Cyprus (/ˈsaɪprəs/ (listen)), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea south of the Anatolian Peninsula. Continentally, it is often placed alternatively in Western Asia while being culturally tied to Southeast Europe. It is the third-largest and third-most populous island in the Mediterranean, and is south of Turkey and west of Syria. Its capital and largest city is Nicosia.
The earliest known human activity on the island dates to around the 10th millennium BC. Archaeological remains from this period include the well-preserved Neolithic village of Khirokitia, and Cyprus is home to some of the oldest water wells in the world. Cyprus was settled by Mycenaean Greeks in two waves in the 2nd millennium BC. As a strategic location in the Eastern Mediterranean, it was subsequently occupied by several major powers, including the empires of the Assyrians, Egyptians and Persians, from whom the island was seized in 333 BC by Alexander the Great. Subsequent rule by Ptolemaic Egypt, the Classical and Eastern Roman Empire, Arab caliphates for a short period, the French Lusignan dynasty and the Venetians was followed by over three centuries of Ottoman rule between 1571 and 1878 (de jure until 1914).
Cyprus was placed under the United Kingdom's administration based on the Cyprus Convention in 1878 and was formally annexed by the UK in 1914. The future of the island became a matter of disagreement between the two prominent ethnic communities, Greek Cypriots, who made up 77% of the population in 1960, and Turkish Cypriots, who made up 18% of the population. From the 19th century onwards, the Greek Cypriot population pursued enosis, union with Greece, which became a Greek national policy in the 1950s.
The Turkish Cypriot population initially advocated the continuation of the British rule, then demanded the annexation of the island to Turkey, and in the 1950s, together with Turkey, established a policy of taksim, the partition of Cyprus and the creation of a Turkish polity in the north. Following nationalist violence in the 1950s, Cyprus was granted independence in 1960. The crisis of 1963–64 brought further intercommunal violence between the two communities, displaced more than 25,000 Turkish Cypriots into enclaves and brought the end of Turkish Cypriot representation in the republic. On 15 July 1974, a coup d'état was staged by Greek Cypriot nationalists and elements of the Greek military junta in an attempt at enosis. This action precipitated the Turkish invasion of Cyprus on 20 July, which led to the capture of the present-day territory of Northern Cyprus and the displacement of over 150,000 Greek Cypriots and 50,000 Turkish Cypriots. A separate Turkish Cypriot state in the north was established by unilateral declaration in 1983; the move was widely condemned by the international community, with Turkey alone recognising the new state. These events and the resulting political situation are matters of a continuing dispute.
The Republic of Cyprus has de jure sovereignty over the entire island, including its territorial waters and exclusive economic zone, with the exception of the Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, which remain under the UK's control according to the London and Zürich Agreements. However, the Republic of Cyprus is de facto partitioned into two main parts: the area under the effective control of the Republic, located in the south and west and comprising about 59% of the island's area, and the north, administered by the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, covering about 36% of the island's area. Another nearly 4% of the island's area is covered by the UN buffer zone. The international community considers the northern part of the island to be territory of the Republic of Cyprus occupied by Turkish forces. The occupation is viewed as illegal under international law and amounting to illegal occupation of EU territory since Cyprus became a member of the European Union.
Cyprus is a major tourist destination in the Mediterranean. With an advanced, high-income economy and a very high Human Development Index, the Republic of Cyprus has been a member of the Commonwealth since 1961 and was a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement until it joined the European Union on 1 May 2004. On 1 January 2008, the Republic of Cyprus joined the eurozone.


The first Stone Age archaic humans and Homo erectus species settled what was to become Poland approximately 500,000 years ago, though the ensuing hostile climate prevented early humans from founding more permanent encampments. The arrival of Homo sapiens and anatomically modern humans coincided with the climatic discontinuity at the end of the Last Glacial Period (10,000 BC), when Poland became habitable. Neolithic excavations indicated broad-ranging development in that era; the earliest evidence of European cheesemaking (5500 BC) was discovered in Polish Kuyavia, and the Bronocice pot is incised with the earliest known depiction of what may be a wheeled vehicle (3400 BC).
The period spanning the Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age (1300 BC–500 BC) was marked by an increase in population density, establishment of palisaded settlements (gords) and the expansion of Lusatian culture. A significant archaeological find from the protohistory of Poland is a fortified settlement at Biskupin, attributed to the Lusatian culture of the Late Bronze Age (mid-8th century BC).
Throughout antiquity (400 BC–500 AD), many distinct ancient populations inhabited the territory of present-day Poland, notably Celtic, Scythian, Germanic, Sarmatian, Baltic and Slavic tribes. Furthermore, archaeological findings confirmed the presence of Roman Legions sent to protect the amber trade. The Polish tribes emerged following the second wave of the Migration Period around the 6th century AD. They were Slavic and possibly may have included assimilated remnants of peoples that earlier dwelled in the area. Beginning in the early 10th century, the Polans would come to dominate other Lechitic tribes in the region, initially forming a tribal federation and later a centralised monarchial state.


A giant wave strikes the trimaran Rose-Noëlle, carrying four men from New Zealand on an adventure trip to Tonga, flipping it upside-down. The men will drift at sea for 119 days before winds and currents carry the wrecked yacht in a loop to Great Barrier Island.
1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre: A violent military crackdown takes place on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, Beijing.
Death and state funeral of Ruhollah Khomeini: Tehran radio announces Khomeini's death at 7:00 a.m. At 9:00 a.m., Ali Khamenei, the President of Iran, begins reading Khomeini's last will and testament to the Assembly of Experts. In the afternoon the Assembly elects Khamenei as Supreme Leader (rahbar).
Ufa train disaster: A natural gas explosion near Ufa, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Union, kills 575 as two trains passing each other throw sparks near a leaky pipeline. The disaster receives relatively little media attention, possibly due to Soviet censorship and the other major news events of the day.
Revolutions of 1989: Solidarity's victory in the first round of the 1989 Polish legislative election is the first of many anti-communist revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe.
Pope John Paul II arrives in Finland, visiting Helsinki and Turku before leaving on June 6.
The bodies of Joan, Michelle and Christe Rogers are found floating in Tampa Bay.
American driver Dale Earnhardt wins the 1989 Budweiser 500 stock car race at Dover Downs International Speedway in Dover, Delaware.
The V International AIDS Conference begins in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It will continue through June 9.
At the 43rd Tony Awards, The Heidi Chronicles wins the award for Best Play, while Jerome Robbins' Broadway wins the award for Best Musical.
Born:
Federico Erba, Italian footballer; in Rome, Italy
Paweł Fajdek, Polish Olympic hammer thrower; in Świebodzice, Poland
Eldar Gasimov, Azerbaijani singer (Ell & Nikki); in Baku, Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union
Bernard Le Roux, South African-born French rugby union player; in Moorreesburg, Western Cape, South Africa
Died:
Dik Browne, 71, American cartoonist, cancer
Vernon Cracknell, 77, New Zealand politician


The world's first high-definition television (test) broadcasts commence in Japan, in analogue.
Dissolution of the Soviet Union: The Fergana massacre begins in the Fergana Valley, Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union. By the time the massacre ends on June 12, at least 97 Meskhetian Turks will have been killed and over 1000 wounded by Uzbek extremists.
Pope John Paul II arrives in Iceland, visiting Reykjavík and Þingvellir before leaving on June 4.
The SkyDome, the world's first retractable roof stadium, opens in Downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Born:
Nicole Della Monica, Italian Olympic pair skater; in Trescore Balneario, Province of Bergamo, Italy
Megumi Han, Japanese actress; in Tokyo, Japan
Katie Hoff, American Olympic swimmer; in Abingdon, Maryland
Artem Kravets, Ukrainian footballer; in Dniprodzerzhynsk, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
Imogen Poots, British actress; in London, England
Viengsavanh Sayyaboun, Laotian footballer; in Vientiane, Laos
Anthony Taugourdeau, French footballer; in Marseille, France
Daniela Vega, Chilean actress and opera singer; in San Miguel, Santiago Province, Chile
Died:
Jack Belden (born Alfred Goodwin Belden), 79, American war correspondent, lung cancer
Ruhollah Khomeini, 86 or 89, Iranian philosopher, politician, revolutionary and Shia Muslim religious leader, 1st Supreme Leader of Iran, surgical complications and heart failure


Japanese serial killer Tsutomu Miyazaki murders 5-year-old Ayako Nomoto. Over the next two days he will engage in sexual acts with the girl's corpse and take photos and videos of it.
Death and state funeral of Ruhollah Khomeini: The Ayatollah Khomeini's first funeral in Tehran is aborted by officials after a large crowd storms the funeral procession, nearly destroying Khomeini's wooden casket in order to get a last glimpse of his body. At one point, the body almost falls to the ground, as the crowd attempt to grab pieces of the death shroud. The Ayatollah's body has to be returned for the burial preparations to be repeated, before being brought back to the cemetery a few hours later.
Pope John Paul II arrives in Denmark, visiting Åsebakken Priory, Roskilde, Copenhagen and Øm before leaving on June 7.
Democratic Representative Tom Foley of Washington is elected Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, defeating Republican Representative Robert H. Michel by a vote of 251-164. The Speaker's chair had been vacated by the resignation of Jim Wright due to a scandal.
In professional basketball, the 1989 NBA Finals begin between the Detroit Pistons and the Los Angeles Lakers.
Born:
Bryn McAuley, Canadian actress; in Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Robert Sacre, American-Canadian National Basketball Association player; in Baton Rouge, Louisiana


1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre: An unknown Chinese protester, "Tank Man", stands in front of a column of military tanks on Chang'an Avenue in Beijing, temporarily halting them, an incident which achieves iconic status internationally through images taken by Western photographers.
Death and state funeral of Ruhollah Khomeini: Eight people are killed and hundreds injured in a human crush during the viewing of Khomeini's body at the Musalla in Tehran.
Born:
Cam Atkinson, American National Hockey League right winger; in Riverside, Connecticut
Mónica Castaño, Colombian beauty queen and model
Roxana Cocoș, Romanian Olympic weightlifter; in Bucharest, Romania
Ed Davis, National Basketball Association player; in Washington, D.C.
Megumi Nakajima, Japanese voice actress and singer; in Mito, Ibaraki, Japan
Died: Maurice Philippe, 57, British aircraft and Formula One car designer


Thirteen years later, when Abram was 99 years of age, God declared Abram's new name: "Abraham" – "a father of many nations". Abraham then received the instructions for the covenant of the pieces, of which circumcision was to be the sign.
God declared Sarai's new name: "Sarah", blessed her, and told Abraham, "I will give thee a son also of her". Abraham laughed, and "said in his heart, 'Shall a child be born unto him that is a hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear [a child]?'" Immediately after Abraham's encounter with God, he had his entire household of men, including himself (age 99) and Ishmael (age 13), circumcised.


1597 (MDXCVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar, the 1597th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 597th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 97th  year of the 16th century, and the  8th   year of the 1590s decade. As of the start of 1597, the Gregorian calendar was 10 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


The Soulbury constitution ushered in dominion status, with independence proclaimed on 4 February 1948. D. S. Senanayake became the first Prime Minister of Ceylon. Prominent Tamil leaders including Ponnambalam and Arunachalam Mahadeva joined his cabinet. The British Royal Navy remained stationed at Trincomalee until 1956. A countrywide popular demonstration against withdrawal of the rice rations resulted in the resignation of prime minister Dudley Senanayake.
S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike was elected prime minister in 1956. His three-year rule had a profound impact through his self-proclaimed role of "defender of the besieged Sinhalese culture". He introduced the controversial Sinhala Only Act, recognising Sinhala as the only official language of the government. Although partially reversed in 1958, the bill posed a grave concern for the Tamil community, which perceived in it a threat to their language and culture.
The Federal Party (FP) launched a movement of non-violent resistance (satyagraha) against the bill, which prompted Bandaranaike to reach an agreement (Bandaranaike–Chelvanayakam Pact) with S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, leader of the FP, to resolve the looming ethnic conflict. The pact proved ineffective in the face of ongoing protests by opposition and the Buddhist clergy. The bill, together with various government colonisation schemes, contributed much towards the political rancour between Sinhalese and Tamil political leaders. Bandaranaike was assassinated by an extremist Buddhist monk in 1959.
Leaders in 1960
Elizabeth II
Queen of Ceylon
Sirimavo Bandaranaike
Prime Minister
Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the widow of Bandaranaike, took office as prime minister in 1960, and withstood an attempted coup d'état in 1962. During her second term as prime minister, the government instituted socialist economic policies, strengthening ties with the Soviet Union and China, while promoting a policy of non-alignment. In 1971, Ceylon experienced a Marxist insurrection, which was quickly suppressed. In 1972, the country became a republic named Sri Lanka, repudiating its dominion status. Prolonged minority grievances and the use of communal emotionalism as an election campaign weapon by both Sinhalese and Tamil leaders abetted a fledgling Tamil militancy in the north during the 1970s. The policy of standardisation by the Sirimavo government to rectify disparities created in university enrolment, which was in essence an affirmative action to assist geographically disadvantaged students to obtain tertiary education, resulted in reducing the proportion of Tamil students at university level and acted as the immediate catalyst for the rise of militancy. The assassination of Jaffna Mayor Alfred Duraiyappah in 1975 by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) marked a crisis point.
The government of J. R. Jayawardene swept to power in 1977, defeating the largely unpopular United Front government. Jayawardene introduced a new constitution, together with a free-market economy and a powerful executive presidency modelled after that of France. It made Sri Lanka the first South Asian country to liberalise its economy. Beginning in 1983, ethnic tensions were manifested in an on-and-off insurgency against the government by the LTTE. An LTTE attack on 13 soldiers resulted in the anti-Tamil race riots in July 1983, allegedly backed by Sinhalese hard-line ministers, which resulted in more than 150,000 Tamil civilians fleeing the island, seeking asylum in other countries.
Lapses in foreign policy resulted in India strengthening the Tigers by providing arms and training. In 1987, the Indo-Sri Lanka Accord was signed and the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) was deployed in northern Sri Lanka to stabilise the region by neutralising the LTTE. The same year, the JVP launched its second insurrection in Southern Sri Lanka, necessitating redeployment of the IPKF in 1990. In October 1990, the LTTE expelled Sri Lankan Moors (Muslims by religion) from northern Sri Lanka. In 2002, the Sri Lankan government and LTTE signed a Norwegian-mediated ceasefire agreement.
The 2004 Asian tsunami killed over 30,000 and displaced over 500,000 people in Sri Lanka. From 1985 to 2006, the Sri Lankan government and Tamil insurgents held four rounds of peace talks without success. Both LTTE and the government resumed fighting in 2006, and the government officially backed out of the ceasefire in 2008. In 2009, under the Presidency of Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Sri Lanka Armed Forces defeated the LTTE, bringing an end to the civil war, and re-established control of the entire country by the Sri Lankan Government. Overall, between 60,000 and 100,000 people were killed during the 26 years of conflict.
In June 2022, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe declared the collapse of the Sri Lankan economy in parliament. Economic troubles in Sri Lanka started in 2019, when a severe economic crisis occurred caused by rapidly increasing foreign debt, massive government budget deficits due to tax cuts, a food crisis caused by mandatory organic farming along with a ban on chemical fertilizers, and a multitude of other factors. The Sri Lankan Government officially declared the ongoing crisis to be the worst economic crisis in the country in 73 years. In August 2021, a food emergency was declared. The crisis resulted in Sri Lanka defaulting on its $51 billion sovereign debt for the first time in its history, along with double-digit inflation, a crippling energy crisis that led to 15 hour power cuts, severe fuel shortages leading to the suspension of fuel to all non-essential vehicles, and more. Due to the crisis, protesters demanded the resignation of the President. The protests culminated with the storming of the President's House, Colombo on July 9, 2022, and resulted in  President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fleeing to Singapore. The President would email his resignation to parliament, formally announcing his resignation and making him the first Sri Lankan president to resign in the middle of his term. On the same day the President's House was stormed, protesters stormed the private residence of the prime minister and burnt it down.
On July 20, 2022, Ranil Wickremesinghe was elected as the ninth President via a parliamentarian election.


The word Sweden is derived from 17th-century Middle Dutch and Middle Low German. As early as 1287, references are found in Middle Dutch referring to a lande van sweden ("land of (the) Swedes"), with swede as the singular form. In Old English the country was named Swéoland and Swíoríce (Old Norse Svíþjóð). Anglo-Norman of the 12th and 13th centuries used Suane, Swane (with the adjective as Suaneis). In Scots Swane, Swaine, appears in the 16th century. Early Modern English used Swedeland.
The Swedish name Sverige (a compound of the words Svea and rike, with lenition of the consonant [k], first recorded in the cognate Swēorice in Beowulf) literally means "realm of the Swedes", excluding the Geats in Götaland.
Variations of the name Sweden are used in most languages, with the exception of Danish and Norwegian using Sverige, Faroese Svøríki, Icelandic Svíþjóð, and the more notable exception of some Finnic languages where Ruotsi (Finnish) and Rootsi (Estonian) are used, names commonly considered as referring to the people from the coastal areas of Roslagen, Uppland, who were known as the Rus', and through them etymologically related to the English name for Russia.
The etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally agreed to derive from a root *s(w)e, meaning "one's own", referring to one's own Germanic tribe.


1888 (MDCCCLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar, the 1888th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 888th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 88th  year of the 19th century, and the  9th   year of the 1880s decade. As of the start of 1888, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
  In Germany, 1888 is known as the Year of the Three Emperors. Currently, it is the year that, when written in Roman numerals, has the most digits (13). The next year that also has 13 digits is the year 2388. The record will be surpassed as late as 2888, which has 14 digits.


Tibet (/tɪˈbɛt/ (listen); Tibetan: བོད་, Lhasa dialect: [pʰøː˨˧˩] Böd; Chinese: 西藏; pinyin: Xīzàng) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about 2,500,000 km² (970,000 sq mi). It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Tamang, Qiang, Sherpa and Lhoba peoples and is now also home to considerable numbers of Han Chinese and Hui people settlers. Tibet is the highest region on Earth, with an average elevation of 4,380 m (14,000 ft). Located in the Himalayas, the highest elevation in Tibet is Mount Everest, Earth's highest mountain, rising 8,848.86 m (29,032 ft) above sea level.
The Tibetan Empire emerged in the 7th century. At its height in the 9th century, the Tibetan Empire extended far beyond the Tibetan Plateau, from Central Asian's Tarim Basin and the Pamirs in the west to Yunnan and Bengal in the southeast. But once the process of fragmentation began, the empire divided into a variety of territories. The bulk of western and central Tibet (Ü-Tsang) was often at least nominally unified under a series of Tibetan governments in Lhasa, Shigatse, or nearby locations. The eastern regions of Kham and Amdo often maintained a more decentralized indigenous political structure, being divided among a number of small principalities and tribal groups, while also often falling more directly under Chinese rule; most of this area was eventually annexed into the Chinese provinces of Sichuan and Qinghai. The current borders of Tibet were generally established in the 18th century.
Following the Xinhai Revolution against the Qing dynasty in 1912, Qing soldiers were disarmed and escorted out of Tibet Area (Ü-Tsang). The region subsequently declared its independence in 1913 without recognition by the subsequent Chinese Republican government. Later, Lhasa took control of the western part of Xikang,  The region maintained its autonomy until 1951 when, following the Battle of Chamdo, Tibet was occupied and annexed into the People's Republic of China, and the previous Tibetan government was abolished in 1959 after a failed uprising. Today, China governs western and central Tibet as the Tibet Autonomous Region while the eastern areas are now mostly ethnic autonomous prefectures within Sichuan, Qinghai and other neighbouring provinces. There are tensions regarding Tibet's political status and dissident groups  that are active in exile.
Tibetan activists in Tibet have reportedly been arrested or tortured.
With the growth of tourism in recent years, the service sector has become the largest sector in Tibet, accounting for 50.1% of the local GDP in 2020. The dominant religion in Tibet is Tibetan Buddhism; other religions include Bön, an indigenous religion similar to Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan Muslims, and Christian minorities. Tibetan Buddhism is a primary influence on the art, music, and festivals of the region. Tibetan architecture reflects Chinese and Indian influences. Staple foods in Tibet are roasted barley, yak meat, and butter tea.


The Tibetan name for their land, Bod (བོད་), means 'Tibet' or 'Tibetan Plateau', although it originally meant the central region around Lhasa, now known in Tibetan as Ü (དབུས). The Standard Tibetan pronunciation of Bod ([pʰøʔ˨˧˨]) is transcribed as: Bhö in Tournadre Phonetic Transcription; Bö in the THL Simplified Phonetic Transcription; and Poi in Tibetan pinyin. Some scholars believe the first written reference to Bod ('Tibet') was the ancient Bautai people recorded in the Egyptian-Greek works Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (1st century CE) and Geographia (Ptolemy, 2nd century CE), itself from the Sanskrit form Bhauṭṭa of the Indian geographical tradition.
The modern Standard Chinese exonym for the ethnic Tibetan region is Zangqu (Chinese: 藏区; pinyin: Zàngqū), which derives by metonymy from the Tsang region around Shigatse plus the addition of a Chinese suffix qū (区), which means 'area, district, region, ward'. Tibetan people, language, and culture, regardless of where they are from, are referred to as Zang (Chinese: 藏; pinyin: Zàng), although the geographical term Xīzàng is often limited to the Tibet Autonomous Region. The term Xīzàng was coined during the Qing dynasty in the reign of the Jiaqing Emperor (1796–1820) through the addition of the prefix xī (西, 'west') to Zang.
The best-known medieval Chinese name for Tibet is Tubo (Chinese: 吐蕃; or Tǔbō, 土蕃 or Tǔfān, 土番). This name first appears in Chinese characters as 土番 in the 7th century (Li Tai) and as 吐蕃 in the 10th-century (Old Book of Tang, describing 608–609 emissaries from Tibetan King Namri Songtsen to Emperor Yang of Sui). In the Middle-Chinese language spoken during that period, as reconstructed by William H. Baxter, 土番 was pronounced thux-phjon, and 吐蕃 was pronounced thux-pjon (with the x representing a shang tone).
Other pre-modern Chinese names for Tibet include:
Wusiguo (Chinese: 烏斯國; pinyin: Wūsīguó; cf. Tibetan: dbus, Ü, [wyʔ˨˧˨]);
Wusizang (Chinese: 烏斯藏; pinyin: wūsīzàng, cf. Tibetan: dbus-gtsang, Ü-Tsang);
Tubote (Chinese: 圖伯特; pinyin: Túbótè); and
Tanggute (Chinese: 唐古忒; pinyin: Tánggǔtè, cf. Tangut).
American Tibetologist Elliot Sperling has argued in favor of a recent tendency by some authors writing in Chinese to revive the term Tubote (simplified Chinese: 图伯特; traditional Chinese: 圖伯特; pinyin: Túbótè) for modern use in place of Xizang, on the grounds that Tubote more clearly includes the entire Tibetan plateau rather than simply the Tibet Autonomous Region.
The English word Tibet or Thibet dates back to the 18th century. Historical linguists generally agree that "Tibet" names in European languages are loanwords from Semitic Ṭībat or Tūbātt (Arabic: طيبة، توبات; Hebrew: טובּה, טובּת), itself deriving from Turkic Töbäd (plural of töbän), literally 'The Heights'.


Norway has two official names: Norge in Bokmål and Noreg in Nynorsk. The English name Norway comes from the Old English word Norþweg mentioned in 880, meaning "northern way" or "way leading to the north", which is how the Anglo-Saxons referred to the coastline of Atlantic Norway similar to leading theory about the origin of the Norwegian language name. The Anglo-Saxons of Britain also referred to the kingdom of Norway in 880 as Norðmanna land.
There is some disagreement about whether the native name of Norway originally had the same etymology as the English form. According to the traditional dominant view, the first component was originally norðr, a cognate of English north, so the full name was Norðr vegr, "the way northwards", referring to the sailing route along the Norwegian coast, and contrasting with suðrvegar "southern way" (from Old Norse suðr) for (Germany), and austrvegr "eastern way" (from austr) for the Baltic. In the translation of Orosius for Alfred, the name is Norðweg, while in younger Old English sources the ð is gone. In the tenth century many Norsemen settled in Northern France, according to the sagas, in the area that was later called Normandy from norðmann (Norseman or Scandinavian), although not a Norwegian possession. In France normanni or northmanni referred to people of Norway, Sweden or Denmark. Until around 1800, inhabitants of Western Norway were referred to as nordmenn (northmen) while inhabitants of Eastern Norway were referred to as austmenn (eastmen).
According to another theory, the first component was a word nór, meaning "narrow" (Old English nearu), referring to the inner-archipelago sailing route through the land ("narrow way"). The interpretation as "northern", as reflected in the English and Latin forms of the name, would then have been due to later folk etymology. This latter view originated with philologist Niels Halvorsen Trønnes in 1847; since 2016 it is also advocated by language student and activist Klaus Johan Myrvoll and was adopted by philology professor Michael Schulte. The form Nore is still used in placenames such as the village of Nore and lake Norefjorden in Buskerud county, and still has the same meaning. Among other arguments in favour of the theory, it is pointed out that the word has a long vowel in Skaldic poetry and is not attested with <ð> in any native Norse texts or inscriptions (the earliest runic attestations have the spellings nuruiak and nuriki). This resurrected theory has received some pushback by other scholars on various grounds, e. g. the uncontroversial presence of the element norðr in the ethnonym norðrmaðr "Norseman, Norwegian person" (modern Norwegian nordmann), and the adjective norrǿnn "northern, Norse, Norwegian", as well as the very early attestations of the Latin and Anglo-Saxon forms with <th>.
In a Latin manuscript of 840, the name Northuagia is mentioned. King Alfred's edition of the Orosius World History (dated 880), uses the term Norðweg. A French chronicle of c. 900 uses the names Northwegia and Norwegia. When Ohthere of Hålogaland visited King Alfred the Great in England in the end of the ninth century, the land was called Norðwegr (lit. "Northway") and norðmanna land (lit. "Northmen's land"). According to Ohthere, Norðmanna lived along the Atlantic coast, the Danes around Skagerrak og Kattegat, while the Sámi people (the "Fins") had a nomadic lifestyle in the wide interior. Ohthere told Alfred that he was "the most northern of all Norwegians", presumably at Senja island or closer to Tromsø. He also said that beyond the wide wilderness in Norway's southern part was the land of the Swedes, "Svealand".
The adjective Norwegian, recorded from c. 1600, is derived from the latinisation of the name as Norwegia; in the adjective Norwegian, the Old English spelling '-weg' has survived.
After Norway had become Christian, Noregr and Noregi had become the most common forms, but during the 15th century, the newer forms Noreg(h) and Norg(h)e, found in medieval Icelandic manuscripts, took over and have survived until the modern day.


Hungary (Hungarian: Magyarország [ˈmɒɟɒrorsaːɡ] (listen)) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning 93,030 square kilometres (35,920 sq mi) of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and Slovenia to the southwest, and Austria to the west. Hungary has a population of nearly 10 million, mostly ethnic Hungarians and a significant Romani minority. Hungarian, the official language, is the world's most widely spoken Uralic language and among the few non-Indo-European languages widely spoken in Europe. Budapest is the country's capital and largest city; other major urban areas include Debrecen, Szeged, Miskolc, Pécs, and Győr.
The territory of present-day Hungary has for centuries been a crossroads for various peoples, including Celts, Romans, Germanic tribes, Huns, West Slavs and the Avars. The foundation of the Hungarian state was established in the late 9th century AD with the conquest of the Carpathian Basin by Hungarian grand prince Árpád. His great-grandson Stephen I ascended the throne in 1000, converting his realm to a Christian kingdom. By the 12th century, Hungary became a regional power, reaching its cultural and political height in the 15th century. Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, it was partially occupied by the Ottoman Empire (1541–1699). Hungary came under Habsburg rule at the turn of the 18th century, later joining with the Austrian Empire to form Austria-Hungary, a major power into the early 20th century.
Austria-Hungary collapsed after World War I, and the subsequent Treaty of Trianon established Hungary's current borders, resulting in the loss of 71% of its territory, 58% of its population, and 32% of ethnic Hungarians. Following the tumultuous interwar period, Hungary joined the Axis powers in World War II, suffering significant damage and casualties. Postwar Hungary became a satellite state of the Soviet Union, leading to the establishment of the Hungarian People's Republic. Following the failed 1956 revolution, Hungary became a comparatively freer, though still repressive, member of the Eastern Bloc. The removal of Hungary's border fence with Austria accelerated the collapse of the Eastern Bloc and subsequently the Soviet Union. On 23 October 1989, Hungary again became a democratic parliamentary republic. Hungary joined the European Union in 2004 and has been part of the Schengen Area since 2007.
Hungary is a middle power in international affairs, owing mostly to its cultural and economic influence. It is a high-income economy with a very high human development index, where citizens enjoy universal health care and tuition-free secondary education. Hungary has a long history of significant contributions to arts, music, literature, sports, science and technology. It is a popular tourist destination in Europe, drawing 24.5 million international tourists in 2019. It is a member of numerous international organisations, including the Council of Europe, NATO, United Nations, World Health Organization, World Trade Organization, World Bank, International Investment Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the Visegrád Group.


The etymology of Bangladesh ("Bengali Country") can be traced to the early 20th century, when Bengali patriotic songs, such as Namo Namo Namo Bangladesh Momo by Kazi Nazrul Islam and Aaji Bangladesher Hridoy by Rabindranath Tagore, used the term. The term Bangladesh was often written as two words, Bangla Desh, in the past. Starting in the 1950s, Bengali nationalists used the term in political rallies in East Pakistan. The term Bangla is a major name for both the Bengal region and the Bengali language. The origins of the term Bangla are unclear, with theories pointing to a Bronze Age proto-Dravidian tribe, the Austric word "Bonga" (Sun god), and the Iron Age Vanga Kingdom. The earliest known usage of the term is the Nesari plate in 805 AD. The term Vangaladesa is found in 11th-century South Indian records. The term gained official status during the Sultanate of Bengal in the 14th century. Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah proclaimed himself as the first "Shah of Bangala" in 1342. The word Bangāl became the most common name for the region during the Islamic period. 16th-century historian Abu'l-Fazl ibn Mubarak mentions in his Ain-i-Akbari that the addition of the suffix "al" came from the fact that the ancient rajahs of the land raised mounds of earth 10 feet high and 20 in breadth in lowlands at the foot of the hills which were called "al". This is also mentioned in Ghulam Husain Salim's Riyaz-us-Salatin. The Indo-Aryan suffix Desh is derived from the Sanskrit word deśha, which means "land" or "country". Hence, the name Bangladesh means "Land of Bengal" or "Country of Bengal".


According to the theory of the recent African origin of modern humans, the predominantly held belief among most archaeologists, East Africa is the area where anatomically modern humans first appeared. There are differing theories on whether there was a single exodus or several; a multiple dispersal model involves the Southern Dispersal theory. Some researchers have suggested that North Africa was the region of Africa from which modern humans who first trekked out of the continent.

According to both genetic and fossil evidence, it has been posited that archaic Homo sapiens evolved into anatomically modern humans in the Horn of Africa around 200,000 years ago and dispersed from there. The recognition of Homo sapiens idaltu and Omo Kibish as anatomically modern humans would justify the description of contemporary humans with the subspecies name Homo sapiens sapiens. Because of their early dating and unique physical characteristics idaltu and kibish represent the immediate ancestors of anatomically modern humans as suggested by the Out-of-Africa theory.

In 2017 finds of modern human remains, dating to ca 300,000 years ago in Jebel Irhoud in Morocco, suggested that modern humans arose earlier and possibly in a larger area of Africa than previously thought.
East Africa is one of the earliest regions where Homo sapiens are believed to have lived. Evidence was found in 2018, dating to about 320,000 years ago, at the Kenyan site of Olorgesailie, of the early emergence of modern behaviors associated with Homo sapiens, including: long-distance trade networks (involving goods such as obsidian), the use of pigments, and the possible making of projectile points. It is observed by the authors of three 2018 studies on the site, that the evidence of these behaviors is approximately contemporary to the earliest known Homo sapiens fossil remains from Africa (such as at Jebel Irhoud and Florisbad), and they suggest that complex and modern behaviors had already begun in Africa around the time of the emergence of Homo sapiens.
In September 2019, scientists reported the computerized determination, based on 260 CT scans, of a virtual skull shape of the last common human ancestor to modern humans/H. sapiens, representative of the earliest Homo sapiens, and suggested that Homo sapiens arose between 350,000 and 260,000 years ago through a merging of populations in South and East Africa.
The migration route of the "Out of Africa" theory probably occurred in East Africa however through Bab el Mandeb
Today at the Bab-el-Mandeb straits, the Red Sea is about 12 miles (20 kilometres) wide, but 50,000 years ago it was much narrower and sea levels were 70 meters lower. Though the straits were never completely closed, there may have been islands in between which could be reached using simple rafts.
Some of the earliest hominin skeletal remains have been found in the wider region, including fossils discovered in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia, as well as in the Koobi Fora in Kenya and Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania.
The southern part of East Africa was occupied until recent times by Khoisan hunter-gatherers, whereas in the Ethiopian Highlands the donkey and such crop plants as teff allowed the beginning of agriculture around 7,000 B.C. Lowland barriers and diseases carried by the tsetse fly, however, prevented the donkey and agriculture from spreading southwards. Only in quite recent times has agriculture spread to the more humid regions south of the equator, through the spread of cattle, sheep and crops such as millet. Language distributions suggest that this most likely occurred from Sudan into the African Great Lakes region, since the Nilotic languages spoken by these pre-Bantu farmers have their closest relatives in the middle Nile basin.


The Bohemian Kingdom ceased to exist in 1918 when it was incorporated into Czechoslovakia. Czechoslovakia was founded in October 1918, as one of the successor states of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War I and as part of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. It consisted of the present day territories of Bohemia, Moravia, Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia. Its territory included some of the most industrialized regions of the former Austria-Hungary.


1918–1938: Czechoslovak Republic (abbreviated ČSR), or Czechoslovakia, before the formalization of the name in 1920, also known as Czecho-Slovakia or the Czecho-Slovak state
1938–1939: Czecho-Slovak Republic, or Czecho-Slovakia
1945–1960: Czechoslovak Republic (ČSR), or Czechoslovakia
1960–1989: Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (ČSSR), or Czechoslovakia
1990–1992: Czech and Slovak Federative Republic (ČSFR), or Czechoslovakia


The Andes Mountains, initially inhabited by hunter-gatherers, experienced the development of agriculture and rise of politically centralised civilizations, which culminated in the establishment of the century-long Inca Empire. This all changed in the 16th century, when the Spanish conquistadors colonized the mountains in the advance of the mining economy.
In tide of anti-imperialist nationalism, the Andes became the scene of a series of independence wars in the 19th century when rebel forces swept through the region to overthrow Spanish colonial rule. Since then, many former Spanish territories have become five independent Andean states.


Slovenia (/sloʊˈviːniə, slə-/ (listen) sloh-VEE-nee-ə; Slovene: Slovenija [slɔˈʋèːnija]), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: Republika Slovenija , abbr.: RS), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, and the Adriatic Sea to the southwest. Slovenia is mostly mountainous and forested, covers 20,271 square kilometres (7,827 sq mi), and has a population of 2.1 million (2,108,708 people). Slovenes constitute over 80% of the country's population. Slovene, a South Slavic language, is the official language. Slovenia has a predominantly continental climate, with the exception of the Slovene Littoral and the Julian Alps. A sub-mediterranean climate reaches to the northern extensions of the Dinaric Alps that traverse the country in a northwest–southeast direction. The Julian Alps in the northwest have an alpine climate. Toward the northeastern Pannonian Plain, a continental climate is more pronounced. Ljubljana, the capital and largest city of Slovenia, is geographically situated near the centre of the country.
Slovenia has historically been the crossroads of Slavic, Germanic, and Romance languages and cultures. Its territory has been part of many different states: the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, the Carolingian Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Republic of Venice, the Illyrian Provinces of Napoleon's First French Empire, the Austrian Empire, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In October 1918, the Slovenes co-founded the State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs. In December 1918, they merged with the Kingdom of Serbia into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. During World War II, Germany, Italy, and Hungary occupied and annexed Slovenia, with a tiny area transferred to the Independent State of Croatia, a newly declared Nazi puppet state. In 1945, it again became part of Yugoslavia. Post-war, Yugoslavia was allied with the Eastern Bloc, but after the Tito–Stalin split of 1948, it never subscribed to the Warsaw Pact, and in 1961 it became one of the founders of the Non-Aligned Movement. In June 1991, Slovenia became the first republic to split from Yugoslavia and become an independent sovereign state.
Slovenia is a developed country, with a high-income economy ranking highly in the Human Development Index. The Gini index rates its income inequality among the lowest in the world. It is a member of the United Nations, the European Union, the Eurozone, the Schengen Area, the OSCE, the OECD, the Council of Europe, and NATO.


The Spanish were the first Europeans in the area. From June 24 to July 14, 1521, they explored the land around Winyah Bay. On October 8, 1526, they founded San Miguel de Gualdape, near present-day Georgetown, South Carolina. It was the first European settlement in what is now the contiguous United States. Established with five hundred settlers, it was abandoned eight months later by one hundred and fifty survivors. In 1540, Hernando de Soto explored the region and the main town of Cofitachequi, where he captured the queen of the Maskoki (Muscogee) and the Chelaque (Cherokee) who had welcomed him.
In 1562 French Huguenots established a settlement at what is now the Charlesfort-Santa Elena archaeological site on Parris Island. Many of these settlers preferred a natural life far from civilization and the atrocities of the Wars of Religion. The garrison lacked supplies, however, and the soldiers (as in the France Antarctique) soon ran away. The French returned two years later but settled in present-day Florida rather than South Carolina.


During World War I, South African troops under General Louis Botha occupied the territory and deposed the German colonial administration. The end of the war and the Treaty of Versailles resulted in South West Africa remaining a possession of South Africa, at first as a League of Nations mandate, until 1990. The mandate system was formed as a compromise between those who advocated for an Allied annexation of former German and Ottoman territories and a proposition put forward by those who wished to grant them to an international trusteeship until they could govern themselves. It permitted the South African government to administer South West Africa until that territory's inhabitants were prepared for political self-determination. South Africa interpreted the mandate as a veiled annexation and made no attempt to prepare South West Africa for future autonomy.
As a result of the Conference on International Organization in 1945, the League of Nations was formally superseded by the United Nations (UN) and former League mandates by a trusteeship system. Article 77 of the United Nations Charter stated that UN trusteeship "shall apply...to territories now held under mandate"; furthermore, it would "be a matter of subsequent agreement as to which territories in the foregoing territories will be brought under the trusteeship system and under what terms". The UN requested all former League of Nations mandates be surrendered to its Trusteeship Council in anticipation of their independence. South Africa declined to do so and instead requested permission from the UN to formally annex South West Africa, for which it received considerable criticism. When the UN General Assembly rejected this proposal, South Africa dismissed its opinion and began solidifying control of the territory. The UN Generally Assembly and Security Council responded by referring the issue to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which held a number of discussions on the legality of South African rule between 1949 and 1966.
South Africa began imposing apartheid, its codified system of racial segregation and discrimination, on South West Africa during the late 1940s. Black South West Africans were subject to pass laws, curfews, and a host of residential regulations that restricted their movement. Development was concentrated in the southern region of the territory adjacent to South Africa, known as the "Police Zone", where most of the major settlements and commercial economic activity were located. Outside the Police Zone, indigenous peoples were restricted to theoretically self-governing tribal homelands.
During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the accelerated decolonisation of Africa and mounting pressure on the remaining colonial powers to grant their colonies self-determination resulted in the formation of nascent nationalist parties in South West Africa. Movements such as the South West African National Union (SWANU) and the South West African People's Organisation advocated for the formal termination of South Africa's mandate and independence for the territory. In 1966, following the ICJ's controversial ruling that it had no legal standing to consider the question of South African rule, SWAPO launched an armed insurgency that escalated into part of a wider regional conflict known as the South African Border War.


Puerto Rico (Spanish for 'rich port'; abbreviated PR; Taino: Boriken, Borinquen), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (Spanish: Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit. 'Free Associated State of Puerto Rico'), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated territory of the United States. It is located in the northeast Caribbean Sea, approximately 1,000 miles (1,600 km) southeast of Miami, Florida.
The Commonwealth is an archipelago among the Greater Antilles located between the Dominican Republic and the U.S. Virgin Islands; it includes the eponymous main island and several smaller islands, such as Mona, Culebra, and Vieques. It has roughly 3.2 million residents, and its capital and most populous city is San Juan. Spanish and English are the official languages of the executive branch of government, though Spanish predominates.
Puerto Rico was first settled by a succession of indigenous peoples beginning 2,000 to 4,000 years ago; these included the Ortoiroid, Saladoid, and Taíno. It was then colonized by Spain following the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1493. Puerto Rico was contested by other European powers, but remained a Spanish possession for the next four centuries. An influx of African slaves and settlers primarily from the Canary Islands and Andalusia vastly changed the cultural and demographic landscape of the island. Within the Spanish Empire, Puerto Rico played a secondary but strategic role compared to wealthier colonies like Peru and New Spain. By the late 19th century, a distinct Puerto Rican identity began to emerge, centered around a fusion of indigenous, African, and European elements. In 1898, following the Spanish–American War, the United States acquired Puerto Rico.
Puerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens since 1917, and can move freely between the island and the mainland. However, as residents of an unincorporated territory, American citizens of Puerto Rico are disenfranchised at the national level, do not vote for the president or vice president, and generally do not pay federal income tax. In common with four other territories, Puerto Rico sends a nonvoting representative to the U.S. Congress, called a Resident Commissioner, and participates in presidential primaries; as it is not a state, Puerto Rico does not have a vote in Congress, which governs it under the Puerto Rico Federal Relations Act of 1950. Congress approved a local constitution in 1952, allowing U.S. citizens residing on the island to elect a governor. Puerto Rico's current and future political status has consistently been a matter of significant debate.
Beginning in the mid-20th century, the U.S. government, together with the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company, launched a series of economic projects to develop Puerto Rico into an industrial high-income economy. It is classified by the International Monetary Fund as a developed jurisdiction with an advanced, high-income economy; it ranks 40th on the Human Development Index. The major sectors of Puerto Rico's economy are manufacturing (primarily pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, and electronics) followed by services (namely tourism and hospitality).


In 1520, King Charles I of Spain issued a royal decree collectively emancipating the remaining Taíno population. By that time, the Taíno people were few in number. Enslaved Africans had already begun to be imported to compensate for the native labor loss, but their numbers were proportionate to the diminished commercial interest Spain soon began to demonstrate for the island colony. Other nearby islands, like Cuba, Hispaniola, and Guadalupe, attracted more of the slave trade than Puerto Rico, probably because of greater agricultural interests in those islands, on which colonists had developed large sugar plantations and had the capital to invest in the Atlantic slave trade.
From the beginning of the country, the colonial administration relied heavily on the industry of enslaved Africans and creole blacks for public works and defenses, primarily in coastal ports and cities, where the tiny colonial population had hunkered down. With no significant industries or large-scale agricultural production as yet, enslaved and free communities lodged around the few littoral settlements, particularly around San Juan, also forming lasting Afro-creole communities. Meanwhile, in the island's interior, there developed a mixed and independent peasantry that relied on a subsistence economy. This mostly unsupervised population supplied villages and settlements with foodstuffs and, in relative isolation, set the pattern for what later would be known as the Puerto Rican Jíbaro culture. By the end of the 16th century, the Spanish Empire was diminishing and, in the face of increasing raids from European competitors, the colonial administration throughout the Americas fell into a "bunker mentality". Imperial strategists and urban planners redesigned port settlements into military posts with the objective of protecting Spanish territorial claims and ensuring the safe passing of the king's silver-laden Atlantic Fleet to the Iberian Peninsula. San Juan served as an important port-of-call for ships driven across the Atlantic by its powerful trade winds. West Indies convoys linked Spain to the island, sailing between Cádiz and the Spanish West Indies. The colony's seat of government was on the forested Islet of San Juan and for a time became one of the most heavily fortified settlements in the Spanish Caribbean earning the name of the "Walled City". The islet is still dotted with the various forts and walls, such as La Fortaleza, Castillo San Felipe del Morro, and Castillo San Cristóbal, designed to protect the population and the strategic Port of San Juan from the raids of the Spanish European competitors.
In 1625, in the Battle of San Juan, the Dutch commander Boudewijn Hendricksz tested the defenses' limits like no one else before. Learning from Francis Drake's previous failures here, he circumvented the cannons of the castle of San Felipe del Morro and quickly brought his 17 ships into the San Juan Bay. He then occupied the port and attacked the city while the population hurried for shelter behind the Morro's moat and high battlements. Historians consider this event the worst attack on San Juan. Though the Dutch set the village on fire, they failed to conquer the Morro, and its batteries pounded their troops and ships until Hendricksz deemed the cause lost. Hendricksz's expedition eventually helped propel a fortification frenzy. Constructions of defenses for the San Cristóbal Hill were soon ordered so as to prevent the landing of invaders out of reach of the Morro's artillery. Urban planning responded to the needs of keeping the colony in Spanish hands.


When Columbus arrived in Puerto Rico during his second voyage on 19 November 1493, the island was inhabited by the Taíno. They called it Borikén, spelled in a variety of ways by different writers of the day. Columbus named the island San Juan Bautista, in honor of St John the Baptist. Having reported the findings of his first travel, Columbus brought with him this time a letter from King Ferdinand empowered by a papal bull that authorized any course of action necessary for the expansion of the Spanish Empire and the Christian faith. Juan Ponce de León, a lieutenant under Columbus, founded the first Spanish settlement, Caparra, on 8 August 1508. He later served as the first governor of the island. Eventually, traders and other maritime visitors came to refer to the entire island as Puerto Rico, and San Juan became the name of the main trading/shipping port.
At the beginning of the 16th century, the Spanish people began to colonize the island. Despite the Laws of Burgos of 1512 and other decrees for the protection of the indigenous population, some Taíno Indians were forced into an encomienda system of forced labor in the early years of colonization. The population suffered extremely high fatalities from epidemics of European infectious diseases.


The ancient history of the archipelago which is now Puerto Rico is not well known. Unlike other indigenous cultures in the New World (Aztec, Maya and Inca) which left behind abundant archeological and physical evidence of their societies, scant artifacts and evidence remain of the Puerto Rico's earliest population. Scarce archaeological findings and early Spanish accounts from the colonial era constitute all that is known about them. The first comprehensive book on the history of Puerto Rico was written by Fray Íñigo Abbad y Lasierra in 1786, nearly three centuries after the first Spaniards landed on the island.
The first known settlers were the Ortoiroid people, an Archaic Period culture of Amerindian hunters and fishermen who migrated from the South American mainland. Some scholars suggest their settlement dates back about 4,000 years. An archeological dig in 1990 on the island of Vieques found the remains of a man, designated as the "Puerto Ferro Man", which was dated to around 2000 BC. The Ortoiroid were displaced by the Saladoid, a culture from the same region that arrived on the island between 430 and 250 BCE.
The Igneri tribe migrated to Puerto Rico between 120 and 400 AD from the region of the Orinoco river in northern South America. The Arcaico and Igneri co-existed on the island between the 4th and 10th centuries.
Between the 7th and 11th centuries, the Taíno culture developed on the island. By approximately 1000 AD, it had become dominant. At the time of Columbus' arrival, an estimated 30,000 to 60,000 Taíno Amerindians, led by the cacique (chief) Agüeybaná, inhabited the island. They called it Boriken, meaning "the great land of the valiant and noble Lord". The natives lived in small villages, each led by a cacique. They subsisted by hunting and fishing, done generally by men, as well as by the women's gathering and processing of indigenous cassava root and fruit. This lasted until Columbus arrived in 1493.


Maryland was founded to provide a haven for England's Roman Catholic minority.
Although Maryland was the most heavily Catholic of the English mainland colonies, the religion was still in the minority, consisting of less than 10% of the total population.
In 1642, a number of Puritans left Virginia for Maryland and founded Providence (now called Annapolis) on the western shore of the upper Chesapeake Bay. A dispute with traders from Virginia over Kent Island in the Chesapeake led to armed conflict. In 1644, William Claiborne, a Puritan, seized Kent Island while his associate, the pro-Parliament Puritan Richard Ingle, took over St. Mary's. Both used religion as a tool to gain popular support. The two years from 1644 to 1646 when Claiborne and his Puritan associates held sway were known as "The Plundering Time". They captured Jesuit priests, imprisoned them, then sent them back to England.
In 1646 Leonard Calvert returned with troops, recaptured St. Mary's City, and restored order. The House of Delegates passed the "Act concerning Religion" in 1649 granting religious liberty to all Trinitarian Christians.
In 1650, the Puritans revolted against the proprietary government. "Protestants swept the Catholics out of the legislature ... and religious strife returned." The Puritans set up a new government prohibiting both Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism. The Puritan revolutionary government persecuted Maryland Catholics during its reign, known as the "plundering time". Mobs burned down all the original Catholic churches of southern Maryland. The Puritan rule lasted until 1658 when the Calvert family and Lord Baltimore regained proprietary control and re-enacted the Toleration Act.
After England's "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, Maryland outlawed Catholicism. In 1704, the Maryland General Assembly prohibited Catholics from operating schools, limited the corporate ownership of property to hamper religious orders from expanding or supporting themselves, and encouraged the conversion of Catholic children. The celebration of the Catholic sacraments was also officially restricted. This state of affairs lasted until after the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783). Wealthy Catholic planters built chapels on their land to practice their religion in relative secrecy.
Into the 18th century, individual priests and lay leaders claimed Maryland farms belonging to the Jesuits as personal property and bequeathed them in order to evade the legal restrictions on religious organizations' owning property.


Deprived of native protectors among Rus nobility, the peasants and townspeople began turning for protection to the emerging Zaporozhian Cossacks. In the mid-17th century, a Cossack military quasi-state, the Zaporozhian Host, was formed by Dnieper Cossacks and Ruthenian peasants. Poland exercised little real control over this population, but found the Cossacks to be useful against the Turks and Tatars, and at times the two were allies in military campaigns. However, the continued harsh enserfment of Ruthenian peasantry by Polish overlords and the suppression of the Orthodox Church alienated the Cossacks. The latter did not shy from taking up arms against those they perceived as enemies and occupiers, including the Polish Catholic state with its local representatives.
In 1648, Bohdan Khmelnytsky led the largest of the Cossack uprisings against the Commonwealth and the Polish king, which enjoyed wide support from the local population. Khmelnytsky founded the Cossack Hetmanate, which existed until 1764 (some sources claim until 1782). After Khmelnytsky suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Berestechko in 1651, he turned to the Russian tsar for help. In 1654, Khmelnytsky was subject to the Pereiaslav Agreement, forming a military and political alliance with Russia that acknowledged loyalty to the Russian monarch.
After his death, the Hetmanate went through a devastating 30-year war amongst Russia, Poland, the Crimean Khanate, the Ottoman Empire, and Cossacks, known as "The Ruin" (1657-1686), for control of the Cossack Hetmanate. The "Treaty of Perpetual Peace" between Russia and Poland in 1686 divided the lands of the Cossack Hetmanate between them, reducing the portion over which Poland had claimed sovereignty to Ukraine west of the Dnieper river. In 1686, the Metropolitanate of Kyiv was annexed by the Moscow Patriarchate through a synodal letter of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Dionysius IV, thus placing the Metropolitanate of Kyiv under the authority of Moscow. An attempt to reverse the decline was undertaken by Cossack Hetman Ivan Mazepa (1639–1709), who ultimately defected to the Swedes in the Great Northern War (1700-1721) in a bid to get rid of Russian dependence, but they were crushed in the Battle of Poltava (1709).
The Hetmanate's autonomy was severely restricted since Poltava. In the years 1764–1781, Catherine the Great incorporated much of Central Ukraine into the Russian Empire, abolishing the Cossack Hetmanate and the Zaporozhian Sich, and was one of the people responsible for the suppression of the last major Cossack uprising, the Koliivshchyna. After the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 1783, the newly acquired lands, now called Novorossiya, were opened up to settlement by Russians. The tsarist autocracy established a policy of Russification, suppressing the use of the Ukrainian language and curtailing the Ukrainian national identity. The western part of present-day Ukraine was subsequently split between Russia and Habsburg-ruled Austria after the fall of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795.


1771 (MDCCLXXI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar, the 1771st year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 771st  year of the 2nd millennium, the 71st  year of the 18th century, and the  2nd   year of the 1770s decade. As of the start of 1771, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


There is evidence of early hominins living in what is now the Philippines as early as 709,000 years ago. A small number of bones from Callao Cave potentially represent an otherwise unknown species, Homo luzonensis, that lived around 50,000 to 67,000 years ago. The oldest modern human remains found on the islands are from the Tabon Caves of Palawan, U/Th-dated to 47,000 ± 11–10,000 years ago. The Tabon Man is presumably a Negrito, who were among the archipelago's earliest inhabitants, descendants of the first human migrations out of Africa via the coastal route along southern Asia to the now sunken landmasses of Sundaland and Sahul.
The first Austronesians reached the Philippines at around 2200 BC, settling the Batanes Islands and northern Luzon from Taiwan. From there, they rapidly spread downwards to the rest of the islands of the Philippines and Southeast Asia. This population assimilated with the existing Negritos resulting in the modern Filipino ethnic groups which display various ratios of genetic admixture between Austronesian and Negrito groups. Genetic signatures also indicate the possibility of migration of Austroasiatic, Papuan, and South Asian people. Jade artifacts have been found dated to 2000 BC, with the lingling-o jade items crafted in Luzon made using raw materials originating from Taiwan. By 1000 BC, the inhabitants of the archipelago had developed into four kinds of social groups: hunter-gatherer tribes, warrior societies, highland plutocracies, and port principalities.


The Philippines (/ˈfɪlɪpiːnz/ (listen); Filipino: Pilipinas), officially the Republic of the Philippines (Filipino: Republika ng Pilipinas), is an archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. It is situated in the western Pacific Ocean and consists of around 7,641 islands that are broadly categorized under three main geographical divisions from north to south: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. The Philippines is bounded by the South China Sea to the west, the Philippine Sea to the east, and the Celebes Sea to the southwest. It shares maritime borders with Taiwan to the north, Japan to the northeast, Palau to the east and southeast, Indonesia to the south, Malaysia to the southwest, Vietnam to the west, and China to the northwest. The Philippines covers an area of 300,000 km² (120,000 sq mi) and, as of 2021, it had a population of around 109 million people, making it the world's thirteenth-most populous country. The Philippines has diverse ethnicities and cultures throughout its islands. Manila is the country's capital, while the largest city is Quezon City; both lie within the urban area of Metro Manila.
Negritos, some of the archipelago's earliest inhabitants, were followed by successive waves of Austronesian peoples. Adoption of animism, Hinduism and Islam established island-kingdoms called Kedatuan, Rajahnates, and Sultanates. The arrival of Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer leading a fleet for Spain, marked the beginning of Spanish colonization. In 1543, Spanish explorer Ruy López de Villalobos named the archipelago Las Islas Filipinas in honor of Philip II of Spain. Spanish settlement through Mexico, beginning in 1565, led to the Philippines becoming part of the Spanish Empire for more than 300 years. During this time, Catholicism became the dominant religion, and Manila became the western hub of trans-Pacific trade. In 1896, the Philippine Revolution began, which then became entwined with the 1898 Spanish–American War. Spain ceded the territory to the United States, while Filipino revolutionaries declared the First Philippine Republic. The ensuing Philippine–American War ended with the United States establishing control over the territory, which they maintained until the Japanese invasion of the islands during World War II. Following liberation, the Philippines became independent in 1946. Since then, the unitary sovereign state has often had a tumultuous experience with democracy, which included the overthrow of a decades-long dictatorship by a non-violent revolution.
The Philippines is an emerging market and a newly industrialized country whose economy is transitioning from being agriculture-centered to services- and manufacturing-centered. It is a founding member of the United Nations, World Trade Organization, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, and the East Asia Summit. The Philippines's position as an island country on the Pacific Ring of Fire that is close to the equator makes it prone to earthquakes and typhoons. The country has a variety of natural resources and is home to a globally significant level of biodiversity.


1936
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1936 (MCMXXXVI) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1936th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 936th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 36th  year of the 20th century, and the  7th   year of the 1930s decade.


September 4–5 – English-born aviator Beryl Markham becomes the first woman to make an east-to-west solo transatlantic flight, from Abingdon-on-Thames, England, to Baleine, Nova Scotia.
September 5 – Spanish Civil War: Robert Capa's photograph The Falling Soldier is taken.
September 7 – The last known thylacine ("Tasmanian tiger"), named Benjamin, dies in Hobart Zoo in Tasmania.
September 9
1936 Naval Revolt (Portugal): The crews of Portuguese Navy frigate NRP Afonso de Albuquerque and destroyer Dão mutiny while anchored in Lisbon Harbour. Opposed to the Salazar dictatorship's support of General Franco's coup in Spain, they declare their solidarity with the Spanish Republic.
The Franco-Syrian Treaty of Independence is signed.
September 10 – The first World Speedway Championship is held at Wembley Stadium in London, England. It is won by Australian Lionel Van Praag, with Englishman Eric Langton second and Australian Bluey Wilkinson third.
September 13, in response to a polio outbreak, Chicago Public Schools launches a distance education program which constitutes the first large-scale use of radio broadcasts to facilitate distance education
September 28 – After the election to the Swedish Riksdag's second chamber, Axel Pehrsson-Bramstorp and his "Holiday Cabinet" ("Semesterregeringen") resign (though he remains as Minister of Agriculture) and Per Albin Hansson returns as Prime Minister, staying in office until his death from a heart attack in 1946.
October
Joseph Stalin's Great Purge begins in the Soviet Union.
The Mästermyr chest is discovered in the Mästermyr mire (after which it is later named), west of Hemse, on the island of Gotland, Sweden.
October 19 – H.R. Ekins, reporter for the New York World-Telegram, wins a race to travel around the world on commercial airline flights, beating Dorothy Kilgallen of the New York Journal and Leo Kieran of The New York Times. The flight takes 181⁄2 days.
October 22 – Dod Orsborne, captain of the Girl Pat was convicted and imprisoned of its theft, having caused a media sensation when it went missing.
October 25 – The Rome-Berlin Axis is formed.


July 4 – First publication recognizing stress as a biological condition.
July 17 – The Spanish Army of Africa launches a coup d'état against the Second Spanish Republic, beginning the Spanish Civil War.
July 20 – The Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits is signed in Montreux, allowing Turkey to fortify the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, but guaranteeing free passage to ships of all nations in peacetime.
August 1 – The 1936 Summer Olympics open in Berlin, Germany, and mark the first live television coverage of an international sports event in world history (John Logie Baird had previously broadcast the Derby horse race in Britain in 1931).
August 3 – 1936 Summer Olympics: African-American athlete Jesse Owens wins the 100-meter dash.
August 4 – A self-coup is staged by Greek Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas, marking the beginning of the authoritarian 4th of August Regime, which will rule Greece until the Axis occupation of Greece in 1941.
August 14 – 1936 Summer Olympics: The United States men's national basketball team wins the first Olympic basketball tournament in the final game over Canada, 19–8.
August 19 – The first of the Moscow Trials begins in the Soviet Union.
August 26 – The Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 is signed.


September 1 – The Great Kantō earthquake devastates Tokyo and Yokohama, killing more than 100,000 people.
September 4 – The United States Navy's first home-built rigid airship USS Shenandoah (ZR-1) makes her first flight at Naval Air Station Lakehurst (New Jersey); she contains most of the world's extracted reserves of helium at this time.
September 7 – At the International Police Conference in Vienna, the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC), better known as Interpol, is set up.
September 8 – Honda Point disaster: Nine United States Navy destroyers run aground off the California coast.
September 9 – Turkish head of state Mustafa Kemal Atatürk founds the Republican People's Party (CHP).
September 10 – The Irish Free State joins the League of Nations.
September 13 – Military coup in Spain: Miguel Primo de Rivera takes over, setting up a dictatorship. Trade unions are prohibited for 10 years.
September 17 – 1923 Berkeley Fire: A major fire in Berkeley, California, erupts, consuming some 640 structures, including 584 homes in the densely built neighborhoods north of the campus of the University of California.
September 18–26 – Newspaper printers strike in New York City.
September 24 – Atlantic hurricane season: The second major hurricane strikes north of Hispaniola.
September 26 – In Bavaria, Gustav Ritter von Kahr takes dictatorial powers.
September 29 – The first American Track & Field championships for women are held in New Jersey.
September 29 – The British Mandate for Palestine (1922) comes into effect, officially creating the protectorates of Palestine, as a homeland for the Jewish people under British administration, and Transjordan as a separate emirate, under Abdullah I. The French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon also takes effect.
September 30 – Küstrin Putsch: Outside Berlin, Major Ernst von Buchrucker, the leader of the Black Reichswehr, attempts a putsch by seizing several forts.
October 1 – The Johor–Singapore Causeway opens to public traffic.
October 2 – Küstrin Putsch: After two days of siege, Major Buchrucker and his men surrender.
October 6 – The Occupation of Constantinople ends when the great powers of World War I withdraw.
October 13
Ankara replaces Istanbul (Constantinople), as the capital of Turkey.
The first recorded example, of a storm crossing from the Eastern Pacific into the Atlantic, occurs in Oaxaca.
October 14 – The fourth tropical storm of the year forms just north of Panama.
October 15 – The fifth tropical storm of the year forms north of the Leeward Islands.
October 16
A sixth tropical storm develops in the Gulf of Mexico; a rare occurrence, it consists of four active tropical storms simultaneously.
Roy and Walt Disney found The Walt Disney Company.
October 23 – Hamburg Uprising: In Germany, the Communists attempt a "putsch" in Hamburg, which results in street battles in that city for the next two days, when it ends unsuccessfully.
October 27 – In Germany, General Hans von Seeckt orders the Reichswehr to dissolve the Social Democratic-Communist government of Saxony, which is refusing to accept the authority of the Reich government.
October 28 – In Qajar dynasty Persia, Reza Khan becomes Ahmad Shah Qajar's prime minister.
October 29 – Turkey becomes a republic, following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire; Kemal Atatürk is elected as first president.
October 30 – İsmet İnönü is appointed as the first prime minister of Turkey.


1923
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1923 (MCMXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1923rd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 923rd  year of the 2nd millennium, the 23rd  year of the 20th century, and the  4th   year of the 1920s decade. As of the start of 1923, the Gregorian calendar was 13 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which was relegated that February to use only by churches after Greece adopted the Gregorian calendar.


In the CIA World Factbook, the description of each country includes information about "Location" under the heading "Geography", where the country is classified into a region. The following countries are included in their classification "Northern Europe":
Denmark
Finland
Iceland
Norway
Sweden
as well as the dependent areas:
Faroe Islands
Jan Mayen
Svalbard
In this classification Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, the United Kingdom and Ireland are included in Western Europe, while Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are included in Eastern Europe.


The Mojave Desert has a relatively stable and intact conservation status. In fact, the Mojave Desert is one of the best protected distinct ecoregions in the United States, as a result of the California Desert Protection Act, which established the Death Valley, Joshua Tree National Parks and the Mojave National Preserve. However, the southwest and central east portions of the Mojave Desert are particularly threatened as a result of off-road vehicles, human development, and agricultural grazing. The World Wildlife Fund lists the Mojave Desert as relatively "stable/intact."


The climate of the Mojave Desert is characterized by extremes in temperatures throughout the seasons. Freezing temperatures as well as strong winds are not uncommon in the winter, as well as precipitation such as rain and snow in the mountains. In contrast, temperatures above 100 °F (38 °C) are not uncommon during the summer months. There is an annual average precipitation of 2 to 6 inches (51 to 152 mm), although regions at high altitudes such as the portion of the Mojave desert in the San Gabriel mountains. Most of the precipitation in the Mojave comes from the Pacific Cyclonic storms that are generally present passing Eastward in November to April. Such storms generally bring rain and snow only in the mountainous regions, as a result of the effect of the Sierra Nevada mountains, which creates a drying effect on its leeward slopes.
During the late summer months, there is also the possibility of strong thunderstorms which bring heavy showers or cloudbursts. These storms can result in flash flooding.
The Mojave Desert has not historically supported a fire regime because of low fuel loads and connectivity. However, in the last few decades, invasive annual plants such as some within the genera Bromus, Schismus and Brassica have facilitated fires by serving as a fuel bed for fires. This has significantly altered many areas of the desert. At higher elevations, fire regimes are regular but infrequent.


Ștefan Golescu, 8th Prime Minister of Romania (d. 1874)
Samuel Ajayi Crowther, 1st Black Anglican Bishop, pioneer linguist (d. 1891)
Henry K. Hoff, American admiral (d. 1878)
Esther Leach, English-Indian actress (d. 1843)


October 8 – Prince Klemens von Metternich becomes foreign minister of the Austrian Empire.
October 11 – Along the Natchez Trace in Tennessee, explorer Meriwether Lewis dies under mysterious circumstances at an inn called Grinder's Stand.
October 14 – The Treaty of Schönbrunn cedes the Illyrian Provinces to France.
November 18 – Napoleonic Wars: Action of 18 November 1809 – In the Bay of Bengal, a French frigate squadron captures three British East Indiamen mainly carrying recruits for the presidency armies in India.
November 19 – Battle of Ocaña: A Spanish army is ridden down, and 4,000 are killed and wounded by French forces.
November 21 – First stone laid of first 'guided bus' passenger wagonway Gloucester and Cheltenham Tramroad.
November 25 – Benjamin Bathurst, a British diplomat, mysteriously disappears (possibly murdered) in Perleberg, west of Berlin.
December – Boyd massacre: Whangaroa Māori people kill and eat 66 crew and passengers of the brigantine Boyd in New Zealand.
December 25 – American physician Ephraim McDowell performs the first ovariotomy, removing a 22-pound tumor.
December 26 – A British invasion force leaves Vlissingen.
December 30 – Wearing masks at balls is forbidden in Boston, Massachusetts.


July 6 – Antoine Charles Louis de Lasalle, French cavalry general (killed in battle) (b. 1775)
July 22 – Jean Senebier, Swiss pastor, botanist (b. 1742)
August 8 – Ueda Akinari, Japanese author, scholar (b. 1734)
August 18 – Matthew Boulton, English manufacturer, engineer (b. 1728)
August 29 – Lucy Barnes, American writer (b. 1780)
September 1 – Johann Friedrich August Göttling, German chemist (b. 1753)
September 3 – George Coventry, 6th Earl of Coventry, English noble and politician (b. 1722)
September 7
Buddha Yodfa Chulaloke (Rama I), King of Siam, founder of the Chakri dynasty of Thailand (b. 1737)
Caroline Schelling, German scholar (b. 1763)
October 8 – James Elphinston, Scottish philologist (b. 1721)
October 11 – Meriwether Lewis, American explorer (suicide) (b. 1774)
October 30 – William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1738)
November 9 – Paul Sandby, English cartographer, painter (b. 1725)
November 28 – Jakob Heinrich Laspeyres, German lepidopterist (b. 1769)
December 16 – Antoine François, comte de Fourcroy, French chemist (b. 1755)


The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a sovereign country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands within the British Isles. Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. The total area of the United Kingdom is 242,495 square kilometres (93,628 sq mi), with an estimated 2020 population of more than 67 million people.
The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary democracy. The monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, has reigned since 1952. The capital and largest city is London, a global city and financial centre with a metropolitan area population of over 14 million. Other major cities include Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool and Leeds. Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have their own devolved governments, each with varying powers.
The United Kingdom has evolved from a series of annexations, unions and separations of constituent countries over several hundred years. The Treaty of Union between the Kingdom of England (which included Wales, annexed in 1542) and the Kingdom of Scotland in 1707 formed the Kingdom of Great Britain. Its union in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Most of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which formally adopted that name in 1927.
The nearby Isle of Man, Guernsey and Jersey are not part of the UK, being Crown Dependencies with the British Government responsible for defence and international representation. There are also 14 British Overseas Territories, the last remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, encompassed almost a quarter of the world's landmass and a third of the world's population, and was the largest empire in history. British influence can be observed in the language, culture and the legal and political systems of many of its former colonies.
The United Kingdom has the world's sixth-largest economy by nominal gross domestic product (GDP), and the eighth-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP). It has a high-income economy and a very high human development index rating, ranking 13th in the world. It also performs well in international rankings of education, healthcare, life expectancy and human development. The UK became the world's first industrialised country and was the world's foremost power during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Today the UK remains one of the world's great powers, with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific, technological and political influence internationally. It is a recognised nuclear state and is ranked fourth globally in military expenditure. It has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946.
The United Kingdom is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Council of Europe, the G7, the Group of Ten, the G20, the United Nations, NATO, AUKUS, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Interpol, and the World Trade Organization (WTO). It was a member state of the European Communities (EC) and its successor, the European Union (EU), from its accession in 1973 until its withdrawal in 2020 following a referendum held in 2016.


The UK broadly supported the United States' approach to the War on Terror in the early years of the 21st century. Controversy surrounded some of Britain's overseas military deployments, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The 2008 global financial crisis severely affected the UK economy. The Cameron–Clegg coalition government of 2010 introduced austerity measures intended to tackle the substantial public deficits which resulted. The devolved Scottish Government and UK government agreed for a referendum to be held on Scottish independence in 2014. This referendum resulted in the electorate in Scotland voting by 55.3 to 44.7% for Scotland to remain part of the United Kingdom.
In 2016, 51.9 per cent of voters in the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. The UK left the EU on 31 January 2020 and completed its withdrawal in full at the end of that year. The COVID-19 pandemic had a major impact on the UK in 2020 and 2021.


On 1 May 1707, the Kingdom of Great Britain was formed, the result of Acts of Union being passed by the parliaments of England and Scotland to ratify the 1706 Treaty of Union and so unite the two kingdoms.
In the 18th century, cabinet government developed under Robert Walpole, in practice the first prime minister (1721–1742). A series of Jacobite Uprisings sought to remove the Protestant House of Hanover from the British throne and restore the Catholic House of Stuart. The Jacobites were finally defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, after which the Scottish Highlanders were brutally suppressed. The British colonies in North America that broke away from Britain in the American War of Independence became the United States of America, recognised by Britain in 1783. British imperial ambition turned towards Asia, particularly to India.
Britain played a leading part in the Atlantic slave trade, mainly between 1662 and 1807 when British or British-colonial Slave ships transported nearly 3.3 million slaves from Africa. The slaves were taken to work on plantations in British possessions, principally in the Caribbean but also North America. Slavery coupled with the Caribbean sugar industry had a significant role in strengthening and developing the British economy in the 18th century. However, Parliament banned the trade in 1807, banned slavery in the British Empire in 1833, and Britain took a leading role in the movement to abolish slavery worldwide through the blockade of Africa and pressing other nations to end their trade with a series of treaties. The world's oldest international human rights organisation, Anti-Slavery International, was formed in London in 1839.


By 1900, Dunedin was no longer the country's biggest city. Influence and activity moved north to the other centres ("the drift north"), a trend which continued for much of the following century. Despite this, the university continued to expand, and a student quarter became established. At the same time people started to notice Dunedin's mellowing, the ageing of its grand old buildings, with writers like E. H. McCormick pointing out its atmospheric charm. In the 1930s and early 1940s a new generation of artists such as M. T. (Toss) Woollaston, Doris Lusk, Anne Hamblett, Colin McCahon and Patrick Hayman once again represented the best of the country's talent. The Second World War saw the dispersal of these painters, but not before McCahon had met a very youthful poet, James K. Baxter, in a central city studio.
Numerous large companies had been established in Dunedin, many of which became national leaders. Late among them was Fletcher Construction, founded by Sir James Fletcher in the early 20th century. Kempthorne Prosser, established in 1879 in Stafford Street, was the largest fertiliser and drug manufacturer in the country for over 100 years. G. Methven, a metalworking and tap manufacturer based in South Dunedin, was also a leading firm, as was H. E. Shacklock, an iron founder and appliance manufacturer later taken over by the Auckland concern Fisher and Paykel. The Mosgiel Woollens was another Victorian Dunedin foundation. Hallensteins was the colloquial name of a menswear manufacturer and national retail chain while the DIC and Arthur Barnett were department stores, the former a nationwide concern. Coulls, Somerville Wilkie—later part of the Whitcoulls group—had its origins in Dunedin in the 19th century. There were also the National Mortgage and Agency Company of New Zealand, Wright Stephensons Limited, the Union Steamship Company and the National Insurance Company and the Standard Insurance Company among many others, which survived into the 20th century.


The Dunedin City territorial authority has a land area of 3,314.8 km² (1,279.9 sq mi), slightly larger than the American state of Rhode Island or the English county of Cambridgeshire, and a little smaller than Cornwall. It was the largest city in land area in New Zealand until the formation of the 5,600 km² (2,200 sq mi) Auckland Council on 1 November 2010. The Dunedin City Council boundaries since 1989 have extended to Middlemarch in the west, Waikouaiti in the north, the Pacific Ocean in the east and south-east, and the Waipori/Taieri River and the township of Henley in the south-west.
Dunedin is situated at the head of Otago Harbour, a narrow inlet extending south-westward for some 15 miles. The harbour is a recent creation formed by the flooding of two river valleys. From the time of its foundation in 1848, the city has spread slowly over the low-lying flats and nearby hills and across the isthmus to the slopes of the Otago Peninsula.


Archaeological evidence shows the first human (Māori) occupation of New Zealand occurred between 1250 and 1300 AD, with population concentrated along the southeast coast. A camp site at Kaikai Beach, near Long Beach to the north of the present-day city of Dunedin, has been dated from about that time. There are numerous archaic (moa-hunter) sites in what is now Dunedin, several of them large and permanently occupied, particularly in the 14th century. The population contracted but expanded again with the evolution of the Classic Māori culture which saw the building of several pā, fortified settlements, notably Pukekura at (Taiaroa Head), about 1650. There was a settlement in what is now central Dunedin (Ōtepoti), occupied as late as about 1785 but abandoned by 1826. There were also Maori settlements at Whareakeake (Murdering Beach), Pūrākaunui, Mapoutahi (Goat Island Peninsula) and Huriawa (Karitane Peninsula) to the north, and at Taieri Mouth and Otokia (Henley) to the south, all inside the present boundaries of Dunedin.
Māori tradition tells first of a people called Kahui Tipua living in the area, then Te Rapuwai, semi-legendary but considered to be historical. The next arrivals were Waitaha, followed by Kāti Māmoe late in the 16th century and then Kai Tahu (Ngāi Tahu in modern standard Māori) who arrived in the mid-17th century. European accounts have often represented these successive influxes as "invasions", but modern scholarship has cast doubt on that view. They were probably migrations – like those of the Europeans – which incidentally resulted in bloodshed.
The sealer John Boultbee recorded in the late 1820s that the 'Kaika Otargo' (settlements around and near Otago Harbour) were the oldest and largest in the south.


According to SDSU professor emeritus Monte Marshall, San Diego Bay is "the surface expression of a north-south-trending, nested graben". The Rose Canyon and Point Loma fault zones are part of the San Andreas Fault system. About 40 miles (64 km) east of the bay are the Laguna Mountains in the Peninsular Ranges, which are part of the backbone of the American continents.
The city lies on approximately 200 deep canyons and hills separating its mesas, creating small pockets of natural open space scattered throughout the city and giving it a hilly geography. Traditionally, San Diegans have built their homes and businesses on the mesas, while leaving the urban canyons relatively wild. Thus, the canyons give parts of the city a segmented feel, creating gaps between otherwise proximate neighborhoods and contributing to a low-density, car-centered environment. The San Diego River runs through the middle of San Diego from east to west, creating a river valley that serves to divide the city into northern and southern segments. During the historic period and presumably earlier as well, the river has shifted its flow back and forth between San Diego Bay and Mission Bay, and its fresh water was the focus of the earliest Spanish explorers. Miguel Costansó, a cartographer, wrote in 1769, "When asked by signs where the watering-place was, the Indians pointed to a grove which could be seen at a considerable distance to the northeast, giving to understand that a river or creek flowed through it, and that they would lead our men to it if they would follow." That river was the San Diego River. Several reservoirs and Mission Trails Regional Park also lie between and separate developed areas of the city.
Notable peaks within the city limits include Cowles Mountain, the highest point in the city at 1,591 feet (485 m); Black Mountain at 1,558 feet (475 m); and Mount Soledad at 824 feet (251 m). The Cuyamaca Mountains and Laguna Mountains rise to the east of the city, and beyond the mountains are desert areas. The Cleveland National Forest is a half-hour drive from downtown San Diego. Numerous farms are found in the valleys northeast and southeast of the city.
In its 2013 ParkScore ranking, The Trust for Public Land  reported that San Diego had the 9th-best park system among the 50 most populous U.S. cities. ParkScore ranks city park systems by a formula that analyzes acreage, access, and service and investment.