide is composed of one of four nitrogen-containing nucleobases (cytosine [C], guanine [G], adenine [A] or thymine [T]), a sugar called deoxyribose, and a phosphate group. The nucleotides are joined to one another in a chain by covalent bonds (known as the phospho-diester linkage) between the sugar of one nucleotide and the phosphate of the next, resulting in an alternating sugar-phosphate backbone. The nitrogenous bases of the two separate polynucleotide strands are bound together, according to base pairing rules (A with T and C with G), with hydrogen bonds to make double-stranded DNA. The complementary nitrogenous bases are divided into two groups, pyrimidines and purines. In DNA, the pyrimidines are thymine and cytosine; the purines are adenine and guanine.
Both strands of double-stranded DNA store the same biological information. This information is replicated when the two strands separate. A large part of DNA (more than 98% for humans) is non-coding, meaning that these sections do not serve as patterns for protein sequences. The two strands of DNA run in opposite directions to each other and are thus antiparallel. Attached to each sugar is one of four types of nucleobases (or bases). It is the sequence of these four nucleobases along the backbone that encodes genetic information. RNA strands are created using DNA strands as a template in a process called transcription, where DNA bases are exchanged for their corresponding bases except in the case of thymine (T), for which RNA substitutes uracil (U). Under the genetic code, these RNA strands specify the sequence of amino acids within proteins in a process called translation.
Within eukaryotic cells, DNA is organized into long structures called chromosomes. Before typical cell division, these chromosomes are duplicated in the process of DNA replication, providing a complete set of chromosomes for each daughter cell. Eukaryotic organisms (animals, plants, fungi and protists) store most of their DNA inside the cell nucleus as nuclear DNA, and some in the mitochondria as mitochondrial DNA or in chloroplasts as chloroplast DNA. In contrast, prokaryotes (bacteria and archaea) store their DNA only in the cytoplasm, in circular chromosomes. Within eukaryotic chromosomes, chromatin proteins, such as histones, compact and organize DNA. These compacting structures guide the interactions between DNA and other proteins, helping control which parts of the DNA are transcribed.


The name Tierra del Fuego was given by the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan while sailing for the Spanish Crown in 1520; he was the first European to visit these lands. He believed he was seeing the many fires (fuego in Spanish) of the Yaghan, which were visible from the sea, and that the "Indians" were waiting in the forests to ambush his armada.
In 1525, Francisco de Hoces was the first to speculate that Tierra del Fuego was one or more islands rather than part of what was then called Terra Australis. Francis Drake in 1578 and a Dutch East India Company expedition in 1616 learned more about the geography. The latter expedition named Cape Horn at Hornos Island.
On his first voyage with HMS Beagle in 1830, Robert FitzRoy picked up four native Fuegians, including "Jemmy Button" (Orundellico) and brought them to England. The three who survived the voyage were taken to London to meet the king and queen and were, for a time, celebrities. They returned to Tierra del Fuego in the Beagle with FitzRoy and Charles Darwin, who made extensive notes about his visit to the islands.


The geology of the archipelago is characterized by the effects of the Andean orogeny and the repeated Pleistocene glaciations. The geology of the island can be divided into large east–west-oriented units. The southwestern islands of the archipelago, including Cape Horn, are part of the South Patagonian Batholith, while Cordillera Darwin and the area around Beagle Channel form the principal cordillera hosting the highest mountains. The Magallanes fold and thrust belt extends north of Almirantazgo Fjord and Fagnano Lake, and north of this lies the Magallanes foreland, an old sedimentary basin that hosts hydrocarbon reserves. Orthogneiss dated at 525 million years is known to underlie some of the oil wells in northern Tierra del Fuego.
The Magallanes–Fagnano Fault, a sinistral strike slip fault crosses the southern part of the main island from west to east. It is an active fault, located inside and parallel to the Fuegian fold and thrust belt, and marks the boundary between a southern belt of Paleozoic meta sediments and a northern Mesozoic belt of sedimentary sequences. Fagnano Lake occupies a glacier-carved depression in a pull-apart basin that has developed along the Magallanes-Fagnano Fault zone.
Podzols and inceptisols occur beneath Nothofagus betuloides forests in Tierra del Fuego.


The archipelago consists of a main island, Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, often simply called Tierra del Fuego or Isla Grande, with an area of 48,100 km² (18,572 sq mi), and a group of smaller islands. Of the main island the westernmost 29,484.7 km² (11,384 sq mi, 61.43%) belongs to Chile, and 18,507.3 km² (7,146 sq mi, 38.57%) belongs to Argentina. The archipelago is divided by an east–west channel, the Beagle Channel, immediately south of the main island. The largest islands south of the Beagle Channel are Hoste and Navarino.
The western part of the main island, and almost all the other islands, belong to Chile. They are part of the Magallanes y Antártica Chilena Region, the capital and chief town of which is Punta Arenas, situated on the mainland across the strait. The largest Chilean towns are Porvenir, capital of the Chilean Province of Tierra del Fuego, located on the main island, and, on Navarino Island, Puerto Williams, which is the capital of the Antártica Chilena Province.
Puerto Toro lies a few kilometers south of Puerto Williams. Arguably, it is the southernmost village in the world. The mostly uninhabited islands north and west of the main island are part of Magallanes Province.
The eastern part of the main island and a few small islands in the Beagle Channel belong to Argentina. They are part of the Tierra del Fuego, Antarctic Territory and South Atlantic Islands Province, whose capital is Ushuaia, the largest city of the archipelago. The other important city in the region is Río Grande on the Atlantic coast.
The Cordillera Darwin in the southwestern part of the main island contains many glaciers that reach the ocean. While Mount Darwin had previously been thought to be the tallest mountain in the archipelago, this distinction now belongs to the unofficially named Monte Shipton at 2,580 metres (8,460 feet).
The topography of Tierra del Fuego can be divided into four regions: an outer archipelago region (Spanish: Región Archipielágica) to the south and west, a mountainous region in the south (Spanish: Región Cordillerana), a plains region (Spanish: Región de las Planicies Orientales) plus a sub-Andean zone in-between the last two zones (Spanish: Región Sub-Andina Oriental).


The Tierra del Fuego region has a subpolar oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification Cfc) with short, cool summers and long, wet, moderately mild winters: the precipitation averages 3,000 mm (118 in) a year in the far west, but precipitation decreases rapidly to the eastern side. Temperatures are steady throughout the year: in Ushuaia they hardly surpass 9 °C (48 °F) in summers and average 0 °C (32 °F) in winters. Snowfall can occur in summer. The cold and wet summers help preserve the ancient glaciers. The southernmost islands possess a sub-antarctic climate typical of tundra that makes the growth of trees impossible. Some areas in the interior have a polar climate. Regions in the world with similar climates to southern Tierra del Fuego are: the Aleutian islands, Iceland, the Alaska Peninsula, the Faroe Islands, Macquarie Island, and the Heard and McDonald Islands.


January 5 – The Treaty of the Dardanelles, between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Ottoman Empire, is concluded.
January 10 – Peninsular War – French Marshal Jean Lannes begins the Siege of Zaragoza.
January 16 –  Peninsular War – Battle of Corunna in Galicia (Spain): The  British (under General Sir John Moore, who is killed) resist an attempt by the French (under Marshal Soult) to prevent them embarking.
February 3 – The Illinois Territory is created from the western part of the Indiana Territory.
February 8 – Franz I of Austria declares war on France.
February 11 – Robert Fulton patents the steamboat in the United States.
February 12 – Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln are born.
February 17 – Miami University (Ohio) is established (by Act of February 2) on the township of land required to be set aside for it, under the conditions of the Miami Purchase in 1794.
February 20
United States v. Peters: The Supreme Court of the United States rules that the power of the federal government is greater than any individual state.
The Siege of Zaragoza ends as Jose Palafox surrenders. Over 60,000 have been killed, during the 60 day siege.
February 25 – Battle of Valls: Spanish forces are defeated in Catalonia by Marshal Laurent de Gouvion Saint-Cyr.
February 27 – Action of 27 February 1809: Captain Bernard Dubourdieu captures HMS Proserpine.
March 1 – The Embargo Act of 1807 is repealed in the United States; the Non-Intercourse Act replaces it.
March 4 – James Madison is sworn in as the fourth President of the United States.
March 13 – A military coup ousts Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden; he is confined in Gripsholm Castle.
March 29
At the Diet of Porvoo, Finland's four Estates pledge allegiance to Alexander I of Russia, commencing the secession of the future Grand Principality of Finland from Sweden. The Emperor, in return, promises to retain and uphold former laws and privileges, as well as the dominant Lutheran religion. His pledge is later interpreted by the Finns as a confirmation of constitutional laws, which had, effectively, established Finland as a separate state in real union with the Russia.
King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden abdicates after the Coup of 1809 and is later exiled.
Peninsular War –
First Battle of Porto: 8,000 Portuguese soldiers are killed in a rout after defeat by the French under Marshal Soult. Thousands of fleeing civilians drown when a pontoon bridge collapses.
Battle of Medellín at Extremadura: Massive Spanish casualties are suffered, in a rout by French cavalry, under Marshal Victor.