Archery is the art, practice, or skill of using a bow to shoot arrows. The word comes from the Latin arcus. Archery has been used for hunting and combat. In modern times, it is a competitive sport and recreational activity. A person who participates in archery is called an archer or a bowman, a person, fond of or an expert at archery is sometimes called a toxophilite; the oldest known evidence of arrows comes from the South African site of Sibudu Cave, where the remains of bone and stone arrowheads have been found dating 60,000-70,000 years ago. Based on indirect evidence, the bow seems to have appeared or reappeared in Eurasia near the transition from the Upper Paleolithic to the Mesolithic; the earliest definite remains of bow and arrow from Europe are possible fragments from Germany found at Mannheim-Vogelstang dated 17,500-18,000 years ago, at Stellmoor dated 11,000 years ago. Azilian points found in Grotte du Bichon, alongside the remains of both a bear and a hunter, with flint fragments found in the bear's third vertebra, suggest the use of arrows at 13,500 years ago.
Other signs of its use in Europe come from the Stellmoor in the Ahrensburg valley north of Hamburg and dates from the late Paleolithic, about 10,000–9000 BC. The arrows were made of pine and consisted of a main shaft and a 15–20-centimetre-long fore shaft with a flint point. There are no definite earlier bows; the oldest bows known so far comes from the Holmegård swamp in Denmark. At the site of Nataruk in Turkana County, obsidian bladelets found embedded in a skull and within the thoracic cavity of another skeleton, suggest the use of stone-tipped arrows as weapons about 10,000 years ago. Bows replaced the spear-thrower as the predominant means for launching shafted projectiles, on every continent except Australasia, though spear-throwers persisted alongside the bow in parts of the Americas, notably Mexico and among the Inuit. Bows and arrows have been present in Egyptian and neighboring Nubian culture since its respective predynastic and Pre-Kerma origins. In the Levant, artifacts that could be arrow-shaft straighteners are known from the Natufian culture, onwards.
The Khiamian and PPN A shouldered. Classical civilizations, notably the Assyrians, Armenians, Parthians, Koreans and Japanese fielded large numbers of archers in their armies. Akkadians were the first to use composite bows in war according to the victory stele of Naram-Sin of Akkad. Egyptians referred to Nubia as "Ta-Seti," or "The Land of the Bow," since the Nubians were known to be expert archers, by the 16th Century BC Egyptians were using the composite bow in warfare; the Bronze Age Aegean Cultures were able to deploy a number of state-owned specialized bow makers for warfare and hunting purposes from the 15th century BC. The Welsh longbow proved its worth for the first time in Continental warfare at the Battle of Crécy. In the Americas archery was widespread at European contact. Archery was developed in Asia; the Sanskrit term for archery, came to refer to martial arts in general. In East Asia, one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea was well known for its regiments of exceptionally skilled archers.
Central tribesmen of Asia and American Plains Indians became adept at archery on horseback. Armored, but mobile archers were excellently suited to warfare in the Central Asian steppes, they formed a large part of armies that conquered large areas of Eurasia. Shorter bows are more suited to use on horseback, the composite bow enabled mounted archers to use powerful weapons. Empires throughout the Eurasian landmass strongly associated their respective "barbarian" counterparts with the usage of the bow and arrow, to the point where powerful states like the Han Dynasty referred to their neighbors, the Xiong-nu, as "Those Who Draw the Bow". For example, Xiong-nu mounted bowmen made them more than a match for the Han military, their threat was at least responsible for Chinese expansion into the Ordos region, to create a stronger, more powerful buffer zone against them, it is possible that "barbarian" peoples were responsible for introducing archery or certain types of bows to their "civilized" counterparts—the Xiong-nu and the Han being one example.
Short bows seem to have been introduced to Japan by northeast Asian groups. The development of firearms rendered bows obsolete in warfare, although efforts were sometimes made to preserve archery practice. In England and Wales, for example, the government tried to enforce practice with the longbow until the end of the 16th century; this was because it was recognized that the bow had been instrumental to military success during the Hundred Years' War. Despite the high social status, ongoing utility, widespread pleasure of archery in Armenia, Egypt and Wales, India, Korea and elsewhere every culture that gained access to early firearms used them to the neglect of archery. Early firearms were inferior in rate-of-fire, were sensitive to wet weather. However, they had longer effective range and were tactically superior in the common situation of soldiers shooting at each other from behind obstructions, they required less training to use properly, in particular penetrating steel armor without any need to develop special musculature.
Armies equipped with guns could thus provide superior firepower, trained archers became obsolete on
Pacta sunt servanda, a brocard, is a basic principle of civil law, canon law, international law. In its most common sense, the principle refers to private contracts, stressing that contained clauses are law between the parties, implies that nonfulfillment of respective obligations is a breach of the pact; the maxim first appears in the writings of the canonist Cardinal Hostiensis, written in the 13th century but published in the 16th. In civil law jurisdictions this principle is related to the general principle of correct behavior in commercial practice – including the assumption of good faith – is a requirement for the efficacy of the whole system, so the eventual disorder is sometimes punished by the law of some systems without any direct penalty incurred by any of the parties. However, common law jurisdictions do not have the principle of good faith in commercial contracts, therefore it is inappropriate to state that pacta sunt servanda includes the principle of good faith. With reference to international agreements, "every treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith."
This entitles states to require that obligations be respected and to rely upon the obligations being respected. This good faith basis of treaties implies that a party to the treaty cannot invoke provisions of its municipal law as justification for a failure to perform. However, with regards to the Vienna Convention and the UNIDROIT Principles it should be kept in mind that these are influenced by civil law jurisdictions. To derive from these sources that pacta sunt servanda includes the principle of good faith is therefore incorrect; the only limit to pacta sunt servanda are the peremptory norms of general international law, called jus cogens. The legal principle clausula rebus sic stantibus, part of customary international law allows for treaty obligations to be unfulfilled due to a compelling change in circumstances. Breach of contract Breach of the peace Efficient breach of contract Fundamental breach Hugo Grotius List of Latin phrases List of legal Latin terms Richard Hyland. “Pacta sunt servanda: a meditation”, Virginia Journal of International Law 34, no. 2: 405–433.
The Dien Sanh train crash occurred on 10 March 2015 when a passenger train struck a lorry obstructing the line on a level crossing near Dien Sanh station, Quảng Trị Province, Vietnam. One person was killed and four were injured. At 22:15 local time, a Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City passenger train collided with a lorry on a level crossing near Dien Sanh station in Quảng Trị Province; the crossing carried National Route 1A across the North–South Railway. The train consisted of D19E locomotive № fourteen carriages; the locomotive and three carriages derailed, killing the train driver and injuring four other people, including the lorry driver. Several more were reported to have been injured; the train was carrying 600 passengers. Following the accident, the eleven carriages that remained on the rails were taken to Đông Hà. Clearance of the line began at 02:10 on 11 March.. Damage was estimated at VND 23 billion; the locomotive was destroyed, two carriages and a dining car were damaged. Over 120 metres of track was destroyed.