The objective in rugby league is to score more points through tries, goals and field goals (also known as drop goals) than the opposition within the 80 minutes of play. If after two-halves of play, each consisting of forty minutes, the two teams are drawing, a draw may be declared, or the game may enter extra time under the golden point rule, depending on the relevant competition's format.
The try is the most common form of scoring, and a team will usually attempt to score one by running and kicking the ball further upfield or passing from player-to-player in order to manoeuvre around the opposition's defence. A try involves touching the ball to the ground on or beyond the defending team's goal-line and is worth four points. A goal is worth two points and may be gained from a conversion or a penalty. A field goal, or drop goal, is only worth one point and is gained by dropping and then kicking the ball on the half volley between the uprights in open play.
Field position is crucial in rugby league, achieved by running with or kicking the ball. Passing in rugby league may only be in a backward or sideways direction. Teammates, therefore, have to remain on-side by not moving ahead of the player with the ball. The ball may be kicked ahead, but if teammates are in front of the kicker when the ball is kicked, they are deemed off-side.
Tackling is a key component of rugby league play. Only the player holding the ball may be tackled. A tackle is complete, for example, when the player is held by one or more opposing players in such a manner that he can make no further progress and cannot part with the ball, or when the player is held by one or more opposing players and the ball or the hand or arm holding the ball comes into contact with the ground. An attacking team gets a maximum of six tackles to progress up the field before possession is changed over. Once the tackle is completed, the ball-carrier must be allowed to get to his feet to 'play-the-ball'. Ball control is also important in rugby league, as a fumble of the ball on the ground forces a handover, unless the ball is fumbled backwards. The ball can also be turned over by going over the sideline.


The precise date of Easter has at times been a matter of contention. By the later 2nd century, it was widely accepted that the celebration of the holiday was a practice of the disciples and an undisputed tradition. The Quartodeciman controversy, the first of several Easter controversies, arose concerning the date on which the holiday should be celebrated.
The term "Quartodeciman" refers to the practice of ending the Lenten fast on Nisan 14 of the Hebrew calendar, "the LORD's passover". According to the church historian Eusebius, the Quartodeciman Polycarp (bishop of Smyrna, by tradition a disciple of John the Apostle) debated the question with Anicetus (bishop of Rome). The Roman province of Asia was Quartodeciman, while the Roman and Alexandrian churches continued the fast until the Sunday following (the Sunday of Unleavened Bread), wishing to associate Easter with Sunday. Neither Polycarp nor Anicetus persuaded the other, but they did not consider the matter schismatic either, parting in peace and leaving the question unsettled.
Controversy arose when Victor, bishop of Rome a generation after Anicetus, attempted to excommunicate Polycrates of Ephesus and all other bishops of Asia for their Quartodecimanism. According to Eusebius, a number of synods were convened to deal with the controversy, which he regarded as all ruling in support of Easter on Sunday. Polycrates (circa 190), however, wrote to Victor defending the antiquity of Asian Quartodecimanism. Victor's attempted excommunication was apparently rescinded, and the two sides reconciled upon the intervention of bishop Irenaeus and others, who reminded Victor of the tolerant precedent of Anicetus.
Quartodecimanism seems to have lingered into the 4th century, when Socrates of Constantinople recorded that some Quartodecimans were deprived of their churches by John Chrysostom and that some were harassed by Nestorius.
It is not known how long the Nisan 14 practice continued. But both those who followed the Nisan 14 custom, and those who set Easter to the following Sunday, had in common the custom of consulting their Jewish neighbors to learn when the month of Nisan would fall, and setting their festival accordingly. By the later 3rd century, however, some Christians began to express dissatisfaction with the custom of relying on the Jewish community to determine the date of Easter. The chief complaint was that the Jewish communities sometimes erred in setting Passover to fall before the Northern Hemisphere spring equinox. The Sardica paschal table confirms these complaints, for it indicates that the Jews of some eastern Mediterranean city (possibly Antioch) fixed Nisan 14 on dates well before the spring equinox on multiple occasions.
Because of this dissatisfaction with reliance on the Jewish calendar, some Christians began to experiment with independent computations. Others, however, believed that the customary practice of consulting Jews should continue, even if the Jewish computations were in error.


In 725, Bede succinctly wrote, "The Sunday following the full Moon which falls on or after the equinox will give the lawful Easter." However, this does not precisely reflect the ecclesiastical rules. The full moon referred to (called the Paschal full moon) is not an astronomical full moon, but the 14th day of a lunar month. Another difference is that the astronomical equinox is a natural astronomical phenomenon, which can fall on 19, 20 or 21 March, while the ecclesiastical date is fixed by convention on 21 March.
In applying the ecclesiastical rules, Christian churches use 21 March as the starting point in determining the date of Easter, from which they find the next full moon, etc. The Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox Churches continue to use the Julian calendar. Their starting point in determining the date of Orthodox Easter is also 21 March but according to the Julian reckoning, which in the current century corresponds to 3 April in the Gregorian calendar.
In addition, the lunar tables of the Julian calendar are currently five days behind those of the Gregorian calendar. Therefore, the Julian computation of the Paschal full moon is a full five days later than the astronomical full moon. The result of this combination of solar and lunar discrepancies is divergence in the date of Easter in most years (see table).
Easter is determined on the basis of lunisolar cycles. The lunar year consists of 30-day and 29-day lunar months, generally alternating, with an embolismic month added periodically to bring the lunar cycle into line with the solar cycle. In each solar year (1 January to 31 December inclusive), the lunar month beginning with an ecclesiastical new moon falling in the 29-day period from 8 March to 5 April inclusive is designated as the paschal lunar month for that year.
Easter is the third Sunday in the paschal lunar month, or, in other words, the Sunday after the paschal lunar month's 14th day. The 14th of the paschal lunar month is designated by convention as the Paschal full moon, although the 14th of the lunar month may differ from the date of the astronomical full moon by up to two days. Since the ecclesiastical new moon falls on a date from 8 March to 5 April inclusive, the paschal full moon (the 14th of that lunar month) must fall on a date from 22 March to 18 April inclusive.
The Gregorian calculation of Easter was based on a method devised by the Calabrian doctor Aloysius Lilius (or Lilio) for adjusting the epacts of the Moon, and has been adopted by almost all Western Christians and by Western countries which celebrate national holidays at Easter. For the British Empire and colonies, a determination of the date of Easter Sunday using Golden Numbers and Sunday letters was defined by the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 with its Annexe. This was designed to match exactly the Gregorian calculation.


The pre-Etruscan history of the area in the middle and late Bronze parallels that of the archaic Greeks. The Tuscan area was inhabited by peoples of the so-called Apennine culture in the second millennium BC (roughly 1400–1150 BC) who had trading relationships with the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations in the Aegean Sea, and, at the end of the Bronze Age, by peoples of the so-called Proto-Villanovan culture (c. 1100-900 BC) part of the central European Urnfield culture system. Following this, at the beginning of the Iron Age, the Villanovan culture (c. 900–700 BC), regarded as the oldest phase of Etruscan civilization, saw Tuscany, and the rest of Etruria, taken over by chiefdoms. City-states developed in the late Villanovan (paralleling Greece and the Aegean) before "Orientalization" occurred.


Pilgrims travelling along the Via Francigena between Rome and France brought wealth and development during the medieval period. The food and shelter required by these travellers fuelled the growth of communities around churches and taverns. The conflict between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, factions supporting the Papacy or the Holy Roman Empire in central and northern Italy during the 12th and 13th centuries, split the Tuscan people. The two factions gave rise to several powerful and rich medieval communes in Tuscany: Arezzo, Florence, Lucca, Pisa, and Siena. Balance between these communes was ensured by the assets they held: Pisa, a port; Siena, banking; and Lucca, banking and silk. But by the time of the Renaissance, Florence had become the cultural capital of Tuscany.
One family that benefitted from Florence's growing wealth and power was the ruling Medici family. Its scion Lorenzo de' Medici was one of the most famous of the Medici. The legacy of his influence is visible today in the prodigious expression of art and architecture in Florence. His famous descendant Catherine de' Medici married Prince Henry (later King Henry II) of France in 1533.
The Black Death epidemic hit Tuscany starting in 1348. It eventually killed 70% of the Tuscan population. According to Melissa Snell, "Florence lost a third of its population in the first six months of the plague, and from 45% to 75% of its population in the first year." In 1630, Florence and Tuscany were once again ravaged by the plague.


Tuscany, especially Florence, is regarded as the birthplace of the Renaissance. Though "Tuscany" remained a linguistic, cultural, and geographic conception rather than a political reality, in the 15th century, Florence extended its dominion in Tuscany through the annexation of Arezzo in 1384, the purchase of Pisa in 1405, and the suppression of a local resistance there (1406). Livorno was bought in 1421 and became the harbour of Florence.
From the leading city of Florence, the republic was from 1434 onward dominated by the increasingly monarchical Medici family. Initially, under Cosimo, Piero the Gouty, Lorenzo and Piero the Unfortunate, the forms of the republic were retained and the Medici ruled without a title, usually without even a formal office. These rulers presided over the Florentine Renaissance. There was a return to the republic from 1494 to 1512, when first Girolamo Savonarola then Piero Soderini oversaw the state. Cardinal Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici retook the city with Spanish forces in 1512, before going to Rome to become Pope Leo X. Florence was dominated by a series of papal proxies until 1527 when the citizens declared the republic again, only to have it taken from them again in 1530 after a siege by an Imperial and Spanish army. At this point Pope Clement VII and Charles V appointed Alessandro de' Medici as the first formal hereditary ruler.
The Sienese commune was not incorporated into Tuscany until 1555, and during the 15th century, Siena enjoyed a cultural 'Sienese Renaissance' with its own more conservative character. Lucca remained an independent republic until 1847 when it became part of Grand Duchy of Tuscany by the will of its people. Piombino and other strategic towns constituted the tiny State of the Presidi under Spanish control.


The Etruscans (Latin: Tusci) created the first major civilization in this region, large enough to establish a transport infrastructure, to implement agriculture and mining and to produce vibrant art. The Etruscans lived in the area of Etruria well into prehistory. The civilization grew to fill the area between the Arno and Tiber from the tenth century BCE, reaching its peak during the seventh and sixth centuries B.C., finally succumbing to the Romans by the first century BCE. From the Etruscans, Tuscany took the name of Etruria, Tuscia for the Romans and subsequently Tuscania and Tuscany. While the areas of north-western Tuscany were inhabited by the ancient Ligures. In northwestern Tuscany, the area between the Arno and Magra rivers was culturally aligned with the Etruscans in the early Iron Age, and came under Ligurian control in the late Iron Age.
One reason for the eventual demise of this civilization was the increasing absorption by surrounding cultures, including the adoption of the Etruscan upper class by the Romans.


Soon after absorbing Etruria (to the north, northeast, east, and a strip to the south), Rome established the cities of Lucca, Pisa, Siena, and Florence, endowed the area with new technologies and development, and ensured peace. These developments included extensions of existing roads, the introduction of aqueducts and sewers, and the construction of many buildings, both public and private. However, many of these structures have been destroyed by erosion due to weather. The Roman civilization in the West of the Roman Republic and later Roman Empire collapsed in the fifth century, and the region fell briefly to barbarians migrating through the Empire from Eastern Europe and Central Asia of the Goths (Eastern - Ostrogoths and Western - Visigoths), then was re-conquered by the revived Eastern Roman Empire (later Byzantine Empire) under the Emperor Justinian. In the years following 572, the Lombards arrived and designated Lucca the capital of their subsequent Tuscia.


In the 16th century, the Medicis, rulers of Florence, annexed the Republic of Siena, creating the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. The Medici family became extinct in 1737 with the death of Gian Gastone, and Tuscany was transferred to Francis, Duke of Lorraine and husband of Austrian Empress Maria Theresa, who let the country be ruled by his son. The dynasty of the Lorena ruled Tuscany until 1860, except during the Napoleonic period, when most of the country was annexed to the French Empire. After the Second Italian War of Independence, a revolution evicted the last Grand Duke, and after a plebiscite, Tuscany became part of the new Kingdom of Italy. From 1864 to 1870 Florence became the second capital of the kingdom.
Under Benito Mussolini, the area came under the dominance of local Fascist leaders such as Dino Perrone Compagni (from Florence), and Costanzo and Galeazzo Ciano (from Livorno). Following the fall of Mussolini and the armistice of 8 September 1943, Tuscany became part of the Nazi-controlled Italian Social Republic and was conquered almost totally by the Anglo-American forces during the summer of 1944.
Following the end of the Social Republic and the transition from the Kingdom to the modern Italian Republic, Tuscany once more flourished as a cultural centre of Italy. Since the establishment of the regional government in 1970, Tuscany has always been ruled by centre-left governments.


Roughly triangular in shape, Tuscany borders the regions of Liguria to the northwest, Emilia-Romagna to the north, Marche and Umbria to the east, and Lazio to the southeast. The comune (municipality) of Badia Tedalda, in the Tuscan Province of Arezzo, has an exclave named Ca' Raffaello within Emilia-Romagna.
Tuscany has a western coastline on the Ligurian Sea and the Tyrrhenian Sea, among which is the Tuscan Archipelago, of which the most significant island is Elba. Tuscany has an area of approximately 22,993 square kilometres (8,878 sq mi). Surrounded and crossed by major mountain chains and with few (but fertile) plains, the region has a relief that is dominated by hilly country used for agriculture. Hills make up nearly two-thirds (66.5%) of the region's total area, covering 15,292 square kilometres (5,904 sq mi), and mountains (of which the highest are the Apennines), a further 25%, or 5,770 square kilometres (2,230 sq mi). Plains occupy 8.4% of the total area—1,930 square kilometres (750 sq mi)—mainly around the valley of the Arno. Many of Tuscany's most significant cities lie on the banks of the Arno, including the capital, Florence, Empoli, and Pisa.
The climate is fairly mild in the coastal areas, and is harsher and rainy in the interior, with considerable fluctuations in temperature between winter and summer, giving the region a soil-building active freeze-thaw cycle, in part accounting for the region once having served as a key breadbasket of ancient Rome.


Tuscany (/ˈtʌskəni/ TUSK-ə-nee; Italian: Toscana [tosˈkaːna]) is a region in central Italy with an area of about 23,000 square kilometres (8,900 square miles) and a population of about 3.8 million inhabitants. The regional capital is Florence (Firenze).
Tuscany is known for its landscapes, history, artistic legacy, and its influence on high culture. It is regarded as the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance and of the foundations of the Italian language. The prestige established by the Tuscan dialect's use in literature by Dante Alighieri, Petrarch, Giovanni Boccaccio, Niccolò Machiavelli and Francesco Guicciardini led to its subsequent elaboration as the language of culture throughout Italy. It has been home to many figures influential in the history of art and science, and contains well-known museums such as the Uffizi and the Palazzo Pitti. Tuscany is also known for its wines, including Chianti, Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, Morellino di Scansano, Brunello di Montalcino and white Vernaccia di San Gimignano. Having a strong linguistic and cultural identity, it is sometimes considered "a nation within a nation".
Tuscany is the second most popular Italian region for travellers in Italy, after Veneto. The main tourist spots are Florence, Castiglione della Pescaia, Pisa, San Gimignano, Lucca, Grosseto and Siena. The town of Castiglione della Pescaia is the most visited seaside destination in the region, with seaside tourism accounting for approximately 40% of tourist arrivals. The Maremma region, Siena, Lucca, the Chianti region, Versilia and Val d'Orcia are also internationally renowned and particularly popular spots among travellers.
Eight Tuscan localities have been designated World Heritage Sites: the historic Centre of Florence (1982); the Cathedral square of Pisa (1987); the historical centre of San Gimignano (1990); the historical centre of Siena (1995); the historical centre of Pienza (1996); the Val d'Orcia (2004), the Medici Villas and Gardens (2013), and Montecatini Terme as part of the Great Spa Towns of Europe (2021). Tuscany has over 120 protected nature reserves, making Tuscany and its capital Florence popular tourist destinations. In 2018, Florence alone had over 5 million arrivals, making it the world's 51st most visited city.


Florence originated as a Roman city, and later, after a long period as a flourishing trading and banking medieval commune, it was the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance. It was politically, economically, and culturally one of the most important cities in Europe and the world from the 14th to 16th centuries.
The language spoken in the city during the 14th century came to be accepted as the model for what would become the Italian language. Thanks especially to the works of the Tuscans Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio, the Florentine dialect, above all the local dialects, was adopted as the basis for a national literary language.
Starting from the late Middle Ages, Florentine money—in the form of the gold florin—financed the development of industry all over Europe, from Britain to Bruges, to Lyon and Hungary. Florentine bankers financed the English kings during the Hundred Years War. They similarly financed the papacy, including the construction of their provisional capital of Avignon and, after their return to Rome, the reconstruction and Renaissance embellishment of Rome.
Florence was home to the Medici, one of European history's most important noble families. Lorenzo de' Medici was considered a political and cultural mastermind of Italy in the late 15th century. Two members of the family were popes in the early 16th century: Leo X and Clement VII. Catherine de Medici married King Henry II of France and, after his death in 1559, reigned as regent in France. Marie de' Medici married Henry IV of France and gave birth to the future King Louis XIII. The Medici reigned as Grand Dukes of Tuscany, starting with Cosimo I de' Medici in 1569 and ending with the death of Gian Gastone de' Medici in 1737.


At the height of demographic expansion around 1325, the urban population may have been as great as 120,000, and the rural population around the city was probably close to 300,000. The Black Death of 1348 reduced it by over half, about 25,000 are said to have been supported by the city's wool industry: in 1345 Florence was the scene of an attempted strike by wool combers (ciompi), who in 1378 rose up in a brief revolt against oligarchic rule in the Revolt of the Ciompi. After their suppression, Florence came under the sway (1382–1434) of the Albizzi family, who became bitter rivals of the Medici.
In the 15th century, Florence was among the largest cities in Europe, with a population of 60,000, and was considered rich and economically successful. Cosimo de' Medici was the first Medici family member to essentially control the city from behind the scenes. Although the city was technically a democracy of sorts, his power came from a vast patronage network along with his alliance to the new immigrants, the gente nuova (new people). The fact that the Medici were bankers to the pope also contributed to their ascendancy. Cosimo was succeeded by his son Piero, who was, soon after, succeeded by Cosimo's grandson, Lorenzo in 1469. Lorenzo was a great patron of the arts, commissioning works by Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli. Lorenzo was an accomplished poet and musician and brought composers and singers to Florence, including Alexander Agricola, Johannes Ghiselin, and Heinrich Isaac. By contemporary Florentines (and since), he was known as "Lorenzo the Magnificent" (Lorenzo il Magnifico).
Following Lorenzo de' Medici's death in 1492, he was succeeded by his son Piero II. When the French king Charles VIII invaded northern Italy, Piero II chose to resist his army. But when he realised the size of the French army at the gates of Pisa, he had to accept the humiliating conditions of the French king. These made the Florentines rebel, and they expelled Piero II. With his exile in 1494, the first period of Medici rule ended with the restoration of a republican government.


Margrave Hugo chose Florence as his residency instead of Lucca at about 1000 AD. The Golden Age of Florentine art began around this time. In 1013, construction began on the Basilica di San Miniato al Monte. The exterior of the church was reworked in Romanesque style between 1059 and 1128. In 1100, Florence was a "commune", meaning a city-state. The city's primary resource was the Arno river, providing power and access for the industry (mainly textile industry), and access to the Mediterranean sea for international trade. Another great source of strength was its industrious merchant community. The Florentine merchant banking skills became recognised in Europe after they brought decisive financial innovation (e.g. bills of exchange, double-entry bookkeeping system) to medieval fairs. This period also saw the eclipse of Florence's formerly powerful rival Pisa (defeated by Genoa in 1284 and subjugated by Florence in 1406), and the exercise of power by the mercantile elite following an anti-aristocratic movement, led by Giano della Bella, that resulted in a set of laws called the Ordinances of Justice (1293).


During this period, the Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola had become prior of the San Marco monastery in 1490. He was famed for his penitential sermons, lambasting what he viewed as widespread immorality and attachment to material riches. He praised the exile of the Medici as the work of God, punishing them for their decadence. He seized the opportunity to carry through political reforms leading to a more democratic rule. But when Savonarola publicly accused Pope Alexander VI of corruption, he was banned from speaking in public. When he broke this ban, he was excommunicated. The Florentines, tired of his teachings, turned against him and arrested him. He was convicted as a heretic, hung  and burned at the stake on the Piazza della Signoria on 23 May 1498. His ashes were dispersed in the Arno river.
Another Florentine of this period was Niccolò Machiavelli, whose prescriptions for Florence's regeneration under strong leadership have often been seen as a legitimization of political expediency and even malpractice. Machiavelli was a political thinker, renowned for his political handbook The Prince, which is about ruling and exercising power. Commissioned by the Medici, Machiavelli also wrote the Florentine Histories, the history of the city.
In 1512, the Medici retook control of Florence with the help of Spanish and Papal troops. They were led by two cousins, Giovanni and Giulio de' Medici, both of whom would later become Popes of the Catholic Church, (Leo X and Clement VII, respectively). Both were generous patrons of the arts, commissioning works like Michelangelo's Laurentian Library and Medici Chapel in Florence, to name just two. Their reigns coincided with political upheaval in Italy, and thus in 1527, Florentines drove out the Medici for a second time and re-established a theocratic republic on 16 May 1527, (Jesus Christ was named King of Florence). The Medici returned to power in Florence in 1530, with the armies of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and the blessings of Pope Clement VII (Giulio de' Medici).
Florence officially became a monarchy in 1531, when Emperor Charles and Pope Clement named Alessandro de Medici as Duke of the Florentine Republic. The Medici's monarchy would last over two centuries. Alessandro's successor, Cosimo I de Medici, was named Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1569; in all Tuscany, only the Republic of Lucca (later a Duchy) and the Principality of Piombino were independent from Florence.


In the 9th–8th century BC, the Etruscans formed the small settlement of Fiesole (Faesulae in Latin).  This was destroyed by Lucius Cornelius Sulla in 80 BC, in reprisal for supporting the populares faction in Rome. The present city of Florence was established by Julius Caesar in 59 BC as a settlement for his veteran soldiers and was named originally Fluentia, owing to the fact that it was built between two rivers, which was later changed to Florentia ("flowering"). It was built in the style of an army camp with the main streets, the cardo and the decumanus, intersecting at the present Piazza della Repubblica. Situated along the Via Cassia, the main route between Rome and the north, and within the fertile valley of the Arno, the settlement quickly became an important commercial centre.
In centuries to come, the city experienced turbulent periods of Ostrogothic rule, during which the city was often troubled by warfare between the Ostrogoths and the Byzantines, which may have caused the population to fall to as few as 1,000 people. Peace returned under Lombard rule in the 6th century. Florence was conquered by Charlemagne in 774 and became part of the Duchy of Tuscany, with Lucca as capital. The population began to grow again and commerce prospered. In 854, Florence and Fiesole were united in one county.


September 1 – Ludwig Merwart, Austrian painter, graphic artist (d. 1979)
September 2
Alex Lovy, American animator (d. 1992)
Israel Gelfand, Russian mathematician (d. 2009)
Bill Shankly, Scottish football manager (d. 1981)
September 3 – Alan Ladd, American actor (d. 1964)
September 4
Mickey Cohen, American gangster (d. 1976)
Boone Guyton, American test pilot (d. 1996)
Stanford Moore, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1982)
Kenzō Tange, Japanese architect (d. 2005)
September 6 – Julie Gibson, American singer and actress (d. 2019)
September 10
Lincoln Gordon, American diplomat (d. 2009)
Zephania Mothopeng, South African politician, activist (d. 1990)
September 11
Paul "Bear" Bryant, American football coach (d. 1983)
Eugenia Rawls, American actress (d. 2000)
September 12
Jesse Owens, African-American athlete (d. 1980)
Eiji Toyoda, Japanese industrialist (d. 2013)
September 13
Roy Engel, American actor (d. 1980)
Trần Đại Nghĩa, North Vietnamese army general (d. 1997)
September 14
Jacobo Árbenz, President of Guatemala (d. 1971)
Annalisa Ericson, Swedish actress (d. 2011)
September 15 – John N. Mitchell, United States Attorney General, convicted Watergate criminal (d. 1988)
September 17
Robert Lembke, German television presenter, game show host (d. 1989)
Ata Kandó, Hungarian-born Dutch photographer (d. 2017)
September 19 – Frances Farmer, American actress (d. 1970)
September 22 – Lillian Chestney, American painter (d. 2000)
September 23 – Carl-Henning Pedersen, Danish artist, member of the CoBrA movement (d. 2007)
September 24
Wilson Rawls, American author (d. 1984)
Herb Jeffries, American actor, popular music and jazz singer (d. 2014)
September 25
Charles Helou, 9th President of Lebanon (d. 2001)
Terence Patrick O'Sullivan, British civil engineer (d. 1970)
September 28 – Warja Honegger-Lavater, Swiss artist, illustrator (d. 2007)
September 29
Trevor Howard, English actor (d. 1988)
Stanley Kramer, American film producer, director, and writer (d. 2001)
Silvio Piola, Italian footballer (d. 1996)
September 30
Bill Walsh, American movie producer, writer (d. 1975)
Cecilia Caballero Blanco, First Lady of Colombia (d. 2019)
October 2 – Roma Mitchell, Australian lawyer, Governor of South Australia (d. 2000)
October 4 – Martial Célestin, 1st Prime Minister of Haiti (d. 2011)
October 10
Alice Chetwynd Ley, British romance writer (d. 2004)
Claude Simon, French writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 2005)
October 11 – Joe Simon, American comic book artist, writer (d. 2011)
October 18 – Evelyn Venable, American actress (d. 1993)
October 19 – Vinicius de Moraes, Brazilian poet, lyricist, and diplomat (d. 1980)
October 20
Barney Phillips, American actor (d. 1982)
Cecilia Miranda de Carvalho, Brazilian singer (d. 2011)
October 22
Boots Mallory, American actress, dancer, and model (d. 1958)
Robert Capa, Hungarian-born American photojournalist (d. 1954)
Tamara Desni, German-born British actress (d. 2008)
Hans-Peter Tschudi, 2-time President of Switzerland (d. 2002)
October 24
Ron Barassi Sr., Australian rules footballer (d. 1941)
Tito Gobbi, Italian operatic baritone (d. 1984)
October 27
Joe Medicine Crow, American tribal historian and anthropologist (d. 2016)
Otto Wichterle, Czech inventor of the modern contact lens (d. 1998)
October 28 – Don Lusk, American animator (d. 2018)


The city, located on a hill by the Mondego River, was called Aeminium in Roman times. The Romans founded the civitas of Aeminium in this place at the time of Augustus, which came under the protection of nearby Conímbriga (in Condeixa-a-Nova), some 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) to the south. The Roman city was encircled by a wall, and followed an orthogonal plan, with the cardo maximus and decumanus maximus crossing at the Forum. An aqueduct existed, the remains of which were incorporated into a latter medieval renovation. Aeminium fell under the influence, administratively, of the larger Roman villa of Conímbriga, until the latter was sacked by the Sueves and Visigoths between 465 and 468 and abandoned. It became the seat of a diocesis, replacing Conímbriga. Although Conimbriga had been administratively important, Aeminium affirmed its position by being situated at the confluence of the north-south traffic that connected the Roman Bracara Augusta (Roman name of Braga) and Olisipo (Roman name of Lisbon) with its waterway, which enabled connections with the interior and coast. The limestone table on which the settlement grew has a dominant position overlooking the Mondego, circled by fertile lands irrigated by its waters. Vestiges of this early history include the cryptoporticus of the former Roman forum (now part of the Museu Nacional de Machado de Castro). The move of the settlement and bishopric of Conimbriga to Aeminium resulted in the name change to Conimbriga, evolving later to Colimbria.


After being subjected to the Roman Empire for a long time, a deluge of barbarians flooded the Iberian Peninsula in 409, and the Lower Mondego area recognised Hermeric, the landlord of the Suebi, as its ruler. But the ambition to gain territory dominated Ataces, king of the Alans and Coimbra fell from the hands of Hermeric. Ataces, the new lord of Coimbra, depopulated and devastated it fearing the security of its fortresses. Delighted, however, with the beauty of Lower Mondego, and with the easiness of its fields, he laid beside it the foundations for a new city which was called Colimbria. Ataces converted to christianity, but being arian by sect persecuted catholics with ferocity. The prisoners were either beheaded before the walls of the new city, their bodies serving as foundations, or employed like cargo donkeys in its edification. Nobody escaped the tyranny of Ataces: he ordered everyone to work on the construction of the walls. Elipando, the holy Bishop of Coimbra was also there holding the stone and the clay for the works of the city. “Passing by the new Coimbra (says Arisberto, Bishop of Porto, writing to Samerico, Archbishop of Braga), there I saw working in the construction of their walls many Ministers of God; among them, at the orders of Ataces, was also Bishop Elipando: I cried with them for their misfortune and for the loss of this fertile province of the Roman Empire.” Hermeric of the northern Kingdom of the Suebi, whose the capital was Bracara Augusta (former name of Braga), did not lose hope of rescuing the lands that had been taken by Ataces in the south. He crossed the Douro river and appeared with his army before the new walls of Coimbra. But Ataces triumphed and followed Hermeric's retreating army to the banks of Douro, further north, where the Suebi landlord would buy from him, in exchange for his daughter, peace and an alliance. Ataces, crowned with the laurels of victory continues with great fervor the reedification of the city he had plundered before. Hermeric visited him in Colimbria bringing him her daughter, princess Cindazunda, who had been flourishing in age and beauty.
 Ataces, in order to show his gratitude had the picture of his new wife placed in a vase, with a serpent on one side and a lion walking towards her on the other. Those were the insignias of Ataces (lion) and Hermeric (serpent). Cindazunda had her eyes lifted up the sky and her hands raised as if thanking the Eternal for having been the medium between the father and the husband and having united with bonds of peace and friendship the serpent and the lion, up until that moment, enemies. As the walls and towers of the city were being built, the workers carved on the stones this insignia so pleasant to the King, that until today, has been the coat of arms of Coimbra. Cindazunda, professing Catholicism, established the bonds of peace between the two kings and improved the fortunes of the inhabitants of Coimbra mitigating the ferocious spirit of Ataces against the catholics. The Visigoths would conquest the region later. During the Visigothic era (from the 5th to the early 8th century), the County of Coimbra was created by king Wittiza (c. 687 – probably 710) and it was a sub-county of his dominion, established as a fief for his son prince Ardabast (or Sisebuto), with its seat in Emínio (the Visigothic name for Coimbra), which persisted until the Muslim invasion from the south.


In 1772, the Marquis of Pombal, prime minister of King José I, undertook a major reform of the university, where the study of the sciences assumed vast importance. The collections of scientific instruments and material acquired then are now gathered in the Science Museum of the University of Coimbra, and constitute one of the most important historical science collections in Europe. However, his desire to modernise the university resulted in the complete demolition of Coimbra's medieval city walls and castle. Very little, of which remains today.
The first half of the 19th century was a difficult period for Coimbra, being invaded by French troops under the command of Andoche Junot and André Masséna during the Peninsular War. A force of 4,000 Portuguese militia led by Nicholas Trant dealt Masséna a heavy blow when it recaptured the city on 6 October 1810. In March 1811, the militia successfully held the place against the retreating French army. The city recovered in the second half of the 19th century with infrastructure improvements like the telegraph, gas light, the railway system, a railway bridge over the Mondego River and the renovation of the Portela bridge, in addition to the broadening of roads and expansion of the city into the Quinta de Santa Cruz.
By 1854, with the expulsion of the religious orders and municipal reforms, the need to reorganize the municipality of Coimbra forced some changes in the existing structure of the administrative divisions. Consequently, documents were sent (on 20 January 1854) to the Ministries of Ecclesiastical Affairs (Portuguese: Ministério dos Negócios Eclesiásticos) and Justice (Portuguese: Ministério de Justiça) urging the identification by the Civil Governor and Archbishop of Coimbra (Manuel Bento Rodrigues) of the number of civil parishes to preserve, their limits, the political organs to be retained, a local census and other statistics to justify the demarcation of the territory. A commission of five members, which included João Maria Baptista Callixto, António dos Santos Pereira Jardim, Roque Joaquim Fernandes Thomás, João Correia Ayres de Campos and António Egypcio Quaresma Lopes de Carvalho e Vasconcelos, was appointed to produce a plan to reduce, suppress, demarcate and establish civil parishes in the city of Coimbra and its suburbs.


In the 15th and 16th centuries, during the Age of Discovery, Coimbra was again one of the main artistic centres of Portugal thanks to both local and royal patronage. Coimbra bishops, religious orders and King Manuel I supported artists like Diogo Pires (father and son), Marcos Pires, João de Castilho, Diogo de Castilho and the Frenchmen, João de Ruão and Nicholas of Chanterene, among others, who left important Manueline and Renaissance works in the town. Dating from this period are the remodelling (in Manueline style) of the Santa Cruz Monastery, including the tombs of Kings Afonso Henriques and Sancho I, the Renaissance Manga Fountain, and the altarpieces and triumphal portal of the Old Cathedral, among other works.
The University of Coimbra, was founded as a Studium Generale in Lisbon in 1290 by King Dinis I. The University was relocated to Coimbra in 1308, but in 1338 King D. Afonso IV returned the University to Lisbon.  The University was definitively transferred to the premises of Coimbra Royal Palace in 1537 by King John III, and expanded by 1544 to occupy the Coimbra Royal Palace.  Since then, city life has revolved around the state-run university. For many decades, several colleges (colégios) established by the religious orders provided an alternative to the official institution, but were gradually discontinued with the secularization of education in Portugal. Built in the 18th century, the Joanina Library (Biblioteca Joanina), a Baroque library, is another notable landmark of the ancient university.  The Baroque University Tower (Torre da Universidade), from the school of the German architect Ludovice and built between 1728 and 1733, is the city's library.


In Serbian, the town is known as Сремска Митровица or Sremska Mitrovica, in Rusyn as Сримска Митровица, in Croatian as Srijemska Mitrovica, in Hungarian as Szávaszentdemeter or Mitrovica, in German as Syrmisch Mitrowitz, in Latin as Sirmium, and in Turkish as Dimitrofça.
"Sremska Mitrovica" means "Mitrovica of Syrmia" (Kosovska Mitrovica and Mačvanska Mitrovica also exist), while "Mitrovica" itself stems from the name "Saint Demetrius" or "Sveti Dimitrije" in the Serbian language (in Cyrillic form "Свети Димитрије").
The name of the city during the reign of the Roman Empire was Sirmium. Beginning in 1180 AD the name changed from "Civitas Sancti Demetrii" to "Dmitrovica", "Mitrovica", and finally to the present form - "Sremska Mitrovica".


For the next two centuries Sirmium was a place of little importance. At the end of the 8th century, Sirmium belonged to the Frankish State. The historical role of Sirmium increased again in the 9th century, when it was part of the Bulgarian Empire. Pope Adrian II gave St Methodius the title of Archbishop of Sirmium. After having adopted Christianity, the Bulgarians restored in Sirmium the Christian Episcopate, having in mind old Christian traditions and the reputation this city had in the ancient world.
In the 11th century, Sirmium was a residence of Sermon, a duke of Syrmia, who was a vassal of the Bulgarian Samuil. After 1018, the city was again included into the Byzantine Empire, and since the end of the 11th century, Sirmium was a subject of a dispute between the Byzantine Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary, until 1180 when the Byzantine Empire gave up Sirmium, surrendering it to the Kingdom of Hungary. In the 11th century, a Byzantine province named Theme of Sirmium had its capital in this city.
For a while, about 1451, the city was in possession of the Serbian despot Đurađ Branković. In 1521 the city came into Ottoman hands and it remained under the Ottoman rule for almost two centuries. According to Ottoman traveler Evliya Celebi, Mitrovica had been conquered by the Bosnian sanjak bey Husrev-bey. It was renamed as "Dimitrofça".
The name of the mayor of the city was Dimitar and since the middle of the 16th century, the city was mostly populated with Muslims. According to the 1566/69 data, the population of the city was composed of 592 Muslim and 30 Christian houses,  while according to the 1572 data, it was composed of 598 Muslim and 18 Christian houses.
According to the 1573 data, the city had 17 mosques and no Christian church. During the Ottoman rule, Sremska Mitrovica was the largest settlement in Syrmia, and was the administrative center of the Ottoman Sanjak of Syrmia. It was temporarily occupied by Austrian troops between 1688 and 1690. They finally took it in 1717 and took possession of it after signing Treaty of Passarowitz in 1718.
With the establishment of the Habsburg administration in 1718, the Muslim population fled from the city and was replaced with Serbian, Croatian, and German settlers. According to the 1765 data, the population of the city numbered 809 people, of whom 514 were Serbs and 290 Catholics.
Sremska Mitrovica was part of the Habsburg Military Frontier (Slavonian Krajina). In 1848-49, it was part of the Serbian Voivodship, a Serb autonomous region within Austrian Empire, but in 1849, it was returned under administration of the Military Frontier. With the abolition of the Slavonian Military Frontier in 1881, Sremska Mitrovica was included into Syrmia County, which was part of the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia within Austria-Hungary.
According to the 1910 census, the population of the city numbered 12,909 people, of which 8,793 spoke the Serbo-Croatian language (4,878 of those spoke Serbian and 3,915 spoke Croatian) and 2,341 German. The administrative area of the city (which did not included the city itself) had 32,012 inhabitants, of which 28,093 spoke Serbo-Croatian (27,022 of those spoke Serbian and 1,071 spoke Croatian) and 2,324 German.


Most of the settlements in the city have an ethnic Serb majority. Ethnically mixed settlement with relative Serb majority is Stara Bingula. The main concentration of ethnic minorities is in the urban area of the city.
The ethnic composition of the city:


Pope  John Paul II (Latin: Ioannes Paulus II; Italian: Giovanni Paolo II; Polish: Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła [ˈkarɔl ˈjuzɛv vɔjˈtɨwa]; 18 May 1920 – 2 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his death in 2005. He was elected pope by the second papal conclave of 1978, which was called after John Paul I, who had been elected in August to succeed Pope Paul VI, died after 33 days. Cardinal Wojtyła was elected on the third day of the conclave and adopted the name of his predecessor in tribute to him. Born in Poland, John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope since Adrian VI in the 16th century and the second-longest-serving pope after Pius IX in modern history.
John Paul II attempted to improve the Catholic Church's relations with Judaism, Islam, and the Eastern Orthodox Church. He maintained the church's previous positions on such matters as abortion, artificial contraception, the ordination of women, and a celibate clergy, and although he supported the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, he was seen as generally conservative in their interpretation. He was one of the most travelled world leaders in history, visiting 129 countries during his pontificate. As part of his special emphasis on the universal call to holiness, he beatified 1,340 and canonised 483 people, more than the combined tally of his predecessors during the preceding five centuries. By the time of his death, he had named most of the College of Cardinals, consecrated or co-consecrated many of the world's bishops, and ordained many priests. He has also been credited with helping to end Communist rule in his native Poland as well as the rest of Europe.
John Paul II's cause for canonisation commenced one month after his death with the traditional five-year waiting period waived. On 19 December 2009, John Paul II was proclaimed venerable by his successor, Benedict XVI, and was beatified on 1 May 2011 (Divine Mercy Sunday) after the Congregation for the Causes of Saints attributed one miracle to his intercession, the healing of a French nun called Marie Simon Pierre from Parkinson's disease. A second miracle was approved on 2 July 2013, and confirmed by Pope Francis two days later. John Paul II was canonised on 27 April 2014 (again Divine Mercy Sunday), together with John XXIII. On 11 September 2014, Pope Francis added these two optional memorials to the worldwide General Roman Calendar of saints. It is traditional to celebrate saints' feast days on the anniversary of their deaths, but that of John Paul II (22 October) is celebrated on the anniversary of his papal inauguration. Posthumously, he has been referred to by some Catholics as "Pope St. John Paul the Great", although the title has no official recognition.


As an extension of his successful work with youth as a young priest, John Paul II pioneered the international World Youth Days. John Paul II presided over nine of them: Rome (1985 and 2000), Buenos Aires (1987), Santiago de Compostela (1989), Częstochowa (1991), Denver (1993), Manila (1995), Paris (1997), and Toronto (2002). Total attendance at these signature events of the pontificate was in the tens of millions.


In August 1978, following the death of Pope Paul VI, Wojtyła voted in the papal conclave, which elected John Paul I. John Paul I died after only 33 days as pope, triggering another conclave.
The second conclave of 1978 started on 14 October, ten days after the funeral. It was split between two strong candidates for the papacy: Cardinal Giuseppe Siri, the conservative Archbishop of Genoa, and the liberal Archbishop of Florence, Cardinal Giovanni Benelli, a close friend of John Paul I.
Supporters of Benelli were confident that he would be elected, and in early ballots, Benelli came within nine votes of success. However, both men faced sufficient opposition for neither to be likely to prevail. Giovanni Colombo, the Archbishop of Milan, was considered as a compromise candidate among the Italian cardinal-electors, but when he started to receive votes, he announced that, if elected, he would decline to accept the papacy. Cardinal Franz König, Archbishop of Vienna, suggested Wojtyła as another compromise candidate to his fellow electors. Wojtyła won on the eighth ballot on the third day (16 October)—coincidentally the day that the American evangelical preacher Billy Graham had just concluded a 10-day pilgrimage to Poland—with, according to the Italian press, 99 votes from the 111 participating electors.
Among those cardinals who rallied behind Wojtyła were supporters of Giuseppe Siri, Stefan Wyszyński, most of the American cardinals (led by John Krol), and other moderate cardinals. He accepted his election with the words: "With obedience in faith to Christ, my Lord, and with trust in the Mother of Christ and the Church, in spite of great difficulties, I accept". The pope, in tribute to his immediate predecessor, then took the regnal name of John Paul II, also in honor of the late Pope Paul VI, and the traditional white smoke informed the crowd gathered in St. Peter's Square that a pope had been chosen. There had been rumors that the new pope wished to be known as Pope Stanislaus in honor of the Polish saint of the name, but was convinced by the cardinals that it was not a Roman name. When the new pontiff appeared on the balcony, he broke tradition by addressing the gathered crowd:
Dear brothers and sisters, we are saddened at the death of our beloved Pope John Paul I, and so the cardinals have called for a new bishop of Rome. They called him from a faraway land—far and yet always close because of our communion in faith and Christian traditions. I was afraid to accept that responsibility, yet I do so in a spirit of obedience to the Lord and total faithfulness to Mary, our most Holy Mother. I am speaking to you in your—no, our Italian language. If I make a mistake, please corrict [sic] me .... [deliberately mispronouncing the word 'correct']
Wojtyła became the 264th pope according to the chronological list of popes, the first non-Italian in 455 years. At only 58 years of age, he was the youngest pope since Pope Pius IX in 1846, who was 54. Like his predecessor, John Paul II dispensed with the traditional papal coronation and instead received ecclesiastical investiture with a simplified papal inauguration on 22 October 1978. During his inauguration, when the cardinals were to kneel before him to take their vows and kiss his ring, he stood up as the Polish prelate, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński knelt down, stopped him from kissing the ring, and simply embraced him.


Karol Józef Wojtyła was born in the Polish town of Wadowice. He was the youngest of three children born to Karol Wojtyła (1879–1941), an ethnic Pole, and Emilia Kaczorowska (1884–1929), who was of distant Lithuanian heritage. Emilia, who was a schoolteacher, died from a heart attack and kidney failure in 1929 when Wojtyła was eight years old. His elder sister Olga had died before his birth, but he was close to his brother Edmund, nicknamed Mundek, who was 13 years his senior. Edmund's work as a physician eventually led to his death from scarlet fever, a loss that affected Wojtyła deeply.
Wojtyła was baptized a month after his birth, made his First Communion at the age of 9, and was confirmed at the age of 18. As a boy, Wojtyła was athletic, often playing football as goalkeeper. During his childhood, Wojtyła had contact with the large Jewish community of Wadowice. School football games were often organised between teams of Jews and Catholics, and Wojtyła often played on the Jewish side. "I remember that at least a third of my classmates at elementary school in Wadowice were Jews. At elementary school there were fewer. With some I was on very friendly terms. And what struck me about some of them was their Polish patriotism." It was around this time that the young Karol had his first serious relationship with a girl. He became close to a girl called Ginka Beer, described as "a Jewish beauty, with stupendous eyes and jet black hair, slender, a superb actress."
In mid-1938, Wojtyła and his father left Wadowice and moved to Kraków, where he enrolled at the Jagiellonian University. While studying such topics as philology and various languages, he worked as a volunteer librarian and though required to participate in compulsory military training in the Academic Legion, he refused to fire a weapon. He performed with various theatrical groups and worked as a playwright. During this time, his talent for language blossomed, and he learned as many as 15 languages — Polish, Latin, Italian, English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Luxembourgish, Dutch, Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian, Czech, Slovak and Esperanto, nine of which he used extensively as pope.
In 1939, after invading Poland, the Nazi German occupation forces closed the university. Able-bodied males were required to work, so from 1940 to 1944 Wojtyła variously worked as a messenger for a restaurant, a manual labourer in a limestone quarry and for the Solvay chemical factory, in order to avoid deportation to Germany. In February 1940, he met Jan Tyranowski who introduced him to the Carmelite spirituality and the "Living Rosary" youth groups. In that same year he had two major accidents, suffering a fractured skull after being struck by a tram and sustaining injuries which left him with one shoulder higher than the other and a permanent stoop after being hit by a lorry in a quarry. His father, a former Austro-Hungarian non-commissioned officer and later officer in the Polish Army, died of a heart attack in 1941, leaving Wojtyła as the immediate family's only surviving member. "I was not at my mother's death, I was not at my brother's death, I was not at my father's death," he said, reflecting on these times of his life, nearly forty years later, "At twenty, I had already lost all the people I loved."
After his father's death, he started thinking seriously about the priesthood. In October 1942, while the war continued, he knocked on the door of the Archbishop's residence in Kraków and asked to study for the priesthood. Soon after, he began courses in the clandestine underground seminary run by the Archbishop of Kraków, Cardinal Adam Stefan Sapieha. On 29 February 1944, Wojtyła was hit by a German truck. German Wehrmacht officers tended to him and sent him to a hospital. He spent two weeks there recovering from a severe concussion and a shoulder injury. It seemed to him that this accident and his survival was a confirmation of his vocation. On 6 August 1944, a day known as "Black Sunday", the Gestapo rounded up young men in Kraków to curtail the uprising there,  similar to the recent uprising in Warsaw. Wojtyła escaped by hiding in the basement of his uncle's house at 10 Tyniecka Street, while the German troops searched above. More than eight thousand men and boys were taken that day, while Wojtyła escaped to the Archbishop's residence, where he remained until after the Germans had left.
On the night of 17 January 1945, the Germans fled the city, and the students reclaimed the ruined seminary. Wojtyła and another seminarian volunteered for the task of clearing away piles of frozen excrement from the toilets. Wojtyła also helped a 14-year-old Jewish refugee girl named Edith Zierer, who had escaped from a Nazi labour camp in Częstochowa. Edith had collapsed on a railway platform, so Wojtyła carried her to a train and stayed with her throughout the journey to Kraków. She later credited Wojtyła with saving her life that day. B'nai B'rith and other authorities have said that Wojtyła helped protect many other Polish Jews from the Nazis. During the Nazi occupation of Poland, a Jewish family sent their son, Stanley Berger, to be hidden by a Gentile Polish family. Berger's biological Jewish parents were killed in the Holocaust, and after the war Berger's new Christian parents asked Karol Wojtyła to baptise the boy. Wojtyła refused, saying that the child should be raised in the Jewish faith of his birth parents and nation, not as a Catholic. He did everything he could to ensure that Berger leave Poland to be raised by his Jewish relatives in the United States. In April 2005, shortly after John Paul II's death, the Israeli government created a commission to honour the legacy of John Paul II. One of the honorifics proposed by a head of Italy's Jewish community, Emmanuele Pacifici was the medal of the Righteous Among the Nations. In Wojtyła's last book, Memory and Identity, he described the 12 years of the Nazi régime as "bestiality", quoting from the Polish theologian and philosopher Konstanty Michalski.


During his pontificate, John Paul II made journeys to 129 countries, travelling more than 1,100,000 kilometres (680,000 mi) while doing so. He consistently attracted large crowds, some among the largest ever assembled in human history, such as the Manila World Youth Day, which gathered up to four million people, the largest papal gathering ever, according to the Vatican. John Paul II's earliest official visits were to the Dominican Republic and Mexico in January 1979.
While some of his journeys (such as to the United States and the Holy Land) were to places previously visited by Pope Paul VI, John Paul II became the first pope to visit the White House in October 1979, where he was greeted warmly by President Jimmy Carter. He was the first pope ever to visit several countries in one year, starting in 1979 with Mexico and Ireland. He was the first reigning pope to travel to the United Kingdom, in 1982, where he met Queen Elizabeth II, the Supreme Governor of the Church of England. While in Britain he also visited Canterbury Cathedral and knelt in prayer with Robert Runcie, the Archbishop of Canterbury, at the spot where Thomas Becket had been killed, as well as holding several large-scale open air masses, including one at Wembley Stadium, which was attended by some 80,000 people.
He travelled to Haiti in 1983, where he spoke in Creole to thousands of impoverished Catholics gathered to greet him at the airport. His message, "things must change in Haiti," referring to the disparity between the wealthy and the poor, was met with thunderous applause. In 2000, he was the first modern pope to visit Egypt, where he met with the Coptic pope, Pope Shenouda III and the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria. He was the first Catholic pope to visit and pray in an Islamic mosque, in Damascus, Syria, in 2001. He visited the Umayyad Mosque, a former Christian church where John the Baptist is believed to be interred, where he made a speech calling for Muslims, Christians and Jews to live together.
On 15 January 1995, during the X World Youth Day, he offered Mass to an estimated crowd of between five and seven million in Luneta Park, Manila, Philippines, which was considered to be the largest single gathering in Christian history. In March 2000, while visiting Jerusalem, John Paul became the first pope in history to visit and pray at the Western Wall. In September 2001, amid post-11 September concerns, he travelled to Kazakhstan, with an audience largely consisting of Muslims, and to Armenia, to participate in the celebration of 1,700 years of Armenian Christianity.
In June 1979, John Paul II travelled to Poland, where ecstatic crowds constantly surrounded him. This first papal trip to Poland uplifted the nation's spirit and sparked the formation of the Solidarity movement in 1980, which later brought freedom and human rights to his troubled homeland. Poland's Communist leaders intended to use the pope's visit to show the people that although the pope was Polish it did not alter their capacity to govern, oppress, and distribute the goods of society. They also hoped that if the pope abided by the rules they set, that the Polish people would see his example and follow them as well. If the pope's visit inspired a riot, the Communist leaders of Poland were prepared to crush the uprising and blame the suffering on the pope.
The pope won that struggle by transcending politics. His was what Joseph Nye calls 'soft power' — the power of attraction and repulsion. He began with an enormous advantage, and exploited it to the utmost: He headed the one institution that stood for the polar opposite of the Communist way of life that the Polish people hated. He was a Pole, but beyond the regime's reach. By identifying with him, Poles would have the chance to cleanse themselves of the compromises they had to make to live under the regime. And so they came to him by the millions. They listened. He told them to be good, not to compromise themselves, to stick by one another, to be fearless, and that God is the only source of goodness, the only standard of conduct. 'Be not afraid,' he said. Millions shouted in response, 'We want God! We want God! We want God!' The regime cowered. Had the Pope chosen to turn his soft power into the hard variety, the regime might have been drowned in blood. Instead, the Pope simply led the Polish people to desert their rulers by affirming solidarity with one another. The Communists managed to hold on as despots a decade longer. But as political leaders, they were finished. Visiting his native Poland in 1979, Pope John Paul II struck what turned out to be a mortal blow to its Communist regime, to the Soviet Empire, [and] ultimately to Communism."
 When Pope John Paul II kissed the ground at the Warsaw airport he began the process by which Communism in Poland — and ultimately elsewhere in Europe — would come to an end.
On later trips to Poland, he gave tacit support to the Solidarity organisation. These visits reinforced this message and contributed to the collapse of East European Communism that took place between 1989/1990 with the reintroduction of democracy in Poland, and which then spread through Eastern Europe (1990–1991) and South-Eastern Europe (1990–1992).


An ancient settlement of Jerusalem, founded as early as the Bronze Age on the hill above the Gihon Spring, was, according to the Bible, named Jebus. Called the "Fortress of Zion" (metsudat Zion), it was renamed as the "City of David", and was known by this name in antiquity. Another name, "Zion", initially referred to a distinct part of the city, but later came to signify the city as a whole, and afterwards to represent the whole biblical Land of Israel.


In Arabic, Jerusalem is most commonly known as القُدس, transliterated as al-Quds and meaning "The Holy" or "The Holy Sanctuary", cognate with Hebrew: הקדש, romanized: Ha-Qodesh, lit. 'The Holy'. The ق (Q) is pronounced either with a voiceless uvular plosive (/q/), as in Classical Arabic, or with a glottal stop (ʔ) as in Levantine Arabic. Official Israeli government policy mandates that أُورُشَلِيمَ, transliterated as Ūršalīm, which is the cognate of the Hebrew and English names, be used as the Arabic language name for the city in conjunction with القُدس. أُورُشَلِيمَ-القُدس. Palestinian Arab families who hail from this city are often called "Qudsi" or "Maqdisi", while Palestinian Muslim Jerusalemites may use these terms as a demonym.


The Aramaic Apocryphon of Genesis of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1QapGen 22:13) equates Jerusalem with the earlier "Salem" (שלם), said to be the kingdom of Melchizedek in Genesis 14. Other early Hebrew sources, early Christian renderings of the verse and targumim, however, put Salem in Northern Israel near Shechem (Sichem), now Nablus, a city of some importance in early sacred Hebrew writing. Possibly the redactor of the Apocryphon of Genesis wanted to dissociate Melchizedek from the area of Shechem, which at the time was in possession of the Samaritans. However that may be, later Rabbinic sources also equate Salem with Jerusalem, mainly to link Melchizedek to later Temple traditions.


The name "Jerusalem" is variously etymologized to mean "foundation (Semitic yry' 'to found, to lay a cornerstone') of the god Shalem"; the god Shalem was thus the original tutelary deity of the Bronze Age city.
Shalim or Shalem was the name of the god of dusk in the Canaanite religion, whose name is based on the same root S-L-M from which the Hebrew word for "peace" is derived (Shalom in Hebrew, cognate with Arabic Salam). The name thus offered itself to etymologizations such as "The City of Peace", "Abode of Peace", "Dwelling of Peace" ("founded in safety"), or "Vision of Peace" in some Christian authors.
The ending -ayim indicates the dual, thus leading to the suggestion that the name Yerushalayim refers to the fact that the city initially sat on two hills.


A city called ꜣwšꜣmm (usually rendered Rušalim or Urušalimum) in the execration texts of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt (c. 19th century BCE) is widely, but not universally, identified as Jerusalem. Jerusalem is called Úrusalim in the Amarna letters of Abdi-Heba (1330s BCE).


In Greek and Latin, the city's name was transliterated Hierosolyma (Greek: Ἱεροσόλυμα; in Greek hieròs, ἱερός, means holy), although the city was renamed Aelia Capitolina for part of the Roman period of its history.


Jerusalem (/dʒəˈruːsələm/; Hebrew: יְרוּשָׁלַיִם Yerushaláyim; Arabic: القُدس al-Quds) is a city in Western Asia. Situated on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, it is one of the oldest cities in the world, and is considered holy for the three major Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The city straddles the Green Line between Israel and the West Bank; both Israelis and Palestinians claim Jerusalem as their capital. Israel controls the entire city and maintains its primary governmental institutions there while the Palestinian National Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization ultimately foresee it as the seat of power for the State of Palestine. Due to this long-running dispute, neither claim is widely recognized internationally.
Throughout its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, captured and recaptured 44 times, and attacked 52 times. An excavated portion of the ancient city shows first signs of settlement in the 4th millennium BCE, in the shape of encampments of nomadic shepherds. During the Middle Bronze Age, Jerusalem was mentioned as Urusalim on the Amarna letters; the name Shalim probably refers to a Canaanite deity. Significant construction activities began throughout the city in the 9th century BCE, and by the 8th century BCE, Jerusalem had developed into the capital of the Iron Age Kingdom of Judah. The city was destroyed by the Babylonians in 587–586 BCE. Rebuilt during the Persian era, Jerusalem rose to prominence again as a temple-city, and under Hasmonean and Herodian rule it once more attained the status of a national capital. In 70 CE, an unsuccessful Jewish revolt against the Romans resulted in the destruction of the city and the Second Temple. In 1538 CE, the surrounding city walls were rebuilt for a last time under Suleiman the Magnificent of the Ottoman Empire. Today, these walls define the Old City, which has historically been split into four areas known since the 19th century as the Jewish Quarter, the Armenian Quarter, the Christian Quarter, and the Muslim Quarter (clockwise from the southeast end). The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and has been on the List of World Heritage in Danger since 1982. Since 1860, Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old City's boundaries. In 2015, Jerusalem had a population of some 850,000 residents, comprising approximately 200,000 secular Jewish Israelis, 350,000 Haredi Jews, and 300,000 Palestinian Arabs. In 2016, the city's population was 882,700, of which Jews comprised 536,600 (61%), Muslims comprised 319,800 (36%), Christians comprised 15,800 (2%), and unclassified subjects comprised 10,300 (1%).
According to the Hebrew Bible, the city was conquered from the Jebusites by the Israelite king David, who established it as the capital of the United Kingdom of Israel. David's son and successor, Solomon, later commissioned the building of the First Temple in the city. Modern scholars argue that Jews branched out of the Canaanite peoples and culture through the development of a distinct monolatrous—and later monotheistic—religion centred on El/Yahweh. These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, assumed central symbolic importance for the Jewish people. The sobriquet of "holy city" (עיר הקודש, 'Ir ha-Qodesh) was probably attached to Jerusalem in post-exilic times. The holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible that was adopted by Christians as the Old Testament, was reinforced by the New Testament's account of Jesus' crucifixion and subsequent resurrection there. In Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city after Mecca and Medina in present-day Saudi Arabia. This is due to its status as the first qibla (the standard direction for Muslim prayers) before Mecca. In Islamic tradition, the Islamic prophet Muhammad made his Night Journey to Jerusalem in 621 CE, from where he ascended to heaven and spoke to God, according to the Quran. As a result of all of these events, despite having an area of only 0.9 km² (3⁄8 sq mi), the Old City is home to many sites of seminal religious importance; namely the Temple Mount (also known as Al-Aqsa or Haram al-Sharif) with the Dome of the Rock, Al-Aqsa Mosque and Western Wall, as well as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the core issues of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and its peace process. During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, West Jerusalem was among the areas captured and later annexed by Israel while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured and later annexed by Jordan. However, during the 1967 Six-Day War, East Jerusalem was captured from Jordan by Israel, after which it was effectively annexed and incorporated into the other Israeli-held parts of the city, together with additional surrounding territory. One of Israel's Basic Laws, the Jerusalem Law of 1980, refers to "complete and undivided" Jerusalem as the country's capital. All of the institutions of the Israeli government are located within Jerusalem, including the Knesset, the residences of the Prime Minister (Beit Aghion) and President (Beit HaNassi), and the Supreme Court. While Israel's claim to sovereignty over West Jerusalem is more widely accepted by the international community, its claim to sovereignty over East Jerusalem is regarded as illegitimate, and East Jerusalem is consequently recognized by the United Nations as Palestinian territory that is occupied by Israel.


The form Yerushalem or Yerushalayim first appears in the Bible, in the Book of Joshua. According to a Midrash, the name is a combination of two names united by God, Yireh ("the abiding place", the name given by Abraham to the place where he planned to sacrifice his son) and Shalem ("Place of Peace", the name given by high priest Shem).


Mount Scopus (Hebrew: הַר הַצּוֹפִים Har HaTsofim, "Mount of the Watchmen/ Sentinels"; Arabic: جبل المشارف Ǧabal al-Mašārif, lit. "Mount Lookout", or جبل المشهد Ǧabal al-Mašhad "Mount of the Scene/Burial Site", or جبل الصوانة) is a mountain (elevation: 826 meters (2,710 ft) above sea level) in northeast Jerusalem.
Between the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and the Six-Day War in 1967, the peak of Mount Scopus with the Hebrew University campus and Hadassah Hospital was a UN-protected Israeli exclave within Jordanian-administered territory. Today, Mount Scopus lies within the municipal boundaries of the city of Jerusalem.


The Cave of Nicanor is an ancient burial cave located on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem, Israel. Excavations in the cave discovered an ossuary referring to "Nicanor the door maker." He has been identified as Nicanor of Alexandria, who donated one of the gates of Herod's Temple. The cave is located in the Botanical gardens on the grounds of the National Botanical Garden (see below).
There was a plan to use the Cave of Nicanor as a national Pantheon of the Zionist movement, but due to circumstances (the area of Mount Scopus after receipt of Israel's independence was an enclave, surrounded by the West Bank territorial possessions of Jordan), this project was not implemented. Only two of the Zionist leaders – Leon Pinsker and Menachem Ussishkin – were interred inside one room of the ancient tomb. After 1948, the national cemetery was created on Mount Herzl, closer to the centre of West Jerusalem.


In 1939, the Hadassah Women's Organization opened a teaching hospital on Mount Scopus in a building designed by architect Erich Mendelsohn. In 1948, when the Jordanians occupied East Jerusalem and blockaded the road to Mount Scopus, the hospital could no longer function. In 1960, after running clinics in various locations, the organization opened a medical center on the other side of the city, in Jerusalem's Ein Karem neighborhood.
On April 13, 1948, a civilian convoy bringing medical supplies and personnel to Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus was attacked by Arab forces. 78 Jews, mainly doctors and nurses, were killed in the ambush.


As is shown by the discovery at Lachish, the second most important city in the Kingdom of Judah after Jerusalem, of seals with the inscription lmlk Hebron (to the king Hebron), Hebron continued to constitute an important local economic centre, given its strategic position on the crossroads between the Dead Sea to the east, Jerusalem to the north, the Negev and Egypt to the south, and the Shepelah and the coastal plain to the west. Lying along trading routes, it remained administratively and politically dependent on Jerusalem for this period.


The Hebron of the Israelites was centered on what is now known as Tel Rumeida, while its ritual centre was located at Elonei Mamre.


Isaac is one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites and is an important figure in the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He was the son of Abraham and Sarah, the father of Jacob, and the grandfather of the twelve tribes of Israel.
Isaac's name means "he will laugh", reflecting the laughter, in disbelief, of Abraham and Sarah, when told by God that they would have a child. He is the only patriarch whose name was not changed, and the only one who did not move out of Canaan. According to the narrative, he died aged 180, the longest-lived of the three patriarchs.


Isaac grew old and became blind. He called his son Esau and directed him to procure some venison for him, in order to receive Isaac's blessing. While Esau was hunting, Jacob, after listening to his mother's advice, deceived his blind father by misrepresenting himself as Esau and thereby obtained his father's blessing, such that Jacob became Isaac's primary heir and Esau was left in an inferior position. According to Genesis 25:29–34, Esau had previously sold his birthright to Jacob for "bread and stew of lentils". Thereafter, Isaac sent Jacob into Mesopotamia to take a wife of his mother's brother's house. After 20 years working for his uncle Laban, Jacob returned home. He reconciled with his twin brother Esau, then he and Esau buried their father, Isaac, in Hebron after he died at the age of 180.


Isaac moved to Beer-lahai-roi after his father died. When the land experienced famine, he moved to the Philistine land of Gerar where his father once lived. This land was still under the control of King Abimelech as it was in the days of Abraham. Like his father, Isaac also deceived Abimelech about his wife and also got into the well business. He had gone back to all of the wells that his father dug and saw that they were all stopped up with earth. The Philistines did this after Abraham died. So, Isaac unearthed them and began to dig for more wells all the way to Beersheba, where he made a pact with Abimelech, just like in the day of his father.


March 12 – Wars of the Roses in England – Battle of Losecoat Field: The House of York defeats the House of Lancaster.
March 20 (Julian calendar) – The Battle of Nibley Green is the last fought between the private armies of feudal magnates in England.
Spring: Anglo-Hanseatic War: Hanseatic League privateers set sail.
May 15 – Charles VIII of Sweden, who has served three terms as King of Sweden, dies. Sten Sture the Elder proclaims himself Regent of Sweden the following day.
June 1 – Sten Sture is recognised as Swedish ruler by the estates.
July 12 – The Ottomans capture Euboea.
August 20 – Stephen the Great defeats the Volga Tatars of the Golden Horde led by Ahmed Khan, in the Battle of Lipnic.
September 13 – A rebellion orchestrated by King Edward IV of England's former ally, Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, forces the King to flee England to seek support from his brother-in-law, Charles the Bold of Burgundy.
October 3 – Warwick releases Henry VI of England from the Tower of London, and restores him to the throne.
November 28 –  Emperor Lê Thánh Tông of Vietnam launches a naval expedition against Champa, beginning the Cham–Annamese War.
December 18 – Lê Thánh Tông leads the Đại Việt army into Champa, conquering the country in less than three months.


Year 1470 (MCDLXX) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.


Volcanic bombs are extrusive igneous rocks ranging from the size of books to small cars, that are explosively ejected from stratovolcanoes during their climactic eruptive phases. These "bombs" can travel over 20 km (12 mi) away from the volcano, and present a risk to buildings and living beings while shooting at very high speeds (hundreds of kilometers/miles per hour) through the air. Most bombs do not themselves explode on impact, but rather carry enough force to have destructive effects as if they exploded.


A stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, is a conical volcano built up by many layers (strata) of hardened lava and tephra. Unlike shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes are characterized by a steep profile with a summit crater and periodic intervals of explosive eruptions and effusive eruptions, although some have collapsed summit craters called calderas. The lava flowing from stratovolcanoes typically cools and hardens before spreading far, due to high viscosity. The magma forming this lava is often felsic, having high-to-intermediate levels of silica (as in rhyolite, dacite, or andesite), with lesser amounts of less-viscous mafic magma. Extensive felsic lava flows are uncommon, but have travelled as far as 15 km (9 mi).
Stratovolcanoes are sometimes called composite volcanoes because of their composite stratified structure, built up from sequential outpourings of erupted materials. They are among the most common types of volcanoes, in contrast to the less common shield volcanoes. Two famous examples of stratovolcanoes are Krakatoa in Indonesia, known for its catastrophic eruption in 1883, and Vesuvius in Italy, whose catastrophic eruption in AD 79 buried the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Both eruptions claimed thousands of lives. In modern times, Mount St. Helens in Washington State, USA and Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines have erupted catastrophically, but with fewer deaths.
The existence of stratovolcanoes on other bodies of the Solar System has not been conclusively demonstrated. One possible exception is the existence of some isolated massifs on Mars, for example the Zephyria Tholus.


Lava flows from stratovolcanoes are generally not a significant threat to humans and animals because the highly viscous lava moves slowly enough for everyone to flee out of the path of flow. The lava flows are more of a threat to property. However, not all stratovolcanoes erupt viscous and sticky lava. Nyiragongo is very dangerous because its magma has an unusually low silica content, making it quite fluid. Fluid lavas are typically associated with the formation of broad shield volcanoes such as those of Hawaii, but Nyiragongo has very steep slopes down which lava can flow at up to 100 km/h (60 mph). Lava flows could melt down ice and glaciers that accumulated on the volcano's crater and upper slopes, generating massive lahar flows. Rarely, generally fluid lava could also generate massive lava fountains, while lava of thicker viscosity can solidify within the vent, creating a block which can result in highly explosive eruptions.


Lahars (from a Javanese term for volcanic mudflows) are mixtures of volcanic debris and water. Lahars usually come from two sources: rainfall or the melting of snow and ice by hot volcanic elements, such as lava. Depending on the proportion and temperature of water to volcanic material, lahars can range from thick, gooey flows that have the consistency of wet concrete to fast-flowing, soupy floods. As lahars flood down the steep sides of stratovolcanoes, they have the strength and speed to flatten or drown everything in their paths. Hot ash clouds, lava flows and pyroclastic surges ejected during 1985 eruption of Nevado del Ruiz in Colombia melted snow and ice atop the 5,321 m (17,457 ft) high Andean volcano. The ensuing lahar flooded the city of Armero and nearby settlements, killing 25,000 people.


In recorded history, explosive eruptions at subduction zone (convergent-boundary) volcanoes have posed the greatest hazard to civilizations. Subduction-zone stratovolcanoes, such as Mount St. Helens, Mount Etna and Mount Pinatubo, typically erupt with explosive force: the magma is too stiff to allow easy escape of volcanic gases. As a consequence, the tremendous internal pressures of the trapped volcanic gases remain and intermingle in the pasty magma.  Following the breaching of the vent and the opening of the crater, the magma degasses explosively. The magma and gases blast out with high speed and full force.
Since 1600 CE, nearly 300,000 people have been killed by volcanic eruptions. Most deaths were caused by pyroclastic flows and lahars, deadly hazards that often accompany explosive eruptions of subduction-zone stratovolcanoes. Pyroclastic flows are swift, avalanche-like, ground-sweeping, incandescent mixtures of hot volcanic debris, fine ash, fragmented lava, and superheated gases that can travel at speeds over 160 km/h (100 mph). Around 30,000 people were killed by pyroclastic flows during the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée on the island of Martinique in the Caribbean. In March to April 1982, three explosive eruptions of El Chichón in the State of Chiapas in southeastern Mexico, caused the worst volcanic disaster in that country's history. Villages within 8 km (5 mi) of the volcano were destroyed by pyroclastic flows, killing more than 2,000 people.
Two Decade Volcanoes that erupted in 1991 provide examples of stratovolcano hazards. On June 15, Mount Pinatubo spewed an ash cloud 40 km (25 mi) into the air and produced huge pyroclastic surges and lahar floods that devastated a large area around the volcano. Pinatubo, located in Central Luzon just 90 km (56 mi) west-northwest from Manila, had been dormant for 6 centuries before the 1991 eruption, which ranks as one of the largest eruptions in the 20th century. Also in 1991, Japan's Unzen Volcano, located on the island of Kyushu about 40 km (25 mi) east of Nagasaki, awakened from its 200-year slumber to produce a new lava dome at its summit. Beginning in June, the repeated collapse of this erupting dome generated ash flows that swept down the mountain's slopes at speeds as high as 200 km/h (120 mph). Unzen is one of more than 75 active volcanoes in Japan; an eruption in 1792 killed more than 15,000 people—the worst volcanic disaster in the nation's history.
The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 completely smothered the nearby ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum with thick deposits of pyroclastic surges and lava flows. Although the death toll is estimated between 13,000 and 26,000 remains, the exact number is still unclear. Vesuvius is recognized as one of the most dangerous volcanoes, due to its capacity for powerful explosive eruptions combined with the high population density of the surrounding Metropolitan Naples area (totaling about 3.6 million inhabitants).


The Bas-Rhin has a continental-type climate, characterised by cold, dry winters and hot, stormy summers, due to the western protection provided by the Vosges.  The average annual temperature is 10.4 °C (51 °F) in the lowlands (Entzheim) and 7 °C (45 °F) on high ground.  The annual maximum temperature is high (30 °C (86 °F)).  The average rainfall is 700 mm (27.56 in) per year.
Established according to data from the Infoclimat station at Strasbourg-Entzheim (the airport), over the period from 1961 to 1990.


The first census was conducted in 1801 and this count, renewed every five years from 1821, provides precise information on the evolution of population in the department.
With 540,213 inhabitants in 1831, the department represented 1.66% of the total French population, which was then 32,569,000 inhabitants. From 1831 to 1866, the department gained 48,757 people, an increase of 0.26% on average per year compared to the national average of 0.48% over the same period.
Demographic change between the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the First World War was higher than the national average. Over this period, the population increased by 100,532 inhabitants, an increase of 16.74%, compared to 10% nationally. The population increased by 9.23% between the two world wars from 1921 to 1936 compared to a national growth of 6.9%.
Like other French departments, Bas-Rhin experienced a population boom after the Second World War, higher than the national level. The rate of population growth between 1946 and 2007 was 83.83%, compared to 57% nationally.


Bas-Rhin ([bɑ.ʁɛ̃]; Alsatian: Unterelsàss, ‘s Unterlànd or ‘s Ingerlànd; traditional German: Niederrhein; English: Lower Rhine) is a department in Alsace which is a part of the Grand Est super-region of France. The name means 'Lower Rhine', referring to its lower altitude among both French Rhine departments: it is downstream of the  Haut-Rhin (Upper Rhine) department. Note that both belong to the European Upper Rhine region. It is, with the Haut-Rhin (Upper Rhine), one of the two departments of the traditional Alsace region. The more populous and densely populated of the pair, it had 1,140,057 inhabitants in 2019. The prefecture is based in Strasbourg. The INSEE and Post Code is 67.
On 1 January 2021, the departemental councils of Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin merged into the European Collectivity of Alsace.
The inhabitants of the department are known as Bas-Rhinois or Bas-Rhinoises.


La Petite-Pierre (German: Lützelstein, Rhine Franconian: Lítzelstain) is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Grand Est in north-eastern France. It lies in the historical and cultural region of Alsace (Elsass in German). Petit-Pierre literally means little rock.
The town lies in the Northern Vosges Regional Nature Park which has its headquarter in the château (Maison du Parc).


The upper part of the town is built as a fortified city around the Château de La Petite-Pierre (also known as Chateau de Lützelstein).
There is also a church, which was built in the fifteenth century (parts of which remain) and has some nice artwork.
The area around the town is suitable for walking or hiking. There are a number of marked trails. The town has its own division of Club Vosgien.


François Antoine Louis Bourcier, a French cavalry officer and divisional general of the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.
René Char, hid in the woods between la Petit-Pierre and Petersbach, for about six months, during the phoney war.


La Petite-Pierre is twinned with
 Veldenz, Germany


July 14– The First Kamchatka Expedition, led by Vitus Bering and his crew sail northward on the ship Archangel Gabriel from the Kamchatka Peninsula, through the Bering Strait, and round Cape Dezhnev.
July 17– At the age of 8, Prince Teruhito, son of Emperor Nakamikado, is named as the Crown Prince of Japan.  Teruhito becomes the Emperor Sakuramachi at age 15, upon his father's death.
July 18– After a reign of only four months, Abdalmalik is deposed as Sultan of Morocco by his half-brother Ahmad ad Dahabi, whom he had deposed on March 13.  Abdalmalik is later captured and executed on March 2, 1729.
July 23– At the conclusion of the Szeged witch trials in the city of the same name in Hungary, six men and six women are burned at the stake on the island of Boszorkány Sziget (Hungarian for "Witch Island").
August 16 – Because of advancing Arctic ice, the First Kamchatka Expedition turns around after Vitus Bering concludes (inaccurately) that it had reached the easternmost point of Russia and Asia, and fails to spot the coast of Alaska because of the weather.
August 29 – The City of Nuuk is founded in Greenland, as Fort Godt-Haab, by royal governor Claus Paarss.
September 15 – Persian physician Mohammad Mehdi ibn Ali Naqi completes Zad al-musafirin,  his treatise for travelers to Persia on preservation of their health.  He notes the date as a postscript in his manual.
September 18 – John Deane, a colonial administrator of Britain's British East India Company, returns to Calcutta (Kolkata) after an absence of more than two years, and takes office at Fort William to return to administering the Bengal Presidency, an area now covering the Indian state of West Bengal and the nation of Bangladesh.
Late Summer – Voltaire ends his exile in England.


English astronomer James Bradley uses stellar aberration (first observed in 1725) to calculate the speed of light, and observes nutation of the Earth's axis.


1728 (MDCCXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar, the 1728th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 728th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 28th  year of the 18th century, and the  9th   year of the 1720s decade. As of the start of 1728, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


Montreux is twinned with the towns of
 Menton, France
 Wiesbaden, Germany
 Chiba, Japan


The Audiorama, the Swiss National Audiovisual Museum, Crêtes Castle, Châtelard Castle, the Train Station, the Hôtel Montreux Palace, the Caux Palace Hotel, the Ile and Villa Salagnon, the Marché couvert, the Palace-Hôtel, the Grand Hôtel de Territet which was formerly the Grand-Hôtel/the Hôtel des Alpes, served as the recording studio for Deep Purple's record Machine Head, and the Villa Karma are listed as Swiss heritage site of national significance.  The entire urban village of Territet / Veytaux as well as the Caux, Montreux and Villas Dubochet areas are all part of the Inventory of Swiss Heritage Sites.


Montreux has a population (as of December 2020) of 26,090.  As of 2008, 44.2% of the population are resident foreign nationals.  Over the last 10 years (1999–2009) the population has changed at a rate of 14.7%.  It has changed at a rate of 22.3% due to migration and at a rate of -0.8% due to births and deaths.
Most of the population (as of 2000) speaks French (16,695 or 74.4%) as their first language, with German being second most common (1,398 or 6.2%) and Italian being third (897 or 4.0%).  There are 9 people who speak Romansh.
The age distribution, as of 2009, in Montreux is; 2,050 children or 8.3% of the population are between 0 and 9 years old and 3,021 teenagers or 12.2% are between 10 and 19.  Of the adult population, 4,216 people or 17.0% of the population are between 20 and 29 years old.  3,016 people or 12.2% are between 30 and 39, 3,552 people or 14.4% are between 40 and 49, and 3,048 people or 12.3% are between 50 and 59.  The senior population distribution is 2,565 people or 10.4% of the population are between 60 and 69 years old, 1,795 people or 7.3% are between 70 and 79, there are 1,206 people or 4.9% who are between 80 and 89, and there are 263 people or 1.1% who are 90 and older.
As of 2000, there were 9,380 people who were single and never married in the municipality.  There were 9,758 married individuals, 1,631 widows or widowers and 1,685 individuals who are divorced.
As of 2000, there were 9,823 private households in the municipality, and an average of 2 persons per household.  There were 4,198 households that consist of only one person and 402 households with five or more people.  Out of a total of 10,236 households that answered this question, 41.0% were households made up of just one person and there were 53 adults who lived with their parents.  Of the rest of the households, there are 2,563 married couples without children, 2,245 married couples with children. There were 605 single parents with a child or children.  There were 159 households that were made up of unrelated people and 413 households that were made up of some sort of institution or another collective housing.
In 2000 there were 1,375 single family homes (or 43.2% of the total) out of a total of 3,183 inhabited buildings.  There were 1,024 multi-family buildings (32.2%), along with 530 multi-purpose buildings that were mostly used for housing (16.7%) and 254 other use buildings (commercial or industrial) that also had some housing (8.0%).
In 2000, a total of 9,553 apartments (70.7% of the total) were permanently occupied, while 3,043 apartments (22.5%) were seasonally occupied and 916 apartments (6.8%) were empty.  As of 2009, the construction rate of new housing units was 1.6 new units per 1000 residents.
As of 2003 the average price to rent an average apartment in Montreux was 1067.93 Swiss francs (CHF) per month (US$850, £480, €680 approx. exchange rate from 2003).  The average rate for a one-room apartment was 567.76 CHF (US$450, £260, €360), a two-room apartment was about 787.77 CHF (US$630, £350, €500), a three-room apartment was about 1014.16 CHF (US$810, £460, €650) and a six or more room apartment cost an average of 1817.64 CHF (US$1450, £820, €1160).  The average apartment price in Montreux was 95.7% of the national average of 1116 CHF.  The vacancy rate for the municipality, in 2010, was 0.55%.
The historical population is given in the following chart:


Montreux (UK: /mɒ̃ˈtrɜː/, US: /mɒ̃ˈtroʊ/, French: [mɔ̃tʁø] (listen); Arpitan: Montrolx) is a Swiss municipality and town on the shoreline of Lake Geneva at the foot of the Alps. It belongs to the district of Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland, and has a population of approximately 26,433, with about 85,000 in the agglomeration Vevey-Montreux as 2019.
Located in the centre of a region named Riviera (French: Riviera vaudoise), Montreux has been an important tourist destination since the 19th century due to its mild climate. The region includes numerous Belle Époque palaces and hotels near the shores of Lake Geneva. Montreux railway station is a stop on the Simplon Railway and is a mountain railway hub.


The earliest settlement was a Late Bronze Age village at Baugy.  Montreux lies on the north east shore of Lake Geneva at the fork in the Roman road from Italy over the Simplon Pass, where the roads to the Roman capital of Aventicum and the road into Gaul through Besançon separated. This made it an important settlement in the Roman era.  A Roman villa from the 2nd-4th centuries and a 6th–7th century cemetery have been discovered.
In the 12th century, viticulture was introduced to the region, and the sunny slopes of the lake from Lavaux to Montreux became an important wine-growing region.  Montreux is first mentioned in 1215 as Mustruel.  In 1295, the Bishop of Sion sold the parish of Montreux to Girard of Oron.  In 1317, it was split between the Lords of Oron (Le Châtelard) and the Counts of Savoy (Les Planches).  A Brotherhood of the Holy Spirit administered estates and a hospital in Montreux starting in about 1309.
The region was subject to various princes, most notably the princes of Savoy from the south side of the lake. They unified the territory which comprises the present canton of Vaud and were generally popular sovereigns.
After the Burgundian Wars in the 15th century, the Swiss in Bern occupied the region without resistance, an indication of the weakness of the princes of Savoy.  Under Bernese rule (1536–1798) it belonged to the Bailiwick of Chillon (renamed in 1735 into the Bailiwick of Vevey).
The Reformation made the region around Montreux and Vevey an attractive haven for Huguenots from Italy, who brought their artisanal skills and set up workshops and businesses.
The abbey of Les Echarpes blanches was founded in 1626.
In 1798, Napoleon liberated the region from the Bernese. In the 19th century, the tourist industry became a major commercial outlet, with the grand hotels of Montreux attracting the rich and cultured from Europe and America.
Starting in the 19th century there were three independent municipalities that shared a central authority.  This county council was made up of four deputies from Le Châtelard, two from Les Planches and one from Veytaux.  The church, the market hall of La Rouvenaz, the secondary school (the building was from 1872 and 1897) and the slaughter-house (1912) were all owned by the county council.  Each municipality had its own taxes and a mayor.  In 1962, the municipalities of Le Châtelard and Les Planches merged, while Veytaux remained independent.


Montreux has an area, as of 2009, of 33.41 km² (12.90 sq mi). Of this area, 8.34 km² (3.22 sq mi) or 25.0% is used for agricultural purposes, while 16.80 km² (6.49 sq mi) or 50.3% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 6.68 km² (2.58 sq mi) or 20.0% is settled (buildings or roads), 0.09 km² (22 acres) or 0.3% is either rivers or lakes and 1.55 km² (0.60 sq mi) or 4.6% is unproductive land.
Of the built up area, housing and buildings made up 11.8% and transportation infrastructure made up 6.4%.  Out of the forested land, 46.8% of the total land area is heavily forested and 2.9% is covered with orchards or small clusters of trees.  Of the agricultural land, 1.5% is used for growing crops and 9.9% is pastures, while 1.2% is used for orchards or vine crops and 13.7% is used for alpine pastures.  All the water in the municipality is flowing water.
The municipality was part of the Vevey District until it was dissolved on 31 August 2006, and Montreux became part of the new district of Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut.
The municipality stretches from Lake Geneva to the foothills of the Swiss Alps (Rochers-de-Naye).  It includes the former municipalities of Montreux-Les Planches (until 1952 Les Planches) and Montreux-Le Châtelard (until 1952 Le Châtelard).  It was formed in 1962 with the merger of the two former municipalities.


1734 (MDCCXXXIV) was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar, the 1734th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 734th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 34th  year of the 18th century, and the  5th   year of the 1730s decade. As of the start of 1734, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.