The United States has conducted military operations in the Caribbean for at least 100 years.
Since the Monroe Doctrine, the United States gained a major influence on most Caribbean nations. In the early part of the 20th century this influence was extended by participation in the Banana Wars. Victory in the Spanish–American War and the signing of the Platt Amendment in 1901 ensured that the United States would have the right to interfere in Cuban political and economic affairs, militarily if necessary. After the Cuban Revolution of 1959, relations deteriorated rapidly leading to the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and successive US attempts to destabilize the island, based upon Cold War fears of the Soviet threat. The US invaded and occupied Hispaniola for 19 years (1915–34), subsequently dominating the Haitian economy through aid and loan repayments. The US invaded Haiti again in 1994 and in 2004 were accused by CARICOM of arranging a coup d'état to remove elected Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In 1965, 23,000 US troops were sent to the Dominican Republic to quash a local uprising against military rule (see Dominican Civil War). President Lyndon Johnson had ordered the invasion to stem what he deemed to be a "Communist threat." However, the mission appeared ambiguous and was roundly condemned throughout the hemisphere as a return to gunboat diplomacy. In 1983, the US invaded Grenada to remove populist left-wing leader Maurice Bishop. The US maintains a naval military base in Cuba at Guantanamo Bay. The base is one of five unified commands whose "area of responsibility" is Latin America and the Caribbean. The command is headquartered in Miami, Florida.


The Caribbean (/ˌkærɪˈbiːən, kəˈrɪbiən/, locally /ˈkærɪbiæn/; Spanish: El Caribe; French: la Caraïbe; Haitian Creole: Karayib; Dutch: De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean) and the surrounding coasts. The region is southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and the North American mainland, east of Central America and north of South America islets, reefs and cays. Island arcs delineate the eastern and northern edges of the Caribbean Sea: the Greater Antilles and the Lucayan Archipelago on the north and the Lesser Antilles on the south and east (which includes the Leeward Antilles). They form the West Indies with the nearby Lucayan Archipelago (the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands), which are considered to be part of the Caribbean despite not bordering the Caribbean Sea. On the mainland, Belize, Nicaragua, the Caribbean region of Colombia, Cozumel, the Yucatán Peninsula, Margarita Island, and the Guianas (Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana, Guayana Region in Venezuela, and Amapá in Brazil) are often included due to their political and cultural ties with the region.
Geopolitically, the islands of the Caribbean (the West Indies) are often regarded as a region of North America, though sometimes they are included in Central America or left as a region of their own. They are organized into 30 sovereign states, overseas departments, and dependencies. From December 15, 1954, to October 10, 2010, there was a country known as the Netherlands Antilles composed of five states, all of which were Dutch dependencies.  From January 3, 1958, to May 31, 1962, there was also a short-lived political union called the West Indies Federation composed of ten English-speaking Caribbean territories, all of which were then British dependencies. The West Indies cricket team continues to represent many of those nations.


The word "Caribbean" has multiple uses. Its principal ones are geographical and political. The Caribbean can also be expanded to include territories with strong cultural and historical connections to Africa, slavery, European colonisation and the plantation system.
The United Nations geoscheme for the Americas presents the Caribbean as a distinct region within the Americas.
Physiographically, the Caribbean region is mainly a chain of islands surrounding the Caribbean Sea. To the north, the region is bordered by the Gulf of Mexico, the Straits of Florida and the Northern Atlantic Ocean, which lies to the east and northeast. To the south lies the coastline of the continent of South America.
Politically, the "Caribbean" may be centred by considering narrower and wider socio-economic groupings:
At its core is the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), whose full members include the Commonwealth of the Bahamas in the Atlantic, the Co-operative Republic of Guyana and the Republic of Suriname in South America, and Belize in Central America; its associate members include Bermuda and the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Atlantic Ocean.
Most expansive is the Association of Caribbean States (ACS), which includes almost every nation in the region surrounding the Caribbean and also El Salvador on the Pacific Ocean. According to the ACS, the total population of its member states is 227 million people.


Many environmental factors have been associated with asthma's development and exacerbation, including, allergens, air pollution, and other environmental chemicals. Smoking during pregnancy and after delivery is associated with a greater risk of asthma-like symptoms. Low air quality from environmental factors such as traffic pollution or high ozone levels has been associated with both asthma development and increased asthma severity. Over half of cases in children in the United States occur in areas when air quality is below the EPA standards. Low air quality is more common in low-income and minority communities.
Exposure to indoor volatile organic compounds may be a trigger for asthma; formaldehyde exposure, for example, has a positive association. Phthalates in certain types of PVC are associated with asthma in both children and adults. While exposure to pesticides is linked to the development of asthma, a cause and effect relationship has yet to be established.
The majority of the evidence does not support a causal role between acetaminophen (paracetamol) or antibiotic use and asthma. A 2014 systematic review found that the association between acetaminophen use and asthma disappeared when respiratory infections were taken into account. Acetaminophen use by a mother during pregnancy is also associated with an increased risk of the child developing asthma. Maternal psychological stress during pregnancy is a risk factor for the child to develop asthma.
Asthma is associated with exposure to indoor allergens. Common indoor allergens include dust mites, cockroaches, animal dander (fragments of fur or feathers), and mold. Efforts to decrease dust mites have been found to be ineffective on symptoms in sensitized subjects. Weak evidence suggests that efforts to decrease mold by repairing buildings may help improve asthma symptoms in adults. Certain viral respiratory infections, such as respiratory syncytial virus and rhinovirus, may increase the risk of developing asthma when acquired as young children. Certain other infections, however, may decrease the risk.


Pollination is the transfer of pollen from an anther (male part) of a plant to the stigma (female part) of a plant, later enabling fertilisation and the production of seeds, most often by an animal or by wind. Pollinating agents can be animals such as insects, birds, and bats; water; wind; and even plants themselves, when self-pollination occurs within a closed flower. Pollination often occurs within a species. When pollination occurs between species it can produce hybrid offspring in nature and in plant breeding work.
In angiosperms, after the pollen grain (gametophyte) has landed on the stigma, it germinates and develops a pollen tube which grows down the style until it reaches an ovary. Its two gametes travel down the tube to where the gametophyte(s) containing the female gametes are held within the carpel. After entering an ovum cell through the micropyle, one male nucleus fuses with the polar bodies to produce the endosperm tissues, while the other fuses with the ovule to produce the embryo. Hence the term: "double fertilization". This process would result in the production of a seed made of both nutritious tissues and embryo.
In gymnosperms, the ovule is not contained in a carpel, but exposed on the surface of a dedicated support organ, such as the scale of a cone, so that the penetration of carpel tissue is unnecessary. Details of the process vary according to the division of gymnosperms in question. Two main modes of fertilization are found in gymnosperms. Cycads and Ginkgo have motile sperm that swim directly to the egg inside the ovule, whereas conifers and gnetophytes have sperm that are unable to swim but are conveyed to the egg along a pollen tube.
The study of pollination spans many disciplines, such as botany, horticulture, entomology, and ecology. The pollination process as an interaction between flower and pollen vector was first addressed in the 18th century by Christian Konrad Sprengel. It is important in horticulture and agriculture, because fruiting is dependent on fertilization: the result of pollination. The study of pollination by insects is known as anthecology. There are also studies in economics that look at the positives and negatives of pollination, focused on bees, and how the process affects the pollinators themselves.


Some 98% of abiotic pollination is anemophily, i.e., pollination by wind. This probably arose from insect pollination (entomophily), most likely due to changes in the environment or the availability of pollinators. The transfer of pollen is more efficient than previously thought; wind pollinated plants have developed to have specific heights, in addition to specific floral, stamen and stigma positions that promote effective pollen dispersal and transfer.


Pollination may be biotic or abiotic. Biotic pollination relies on living pollinators to move the pollen from one flower to another. Abiotic pollination relies on wind, water or even rain. About 80% of angiosperms rely on biotic pollination.


The flora of the Appalachians are diverse and vary primarily in response to geology, latitude, elevation and moisture availability. Geobotanically, they constitute a floristic province of the North American Atlantic Region. The Appalachians consist primarily of deciduous broad-leaf trees and evergreen needle-leaf conifers, but also contain the evergreen broad-leaf American holly (Ilex opaca), and the deciduous needle-leaf conifer, the tamarack, or eastern larch (Larix laricina).
The dominant northern and high elevation conifer is the red spruce (Picea rubens), which grows from near sea level to above 4,000 ft (1,200 m) above sea level (asl) in northern New England and southeastern Canada. It also grows southward along the Appalachian crest to the highest elevations of the southern Appalachians, as in North Carolina and Tennessee. In the central Appalachians it is usually confined above 3,000 ft (900 m) asl, except for a few cold valleys in which it reaches lower elevations. In the southern Appalachians, it is restricted to higher elevations. Another species is the black spruce (Picea mariana), which extends farthest north of any conifer in North America, is found at high elevations in the northern Appalachians, and in bogs as far south as Pennsylvania.
The Appalachians are also home to two species of fir, the boreal balsam fir (Abies balsamea), and the southern high elevation endemic, Fraser fir (Abies fraseri). Fraser fir is confined to the highest parts of the southern Appalachian Mountains, where along with red spruce it forms a fragile ecosystem known as the Southern Appalachian spruce–fir forest. Fraser fir rarely occurs below 5,500 ft (1,700 m), and becomes the dominant tree type at 6,200 ft (1,900 m). By contrast, balsam fir is found from near sea level to the tree line in the northern Appalachians, but ranges only as far south as Virginia and West Virginia in the central Appalachians, where it is usually confined above 3,900 ft (1,200 m) asl, except in cold valleys. Curiously, it is associated with oaks in Virginia. The balsam fir of Virginia and West Virginia is thought by some to be a natural hybrid between the more northern variety and Fraser fir. While red spruce is common in both upland and bog habitats, balsam fir, as well as black spruce and tamarack, are more characteristic of the latter. However, balsam fir also does well in soils with a pH as high as 6.
Eastern or Canada hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) is another important evergreen needle-leaf conifer that grows along the Appalachian chain from north to south but is confined to lower elevations than red spruce and the firs. It generally occupies richer and less acidic soils than the spruce and firs and is characteristic of deep, shaded and moist mountain valleys and coves. It is, unfortunately, subject to the hemlock woolly adelgid (Adelges tsugae), an introduced insect, that is rapidly extirpating it as a forest tree. Less abundant, and restricted to the southern Appalachians, is Carolina hemlock (Tsuga caroliniana). Like Canada hemlock, this tree suffers severely from the hemlock woolly adelgid.
Several species of pines characteristic of the Appalachians are eastern white pine (Pinus strobus), Virginia pine (Pinus virginiana), pitch pine (Pinus rigida), Table Mountain pine (Pinus pungens) and shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata). Red pine (Pinus resinosa) is a boreal species that forms a few high elevation outliers as far south as West Virginia. All of these species except white pine tend to occupy sandy, rocky, poor soil sites, which are mostly acidic in character. White pine, a large species valued for its timber, tends to do best in rich, moist soil, either acidic or alkaline in character. Pitch pine is also at home in acidic, boggy soil, and Table Mountain pine may occasionally be found in this habitat as well. Shortleaf pine is generally found in warmer habitats and at lower elevations than the other species. All the species listed do best in open or lightly shaded habitats, although white pine also thrives in shady coves, valleys, and on floodplains.
The Appalachians are characterized by a wealth of large, beautiful deciduous broadleaf (hardwood) trees. Their occurrences are best summarized and described in E. Lucy Braun's 1950 classic, Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America (Macmillan, New York). The most diverse and richest forests are the mixed-mesophytic or medium-moisture types, which are largely confined to rich, moist montane soils of the southern and central Appalachians, particularly in the Cumberland and Allegheny Mountains, but also thrive in the southern Appalachian coves. Characteristic canopy species are white basswood (Tilia heterophylla), yellow buckeye (Aesculus octandra), sugar maple (Acer saccharum), American beech (Fagus grandifolia), tuliptree (Liriodendron tulipifera), white ash (Fraxinus americana) and yellow birch (Betula alleganiensis). Other common trees are red maple (Acer rubrum), shagbark and bitternut hickories (Carya ovata and C. cordiformis) and black or sweet birch (Betula lenta). Small understory trees and shrubs include flowering dogwood (Cornus florida), hophornbeam (Ostrya virginiana), witch-hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) and spicebush (Lindera benzoin). There are also hundreds of perennial and annual herbs, among them such herbal and medicinal plants as American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius), goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis), bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) and black cohosh (Cimicifuga racemosa).
The foregoing trees, shrubs, and herbs are also more widely distributed in less rich mesic forests that generally occupy coves, stream valleys and flood plains throughout the southern and central Appalachians at low and intermediate elevations. In the northern Appalachians and at higher elevations of the central and southern Appalachians these diverse mesic forests give way to less diverse northern hardwood forests with canopies dominated only by American beech, sugar maple, American basswood (Tilia americana) and yellow birch and with far fewer species of shrubs and herbs.
Drier and rockier uplands and ridges are occupied by oak–chestnut forests dominated by a variety of oaks (Quercus spp.), hickories (Carya spp.) and, in the past, by the American chestnut (Castanea dentata). The American chestnut was virtually eliminated as a canopy species by the introduced fungal chestnut blight (Cryphonectaria parasitica), but lives on as sapling-sized sprouts that originate from roots, which are not killed by the fungus. In present-day forest canopies, chestnut has been largely replaced by oaks.
The oak forests of the southern and central Appalachians consist largely of black, northern red, white, chestnut and scarlet oaks (Quercus velutina, Q. rubra, Q. alba, Q. prinus and Q. coccinea) and hickories, such as the pignut (Carya glabra) in particular. The richest forests, which grade into mesic types, usually in coves and on gentle slopes, have dominantly white and northern red oaks, while the driest sites are dominated by chestnut oak, or sometimes by scarlet or northern red oaks. In the northern Appalachians the oaks, except for white and northern red, drop out, while the latter extends farthest north.
The oak forests generally lack the diverse small tree, shrub and herb layers of mesic forests. Shrubs are generally ericaceous, and include the evergreen mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia), various species of blueberries (Vaccinium spp.), black huckleberry (Gaylussacia baccata), a number of deciduous rhododendrons (azaleas), and smaller heaths such as teaberry (Gaultheria procumbens) and trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens). The evergreen great rhododendron (Rhododendron maximum) is characteristic of moist stream valleys. These occurrences are in line with the prevailing acidic character of most oak forest soils. In contrast, the much rarer chinquapin oak (Quercus muehlenbergii) demands alkaline soils and generally grows where limestone rock is near the surface. Hence no ericaceous shrubs are associated with it.
The Appalachian flora also include a diverse assemblage of bryophytes (mosses and liverworts), as well as fungi. Some species are rare and/or endemic. As with vascular plants, these tend to be closely related to the character of the soils and the thermal environment in which they are found.
Eastern deciduous forests are subject to a number of serious insect and disease outbreaks. Among the most conspicuous is that of the introduced gypsy moth (Lymantria dispar), which infests primarily oaks, causing severe defoliation and tree mortality. But it also has the benefit of eliminating weak individuals, and thus improving the genetic stock, as well as creating rich habitat of a type through accumulation of dead wood. Because hardwoods sprout so readily, this moth is not as harmful as the hemlock woolly adelgid. Perhaps more serious is the introduced beech bark disease complex, which includes both a scale insect (Cryptococcus fagisuga) and fungal components.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Appalachian forests were subject to severe and destructive logging and land clearing, which resulted in the designation of the national forests and parks as well many state-protected areas. However, these and a variety of other destructive activities continue, albeit in diminished forms; and thus far only a few ecologically based management practices have taken hold.
Appalachian bogs are boreal ecosystems, which occur in many places in the Appalachians, particularly the Allegheny and Blue Ridge subranges. Though popularly called bogs, many of them are technically fens.
Several mountain summits in the southern Appalachians are covered with expansive open habitats (either grassy meadows or heath) known as Appalachian balds. These habitats support many unique plant and animal communities, including rare, relict species, that are adapted to the open, exposed habitat. Their origins are heavily debated; while all were formerly thought to have anthropogenic origins, more recent evidence indicates a mixed origin: many were formed by climatic conditions in the Pleistocene and kept open by Pleistocene megafauna, then by other grazing wildlife (such as bison, elk, and deer) and Native American burning practices, and finally by grazing livestock introduced by European settlers. Others, especially those dominated by introduced grasses, may be fully anthropogenic in origin. The abandonment of grazing has caused trees to encroach on many of these balds, threatening their ecosystems.
In contrast to the largely grazing-influenced balds of the southern Appalachians, parts of the northern Appalachians such as the White Mountains. the Adirondack Mountains, and Mount Katahdin have summits covered with true alpine tundra; these ecosystems are kept clear due to extremely harsh winter storms, and support a vegetation community more akin to that of the Arctic Circle.


A look at rocks that are exposed in today's Appalachian mountains reveals elongated belts of folded and thrust faulted marine sedimentary rocks, volcanic rocks and slivers of ancient ocean floor, which provides strong evidence that these rocks were deformed during plate collision. The birth of the Appalachian ranges, some 480 million years ago, marks the first of several mountain-building plate collisions that culminated in the construction of the supercontinent Pangaea with the Appalachians near the center. Because North America and Africa were connected, the Appalachians formed part of the same mountain chain as the Little Atlas in Morocco. This mountain range, known as the Central Pangean Mountains, extended into Scotland, before the Mesozoic Era opening of the Iapetus Ocean, from the North America/Europe collision (See Caledonian orogeny).
During the middle Ordovician Period (about 496–440 million years ago), a change in plate motions set the stage for the first Paleozoic mountain-building event (Taconic orogeny) in North America. The once-quiet Appalachian passive margin changed to a very active plate boundary when a neighboring oceanic plate, the Iapetus, collided with and began sinking beneath the North American craton. With the birth of this new subduction zone, the early Appalachians were born. Volcanoes grew along the continental margin coincident with the initiation of subduction. Thrust faulting uplifted and warped older sedimentary rock laid down on the passive margin. As the mountains rose, erosion began to wear them down over time. Streams carried rock debris downslope to be deposited in nearby lowlands. The Taconic Orogeny was just the first of a series of mountain building plate collisions that contributed to the formation of the Appalachians, culminating in the collision of North America and Africa (see Alleghanian orogeny).
By the end of the Mesozoic Era, the Appalachian Mountains had been eroded to an almost flat plain. It was not until the region was uplifted during the Cenozoic Era that the distinctive topography of the present formed. Uplift rejuvenated the streams, which rapidly responded by cutting downward into the ancient bedrock. Some streams flowed along weak layers that define the folds and faults created many millions of years earlier. Other streams downcut so rapidly that they cut right across the resistant folded rocks of the mountain core, carving canyons across rock layers and geologic structures.


The Appalachian belt includes, with the ranges enumerated above, the plateaus sloping southward to the Atlantic Ocean in New England, and south-eastward to the border of the coastal plain through the central and southern Atlantic states; and on the north-west, the Allegheny and Cumberland plateaus declining toward the Great Lakes and the interior plains. A remarkable feature of the belt is the longitudinal chain of broad valleys, including the Great Appalachian Valley, which in the southerly sections divides the mountain system into two unequal portions, but in the northernmost lies west of all the ranges possessing typical Appalachian features, and separates them from the Adirondack group. The mountain system has no axis of dominating altitudes, but in every portion, the summits rise to rather uniform heights, and, especially in the central section, the various ridges and intermontane valleys have the same trend as the system itself. None of the summits reaches the region of perpetual snow.
Mountains of the Long Range in Newfoundland reach heights of nearly 2,700 ft (800 m). In the Chic-Choc and Notre Dame mountain ranges in Quebec, the higher summits rise above 4,000 ft (1,200 m) in elevation. Isolated peaks and small ranges in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick vary from 1,000 to 2,700 ft (300 to 800 m). In Maine, several peaks exceed 4,000 ft (1,200 m), including Mount Katahdin at 5,267 feet (1,605 m). In New Hampshire, many summits rise above 5,000 ft (1,500 m), including Mount Washington in the White Mountains at 6,288 ft (1,917 m), Adams at 5,771 ft (1,759 m), Jefferson at 5,712 ft (1,741 m), Monroe at 5,380 ft (1,640 m), Madison at 5,367 ft (1,636 m), Lafayette at 5,249 feet (1,600 m), and Lincoln at 5,089 ft (1,551 m). In the Green Mountains the highest point, Mt. Mansfield, is 4,393 ft (1,339 m) in elevation; others include Killington Peak at 4,226 ft (1,288 m), Camel's Hump at 4,083 ft (1,244 m), Mt. Abraham at 4,006 ft (1,221 m), and a number of other heights exceeding 3,000 ft (900 m).
In Pennsylvania, there are over sixty summits that rise over 2,500 ft (800 m); the summits of Mount Davis and Blue Knob rise over 3,000 ft (900 m). In Maryland, Eagle Rock and Dans Mountain are conspicuous points reaching 3,162 ft (964 m) and 2,882 ft (878 m) respectively. On the same side of the Great Valley, south of the Potomac, are the Pinnacle 3,007 feet (917 m) and Pidgeon Roost 3,400 ft (1,000 m). In West Virginia, more than 150 peaks rise above 4,000 ft (1,200 m), including Spruce Knob 4,863 ft (1,482 m), the highest point in the Allegheny Mountains. A number of other points in the state rise above 4,800 ft (1,500 m). Cheat Mountain (Snowshoe Mountain) at Thorny Flat 4,848 ft (1,478 m) and Bald Knob 4,842 ft (1,476 m) are among the more notable peaks in West Virginia.
The Blue Ridge Mountains, rising in southern Pennsylvania and there known as South Mountain, attain elevations of about 2,000 ft (600 m) in that state. South Mountain achieves its highest point just below the Mason-Dixon line in Maryland at Quirauk Mountain 2,145 ft (654 m) and then diminishes in height southward to the Potomac River. Once in Virginia, the Blue Ridge again reaches 2,000 ft (600 m) and higher. In the Virginia Blue Ridge, the following are some of the highest peaks north of the Roanoke River: Stony Man 4,031 ft (1,229 m), Hawksbill Mountain 4,066 ft (1,239 m), Apple Orchard Mountain 4,225 ft (1,288 m) and Peaks of Otter 4,001 and 3,875 ft (1,220 and 1,181 m). South of the Roanoke River, along the Blue Ridge, are Virginia's highest peaks including Whitetop Mountain 5,520 ft (1,680 m) and Mount Rogers 5,729 ft (1,746 m), the highest point in the Commonwealth.
Chief summits in the southern section of the Blue Ridge are located along two main crests—the Western or Unaka Front along the Tennessee-North Carolina border and the Eastern Front in North Carolina—or one of several "cross ridges" between the two main crests. Major subranges of the Eastern Front include the Black Mountains, Great Craggy Mountains, and Great Balsam Mountains, and its chief summits include Grandfather Mountain 5,964 ft (1,818 m) near the Tennessee-North Carolina border, Mount Mitchell 6,684 ft (2,037 m) in the Blacks, and Black Balsam Knob 6,214 ft (1,894 m) and Cold Mountain 6,030 ft (1,840 m) in the Great Balsams. The Western Blue Ridge Front is subdivided into the Unaka Range, the Bald Mountains, the Great Smoky Mountains, and the Unicoi Mountains, and its major peaks include Roan Mountain 6,285 ft (1,916 m) in the Unakas, Big Bald 5,516 ft (1,681 m) and Max Patch 4,616 ft (1,407 m) in the Bald Mountains, Clingmans Dome 6,643 ft (2,025 m), Mount Le Conte 6,593 feet (2,010 m), and Mount Guyot 6,621 ft (2,018 m) in the Great Smokies, and Big Frog Mountain 4,224 ft (1,287 m) near the Tennessee-Georgia-North Carolina border. Prominent summits in the cross ridges include Waterrock Knob (6,292 ft (1,918 m)) in the Plott Balsams. Across northern Georgia, numerous peaks exceed 4,000 ft (1,200 m), including Brasstown Bald, the state's highest, at 4,784 ft (1,458 m) and 4,696 ft (1,431 m) Rabun Bald. In north-central Alabama, Mount Cheaha rises prominently to 1,445 feet (440 m) over its surroundings, as part of the southernmost spur of the Blue Ridge Mountains.


Some Mesembryanthemum species are thought to be hallucinogenic plants, like related Aizoaceae, and as such may be subject to legal restrictions (e.g. Louisiana State Act 159).


Except for ornamental purposes, growing, selling or possessing any species of Mesembryanthemum is prohibited by Louisiana State Act 159.


Under the newly formed Kingdom of Great Britain, output from the Royal Society and other English initiatives combined with the Scottish Enlightenment to create innovations in science and engineering, while the enormous growth in British overseas trade protected by the Royal Navy paved the way for the establishment of the British Empire. Domestically it drove the Industrial Revolution, a period of profound change in the socioeconomic and cultural conditions of England, resulting in industrialised agriculture, manufacture, engineering and mining, as well as new and pioneering road, rail and water networks to facilitate their expansion and development. The opening of Northwest England's Bridgewater Canal in 1761 ushered in the canal age in Britain. In 1825 the world's first permanent steam locomotive-hauled passenger railway – the Stockton and Darlington Railway – opened to the public.
During the Industrial Revolution, many workers moved from England's countryside to new and expanding urban industrial areas to work in factories, for instance at Birmingham and Manchester, dubbed "Workshop of the World" and "Warehouse City" respectively. Manchester was the world's first industrial city. England maintained relative stability throughout the French Revolution; William Pitt the Younger was British Prime Minister for the reign of George III. The Regency of George IV is noted for its elegance and achievements in the fine arts and architecture. During the Napoleonic Wars, Napoleon planned to invade from the south-east. However this failed to manifest and the Napoleonic forces were defeated by the British: at sea by Lord Nelson, and on land by the Duke of Wellington. The major victory at the Battle of Trafalgar confirmed the naval supremacy Britain had established during the course of the eighteenth century. The Napoleonic Wars fostered a concept of Britishness and a united national British people, shared with the English, Scots and Welsh.
London became the largest and most populous metropolitan area in the world during the Victorian era, and trade within the British Empire – as well as the standing of the British military and navy – was prestigious. Technologically, this era saw many innovations that proved key to the United Kingdom's power and prosperity. Political agitation at home from radicals such as the Chartists and the suffragettes enabled legislative reform and universal suffrage. Samuel Hynes described the Edwardian era as a "leisurely time when women wore picture hats and did not vote, when the rich were not ashamed to live conspicuously, and the sun really never set on the British flag."
Power shifts in east-central Europe led to World War I; hundreds of thousands of English soldiers died fighting for the United Kingdom as part of the Allies. Two decades later, in World War II, the United Kingdom was again one of the Allies. At the end of the Phoney War, Winston Churchill became the wartime Prime Minister. Developments in warfare technology saw many cities damaged by air-raids during the Blitz. Following the war, the British Empire experienced rapid decolonisation, and there was a speeding-up of technological innovations; automobiles became the primary means of transport and Frank Whittle's development of the jet engine led to wider air travel. Residential patterns were altered in England by private motoring, and by the creation of the National Health Service (NHS) in 1948. The UK's NHS provided publicly funded health care to all UK permanent residents free at the point of need, being paid for from general taxation. Combined, these prompted the reform of local government in England in the mid-20th century.
Since the 20th century there has been significant population movement to England, mostly from other parts of the British Isles, but also from the Commonwealth, particularly the Indian subcontinent. Since the 1970s there has been a large move away from manufacturing and an increasing emphasis on the service industry. As part of the United Kingdom, the area joined a common market initiative called the European Economic Community which became the European Union. Since the late 20th century the administration of the United Kingdom has moved towards devolved governance in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. England and Wales continues to exist as a jurisdiction within the United Kingdom. Devolution has stimulated a greater emphasis on a more English-specific identity and patriotism. There is no devolved English government, but an attempt to create a similar system on a sub-regional basis was rejected by referendum.


Roman military withdrawals left Britain open to invasion by pagan, seafaring warriors from north-western continental Europe, chiefly the Saxons, Angles, Jutes and Frisians who had long raided the coasts of the Roman province. These groups then began to settle in increasing numbers over the course of the fifth and sixth centuries, initially in the eastern part of the country. Their advance was contained for some decades after the Britons' victory at the Battle of Mount Badon, but subsequently resumed, overrunning the fertile lowlands of Britain and reducing the area under Brittonic control to a series of separate enclaves in the more rugged country to the west by the end of the 6th century. Contemporary texts describing this period are extremely scarce, giving rise to its description as a Dark Age. The nature and progression of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain is consequently subject to considerable disagreement; the emerging consensus is that it occurred on a large scale in the south and east but was less substantial to the north and west, where Celtic languages continued to be spoken even in areas under Anglo-Saxon control. Roman-dominated Christianity had, in general, been replaced in the conquered territories by Anglo-Saxon paganism, but was reintroduced by missionaries from Rome led by Augustine from 597 onwards. Disputes between the Roman- and Celtic-dominated forms of Christianity ended in victory for the Roman tradition at the Council of Whitby (664), which was ostensibly about tonsures (clerical haircuts) and the date of Easter, but more significantly, about the differences in Roman and Celtic forms of authority, theology, and practice.
During the settlement period the lands ruled by the incomers seem to have been fragmented into numerous tribal territories, but by the 7th century, when substantial evidence of the situation again becomes available, these had coalesced into roughly a dozen kingdoms including Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, East Anglia, Essex, Kent and Sussex. Over the following centuries, this process of political consolidation continued. The 7th century saw a struggle for hegemony between Northumbria and Mercia, which in the 8th century gave way to Mercian preeminence. In the early 9th century Mercia was displaced as the foremost kingdom by Wessex. Later in that century escalating attacks by the Danes culminated in the conquest of the north and east of England, overthrowing the kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia. Wessex under Alfred the Great was left as the only surviving English kingdom, and under his successors, it steadily expanded at the expense of the kingdoms of the Danelaw. This brought about the political unification of England, first accomplished under Æthelstan in 927 and definitively established after further conflicts by Eadred in 953. A fresh wave of Scandinavian attacks from the late 10th century ended with the conquest of this united kingdom by Sweyn Forkbeard in 1013 and again by his son Cnut in 1016, turning it into the centre of a short-lived North Sea Empire that also included Denmark and Norway. However, the native royal dynasty was restored with the accession of Edward the Confessor in 1042.
A dispute over the succession to Edward led to the Norman Conquest in 1066, accomplished by an army led by Duke William of Normandy. The Normans themselves originated from Scandinavia and had settled in Normandy in the late 9th and early 10th centuries. This conquest led to the almost total dispossession of the English elite and its replacement by a new French-speaking aristocracy, whose speech had a profound and permanent effect on the English language.
Subsequently, the House of Plantagenet from Anjou inherited the English throne under Henry II, adding England to the budding Angevin Empire of fiefs the family had inherited in France including Aquitaine. They reigned for three centuries, some noted monarchs being Richard I, Edward I, Edward III and Henry V. The period saw changes in trade and legislation, including the signing of the Magna Carta, an English legal charter used to limit the sovereign's powers by law and protect the privileges of freemen. Catholic monasticism flourished, providing philosophers, and the universities of Oxford and Cambridge were founded with royal patronage. The Principality of Wales became a Plantagenet fief during the 13th century and the Lordship of Ireland was given to the English monarchy by the Pope.
During the 14th century, the Plantagenets and the House of Valois both claimed to be legitimate claimants to the House of Capet and with it France; the two powers clashed in the Hundred Years' War. The Black Death epidemic hit England; starting in 1348, it eventually killed up to half of England's inhabitants. From 1453 to 1487 civil war occurred between two branches of the royal family – the Yorkists and Lancastrians – known as the Wars of the Roses. Eventually it led to the Yorkists losing the throne entirely to a Welsh noble family the Tudors, a branch of the Lancastrians headed by Henry Tudor who invaded with Welsh and Breton mercenaries, gaining victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field where the Yorkist king Richard III was killed.


England is part of the United Kingdom, a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system. There has not been a government of England since 1707, when the Acts of Union 1707, putting into effect the terms of the Treaty of Union, joined England and Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. Before the union England was ruled by its monarch and the Parliament of England. Today England is governed directly by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, although other countries of the United Kingdom have devolved governments. In the House of Commons which is the lower house of the British Parliament based at the Palace of Westminster, there are 532 Members of Parliament (MPs) for constituencies in England, out of the 650 total. As of the 2019 United Kingdom general election, England is represented by 345 MPs from the Conservative Party, 179 from the Labour Party, seven from the Liberal Democrats, one from the Green Party, and the Speaker of the House, Lindsay Hoyle.
Since devolution, in which other countries of the United Kingdom – Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – each have their own devolved parliament or assemblies for local issues, there has been debate about how to counterbalance this in England. Originally it was planned that various regions of England would be devolved, but following the proposal's rejection by the North East in a 2004 referendum, this has not been carried out.
One major issue is the West Lothian question, in which MPs from Scotland and Wales are able to vote on legislation affecting only England, while English MPs have no equivalent right to legislate on devolved matters. This when placed in the context of England being the only country of the United Kingdom not to have free cancer treatment, prescriptions, residential care for the elderly and free top-up university fees, has led to a steady rise in English nationalism. Some have suggested the creation of a devolved English parliament, while others have proposed simply limiting voting on legislation which only affects England to English MPs.


England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest of England and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.
The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Paleolithic period, but takes its name from the Angles, a Germanic tribe deriving its name from the Anglia peninsula, who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in the 10th century and has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century. The English language, the Anglican Church, and English law—the basis for the common law legal systems of many other countries around the world—developed in England, and the country's parliamentary system of government has been widely adopted by other nations. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the world's first industrialised nation.
England's terrain is chiefly low hills and plains, especially in central and southern England. However, there is upland and mountainous terrain in the north (for example, the Lake District and Pennines) and in the west (for example, Dartmoor and the Shropshire Hills). The capital is London, which has the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom. England's population of 56.3 million comprises 84% of the population of the United Kingdom, largely concentrated around London, the South East, and conurbations in the Midlands, the North West, the North East, and Yorkshire, which each developed as major industrial regions during the 19th century.
The Kingdom of England – which after 1535 included Wales – ceased being a separate sovereign state on 1 May 1707, when the Acts of Union put into effect the terms agreed in the Treaty of Union the previous year, resulting in a political union with the Kingdom of Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland (through another Act of Union) to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.


King Henry VIII (1491–1547)
Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603)
During the Tudor period, the Renaissance reached England through Italian courtiers, who reintroduced artistic, educational and scholarly debate from classical antiquity. England began to develop naval skills, and exploration to the West intensified. Henry VIII broke from communion with the Catholic Church, over issues relating to his divorce, under the Acts of Supremacy in 1534 which proclaimed the monarch head of the Church of England. In contrast with much of European Protestantism, the roots of the split were more political than theological. He also legally incorporated his ancestral land Wales into the Kingdom of England with the 1535–1542 acts. There were internal religious conflicts during the reigns of Henry's daughters, Mary I and Elizabeth I. The former took the country back to Catholicism while the latter broke from it again, forcefully asserting the supremacy of Anglicanism. The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor age of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I ("the Virgin Queen"). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. Elizabethan England represented the apogee of the English Renaissance and saw the flowering of art, poetry, music and literature. The era is most famous for its drama, theatre and playwrights. England during this period had a centralised, well-organised, and effective government as a result of vast Tudor reforms.
Competing with Spain, the first English colony in the Americas was founded in 1585 by explorer Walter Raleigh in Virginia and named Roanoke. The Roanoke colony failed and is known as the lost colony after it was found abandoned on the return of the late-arriving supply ship. With the East India Company, England also competed with the Dutch and French in the East. During the Elizabethan period, England was at war with Spain. An armada sailed from Spain in 1588 as part of a wider plan to invade England and re-establish a Catholic monarchy. The plan was thwarted by bad coordination, stormy weather and successful harrying attacks by an English fleet under Lord Howard of Effingham. This failure did not end the threat: Spain launched two further armadas, in 1596 and 1597, but both were driven back by storms. The political structure of the island changed in 1603, when the King of Scots, James VI, a kingdom which had been a long-time rival to English interests, inherited the throne of England as James I, thereby creating a personal union. He styled himself King of Great Britain, although this had no basis in English law. Under the auspices of King James VI and I the Authorised King James Version of the Holy Bible was published in 1611. It was the standard version of the Bible read by most Protestant Christians for four hundred years until modern revisions were produced in the 20th century.
Based on conflicting political, religious and social positions, the English Civil War was fought between the supporters of Parliament and those of King Charles I, known colloquially as Roundheads and Cavaliers respectively. This was an interwoven part of the wider multifaceted Wars of the Three Kingdoms, involving Scotland and Ireland. The Parliamentarians were victorious, Charles I was executed and the kingdom replaced by the Commonwealth. Leader of the Parliament forces, Oliver Cromwell declared himself Lord Protector in 1653; a period of personal rule followed. After Cromwell's death and the resignation of his son Richard as Lord Protector, Charles II was invited to return as monarch in 1660, in a move called the Restoration. With the reopening of theatres, fine arts, literature and performing arts flourished throughout the Restoration of ''the Merry Monarch'' Charles II. After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, it was constitutionally established that King and Parliament should rule together, though Parliament would have the real power. This was established with the Bill of Rights in 1689. Among the statutes set down were that the law could only be made by Parliament and could not be suspended by the King, also that the King could not impose taxes or raise an army without the prior approval of Parliament. Also since that time, no British monarch has entered the House of Commons when it is sitting, which is annually commemorated at the State Opening of Parliament by the British monarch when the doors of the House of Commons are slammed in the face of the monarch's messenger, symbolising the rights of Parliament and its independence from the monarch. With the founding of the Royal Society in 1660, science was greatly encouraged.
In 1666 the Great Fire of London gutted the City of London but it was rebuilt shortly afterwards with many significant buildings designed by Sir Christopher Wren. In Parliament two factions had emerged – the Tories and Whigs. Though the Tories initially supported Catholic king James II, some of them, along with the Whigs, during the Revolution of 1688 invited Dutch prince William of Orange to defeat James and ultimately to become William III of England. Some English people, especially in the north, were Jacobites and continued to support James and his sons. Under the Stuart dynasty England expanded in trade, finance and prosperity. Britain developed Europe's largest merchant fleet. After the parliaments of England and Scotland agreed, the two countries joined in political union, to create the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. To accommodate the union, institutions such as the law and national churches of each remained separate.


The English law legal system, developed over the centuries, is the basis of common law legal systems used in most Commonwealth countries and the United States (except Louisiana). Despite now being part of the United Kingdom, the legal system of the Courts of England and Wales continued, under the Treaty of Union, as a separate legal system from the one used in Scotland. The general essence of English law is that it is made by judges sitting in courts, applying their common sense and knowledge of legal precedent – stare decisis – to the facts before them.
The court system is headed by the Senior Courts of England and Wales, consisting of the Court of Appeal, the High Court of Justice for civil cases, and the Crown Court for criminal cases. The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom is the highest court for criminal and civil cases in England and Wales. It was created in 2009 after constitutional changes, taking over the judicial functions of the House of Lords. A decision of the Supreme Court is binding on every other court in the hierarchy, which must follow its directions.
The Secretary of State for Justice is the minister responsible to Parliament for the judiciary, the court system and prisons and probation in England. Crime increased between 1981 and 1995 but fell by 42% in the period 1995–2006. The prison population doubled over the same period, giving it one of highest incarceration rate in Western Europe at 147 per 100,000. Her Majesty's Prison Service, reporting to the Ministry of Justice, manages most prisons, housing over 85,000 convicts.


The name "England" is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means "land of the Angles". The Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages. The Angles came from the Anglia peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area (present-day German state of Schleswig–Holstein) of the Baltic Sea. The earliest recorded use of the term, as "Engla londe", is in the late-ninth-century translation into Old English of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. The term was then used in a different sense to the modern one, meaning "the land inhabited by the English", and it included English people in what is now south-east Scotland but was then part of the English kingdom of Northumbria. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded that the Domesday Book of 1086 covered the whole of England, meaning the English kingdom, but a few years later the Chronicle stated that King Malcolm III went "out of Scotlande into Lothian in Englaland", thus using it in the more ancient sense.
The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, in which the Latin word Anglii is used. The etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars; it has been suggested that it derives from the shape of the Angeln peninsula, an angular shape. How and why a term derived from the name of a tribe that was less significant than others, such as the Saxons, came to be used for the entire country and its people is not known, but it seems this is related to the custom of calling the Germanic people in Britain Angli Saxones or English Saxons to distinguish them from continental Saxons (Eald-Seaxe) of Old Saxony between the Weser and Eider rivers in Northern Germany. In Scottish Gaelic, another language which developed on the island of Great Britain, the Saxon tribe gave their name to the word for England (Sasunn); similarly, the Welsh name for the English language is "Saesneg". A romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England, Lloegr, and made popular by its use in Arthurian legend. Albion is also applied to England in a more poetic capacity, though its original meaning is the island of Britain as a whole.


Year 1500 (MD) was a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. The year 1500 was not a leap year in the Proleptic Gregorian calendar.
The year was seen as being especially important by many Christians in Europe, who thought it would bring the beginning of the end of the world. Their belief was based on the phrase "half-time after the time", when the apocalypse was due to occur, which appears in the Book of Revelation and was seen as referring to 1500. This time was also just after the Old World's discovery of the Americas in 1492, and therefore was influenced greatly by the New World.
Historically, the year 1500 is also often identified, somewhat arbitrarily, as marking the end of the Middle Ages and beginning of the Early Modern Era.
The end of this year marked the halfway point of the 2nd millennium, as there were 500 years before it and 500 years after it.


Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorological variables that are commonly measured are temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, and precipitation. In a broader sense, climate is the state of the components of the climate system, including the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the cryosphere, the lithosphere and the biosphere and the interactions between them. The climate of a location is affected by its latitude/longitude, terrain, altitude, and nearby water bodies and their currents.
Climates can be classified according to the average and typical variables, most commonly temperature and precipitation. The most widely used classification scheme was the Köppen climate classification. The Thornthwaite system, in use since 1948, incorporates evapotranspiration along with temperature and precipitation information and is used in studying biological diversity and how climate change affects it. Finally, the Bergeron and Spatial Synoptic Classification systems focus on the origin of air masses that define the climate of a region.
Paleoclimatology is the study of ancient climates. Since very few direct observations of climate were available before the 19th century, paleoclimates are inferred from proxy variables. They include non-biotic evidence—such as sediments found in lake beds and ice cores—and biotic evidence—such as tree rings and coral. Climate models are mathematical models of past, present, and future climates. Climate change may occur over long and short timescales from various factors. Recent warming is discussed in global warming, which results in redistributions. For example, "a 3 °C [3 K; 5 °F] change in mean annual temperature corresponds to a shift in isotherms of approximately 300–400 km [190–250 mi] in latitude (in the temperate zone) or 500 m [1,600 ft] in elevation. Therefore, species are expected to move upwards in elevation or towards the poles in latitude in response to shifting climate zones."


Climate classifications are systems that categorize the world's climates. A climate classification may correlate closely with a biome classification, as climate is a major influence on life in a region. One of the most used is the Köppen climate classification scheme first developed in 1899.

There are several ways to classify climates into similar regimes. Originally, climes were defined in Ancient Greece to describe the weather depending upon a location's latitude. Modern climate classification methods can be broadly divided into genetic methods, which focus on the causes of climate, and empiric methods, which focus on the effects of climate. Examples of genetic classification include methods based on the relative frequency of different air mass types or locations within synoptic weather disturbances. Examples of empiric classifications include climate zones defined by plant hardiness, evapotranspiration, or more generally the Köppen climate classification which was originally designed to identify the climates associated with certain biomes. A common shortcoming of these classification schemes is that they produce distinct boundaries between the zones they define, rather than the gradual transition of climate properties more common in nature.


Climate change is the variation in global or regional climates over time. It reflects changes in the variability or average state of the atmosphere over time scales ranging from decades to millions of years. These changes can be caused by processes internal to the Earth, external forces (e.g. variations in sunlight intensity) or, more recently, human activities.
In recent usage, especially in the context of environmental policy, the term "climate change" often refers only to changes in modern climate, including the rise in average surface temperature known as global warming. In some cases, the term is also used with a presumption of human causation, as in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The UNFCCC uses "climate variability" for non-human caused variations.
Earth has undergone periodic climate shifts in the past, including four major ice ages. These consisting of glacial periods where conditions are colder than normal, separated by interglacial periods. The accumulation of snow and ice during a glacial period increases the surface albedo, reflecting more of the Sun's energy into space and maintaining a lower atmospheric temperature. Increases in greenhouse gases, such as by volcanic activity, can increase the global temperature and produce an interglacial period. Suggested causes of ice age periods include the positions of the continents, variations in the Earth's orbit, changes in the solar output, and volcanism.


Loam is considered ideal for gardening and agricultural uses because it retains nutrients well and retains water while still allowing excess water to drain away. A soil dominated by one or two of the three particle size groups can behave like loam if it has a strong granular structure, promoted by a high content of organic matter. However, a soil that meets the textural (geological) definition of loam can lose its characteristic desirable qualities when it is compacted, depleted of organic matter, or has clay dispersed throughout its fine-earth fraction.
For example, pea can be cultivated in sandy loam and clay loam soils, but not more compacted sandy soils.


Vinblastine (VBL), sold under the brand name Velban among others, is a chemotherapy medication, typically used with other medications, to treat a number of types of cancer. This includes Hodgkin's lymphoma, non-small cell lung cancer, bladder cancer, brain cancer, melanoma, and testicular cancer. It is given by injection into a vein.
Most people experience some side effects. Commonly it causes a change in sensation, constipation, weakness, loss of appetite, and headaches. Severe side effects include low blood cell counts and shortness of breath. It should not be given to people who have a current bacterial infection. Use during pregnancy will likely harm the baby. Vinblastine works by blocking cell division.
Vinblastine was isolated in 1958. An example of a natural herbal remedy that has since been developed into a conventional medicine, vinblastine was originally obtained from the Madagascar periwinkle.  It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines.


Vinblastine may be isolated from the Madagascar Periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus), its only known biological producer, along with several of its precursors, catharanthine and vindoline. The biosynthetic pathway for vinblastine and its precursors, particularly catharanthine, still remains partially unknown. Extraction is costly and yields of vinblastine and its precursors are low, although procedures for rapid isolation with improved yields avoiding auto-oxidation have been developed.  Enantioselective synthesis has been of considerable interest in recent years, as the natural mixture of isomers is not an economical source for the required C16'S, C14'R  stereochemistry of biologically active vinblastine.  Initially, the approach depends upon an enantioselective Sharpless epoxidation, which sets the stereochemistry at C20.  The desired configuration around C16 and C14 can then be fixed during the ensuing steps.  In this pathway, vinblastine is constructed by a series of cyclization and coupling reactions which create the required stereochemistry.  The overall yield may be as great as 22%, which makes this synthetic approach more attractive than extraction from natural sources, whose overall yield is about 10%. Stereochemistry is controlled through a mixture of chiral agents (Sharpless catalysts), and reaction conditions (temperature, and selected enantiopure starting materials). Due to difficulty of stereochemical restraints in total synthetic processes, other semi-synthetic methods from precursors, catharanthine and vindoline, continue to be developed.


Spring – First recognition of cosmic microwave background radiation as a detectable phenomenon.
Jerome Horwitz synthesizes zidovudine (AZT), an antiviral drug which will later be used in treating HIV.
Farrington Daniels becomes an early advocate of solar energy in his book Direct Use of the Sun's Energy, published by Yale University Press in the United States.
Rudi Gernreich designs the original monokini topless swimsuit in the U.S.
The Vishva Hindu Pariṣad is founded in India.


July 26–August 10 – Isambard Kingdom Brunel's iron steamship Great Britain makes the transatlantic crossing from Liverpool to New York, the first screw propelled vessel to make the passage.
July 28 – HMS Terror and HMS Erebus of the Franklin Expedition go missing in the Davis Strait west of Greenland, while searching for the Northwest Passage.
August 4 – British emigrant barque Cataraqui is wrecked on King Island (Tasmania) with 400 people killed and only 9 survivors.
August 9 – The Aberdeen Act is passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, empowering the British Royal Navy to search Brazilian ships, as part of the abolition of the slave trade from Africa.
August 19 – Tornado in Montville destroys two large factories, killing 200 people.
August 28 – The journal Scientific American begins publication.
September 9 – Potato blight breaks out in Ireland, beginning the Great Famine.
September 18 – The Anglo-French blockade of the Río de la Plata is formally declared.
September 25 – The Phi Alpha Literary Society is founded, in Jacksonville, Illinois.


January 10 – Elizabeth Barrett receives a love letter from the younger poet Robert Browning; on May 20, they meet for the first time in London. She begins writing her Sonnets from the Portuguese.
January 23 – The United States Congress establishes a uniform date for federal elections, which will henceforth be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
January 29 – The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe is published for the first time, in the New York Evening Mirror.
February 1 – Anson Jones, President of the Republic of Texas, signs the charter officially creating Baylor University (the oldest university in the State of Texas operating under its original name).
February 7 – In the British Museum, a drunken visitor smashes the Portland Vase, which takes months to repair.
February 28 – The United States Congress approves the annexation of Texas.
March 1 – President John Tyler signs a bill authorizing the United States to annex the Republic of Texas.
March 3
Florida is admitted as the 27th U.S. state.
The United States Congress passes legislation overriding a presidential veto for the first time.
March 4 – James K. Polk is sworn in as the 11th President of the United States.
March 11 – New Zealand Wars open with the Flagstaff War: Chiefs Kawiti and Hone Heke lead 700 Māoris in the burning of the British colonial settlement of Kororāreka (modern-day Russell, New Zealand).
March 13 – The Violin Concerto by Felix Mendelssohn premieres in Leipzig, with Ferdinand David as soloist.
March 17 – Stephen Perry patents the rubber band, in the United Kingdom.
March 30 – Due to different transition dates to the Gregorian calendar, Finland (then part of the Russian Empire) is the only place in the world to have Easter day on this particular Sunday.


1845 (MDCCCXLV) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar, the 1845th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 845th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 45th  year of the 19th century, and the  6th   year of the 1840s decade. As of the start of 1845, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


October – The Reuters news service is founded in London.
October 15
The City of Winona, Minnesota is founded.
The Great Exhibition in London is closed.
October 24 – Ariel and Umbriel, moons of Uranus, are discovered by William Lassell.
November 1 – Saint Petersburg–Moscow Railway officially opened in Russia.
November 13
The Denny Party lands at Alki Point, the first settlers of what later becomes Seattle.
The first protected submarine telegraph cable is laid, across the English Channel.
November 14 – Herman Melville's novel Moby-Dick; or The Whale is published in the U.S. by Harper & Brothers, New York, after being first published on October 18 in London, by Richard Bentley, in three volumes as The Whale.
November 26–27 – Bombardment of Salé, Morocco: French naval forces bombard the city, in retaliation for looting of a French cargo ship.
December 2 – French coup of 1851: In what amounts to a coup, President Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte of France dissolves the French National Assembly, and declares a new constitution to extend his term. A year later he declares himself as Emperor Napoleon III, ending the Second Republic.
December 6 – The trial of Hélène Jégado begins; she is eventually sentenced to death and executed by guillotine.
December 9 – The first YMCA in North America is established in Montreal.
December 22 – India's first freight train is operated in Roorkee, India.
December 24 – The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., burns.
December 26–27 – A Royal Navy warship bombards Lagos Island; Oba Kosoko is wounded, and flees to Epe.
December 29 – The first YMCA in the United States opens in Boston, Massachusetts.
December 31 – 1851 Chilean Revolution – Battle of Loncomilla: The rebels are defeated, ending the revolution.


January 1
The first edition of The Northern Echo newspaper is published in Priestgate, Darlington, England.
Plans for the Brooklyn Bridge are completed.
January 3 – Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge begins in New York City.
January 6 – The Musikverein, Vienna, is inaugurated in Austria-Hungary.
January 10 – John D. Rockefeller incorporates Standard Oil.
January 15 – A political cartoon for the first time symbolizes the United States Democratic Party with a donkey (A Live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion by Thomas Nast for Harper's Weekly).
January 23 – Marias Massacre: U.S soldiers attack a peaceful camp of Piegan Blackfeet Indians, led by chief Heavy Runner.
January 26 – Reconstruction Era (United States): Virginia rejoins the Union. This year it adopts a new Constitution, drawn up by John Curtiss Underwood, expanding suffrage to all male citizens over 21, including freedmen.
January 28 – British SS City of Boston departs Halifax, Nova Scotia, on a transatlantic passage on which it will be lost with all 191 aboard.
February – Denis Vrain-Lucas is sentenced to 2 years in prison for multiple forgery, in Paris.
February 1 – Goodna State School in Goodna, Queensland, Australia is founded.
February 2
It is revealed that the famed Cardiff Giant in the U.S. is just carved gypsum and not the petrified remains of a human.
The Seven Brothers (Seitsemän veljestä), a novel by Finnish author Aleksis Kivi, is published first time in several thin booklets.
February 3 – The 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution, guaranteeing African American men the right to vote, is passed.
February 9 – The U.S. Army Weather Bureau is created within the Army Signal Corps.
February 10
Anaheim, California is incorporated.
The YWCA is founded in New York City.
February 12 – Women's suffrage: Women gain the right to vote in Utah Territory.
February 23 – Military control of Mississippi ends and it is readmitted to the Union.
February 25 – Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi, is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first African American to sit in the U.S. Congress.
February 26
In New York City, the first pneumatic subway is opened, Beach Pneumatic Transit.
The German Commerzbank is founded in Hamburg.
February 27 – The 'circle of the sun' flag of Japan is adopted as the national flag for Japanese merchant ships, by proclamation of the Daijō-kan.
February 28 – The Bulgarian Exarchate is established, by decree of Sultan Abdülaziz of the Ottoman Empire.
March – The Mitsubishi Company is established in Japan as a shipping firm, by Iwasaki Yatarō with Thomas Blake Glover.
March 1 – Battle of Cerro Corá, Paraguay: Marshal Francisco Solano López's last troops are cornered by those of the Triple Alliance. López refuses to surrender and is killed, ending the Paraguayan War.
March 4 – Red River Rebellion: Thomas Scott is executed by Louis Riel's provisional government, in modern-day Manitoba, Canada.
March 5 – The first ever international Association football match, England v Scotland, takes place under the auspices of the Football Association at The Oval, London.
March 10 – Deutsche Bank is founded in Berlin.
March 18 – Female Infanticide Prevention Act, 1870, passed in British India.
March 19 – The Ohio Legislature passes the Cannon Act, thereby establishing the Ohio Agriculture and Mechanical College, later Ohio State University.
March 24 – Syracuse University is established in New York (state) and officially opens.
March 30
The 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution, giving African American men the right to vote, is ratified.
Reconstruction: Texas is readmitted to the Union.
March 31 – Thomas Mundy Peterson is the first African American to vote in an election.


1870 (MDCCCLXX) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Thursday of the Julian calendar, the 1870th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 870th  year of the 2nd millennium, the 70th  year of the 19th century, and the  1st   year of the 1870s decade. As of the start of 1870, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.


Japanese yen currency is introduced to supersede the mon.
David Kenyon invents the fireman's pole in Chicago.
Graeter's ice cream is originated in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Just one of the 916 members of the Indian Civil Service is Indian.


July 14 – The Ems Dispatch is published, serving as casus belli for a war between Prussia and France.
July 15
Reconstruction Era: Georgia becomes the last former Confederate state of America to be readmitted to the Union.
The British government admits the former Hudson's Bay Company territory of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory to the Dominion of Canada.
July 18 – Pastor aeternus: Pope Pius IX declares papal infallibility, in matters of faith and morals.
July 19 – Franco-Prussian War: France declares war on Prussia.
July 28 – Start of Solar Saros 153. The final eclipse in this series will be in 3114.
July 30 – The 'Diggers' Republic' is proclaimed at Klipdrift in South Africa by diamond miners, with Stafford Parker as president.
August 2 – The Tower Subway beneath the River Thames in London, the world's first underground passenger "tube" railway, officially opens. Although this lasts as a railway operation only until November, it demonstrates the technologically successful first use of the cylindrical wrought iron tunnelling shield, devised by Peter W. Barlow and James Henry Greathead, and of a permanent tunnel lining of cast iron segments.
August 8 – The Republic of Ploiești, an uprising against Domnitor Carol of Romania, fails.
August 24 – The Red River Rebellion in Canada ends with the arrival of the Wolseley Expedition and the flight of Louis Riel.
September 2 – Franco-Prussian War: Battle of Sedan – Prussian forces defeat the French armies and take Emperor Napoleon III and 100,000 of his soldiers prisoner at Sedan, France.
September 4 – Emperor Napoleon III of France is deposed and the Third Republic is declared. Empress Eugénie flees to England with her son.
September 6 – Louisa Swain of Laramie, Wyoming, becomes the first woman in the United States to cast a vote legally since 1807.
September 18 – Old Faithful Geyser is observed and named by Henry D. Washburn, during the Washburn–Langford–Doane Expedition to Yellowstone in Wyoming.
September 19 – Franco-Prussian War: The Siege of Paris (1870–1871) begins. From September 23, balloon mail is sent out of the city.
September 20 – Capture of Rome; With Bersaglieri soldiers entering Rome at Porta Pia, the unification of Italy is completed, ending the last remnant of the Papal States and Papal temporal power.


Modern molecular phylogenetics recommend the following clade-based classification of Rhamnaceae:


Rhamnaceae is a large family of flowering plants, mostly trees, shrubs, and some vines, commonly called the buckthorn family. Rhamnaceae is included in the order Rosales.
The family contains about 55 genera and 950 species. The Rhamnaceae have a worldwide distribution, but are more common in the subtropical and tropical regions. The earliest fossil evidence of Rhamnaceae is from the Late Cretaceous. Fossil flowers have been collected from the Upper Cretaceous of Mexico and the Paleocene of Argentina.
Leaves of family Rhamnaceae members are simple, i.e., the leaf blades are not divided into smaller leaflets. Leaves can be either alternate or opposite. Stipules are present. These leaves are modified into spines in many genera, in some (e.g. Paliurus spina-christi and Colletia cruciata) spectacularly so. Colletia stands out by having two axillary buds instead of one, one developing into a thorn, the other one into a shoot.

The flowers are radially symmetrical. There are 5 (sometimes 4) separate sepals and 5 (sometimes 4 or none) separate petals. The petals may be white, yellowish, greenish, pink or blue, and are small and inconspicuous in most genera, though in some (e.g. Ceanothus) the dense clusters of flowers are conspicuous. The 5 or 4 stamens are opposite the petals. The ovary is mostly superior, with 2 or 3 ovules (or one by abortion).
The fruits are mostly berries, fleshy drupes, or nuts. Some are adapted to wind carriage, but most are dispersed by mammals and birds. Chinese jujube is the fruit of the jujube tree (Ziziphus zizyphus) and is a major fruit in China.
The American genus Ceanothus, which has several showy ornamental species, has nitrogen-fixing root nodules.
Economic uses of the Rhamnaceae are chiefly as ornamental plants and as the source of many brilliant green and yellow dyes. The wood of Rhamnus was also the most favoured species to make charcoal for use in gunpowder before the development of modern propellants.


The Rocky Mountains are the easternmost portion of the expansive North American Cordillera. They are often defined as stretching from the Liard River in British Columbia south to the headwaters of the Pecos River, a tributary of the Rio Grande, in New Mexico. The Rockies vary in width from 110 to 480 kilometres (70 to 300 mi). The Rocky Mountains contain the highest peaks in central North America. The range's highest peak is Mount Elbert located in Colorado at 4,401 metres (14,440 ft) above sea level. Mount Robson in British Columbia, at 3,954 metres (12,972 ft), is the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies.
The eastern edge of the Rockies rises dramatically above the Interior Plains of central North America, including the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico and Colorado, the Front Range of Colorado, the Wind River Range and Big Horn Mountains of Wyoming, the Absaroka-Beartooth ranges and Rocky Mountain Front of Montana and the Clark Range of Alberta.
Central ranges of the Rockies include the La Sal Range along the Utah-Colorado border, the Uinta Range of Utah and Wyoming, and the Teton Range of Wyoming and Idaho.
The western edge of the Rockies includes ranges such as the Wasatch near Salt Lake City, the San Juan Mountains of New Mexico and Colorado, the Bitterroots along the Idaho-Montana border, and the Sawtooths in central Idaho. The Great Basin and Columbia River Plateau separate these subranges from distinct ranges further to the west. In Canada, the western edge of the Rockies is formed by the huge Rocky Mountain Trench, which runs the length of British Columbia from its beginning as the Kechika Valley on the south bank of the Liard River, to the middle Lake Koocanusa valley in northwestern Montana.
The Canadian Rockies are defined by Canadian geographers as everything south of the Liard River and east of the Rocky Mountain Trench, and do not extend into Yukon, Northwest Territories or central British Columbia. They are divided into three main groups: the Muskwa Ranges, Hart Ranges (collectively called the Northern Rockies) and Continental Ranges. Other more northerly mountain ranges of the eastern Canadian Cordillera continue beyond the Liard River valley, including the Selwyn, Mackenzie and Richardson Mountains in Yukon as well as the British Mountains/Brooks Range in Alaska, but those are not officially recognized as part of the Rockies by the Geological Survey of Canada, although the Geological Society of America definition does consider them parts of the Rocky Mountains system as the "Arctic Rockies".
The Continental Divide of the Americas is located in the Rocky Mountains and designates the line at which waters flow either to the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans. Triple Divide Peak (2,440 m or 8,020 ft) in Glacier National Park is so named because water falling on the mountain reaches not only the Atlantic and Pacific but Hudson Bay as well. Farther north in Alberta, the Athabasca and other rivers feed the basin of the Mackenzie River, which has its outlet on the Beaufort Sea of the Arctic Ocean.
Human population is not very dense in the Rocky Mountains, with an average of four people per square kilometer and few cities with over 50,000 people. However, the human population grew rapidly in the Rocky Mountain states between 1950 and 1990. The forty-year statewide increases in population range from 35% in Montana to about 150% in Utah and Colorado. The populations of several mountain towns and communities have doubled in the forty years 1972–2012. Jackson, Wyoming, increased 260%, from 1,244 to 4,472 residents, in those forty years.


After 1802, fur traders and explorers ushered in the first widespread American presence in the Rockies south of the 49th parallel. The more famous of these include William Henry Ashley, Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, John Colter, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Andrew Henry, and Jedediah Smith. On July 24, 1832, Benjamin Bonneville led the first wagon train across the Rocky Mountains by using South Pass in the present State of Wyoming. Similarly, in the wake of Mackenzie's 1793 expedition, fur trading posts were established west of the Northern Rockies in a region of the northern Interior Plateau of British Columbia which came to be known as New Caledonia, beginning with Fort McLeod (today's community of McLeod Lake) and Fort Fraser, but ultimately focused on Stuart Lake Post (today's Fort St. James).
Negotiations between the United Kingdom and the United States over the next few decades failed to settle upon a compromise boundary and the Oregon Dispute became important in geopolitical diplomacy between the British Empire and the new American Republic. In 1841, James Sinclair, Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, guided some 200 settlers from the Red River Colony west to bolster settlement around Fort Vancouver in an attempt to retain the Columbia District for Britain. The party crossed the Rockies into the Columbia Valley, a region of the Rocky Mountain Trench near present-day Radium Hot Springs, British Columbia, then traveled south. Despite such efforts, in 1846, Britain ceded all claim to Columbia District lands south of the 49th parallel to the United States; as resolution to the Oregon boundary dispute by the Oregon Treaty.
Thousands passed through the Rocky Mountains on the Oregon Trail beginning in the 1840s. The Mormons began settling near the Great Salt Lake in 1847. From 1859 to 1864, gold was discovered in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia, sparking several gold rushes bringing thousands of prospectors and miners to explore every mountain and canyon and to create the Rocky Mountains' first major industry. The Idaho gold rush alone produced more gold than the California and Alaska gold rushes combined and was important in the financing of the Union Army during the American Civil War. The transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, and Yellowstone National Park was established as the world's first national park in 1872. Meanwhile, a transcontinental railroad in Canada was originally promised in 1871. Though political complications pushed its completion to 1885, the Canadian Pacific Railway eventually followed the Kicking Horse and Rogers Passes to the Pacific Ocean. Canadian railway officials also convinced Parliament to set aside vast areas of the Canadian Rockies as Jasper, Banff, Yoho, and Waterton Lakes National Parks, laying the foundation for a tourism industry which thrives to this day. Glacier National Park (MT) was established with a similar relationship to tourism promotions by the Great Northern Railway. While settlers filled the valleys and mining towns, conservation and preservation ethics began to take hold. U.S. President Harrison established several forest reserves in the Rocky Mountains in 1891–1892. In 1905, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt extended the Medicine Bow Forest Reserve to include the area now managed as Rocky Mountain National Park. Economic development began to center on mining, forestry, agriculture, and recreation, as well as on the service industries that support them. Tents and camps became ranches and farms, forts and train stations became towns, and some towns became cities.


For the most part, swallows are insectivorous, taking flying insects on the wing. Across the whole family, a wide range of insects is taken from most insect groups, but the composition of any one prey type in the diet varies by species and with the time of year. Individual species may be selective; they do not scoop up every insect around them, but instead select larger prey items than would be expected by random sampling. In addition, the ease of capture of different insect types affects their rate of predation by swallows. They also avoid certain prey types; in particular, stinging insects such as bees and wasps are generally avoided. In addition to insect prey, a number of species occasionally consume fruits and other plant matter. Species in Africa have been recorded eating the seeds of Acacia trees, and these are even fed to the young of the greater striped swallow.
The swallows generally forage for prey on the wing, but they on occasion snap prey off branches or on the ground. The flight may be fast and involve a rapid succession of turns and banks when actively chasing fast-moving prey; less agile prey may be caught with a slower, more leisurely flight that includes flying in circles and bursts of flapping mixed with gliding. Where several species of swallows feed together, they separate into different niches based on height off the ground, some species feeding closer to the ground and others feeding at higher levels. Similar separation occurs where feeding overlaps with swifts. Niche separation may also occur with the size of prey chosen.


The more primitive species nest in existing cavities, for example in an old woodpecker nest, while other species excavate burrows in soft substrate such as sand banks. Swallows in the genera Hirundo, Ptyonoprogne, Cecropis, Petrochelidon, and Delichon build mud nests close to overhead shelter in locations that are protected from both the weather and predators. The mud-nesters are most common in the Old World, particularly Africa, whereas cavity-nesters are more common in the New World. Mud-nesting species in particular are limited in areas of high humidity, which causes the mud nests to crumble. Many cave-, bank-, and cliff-dwelling species of swallows nest in large colonies. Mud nests are constructed by both males and females, and amongst the tunnel diggers, the excavation duties are shared, as well. In historical times, the introduction of man-made stone structures such as barns and bridges, together with forest clearance, has led to an abundance of colony sites around the globe, significantly increasing the breeding ranges of some species. Birds living in large colonies typically have to contend with both ectoparasites and conspecific nest parasitism. In barn swallows, old mated males and young unmated males benefit from colonial behaviour, whereas females and mated young males likely benefit more from nesting by themselves.
Pairs of mated swallows are monogamous, and pairs of nonmigratory species often stay near their breeding area all year, though the nest site is defended most vigorously during the breeding season. Migratory species often return to the same breeding area each year, and may select the same nest site if they were previously successful in that location. First-year breeders generally select a nesting site close to where they were raised. The breeding of temperate species is seasonal, whereas that of subtropical or tropical species can either be continuous throughout the year or seasonal. Seasonal species in the subtropics or tropics usually time their breeding to coincide with the peaks in insect activity, which is usually the wet season, but some species, such as the white-bibbed swallow, nest in the dry season to avoid flooding in their riverbank nesting habitat. All swallows defend their nests from egg predators, although solitary species are more aggressive towards predators than colonial species. Overall, the contribution of male swallows towards parental care is the highest of any passerine bird.
The eggs of swallows tend to be white, although those of some mud-nesters are speckled. The typical clutch size is around four to five eggs in temperate areas and two to three eggs in the tropics. The incubation duties are shared in some species, and in others the eggs are incubated solely by the females. Amongst the species where the males help with incubation, their contribution varies amongst species, with some species such as the cliff swallow sharing the duties equally and the female doing most of the work in others. Amongst the barn swallows, the male of the American subspecies helps (to a small extent), whereas the European subspecies does not. Even in species where the male does not incubate the eggs, he may sit on them when the female is away to reduce heat loss (this is different from incubation as that involves warming the eggs, not just stopping heat loss). Incubation stints last for 5–15 minutes and are followed by bursts of feeding activity. From laying, swallow eggs take  10–21 days to hatch, with 14–18 days being more typical.
The chicks of swallows hatch naked, generally with only a few tufts of down. The eyes are closed and do not fully open for up to 10 days. The feathers take a few days to begin to sprout, and the chicks are brooded by the parents until they are able to thermoregulate. On the whole, they develop slowly compared to other passerine birds. The parents do not usually feed the chicks individual insects, but instead feed a bolus of food comprising 10–100 insects. Regardless of whether the species has males that incubate or brood the chicks, the males of all hirundines help feed the chicks. When the young fledge is difficult to determine, as they are enticed out of the nest after three weeks by parents, but frequently return to the nest afterwards to roost.


January 4 – Life magazine is founded in Los Angeles, California, United States.
January 10 – A fire at the Newhall Hotel in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States, kills 73 people.
January 16 – The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, establishing the United States civil service, is passed.
January 19 –  The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires begins service in Roselle, New Jersey, United States; it has been installed by Thomas Edison.
February – The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi is first published complete in book form, in Italy.
February 15 – Tokyo Electrical Lightning Grid, predecessor of Tokyo Electrical Power (TEPCO), one of the largest electrical grids in Asia and the world, is founded in Japan.
February 16 – The Ladies' Home Journal is published for the first time, in the United States.
February 23 – Alabama becomes the first U.S. state to enact an antitrust law.
February 28 – The first vaudeville theater is opened, in Boston, Massachusetts.
March 2 – The Hong Kong Observatory is established.
March 20 – The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property is held.
March 28 – Battle of Gia Cuc: A French force defeats a Vietnamese in northern Vietnam in the run-up to the Sino-French War.


Part II, published between 1845 and 1847, covers the Botany of Fuegia, the Falklands, Kerguelen's Land, Etc. It has 366 pages, 1000 species, 120 plates, and illustrates 220 species.
According to Hooker, the flora of New Zealand's Antarctic islands is so different from that of the remainder of the territories visited during the voyage, that it merits a separate description. An exemplary difference is the dominance of Asteraceae in New Zealand's islands, and absence of representatives of the Rubiaceae, while the reverse is true for those two plant families on the other Antarctic archipelagos. So the Flora Antarctica describes in its second part the plants of Tierra del Fuego and the south-western coast of Patagonia, the Falkland Islands, Palmer's Land, South Shetlands, South Georgia, Tristan da Cunha, and Kerguelen's Land.


The four parts of the Flora Antarctica total 6 volumes, describe about 3000 species, and contain 530 plates which depict 1095 of the species. They were published by Reeve Brothers in London between 1844 and 1849. The work was reprinted (in English) by the German publisher J. Cramer in Weinheim in 1963.


The British government fitted out an expedition led by the explorer and naval officer James Clark Ross to investigate magnetism and marine geography in high southern latitudes, which sailed with two ships, HMS Terror and HMS Erebus on 29 September 1839 from Chatham.
The ships docked at Madeira, Tenerife, the Cape Verde archipelago, Saint Peter and Saint Paul Archipelago, Trinidad and arrived at the Cape of Good Hope on 4 April 1840. On 21 April the giant kelp Macrocystis pyrifera was seen off Marion Island, but no landfall could be made there or on the Crozet Islands due to the harsh winds. On 12 May the ships anchored at Christmas Harbour for two and a half months, during which all plants previously encountered by James Cook on the Kerguelen Islands were collected. On 20 July they sailed again to arrive on 16 August at the River Derwent, to remain in Tasmania until 12 November. A week later the flotilla stopped at Lord Auckland's Islands and Campbell's Island for the spring months.
Large floating forests of Macrocystis and Durvillaea were found until the ships ran into the icebergs at latitude 61° S. Pack-ice was met at 68° S and longitude 175°. During this part of the voyage Victoria Land, Mount Erebus and Mount Terror were discovered. After returning to Tasmania for three months, the flotilla went via Sydney to the Bay of Islands, and stayed for three months in New Zealand to collect plants.
From 6 April 1842 a long stay in the Falklands began, where the flora was investigated to supplement the work of the French explorer Admiral Jules Dumont d'Urville, who had sailed to the Antarctic and the Pacific between 1837 and 1840, and of the crew of the Uranie, who had visited the South Atlantic and the South Pacific between 1817 and 1820. In the Flora Atlantica, Hooker praises the work of the English botanist Sir Joseph Banks and his Swedish assistant, Daniel Solander, on Captain Cook's first voyage in 1769. Hooker also mentions Cook's second voyage and the explorations of the French survey ship Coquille, on which D'Urville had served as a young officer. When visiting the Hermite Islands, seedlings of the deciduous Nothofagus antarctica and the evergreen Nothofagus betuloides were collected from this southernmost location of any tree. These were planted on the Falklands, and some were later brought to Kew. On Cockburn's Island twenty cryptogam species were found. The ships returned to the Cape of Good Hope on 4 April 1843. At the end of the journey specimens of some fifteen hundred plant species had been collected and preserved.
Few earlier botanical descriptions of the region had been written, and little or no plant collecting had been attempted other than on the coasts before 1820. The first flora for New Zealand was Achille Richard's 1832 Essai d'une flore de la Nouvelle-Zélande, based on d'Urville's work and such earlier data as existed. This was followed by Allan Cunningham's 1839 Florae insularum Novae-Zelandiae praecursor.


Hooker was ably assisted by the illustrator Walter Hood Fitch, who "splendidly" prepared the many colour illustrations required for the Flora. William Hooker had encouraged Fitch to move into botanical illustration; from 1834, Fitch was the sole artist for Curtis's Botanical Magazine. In 1841, when William Hooker became Director at Kew, Fitch became Kew's sole artist for all its publications, making the chromolithographs by drawing directly onto the lithographic stone; Hooker paid him personally.


Quercetin is the aglycone form of a number of other flavonoid glycosides, such as rutin (also known as quercetin-3-O-rutinoside) and quercitrin, found in citrus fruit, buckwheat and onions. Quercetin forms the glycosides quercitrin and rutin together with rhamnose and rutinose, respectively. Likewise guaijaverin is the 3-O-arabinoside, hyperoside is the 3-O-galactoside, isoquercitin is the 3-O-glucoside and spiraeoside is the 4′-O-glucoside. CTN-986 is a quercetin derivative found in cottonseeds and cottonseed oil. Miquelianin is the quercetin 3-O-β-D-glucuronopyranoside.
A number of taxifolin (also known as dihydroquercetin) glycosides also exists.
Isoquercetin is the 3-O-glucoside of quercetin.


Quercetin is a plant flavonol from the flavonoid group of polyphenols. It is found in many fruits, vegetables, leaves, seeds, and grains; capers, red onions, and kale are common foods containing appreciable amounts of it. It has a bitter flavor and is used as an ingredient in dietary supplements, beverages, and foods.


Austria, officially the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in the southern part of Central Europe, situated at Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital Vienna, the largest city and state by population. The country is bordered by Germany to the northwest, the Czech Republic to the north, Slovakia to the northeast, Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. It occupies an area of 83,879 km² (32,386 sq mi) and has a population of 9 million people.
Austria emerged from the remnants of the Eastern and Hungarian March at the end of the first millennium. Originally a margraviate of Bavaria, it later developed into a duchy of the Holy Roman Empire in 1156, and then an archduchy in 1453. As of the 16th century, Vienna began serving as the administrative imperial capital and Austria thus became the heartland of the House of Habsburg. Following the Empire's dissolution in 1806, Austria established its own empire, which became a great power and the dominant member of the German Confederation. The Austrian Empire's defeat in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 led to the end of the Confederation and paved the way for the establishment of Austria-Hungary a year later.
Following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, Emperor Franz Joseph declared war on Serbia, which ultimately escalated into World War I. The Empire's defeat and subsequent collapse led to the proclamation of the Republic of German-Austria in 1918 and later the First Austrian Republic in 1919. During the interwar period, anti-parliamentarian sentiments culminated in the formation of an Austrofascist dictatorship under Engelbert Dollfuss in 1934. A year before the outbreak of World War II, Austria was annexed into Nazi Germany by Adolf Hitler, and it became a sub-national division. Following its liberation in 1945 and an extended period of Allied occupation, the country regained its sovereignty and declared its perpetual neutrality in 1955.
Austria is a parliamentary representative democracy with a popularly elected president as head of state and a chancellor as head of government and chief executive. Major urban areas include Vienna, Graz, Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck. Austria is consistently listed as one of the richest countries in the world by GDP per capita, one of the countries with the highest standard of living, and was ranked 18th in the world for its Human Development Index in 2020.
Austria has been a member of the United Nations since 1955 and of the European Union since 1995. It plays host to the OSCE and OPEC and is a founding member of the OECD and Interpol. It also signed the Schengen Agreement in 1995, and adopted the euro currency in 1999.