After the foundation by Romulus according to a legend, Rome was ruled for a period of 244 years by a monarchical system, initially with sovereigns of Latin and Sabine origin, later by Etruscan kings. The tradition handed down seven kings: Romulus, Numa Pompilius, Tullus Hostilius, Ancus Marcius, Tarquinius Priscus, Servius Tullius and Lucius Tarquinius Superbus.
In 509 BC, the Romans expelled the last king from their city and established an oligarchic republic. Rome then began a period characterised by internal struggles between patricians (aristocrats) and plebeians (small landowners), and by constant warfare against the populations of central Italy: Etruscans, Latins, Volsci, Aequi, and Marsi. After becoming master of Latium, Rome led several wars (against the Gauls, Osci-Samnites and the Greek colony of Taranto, allied with Pyrrhus, king of Epirus) whose result was the conquest of the Italian peninsula, from the central area up to Magna Graecia.
The third and second century BC saw the establishment of Roman hegemony over the Mediterranean and the Balkans, through the three Punic Wars (264–146 BC) fought against the city of Carthage and the three Macedonian Wars (212–168 BC) against Macedonia. The first Roman provinces were established at this time: Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica, Hispania, Macedonia, Achaea and Africa.
From the beginning of the 2nd century BC, power was contested between two groups of aristocrats: the optimates, representing the conservative part of the Senate, and the populares, which relied on the help of the plebs (urban lower class) to gain power. In the same period, the bankruptcy of the small farmers and the establishment of large slave estates caused large-scale migration to the city. The continuous warfare led to the establishment of a professional army, which turned out to be more loyal to its generals than to the republic. Because of this, in the second half of the second century and during the first century BC there were conflicts both abroad and internally: after the failed attempt of social reform of the populares Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, and the war against Jugurtha, there was a civil war from which the general Sulla emerged victorious. A major slave revolt under Spartacus followed, and then the establishment of the first Triumvirate with Caesar, Pompey and Crassus.
The conquest of Gaul made Caesar immensely powerful and popular, which led to a second civil war against the Senate and Pompey. After his victory, Caesar established himself as dictator for life. His assassination led to a second Triumvirate among Octavian (Caesar's grandnephew and heir), Mark Antony and Lepidus, and to another civil war between Octavian and Antony.


Rome (Italian and Latin: Roma [ˈroːma] (listen)) is the capital city of Italy.  It is also the capital of the Lazio region, the centre of the Metropolitan City of Rome, and a special comune named Comune di Roma Capitale. With 2,860,009 residents in 1,285 km² (496.1 sq mi), Rome is the country's most populated comune and the third most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits. The Metropolitan City of Rome, with a population of 4,355,725 residents, is the most populous metropolitan city in Italy. Its metropolitan area is the third-most populous within Italy. Rome is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, within Lazio (Latium), along the shores of the Tiber. Vatican City (the smallest country in the world) is an independent country inside the city boundaries of Rome, the only existing example of a country within a city. Rome is often referred to as the City of Seven Hills due to its geographic location, and also as the "Eternal City". Rome is generally considered to be the "cradle of Western civilization and Christian culture", and the centre of the Catholic Church.
Rome's history spans 28 centuries. While Roman mythology dates the founding of Rome at around 753 BC, the site has been inhabited for much longer, making it a major human settlement for almost three millennia and one of the oldest continuously occupied cities in Europe. The city's early population originated from a mix of Latins, Etruscans, and Sabines. Eventually, the city successively became the capital of the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and is regarded by many as the first-ever Imperial city and metropolis. It was first called The Eternal City (Latin: Urbs Aeterna; Italian: La Città Eterna) by the Roman poet Tibullus in the 1st century BC, and the expression was also taken up by Ovid, Virgil, and Livy. Rome is also called "Caput Mundi" (Capital of the World). After the fall of the Empire in the west, which marked the beginning of the Middle Ages, Rome slowly fell under the political control of the Papacy, and in the 8th century, it became the capital of the Papal States, which lasted until 1870. Beginning with the Renaissance, almost all popes since Nicholas V (1447–1455) pursued a coherent architectural and urban programme over four hundred years, aimed at making the city the artistic and cultural centre of the world. In this way, Rome became first one of the major centres of the Renaissance, and then the birthplace of both the Baroque style and Neoclassicism. Famous artists, painters, sculptors, and architects made Rome the centre of their activity, creating masterpieces throughout the city. In 1871, Rome became the capital of the Kingdom of Italy, which, in 1946, became the Italian Republic.
In 2019, Rome was the 14th most visited city in the world, with 8.6 million tourists, the third most visited in the European Union, and the most popular tourist destination in Italy. Its historic centre is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The host city for the 1960 Summer Olympics, Rome is also the seat of several specialised agencies of the United Nations, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The city also hosts the Secretariat of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) as well as the headquarters of many international businesses, such as Eni, Enel, TIM, Leonardo S.p.A., and national and international banks such as Unicredit and BNL. Rome's EUR business district is the home of many oil industries, the pharmaceutical industry, and financial services companies. The presence of renowned international brands in the city has made Rome an important centre of fashion and design, and the Cinecittà Studios have been the set of many Academy Award–winning movies.


Most of what is known about prehistoric Oaxaca comes from work in the Central Valleys region. Evidence of human habitation dating back to about 11,000 years BC has been found in the Guilá Naquitz cave near the town of Mitla. This area was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2010 in recognition for the "earliest known evidence of domesticated plants in the continent, while corn cob fragments from the same cave are said to be the earliest documented evidence for the domestication of maize." More finds of nomadic peoples date back to about 5000 BC, with some evidence of the beginning of agriculture. By 2000 BC, agriculture had been established in the Central Valleys region of the state, with sedentary villages. The diet developed around this time would remain until the Spanish Conquest, consisting primarily of harvested corn, beans, chocolate, tomatoes, chili peppers, squash and gourds. Meat was generally hunted and included tepescuintle, turkey, deer, peccary, armadillo and iguana.
The oldest known major settlements, such as Yanhuitlán and Laguna Zope are located in this area as well. The latter settlement is known for its small figures called "pretty women" or "baby face." Between 1200 and 900 BC, pottery was being produced in the area as well. This pottery has been linked with similar work done in La Victoria, Guatemala. Other important settlements from the same time period include Tierras Largas, San José Mogote and Guadalupe, whose ceramics show Olmec influence. The major native language family, Oto-Manguean, is thought to have been spoken in northern Oaxaca around 4400 BC and to have evolved into nine distinct branches by 1500 BC.
Historic events in Oaxaca as far back as the 12th century are described in pictographic codices painted by Zapotecs and Mixtecs in the beginning of the colonial period, but outside of the information that can be obtained through their study, little historical information from pre-colonial Oaxaca exist, and our knowledge of this period relies largely on archaeological remains. By 500 BC, the central valleys of Oaxaca were mostly inhabited by the Zapotecs, with the Mixtecs on the western side. These two groups were often in conflict throughout the pre-Hispanic period. Archeological evidence indicates that between 750 and 1521, there may have been population peaks of as high as 2.5 million.
The Zapotecs were the earliest to gain dominance over the Central Valleys region. The first major dominion was centered in Monte Albán, which flourished from 500 BC until AD 750. At its height, Monte Albán was home to some 25,000 people and was the capital city of the Zapotec nation. It remained a secondary center of power for the Zapotecs until the Mixtecs overran it in 1325. The site contains a number of notable features including the Danzantes, a set of stone reliefs and the finding of fine quality ceramics.
Starting from AD 750 previous large urban centers such as Monte Alban fell across the Oaxaca area and smaller dominions grew and evolved until the Spanish Conquest in 1521. Between 700 and 1300, the Mixtec were scattered among various dominions, including those of Achiutla, Tequixtepec-Chazumba, Apoala and Coixtlahuaca. The Zapotecs occupied a large region from Central Valleys region to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. However, no major city state like Monte Albán arose again, with villages and city-states remaining small, between 1,000 and 3,000 people with a palace, temple, market and residences. In a number of cases, there were Mesoamerican ball courts as well. These and larger centers also functioned as military fortresses in time of invasion. Important Zapotec and Mixtec sites include Yagul, Zaachila, Inguiteria, Yanhuitlan, Tamazulapan, Tejupan, and Teposcolula. During nearly all of this time, these various entities were at war with one another, and faced the threat of Aztec expansion.
While the Zapotec remained dominant in many parts of the Central Valleys and into the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the Mixtec were pushing into Zapotec territory, taking Monte Alban. In areas they conquered, they became prolific builders, leaving behind numerous and still unexplored sites. However, the conquest of the Central Valleys was never completed with pressure coming from the Aztecs in Tenochtitlan in the 14th and 15th centuries. The Zapotecs and Mixtecs both allied themselves and fought among themselves as they tried to maintain their lands and valuable trade routes between the high central plains of Mexico and Central America.
The first Aztecs arrived in the Oaxaca area in 1250, but true expansion into the region began in the 15th century. In 1457, Moctezuma I invaded the Tlaxiaco and Coixtlahuaca areas, gaining control, demanding tribute and establishing military outposts. These were Mixtec lands at first, pushing these people even further into Zapotec territory. Under Axayacatl and Tizoc, the Aztec began to take control of trade routes in the area and part of the Pacific Coast. By this time, the Zapotec were led by Cosijoeza with the government in Zaachila in the latter 15th century. Under Ahuitzotl, the Aztecs temporarily pushed the Zapotecs into Tehuantepec and established a permanent military base at Huaxyacac (Oaxaca city). The Aztecs were stopped only by the Spanish Conquest These conquests would change most of the place names in parts of Oaxaca to those from the Nahuatl language. In 1486 the Aztecs established a fort on the hill of Huaxyácac (now called El Fortín), overlooking the present city of Oaxaca. This was the major Aztec military base charged with the enforcement of tribute collection and control of trade routes.
However, Aztec rule in Oaxaca would last only a little more than thirty years.


By 1810, the city of Oaxaca had 18,000 inhabitants, most of whom were mestizos or mixed indigenous/European. During the Mexican War of Independence the government of this area remained loyal to the Spanish Crown. When representatives of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla came to meet with them, they were hanged and their heads left out in view. Some early rebel groups emerged in the state, such as those led by Felipe Tinoco and Catarino Palacios, but they were also eventually executed. After 1812, insurgents began to have some success in the state, especially in the areas around Huajuapan de León, where Valerio Trujano defended the city against royalist forces until José María Morelos y Pavón was able to come in with support to keep the area in rebel hands. After that point, insurgents had greater success in various parts of the state, but the capital remained in royalist hands until the end of the war.
The state was initially a department after the war ended in 1821, but after the fall of emperor Agustín de Iturbide, it became a state in 1824 with Jose Maria Murguia named as its first governor.
During the 19th century, Oaxaca and the rest of Mexico was split between liberal (federalist) and conservative (centralist) factions. The political and military struggles between the factions resulted in wars and intrigues. Vicente Guerrero, a liberal, was executed by firing squad in Cuilapam in 1831. Liberal Manuel Gomez Pedraza became governor in 1832 but was opposed by General Estaban Moctezuma. He and commandant Luis Quintanar persecuted liberals in the state, including Benito Juárez. The constant warfare had a negative effect on the state's economy and those in the Tehuantepec area supported a separatist movement which was partially successful in the 1850s.
Two Oaxacans, Benito Juarez and Porfirio Díaz were prominent players in the Reform War. It is difficult to overstate Juárez's meaning to the state. He was born on March 21, 1806, in the village of San Pablo Guelatao and was full blooded Zapotec. He began his career studying to be a priest then a lawyer. In 1847, Juarez became governor of Oaxaca, but still faced stern opposition from conservatives such as Lope San Germán. With the success of the Plan de Ayutla, Juarez became governor again, and worked to remove privileges and properties from the Church and landed classes. The Constitution of 1857, was ratified in Oaxaca city, and Juarez left the governor's position to become President of Mexico. He was president during one of Mexico's most turbulent times, fighting invading French forces and conservatives. As a liberal, he imposed many of the reforms which remain today including those in education and separation of church and state. He is also considered to be a legend and a symbol for the indigenous population of the state.
Porfirio Díaz was Juárez's ally through the French Intervention. French imperial forces took Oaxaca city, which was defended by Porfirio Díaz, landing the latter in prison. The capital was later recaptured by the liberals under Carlos Oronoz. However, soon after Juarez took back the presidency, Porfirio Díaz declared rebellion against him from Oaxaca in 1872 under the Plan de Tuxtepec. Juárez died in office. Diaz would succeed in obtaining the presidency and did not relinquish it until the Mexican Revolution.


The state is located in the south of Mexico, bordered by the states of Puebla, Veracruz, Chiapas and Guerrero with the Pacific Ocean to the south. It has a territory of 93,967 km² (36,281 sq mi), accounting for less than 5% of Mexico's territory. Here several mountain chains come together, with the elevation varying from sea level to 3,759 m (12,333 ft) asl, averaging at 1,500 m (4,921 ft) asl. Oaxaca has one of the most rugged terrains in Mexico, with mountain ranges that abruptly fall into the sea. Between these mountains are mostly narrow valleys, canyons and ravines. Major elevations in the state include Zempoaltepetl (3,396 m or 11,142 ft asl), El Espinazo del Diablo, Nindú Naxinda Yucunino and Cerro Encantado. Oaxaca has 533 km (331 mi) of coastline with nine major bays.
The mountains are mostly formed by the convergence of the Sierra Madre del Sur, the Sierra Madre de Oaxaca and the Sierra Atravesada into what is called the Oaxaca Complex (Complejo Oaxaqueño). The Sierra Madre del Sur runs along the coast with an average width of 150 km (93 mi) and a minimum height of 2,000 meters (6,562 ft) asl with peaks over 2,500 m (8,202 ft) asl. In various regions the chain is locally known by other names, such as the Sierra de Miahuatlán and the Sierra de la Garza. The Sierra Madre de Oaxaca enters the state from the Puebla and Veracruz borders in the Tuxtepec region, running northwest to southeast towards the Central Valleys region, then onto the Tehuantepec area. Local names for parts of this range include Sierra de Tamazulapan, Sierra de Nochixtlan, Sierra de Huautla, Sierra de Juárez, Sierra de Ixtlan and others. Average altitude is 2,500 m (8,202 ft) asl with peaks over 3,000 m (9,843 ft) asl and width averages at about 75 km (47 mi). The Sierra Atravesada is a prolongation of the Sierra Madre de Chiapas. This range is not as high as the other two with an average elevation of just over 600 meters (1,969 ft). Most of it is located in the Juchitán district running east–west.
The only valleys of any real size are the Central Valleys between Etla and Miahuatlán, which contains the city of Oaxaca. Smaller populated valleys include Nochixtlan, Nejapa, Cuicatlan and Tuxtepec. Small mesas contain population centers such as Putla, Juxtlahuaca, Tamazulapan, Zacatepec, Tlaxiaco and Huajuapan. The largest canyons in the state are those in the Cuicatlán area and include the Cortés, Galicia and María in the municipality of Tlaxiaco. There are a very large number of small canyons as well as ravines and arroyos of all sizes.
The mountainous terrain allows for no navigable rivers; instead, there are a large number of smaller ones, which often change name from area to area. The continental divide passes through the state, meaning that there is drainage towards both the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. Most of the drainage towards the Gulf is represented by the Papaloapan and Coatzacoalcos Rivers and their tributaries such as the Grande and Salado Rivers. Three rivers account for most of the water headed for the Pacific: the Mixteco, Atoyac and Tehuantepec Rivers with their tributaries. Other important rivers and streams include the Tequisistlán, Santo Domingo, Putla, Minas, Puxmetacán-Trinidad, La Arena, Cajonos, Tenango, Tonto, Huamelula, San Antonio, Ayutla, Joquila, Copalita, Calapa, Colotepec, Aguacatenango-Jaltepec, Los Perros, El Corte, Espíritu Santo, Sarabia, Ostuta, Petapa and Petlapa.


Hinduism (/ˈhɪnduɪzəm/) is variously defined as an Indian religion, a set of religious beliefs or practices, a religious tradition, a way of life, or dharma—a religious and universal order by which followers abide. As a religion it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global population, known as Hindus. The word Hindu is an exonym, and while Hinduism has been called the oldest religion in the world, many practitioners refer to their religion as Sanātana Dharma (Sanskrit: सनातन धर्म, lit. ''the Eternal Dharma''), a modern usage, which refers to the idea that its origins lie beyond human history, as revealed in the Hindu texts. Another endonym is Vaidika dharma, the 'dharma related to the Vedas.'
Hinduism is a diverse system of thought marked by a range of philosophies and shared concepts, rituals, cosmological systems, pilgrimage sites, and shared textual sources that discuss theology, metaphysics, mythology, Vedic yajna, yoga, agamic rituals, and temple building, among other topics. Prominent themes in Hindu beliefs include the four Puruṣārthas, the proper goals or aims of human life; namely, dharma (ethics/duties), artha (prosperity/work), kama (desires/passions) and moksha (liberation/freedom from the passions and the cycle of death and rebirth), as well as karma (action, intent and consequences) and saṃsāra (cycle of death and rebirth). Hinduism prescribes the eternal duties, such as honesty, refraining from injuring living beings (Ahiṃsā), patience, forbearance, self-restraint, virtue, and compassion, among others. Hindu practices include rituals such as puja (worship) and recitations, japa, meditation (dhyāna), family-oriented rites of passage, annual festivals, and occasional pilgrimages. Along with the practice of various yogas, some Hindus leave their social world and material possessions and engage in lifelong Sannyasa (monasticism) in order to achieve moksha.
Hindu texts are classified into Śruti ("heard") and Smṛti ("remembered"), the major scriptures of which are the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Purānas, the Mahābhārata, the Rāmāyana, and the Āgamas. There are six āstika schools of Hindu philosophy, who recognise the authority of the Vedas, namely Sānkhya, Yoga, Nyāya, Vaisheshika, Mimāmsā and Vedānta. While the Puranic chronology presents a genealogy of thousands of years, starting with the Vedic rishis, scholars regard Hinduism as a fusion or synthesis of Brahmanical orthopraxy with various Indian cultures, having diverse roots and no specific founder. This Hindu synthesis emerged after the Vedic period, between c. 500–200 BCE and c. 300 CE, in the period of the Second Urbanisation and the early classical period of Hinduism, when the Epics and the first Purānas were composed. It flourished in the medieval period, with the decline of Buddhism in India.
Currently, the four major denominations of Hinduism are Vaishnavism, Shaivism, Shaktism, and the Smarta tradition. Sources of authority and eternal truths in the Hindu texts play an important role, but there is also a strong Hindu tradition of questioning authority in order to deepen the understanding of these truths and to further develop the tradition. Hinduism is the most widely professed faith in India, Nepal and Mauritius. Significant numbers of Hindu communities are found in Southeast Asia including in Bali, Indonesia, the Caribbean, North America, Europe, Oceania, Africa, and other regions.


To its adherents, Hinduism is a traditional way of life. Many practitioners refer to the "orthodox" form of Hinduism as Sanātana Dharma, "the eternal law" or the "eternal way". Hindus regard Hinduism to be thousands of years old. The Puranic chronology, the timeline of events in ancient Indian history as narrated in the Mahabaratha, the Ramayana, and the Puranas, envisions a chronology of events related to Hinduism starting well before 3000 BCE. The Sanskrit word dharma has a much broader meaning than religion and is not its equivalent. All aspects of a Hindu life, namely acquiring wealth (artha), fulfillment of desires (kama), and attaining liberation (moksha), are part of dharma, which encapsulates the "right way of living" and eternal harmonious principles in their fulfillment.
According to the editors of the Encyclopædia Britannica, Sanātana Dharma historically referred to the "eternal" duties religiously ordained in Hinduism, duties such as honesty, refraining from injuring living beings (ahiṃsā), purity, goodwill, mercy, patience, forbearance, self-restraint, generosity, and asceticism. These duties applied regardless of a Hindu's class, caste, or sect, and they contrasted with svadharma, one's "own duty", in accordance with one's class or caste (varṇa) and stage in life (puruṣārtha). In recent years, the term has been used by Hindu leaders, reformers, and nationalists to refer to Hinduism. Sanatana dharma has become a synonym for the "eternal" truth and teachings of Hinduism, that transcend history and are "unchanging, indivisible and ultimately nonsectarian".
According to other scholars such as Kim Knott and Brian Hatcher, Sanātana Dharma refers to "timeless, eternal set of truths" and this is how Hindus view the origins of their religion. It is viewed as those eternal truths and tradition with origins beyond human history, truths divinely revealed (Shruti) in the Vedas – the most ancient of the world's scriptures. To many Hindus, the Western term "religion" to the extent it means "dogma and an institution traceable to a single founder" is inappropriate for their tradition, states Hatcher. Hinduism, to them, is a tradition that can be traced at least to the ancient Vedic era.


The precise etymology of "Bhutan" is unknown, although it is likely to derive from the Tibetan endonym "Böd" for Tibet. Traditionally, it is taken to be a transcription of the Sanskrit Bhoṭa-anta (भोट-अन्त) "end of Tibet", a reference to Bhutan's position as the southern extremity of the Tibetan plateau and culture.
Since the 17th century, Bhutan's official name has been Druk yul (literally, "country of the Drukpa Lineage" or "the Land of the Thunder Dragon," a reference to the country's dominant Buddhist sect); "Bhutan" appears only in English-language official correspondence. The terms for the Kings of Bhutan, Druk Gyalpo ("Dragon King"), and the Bhutanese endonym Drukpa, "Dragon people," are similarly derived.
Names similar to Bhutan—including Bohtan, Buhtan, Bottanthis, Bottan and Bottanter—began to appear in Europe around the 1580s. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier's 1676 Six Voyages is the first to record the name Boutan. However, these names seem to have referred not to modern Bhutan but to the Kingdom of Tibet. The modern distinction between the two did not begin until well into the Scottish explorer George Bogle's 1774 expedition. Realising the differences between the two regions, cultures, and states, his final report to the East India Company formally proposed calling the Druk Desi's kingdom "Boutan" and the Panchen Lama's kingdom "Tibet". The EIC's surveyor general James Rennell first anglicised the French name as "Bootan," and then popularised the distinction between it and Greater Tibet.
The first time a separate Kingdom of Bhutan appeared on a western map, it did so under its local name "Broukpa". Others include Lho Mon ("Dark Southland"), Lho Tsendenjong ("Southland of the Cypress"), Lhomen Khazhi ("Southland of the Four Approaches") and Lho Menjong ("Southland of the Herbs").


Bhutan's climate varies with elevation, from subtropical in the south to temperate in the highlands and polar-type climate with year-round snow in the north. Bhutan experiences five distinct seasons: summer, monsoon, autumn, winter and spring. Western Bhutan has the heavier monsoon rains; southern Bhutan has hot humid summers and cool winters; central and eastern Bhutan are temperate and drier than the west with warm summers and cool winters.


Bhutan has a rich primate life, with rare species such as the golden langur. A variant Assamese macaque has also been recorded, which is regarded by some authorities as a new species, Macaca munzala.
The Bengal tiger, clouded leopard, hispid hare and the sloth bear live in the tropical lowland and hardwood forests in the south. In the temperate zone, grey langur, tiger, goral and serow are found in mixed conifer, broadleaf and pine forests. Fruit-bearing trees and bamboo provide habitat for the Himalayan black bear, red panda, squirrel, sambar, wild pig and barking deer. The alpine habitats of the great Himalayan range in the north are home to the snow leopard, blue sheep, Himalayan marmot, Tibetan wolf, antelope, Himalayan musk deer and the takin, Bhutan's national animal. The endangered wild water buffalo occurs in southern Bhutan, although in small numbers.
More than 770 species of bird have been recorded in Bhutan. The globally endangered white-winged duck has been added recently in 2006 to Bhutan's bird list.


In Buddhism, karma (from Sanskrit: "action, work") drives saṃsāra – the endless cycle of suffering and rebirth for each being. Good, skilful deeds (Pāli: kusala) and bad, unskilful deeds (Pāli: akusala) produce "seeds" in the unconscious receptacle (ālaya) that mature later either in this life or in a subsequent rebirth. The existence of karma is a core belief in Buddhism, as with all major Indian religions, and it implies neither fatalism nor that everything that happens to a person is caused by karma.
A central aspect of Buddhist theory of karma is that intent (cetanā) matters and is essential to bring about a consequence or phala "fruit" or vipāka "result". However, good or bad karma accumulates even if there is no physical action, and just having ill or good thoughts creates karmic seeds; thus, actions of body, speech or mind all lead to karmic seeds. In the Buddhist traditions, life aspects affected by the law of karma in past and current births of a being include the form of rebirth, realm of rebirth, social class, character and major circumstances of a lifetime. It operates like the laws of physics, without external intervention, on every being in all six realms of existence including human beings and gods.
A notable aspect of the karma theory in Buddhism is merit transfer. A person accumulates merit not only through intentions and ethical living, but also is able to gain merit from others by exchanging goods and services, such as through dāna (charity to monks or nuns). Further, a person can transfer one's own good karma to living family members and ancestors.


The term "Buddhism" is an occidental neologism, commonly (and "rather roughly" according to Donald S. Lopez Jr.) used as a translation for the Dharma of the Buddha, fójiào in Chinese, bukkyō in Japanese, nang pa sangs rgyas pa'i chos in Tibetan, buddhadharma in Sanskrit, buddhaśāsana in Pali.


Buddhism, (/ˈbʊdɪzəm/, US: /ˈbuːd-/) also known as Dharmavinaya — "doctrines and disciplines" — and Buddha Dharma, is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on a series of original teachings attributed to Gautama Buddha. It originated in ancient India as a Sramana tradition sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, spreading through much of Asia. It is the world's fourth-largest religion with over 520 million followers, or over 7% of the global population, known as Buddhists. Buddhism encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on the Buddha's teachings (born Siddhārtha Gautama in the 5th century BCE) and resulting interpreted philosophies.
As expressed in the Buddha's Four Noble Truths, the goal of Buddhism is to overcome suffering (duḥkha) caused by desire and ignorance of reality's true nature, including impermanence (anicca) and the non-existence of the self (anattā). Most Buddhist traditions emphasize transcending the individual self through the attainment of Nirvana or by following the path of Buddhahood, ending the cycle of death and rebirth. Buddhist schools vary in their interpretation of the path to liberation, the relative importance and canonicity assigned to the various Buddhist texts, and their specific teachings and practices. Widely observed practices include meditation, observance of moral precepts, monasticism, taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha, and the cultivation of the Paramitas (perfections, or virtues).
Two major extant branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by scholars: Theravāda (Pali: "The School of the Elders") and Mahāyāna (Sanskrit: "The Great Vehicle"). Theravada has a widespread following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia such as Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Thailand. Mahayana, which includes the traditions of Zen, Pure Land, Nichiren Buddhism, Tiantai Buddhism (Tendai), and Shingon, is practiced prominently in Nepal, Malaysia, Bhutan, mainland China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and Taiwan. Vajrayana, a body of teachings attributed to Indian adepts, may be viewed as a separate branch or as an aspect of Mahayana Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism, which preserves the Vajrayana teachings of eighth-century India, is practised in the countries of the Himalayan region, Mongolia, and Kalmykia. Historically, until the early 2nd millennium, Buddhism was widely practised in the Indian Subcontinent; it also had a foothold to some extent in other places including the Philippines, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan.


Rebirth refers to a process whereby beings go through a succession of lifetimes as one of many possible forms of sentient life, each running from conception to death. In Buddhist thought, this rebirth does not involve a soul or any fixed substance. This is because the Buddhist doctrine of anattā (Sanskrit: anātman, no-self doctrine) rejects the concepts of a permanent self or an unchanging, eternal soul found in other religions.
The Buddhist traditions have traditionally disagreed on what it is in a person that is reborn, as well as how quickly the rebirth occurs after death. Some Buddhist traditions assert that "no self" doctrine means that there is no enduring self, but there is avacya (inexpressible) personality (pudgala) which migrates from one life to another.
The majority of Buddhist traditions, in contrast, assert that vijñāna (a person's consciousness) though evolving, exists as a continuum and is the mechanistic basis of what undergoes the rebirth process. The quality of one's rebirth depends on the merit or demerit gained by one's karma (i.e. actions), as well as that accrued on one's behalf by a family member. Buddhism also developed a complex cosmology to explain the various realms or planes of rebirth.
Each individual rebirth takes place within one of five realms according to theravadins, or six according to other schools – heavenly, demi-gods, humans, animals, hungry ghosts and hellish.
In East Asian and Tibetan Buddhism, rebirth is not instantaneous, and there is an intermediate state (Tibetan "bardo") between one life and the next. The orthodox Theravada position rejects the intermediate state, and asserts that rebirth of a being is immediate. However there are passages in the Samyutta Nikaya of the Pali Canon that seem to lend support to the idea that the Buddha taught about an intermediate stage between one life and the next.


Saṃsāra means "wandering" or "world", with the connotation of cyclic, circuitous change. It refers to the theory of rebirth and "cyclicality of all life, matter, existence", a fundamental assumption of Buddhism, as with all major Indian religions. Samsara in Buddhism is considered to be dukkha, unsatisfactory and painful, perpetuated by desire and avidya (ignorance), and the resulting karma. Liberation from this cycle of existence, nirvana, has been the foundation and the most important historical justification of Buddhism.
Buddhist texts assert that rebirth can occur in six realms of existence, namely three good realms (heavenly, demi-god, human) and three evil realms (animal, hungry ghosts, hellish). Samsara ends if a person attains nirvana, the "blowing out" of the afflictions through insight into impermanence and non-self.


The cessation of the kleshas and the attainment of nirvana (nibbāna), with which the cycle of rebirth ends, has been the primary and the soteriological goal of the Buddhist path for monastic life since the time of the Buddha. The term "path" is usually taken to mean the Noble Eightfold Path, but other versions of "the path" can also be found in the Nikayas. In some passages in the Pali Canon, a distinction is being made between right knowledge or insight (sammā-ñāṇa), and right liberation or release (sammā-vimutti), as the means to attain cessation and liberation.
Nirvana literally means "blowing out, quenching, becoming extinguished". In early Buddhist texts, it is the state of restraint and self-control that leads to the "blowing out" and the ending of the cycles of sufferings associated with rebirths and redeaths. Many later Buddhist texts describe nirvana as identical with anatta with complete "emptiness, nothingness". In some texts, the state is described with greater detail, such as passing through the gate of emptiness (sunyata) – realising that there is no soul or self in any living being, then passing through the gate of signlessness (animitta) – realising that nirvana cannot be perceived, and finally passing through the gate of wishlessness (apranihita) – realising that nirvana is the state of not even wishing for nirvana.
The nirvana state has been described in Buddhist texts partly in a manner similar to other Indian religions, as the state of complete liberation, enlightenment, highest happiness, bliss, fearlessness, freedom, permanence, non-dependent origination, unfathomable, and indescribable. It has also been described in part differently, as a state of spiritual release marked by "emptiness" and realisation of non-self.
While Buddhism considers the liberation from saṃsāra as the ultimate spiritual goal, in traditional practice, the primary focus of a vast majority of lay Buddhists has been to seek and accumulate merit through good deeds, donations to monks and various Buddhist rituals in order to gain better rebirths rather than nirvana.


On 25 February 1980, a military coup overthrew Arron's government. It was initiated by a group of 16 sergeants, led by Dési Bouterse. Opponents of the military regime attempted counter-coups in April 1980, August 1980, 15 March 1981, and again on 12 March 1982. The first counter attempt was led by Fred Ormskerk, the second by Marxist-Leninists, the third by Wilfred Hawker, and the fourth by Surendre Rambocus.
Hawker escaped from prison during the fourth counter-coup attempt, but he was captured and summarily executed. Between 2 am and 5 am on 7 December 1982, the military, under Bouterse's leadership, rounded up 13 prominent citizens who had criticized the military dictatorship and held them at Fort Zeelandia in Paramaribo. The dictatorship had all these men executed over the next three days, along with Rambocus and Jiwansingh Sheombar (who was also involved in the fourth counter-coup attempt).


During World War II, on 23 November 1941, under an agreement with the Netherlands government-in-exile, the United States sent 2,000 soldiers to Suriname to protect the bauxite mines to support the Allies' war effort. In 1942, the Dutch government-in-exile began to review the relations between the Netherlands and its colonies in terms of the post-war period.
In 1954, Suriname became one of the constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, along with the Netherlands Antilles and the Netherlands. In this construction, the Netherlands retained control of its defense and foreign affairs. In 1974, the local government, led by the National Party of Suriname (NPS) (whose membership was largely Creole, meaning ethnically African or mixed African-European) started negotiations with the Dutch government leading towards full independence, which was granted on 25 November 1975. A large part of Suriname's economy for the first decade following independence was fueled by foreign aid provided by the Dutch government.


Beginning in the 16th century, French, Spanish and English explorers visited the area. A century later, Dutch and English settlers established plantation colonies along the many rivers in the fertile Guiana plains. The earliest documented colony in Guiana was an English settlement named Marshall's Creek along the Suriname River. After that there was another short-lived English colony called Surinam that lasted from 1650 to 1667.
Disputes arose between the Dutch and the English for control of this territory. In 1667, during negotiations leading to the Treaty of Breda after the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch decided to keep the nascent plantation colony of Surinam they had gained from the English. In return the English kept New Amsterdam, the main city of the former colony of New Netherland in North America on the mid-Atlantic coast. The British renamed it after the Duke of York: New York City.
In 1683, the Society of Suriname was founded by the city of Amsterdam, the Van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck family, and the Dutch West India Company. The society was chartered to manage and defend the colony. The planters of the colony relied heavily on African slaves to cultivate, harvest and process the commodity crops of coffee, cocoa, sugar cane and cotton plantations along the rivers. Planters' treatment of the slaves was notoriously brutal even by the standards of the time—historian C. R. Boxer wrote that "man's inhumanity to man just about reached its limits in Surinam"—and many slaves escaped the plantations. In November 1795, the Society was nationalized by the Batavian Republic and from then on the Batavian Republic and its legal successors (the Kingdom of Holland and the Kingdom of the Netherlands) governed the territory as a national colony, barring a period of British occupation between 1799 and 1802, and between 1804 and 1816.
With the help of the native South Americans living in the adjoining rain forests, these runaway slaves established a new and unique culture in the interior that was highly successful in its own right. They were known collectively in English as Maroons, in French as Nèg'Marrons (literally meaning "brown negroes", that is "pale-skinned negroes"), and in Dutch as Marrons.  The Maroons gradually developed several independent tribes through a process of ethnogenesis, as they were made up of slaves from different African ethnicities. These tribes include the Saramaka, Paramaka, Ndyuka or Aukan, Kwinti, Aluku or Boni, and Matawai.
The Maroons often raided plantations to recruit new members from the slaves and capture women, as well as to acquire weapons, food and supplies. They sometimes killed planters and their families in the raids; colonists built defenses, which were significant enough that they were shown on 18th-century maps.
The colonists also mounted armed campaigns against the Maroons, who generally escaped through the rainforest, which they knew much better than the colonists did. To end hostilities, in the 18th century the European colonial authorities signed several peace treaties with different tribes. They granted the Maroons sovereign status and trade rights in their inland territories, giving them autonomy.


From 1861 to 1863, with the American Civil War underway, and enslaved people escaping to Northern territory controlled by the Union, United States President Abraham Lincoln and his administration looked abroad for places to relocate people who were freed from enslavement and who wanted to leave the United States. It opened negotiations with the Dutch government regarding African-American emigration to and colonization of the Dutch colony of Suriname. Nothing came of the idea, and the idea was dropped after 1864.
The Netherlands abolished slavery in Suriname in 1863, under a gradual process that required enslaved people to work on plantations for 10 transition years for minimal pay, which was considered as partial compensation for their masters. After that transition period expired in 1873, most freedmen largely abandoned the plantations where they had worked for several generations in favor of the capital city, Paramaribo. Some of them were able to purchase the plantations they worked on, especially in the  district of Para and Coronie. Their descendants still live on those grounds today. Several plantation owners did not pay their former enslaved workers the pay they owed them for the ten years following 1863. They paid the workers with the property rights of the ground of the plantation in order to escape their debt to the workers.
As a plantation colony, Suriname had an economy dependent on labor-intensive commodity crops. To make up for a shortage of labor, the Dutch recruited and transported contract or indentured laborers from the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia) and India (the latter through an arrangement with the British, who then ruled the area). In addition, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, small numbers of laborers, mostly men, were recruited from China and the Middle East.
Although Suriname's population remains relatively small, because of this complex colonization and exploitation, it is one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse countries in the world.


The first President of the country was Johan Ferrier, the former governor, with Henck Arron (the then leader of the NPS) as Prime Minister. In the years leading up to independence, nearly one-third of the population of Suriname emigrated to the Netherlands, amidst concern that the new country would fare worse under independence than it had as a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Surinamese politics did degenerate into ethnic polarisation and corruption soon after independence, with the NPS using Dutch aid money for partisan purposes. Its leaders were accused of fraud in the 1977 elections, in which Arron won a further term, and the discontent was such that a large portion of the population fled to the Netherlands, joining the already significant Surinamese community there.


The name Suriname may derive from an indigenous people called Surinen, who inhabited the area at the time of European contact. The suffix -ame, common in Surinamese river and place names (see also the Coppename River), may come from aima or eima, meaning river or creek mouth, in Lokono, an Arawak language spoken in the country.
The earliest European sources give variants of "Suriname" as the name of the river on which colonies were eventually founded. Lawrence Kemys wrote in his Relation of the Second Voyage to Guiana of passing a river called "Shurinama" as he travelled along the coast. In 1598, a fleet of three Dutch ships visiting the Wild Coast mention passing the river "Surinamo". In 1617, a Dutch notary spelled the name of the river on which a Dutch trading post had existed three years earlier as "Surrenant".
British settlers, who in 1630 founded the first European colony at Marshall's Creek along the Suriname River, spelled the name as "Surinam"; this would long remain the standard spelling in English. The Dutch navigator David Pietersz. de Vries wrote of traveling up the "Sername" river in 1634 until he encountered the English colony there; the terminal vowel remained in future Dutch spellings and pronunciations. In 1640, a Spanish manuscript entitled "General Description of All His Majesty's Dominions in America" called the river "Soronama". In 1653, instructions given to a British fleet sailing to meet Lord Willoughby in Barbados, which at the time was the seat of English colonial government in the region, again spelled the name of the colony "Surinam". A 1663 royal charter said the region around the river was "called Serrinam also Surrinam".
As a result of the "Surrinam" spelling, 19th-century British sources offered the folk etymology "Surryham", saying it was the name given to the Suriname River by Lord Willoughby in the 1660s in honour of the Duke of Norfolk and Earl of Surrey when an English colony was established under a grant from King Charles II. This folk etymology can be found repeated in later English-language sources.
When the territory was taken over by the Dutch, it became part of a group of colonies known as Dutch Guiana. The official spelling of the country's English name was changed from "Surinam" to "Suriname" in January 1978, but "Surinam" can still be found in English, such as Suriname's national airline Surinam Airways. The older English name is reflected in the English pronunciation, /ˈsjʊərɪnæm, -nɑːm/. In Dutch, the official language of Suriname, the pronunciation is [ˌsyriˈnaːmə], with the main stress on the third syllable and a schwa terminal vowel.


April – The government of Cape Colony sets a deadline for the Basuto people to surrender their weapons; non-compliance leads to the Basuto Gun War.
April 18 – 1880 United Kingdom general election: William Ewart Gladstone defeats Benjamin Disraeli, to become Prime Minister for the second time.
April 19 – The Prime Minister of Sweden, Louis De Geer, resigns over the defeat of a defense reform bill in the country's Riksdag; he is succeeded by Count Arvid Posse (1880–1883).
April 27 – The Royal University of Ireland is founded by charter, allowing the Catholic University of Ireland to re-form as University College Dublin.
May 2 – After having her lights installed by Edison's personnel, the SS Columbia is lit up for the first time at the foot of Wall Street, in New York City.
May 13 – In Menlo Park, New Jersey, Thomas Edison performs the first test of his electric railway.
June – The SS Columbia sets off on her maiden voyage around Cape Horn to Portland, Oregon, carrying 13 locomotives and 200 railcars.
June 1  – Tinius Olsen is awarded a United States Patent, for the Little Giant Testing Machine.
June 28 – Australian police capture bank robber Ned Kelly, after a gun battle at Glenrowan, Victoria.
June 29 – France annexes Tahiti.


January 1 – Vajiravudh, Rama VI, King of Siam (d. 1925)
January 2 – Louis Charles Breguet, French aircraft designer, builder and early aviation pioneer (d. 1955)
January 3 – Francis Browne, Irish Jesuit priest, famous for his last photos of the RMS Titanic (d. 1960)
January 6 – Tom Mix, American actor (d. 1940)
January 10 – Manuel Azaña, 2nd President of the Spanish Second Republic, 55th Prime Minister of Spain (d. 1940)
January 11 – Rudolph Palm, Curaçao-born composer (d. 1950)
January 17 – Mack Sennett, Canadian director, producer (d. 1960)
January 18 – Paul Ehrenfest, Austrian-Dutch physicist (d. 1933)
January 19 – Henryk Minkiewicz, Polish general and politician (d. 1940)
January 26 - Douglas MacArthur, American general (d. 1964)
January 29 – W. C. Fields, American actor, comedian (d. 1946)


October – The Blizzard of 1880 begins in North America.
October 1  – German company Munich Re is founded in Munich.
October 6 – The University of Southern California opens its doors to 53 students and 10 faculty.
October 15 – Mexican soldiers kill Victorio, one of the greatest Apache military strategists.
October 28 – The first stone is laid for the Clarkson Memorial in Wisbech, England.
November 2 – U.S. presidential election, 1880: James Garfield defeats Winfield S. Hancock.
November 4 – The first cash register is patented by James and John Ritty of Dayton, Ohio.
November 9 – A major earthquake strikes Zagreb and destroys many buildings, including Zagreb Cathedral.
November 11 – Australian bushranger and bank robber Ned Kelly is hanged in Melbourne.
November 22 – Vaudeville actress Lillian Russell makes her debut at Tony Pastor's Theatre, in New York City.
December 1 – Manuel González Flores (1833-1893) becomes the 31st President of Mexico.
December 20 – First Boer War: The Battle of Bronkhorstspruit results in a Boer victory over the British.
December 30 – The Transvaal becomes a republic, and Paul Kruger becomes its first president.


January 20 – Sir Walter Bagot, 5th Baronet (b. 1702)
February 1 – Sir Robert Rich, 4th Baronet, British cavalry officer (b. 1685)
February 2 – Robert Smith, English mathematician (b. 1689)
February 8 – George Dance the Elder, British architect (b. 1695)
February 17 – Arthur Onslow, English politician (b. 1691)
February 29 – John Mitchell, colonial American physician and botanist (b. 1711)
March 1 – Hermann Samuel Reimarus, German philosopher, writer (b. 1694)
March 3
Francis Fauquier, English statesman and Royal Governor of Virginia since 1758 (b. 1703)
Nicola Porpora, Italian composer (b. 1686)
March 11 – Giovanni Battista Vaccarini, Italian architect (b. 1702)
March 18 – Laurence Sterne, Irish writer (b. 1713)
April 9 – Sarah Fielding, English writer (b. 1710)
April 19 – Canaletto, Italian artist (b. 1697)
April 29 – Georg Brandt, Swedish chemist, mineralogist (b. 1694)
May 30 – Harry Grey, 4th Earl of Stamford, British earl and politician (b. 1715)
June 8 – Johann Joachim Winckelmann, German classical scholar, archaeologist (b. 1717)
June 15 – James Short, Scottish mathematician (b. 1710)
June 19 – Benjamin Tasker, Provincial Governor of Maryland (b. 1690)
June 28 – George Hadley, English lawyer and amateur meteorologist (b. 1685)
July 6 – Conrad Beissel, German-born American religious leader (b. 1691)
July 11 – José de Nebra, Spanish composer (b. 1702)
July 24 – Nathaniel Lardner, English theologian (b. 1684)
August 3 – Thomas Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1693)
August 17 – Vasily Trediakovsky, Russian poet (b. 1703)
September 2 – Antoine Deparcieux, French mathematician (b. 1703)
September 11 – Joseph-Nicolas Delisle, French astronomer (b. 1688)
October 1 – Robert Simson, Scottish mathematician (b. 1687)
October 8 – Pierre Simon Fournier, French typographer (b. 1712)
October 17 – Louis VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt (b. 1691)
October 28 – Michel Blavet, French flutist (b. 1700)
October 31 – Francesco Maria Veracini, Italian composer (b. 1690)
November 14 – John Bristow, English merchant, politician (b. 1701)
November 16 – Hans von Lehwaldt, German general (b. 1685)
November 17 – Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1693)
December 8 – Jean Denis Attiret, French Jesuit missionary, painter (b. 1702)
December 14 – Ulla Tessin, Swedish countess (b. 1711)
December 20 – Carlo Innocenzo Frugoni, Italian poet (b. 1692)
date unknown – Elsie Marley, English alewife (b. 1713)


July 1–3 – Louis Antoine de Bougainville, on his circumnavigation westabout, sails through the Bougainville Strait and along the north shore of Bougainville Island in the Solomons.
July 14 – The massacre of Polish people at the village of Balta, now a part of Ukraine but at the time an Ottoman Empire town on the frontier with Poland, leads to the Russo-Turkish War.
July 18 – "The Liberty Song", the first American patriotic song, is published in the Boston Gazette and includes the refrain "In freedom we're born".  <Carruth/>
July 25 – The Imperial Court of China's Emperor Qianlong and his three senior grand councilors, Fuheng, Yenjisan and Liu T'ung-hsun, issues a directive to officials in the Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shandong provinces warning them about the need to respond to rumors of sorcery.
August 7 – The palace of the Ottoman Grand Vizier is destroyed by a fire in Constantinople
August 26 – James Cook departs from Plymouth aboard HMS Endeavour on his first voyage of discovery.
August 27 – Almost all merchants and traders in the British colony of New York sign a pact not to import British manufactured goods as long as the Townshend Acts are in effect, nor to do business with nonassociators to the pact.
August 30 – A fire burns much of the Library of the Vatican.
September 16 – Louis XV of France appoints René de Maupeou as Chancellor (an office he will hold until 1790), and orders him to crush the judicial opposition.
September 22–29 – The Massachusetts Convention of Towns, assembling in Boston, resolves on a written objection to the impending arrival of British troops rather than more militant action but causes panic in London.


1768 (MDCCLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar, the 1768th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 768th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 68th  year of the 18th century, and the  9th   year of the 1760s decade. As of the start of 1768, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


Durango is a rural state. It is sparsely populated. The three main cities contain almost 65% of the total population (Durango – 35%, Gomez Palacio 20.1% and Lerdo 8.6%). The remaining 35% of the population is scattered among 37 small urban centers and 5,757 villages of less than 2,500 inhabitants.  Ninety-one percent of these have less than 250 residents. The state is associated with elements of the wild frontier: banditry, Revolutionary battles, mining and drug traffic. It claims to be the birthplace of Francisco Villa.
For its history, Durango has been both a frontier and central Mexican entity, especially the city. During the colonial period, Durango eventually became one of the main cities of New Spain in part because it was both part of the center and periphery of the territory. One distinction the city has from other colonial cities is that it was not founded on or near a former indigenous population center. The indigenous here were (and are) distinct from those in the center and south culturally.
True to its dangerous reputation, the best-known animal of the state is the scorpion. The sting was possibly fatal in the past but the availability of antidote today makes this very rare. One reason why the creatures are so abundant is that the Sierra Madre Occidental make for perfect breeding grounds. Most scorpions range in size from one to twelve centimeters but a 17-centimeter one was found in 1963. Images of the animal appear drawn or etched into a variety of objects, but since the 1980s, the city of Durango has promoted souvenirs which have real dead scorpions encased in plastic. The arachnids are also cooked and served as a delicacy in markets such as Gomez in the capital. However, they were not traditionally eaten. Durango's soccer team is called the Scorpions.
The state likes to promote itself as the "Tierra del Cine" (Land of the Movies) due to its history of the making of Hollywood western. Today, some film and TV is still shot here.


Newspapers of Durango include: Contacto Hoy, Diario de Durango , El Siglo de Durango , El Sol de Durango, and Victoria de Durango.


Although a number of the state's indigenous ethnicities disappeared with the coming of the Spanish, there are still a significant amount residing in the state, most still speaking Uto-Azteca languages. The four main ethnicities are Tepehuans (North and South), Huichols, Tarahumaras and Mexicaneros. The Mexicaneros speak Nahuatl. The Coras and Huichols speak languages named after their groups and are fairly closely related to Nahuatl. The Tepehuano and Tarahumara languages are of the Pima branch. Language preservation varies from communities in which the language dominates to those in which only vestiges remain.
The Southern Tepehuans are the largest indigenous group in Durango. The name comes from Nahuatl and means "masters of the hills" or possibly "conquerors in battle." The Tepehuans call themselves o'dam, which means "those who inhabit." Indigenous resistance to Spanish colonization was particularly fierce there in the north.  Eventually, Spanish might forced many to flee into the rugged mountains, where most of the indigenous communities still reside. It was this process that led to the northern and southern branches of the Tepehuan communities. Main Southern Tepehuan communities include Santa María de Ocotán, San Francisco, Teneraca, Taxicarinaga, San Bernardino de Milpillas and Lajas.
The Tepehuan religion is a syncretism of indigenous and Catholic beliefs. The most important type of ceremony is the mitote or xibtal, which centers on dance around a bonfire accompanied by one-stringed instruments. They are most common at the beginning and end of the agricultural cycle. For patron saint days, cattle are usually sacrificed for feasting, accompanied by the dance of the Matachines and violin music.
The second-largest indigenous group in Durango is the Huichol. Their communities are found on the edges of the state that border with Nayarit and Jalisco, where the Huichol are more numerous. The Huichol here identify with those in the other states, there is no separation.
The Mexicaneros are the remnants of the indigenous brought by the Spanish from central Mexico to colonize the region. Today, only a small number survive in the communities of San Agustín de Buenaventura and San Pedro Jícaras in the municipality of Mezquital. This is a mixed ethnic zone and they live near groups of Tepehuanos and Huichols who have traditionally been their enemies. Their presence as a community was practically unknown until the academic work of Honrad T. Preuss in the late 19th century.  More recent studies of the people have been carried out by Neyra Patricia Alvarado.
The Tarahumaras are mostly in the state of Chihuahua but there are communities in the far north of Durango.  The Coras have some presence in communities near the Northern Tepehuanos, although they are more numerous in Nayarit and Jalisco. The Northern Tepehuanos are profoundly religious but language and culture is not significantly different from those in the south.


Cape Verde is often praised as an example among African nations for its stability and developmental growth despite its lack of natural resources. In 2013 then United States President Barack Obama said Cape Verde is "a real success story". Among other achievements, it has been recognized with the following assessments:
See List of countries by Human Development Index § Africa
1/1 is the highest possible rating.
With the maximum score, Cape Verde shares first place with Portugal.
Cape Verde was the only African country to reach the maximum rating.
With the maximum score, Cape Verde shares first place with 48 other countries.
The rank on this list is expressed in reverse order. To be comparable with the other rankings on this table, the actual rank of 88 was inverted, by subtracting it from the number of countries on the list, currently 177.


Cape Verde is a stable semi-presidential representative democratic republic. It is among the most democratic nations in Africa, ranking 26th in the world, according to the 2018 Democracy Index. The constitution – adopted in 1980 and revised in 1992, 1995 and 1999 – defines the basic principles of its government. The president is the head of state and is elected by popular vote for a five-year term.
The prime minister is the head of government and proposes other ministers and secretaries of state. The prime minister is nominated by the National Assembly and appointed by the president. Members of the National Assembly are elected by popular vote for five-year terms. In 2016, three parties held seats in the National Assembly – MpD (36), PAICV (25), and the Cape Verdean Independent Democratic Union (UCID) (3).
The two main political parties are PAICV and MpD.
Movement for Democracy (MpD) ousted the ruling African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde (PAICV) for the first time in 15 years in the 2016 parliamentary election, at which time its leader, Ulisses Correia e Silva, became prime minister. Jorge Carlos Almeida Fonseca was elected president in August 2011 and re-elected in October 2016. He is also supported by the MpD.
In November 2021, Cape Verde opened its first embassy in Nigeria.


1667 (MDCLXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar, the 1667th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 667th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 67th  year of the 17th century, and the  8th   year of the 1660s decade. As of the start of 1667, the Gregorian calendar was 10 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


July 2
Joe Bennett, American baseball player (d. 1987)
Sophie Harris, English costume, scenic designer for theatre and opera (d. 1966)
July 3
Alessandro Blasetti, Italian film director and screenwriter (d. 1987)
Gordon MacQuarrie, American author and journalist (d. 1956)
July 4
Belinda Dann, indigenous Australian who was one of the Stolen Generation, reunited with family aged 107 (d. 2007)
Robert Desnos, French poet (d. 1945)
Nellie Mae Rowe, African-American folk artist (d. 1982)
July 5
Richard K. Webel, American landscape architect (d. 2000)
Reed Howes, American model (d. 1964)
July 6
Frederica Sagor Maas, American playwright, essayist, and author (d. 2012)
Paul Métivier, Canadian World War I veteran (d. 2004)
Elfriede Wever, German Olympic runner (d. 1941)
July 7
Maria Bard, German stage, silent film actress (d. 1944)
Frank W. Cyr, American educator, author (d. 1995)
Earle E. Partridge, American general (d. 1990)
July 9 – Joseph LaShelle, American cinematographer (d. 1989)
July 10 – Evelyn Laye, English actress (d. 1996)
July 11 – Lily Eberwein, Sarawakian nationalist, women's rights activist (d. 1980)
July 13
Cornelius Keefe, American actor (d. 1972)
George Lewis, American jazz clarinetist (d. 1968)
July 15 – Enrique Cadícamo, Argentine tango lyricist, poet and novelist (d. 1999)
July 16 – Mumon Yamada, Japanese Rinzai religious leader (d. 1988)
July 20 – Hunter Lane, American baseball player (d. 1994)
July 21 – Isadora Bennett, American theatre manager, modern dance publicity agent (d. 1980)
July 23
Julia Davis Adams, American author, journalist (d. 1993)
John Babcock, last surviving Canadian World War I veteran (d. 2010)
Inger Margrethe Boberg, Danish folklore researcher, writer (d. 1957)
Prince Kaya Tsunenori (d. 1978)
July 26 – Sarah Kafrit, Israeli politician, teacher (d. 1983)
July 28 – Lady Dorothy Macmillan, spouse of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1966)
July 29
Mary V. Austin, Australian community worker, political activist (d. 1986)
Eyvind Johnson, Swedish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1976)
Teresa Noce, Italian labor leader, activist, and journalist (d. 1980)


1900
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
1900 (MCM) was an exceptional common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar, the 1900th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 900th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 100th and last year of the 19th century, and the  1st   year of the 1900s decade. As of the start of 1900, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
  It is also a first year from this year until 1999.


Pollination is entomophile (basically by flies and wasps and bees, less often by beetles), except in Bocconia  and Macleaya. In Papaveroideae, the reward is pollen as there is no nectar. The visual attractant is the petals that are usually brightly coloured and often have basal guides, sometimes the attractant can also be the androecium as the petals do not last long. Some species, mostly those from the arctic and alpine regions, reinforce their attraction with floral fragrance (for example, Papaver alpinum smells of cloves), which in the case of Romneya drugs the insects. The anthers and stigmas mature at the same time, but Bocconia is clearly protogynous, the stigmas emerge from the calyx that encloses them. Autopollination is common and in some cases (for example, Roemeria hybrida) it occurs before the bud opens (cleistogamy). The presence of an aril suggests dispersion of seeds by ants (myrmecochory), once they have been expelled by the fruit. In the case of Bocconia the seeds remain attached to the replums after the capsule's valves have fallen leaving their brilliant red or orange arils exposed, which attract birds to feed on them, facilitating their dispersal (ornithochory). Seeds that lack an aril appear to be dispersed by the wind (anemochory) for capsules that open, in the other cases they are freed when the fruit decomposes. Many Fumarioideae species have explosive fruits (ballistic), while Rupicapnos and Sarcocapnos species are chasmophytes, growing on rocks, and their fruit's peduncles and pedicels are geotropic and they lengthen so that the seeds bury into the base of the plant.
The Papaveroideae typically grow in cooler and wooded areas, forming part of the undergrowth. They have adapted to arctic and alpine habitats and to arid, Mediterranean areas, many species are ruderal and segetal (growing in cornfields). Pteridophyllum grows in the undergrowth of woods of needle-leaved trees between 1,000 and 2,000 metres (3,300 and 6,600 ft). The Fumarioideae are basically found in open, rocky, alpine landscapes or vertical or overhanging cracks, while some species are ruderal or segetal.


The APG III system (2009; unchanged from the APG II system of 2003 and the APG system of 1998) places the family in the order Ranunculales, in the clade eudicots. The Papaveraceae differ from the rest of the Ranunculales in some important characteristics but they share others such as the presence of isoquinoline-derived alkaloids. Based on molecular and morphological data, the family forms a clade with the families Lardizabalaceae, Circaeasteraceae, Menispermaceae, Berberidaceae and Ranunculaceae.


Alkaloids: The isoquinolinic alkaloids present in the family are well known. They are derived from berberine, tetrahydroberberine, protopine and benzophenanthridine in Papaveroideae, and from spirobenzylisoquinoline and cularine in Fumarioideae, as well as from other groups that give them pharmacological properties: derivatives of aporphine, morphinan, pavine, isopavine, narceine and rhoeadine.
Others: Other characteristic substances contained within these species include: meconic acid and chelidonic acid, as well as cyanogenic glycoside compounds derived from tyrosine: dhurrin and triglochinin; in the Fumarioideae while the Chelidonieae contain the free amino acid δ-acetylornithine.
Flavonoids: Iridoids and proanthocyanidins absent. Flavonols, kaempferol and/or quercetin present.
Many of these plants are poisonous. The Mexican prickly poppy is poisonous if taken internally and may cause oedema and glaucoma.  Even if an animal, such as a goat, should persist in grazing on this plant, not only will the animal suffer but so will those who drink its milk, because the poisons are passed along in the milk.


The broad circumscription of Papaveraceae  in the APG III system includes three taxa that have previously been separated into different families: the Papaveraceae sensu stricto, the Fumariaceae and the Pteridophyllaceae. Thus the Cronquist system of 1981 recognised the Fumariaceae as a separate family, despite their close phylogenetic relationship to the Papaveraceae sensu stricto. The three former families may be treated as subfamilies. One morphological and molecular study concluded that the former family Pteridophyllaceae has a basal position with a subsequent division into two terminal clades each containing one of the subfamilies Fumarioideae and Papaveroideae, which are clearly monophyletic. A more recent study includes the former Pteridophyllaceae in the Fumarioideae, dividing the Papaveraceae into only two subfamilies.
The internal division of the Fumarioideae shown below follows Lidén (1993), with the exception of the placement of Pteridophyllum. The subtribes are given by the Germplasm Resources Information Network. The division of the Papaveroideae follows Hoot et al. (1997). In the latter study, the tribe Eschscholzieae would be the basal clade and sister group to the rest of the subfamily, which is divided into a different terminal clade (Chelidonieae) and into its sister group, formed by the Papavereae and Platystemoneae, whose separation is not based on the data presented by these authors. For discussions of subfamilies, see Carolan et al. (2006) and Blattner & Kadereit (1999).


1788 (MDCCLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar, the 1788th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 788th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 88th  year of the 18th century, and the  9th   year of the 1780s decade. As of the start of 1788, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


By at least the 5th century BC the territory of what later is Niger had become an area of trans-Saharan trade. Led by Tuareg tribes from the north, camels were used as a means of transportation through what is later a desert. This mobility which would continue in waves for centuries was accompanied with further migration to the south and intermixing between sub-Saharan African and North African populations, and the spread of Islam. It was aided by the Arab invasion of North Africa in the 7th century, which resulted in population movements to the south. Empires and kingdoms existed in the Sahel during this era. The following adopts a roughly chronological account of some empires.


Under pressure for increased political freedom, Banda agreed to a referendum in 1993, where the populace voted for a multi-party democracy. In late 1993, a presidential council was formed, the life presidency was abolished and a new constitution was put into place, effectively ending the MCP's rule. In 1994 the first multi-party elections were held in Malawi, and Banda was defeated by Bakili Muluzi (a former Secretary General of the MCP and former Banda Cabinet Minister). Re-elected in 1999, Muluzi remained president until 2004, when Bingu wa Mutharika was elected. Although the political environment was described as "challenging", it was stated in 2009 that a multi-party system still existed in Malawi. Multiparty parliamentary and presidential elections were held for the fourth time in Malawi in May 2009, and President Mutharika was successfully re-elected, despite charges of election fraud from his rival.
President Mutharika was seen by some as increasingly autocratic and dismissive of human rights, and in July 2011 protests over high costs of living, devolving foreign relations, poor governance and a lack of foreign exchange reserves erupted. The protests left 18 people dead and at least 44 others suffering from gunshot wounds.
In April 2012, Mutharika died of a heart attack. Over a period of 48 hours, his death was kept secret, including an elaborate flight with the body to South Africa, where the ambulance drivers refused to move the body, saying they were not licensed to move a corpse. After the South African government threatened to reveal the information, the presidential title was taken over by Vice-President Joyce Banda (not related to the former president Banda).
In 2014 Malawian general election Joyce Banda lost the elections (coming third) and was replaced by Peter Mutharika, the brother of ex-President Mutharika. In the 2019 Malawian general election president Peter Mutharika was narrowly re-elected. In February 2020 Malawi Constitutional Court overturned the result because of irregularities and widespread fraud. In May 2020 Malawi Supreme Court upheld the decision and announced a new election will be held on July 2. This was the first time election was legally challenged. Opposition leader Lazarus Chakwera won 2020 Malawian presidential election and he was sworn in as the new president of Malawi.


Malawi is a unitary presidential republic under the leadership of President Lazarus Chakwera The current constitution was put into place on 18 May 1995. The branches of the government consist of executive, legislative and judicial. The executive includes a President who is both Head of State and Head of Government, first and second Vice Presidents and the Cabinet of Malawi. The President and Vice President are elected together every five years. A second Vice President may be appointed by the President if so chosen, although they must be from a different party. The members of the Cabinet of Malawi are appointed by the President and can be from either inside or outside of the legislature.
The legislative branch consists of a unicameral National Assembly of 193 members who are elected every five years, and although the Malawian constitution provides for a Senate of 80 seats, one does not exist in practice. If created, the Senate would provide representation for traditional leaders and a variety of geographic districts, as well as special interest groups including the disabled, youth, and women. The Malawi Congress Party is the ruling party together with several other parties in the Tonse Alliance led by Lazarus Chakwera while the Democratic Progressive Party is the main opposition party. Suffrage is universal at 18 years of age, and the central government budget for 2021/2022 is $2.4 billion from $2.8 billion for the 2020/2021 financial year.
The independent judicial branch is based upon the English model and consists of a Supreme Court of Appeal, a High Court divided into three sections (general, constitutional, and commercial), an Industrial Relations Court and Magistrates Courts, the last of which is divided into five grades and includes Child Justice Courts. The judicial system has been changed several times since Malawi gained independence in 1964. Conventional courts and traditional courts have been used in varying combinations, with varying degrees of success and corruption.
Malawi is composed of three regions (the Northern, Central, and Southern regions), which are divided into 28 districts, and further into approximately 250 traditional authorities and 110 administrative wards. Local government is administered by central government-appointed regional administrators and district commissioners. For the first time in the multi-party era, local elections took place on 21 November 2000, with the UDF party winning 70% of the available seats. There was scheduled to be a second round of constitutionally mandated local elections in May 2005, but these were cancelled by the government.
In February 2005, President Mutharika split with the United Democratic Front and began his own party, the Democratic Progressive Party, which had attracted reform-minded officials from other parties and won by-elections across the country in 2006. In 2008, President Mutharika had implemented reforms to address the country's major corruption problem, with at least five senior UDF party members facing criminal charges. In 2012, Malawi was ranked 7th of all countries in sub-Saharan Africa in the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, an index that measures several variables to provide a comprehensive view of the governance of African countries. Although the country's governance score was higher than the continental average, it was lower than the regional average for southern Africa. Its highest scores were for safety and rule of law, and its lowest scores were for sustainable economic opportunity, with a ranking of 47th on the continent for educational opportunities. Malawi's governance score had improved between 2000 and 2011. Malawi held elections in May 2019, with President Peter Mutharika winning re-election over challengers Lazarus Chakwera, Atupele Muluzi, and Saulos Chilima. In 2020 Malawi Constitutional Court annulled President Peter Mutharika's narrow election victory last year because of widespread fraud and irregularities. Opposition leader Lazarus Chakwera won 2020 Malawian presidential election and he became the new president.


Malawi is divided into 28 districts within three regions:


As of 2017, international observers noted issues in several human rights areas. Excessive force was seen to be used by police forces, security forces were able to act with impunity, mob violence was occasionally seen, and prison conditions continued to be harsh and sometimes life-threatening. However, the government was seen to make some effort to prosecute security forces who used excessive force. Other legal issues included limits on free speech and freedom of the press, lengthy pretrial detentions, and arbitrary arrests and detentions. Societal issues found included violence against women, human trafficking, and child labour. Corruption within the government is seen as a major issue, despite the Malawi Anti-Corruption Bureau's (ACB) attempts to reduce it. The ACB appears to be successful at finding and prosecuting low level corruption, but higher level officials appear to be able to act with impunity. Corruption within security forces is also an issue. Malawi had one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world. In 2015 Malawi raised the legal age for marriage from 15 to 18. Other issues that have been raised are lack of adequate legal protection of women from sexual abuse and harassment, very high maternal mortality rate, and abuse related to accusations of witchcraft.
As of 2010, homosexuality has been illegal in Malawi. In one 2010 case, a couple perceived as homosexual faced extensive jail time when convicted. The convicted pair, sentenced to the maximum of 14 years of hard labour each, were pardoned two weeks later following the intervention of United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. In May 2012, then-President Joyce Banda pledged to repeal laws criminalizing homosexuality. It was her successor, Peter Mutharika, who imposed a moratorium in 2015 that suspended the country's anti-gay laws pending further review of the same laws. On 26 June 2021, the country's LGBT community held the first Pride parade in the country's Capital City, Lilongwe.


April 25 – Mexican–American War: Open conflict begins, over the disputed border of Texas.
May – The Associated Press is founded in New York.
May 8 – Mexican–American War – Battle of Palo Alto: Zachary Taylor defeats a Mexican force north of the Rio Grande at Palo Alto, Texas in the first major battle of the war.
May 11 – The University at Buffalo is founded by future United States Vice President and President, Millard Fillmore.
May 13 – Mexican–American War: The United States declares war on Mexico.
May 15 – Under the leadership of Prime Minister Robert Peel, the House of Commons of the United Kingdom votes to repeal the Corn Laws by passing an Importation Bill, replacing the old colonial mercantile trade system with free trade. On June 25 the Duke of Wellington persuades the House of Lords to pass the Act, which will take full effect from February 1849.
May 16 – The Revolution of Maria da Fonte begins in Portugal (it is crushed by royalist troops on February 22, 1847).
June 10 – Mexican–American War: The California Republic declares independence from Mexico.
June 14 – Bear Flag Revolt: American settlers in Sonoma, California, start a rebellion against Mexico and proclaim the California Republic.
June 15
The Oregon Treaty establishes the 49th parallel as the border between the United States and Canada, from the Rocky Mountains to the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Launceston Church Grammar School opens for the first time in Tasmania.
June 16 – Pope Pius IX succeeds Pope Gregory XVI as the 255th pope. He will reign for 31½ years (the longest definitely confirmed).
June 25 – The British Parliament votes to repeal the Corn Laws, in an attempt to relieve the Irish Famine. This brings about the resignation of Peel, the Prime Minister, and sets Great Britain on a path towards Free Trade.
June 28 – The saxophone is patented by Adolphe Sax.


The structure of a gene consists of many elements of which the actual protein coding sequence is often only a small part. These include DNA regions that are not transcribed as well as untranslated regions of the RNA.
Flanking the open reading frame, genes contain a regulatory sequence that is required for their expression. First, genes require a promoter sequence. The promoter is recognized and bound by transcription factors that recruit and help RNA polymerase bind to the region to initiate transcription. The recognition typically occurs as a consensus sequence like the TATA box.  A gene can have more than one promoter, resulting in messenger RNAs (mRNA) that differ in how far they extend in the 5' end. Highly transcribed genes have "strong" promoter sequences that form strong associations with transcription factors, thereby initiating transcription at a high rate. Others genes have "weak" promoters that form weak associations with transcription factors and initiate transcription less frequently. Eukaryotic promoter regions are much more complex and difficult to identify than prokaryotic promoters.
Additionally, genes can have regulatory regions many kilobases upstream or downstream of the open reading frame that alter expression. These act by binding to transcription factors which then cause the DNA to loop so that the regulatory sequence (and bound transcription factor) become close to the RNA polymerase binding site. For example, enhancers increase transcription by binding an activator protein which then helps to recruit the RNA polymerase to the promoter; conversely silencers bind repressor proteins and make the DNA less available for RNA polymerase.
The transcribed pre-mRNA contains untranslated regions at both ends which contain binding sites for ribosomes, RNA-binding proteins, miRNA, as well as terminator, and start and stop codons. In addition, most eukaryotic open reading frames contain untranslated introns, which are removed and exons, which are connected together in a process known as RNA splicing. Finally, the ends of gene transcripts are defined by cleavage and polyadenylation (CPA) sites, where newly produced pre-mRNA gets cleaved and a string of ~200 adenosine monophosphates is added at the 3' end. The poly(A) tail protects mature mRNA from degradation and has other functions, affecting translation, localization, and transport of the transcript from the nucleus. Splicing, followed by CPA, generate the final mature mRNA, which encodes the protein or RNA product. Although the general mechanisms defining locations of human genes are known, identification of the exact factors regulating these cellular processes is an area of active research. For example, known sequence features in the 3'-UTR can only explain half of all human gene ends.
Many prokaryotic genes are organized into operons, with multiple protein-coding sequences that are transcribed as a unit. The genes in an operon are transcribed as a continuous messenger RNA, referred to as a polycistronic mRNA. The term cistron in this context is equivalent to gene. The transcription of an operon's mRNA is often controlled by a repressor that can occur in an active or inactive state depending on the presence of specific metabolites. When active, the repressor binds to a DNA sequence at the beginning of the operon, called the operator region, and represses transcription of the operon; when the repressor is inactive transcription of the operon can occur (see e.g. Lac operon). The products of operon genes typically have related functions and are involved in the same regulatory network.


After winning a string of minor races in Perth, Northerly burst on the scene with his victory in the 2000 Railway Stakes in his native Perth where he accounted for the state's best milers by nearly three lengths.
Following a first-up second in 2001 in the unsuitably short Australia Day Stakes in Perth, Northerly arrived in Melbourne for an autumn campaign aimed at the Australian Cup. He won his first race in Melbourne, the Carlyon Cup over 1,600 metres, by almost four lengths, in course record time, and began a successful relationship with New Zealand jockey Greg Childs.
Following a third, carrying 59 kilograms (9 st 4 lbs), in the Victoria Gold Cup, Northerly headed to the Australian Cup over 2,000 metres at Flemington – his first weight-for-age race against top class opposition. Despite racing three-wide, he won by just over three lengths in course record time.  Greg Childs said "On that run today, to break the track record after racing three-wide, you'd have to say he's already on the way up to Sunline's status.  He's not quite Sunline yet, but he's got all the hallmarks of a champion." Sunline, a champion New Zealand mare, had won the Cox Plate for two years running, and the spring clash with Northerly was now widely anticipated.


Northerly (17 October 1996 – 9 May 2012) was an Australian racehorse who is considered arguably Australia's best middle distance Thoroughbred horse of the early 2000s. Northerly, trained by Western Australian harness racing legend Fred Kersley, won nine Group One (G1) races, including the Australian Cup twice, and the Cox Plate, regarded as the Weight for Age championship of Australasia, also on two occasions.
The horse, a bay gelding, was bred by Oakland Park Stud in Western Australia and was sired by Serheed (USA) from North Bell by Bellewater (FR). Serheed, a half-brother to both Ajdal and Formidable, was the sire of 27 stakeswinners that had 84 stakeswins, mostly in Western Australia with Northerly being his best performer. North Bell was the dam of five named foals which included two other stakes winners, North Boy and Northern Song, both by Rory's Jester. Northerly was inbred to Northern Dancer in the third, fourth and fifth generation (3m x 4f x 5f).


Attempting to buck the odds, Northerly returned to the track in August 2004. Months of speculation ended when he galloped and then trialled successfully. A crowd of 30,000 descended on Belmont racecourse in Perth to see his return. Carrying 64.5 kilograms, Northerly was fourth most of the way and got to the lead in sight of the winning post, only to be swamped on the line. After he turned in substandard performances in the Underwood and Turnbull Stakes (both of which he had won in previous campaigns), Fred Kersley retired him.
Legendary racing writer Les Carlyon wrote of Northerly:
"He fools you every time he races. He has the body language of a loser and a heart as big as the Nullarbor. He invariably looks to be struggling, a shambles of a horse blundering around on memory while his jockey pumps and blusters. Then he gets going. One instant Northerly looks beaten, the next he looks unbeatable. The closer he gets to the post, the harder he tries. He grinds on. And on. And on. He simply refuses to be beaten."
On 9 May 2012 Northerly was euthanised at his breeder's property in Busselton West Australia, following an attack of colic. He was 16 years old.


Northerly was spelled for the winter, and started his campaign in Perth, where he won first-up and was defeated second-up with 62 kilograms. He then travelled to Melbourne, where he met Sunline for the first time in the John F Feehan Stakes in mid-September. This time, Damien Oliver took the ride, as Greg Childs was committed to Sunline. The great mare raced clear approaching the home turn, but Northerly rallied in the straight for the narrow, fighting victory that would become his trademark. Greg Childs said "Sunline was at peak fitness. We took off early and he looked a beaten horse. But he nailed us on the line. It was his determination. Often he looked to be struggling but he kept coming".
Not meeting again before the Cox Plate, Northerly added Group One wins in the Underwood and Caulfield Stakes, while Sunline edged to favouritism for the Cox Plate with her victory in the Turnbull Stakes.
The stage was now set for the 2001 Cox Plate. In typical style, Sunline led the field to the home turn, but – unlike the previous two years, when she raced clear in the straight – the Sydney three-year-old Viscount refused to give in, while Northerly loomed wider on the track.  Nearing the line, the three horses buffeted one another on several occasions, and, while Northerly narrowly edged past Sunline and Viscount, the roughhouse conclusion to the race sparked three separate protests – second (Sunline) against first (Northerly) and third (Viscount) against first and second. After lengthy deliberations, stewards dismissed all three protests, and Northerly controversially retained the race. Nonetheless, Northerly had had an outstanding campaign, and the Cox Plate was his fourth win in-a-row.
Northerly returned to Perth, and his trainer Fred Kersley chose to run him in the Railway Stakes, which had been moved forward on the calendar. Unfortunately for the "home" crowd, the Cox Plate winner wilted badly in the home straight under 61.5 kilograms, and he finished an uncharacteristic 11th of 16 behind the Lindsey Smith trained Old Comrade, who again defeated Northerly in the Australian Cup in March.
Northerly had shown strong lead-up form to the Australian Cup, including a close second in the C F Orr Stakes over 1,400 metres at Caulfield and victory in the St George Stakes at the same venue a fortnight later, but Old Comrade came with a well-timed run to win the Cup in a boilover. After a tough campaign, with very little rest and stretching from August to March, Fred Kersley decided to give Northerly a good spell in the lead-up to his spring campaign.


The name Mongolia means the "Land of the Mongols" in Latin. The origin of the Mongolian word "Mongol" (монгол) is of uncertain etymology, given variously such as the name of a mountain or river; a corruption of the Mongolian Mongkhe-tengri-gal ("Eternal Sky Fire"); or a derivation from Mugulü, the 4th-century founder of the Rouran Khaganate. First attested as the 'Mungu', (Chinese: 蒙兀, Modern Chinese Měngwù, Middle Chinese Muwngu), a branch of the Shiwei in an 8th-century Tang dynasty list of northern tribes, presumably related to the Liao-era Mungku (Chinese: 蒙古, Modern Chinese Měnggǔ, Middle Chinese MuwngkuX).
After the fall of the Liao in 1125, the Khamag Mongols became a leading tribe on the Mongolian Plateau. However, their wars with the Jurchen-ruled Jin dynasty and the Tatar confederation had weakened them. The last head of the tribe was Yesügei, whose son Temüjin eventually united all the Shiwei tribes as the Mongol Empire (Yekhe Monggol Ulus). In the thirteenth century, the word Mongol grew into an umbrella term for a large group of Mongolic-speaking tribes united under the rule of Genghis Khan.
Since the adoption of the new Constitution of Mongolia on 13 February 1992, the official name of the state is "Mongolia" (Mongol Uls).


In 1924, after the Bogd Khaan died of laryngeal cancer or, as some sources claim, at the hands of Russian spies, the country's political system was changed. The Mongolian People's Republic was established. In 1928, Khorloogiin Choibalsan rose to power. The early leaders of the Mongolian People's Republic (1921–1952) included many with Pan-Mongolist ideals. However, changing global politics and increased Soviet pressure led to the decline of Pan-Mongol aspirations in the following period.
Khorloogiin Choibalsan instituted collectivization of livestock, began the destruction of the Buddhist monasteries, and carried out Stalinist purges, which resulted in the murders of numerous monks and other leaders. In Mongolia during the 1920s, approximately one-third of the male population were monks. By the beginning of the 20th century, about 750 monasteries were functioning in Mongolia.
In 1930, the Soviet Union stopped Buryat migration to the Mongolian People's Republic to prevent Mongolian reunification. All leaders of Mongolia who did not fulfill Stalin's demands to perform Red Terror against Mongolians were executed, including Peljidiin Genden and Anandyn Amar. The Stalinist purges in Mongolia, which began in 1937, killed more than 30,000 people. Choibalsan died suspiciously in the Soviet Union in 1952. Comintern leader Bohumír Šmeral said, "People of Mongolia are not important, the land is important. Mongolian land is larger than England, France and Germany".
After the Japanese invasion of neighboring Manchuria in 1931, Mongolia was threatened on this front. During the Soviet-Japanese Border War of 1939, the Soviet Union successfully defended Mongolia against Japanese expansionism. Mongolia fought against Japan during the Battles of Khalkhin Gol in 1939 and during the Soviet–Japanese War in August 1945 to liberate Inner Mongolia from Japan and Mengjiang.


The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 strongly influenced Mongolian politics and youth. Its people undertook the peaceful Democratic Revolution in January 1990 and the introduction of a multi-party system and a market economy. At the same time, the transformation of the former Marxist-Leninist Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party to the current social democratic Mongolian People's Party reshaped the country's political landscape.
A new constitution was introduced in 1992, and the term "People's Republic" was dropped from the country's name. The transition to a market economy was often rocky; during the early 1990s the country had to deal with high inflation and food shortages. The first election victories for non-communist parties came in 1993 (presidential elections) and 1996 (parliamentary elections). China has supported Mongolia's application for membership in to the Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD), Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and granting it observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.


Mongolia (/mɒŋˈɡoʊliə/ (listen)) is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of 1,564,116 square kilometres (603,909 square miles), with a population of just 3.3 million, making it the world's most sparsely populated sovereign nation. Mongolia is the world's largest landlocked country that does not border a closed sea, and much of its area is covered by grassy steppe, with mountains to the north and west and the Gobi Desert to the south. Ulaanbaatar, the capital and largest city, is home to roughly half of the country's population.
The territory of modern-day Mongolia has been ruled by various nomadic empires, including the Xiongnu, the Xianbei, the Rouran, the First Turkic Khaganate, and others. In 1206, Genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous land empire in history. His grandson Kublai Khan conquered China proper and established the Yuan dynasty. After the collapse of the Yuan, the Mongols retreated to Mongolia and resumed their earlier pattern of factional conflict, except during the era of Dayan Khan and Tumen Zasagt Khan. In the 16th century, Tibetan Buddhism spread to Mongolia, being further led by the Manchu-founded Qing dynasty, which absorbed the country in the 17th century. By the early 20th century, almost one-third of the adult male population were Buddhist monks. After the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911, Mongolia declared independence, and achieved actual independence from the Republic of China in 1921. Shortly thereafter, the country became a satellite state of the Soviet Union, which had aided its independence from China. In 1924, the Mongolian People's Republic was founded as a socialist state. After the anti-communist revolutions of 1989, Mongolia conducted its own peaceful democratic revolution in early 1990. This led to a multi-party system, a new constitution of 1992, and transition to a market economy.
Approximately 30% of the population is nomadic or semi-nomadic; horse culture remains integral. Buddhism is the majority religion, with the nonreligious being the second-largest group. Islam is the second-largest religion, concentrated among ethnic Kazakhs. Most citizens are ethnic Mongols, with roughly 5% of the population being Kazakhs, Tuvans, and other minorities, who are especially concentrated in the west. Mongolia is a member of the United Nations, Asia Cooperation Dialogue, G77, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Non-Aligned Movement and a NATO global partner. Mongolia joined the World Trade Organization in 1997 and seeks to expand its participation in regional economic and trade groups.