The family is worldwide (Palearctic realm,  Nearctic realm,  Afrotropical realm, Neotropical realm,  Australasian realm, Oceanian realm, Indomalayan realm), but has the greatest biodiversity in tropical and subtropical arid climates. In Europe,  335 species are distributed among 53 genera.


The systematics of bee flies are the most uncertain of any family of lower Brachycera. Willi Hennig (1973) placed the bee flies in the superfamily of Nemestrinoidea, on the basis of analogies in the behaviour of the larvae, positioning the superfamily in Tabanomorpha inside the infraorder HomoeodactylaBoris Rohdendorf (1974) dealt with the family in a separate superfamily (Bombyliidea), linking it to the superfamily of Asilidea. Currently the close correlation either positions the bee-flies within the superfamily Asiloidea sensu Rohdendorf (Asilidea) or they are included with the families separated by Rohdendorf in the superfamily of Asiloidea.
The internal systematic of bee-flies is uncertain. In the past, 31 subfamilies were well defined, but the family is thought to be polyphyletic (sensu lato). In the 1980s and '90s, the family has undergone several revisions: Webb (1981)  finally moved the genus Hilarimorpha into their own family (Hilarimorphidae). Zaitzev (1991)  moved the genus Mythicomyia and several other minor genera in the family Mythicomyiidae, Yeates (1992, 1994)  shifted the entire subfamily of Proratinae, with the exception of Apystomyia, into the family of  Scenopinidae and subsequently the genus Apystomyia into the family Hilarimorphidae. Nagatomi & Liu (1994) moved Apystomyia into a family of their own (Apystomyiidae. After these revisions, the bee flies sensu stricto have a greater morphological homogeneity, but the monophyly of the family still remains dubious. Phylogenetic analysis of CAD and 28S rDNA gene sequences supports monophyly of only eight subfamilies out of fifteen included in the study, with the Bombyliinae resolving as a highly polyphyletic group.
Overall, the family includes about 4700 described species, distributed among 270 genera. The internal arrangement varies according to the source, according to the different frameworks the authors attribute to tribes and subfamilies. To divide the family, often this scheme is used:
Anthracinae
Anthracini
Aphoebantini
Exoprosopini
Prorostomatini
Villini
Xeramoebini
Antoniinae
Bombyliinae
Acrophthalmydini
Bombyliini
Conophorini
Crocidiinae
Cythereinae
Ecliminae
Heterotropinae
Lomatiinae
Lomatiini
Peringueyimyiini
Mariobezziinae
Oligodraninae
Oniromyiinae
Phthiriinae
Phthiriini
Poecilognathini
Tomomyzinae
Toxophorinae
Gerontini
Systropodini
Toxophorini
Usiinae
Apolysini
Usiini
Xenoprosopinae


1899 (MDCCCXCIX) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar, the 1899th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 899th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 99th  year of the 19th century, and the  10th  and last year of the 1890s decade. As of the start of 1899, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


European Russia (Russian: Европейская Россия, европейская часть России) is the western and most populated part of Russia, which is geographically situated in the European subcontinent, as opposed to its sparsely populated and vastly large eastern part, which is in Asia, encompassing the entire northern region of the continent. The division between the two continents is drawn from the Ural Mountains.
European Russia covers a significant part of Eastern Europe, spanning roughly 40% of Europe's total land area with over 15% of its total population, causing Russia to lead the European landmass by both geography and demographics.


1940
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
1940 (MCMXL) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1940th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 940th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 40th  year of the 20th century, and the  1st   year of the 1940s decade.
  A calendar from 1940 according to the Gregorian calendar, factoring in the dates of Easter and related holidays, cannot be used again until the year 5280.


The population distribution by race in the Western United States (2010):
66.4% Non-Hispanic Whites
28.6% were Hispanic or Latino (of any race)
9.3% Asian
4.8% Black or African-American
1.9% American Indian or Alaska Native
12.4% Some other race
As defined by the United States Census Bureau, the Western region of the United States includes 13 states, with a total 2020 population of 78,588,572.
The West is one of the most sparsely settled areas in the United States with 49.5 inhabitants per square mile (19/km²). Only Texas with 78.0 inhabitants/sq mi. (30/km²), Washington with 86.0 inhabitants/sq mi. (33/km²), and California with 213.4 inhabitants/sq mi. (82/km²) exceed the national average of 77.98 inhabitants/sq mi. (30/km²).
The entire Western region has also been strongly influenced by European, Hispanic or Latino, Asian and Native Americans; it contains the largest number of minorities in the U.S. While most of the studies of racial dynamics in America such as riots in Los Angeles have been written about European and African-Americans, in many cities in the West and California, whites and blacks together are less than half the population because of the preference for the region by Hispanics and Asians. African and European Americans, however, continue to wield a stronger political influence because of the lower rates of citizenship and voting among Asians and Hispanics.
The West also contains much of the Native American population in the U.S., particularly in the large reservations in the Mountain and Desert States.
The largest concentrations for African-Americans in the West can be found in San Diego, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento, Fresno, San Francisco, Seattle, Tacoma, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Denver, and Colorado Springs.
The Western United States has a higher sex ratio (more males than females) than any other region in the United States.
Because the tide of development had not yet reached most of the West when conservation became a national issue, agencies of the federal government own and manage vast areas of land. (The most important among these are the National Park Service and the Bureau of Land Management within the Interior Department, and the U.S. Forest Service within the Agriculture Department.) National parks are reserved for recreational activities such as fishing, camping, hiking, and boating, but other government lands also allow commercial activities like ranching, logging, and mining. In recent years, some local residents who earn their livelihoods on federal land have come into conflict with the land's managers, who are required to keep land use within environmentally acceptable limits.
The largest city in the region is Los Angeles, located on the West Coast. Other West Coast cities include San Diego, San Bernardino, San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, Bakersfield, Fresno, Sacramento, Seattle, Tacoma, Anchorage, and Portland - some of which are dozens of miles inland. Prominent cities in the Mountain States include Denver, Colorado Springs, Phoenix, Tucson, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Boise, El Paso, and Billings.


The Western U.S. is the largest region of the country, covering nearly half the land area of the contiguous United States. It is also the most geographically diverse, incorporating geographic regions such as the temperate rainforests of the Northwest, the highest mountain ranges (including the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevada, and the Cascade Range), numerous glaciers, and the western edge of the Great Plains. It also contains the majority of the desert areas located in the United States. The Mojave and Great Basin deserts lie entirely within the Western region, along with parts of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts (the latter extends significantly into Texas). Given this expansive and diverse geography it is no wonder the region is difficult to specifically define. Sensing a possible shift in the popular understanding of the West as a region in the early 1990s, historian Walter Nugent conducted a survey of three groups of professionals with ties to the region: a large group of Western historians (187 respondents), and two smaller groups, 25 journalists and publishers and 39 Western authors. A majority of the historian respondents placed the eastern boundary of the West east of the Census definition out on the eastern edge of the Great Plains or on the Mississippi River. The survey respondents as a whole showed just how little agreement there was on the boundaries of the West.


Fructose has higher water solubility than other sugars, as well as other sugar alcohols. Fructose is, therefore, difficult to crystallize from an aqueous solution. Sugar mixes containing fructose, such as candies, are softer than those containing other sugars because of the greater solubility of fructose.


Fructose is a 6-carbon polyhydroxyketone. Crystalline fructose adopts a cyclic six-membered structure, called β-d-fructopyranose, owing to the stability of its hemiketal and internal hydrogen-bonding. In solution, fructose exists as an equilibrium mixture of the tautomers β-d-fructopyranose, β-d-fructofuranose, α-d-fructofuranose, α-d-fructopyranose and keto-d-fructose (the non-cyclic form).
The distribution of d-fructose tautomers in solution is related to several variables, such as solvent and temperature. d-Fructopyranose and d-fructofuranose distributions in water have been identified multiple times as roughly 70% fructopyranose and 22% fructofuranose.


The Atanasoff-Berry computer is now considered one of the first electronic digital computing device built by John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry at Iowa State University during 1937–1942.
Construction in early 1941 of the Heath Robinson Bombe & the Colossus computer, which was used by British codebreakers at Bletchley Park and satellite stations nearby to read Enigma encrypted German messages during World War II. This was operational until 1946 when it was destroyed under orders from Winston Churchill. This is now widely regarded as the first operational computer which in a model rebuild still today has a remarkable computing speed.
The Z3 as world's first working programmable, fully automatic computing machine was built.
The first test of technology for an atomic weapon (Trinity test) as part of the Manhattan Project.
The sound barrier was broken in October, 1947.
The transistor was invented in December, 1947 at Bell Labs.
The development of radar.
The development of ballistic missiles.
The development of jet aircraft.
The Jeep.
The development of commercial television.
The Slinky.
The microwave oven.
The invention of Velcro.
The invention of Tupperware.
The invention of the Frisbee.
The invention of hydraulic fracturing.


Tribe Eucopiocerini Descamps, 1975 - central America
Chapulacris Descamps, 1975
Eucopiocera - monotypic E. rubripes Bruner, 1908
Halffterina Descamps, 1975
Leptalacris Descamps & Rowell, 1978 - monotypic L. fastigiata Descamps & Rowell, 1978
unplaced genera:
Atopacris Amédégnato & Poulain, 1998
Castetsia Bolívar, 1902
Jumandiacris Amédégnato & Poulain, 1998
Melliacris Ramme, 1941
Palandella Amédégnato & Poulain, 1998
Pileolum Bolívar, 1917
Tylotropidiopsis Storozhenko, 1992
†Heeracris Zeuner, 1937
†Menatacridium Piton, 1936
†Taeniopodites Cockerell, 1909
†Tyrbula Scudder, 1885


The Orthoptera Species File (September 2021) lists the following subfamilies of Acrididae. The number of species below is approximate, and the number of genera and species tend to change over time.
Acridinae MacLeay, 1821  (140 genera, 470 species), Worldwide: temperate and tropical
Calliptaminae Jacobson, 1905  (12 genera, 90 species), Africa, Europe, Asia
Caryandinae Yin & Liu, 1987  (3 genera, 100 species), Africa, Asia
Caryanda Stål, 1878
Cercina Stål, 1878
Lemba (grasshopper) Huang, 1983
Catantopinae Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1893  (325 genera, 990 species), Africa, Asia ("spur-throated grasshoppers")
Copiocerinae Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1893  (22 genera, 90 species), Central & South America
Coptacrinae Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1893  (20 genera, 110 species), Africa, Madagascar, tropical Asia
Cyrtacanthacridinae Kirby, 1910  (38 genera, 170 species), Worldwide ("bird grasshoppers")
Egnatiinae Bey-Bienko & Mistshenko, 1951  (30 species), Africa to central Asia
Eremogryllinae Dirsh, 1956  (5 species), North Africa
Eremogryllus Krauss, 1902
Notopleura (grasshopper)  Krauss, 1902
Euryphyminae Dirsh, 1956  (23 genera, 80 species), Africa including Madagascar
Eyprepocnemidinae Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1893  (26 genera, 150 species), Africa, mainland Europe, Asia
Gomphocerinae Fieber, 1853  (192 genera, 1200 species), Worldwide
Habrocneminae Yin, 1982  (15 species), China, Indochina
Habrocnemis Uvarov, 1930
Longzhouacris You & Bi, 1983 - China only
Menglacris Jiang & Zheng, 1994 (syn. Tectiacris Wei & Zheng, 2005)- China
Hemiacridinae Dirsh, 1956  (45 genera, 180 species), Africa, Asia
Incolacridinae Tinkham, 1940  (70 species), East Asia
Asymmetritania Storozhenko, 2021
Bettotania Willemse, 1933
Incolacris Willemse, 1932
Stolzia Willemse, 1930
Leptysminae Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1893  (21 genera, 70 species), Central and South America
Marelliinae Eades, 2000  (monotypic, 1 species), South America
Marellia Uvarov, 1929
Melanoplinae Scudder, 1897  (146 genera, 1100 species), Americas, Eurasia
Oedipodinae Walker, 1871  (138 genera, 790 species), Worldwide
Ommatolampidinae Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1893  (115 genera, 290 species), South America
Oxyinae Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1893  (33 genera, 210 species), Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Australasia
Pauliniinae Hebard, 1923  (monotypic, 1 species), South America
Pezotettiginae Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1893  (10 species), Europe, western Asia, Middle East
Proctolabinae Amédégnato, 1974  (29 genera, 210 species), Central and South America
Rhytidochrotinae Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1893  (20 genera, 40 species), South America
Spathosterninae Rehn, 1957  (single tribe, currently with 3 genera and 12 species), Africa, Indomalaya, Australia
Teratodinae Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1893  (8 genera, 20 species), Africa, southwest Asia
Tropidopolinae Jacobson, 1905  (13 genera, 30 species), Africa, southern Europe, Asia


The Acrididae are the predominant family of grasshoppers, comprising some 10,000 of the 11,000 species of the entire suborder Caelifera. The Acrididae are best known because all locusts (swarming grasshoppers) are of the Acrididae. The subfamily Oedipodinae is sometimes classified as a distinct family Oedipodidae in the superfamily Acridoidea. Acrididae grasshoppers are characterized by relatively short and stout antennae, and tympana on the side of the first abdominal segment.


1872 (MDCCCLXXII) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar, the 1872nd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 872nd  year of the 2nd millennium, the 72nd  year of the 19th century, and the  3rd   year of the 1870s decade. As of the start of 1872, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America or the Laurentian Great Lakes, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes with certain sea-like characteristics in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. They are Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario and are in general on or near the Canada–United States border. Hydrologically, lakes Michigan and Huron are a single body joined at the Straits of Mackinac. The Great Lakes Waterway enables modern travel and shipping by water among the lakes.
The Great Lakes are the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total area and are second-largest by total volume, containing 21% of the world's surface fresh water by volume. The total surface is 94,250 square miles (244,106 km²), and the total volume (measured at the low water datum) is 5,439 cubic miles (22,671 km³), slightly less than the volume of Lake Baikal (5,666 cu mi or 23,615 km³, 22–23% of the world's surface fresh water). Because of their sea-like characteristics, such as rolling waves, sustained winds, strong currents, great depths, and distant horizons, the five Great Lakes have long been called inland seas. Depending on how it is measured, by surface area, either Lake Superior or Lake Michigan-Huron is the second-largest lake in the world and the largest freshwater lake. Lake Michigan is the largest lake that is entirely within one country.
The Great Lakes began to form at the end of the Last Glacial Period around 14,000 years ago, as retreating ice sheets exposed the basins they had carved into the land, which then filled with meltwater. The lakes have been a major source for transportation, migration, trade, and fishing, serving as a habitat to many aquatic species in a region with much biodiversity. The surrounding region is called the Great Lakes region, which includes the Great Lakes Megalopolis.


Attorney Frederick Larson examined the biblical account in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 2 and found the following nine qualities of Bethlehem's Star: It signified birth, it signified kingship, it was related to the Jewish nation, and it rose "in the East"; King Herod had not been aware of it; it appeared at an exact time; it endured over time; and, according to Matthew, it was in front of the Magi when they traveled south from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, and then stopped over Bethlehem.
Using the Starry Night astronomy software, and an article written by astronomer Craig Chester based on the work of archeologist and historian Ernest L. Martin, Larson thinks all nine characteristics of the Star of Bethlehem are found in events that took place in the skies of 3–2 BC. Highlights include a triple conjunction of Jupiter, called the king planet, with the fixed star Regulus, called the king star, starting in September 3 BC. Larson believes that may be the time of Jesus' conception.
By June of 2 BC, nine months later, the human gestation period, Jupiter had continued moving in its orbit around the sun and appeared in close conjunction with Venus in June of 2 BC. In Hebrew Jupiter is called "Sedeq", meaning "righteousness", a term also used for the Messiah, and suggested that because the planet Venus represents love and fertility, so Chester had suggested astrologers would have viewed the close conjunction of Jupiter and Venus as indicating a coming new king of Israel, and Herod would have taken them seriously. Astronomer Dave Reneke independently found the June 2 BC planetary conjunction, and noted it would have appeared as a "bright beacon of light". According to Chester, the disks of Jupiter and Venus would have appeared to touch and there has not been as close a Venus-Jupiter conjunction since then.
Jupiter next continued to move and then stopped in its apparent retrograde motion on December 25 of 2 BC over the town of Bethlehem. Since planets in their orbits have a "stationary point", a planet moves eastward through the stars but, "As it approaches the opposite point in the sky from the sun, it appears to slow, come to a full stop, and move backward (westward) through the sky for some weeks. Again it slows, stops, and resumes its eastward course," said Chester. The date of December 25 that Jupiter appeared to stop while in retrograde took place in the season of Hanukkah, and is the date later chosen to celebrate Christmas.


Definitions of Oceania vary. The broadest definition of Oceania encompasses the many islands between mainland Asia and the Americas; The island nation of Australia is the only piece of land in the area which is large enough to be considered a continent. The culture of the people who lived on these islands was often distinct from that of Asia and pre-Columbian America, hence a lack of association with either. Before Europeans arrived in the area, the sea barrier shielded Australia and south central Pacific islands from cultural influences that spread through large continental landmasses and adjacent islands. The islands of the Malay Archipelago, north of Australia, mainly lie on the continental shelf of Asia, and their inhabitants had more exposure to mainland Asian culture as a result of this closer proximity. The island of Taiwan similarly lies on the continental shelf of Asia, with their inhabitants historically having had exchange with mainland Asia.
The geographer Conrad Malte-Brun coined the French expression Terres océaniques (Oceanic lands) c. 1804, then in 1814 another French cartographer, Adrien-Hubert Brué, coined from this expression the shorter "Océanie" putting it on a map, « Océanie, ou cinquième partie du monde, comprenant l'archipel d'Asie, l'Australasie et la Polynésie (ou le continent de la Nouvelle Hollande et les îles du Grand Océan) ». Océanie derives from the Latin word oceanus, and this from the Greek word ὠκεανός (ōkeanós), "ocean". The term Oceania is used because, unlike the other continental groupings, it is the ocean that links the parts of the region together. In his 1879 book Australasia, British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace commented that, "Oceania is the word often used by continental geographers to describe the great world of islands we are now entering upon" and that "Australia forms its central and most important feature." He did not explicitly label Oceania a continent in the book, but did note that it was one of the six major divisions of the world. The Oxford Handbook of World History (2011) describes the areas encompassed in Oceania as being "afterthoughts in world history texts, lumped together and included at the end of global surveys as areas largely marginal to the main events of world history." The 1995 book The Pacific Island States, by Australian author Stephen Henningham, claims that Oceania in its broadest sense "incorporates all the insular areas between the Americas and Asia."
In some countries, such as Brazil or Spain, Oceania is regarded as a continent in the sense of "one of the parts of the world", and the concept of Australia as a continent does not exist. Australia is a founding member of the Pacific Islands Forum, and at times has been interpreted as the largest Pacific island. For example, the Foreign Minister for the Marshall Islands stated in 2014 that he viewed Australia as "a big island, but a Pacific island." Some geographers group the Australian continental plate with other islands in the Pacific into one quasi-continent called Oceania. National Geographic considers the region to be a proper continent, and notes that the term Oceania "establishes the Pacific Ocean as the defining characteristic of the continent." Others have labelled it as the "liquid continent." The Pacific Ocean itself has been labelled as a "continent of islands", and contains approximately 25,000, which is more than all the other major oceans combined. Oceania's ethnocultural subregions of Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia cover two major plates; the Australian Plate (also known as the Indo-Australian Plate) and the Pacific Plate, in addition to two minor plates; the Nazca Plate and the Philippine Sea Plate. The Australian Plate includes Australia, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu and parts of New Zealand. The Pacific Plate covers the Solomon Islands and parts of New Zealand, as well as Micronesia (excluding the westernmost islands near the Philippine Sea Plate) and Polynesia (excluding Easter Island). The Nazca Plate, which includes Easter Island, neighbors the South American Plate, and is still considered to be a separate tectonic plate, despite only containing a handful of islands.


The United Nations (UN) has its own geopolitical definition of Oceania, but this consists of discrete political entities, and so excludes the Bonin Islands, Hawaii, Clipperton Island and the Juan Fernández Islands, along with Easter Island — which was annexed by Chile in 1888. It is used by the International Olympic Committee, and by many atlases. The UN categorize Oceania, and by extension the Pacific area, as one of the major continental divisions of the world, along with Africa, Asia, Europe, North America and South America. Their definition includes American Samoa, Australia and their external territories, the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, French Polynesia, Fiji, Guam, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Pitcairn Islands, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Wallis and Futuna and the United States Minor Outlying Islands (Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Midway Atoll, Palmyra Atoll and Wake Island). The island nations of Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines, all located in the Pacific Ocean, are excluded from the UN definition. Further excluded are East Timor and Indonesian New Guinea/Western New Guinea, areas which are biogeographically or geologically associated with the Australian landmass. The World Factbook also categorize Oceania as one of the major continental divisions of the world, but the name "Australia and Oceania" is used.


Bethlehem (/ˈbɛθlɪhɛm/; Arabic: بيت لحم Bayt Laḥm; Hebrew: בֵּית לֶחֶם Bet Leḥem) is a city in the central West Bank, Palestine, about 10 km (6.2 miles) south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000, and it is the capital of the Bethlehem Governorate of the State of Palestine. The economy is primarily tourist-driven, peaking during the Christmas season, when Christians make pilgrimage to the Church of the Nativity. The important holy site of Rachel's Tomb is at the northern entrance of Bethlehem, though not freely accessible to the city's own inhabitants and in general Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank due to the Israeli West Bank barrier.
The earliest known mention of Bethlehem was in the Amarna correspondence of 1350–1330 BCE when the town was inhabited by the Canaanites. The Hebrew Bible, which says that the city of Bethlehem was built up as a fortified city by Rehoboam, identifies it as the city David was from and where he was anointed as the king of Israel. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke identify Bethlehem as the birthplace of Jesus. Bethlehem was destroyed by the Emperor Hadrian during the second-century Bar Kokhba revolt; its rebuilding was promoted by Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, who commissioned the building of its great Church of the Nativity in 327 CE. The church was badly damaged by the Samaritans, who sacked it during a revolt in 529, but was rebuilt a century later by Emperor Justinian I.
Bethlehem became part of Jund Filastin following the Muslim conquest in 637. Muslim rule continued in Bethlehem until its conquest in 1099 by a crusading army, who replaced the town's Greek Orthodox clergy with a Latin one. In the mid-13th century, the Mamluks demolished the city's walls, which were subsequently rebuilt under the Ottomans in the early 16th century. Control of Bethlehem passed from the Ottomans to the British at the end of World War I. Bethlehem came under Jordanian rule during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and was later captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. Since the 1995 Oslo Accords, Bethlehem has been administered by the Palestinian Authority as part of Area A of the West Bank.
While historically an Arab Christian town, Bethlehem has a Muslim majority, but is still home to a significant Palestinian Christian community. It is now encircled and encroached upon by dozens of Israeli settlements and the Israeli West Bank barrier, which separates both Muslim and Christian communities from their land and livelihoods, and sees a steady exodus from both communities.


In 637, shortly after Jerusalem was captured by the Muslim armies, 'Umar ibn al-Khattāb, the second Caliph, promised that the Church of the Nativity would be preserved for Christian use. A mosque dedicated to Umar was built upon the place in the city where he prayed, next to the church. Bethlehem then passed through the control of the Islamic caliphates of the Umayyads in the 8th century, then the Abbasids in the 9th century. A Persian geographer recorded in the mid-9th century that a well preserved and much venerated church existed in the town. In 985, the Arab geographer al-Muqaddasi visited Bethlehem, and referred to its church as the "Basilica of Constantine, the equal of which does not exist anywhere in the country-round." In 1009, during the reign of the sixth Fatimid Caliph, al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, the Church of the Nativity was ordered to be demolished, but was spared by local Muslims, because they had been permitted to worship in the structure's southern transept.
In 1099, Bethlehem was captured by the Crusaders, who fortified it and built a new monastery and cloister on the north side of the Church of the Nativity. The Greek Orthodox clergy were removed from their sees and replaced with Latin clerics. Up until that point the official Christian presence in the region was Greek Orthodox. On Christmas Day 1100, Baldwin I, first king of the Frankish Kingdom of Jerusalem, was crowned in Bethlehem, and that year a Latin episcopate was also established in the town.
In 1187, Saladin, the Sultan of Egypt and Syria who led the Muslim Ayyubids, captured Bethlehem from the Crusaders. The Latin clerics were forced to leave, allowing the Greek Orthodox clergy to return. Saladin agreed to the return of two Latin priests and two deacons in 1192. However, Bethlehem suffered from the loss of the pilgrim trade, as there was a sharp decrease of European pilgrims. William IV, Count of Nevers had promised the Christian bishops of Bethlehem that if Bethlehem should fall under Muslim control, he would welcome them in the small town of Clamecy in present-day Burgundy, France. As a result, the Bishop of Bethlehem duly took up residence in the hospital of Panthenor, Clamecy, in 1223. Clamecy remained the continuous 'in partibus infidelium' seat of the Bishopric of Bethlehem for almost 600 years, until the French Revolution in 1789.
Bethlehem, along with Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Sidon, was briefly ceded to the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem by a treaty between Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and Ayyubid Sultan al-Kamil in 1229, in return for a ten-year truce between the Ayyubids and the Crusaders. The treaty expired in 1239, and Bethlehem was recaptured by the Muslims in 1244. In 1250, with the coming to power of the Mamluks under Rukn al-Din Baibars, tolerance of Christianity declined. Members of the clergy left the city, and in 1263 the town walls were demolished. The Latin clergy returned to Bethlehem the following century, establishing themselves in the monastery adjoining the Basilica of the Nativity. The Greek Orthodox were given control of the basilica and shared control of the Milk Grotto with the Latins and the Armenians.


Bethlehem was administered by the British Mandate from 1920 to 1948. In the United Nations General Assembly's 1947 resolution to partition Palestine, Bethlehem was included in the international enclave of Jerusalem to be administered by the United Nations. Jordan captured the city during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Many refugees from areas captured by Israeli forces in 1947–48 fled to the Bethlehem area, primarily settling in what became the official refugee camps of 'Azza (Beit Jibrin) and 'Aida in the north and Dheisheh in the south. The influx of refugees significantly transformed Bethlehem's Christian majority into a Muslim one.
Jordan retained control of the city until the Six-Day War in 1967, when Bethlehem was captured by Israel, along with the rest of the West Bank. Following the Six-Day War, Israel took control of the city.
During the early months of First Intifada, on 5 May 1989, Milad Anton Shahin, aged 12, was shot dead by Israeli soldiers. Replying to a Member of Knesset in August 1990 Defence Minister Yitzak Rabin stated that a group of reservists in an observation post had come under attack by stone throwers. The commander of the post, a senior non-commissioned officer, fired two plastic bullets in deviation of operational rules. No evidence was found that this caused the boy's death. The officer was found guilty of illegal use of a weapon and sentenced to 5 months imprisonment, two of them actually in prison doing public service. He was also demoted.
On December 21, 1995, Israeli troops withdrew from Bethlehem, and three days later the city came under the administration and military control of the Palestinian National Authority in accordance with the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. During the Second Palestinian Intifada in 2000–2005, Bethlehem's infrastructure and tourism industry were damaged. In 2002, it was a primary combat zone in Operation Defensive Shield, a major military counteroffensive by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). The IDF besieged the Church of the Nativity, where dozens of Palestinian militants had sought refuge. The siege lasted 39 days. Several militants were killed. It ended with an agreement to exile 13 of the militants to foreign countries.
Today, the city is surrounded by two bypass roads for Israeli settlers, leaving the inhabitants squeezed between thirty-seven Jewish enclaves, where a quarter of all West Bank settlers, roughly 170,000, live; the gap between the two roads is closed by the 8-metre high Israeli West Bank barrier, which cuts Bethlehem off from its sister city Jerusalem.
Christian families that have lived in Bethlehem for hundreds of years are being forced to leave as land in Bethlehem is seized, and homes bulldozed, for construction of thousands of new Israeli homes. Land seizures for Israeli settlements have also prevented construction of a new hospital for the inhabitants of Bethlehem, as well as the barrier separating dozens of Palestinian families from their farmland and Christian communities from their places of worship.


The earliest reference to Bethlehem appears in the Amarna correspondence (c. 1400 BCE). In one of his six letters to Pharaoh, Abdi-Heba, the Egyptian-appointed governor of Jerusalem, appeals for aid in retaking Bit-Laḫmi in the wake of disturbances by Apiru mercenaries: "Now even a town near Jerusalem, Bit-Lahmi by name, a village which once belonged to the king, has fallen to the enemy... Let the king hear the words of your servant Abdi-Heba, and send archers to restore the imperial lands of the king!"
According to one theory, the similarity of this name to its modern forms indicates that it was originally a settlement of Canaanites who shared a Semitic cultural and linguistic heritage with the later arrivals. Laḫmu was the Akkadian god of fertility, which according to this theory, was worshipped by the Canaanites as Leḥem. Some time in the third millennium BCE, Canaanites erected a temple on the hill now known as the Hill of the Nativity, probably dedicated to Lehem. The temple, and subsequently the town that formed around it, would then have been known as Beyt Leḥem, "House (Temple) of Lehem". The Philistines later established a garrison there.
Biblical scholar William F. Albright noted that the pronunciation of the name remained essentially the same for 3,500 years, but has meant different things: "'Temple of the God Lakhmu' in Canaanite, 'House of Bread' in Hebrew and Aramaic, 'House of Meat' in Arabic."
A burial ground discovered in spring 2013, and surveyed in 2015 by a joint Italian-Palestinian team found that the necropolis covered 3 hectares (more than 7 acres) and originally contained more than 100 tombs in use between roughly 2200 BCE and 650 BCE. The archaeologists were able to identify at least 30 tombs.


Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially. Alfred L. Kroeber proposed the combined 1770 population of the Kawaiisu as 1,500. He estimated the surviving population of the Kawaiisu in 1910 as 500.


Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. It has been described as "fraught with pseudoscience", with the majority of its treatments appearing to have no logical mechanism of action.
Medicine in traditional China encompassed a range of sometimes competing health and healing practices, folk beliefs, literati theory and Confucian philosophy, herbal remedies, food, diet, exercise, medical specializations, and schools of thought. In the early twentieth century, Chinese cultural and political modernizers worked to eliminate traditional practices as backward and unscientific. Traditional practitioners then selected elements of philosophy and practice and organized them into what they called "Chinese medicine" (Zhongyi). In the 1950s, the Chinese government sponsored the integration of Chinese and Western medicine, and in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, promoted Chinese medicine as inexpensive and popular. After the opening of relations between the United States and China after 1972, there was great interest in the West for what is now called traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).
TCM is said to be based on such texts as Huangdi Neijing (The Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor),  and Compendium of Materia Medica, a sixteenth-century encyclopedic work, and includes various forms of herbal medicine, acupuncture, cupping therapy, gua sha, massage (tui na), bonesetter (die-da), exercise (qigong), and dietary therapy. TCM is widely used in the Sinosphere. One of the basic tenets is that the body's vital energy (ch'i or qi) is circulating through channels called meridians having branches connected to bodily organs and functions. The concept of vital energy is pseudoscientific. Concepts of the body and of disease used in TCM reflect its ancient origins and its emphasis on dynamic processes over material structure, similar to the humoral theory of ancient Greece and ancient Rome.
The demand for traditional medicines in China has been a major generator of illegal wildlife smuggling, linked to the killing and smuggling of endangered animals.


Historians of science have developed the study of medicine in traditional China into a field with its own scholarly associations, journals, graduate programs, and debates with each other.  Many distinguish "medicine in traditional China" from the recent Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), which took elements from traditional texts and practices to construct a systematic body. Paul Unschuld, for instance, sees a "departure of TCM from its historical origins."  What is called "Traditional Chinese Medicine" and practiced today in China and the West is not thousands of years old, but recently constructed using selected traditional terms, some of which have been taken out of context, some badly misunderstood. He has criticized Chinese and Western popular books for selective use of evidence, choosing only those works or parts of historical works that seem to lead to modern medicine, ignoring those elements that do not now seem to be effective.
A 2007 editorial the journal Nature wrote that TCM "remains poorly researched and supported, and most of its treatments have no logical mechanism of action." Critics say that TCM theory and practice have no basis in modern science, and TCM practitioners do not agree on what diagnosis and treatments should be used for any given person. A Nature editorial described TCM as "fraught with pseudoscience".   A review of the literature in 2008 found that scientists are "still unable to find a shred of evidence" according to standards of science-based medicine for traditional Chinese concepts such as qi, meridians, and acupuncture points, and that the traditional principles of acupuncture are deeply flawed. "Acupuncture points and meridians are not a reality", the review continued, but "merely the product of an ancient Chinese philosophy". In June 2019, the World Health Organization included traditional Chinese medicine in a global diagnostic compendium, but a spokesman said this was "not an endorsement of the scientific validity of any Traditional Medicine practice or the efficacy of any Traditional Medicine intervention."
A 2012 review of cost-effectiveness research for TCM found that studies had low levels of evidence, with no beneficial outcomes. Pharmaceutical research on the potential for creating new drugs from traditional remedies has few successful results. Proponents suggest that research has so far missed key features of the art of TCM, such as unknown interactions between various ingredients and complex interactive biological systems. One of the basic tenets of TCM is that the body's vital energy (ch'i or qi) is circulating through channels called meridians having branches connected to bodily organs and functions. The concept of vital energy is pseudoscientific. Concepts of the body and of disease used in TCM reflect its ancient origins and its emphasis on dynamic processes over material structure, similar to Mediterranean humoral theory.
TCM has also been controversial within China. In 2006, the Chinese philosopher Zhang Gongyao triggered a national debate with an article entitled "Farewell to Traditional Chinese Medicine", arguing that TCM was a pseudoscience that should be abolished in public healthcare and academia. The Chinese government however, took the stance that TCM is a science and continued to encourage its development.
There are concerns over a number of potentially toxic plants, animal parts, and mineral Chinese compounds, as well as the facilitation of disease. Trafficked and farm-raised animals used in TCM are a source of several fatal zoonotic diseases. The probable bat-to-human COVID-19 infection may have been among people processing bat carcasses and guano in the production of TCM. There are additional concerns over the illegal trade and transport of endangered species including rhinoceroses and tigers, and the welfare of specially farmed animals, including bears.


The need for massed labor at harvest time meant hop-growing had a big social impact. Around the world, the labor-intensive harvesting work involved large numbers of migrant workers who would travel for the annual hop harvest. Whole families would participate and live in hoppers' huts, with even the smallest children helping in the fields. The final chapters of W. Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage and a large part of George Orwell's A Clergyman's Daughter contain a vivid description of London families participating in this annual hops harvest. In England, many of those picking hops in Kent were from eastern areas of London. This provided a break from urban conditions that was spent in the countryside. People also came from Birmingham and other Midlands cities to pick hops in the Malvern area of Worcestershire. Some photographs have been preserved.
The often-appalling living conditions endured by hop pickers during the harvest became a matter of scandal across Kent and other hop-growing counties. Eventually, the Rev. John Young Stratton, Rector of Ditton, Kent, began to gather support for reform, resulting in 1866 in the formation of the Society for the Employment and Improved Lodging of Hop Pickers.
Particularly in Kent, because of a shortage of small-denomination coin of the realm, many growers issued their own currency to those doing the labor. In some cases, the coins issued were adorned with fanciful hops images, making them quite beautiful.
In the United States, Prohibition had a serious adverse effect on hops production, but remnants of this significant industry in the western states are still noticeable in the form of old hop kilns that survive throughout Sonoma County, California, among others. Florian Dauenhauer, of Santa Rosa in Sonoma County, became a manufacturer of hop-harvesting machines in 1940, in part because of the hop industry's importance to the county. This mechanization helped destroy the local industry by enabling large-scale mechanized production, which moved to larger farms in other areas. Dauenhauer Manufacturing Company remains a current producer of hop harvesting machines.


Although hops are grown in most of the continental United States and Canada, cultivation of hops for commercial production requires a particular environment. As hops are a climbing plant, they are trained to grow up trellises made from strings or wires that support the plants and allow them significantly greater growth with the same sunlight profile. In this way, energy that would have been required to build structural cells is also freed for crop growth.
The hop plant's reproduction method is that male and female flowers develop on separate plants, although occasionally a fertile individual will develop which contains both male and female flowers. Because pollinated seeds are undesirable for brewing beer, only female plants are grown in hop fields, thus preventing pollination. Female plants are propagated vegetatively, and male plants are culled if plants are grown from seeds.
Hop plants are planted in rows about 2 to 2.5 metres (7 to 8 ft) apart. Each spring, the roots send forth new bines that are started up strings from the ground to an overhead trellis. The cones grow high on the bine, and in the past, these cones were picked by hand. Harvesting of hops became much more efficient with the invention of the mechanical hops separator, patented by Emil Clemens Horst in 1909.
Hops are harvested at the end of summer. The bines are cut down, separated, and then dried in an oast house to reduce moisture content. To be dried, the hops are spread out on the upper floor of the oast house and heated by heating units on the lower floor. The dried hops are then compressed into bales by a baler.
Hop cones contain different oils, such as lupulin, a yellowish, waxy substance, an oleoresin, that imparts flavour and aroma to beer. Lupulin contains lupulone and humulone, which possess antibiotic properties, suppressing bacterial growth favoring brewer's yeast to grow. After lupulin has been extracted in the brewing process the papery cones are discarded.


Hops contain beta acids or lupulones. These are desirable for their aroma contributions to beer.


January 1 – The hymn that becomes known as Amazing Grace, at this time titled "1 Chronicles 17:16–17", is first used to accompany a sermon led by curate John Newton in the town of Olney, Buckinghamshire, England.
January 12 – The first museum in the American colonies is established in Charleston, South Carolina; in 1915, it is formally incorporated as the Charleston Museum.
January 17 – Second voyage of James Cook: Captain Cook in HMS Resolution (1771) becomes the first European explorer to cross the Antarctic Circle.
January 18 – The first opera performance in the Swedish language, Thetis and Phelée, performed by Carl Stenborg and Elisabeth Olin in Bollhuset in Stockholm, Sweden, marks the establishment of the Royal Swedish Opera.
February 8 – The Grand Council of Poland meets in Warsaw, summoned by a circular letter from King Stanisław August Poniatowski to respond to the Kingdom's threatened partition between three foreign powers.
February 27 – The construction of Christ Church (Alexandria, Virginia), known for being the house of worship for George Washington and the visiting site for subsequent U.S. presidents, is completed.
March 9–19 – Second voyage of James Cook: Tobias Furneaux in HMS Adventure (1771) explores the coast of Van Diemen's Land.
March 15 – The popular (and enduring) comedy She Stoops to Conquer, by Irish playwright Oliver Goldsmith, is performed for the first time, premiering at London's Covent Garden Theatre.


April 27 – The Parliament of Great Britain passes the Tea Act (coming into force on May 10), designed to save the British East India Company by granting it a monopoly on the North American tea trade.
May 8 – In Egypt, Ottoman rebels revolt, killing Ali Bey, Mamluk Sultan of Egypt.
June 4 – 1773 Phipps expedition towards the North Pole sets out from Britain.
June 10 – The Regulating Act is given royal assent by King George III, creating the office of Governor General, with an advising council, to exercise political authority over the territory under British East India Company rule in India.


Modern Angola was populated predominantly by nomadic Khoi and San prior to the first Bantu migrations. The Khoi and San peoples were neither pastoralists nor cultivators, but rather hunter-gatherers. They were displaced by Bantu peoples arriving from the north in the first millennium BC, most of whom likely originated in what is today northwestern Nigeria and southern Niger. Bantu speakers introduced the cultivation of bananas and taro, as well as large cattle herds, to Angola's central highlands and the Luanda plain.
A number of political entities were established; the best-known of these was the Kingdom of the Kongo, based in Angola, which extended northward to what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo and Gabon. It established trade routes with other city-states and civilisations up to and down the coast of southwestern and western Africa and even with Great Zimbabwe and the Mutapa Empire, although it engaged in little or no transoceanic trade. To its south lay the Kingdom of Ndongo, from which the area of the later Portuguese colony was sometimes known as Dongo, and right next to them lay the Kingdom of Matamba.


July 1 – The Congress of Central America declares absolute independence from Spain, Mexico and any other foreign nation, including North America, and a republican system of government is established.
July – Robert Peel ensures the passage of five Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom, effectively abolishing the death penalty for over one hundred offences; in particular, the Judgement of Death Act allows judges to commute sentences for capital offences (other than murder or treason) to imprisonment or transportation. The Transportation Act of July 4 allows convicts transported to the colonies to be employed on public works.
July 10 – The Gaols Act is passed by Parliament of the United Kingdom, based on the prison reform campaign of Elizabeth Fry.
July 15 – The Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome is almost completely destroyed by fire.
August 1 – William Pitt Amherst arrives in Calcutta with Lady Amherst, to become the new Governor-General of India.
August 4 – Felipe Enrique Neri, Baron de Bastrop, the Mexican government administrator in charge of Anglo-American immigration into Mexico's state of Coahuila y Tejas, allows Stephen F. Austin to put together an 11-man police force, that will later be expanded to become the Texas Ranger Division.
August 5 –  The Royal Hibernian Academy is founded in Dublin.
August 16 – Tsar Alexander I of Russia draws up a secret "manifesto", designating his second younger brother Nikolai to succeed him, bypassing Nikolai's older brother, Grand Duke Konstantin. The existence of the manifesto is revealed on Alexander's death in 1825.
August 18 – Demerara rebellion of 1823: In British Guiana (South America), an insurrection of 10,000 black slaves begins; it is suppressed after three days, but hundreds of suspects are executed in the reprisals that follow.
August 20 – Pope Pius VII dies after a reign of more than 23 years that began on March 14, 1800; he is remembered for crowning Napoleon Bonaparte as Emperor of France.
August 24 – Hugh Glass gets mauled by a sow grizzly while on a fur trapping expedition in the Missouri Territory.
August 31 – Battle of Trocadero: French infantry of the "Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis" capture the fort of Trocadero and turn its guns on Cádiz.
September 10 – Simón Bolívar is named President of Peru.
September 22 – Joseph Smith first goes to the place near Manchester, New York, where the golden plates are stored, having been directed there by God through an angel (according to what he writes in 1838).
September 23 – First Anglo-Burmese War: Burmese forces attack the British on Shapura, an island close to Chittagong.
September 28 – Roman Catholic Cardinal Annibale della Genga is elected Pope Leo XII.
September 30 – Cádiz surrenders to the French and Ferdinand VII of Spain is restored to his throne, immediately repealing the liberal Spanish Constitution of 1812.


1823 (MDCCCXXIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar, the 1823rd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 823rd  year of the 2nd millennium, the 23rd  year of the 19th century, and the  4th   year of the 1820s decade. As of the start of 1823, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


June 1
Andy Griffith, American actor, comedian, singer (d. 2012)
Marilyn Monroe, American actress (d. 1962)
June 3
Flora MacDonald, Canadian politician and humanitarian (d. 2015)
Allen Ginsberg, American poet (Howl) (d. 1997)
June 4 –  Robert Earl Hughes, American who was the heaviest human being recorded in the history of the world during his lifetime (d. 1958)
June 5
Emile Capgras, Martinican politician (d. 2014)
Paul Soros, Hungarian-born American mechanical engineer, inventor, businessman and philanthropist (d. 2013)
June 6 – Antônio Ribeiro de Oliveira, Brazilian Roman Catholic prelate (d. 2017)
June 7 – Jean-Noël Tremblay, Canadian politician (d. 2020)
June 9 – Happy Rockefeller, American socialite (d. 2015)
June 10
June Haver, American actress and singer (d. 2005)
Lionel Jeffries, British film director and actor (d. 2010)
June 11
Carlisle Floyd, American composer and educator (d. 2021)
Frank Plicka, Czech-born photographer (d. 2010)
June 12
Amadeo Carrizo, Argentine goalkeeper (d. 2020)
Gaspare di Mercurio, Italian doctor and author (d. 2001)
June 13
Satoru Abe, Japanese-American sculptor and painter
June Krauser, American swimmer (d. 2014)
June 16 – Efraín Ríos Montt, Guatemalan career military officer and politician (d. 2018)
June 18
Avshalom Haviv, (d. 1947)
Allan Sandage, American astronomer (d. 2010)
June 19 – Erna Schneider Hoover, American mathematician and inventor
June 21
Washington Malianga, Zimbabwean politician (d. 2014)
Johanna Quandt, German businesswoman (d. 2015)
June 22
George Englund, American film editor, director, producer, and actor (d. 2017)
Elyakim Haetzni, Israeli lawyer
Tadeusz Konwicki, Polish filmmaker (d. 2015)
Rachid Solh, 2-Time Prime Minister of Lebanon (d. 2014)
June 23
Yoshihiro Hamaguchi, Japanese freestyle swimmer (d. 2011)
Magda Herzberger, Romanian author, poet and composer, survivor of the Holocaust (d. 2021)
Annette Mbaye d'Erneville, Senegalese writer
Arnaldo Pomodoro, Italian sculptor
June 24
Muslim Arogundade, Nigerian sprinter (d. unknown)
Barbara Scofield, American tennis player
June 25
Ján Eugen Kočiš, Czech bishop (d. 2019)
Ingeborg Bachmann, Austrian writer (d. 1973)
Gordon Robertson, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 2019)
Stig Sollander, Swedish alpine skier (d. 2019)
June 26
Mahendra Bhatnagar, Indian poet (d. 2020)
Fernando Mönckeberg Barros, Chilean surgeon
Luis Molné, Andorran alpine skier
André Monnier, French ski jumper
Fritz Zwazl, Austrian swimmer
June 27
Giambattista Bonis, Italian professional football player
Geza de Kaplany, Hungarian-born physician
Don Raleigh, American ice hockey player (d. 2012)
Bruce Tozer, Australian cricketer
Galina Vecherkovskaya, Russian rower
June 28
Elisabeta Abrudeanu, Romanian artistic gymnast
George Booth, American cartoonist
Mel Brooks, American actor, comedian, and screenwriter
June 30
Peter Alexander, Austrian actor and singer (d. 2011)
Paul Berg, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
Božena Moserová, Czech alpine skier


Dr Muthulakshmi Reddi becomes the first woman to be appointed to a legislature in India, the Madras Legislative Council.
Stephen H. Langdon begins excavations in Jemdet Nasr, finding proto-cuneiform clay tablets (3100–2900 BCE).
Phencyclidine (PCP, angel dust) is first synthesized.
Earl W. Bascom, rodeo cowboy and artist, designs and marks rodeo's first high-cut rodeo chaps at Stirling, Alberta, Canada.
The International African Institute is founded in London.
Industrial output surpasses the level of 1913 in the USSR.


May 1 – Peter Lax, Hungarian-American mathematician, academic
May 3
Matt Baldwin, Canadian curler
Ema Derossi-Bjelajac, Croatian politician (d. 2020)
May 5 – Ann B. Davis, American actress (d. 2014)
May 8
Sir David Attenborough, British broadcaster, naturalist, and producer
David Hurst, German actor (d. 2019)
Don Rickles, American stand-up comedian, actor (d. 2017)
May 10 – Hugo Banzer, 51st President of Bolivia (d. 2002)
May 14 – Eric Morecambe, English comedian, author (d. 1984)
May 15
Anthony Shaffer, English novelist, playwright (d. 2001)
Sir Peter Shaffer, English playwright (d. 2016)
May 17
Prince Dimitri Romanov, Russian prince, banker, philanthropist and author (d. 2016)
Franz Sondheimer, German-born British chemist (d. 1981)
Dietmar Schönherr, Austrian film actor (d. 2014)
May 18 – Niranjan Bhagat, Indian poet (d. 2018)
May 21 – Robert Creeley, American poet (d. 2005)
May 23 – Aileen Hernandez, African-American union organizer, civil rights activist, and women's rights activist (d. 2017)
May 24 – Stanley Baxter, Scottish actor and screenwriter
May 25
Claude Akins, American actor (d. 1994)
Bill Sharman, American basketball player, coach (d. 2013)
May 26 – Miles Davis, African-American Jazz musician (d. 1991)
May 27 – Rashidi Kawawa, 1st Prime Minister of Tanzania (d. 2009)
May 29 – Abdoulaye Wade, 3rd President of Senegal


1926
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1926th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 926th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 26th  year of the 20th century, and the  7th   year of the 1920s decade.


Mohammad Afzal Khan, Emir of Kabul, Emir of Kandahar (d. 1867)


October 17 – The silver deposits of Agua Amarga in Chile are discovered becoming in the following years instrumental for the Patriots to finance the Chilean War of Independence.
October 11 – Inventor John Stevens' boat, the Juliana, begins operation as the first steam-powered ferry service, between New York City and Hoboken, New Jersey.
October 22 Franz Liszt is born.
October 23 – José Gervasio Artigas and 16,000 orientales leave the Banda Oriental del Uruguay, to go into exile.
October 26 – The Argentine Government declares freedom of expression for the press.
November 4 – Luddite uprisings, in which factory employees destroy industrial machines, begin in northern England and the Midlands. According to one historian, "The first attack on textile machines by men who used the name 'General Ludd' and called themselves his followers, was on the night of 4th November 1811 in the village of Bulwell, four miles north of Nottingham, when a small band of men gathered in the darkness and marched to the home of a master weaver called Hollingsworth," then destroyed six of his weaving machines.
November 7 – Battle of Tippecanoe: American troops led by William Henry Harrison defeat the Native American spiritual leader Tenskwatawa, also known as The Prophet (Chief Tecumseh's brother).
November 17 – José Miguel Carrera, Chilean founding father, is sworn in as President of the executive Junta of the government of Chile.
December 2 – Reverend Samuel Marsden sends the first commercial shipment of wool, from New South Wales to England.
December 16 – The New Madrid earthquake in the Mississippi Valley, near New Madrid, reverses the course of the river for a while. Other earthquakes along the fault occur on January 23, 1812 and February 7, 1812.
December 21 – The first Constitution of the Republic of Venezuela, after it declares its independence from Spain, goes into effect.
December 26 – The Richmond Theatre fire in Virginia kills 72 people, including the Governor of Virginia George William Smith and the president of the First National Bank of Virginia, Abraham B. Venable.


1811 (MDCCCXI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar, the 1811th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 811th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 11th  year of the 19th century, and the  2nd   year of the 1810s decade. As of the start of 1811, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


Central California has opened two new universities recently, one in each of the past two decades.
The University of California has one campus in the region. University of California, Merced opened on a newly constructed site on the east side of Merced in 2005.
The California State University system has four campuses in the region. California State University, Monterey Bay opened on the site of the former Fort Ord army base in 1994.  California State University, Stanislaus in Turlock opened in 1957. California State University, Fresno opened in 1911.
The Monterey Institute of International Studies is a graduate school that offers eleven master's degree programs in international policy, international management, language teaching, and translation and interpretation. The Monterey Institute of International Studies is a graduate school of Middlebury College.
San Joaquin College of Law is a private, nonprofit law school located in Clovis.
Fresno Pacific University is a private university in Fresno.
The Naval Postgraduate School and Defense Language Institute are located in Monterey.
The following community college campus sites are in the region:
Columbia College in Sonora, Tuolumne County
Clovis Community College in Clovis, Fresno County
Fresno City College in Fresno, Fresno County
Hartnell College in Salinas, Monterey County
Merced College in Merced, Merced County
Modesto Junior College in Modesto, Stanislaus County
Monterey Peninsula College, Monterey, Monterey County
Porterville College in Porterville, Tulare County
Reedley College in Fresno, Fresno County
College of the Sequoias in Visalia, Tulare County
West Hills College Coalinga in Coalinga, Fresno County
West Hills College Lemoore in Lemoore, Kings County
Madera Community College in Madera, Madera County
Oakhurst Community College Center in Oakhurst, Madera County
There are no community colleges in Mariposa or San Benito Counties.


Passenger rail in the region consists of the Amtrak long-haul Coast Starlight and Amtrak California San Joaquin routes.
The California High-Speed Rail system is under planning.  If built, it would have stations in Fresno and Merced on the initial line between San Francisco/San Jose and Los Angeles.
Freight rail is served by commercial railroads.  Union Pacific Railroad and BNSF Railway operate mainline freight through the region in the Central Valley.


The term first appears in classical texts as Ἀλβίων Albíōn or Ἀλουΐων Alouíōn (in Ptolemy's writings in Greek), and later as Albion in Latin documents. Historically, the term refers to Britain as a whole and is ultimately based on the Indo-European root for "white". It later came to be used by Gaelic speakers in the form of Alba (dative Albainn, genitive Albann, now obsolete) as the name given to the former kingdom of the Picts which when first used in this sense (around the time of king Causantín mac Áeda (Constantine II, 943–952)) had expanded. The region Breadalbane (Bràghad Albann, the upper part of "Alba") takes its name from it as well.
As time passed that kingdom incorporated others to the southern territories. It became re-Latinised in the High Medieval period as "Albania" (it is unclear whether it may ultimately share the same etymon as the modern Albania). This latter word was employed mainly by Celto-Latin writers, and most famously by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It was this word which passed into Middle English as Albany, although very rarely was this used for the Kingdom of Scotland, but rather for the notional Duchy of Albany. It is from the latter that Albany, the capital of the US state of New York, and Albany, Western Australia take their names.
It also appears in the anglicised literary form of Albyn, as in Byron's Childe Harold:
And wild and high the 'Cameron's gathering' rose,
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn's hills
Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes


BBC Alba, a television channel broadcasting mainly in Scottish Gaelic, was launched in September 2008 as a joint venture between the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Gaelic company MG Alba. A new version of Runrig's song Alba (originally on their album, The Cutter and the Clan) was featured on the channel's launch.
In the mid-1990s, the Celtic League started a campaign to have the word "Alba" on the Scottish football and rugby tops. Since 2005, the SFA have supported the use of Scottish Gaelic by adding Alba on the back of the official team strip. However, as of 2008, the SRU is still being lobbied to have Alba added to the national rugby union strip.
In 2007, the then Scottish Executive re-branded itself as "The Scottish Government" and started to use a bilingual logo with the Gaelic name Riaghaltas na h-Alba. However, the Gaelic version from the outset had always been Riaghaltas na h-Alba. The Scottish Parliament, likewise, uses the Gaelic name Pàrlamaid na h-Alba.
A new welcome sign on the historic A7 route into Scotland was erected in 2009, with the text Fàilte gu Alba.
Phrases such as Alba gu bràth may be used as a catch-phrase or rallying cry. It was used in the movie Braveheart as William Wallace encouraged the troops at the Battle of Stirling Bridge.
In March 2021, former first minister of Scotland and leader of the SNP Alex Salmond launched the pro-independence Alba Party, set to contest the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections.


Alba (/ˈælbə, ˈælvə/ AL-bə, AL-və, Scottish Gaelic: [ˈal̪ˠapə]) is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. It is also, in English language historiography, used to refer to the polity of Picts and Scots united in the ninth century as the Kingdom of Alba, until it developed into the Kingdom of Scotland of the late Middle Ages following the absorption of Strathclyde and English-speaking Lothian in the 12th century. It is cognate with the Irish term Alba (gen. Alban, dat. Albain) and the Manx term Nalbin, the two other Goidelic Insular Celtic languages, as well as contemporary words used in Cornish (Alban) and Welsh (Yr Alban), both of which are Brythonic Insular Celtic languages. The third surviving Brythonic language, Breton, instead uses Bro-Skos, meaning 'country of the Scots'. In the past these terms were names for Great Britain as a whole, related to the Brythonic name Albion.


Malta (/ˈmɒltə/ (listen) MOL-tə, UK also /ˈmɔːltə/ MAWL-tə, Maltese: [ˈmɐltɐ]), officially known as the Republic of Malta (Maltese: Repubblika ta' Malta [rɛˈpʊbːlɪkɐ tɐ ˈmɐltɐ]), is an island country in the European Union consisting of an archipelago in the Mediterranean Sea, and considered part of Southern Europe. It lies 80 km (50 mi) south of Sicily (Italy), 284 km (176 mi) east of Tunisia, and 333 km (207 mi) north of Libya.  The official languages are Maltese and English, and 66% of the current Maltese population is at least conversational in the Italian language.
Malta has been inhabited since approximately 5900 BC. Its location in the centre of the Mediterranean has historically given it great strategic importance as a naval base, with a succession of powers having contested and ruled the islands, including the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Normans, Aragonese, Knights of St. John, French, and British, amongst others.
With a population of about 516,000 over an area of 316 km² (122 sq mi), Malta is the world's tenth-smallest country in area and fourth most densely populated sovereign country. Its capital is Valletta, which is the smallest national capital in the European Union by area and population. According to the data from 2020 by Eurostat, the Functional Urban Area and metropolitan region covered the whole island and has a population of 480,134, and according to the United Nations, ESPON and EU Commission, "the whole territory of Malta constitutes a single urban region". Malta increasingly is referred to as a city-state, and also listed in rankings concerning cities or metropolitan areas. Malta is one of the two island countries in the Mediterranean, along with Cyprus.
Malta became a British colony in 1813, serving as a way station for ships and the headquarters for the British Mediterranean Fleet. It was besieged by the Axis powers during World War II and was an important Allied base for operations in North Africa and the Mediterranean. The British parliament passed the Malta Independence Act in 1964, giving Malta independence from the United Kingdom as the State of Malta, with Elizabeth II as its queen. The country became a republic in 1974. It has been a member state of the Commonwealth of Nations and the United Nations since independence, and joined the European Union in 2004; it became part of the eurozone monetary union in 2008.
Malta has had Christians since the time of Early Christianity, though was predominantly Muslim while under Arab rule, at which time Christians were tolerated. Muslim rule ended with the Norman invasion of Malta by Roger I in 1091. Today, Catholicism is the state religion, but the Constitution of Malta guarantees freedom of conscience and religious worship. The economy of Malta is heavily reliant on tourism, and the country promotes itself as a Mediterranean tourist destination with its warmer climate compared to the rest of Europe, numerous recreational areas, and architectural and historical monuments, including three UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Ħal Saflieni Hypogeum, Valletta, and seven megalithic temples which are some of the oldest free-standing structures in the world.


Malta became involved in the Arab–Byzantine wars, and the conquest of Malta is closely linked with that of Sicily that began in 827 after Admiral Euphemius' betrayal of his fellow Byzantines, requesting that the Aghlabids invade the island.
The Muslim chronicler and geographer al-Himyari recounts that in 870, following a violent struggle against the defending Byzantines, the Arab invaders, first led by Halaf al-Hadim, and later by Sawada ibn Muhammad, looted and pillaged the island, destroying the most important buildings, and leaving it practically uninhabited until it was recolonised by the Arabs from Sicily in 1048–1049. It is uncertain whether this new settlement took place as a consequence of demographic expansion in Sicily, as a result of a higher standard of living in Sicily (in which case the recolonisation may have taken place a few decades earlier), or as a result of civil war which broke out among the Arab rulers of Sicily in 1038.
The Arab Agricultural Revolution introduced new irrigation, some fruits and cotton, and the Siculo-Arabic language was adopted on the island from Sicily; it would eventually evolve into the Maltese language.


Pottery found by archaeologists at the Skorba Temples resembles that found in Italy, and suggests that the Maltese islands were first settled in 5200 BC mainly by Stone Age hunters or farmers who had arrived from the Italian island of Sicily, possibly the Sicani. The extinction of the dwarf hippos, giant swans and dwarf elephants has been linked to the earliest arrival of humans on Malta. Prehistoric farming settlements dating to the Early Neolithic period were discovered in open areas and also in caves, such as Għar Dalam.
The Sicani were the only tribe known to have inhabited the island at this time and are generally regarded as being closely related to the Iberians. The population on Malta grew cereals, raised livestock and, in common with other ancient Mediterranean cultures, worshiped a fertility figure represented in Maltese prehistoric artifacts exhibiting the proportions seen in similar statuettes, including the Venus of Willendorf.
Pottery from the Għar Dalam phase is similar to pottery found in Agrigento, Sicily. A culture of megalithic temple builders then either supplanted or arose from this early period. Around the time of 3500 BC, these people built some of the oldest existing free-standing structures in the world in the form of the megalithic Ġgantija temples on Gozo; other early temples include those at Ħaġar Qim and Mnajdra.
The temples have distinctive architecture, typically a complex trefoil design, and were used from 4000 to 2500 BC. Animal bones and a knife found behind a removable altar stone suggest that temple rituals included animal sacrifice. Tentative information suggests that the sacrifices were made to the goddess of fertility, whose statue is now in the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta. The culture apparently disappeared from the Maltese Islands around 2500 BC. Archaeologists speculate that the temple builders fell victim to famine or disease, but this is not certain.
Another archaeological feature of the Maltese Islands often attributed to these ancient builders is equidistant uniform grooves dubbed "cart tracks" or "cart ruts" which can be found in several locations throughout the islands, with the most prominent being those found in Misraħ Għar il-Kbir, which is informally known as "Clapham Junction". These may have been caused by wooden-wheeled carts eroding soft limestone.
After 2500 BC, the Maltese Islands were depopulated for several decades until the arrival of a new influx of Bronze Age immigrants, a culture that cremated its dead and introduced smaller megalithic structures called dolmens to Malta. In most cases, there are small chambers here, with the cover made of a large slab placed on upright stones. They are claimed to belong to a population certainly different from that which built the previous megalithic temples. It is presumed the population arrived from Sicily because of the similarity of Maltese dolmens to some small constructions found on the largest island of the Mediterranean sea.


They are small, hairy moths, with reduced or absent mouthparts and fringed wings. They often perch with their abdomens sticking out at 90° from their thoraces and wings. North American moths are mostly cryptic browns, sometimes marked with white or green, but the hag moth mimics bees.


The Limacodidae or Eucleidae  are a family of moths in the superfamily Zygaenoidea or the Cossoidea; the placement is in dispute. They are often called slug moths because their caterpillars bear a distinct resemblance to slugs.  They are also called cup moths because of the shape of their cocoons.
The larvae are often liberally covered in protective stinging hairs, and are mostly tropical, but occur worldwide, with about 1800 described species and probably many more as yet undescribed species.


The final instar constructs a silk cocoon and hardens it with calcium oxalate excreted from its Malpighian tubules. Cocoons have a circular escape hatch, formed from a line of weakness in the silk matrix. It is forced open just prior to emergence of the adult.


The larvae are typically very flattened, and instead of prolegs, they have suckers. The thoracic legs are reduced, but always present, and they move by rolling waves rather than walking with individual prolegs. They even use a lubricant, a kind of liquefied silk, to move.
Larvae might be confused with the similarly flattened larvae of lycaenid butterflies, but those caterpillars have prolegs, are always longer than they are wide, and are always densely covered in short or long setae (hair-like bristles). The head is extended during feeding in the lycaenids, but remains covered in the Limacodidae.
Many limacodid larvae are green and fairly smooth (e.g. yellow-shouldered slug), but others have tubercles with urticating hairs and may have bright warning colours. The sting can be quite potent, causing severe pain.
The larval head is concealed under folds. First-instars skeletonise the leaf (avoiding small veins and eating mostly one surface), but later instars eat the whole leaf, usually from the underside. Many species seem to feed on several genera of host plants.
Limacodidae larvae in temperate forests of eastern North America prefer glabrous leaves, presumably because the trichomes of pubescent leaves interfere with their movement.


Eggs are flattened and thin. They are highly transparent and the larva can be seen developing inside. They may be laid singly or in clusters on leaves.


The family and type genus name are derived from the two Latin words saxum (rock), and frango (to break), but the exact origin is unknown, although surmised to refer to either growing in crevices in rocks or medicinal use for kidney stones.


The crown group of Saxifragaceae diversified at about 38 Mya (Mid–Late Eocene), with the two main lineages diversifying arising at about 30 Mya (Late Miocene/Early Oligocene). The present day heucheroid diversity dates later than the Miocene (see sublabels in Cladogram II). Ancestral Saxafragaceae emerged in either East Asia or Western North America, with subsequent dispersal West to Europe and south to South America. From the Eocene to the late Miocene these ancestral land masses were joined by the Bering Land Bridge facilitating plant migration.


Species are herbaceous perennials (rarely annual or biennial), sometimes succulent or xerophytic, often with perennating rhizomes. The leaves are usually basally aggregated in alternate rosettes, sometimes on inflorescence stems. They are usually simple, rarely pinnately or palmately compound. Their margins may be entire, deeply lobed, cleft, crenate or dentate and petiolate with stipules.
The inflorescences are bracteate racemes or cymes. The flowers are hermaphroditic (bisexual), rarely unisexual (androdioecious), actinomorphic (rarely zygomorphic). The perianth is placed on a hypanthium that may be free or may be partly fused with the ovary (which is then semi-inferior). There are usually five sepals, but there may be three to ten, fused with the hypanthium, occasionally petaloid. The petals are clawed, sometimes cleft at the tip or finely dissected. Flowers have five to ten stamens, free and opposite the petals, with the anthers usually basifixed and opening by lengthwise slits. The ovary is inferior to semi-inferior with two (sometimes three) carpels usually fused at the base, sometimes free, each topped with stylodium and capitate stigma. The ovules are few to many, with axile or parietal placentation and two to three styles. The fruit is usually a septicidal capsule or follicle, with numerous small seeds.


Saxifragaceae s.s. has about 33–35 genera and about 640 species. About half of the genera (18 of 33) are monotypic, but Saxifraga has about 400 species, and has generally been divided into sections.


Saxifragaceae is a family of herbaceous perennial flowering plants, within the core eudicot order Saxifragales. The taxonomy of the family has been greatly revised and the scope much reduced in the era of molecular phylogenetic analysis. The family is divided into ten clades, with about 640 known species in about 35 accepted genera. About half of these consist of a single species, but about 400 of the species are in the type genus Saxifraga. The family is predominantly distributed in the northern hemisphere, but also in the Andes in South America.


Primarily Northern hemisphere temperate and arctic regions, and also tropical montane, including the Americas, Europe, North Africa (including montane Ethiopia) and temperate and subtropical Asia to Luzon and New Guinea. In the Americas it extends south to central Mexico and the Andes to Tierra del Fuego. Centres of diversity are western N America, East Asia and the Himalayas. The largest concentration of genera are in the Pacific North West. Some Saxifraga and Chrysosplenium are circumboreal. Others have disjunct distributions between E Asia and N America, while other taxa have separate narrow distributions in southern S America. Some species are found in wet woodlands, swamplike conditions and wet cliff edges.


Saxifragaceae has long been considered in a pivotal position in the evolution of angiosperm lineage, located in an ancestral "Saxifragalean stock". Historically the Saxifragaceae have included many very morphologically disparate taxa in systems based on morphology alone, and has been very difficult to classify and characterize phenotypically. Consequently many different classifications have been published, differing considerably in both the relationship of the family to other angiosperms, and its internal structure, for instance the systems of Cronquist (1981), Dahlgren (1983), Engler (1890), Hutchinson (1973), Schulze-Menz (1964), Takhtajan (1980) and Thorne (1992) (for a history, see Morgan & Soltis (1993). In its broadest circumscription, it included 17 subfamilies. This construction is referred to as Saxifragaceae sensu lato (s.l.). Within those subfamilies, the large majority of genera (30) were located within subfamily Saxifragoideae, the core group, with all but two of the remainder only having 1-3 genera.
The circumscription of the family has changed considerably in recent years, in large part due to molecular phylogenetic work showing the family s.l. to be polyphyletic, and probably represents the most extreme example, with at least 10 evolutionary lines. Consequently the circumscription has been considerably reduced, with many of the subfamilies being either elevated to separate families, or placed as components of other families, often quite distant. For instance subfamily Parnassioideae was raised to the level of family Parnassiaceae, and eventually a subfamily of Celastraceae (order Celastrales). Similarly the Hydrangoideae is now the family Hydrangeaceae (order Cornales).
The reduced Saxifragaceae is distinguished by being referred to as Saxifragaceae sensu stricto (s.s.), corresponding to the Saxifragoideae a natural monophyletic group. Historically, the Saxifragaceae has been placed in either the orders Rosales or Saxifragales. This reduced Saxifragaceae, corresponding to subfamily Saxifragoideae and its 30 genera, is now placed within the Saxifragales. There, with three other subfamilies (Ribesoideaee, Iteoideae and Pterostemonoideae) it forms the Saxifragaceae alliance, while Penthoroideae and Tetracarpaeoideae are closely related within the core Saxifragales as shown in the cladogram. The remaining subfamilies are all transferred to more distant orders within the rosid and asterid clades.


1892 (MDCCCXCII) was a leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar, the 1892nd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 892nd  year of the 2nd millennium, the 92nd  year of the 19th century, and the  3rd   year of the 1890s decade. As of the start of 1892, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


March 1 – Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Japanese writer (d. 1927)
March 3 – Mississippi John Hurt (some sources give his year of birth as 1893), American country blues singer, guitarist (d. 1966)
March 8 – Constantin Brătescu, Romanian general (d. 1971)
March 9
Arthur Caesar, American screenwriter (d. 1953)
David Garnett, English novelist and writer (d. 1981)
Mátyás Rákosi, 43rd prime minister of Hungary (d. 1971)
Vita Sackville-West, English writer and gardener (d. 1962)
March 10
Arthur Honegger, French-born Swiss composer (d. 1955)
Gregory La Cava, American director, producer and writer (d. 1952)
Eva Turner, English operatic soprano (d. 1990)
March 15 – Charles Nungesser, French aviator, World War I fighter ace (d. 1927)
March 16 – César Vallejo, Peruvian poet (d. 1938)
March 25 – Andy Clyde, Scottish-born screen actor (d. 1967)
March 27 – Ferde Grofé, American pianist, composer (d. 1972)
March 28
Corneille Heymans, Belgian physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1968)
Tom Maguire, Irish Republican (d. 1993)
March 30
Stefan Banach, Polish mathematician (d. 1945)
Erhard Milch, German field marshal, Luftwaffe officer (d. 1972)
Sanzō Nosaka, Japanese Communist Party chairman and leader of JPEL (d. 1993)
March 31 – Stanisław Maczek, Polish general (d. 1994)


January 1
Artur Rodziński, Polish conductor (d. 1958)
Manuel Roxas, 5th President of the Philippines (d. 1948)
January 3 – J. R. R. Tolkien, English professor, linguist, philologist, conlanger and author of The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion (d. 1973)
January 12 – Mikhail Kirponos, Soviet general (d. 1941)
January 14
Martin Niemöller, German prisoner in the Nazi Holocaust (d. 1984)
Hal Roach, American film, television producer (d. 1992)
January 15 – Rex Ingram, Irish film director (d. 1950)
January 18
Oliver Hardy, American comedian, actor (d. 1957)
Paul Rostock, German surgeon (d. 1956)
January 19 – Ólafur Thors, Icelandic politician, 5-times prime minister (d. 1964)
January 22 – Marcel Dassault, French aircraft industrialist (d. 1986)
January 25 – Takeo Takagi, Japanese admiral (d. 1944)
January 26 – Zara Cully, American actress (d. 1978)
January 28
Luke Jordan, American blues singer, guitarist (d. 1952)
Ernst Lubitsch, German-born film director (d. 1947)
Fyodor Raskolnikov, Soviet revolutionary, writer, journalist, naval commander and diplomat (d. 1939)
January 31 – Eddie Cantor, American actor, singer (d. 1964)


April – The Johnson County War breaks out between small farmers and large ranchers in Wyoming.
April 15 – The General Electric Company is established through the merger of the Thomson-Houston Company and the Edison General Electric Company.
May 7 – The Cook Islands issue their first postage stamps.
May 11 – The 18th Kentucky Derby is run in Louisville, Kentucky; Azra finishes first, Huron second and Phil Dwyer third in a race with only three horses.
May 19 – Battle of Yemoja River: British troops defeat Ijebu infantry in modern-day Nigeria, using a maxim gun.
May 20 – The last broad gauge train runs from Paddington on the Great Western Railway of England.
May 22 – The British conquest of Ijebu Ode marks a major extension of colonial power into the Nigerian interior.
May 24 – Prince George (later George V of the United Kingdom) becomes Duke of York.
June 5 – An oil fire in Oil City, Pennsylvania, United States, kills 130 people.
June 7 – Homer Plessy, an octoroon, is arrested for deliberately sitting in a whites-only railroad car in Louisiana, leading to the landmark Plessy v. Ferguson court case, an unsuccessful attempt to challenge "separate but equal" race legislation in the United States.
June 11
The Limelight Department, later one of the world's first film studios, is officially established in Melbourne, Australia.
Stockholms allmänna kvinnoklubb (Stockholm Public Women's Club) is founded.
June 30 – The Homestead Strike begins in Homestead, Pennsylvania, culminating in a battle between striking workers and private security agents on July 6.


1950
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1950th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 950th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 50th  year of the 20th century, and the  1st   year of the 1950s decade.


Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environments, but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques include hand-gathering, spearing, netting, angling, shooting and trapping, as well as more destructive and often illegal techniques such as electrocution, blasting and poisoning.
The term fishing broadly includes catching aquatic animals other than fish, such as crustaceans (shrimp/lobsters/crabs), shellfish, cephalopods (octopus/squid) and echinoderms (starfish/sea urchins). The term is not normally applied to harvesting fish raised in controlled cultivations (fish farming). Nor is it normally applied to hunting aquatic mammals, where terms like whaling and sealing are used instead.
Fishing has been an important part of human culture since hunter-gatherer times, and is one of the few food production activities that have persisted from prehistory into modern age, surviving both the Neolithic Revolution and successive Industrial Revolutions. In addition to being caught to be eaten for food, fish are caught as recreational pastimes. Fishing tournaments are held, and caught fish are sometimes kept long-term as preserved or living trophies. When bioblitzes occur, fish are typically caught, identified, and then released.
According to the United Nations FAO statistics, the total number of commercial fishers and fish farmers is estimated to be 38 million. Fishing industries and aquaculture provide direct and indirect employment to over 500 million people in developing countries. In 2005, the worldwide per capita consumption of fish captured from wild fisheries was 14.4 kilograms (32 lb), with an additional 7.4 kilograms (16 lb) harvested from fish farms.


The Alps are the highest (4809m) and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately 750 mi (1,210 km) across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, and Slovenia.
The Alpine arch generally extends from Nice on the western Mediterranean to Trieste on the Adriatic and Vienna at the beginning of the Pannonian Basin. The mountains were formed over tens of millions of years as the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided. Extreme shortening  caused by the event resulted in marine sedimentary rocks rising by thrusting and folding into high mountain peaks such as Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn.
Mont Blanc spans the French–Italian border, and at 4,809 m (15,778 ft) is the highest mountain in the Alps. The Alpine region area contains 128 peaks higher than 4,000 m (13,000 ft).
The altitude and size of the range affect the climate in Europe; in the mountains, precipitation levels vary greatly and climatic conditions consist of distinct zones. Wildlife such as ibex live in the higher peaks to elevations of 3,400 m (11,155 ft), and plants such as Edelweiss grow in rocky areas in lower elevations as well as in higher elevations.
Evidence of human habitation in the Alps goes back to the Palaeolithic era. A mummified man, determined to be 5,000 years old, was discovered on a glacier at the Austrian–Italian border in 1991.
By the 6th century BC, the Celtic La Tène culture was well established. Hannibal famously crossed the Alps with a herd of elephants, and the Romans had settlements in the region. In 1800, Napoleon crossed one of the mountain passes with an army of 40,000. The 18th and 19th centuries saw an influx of naturalists, writers, and artists, in particular, the Romantics, followed by the golden age of alpinism as mountaineers began to ascend the peaks.
The Alpine region has a strong cultural identity. The traditional culture of farming, cheesemaking, and woodworking still exists in Alpine villages, although the tourist industry began to grow early in the 20th century and expanded greatly after World War II to become the dominant industry by the end of the century.
The Winter Olympic Games have been hosted in the Swiss, French, Italian, Austrian and German Alps. At present, the region is home to 14 million people and has 120 million annual visitors.


The Alps are a crescent shaped geographic feature of central Europe that ranges in an 800 km (500 mi) arc (curved line) from east to west and is 200 km (120 mi) in width. The mean height of the mountain peaks is 2.5 km (1.6 mi). The range stretches from the Mediterranean Sea north above the Po basin, extending through France from Grenoble, and stretching eastward through mid and southern Switzerland. The range continues onward toward Vienna, Austria, and east to the Adriatic Sea and Slovenia.
To the south it dips into northern Italy and to the north extends to the southern border of Bavaria in Germany. In areas like Chiasso, Switzerland, and Allgäu, Bavaria, the demarcation between the mountain range and the flatlands are clear; in other places such as Geneva, the demarcation is less clear.
The countries with the greatest alpine territory are Austria (28.7% of the total area), Italy (27.2%), France (21.4%) and Switzerland (13.2%).
The highest portion of the range is divided by the glacial trough of the Rhône valley, from Mont Blanc to the Matterhorn and Monte Rosa on the southern side, and the Bernese Alps on the northern. The peaks in the easterly portion of the range, in Austria and Slovenia, are smaller than those in the central and western portions.
The variances in nomenclature in the region spanned by the Alps make classification of the mountains and subregions difficult, but a general classification is that of the Eastern Alps and Western Alps with the divide between the two occurring in eastern Switzerland according to geologist Stefan Schmid, near the Splügen Pass.

The highest peaks of the Western Alps and Eastern Alps, respectively, are Mont Blanc, at 4,810 m (15,780 ft) and Piz Bernina at 4,049 m (13,284 ft). The second-highest major peaks are Monte Rosa at 4,634 m (15,203 ft) and Ortler, at 3,905 m (12,810 ft), respectively.
A Series of lower mountain ranges run parallel to the main chain of the Alps, including the French Prealps in France and the Jura Mountains in Switzerland and France. The secondary chain of the Alps follows the watershed from the Mediterranean Sea to the Wienerwald, passing over many of the highest and most well-known peaks in the Alps.
From the Colle di Cadibona to Col de Tende it runs westwards, before turning to the northwest and then, near the Colle della Maddalena, to the north. Upon reaching the Swiss border, the line of the main chain heads approximately east-northeast, a heading it follows until its end near Vienna.
The northeast end of the Alpine arc directly on the Danube, which flows into the Black Sea, is the Leopoldsberg near Vienna. In contrast, the southeastern part of the Alps ends on the Adriatic Sea in the area around Trieste towards Duino and Barcola.


The first people settled in the territory of Lithuania after the last glacial period in the 10th millennium BC: Kunda, Neman and Narva cultures. They were traveling hunters and did not form stable settlements. In the 8th millennium BC, the climate became much warmer, and forests developed. The inhabitants of what is now Lithuania then travelled less and engaged in local hunting, gathering and fresh-water fishing. Agriculture did not emerge until the 3rd millennium BC due to a harsh climate and terrain and a lack of suitable tools to cultivate the land. Crafts and trade also started to form at this time. Over a millennium, the Indo-Europeans, who arrived in the 3rd – 2nd millennium BC, mixed with the local population and formed various Baltic tribes.
The Baltic tribes did not maintain close cultural or political contacts with the Roman Empire, but they did maintain trade contacts (see Amber Road). Tacitus, in his study Germania, described the Aesti people, inhabitants of the south-eastern Baltic Sea shores who were probably Balts, around the year 97 AD. The Western Balts differentiated and became known to outside chroniclers first. Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD knew of the Galindians and Yotvingians, and early medieval chroniclers mentioned Old Prussians, Curonians and Semigallians.
The Lithuanian language is considered to be very conservative for its close connection to Indo-European roots. It is believed to have differentiated from the Latvian language, the most closely related existing language, around the 7th century. Traditional Lithuanian pagan customs and mythology, with many archaic elements, were long preserved. Rulers' bodies were cremated up until the conversion to Christianity: the descriptions of the cremation ceremonies of the grand dukes Algirdas and Kęstutis have survived.


Lithuania (/ˌlɪθjuˈeɪniə/ (listen); Lithuanian: Lietuva [lʲɪɛtʊˈvɐ]), officially the Republic of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos Respublika), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania shares land borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and Russia to the southwest. It has a maritime border with Sweden to the west on the Baltic Sea. Lithuania covers an area of 65,300 km² (25,200 sq mi), with a population of 2.8 million. Its capital and largest city is Vilnius; other major cities are Kaunas and Klaipėda. Lithuanians belong to the ethno-linguistic group of the Balts and speak Lithuanian, one of only a few living Baltic languages.
For millennia the southeastern shores of the Baltic Sea were inhabited by various Baltic tribes. In the 1230s, Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, becoming king and founding the Kingdom of Lithuania on 6 July 1253. In the 14th century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the largest country in Europe; present-day Lithuania, Belarus, most of Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia were all lands of the Grand Duchy. The Crown of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were in a de facto personal union from 1386 with the marriage of the Polish queen Hedwig and Lithuania's Grand Duke Jogaila, who was crowned King jure uxoris Władysław II Jagiełło of Poland. The Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania was established by the Union of Lublin in July 1569. The Commonwealth lasted more than two centuries, until neighbouring countries dismantled it in 1772–1795, with the Russian Empire annexing most of Lithuania's territory. As World War I ended, Lithuania's Act of Independence was signed on 16 February 1918, founding the modern Republic of Lithuania. In World War II, Lithuania was occupied first by the Soviet Union and then by Nazi Germany. Towards the end of the war in 1944, when the Germans were retreating, the Soviet Union reoccupied Lithuania. Lithuanian armed resistance to the Soviet occupation lasted until the early 1950s. On 11 March 1990, a year before the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union, Lithuania passed the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania, becoming the first Soviet republic to proclaim its independence.
Lithuania is a developed country, with a high income advanced economy; ranking very high in the Human Development Index. It ranks favourably in terms of civil liberties, press freedom, internet freedom, democratic governance, and peacefulness. Lithuania is a member of the European Union, the Council of Europe, eurozone, the Nordic Investment Bank, Schengen Agreement, NATO and OECD. It participates in the Nordic-Baltic Eight (NB8) regional co-operation format and is a permanent observer of the Nordic Council.