human geo HIs

PAP HUMAN GEOGRAPHY -- GEOGRAPHIC IDENTIFIES

Source: Wikipedia.com

First Six Weeks

Cultural Hearths

Old Kingdom

The Old Kingdom is the name commonly given to that period in the 3rd millennium BC when Egypt attained its first continuous peak of civilization in complexity and achievement – this was the first of three so-called "Kingdom" periods, which mark the high points of civilization in the lower Nile Valley (the others being Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom). The Old Kingdom is most commonly regarded as spanning the period of time when Egypt was ruled by the Third Dynasty through to the Sixth Dynasty (2686 BC – 2134 BC). Many Egyptologists also include the Memphite Seventh and Eighth Dynasties in the Old Kingdom as a continuation of the administration centralized at Memphis. The Old Kingdom was followed by a period of disunity and relative cultural decline referred to by Egyptologists as the First Intermediate Period.

Middle Kingdom

he Middle Kingdom is a period in the history of ancient Egypt stretching from the establishment of the Eleventh Dynasty to the end of the Fourteenth Dynasty, roughly between 2030 BC and 1640 BC.The period comprises two phases, the 11th Dynasty, which ruled from Thebes and the 12th Dynasty onwards which was centred around el-Lisht. These two dynasties were originally considered to be the full extent of this unified kingdom, but historians now ^[1] consider the 13th Dynasty to at least partially belong to the Middle Kingdom.

New Kingdom

The New Kingdom is the period in ancient Egyptian history between the 16th century BCE and the 11th century BCE, covering the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Twentieth Dynasties of Egypt. The New Kingdom (1570–1070 BCE) followed the Second Intermediate Period, and was succeeded by the Third Intermediate Period.

Great Wall

The Great Wall of China (Simplified Chinese: 长城; Traditional Chinese: 長城; Pinyin: Chángchéng; literally "Long wall") or (Simplified Chinese: 万里长城; Traditional Chinese: 萬里長城; Pinyin: Wànlǐ Chángchéng; literally "The long wall of 10,000 Li which is similar to kilometers/miles (里)"^[1]) is a series of sandstone and earthen fortifications in China, built, rebuilt, and maintained between the 5th century BC and the 16th century to protect the northern borders of the Chinese Empire during the rule of successive dynasties. Several walls, referred to as the Great Wall of China, were built since the 5th century BC, the most famous being the one built between 220 BC and 200 BC by the first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang. That wall was much farther north than the current wall, built during the Ming Dynasty, and little of it remains.

The Great Wall is the world's longest human-made structure, stretching over approximately 6,400 km (4,000 miles)^[2] from Shanhai Pass in the east to Lop Nur in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia. It is also the largest human-made structure ever built in terms of surface area and mass.

Tigris River

The Tigris is the eastern member of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, along with the Euphrates, which flows from the mountains of Turkey through Iraq.

Euphrates River

The Euphrates (IPA: /juːˈfreɪtiːz/) (Turkish: Fırat, Assyrian: ܦܪܬ) is the western of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia (the other being the Tigris) which flows from Anatolia, Turkey.

Nile River

The Nile (Arabic: النيل, transliteration: an-nīl, Ancient Egyptian iteru, Coptic piaro or phiaro) is a major north-flowing river in Africa, generally regarded as the longest river in the world.^[1] The Nile has two major tributaries, the White Nile and Blue Nile, the latter being the source of most of the Nile's water and fertile soil, but the former being the longer of the two. The White Nile rises in the Great Lakes region of central Africa, with the most distant source in southern Rwanda 2°16′55.92″S, 29°19′52.32″E, and flows north from there through Tanzania, Lake Victoria, Uganda and southern Sudan, while the Blue Nile starts at Lake Tana in Ethiopia 12°2′8.8″N, 37°15′53.11″E, flowing into Sudan from the southeast. The two rivers meet near the Sudanese capital Khartoum.The northern section of the river flows almost entirely through desert, from Sudan into Egypt, a country whose civilization has depended on the river since ancient times. Most of the population of Egypt and all of its cities, with the exception of those near the coast, lie along those parts of the Nile valley north of Aswan; and nearly all the cultural and historical sites of Ancient Egypt are found along the banks of the river.The Nile ends in a large delta that empties into the Mediterranean Sea.

Yellow River

llow River or Huang He (Traditional Chinese: 黃河; Simplified Chinese: 黄河; Hanyu Pinyin: Huáng Hélisten (help·info); Wade-Giles: Hwang-ho, sometimes simply called the River in ancient Chinese, Mongolian: Hatan Gol) is the second longest river in China (after the Yangtze River) and the sixth longest in the world, at 5,464 km (3,398 mi) long.^[1] Originating in the Bayankala Mountains in Qinghai Province in western China, it flows through nine provinces of China and empties into the Bohai Sea. The Yellow River basin has an east-west distance of 1900 km, and north-south distance of 1100 km. Total basin area is 752,443 km².

The Yellow River is called the "Mother River of China" and "the Cradle of Chinese Civilization" in China, as its basin is the birth-place of the northern Chinese civilizations and the most prosperous region in early Chinese history. But frequent devastating flooding, largely due to the elevated river bed in its lower course, has also earned it the unenviable distinction as "China's Sorrow".

Minoan Civilization

The Minoan civilization was a bronze age civilization which arose on Crete, an island in the Aegean Sea. The Minoan culture flourished from approximately 2700 to 1450 BC; afterwards, Mycenaean Greek culture became dominant on Crete.

The term "Minoan" was coined by the British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans after the mythic King Minos.^[1] Minos was associated in myth with the labyrinth, which Evans identified as the site at Knossos. What the Minoans called themselves is unknown. It has sometimes been argued that the Egyptian place name "Keftiu" (*kaftāw) and the Semitic "Kaftor" or "Caphtor" and "Kaptara" in the Mari archives apparently refer to the island of Crete. In the Odyssey which was composed after the destruction of the Minoan civilization, Homer calls the natives of Crete Eteocretans ("true Cretans"); these may have been descendants of the Minoans.

Minoan palaces are the best known building types to have been excavated on the island. They are monumental buildings serving administrative purposes as evidenced by the large archives unearthed by archaeologists. Each of the palaces excavated to date have their own unique features, but they also share features which set them apart from other structures. The palaces were often multi-storied with interior and exterior staircases, light wells, massive columns, storage magazines and courtyards.

Chinese character writing

A Chinese character or Han character (Simplified Chinese: 汉字; Traditional Chinese: 漢字; Pinyin: Hànzì) is a logogram used in writing Chinese, Japanese, sometimes Korean, and formerly Vietnamese.

The number of Chinese characters contained in the Kangxi dictionary is approximately 47,035, although a large number of these are rarely-used variants accumulated throughout history. Studies carried out in China have shown that full literacy requires a knowledge of between three and four thousand characters.^[1]

In Chinese tradition, each character corresponds to a single syllable. A majority of words in all modern varieties of Chinese are polysyllabic and thus require two or more characters to write. Cognates in the various Chinese languages/dialects which have the same or similar meaning but different pronunciations can be written with the same character. In addition, many characters were adopted according to their meaning by the Japanese and Korean languages to represent native words, disregarding pronunciation altogether. The loose relationship between phonetics and characters has thus made it possible for them to be used to write very different and probably unrelated languages.

Chinese characters are also known as sinographs, and the Chinese writing system as sinography. Non-Chinese languages which have adopted sinography — and, with the orthography, a large number of loanwords from the Chinese language — are known as Sinoxenic languages, whether or not they still use the characters. The term does not imply any genetic affiliation with Chinese. The major Sinoxenic languages are generally considered to be Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese.

North America

Tornado Alley

Tornado Alley is a colloquial term most often used in reference to the area of the United States in which tornadoes are most frequent. Although an official location of the term is not defined, the areas in between the Rocky Mountains and Appalachian Mountains are the areas usually associated with it.

Mt McKinney

Mount McKinley or Denali in Alaska is the highest mountain peak in North America, at a height of approximately 20,320 feet (6,194 m)^[1]. It is the centerpiece of Denali National Park. The mountain is also known as Bolshaya Gora (Большая Гора), meaning Big Mountain, in Russian.

The Great Lakes

The Laurentian Great Lakes are a group of five large lakes in North America on or near the Canada-United States border. They are the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth. The Great Lakes–St. Lawrence system is the largest freshwater system in the world. They are sometimes referred to as inland seas. (See also: Third Coast.)

The Great Basin

The Great Basin is a large, arid region of the western United States. Its boundaries depend on how it is defined. Its most common definition is the contiguous watershed, roughly between the Wasatch Mountains, in Utah and the Sierra Nevada, that has no natural outlet to the sea. The Great Basin Desert is defined by the extent of characteristic plant species, and covers a somewhat different (and smaller) area. The Great Basin Culture Area, home to several Shoshonean Great Basin tribes, extends further to the north and east than the hydrographic basin. The Basin and Range Province is a geologic region that is most recognizable in the Great Basin but extends well into the Sonoran and Mojave Deserts.

Remove links

The Pacific Ranges

The Pacific Coast Ranges are the series of mountain ranges that stretch along the west coast of North America from Alaska to northern and central Mexico. They are also known as the Pacific Cordillera, especially in Canada, where this term also includes the Rockies and Columbia Mountains and others.^[1]

The character of the ranges varies considerably, from the record-setting tidewater glaciers in the ranges of Alaska, to the low but rugged and scrub-covered hills of southern California, but the entire coast is consistent in dropping steeply into the sea, often resulting in photogenic views. Along the British Columbia and Alaska coast, the mountains intermix with the sea in a complex maze of fjords, with thousands of islands.

There are a handful of small coastal plains at the mouths of rivers that have punched through the mountains, most notably at the Copper River in Alaska, the Fraser River in British Columbia, the Columbia River between Washington and Oregon, and the Sacramento River in California, the last creating San Francisco Bay.

From the vicinity of San Francisco Bay north, it is common in winter for cool unstable air masses from the Gulf of Alaska to make landfall in one of the Coast Ranges, resulting in heavy precipitation, both as rain and snow, especially on their western slopes.

The Rocky Mountains

The Geology of the Rocky Mountains formed a majestic mountain barrier that stretches from Canada through central New Mexico. Although formidable, a look at the topography reveals a discontinuous series of mountain ranges with distinct geological origins.

The Rocky Mountains took shape during a period of intense plate tectonic activity that formed much of the rugged landscape of the western United States. Three major mountain-building episodes reshaped the west from about 170 to 40 million years ago (Jurassic to Cenozoic Periods). The last mountain building event, the Laramide orogeny, (about 70-40 million years ago) the last of the three episodes, is responsible for raising the Rocky Mountains.

Death Valley is a valley in the U.S. states of California and Nevada, and is the location of the lowest elevation in North America at 282 ft (86 m) below sea level. (It is often mistakenly described as the lowest elevation in the Western Hemisphere, but that is actually Laguna del Carbón [1] in Argentina at –105 m (344 ft).) Located southeast of the Sierra Nevada range in the Great Basin and the Mojave Desert, it constitutes much of Death Valley National Park. It runs north-south between the Amargosa Range to the east and the Panamint Range to the west; the Sylvania Mountains and the Owlshead Mountains form its northern and southern boundaries, respectively. It has an area of about 3,000 square miles (~7,800 km²).

Great Bear Lake

Great Bear Lake (Slavey: Sahtú, French: Grand lac de l'Ours) is the largest lake entirely within Canada (Lake Superior and Lake Huron straddling the Canada-US border are larger), the third largest in North America, and the seventh largest in the world.^[1] The lake is situated on the Arctic Circle between 65 and 67 degrees of northern latitude and between 118 and 123 degrees western longitude, 186 m (610 ft) above sea level.

The lake has a surface area of 31,153 km² (12,028 mi²) and a total volume of 2,236 km³ (536 mi³). Its maximum depth is 446 m (1,463 ft) and its average depth 72 m (236 ft). The total shoreline is 2,719 km (1,690 mi) and the total catchment area of the lake is 114,717 km² (44,293 mi²).

The lake empties through the Great Bear River (Sahtúdé) into the Mackenzie River. The only community on the lake is Deline, Northwest Territories at the southwest end.

The Sahtú Dene people took their name from the lake.

Canadian Shield

The Canadian Shield — also called the Precambrian Shield, Laurentian Shield, Laurentian Plateau, or Bouclier Canadien (French) — is a large shield covered by a thin layer of soil that forms the nucleus of the North American craton. It has a deep, common, joined bedrock region in eastern and central Canada and stretches North from the Great Lakes to the Arctic Ocean, covering half the country. It also includes most of Greenland and extends into the United States as the Adirondack Mountains and the Northern Highland. The Canadian Shield is U-shape, but almost circular, which gives it an appearance of a warrior's shield or a giant horseshoe, and is a subsection of the Laurentia craton signifying the area of greatest glacial impact (scraping down to bare rock) creating the thin soils.

The Canadian Shield was the first part of North America to be permanently elevated above sea level and has remained almost wholly untouched by successive encroachments of the sea upon the continent. It is the earth's greatest area of exposed Archaean rock. The metamorphic base rocks are mostly from the Precambrian Era (between 4.5 billion and 540 million years ago), and have been repeatedly uplifted and eroded. Today it consists largely of an area of low relief (1,000–2,000 ft/300–600 m above sea level) with a few monadnocks and low mountain ranges (including the Torngat and Laurentian Mountains) probably eroded from the plateau during the Cenozoic era. During the Pleistocene epoch, continental ice sheets depressed the land surface (see Hudson Bay), scooped out thousands of lake basins, and carried away much of the region's soil.

Hydrographical drainage is generally poor, the effects of glaciation being one of the reasons. The Canadian shield is covered by boreal forests in the south, while tundra prevails in the northern regions. Population is scarce, and industrial development is minimal^[1], however the region has a large water-power potential and is a source of ore and timber. Many mammals such as caribou, wolverines, weasels, mink, otters, grizzlies and black bears are also present in this area^[2].

Second Six Weeks

Latin America

Gauchos of Argentina

Gaucho (gaúcho in Portuguese) is a term commonly used to describe residents of the South American pampas, chacos or Patagonian grasslands, found principally in parts of Argentina, Uruguay, Southern Chile and Rio Grande do Sul state in southern Brazil. In Brazil it is used to call people born in the Rio Grande do Sul state.

The word gaucho could be described as a loose equivalent to the North American "cowboy". Like the North American word cowboy, Venezuelan or Colombian llanero, or Chilean huaso, or the Mexican vaquero, the term often connotes the 19th century more than the present day; then gauchos made up the majority of the rural pampas population, herding cattle and practicing agriculture as their main economic activities.

Atacama Desert

The Atacama Desert is a virtually rainless plateau in South America, extending 966 km (600 mi) between the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean. It is created by the rain shadow of the Andes east of the desert. Its area is 181,300 square kilometers (70,000 mi²)^[1], in northern Chile. It is made up of salt basins (salares), sand and lava flows, and is 15 million years old and 100 times more arid than California's Death Valley.

Lake Titicaca

sits at 3,812 m (12,507 feet) above sea level making it the highest commercially navigable lake in the world. By volume of water it is also the largest lake in South America.

Rio de Janeiro

(IPA: Portuguese: [ˈhiw dʒi ʒʌˈnejɾu], "River of January" English ['ɹioʊ deɪ ʒəˈnɛɹoʊ]) is the second major city in southeastern Brazil, behind only São Paulo. The city is capital of the state of Rio de Janeiro. The city was once the capital of Brazil (1763–1960) and of the Portuguese Empire (1808–1821). Commonly known as just Rio, the city is also nicknamed A Cidade Maravilhosa - "The Marvelous City".

Remove links

Iguaçu Falls are waterfalls of the Iguazu River located on the border of the Brazilian state of Paraná and the Argentine province of Missions. The falls divide the river into the upper and lower Iguazu.

Río de la Plata

Río de la Plata (Spanish: "Silver River") — which is often referred to in English-speaking countries as the River Plate (as in the Battle of the River Plate), or sometimes as the [La] Plata River — is the estuary formed by the combination of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River. It is a funnel-shaped indentation on the southeastern coastline of South America, extending 290 kilometres (180 mi) from the rivers' confluence to the Atlantic Ocean.

Angel Falls

(indigenous name: Parekupa-meru) is the world's highest free-falling, freshwater waterfall at 979 m (3,212 ft), with an uninterrupted drop of 807 m (2,648 ft). It is located in the Canaima National Park, in the Gran Sabana region of Bolivar State, Venezuela at 5°58′03″N, 62°32′08″WCoordinates: 5°58′03″N, 62°32′08″W. The height of the falls is so great that before getting anywhere near the ground the water is buffeted by the strong winds and turned into mist.

Amazon River

The Amazon River or River Amazon (Portuguese: Rio Amazonas; Spanish: Río Amazonas) of South America is the largest river in the world by volume, with greater total river flow than the next eight largest rivers combined, and with the largest drainage basin in the world. Because of its vast dimensions it is sometimes called The River Sea (o rio-mar in Portuguese), and at no point is it crossed by bridges.^[1]

The Andes is South America's longest mountain range^[1], forming a continuous chain of highland along the western coast of South America. It is over 7,000 km (4,400 miles) long, 500 km (300 miles) wide in some parts (widest between 18° to 20°S latitude), and of an average height of about 4,000 m (13,000 ft).

Trans-Andean Highway, Peru

Highest highway in the world, that took cooperation of several countries to build.

N/A

Francisco Pizarro González, marqués de los Atabillos (c. 1471–June 26, 1541) was a Spanish conquistador, conqueror of the Inca Empire and founder of Lima, La Ciudad de los Reyes, capital of Peru. Pizarro was born in Trujillo, Extremadura, Spain. Sources differ in the birth year they assign to him: 1471, 1475–1478, or unknown. He was an illegitimate son of Gonzalo Pizarro Rodríguez de Aguilar (senior) who as colonel of infantry served in the Italian campaigns under Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, and in Navarre, with some distinction. His mother was Francisca González Mateos, a woman of slender means from Trujillo. Through his father, Francisco was second cousin to Hernán Cortés, the famed conquistador of Mexico.

Hernán(do) Cortés Pizarro, 1st Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca (1485–December 2, 1547) was a Spanish conquistador who initiated the conquest of the Aztec Empire on behalf of Charles V, king of Castile and Holy Roman Emperor, in the early 16th century. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish colonizers that began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.

The Panama Canal (Spanish: Canal de Panamá) is a major ship canal that traverses the Isthmus of Panama in Central America, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Construction of the canal was one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken. It has had an enormous impact on shipping between the two oceans, replacing the long and treacherous route via the Drake Passage and Cape Horn at the southernmost tip of South America.

A schematic of the Panama Canal, illustrating the sequence of locks and passages

Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar Palacios y Blanco called El Libertador (born July 24, 1783 in Caracas, Captaincy General of Venezuela – died December 17, 1830, in Santa Marta, Colombia) was a leader of several independence movements throughout South America, collectively known as Bolívar's War.

José Francisco de San Martín Matorras, also known as José de San Martín (25 February 1778 – 17 August 1850), was an Argentine general and the prime leader of the southern part of South America's successful struggle for independence from Spain. Born on February 25, 1778 in Yapeyú, he left his mother country at an early age and studied in Madrid, Spain where he met and befriended Chilean Bernardo O'Higgins. In 1808, after joining the Spanish forces to fight against the French, and participating in several battles such as the Battle of Bailén and Battle of Albuera, San Martín started making contact with South American supporters of independence.

François-Dominique Toussaint Louverture pronunciation (help·info), also Toussaint Bréda, Toussaint-Louverture (born 20 May 1743 - died April 8, 1803) was an important leader of the Haïtian Revolution and the first leader of a free Haiti. In a long struggle again the institution of slavery, he led the blacks to victory over the whites and free coloreds and secured native control over the colony in 1797, calling himself a dictator. He expelled the French commissioner, Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, as well as the British armies, invaded Santo Domingo to free the slaves there, and wrote a constitution naming himself governor for life that established a new polity for the colony.

Remove links

Diego Rivera (born Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was a communist and world-famous Mexican painter influenced by Cézanne. Born in Guanajuato City, Rivera's large wall works in fresco, as well as those by Orozco, and Siqueiros, helped established the Mexican Mural Renaissance. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted murals in Mexico City, Chapingo, Cuernavaca, San Francisco, Detroit, New York City.^[1] His retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City was their second. Rivera paintings are exhibited by many of the greatest museums. When his patron discovered in 1933 that Rivera had painted a portrait of Lenin in the mural Man at the Crossroads at Rockefeller Center, Nelson Rockefeller angrily insisted the figure be painted out. Rivera refused and Rockefeller fired him and destroyed the unfinished work (dramatized by the Cradle Will Rock and Frida movies).

Remove links

Machu Picchu (Quechua: Machu Pikchu "Old Peak") is a pre-Columbian Inca city located at 2,430 m (7,970 ft) altitude^[1] on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in Peru, about 70 km (44 mi) northwest of Cusco. Machu Picchu is probably the most familiar symbol of the Inca Empire. It is often referred to as "The Lost City of the Incas". The site was designated as a World Heritage Site in 1983 when it was described as "an absolute masterpiece of architecture and a unique testimony to the Inca civilization".^[2]

Tenochtitlan or Mexico-Tenochtitlan was the capital of the Aztec civilization, built on an island in Lake Texcoco in what is now the Distrito Federal in central Mexico. It was founded in 1325 when according to legend a tribe of Nahua people settled on the island following the commandment of their god Huitzilopochtli. By 1428 the Aztec state had emerged and Tenochtitlan was the most important city in Mesoamerica. At its height it was one of the largest cities in the world, with over 200,000 inhabitants.

Tenochtitlan, looking east. From the mural painting at the National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City. Painted in 1930 by Dr Atl.

Coca is a plant in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to north-western South America. The plant plays a significant role in traditional Andean culture. It is used by Andean cultures such as the Chibcha family of Colombia and Quechua family of Peru as a messenger from the Gods, but is best known in most of the world for the stimulant drug cocaine that is chemically extracted from its new fresh leaf tips in a similar fashion to tea bush harvesting. Unprocessed coca leaves are also commonly used in the Andean countries to make a herbal tea with mild stimulant effects similar to strong coffee.

Cinco de Mayo ("5th of May" in Spanish) is primarily a regional, and not a federal, holiday in Mexico.^[1]^[2] The date is observed in the United States and other locations around the world as a celebration of Mexican heritage and pride.

N/A

Quechua (Runa Simi; Kichwa in Ecuador) is a Native American language of South America. It was the language of the Inca Empire, and is today spoken in various dialects (Quechuas) by some 10 million people throughout South America, including Peru, south-western and central Bolivia, southern Colombia and Ecuador, north-western Argentina and northern Chile. It is the most widely spoken language of the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

N/A

Voodoo (known as Vodou, Vodoun, Vudu, or Vudun in Benin, Togo, and southeastern Ghana; djudju in Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, and Senegal; and Vodou in Haiti) is a name attributed to a traditionally West African spiritual system of faith and ritual practices. The core functions of Voodoo are to explain the forces of the universe, influence those forces, and influence human behavior. Voodoo's oral tradition of faith stories carries genealogy, history and fables to succeeding generations. Adherents honor deities and venerate ancient and recent ancestors. This faith system is widespread across groups in West Africa. The African diaspora spread Voodoo to North and South America, the Caribbean.

N/A

Europe

The Crusades

The Crusades were a series of campaigns to reclaim the holy lands (Jerusalem) in the name of the Church. There were four major campaigns lasting from the 10th to the 13th century. Christians from all over Europe heeded the call of the Church to fight for the faith. The problem was Muslims fought back, and through it all manage to remain in control of the region following the last crusade. In terms of human geography the crusades created an opportunity to have a cultural exchange.

The Age of Discovery

The search over the next hill is part of the human condition. From the 15th century to the present Mankind has sought to discover the world. Starting with Henry the Navigator, the king of Portugal, Europe sought to expand its reach in the world. (Portugal sought to go around Africa to the reach the East.) Spain quickly followed with Columbus and the New World. (The Spanish sought a Western route to the East.)

Within 2 centuries of its beginning the Age of Discovery had accomplished much of it goal -- knowledge of the world. Today, the Age of Discovery continues in our search of the cosmos and the micro-universe. Man will never stop searching for that which he does not know.

Renaissance

The Renaissance means a rebirth of the classical, the classical past, the classical myth, and Judeo-Christian themes. During it (1300 – 1600) scholars, artists, and philosophers looked to ancient Greece and Rome for the answers they needed in their century. Knowledge lost during the Middle Ages was found and re-learned. This cultural re-awakening occurred first in Florence and other city-states in Italy. It then spread to the rest of Europe. Great artists like Raphael, Michelangelo, and Leonardo set the standard for the period.

The geographic significance of the Renaissance is huge. It altered Western architecture, learning, thinking, and belief systems. When these things changed, human geography changed.

The International Court of Justice (known colloquially as the World Court or ICJ; French: Cour internationale de Justice) is the primary judicial organ of the United Nations. It is based in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands, sharing the building with the Hague Academy of International Law, a private centre for the study of international law. Several of the Court's current judges are either alumni or former faculty members of the Academy.

Chernobyl is an abandoned city in northern Ukraine, in the Kiev Oblast (province) near the border with Belarus (51°16′N, 30°13′E).The city was evacuated in 1986 due to the incident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, which is located 14.5 kilometers (9 miles) north-northwest. The power plant was named after the city, and located in Chernobyl Raion (district), but was not the residence of the power plant workers. At the time of the power plant's construction, a twin city of Chernobyl, Prypiat was built to be closer to the plant for workers.

Chernobyl area. Taken from the Russian Mir space station in 1997. Chernobyl Satellite Map

The term "acid rain" is commonly used to mean the deposition of acidic components in rain, snow, fog, dew, or dry particles. The more accurate term is "acid precipitation." Distilled water, which contains no carbon dioxide, has a neutral pH of 7. Liquids with a pH less than 7 are acidic, and those with a pH greater than 7 are basic pH. "Clean" or unpolluted rain has a slightly acidic pH of 5.6, because carbon dioxide and water in the air react together to form carbonic acid, a weak acid. The extra acidity in rain comes from the reaction of air pollutants, primarily sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides, with water in the air to form strong acids (like sulfuric and nitric acid). The main sources of these pollutants are vehicles and industrial and power-generating plants.

N/A

Autobahn (help·info) (IPA: [ˈaʊtoːbaːn]) is the German word for a major high-speed road restricted to motor vehicles and having full control of access, similar to a motorway or freeway in English-speaking countries. In most countries, it usually refers to the German autobahn specifically. The recommended speed of the German autobahn is 130 km/h. Austrian and Swiss autobahns have general speed limits of 130 km/h and 120 km/h, respectively. In German, the word is pronounced as described above, and its plural is Autobahnen; in English, however, the segment "auto" is typically pronounced as in other English words such as "automobile". The official name of the autobahn in Germany is Bundesautobahn (BAB) (Federal Motorway). Autobahns are built and maintained by the federal government (as are the federal highways), thus the name "Federal Motorway". When first built in the 1930s the official name was "Reichsautobahn" (Motorways of the Reich).

The European Union (EU) is a political and economic community with supranational and intergovernmental dimensions. It is composed of twenty-seven member states primarily located in Europe. In 1957, six European countries formed the European Economic Community (EEC) by the Treaty of Rome. Since then the EU has grown in size through the accession of new member states and has increased its powers by the addition of new policy areas to its remit. In 1993, the Maastricht Treaty established the base of the current legal framework.

N/A

The Cold War was the period of conflict, tension and competition between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies from the mid-1940s until the early 1990s. Throughout the period, the rivalry between the two superpowers was played out in multiple arenas: military coalitions; ideology, psychology, and espionage; military, industrial, and technological developments, including the space race; costly defense spending; a massive conventional and nuclear arms race; and many proxy wars.

N/A

The Holocaust is the term generally used to describe the killing of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, as part of a program of deliberate extermination planned and executed by the National Socialist German Workers Party in Germany led by Adolf Hitler.

^{Couldn't you list some of the camps?}

N/A

Normandy (in French: Normandie, and in Norman: Normaundie) is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is situated along the coasts of the south of the English Channel between Brittany (to the west) and Picardy (to the east) and comprises territory in northern France and the Channel Islands. The territory is divided between French and British sovereignty. The continental territory under French sovereignty covers 30,627 km²^[1] and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions: Basse-Normandie and Haute-Normandie. The Channel Islands (referred to as Iles Anglo-Normandes in French) comprise two bailiwicks: Guernsey and Jersey.

What is the importance of this one?

World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a worldwide military conflict; the amalgamation of two separate conflicts, one beginning in Asia, 1937, as the Second Sino-Japanese War and the other beginning in Europe, 1939, with the invasion of Poland. It is regarded as the historical successor to World War I.This global conflict split a majority of the world's nations into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. Spanning much of the globe, World War II resulted in the deaths of over 70 million people, making it the deadliest conflict in human history.^[1]

N/A

The Industrial Revolution was a period in the late 18th and early 19th centuries when major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation had a profound effect on socioeconomic and cultural conditions in Britain and subsequently spread throughout the world, a process that continues as industrialisation. The onset of the Industrial Revolution marked a major turning point in human social history, comparable to the invention of farming or the rise of the first city-states; almost every aspect of daily life and human society was eventually influenced in some way.

Remove links!

N/A

The Middle Ages form the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three "ages": the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages and Modern Times.The Middle Ages are commonly dated from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Renaissance in the 15th century. These dates are approximate, and are based upon nuanced arguments; for other dating schemes and the reasoning behind them, see "periodisation issues", below.

N/A

Classics or Classical Studies is the branch of the Humanities dealing with the languages, literature, history, art, and other aspects of the ancient Mediterranean world; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during the time known as classical antiquity, roughly spanning from the Ancient Greek Bronze Age in 1000 BC to the Dark Ages circa AD 500. The study of the Classics was the initial field of study in the humanities. The word "Classics" also refers to the literature of that period.

N/A

North sea oil- refers to oil and natural gas (hydrocarbons) produced from oil reservoirs beneath the North Sea. In the oil industry, "North Sea" often refers to a larger geographical set, including areas such as the Norwegian Sea and the UK "Atlantic Margin" (west of Shetland) not, strictly speaking, part of the North Sea.

N/A

Mount Blanc-(French for white mountain) or Monte Bianco (Italian, same meaning) also known as "La Dame Blanche" (French, the white lady) is a mountain in the Alps. With its 4,808 m summit, it is the highest mountain in the Alps and Western Europe.The mountain lies between the regions of Aosta Valley, Italy, and Haute-Savoie, France. The location of the summit itself is a subject of controversy between the two countries, as each tends to place it within its own boundaries on maps. In a convention between France and Kingdom of Sardinia, in Turin (1861), the border was fixed on the highest point of Mont Blanc. This was the last official definition of this border, but often the French maps do not respect this solution.

Southwest Asia

The Byzantine Empire or Byzantium is the historiographical term conventionally used since the 19th century to describe the Greek-speaking Roman Empire of the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople. The Empire is also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, although this name is more commonly used when referring to the time before the fall of the Western Roman Empire. During much of its history it was known to many of its Western contemporaries as the Empire of the Greeks because of the dominance of Greek language, culture and population.^[3] To its inhabitants, the Empire was simply the Roman Empire and its emperors continued the unbroken succession of Roman emperors.

Istanbul is Turkey's most populous city, and its cultural and financial center. The city covers 25 districts of the Istanbul province. It is located on the Bosphorus Strait, and encompasses the natural harbor known as the Golden Horn, in the northwest of the country. It extends both on the European (Thrace) and on the Asian (Anatolia) side of the Bosphorus, and is thereby the only metropolis in the world which is situated on two continents. In its long history, Istanbul served as the capital city of the Roman Empire (330-395), the Byzantine Empire (395-1204 and 1261-1453), the Latin Empire (1204-1261), and the Ottoman Empire (1453-1922). The city was chosen as joint European Capital of Culture for 2010. The historic areas of Istanbul were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1985.

Hagia Sophia is a former patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, now a museum, in Istanbul, Turkey. Famous in particular for its massive dome, it is considered the epitome of Byzantine architecture. It was the largest cathedral in the world for nearly a thousand years, until the completion of the Medieval Seville Cathedral in 1520.

The Ottoman Empire or Ottoman Caliphate (1299–1922) also known as the Turkish Empire or Turkey by its contemporaries, see the other names of the Ottoman State), was a multi-ethnic and multi-religious Turkish-ruled state.

Muhammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh also Mohammed, Muhammed, Mahomet, and other variants)(c. 570 Mecca - June 8, 632 Madina), was the founder of Islam and is regarded by Muslims as the last messenger and prophet of God (Arabic: الله Allah).Muslims do not believe that he was the creator of a new religion, but the restorer of the original, uncorrupted monotheistic faith of Adam, Abraham and others. They see him as the last and the greatest in a series of prophets.

Medina also transliterated into English as Madinah; officially al Madīnat al Munawwarah) is a city in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia, and serves as the capital of the Al Madinah Province. It is the second holiest city in Islam, and the burial place of Prophet Muhammad.

Mecca is an Islamic holy city in Saudi Arabia's Makkah province, in the historic Hejaz region. It has a population of 1,294,167 (2004 census). The city is located 73 kilometers (45 miles) inland from Jeddah, in a narrow valley , 277 meters (910 ft) above sea level. It is located 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the Red Sea. Historically, the city has also been called Becca^[1]^[2].

Jerusalem is the capital and largest city of Israel^[ i both population and area, with 732,100 residents in an area of 126 square kilometers (49 sq mi). Located in the Judean Mountains, between the Mediterranean Sea and the northern tip of the Dead Sea, the city has a history that goes back as far as the 4th millennium BCE, making it one of the oldest cities in the world.Jerusalem has been the holiest city in Judaism and the spiritual center of the dirty Jewish people since the 10th century BCE.The city contains a number of significant ancient Christian sites and is considered the third-holiest city in Islam.

The Western Wall or simply The Kotel, is a Jewish religious site located in the Old City of Jerusalem. The wall itself dates from the Second Temple period, (516 BCE - 70 CE). It is sometimes referred to as the Wailing Wall (Arabic: il-Mabka), referring to Jews who come to the site to wail and mourn the destruction of the Holy Temple.

The Dead Sea is a salt lake between the West Bank and Israel to the west, and Jordan to the east. At 420 meters (1,378 ft) below sea level,^[2] its shores are the lowest point on Earth that are on dry land. At 330 m deep (1,083 feet), the Dead Sea is the deepest hyper saline lake in the world. It is also the world's second saltiest body of water, after Lake Asal in Djibouti. With 30 percent salinity, it is 8.6 times saltier than the ocean ^[3]. Israeli experts say it is nine times saltier than the Mediterranean Sea (31.5% salt versus 3.5% for the Mediterranean). The Dead Sea is 67 kilometers (42 mi) long and 18 kilometers (11 mi) wide at its widest point. It lies in the Jordan Rift Valley, and its main tributary is the Jordan River.

The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow, strategically important waterway between the Gulf of Oman in the southeast and the Persian Gulf in the southwest. On the north coast is Iran (Persia) and on the south coast is the United Arab Emirates and Musandam, an exclave of Oman.

Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Edward Lawrence, CB, DSO (August 16, 1888^[1] – May 19, 1935), known professionally as T. E. Lawrence, was a British soldier renowned especially for his liaison role during the Arab Revolt of 1916-18, but whose vivid personality and writings, along with the extraordinary breadth and variety of his activities and associations, have made him the object of fascination throughout the world as "Lawrence of Arabia".

He was G/T.

The Persian Gulf, in the Southwest Asian region, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.^[1]The Persian Gulf was the focus of the Iraq-Iran War that lasted from 1980 to 1988, with each side attacking the other's oil tankers. In 1991, the Persian Gulf again was the background for what was called the Persian Gulf War or the "Gulf War" when Iraq invaded Kuwait and was subsequently pushed back, despite the fact that this conflict was primarily a land conflict.

The Arabian Peninsula is a peninsula in Southwest Asia at the junction of Africa and Asia consisting mainly of desert. The area is an important part of the Middle East and plays a critically important geopolitical role because of its vast reserves of oil and natural gas.The coasts of the peninsula are, on the west the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba, on the southeast the Arabian Sea (part of the Indian Ocean), and on the northeast, the Gulf of Oman, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Persian Gulf.

The Arabian Sea is a region of the Indian Ocean bounded on the east by India, on the north by Pakistan and Iran, on the west by Arabian Peninsula, on the south, approximately, by a line between Cape Guardafui, the north-east point of Somalia, Socotra and Kanyakumari (Cape Comorin) in India.

The Suez Canal , is a large artificial canal in Egypt, west of the Sinai Peninsula. It is 163 km (101 miles) long and 300 m (984 ft) wide at its narrowest point, and runs between Port Said (Būr Sa'īd) on the Mediterranean Sea, and Suez (al-Suways) on the Red Sea.

Tehran is the capital and largest city of Iran (Persia) and the administrative center of Tehran Province.More than half of Iran's industry is based in Tehran.^{[citation
needed]} Industries include the manufacturing of automobiles, electronics and electrical equipment, military weaponry, textiles, sugar, cement, and chemical products. It is also a leading center for the sale of carpets and furniture. There is an oil refinery south of the city.

Damascus is the capital and largest city of Syria. It is among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world (see section: Ancient history), before Al Fayyum, and Gaziantep. Its current population is estimated at about 4.5 million.^{[citation
needed]} The city is a governorate by itself, and the capital of the governorate of Rif Dimashq (Rural Damascus).

The Sinai Peninsula or Sinai is a triangle-shaped peninsula in Egypt. It lies between the Mediterranean Sea (to the north) and Red Sea (to the south), forming a land bridge to Southwest Asia. Its area is about 60,000 km².

The Gaza Strip is a coastal strip of land along the Mediterranean Sea, bordering Egypt on the south-west and Israel on the north and east. It is about 41 kilometers (25 mi) long, and between 6 and 12 kilometers (4–7.5 mi) wide, with a total area of 360 square kilometers (139 sq mi). The territory takes its name from Gaza, its main city. It has about 1.4 million residents, mainly Palestinians^[1].The Strip itself and its population are nominally governed by the Palestinian National Authority, though following the June 2007 battle of Gaza, actual control is in the hands of the de facto government dominated by Hamas. Israel controls the strip's airspace and offshore maritime access.

The Dome of the Rock (Arabic: مسجد قبة الصخرة, translit.: Masjid Qubbat As-Sakhrah, Hebrew: כיפת הסלע, translit.: Kipat Hasela, Turkish: Kubbetüs Sahra) is an Islamic prayer house, it remains one of the more popularly known landmarks of Jerusalem. It was built between 687 and 691 by the 9^th Caliph, Abd al-Malik making it the oldest extant Islamic building in the world. The Rock under the Dome was the first praying direction for Muslims before Mecca. Next to the Dome of the Rock lies the congregation building of Al-Aqsa Mosque both lie within the vicinity of what Jews and Christians call Har ha-Bayit (Hebrew: הר הבית) or the Temple Mount.

Fertile Crescent-a historical crescent-shape region in the Middle East incorporating the Levant, Ancient Mesopotamia, and Ancient Egypt. The term "Fertile Crescent" was coined by University of Chicago archaeologist James Henry Breasted.

West Bank-The West Bank (Arabic: الضفة الغربية, aḍ-Ḍiffä l-Ġarbīyä, Hebrew: הגדה המערבית‎, Hagadah Hamaaravit), also known as "Judea and Samaria", is a landlocked territory on the west bank of the Jordan River in the Middle East. Since 1967 most of the West Bank has been under Israeli occupation.

Zagros Mountains-make up Iran's and Iraq's largest mountain range. They have a total length of 1 500 km from western Iran, specifically South Kurdistan (Northern Iraq) region on the border with Iraq to the southern parts of the Persian Gulf. The mountain range ends at the Straits of Hormuz. The highest points in the Zagros Mountains are Zard Kuh (4 548 m) and Mt. Dena (4 359 m). The Hazaran massif in the Kerman province forms a eastern outlier of the range, the Jebal Barez reaching into Sistan.

Hindu Kush-The Hindu Kush is a mountain range in Afghanistan as well as in the North-West Frontier Province and Northern Areas of Pakistan. It is the westernmost extension of the Pamir Mountains, the Karakoram Range, and the Himalayas.

Mt. Ararat-the tallest peak in Turkey. This snow-capped, dormant volcanic cone is located in the Iğdır Province, near the northeast corner of Turkey, 16 km (10 mi) west of the Iranian and 32 km (20 mi) south of the Armenian border.

Is Noah's Ark located there?

Taurus Mountains-

The Taurus Mountains (Turkish: Toros Dağları) are a mountain range in the southern Anatolian plateau, from which the Euphrates (Turkish: Fırat) descends into Syria.

The system extends along a curve from Lake Eğirdir in the west to the upper reaches of the Euphrates in the east. It has many peaks rising above 10,000–12,000 ft (3,000–3,700 m), with the highest point being the Demirkazık summit in the region known as Aladağlar, at 3,756 meters high. Another notable peak is the Medetsiz (about 3,524) in the Bolkar Dağları section.

Jordan River- is a river in Southwest Asia flowing through the Great Rift Valley into the Dead Sea. Historically and religiously, it is considered to be one of the world's most sacred rivers,^[1] although the meaning and context of the word "sacred" may be ambiguous.

Southeast Asia

Indochina, or the Indochinese Peninsula, is a region in Southeast Asia. It lies roughly east of India, south of China

Okinawa Prefecture (沖縄県 Okinawa-ken^?, Okinawan: Uchinā) is one of Japan's southern prefectures, and consists of hundreds of the Ryukyu Islands in a chain over 1,000 km long, which extends southwest from Kyūshū (the southwesternmost of Japan's main four islands) to Taiwan. Okinawa's capital, Naha, is located in the southern part of the largest and most populous island, Okinawa Island, which is approximately half-way between Kyūshū and Taiwan. The disputed Senkaku Islands (Chinese: Diaoyu Islands) are also administered as part of Okinawa Prefecture at present.

Bataan-Bataan is a province of the Philippines occupying the whole of Bataan Peninsula on Luzon. The province is part of the Central Luzon region. The capital of Bataan is Balanga City and is bordered by the provinces of Zambales and Pampanga to the north. The peninsula faces South China Sea to the west and encloses its arm, Manila Bay, to the east.

The Vietnam War, also known as the Second Indochina War, and in Vietnam as the American War, occurred from 1959 to April 30, 1975. The term Vietnam Conflict is often used to refer to events which took place between 1959 and April 30, 1975. The war was fought between the Communist-supported Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the Republic of Vietnam (RVN/South Vietnam) and its allied forces who entered in 1965 (including the United States). It concluded as a combination of the United States (and RVN allied forces) withdrawing under terms of the Paris Peace Accord of 1973 which preserved the division temporarily, and South Vietnam deciding to fight on for three years, but which detriorated without U.S. ammunition and weapon support. The country was reunited in 1975, founding the current Vietnam. This has been described as a "total" victory on the part of North Vietnam.^[5]

Noted historian and author Gabriel Kolko has observed, "If we use conventional military criteria, the Americans should have been victorious. They used 15 million tons of munitions (as much as they employed in World War Two), had a vast military superiority over their enemies by any standard one employs, and still they were defeated."^[6] Edward N. Luttwak of Time Magazine said, “The customary reward of defeat, if one can survive it, is in the lessons thereby learned, which may yield victory in the next war. But the circumstances of our defeat in Vietnam were sufficiently ambiguous to deny the nation (that) benefit.”^[7]

Over 1.4 million military personnel were killed in the war (only 6% were members of the United States armed forces), while estimates of civilian fatalities range from 2 to 5.1 million. On April 30, 1975, the capital of South Vietnam, Saigon fell to the communist forces of North Vietnam, effectively ending the Vietnam War.

The Cold War was the period of conflict, tension and competition between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies from the mid-1940s until the early 1990s. Throughout the period, the rivalry between the two superpowers was played out in multiple arenas: military coalitions; ideology, psychology, and espionage; military, industrial, and technological developments, including the space race; costly defence spending; a massive conventional and nuclear arms race; and many proxy wars.

Krakatoa or Krakatau or Krakatao is a volcanic island in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra in Indonesia. The name is used for the island group, the main island (also called Rakata), and the volcano as a whole. It has erupted repeatedly, massively, and with disastrous consequences throughout recorded history. The best known eruption culminated in a series of massive explosions on August 26-27 1883, which was among the most violent volcanic events in modern times. With a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 6, it was equivalent to 200 megatonnes of TNT — about 13,000 times the yield of the Little Boy bomb (13 to 16 KT), which devastated Hiroshima, Japan.

The National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (Vietnamese Mặt trận Dân tộc Giải phóng miền Nam Việt Nam), also derogatively known as the Việt Cộng pronunciation (help·info) (VC), or the Front National pour la Libération (FNL), was an insurgent (partisan) organization fighting against the government of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) during the Vietnam War (1960-1975). The NLF was funded, equipped and staffed by personnel from both South Vietnam and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam).

Operation Rolling Thunder was the title of a gradual and sustained U.S. 2nd Air Division (later Seventh Air Force), U.S. Navy, and Republic of Vietnam Air Force (VNAF) aerial bombardment campaign conducted against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) from 2 March 1965 until 1 November 1968, during the Vietnam War.

The Gulf of Tonkin, in Vietnamese: Vịnh Bắc Bộ or in Chinese: Beibu Wan is an arm of the South China Sea. Covering an area of 126,250 km², the gulf borders Vietnam on the northwest, west and southwest. The Chinese mainland lies to the north while the Island of Hainan forms the eastern limits of the gulf. The gulf is notably shallow (less than 60 meters deep). Haiphong, Vietnam and Beihai, China are the chief ports. Numerous small islands are located in the gulf, most of which are concentrated in the northwestern gulf. Of note are larger islands of Bach Long Vi and Cat Ba of Vietnam and Weizhou of China. The Red River is the main river flowing into the Gulf.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations,^[1] commonly referred to as ASEAN, pronounced /'ɑ.si.ɑn/ ("AH-SEE-AHN") in English, is a geo-political and economic organization of 10 countries located in Southeast Asia, which was formed on August 8, 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.^[2] Its aims include the acceleration of economic growth, social progress, cultural development among its members, and the promotion of regional peace.^[3]

██ ASEAN full members
██ ASEAN observers
██ ASEAN candidate members
██ ASEAN Plus Three
███ East Asia Summit
██████ ASEAN Regional Forum

The Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), was an international organization for collective defense created by the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty or the Manila Pact, that was signed on September 8, 1954. The formal institution of SEATO was established at a meeting of treaty partners in Bangkok in February 1955.¹ It was primarily created to block further Communist gains in Southeast Asia. The organization's headquarters was located in Bangkok, Thailand. SEATO was dissolved on June 30, 1977.

Guadalcanal (local name: Isatabu) is a 2,510 square mile (6 500 km²) islrand in the Pacific Ocean and a province of the Solomon Islands. The island was the scene of the important Guadalcanal Campaign during World War II. The island, which is mainly jungle, contains the national capital of the Solomon Islands, Honiara, and has a population of 109,382 (1999).

A prisoner of war (POW, PoW, or PW) is a combatant who is imprisoned by an enemy power during or immediately after an armed conflict.

Austro-Hungarian POWs in Russia; a 1915 photo by Prokudin-Gorskii

M IA- Missing in Action, a combatant who has not returned from war and is unaccounted for.

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial is a national war memorial located in Washington, D.C., that honors members of the U.S. armed forces who fought in the Vietnam War and who died in service or are still unaccounted for.

The Hoa Lo Prison (Vietnamese: Hỏa Lò, commonly translated as "fiery furnace", actually means "stove". The name originated from the street name "phố Hỏa Lò" due to the concentration of stores selling wood stoves and coal-fire stoves along the street from pre-colonial time), later known to American prisoners of war as the Hanoi Hilton, was a prison used by the French colonists in Vietnam for political prisoners and later by North Vietnam for prisoners of war during the Vietnram War. The prison was built in Hanoi by the French in 1904, when Vietnam was still part of French Indochina to hold Vietnamese prisoners, particularly political prisoners agitating for independence who were often subject to torture and execution. The French called the prison Maison Centrale - a usual term to denote prisons in France.

The Hanoi Hilton in a 1970 aerial surveillance photo.

The City of Manila (Filipino: Lungsod ng Maynila), or simply Manila, is the capital of the Philippines and one of the cities that make up the greater metropolitan area of Metro Manila. Manila is the center of government in the country and one of the central hubs of a thriving metropolitan area home to over 14 million people.^[2] It is located on the shores of Manila Bay just west of the geographical center of Metro Manila, also known as the National Capital Region (NCR), which lies on an isthmus between Manila Bay and Laguna de Bay in southern Luzon. The city is one of 17 cities and municipalities which form the metropolitan area.

General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, GCB (January 26, 1880 – April 5, 1964) was an American general and Field Marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and later played a prominent role in the Pacific theater of World War II, receiving the Medal of Honor for his early service in the Philippines and on the Bataan Peninsula. He was designated to command the proposed invasion of Japan in November 1945, and when that was no longer necessary he officially accepted their surrender on September 2, 1945.

William C. Westmoreland (March 26, 1914 – July 18, 2005) was an American General who commanded American military operations in the Vietrnam War at its peak from 1964 to 1968 and who served as US Army Chief of Staff from 1968 to 1972.

The domino theory was a mid-20th century foreign policy theory, promoted by the government of the United States, that speculated that if one land in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect. The domino effect suggests that some change, small in itself, will cause a similar change nearby, which then will cause another similar change, and so on in linear sequence, by analogy to a falling row of dominoes standing on end. The domino theory was used by successive United States administrations during the Cold War to justify American intervention around the world.

The Mekong is one of the world’s major rivers. It is the 11th-longest river in the world, and the 12th-largest by volume (discharging 475 km³/114 cu mi of water annually). Its estimated length is 4,880 km (3,032 mi), and it drains an area of 810,000 km² (313,000 sq mi).^[1] From the Tibetan Plateau it runs through China's Yunnan province, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. All except China and Burma belong to the Mekong River Commission. A south Asian regional association, Mekong-Ganga Cooperation is named after this river. The extreme seasonal variations in flow and the presence of rapids and waterfalls have made navigation extremely difficult.

Boat people is a term (usually) referring to illegal immigrants or asylum seekers who arrive en masse in old or crudely-made boats. The term came into common use during the late 1970s with the mass departure of Vietnamese refugees from communist-controlled Vietnam, following the Vietnam War.

Vietnamese boat person in a refugee camp

The Pacific Ring of Fire is an area of frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions encircling the basin of the Pacific Ocean. In a 40,000 km horseshoe shape, it is associated with a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and volcanic belts and/or plate movements. The Ring of Fire has 452 volcanoes and is home to over 50% of the world's active and dormant volcanoes. It is sometimes called the circum-Pacific belt or the circum-Pacific seismic belt.