- published: 21 Nov 2008
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- author: YaleCourses
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24 Hours of Le Mans
The 24 Hours of Le Mans (French: 24 Heures du Mans) is the world's oldest active sports car race in endurance racing, held annually since 1923 near the town of Le Mans, France. Commonly known as the Grand Prix of Endurance and Efficiency, race teams have to balance speed against the cars' ability to run for 24 hours without sustaining mechanical damage to the car and manage the cars' consumables, primarily fuel, tyres and braking materials. The endurance of the drivers is likewise tested as drivers frequently spend stints of over two hours behind the wheel before stopping in the pits and allowing a relief driver to take over the driving duties. Drivers then grab what food and rest they can before returning to drive another stint. Today it is mandated that three drivers share each competing vehicle.
The race is organised by the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) and runs on the Circuit de la Sarthe, a circuit containing a mix of closed public roads and specialist motor racing circuit that are meant not only to test a car and driver's ability to be quick, but also to last over a 24 hour period. The competing teams will race in groups called classes for cars of similar specification while at the same time competing for outright placing amongst all of the classes. Originally the race was held for cars as they were sold to the general public which were then called Sports Cars compared to the specialist racing cars used in Grands Prix. Over time the competing vehicles evolved away from their publicly-available road car roots and today the race is made of two classes specialised enclosed-bodywork two-seat Prototype sports cars and two classes of Grand Touring cars which bear much closer resemblance to high performance sports cars as sold to the public.
wn.com/24_Hours_of_Le_Mans -
Abkhazia
Abkhazia (Abkhaz: Аҧсны́ Apsny, IPA /apʰsˈnɨ/; Georgian: აფხაზეთი Apkhazeti; Russian: Абхазия Abkhaziya) is a disputed territory on the eastern coast of the Black Sea and the south-western flank of the Caucasus.
Abkhazia considers itself an independent state, called the Republic of Abkhazia or Apsny. This status is recognised by Russia, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Nauru, Tuvalu and Vanuatu and also by the partially recognised states of South Ossetia, Transnistria and Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Georgian government and the majority of the world's governments consider Abkhazia a part of Georgia's territory. Under Georgia's official designation it is an autonomous republic, called the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia, whose government sits in exile in Tbilisi. On 28 August 2008, the Parliament of Georgia passed a resolution declaring Abkhazia a "Russian-occupied territory".
The status of Abkhazia is a central issue of the Georgian–Abkhazian conflict. The wider region formed part of the Soviet Union until 1991. As the Soviet Union began to disintegrate towards the end of the 1980s, ethnic tensions grew between Abkhaz and Georgians over Georgia's moves towards independence. This led to the 1992–1993 War in Abkhazia that resulted in a Georgian military defeat, de facto independence of Abkhazia and the mass exodus and ethnic cleansing of the Georgian population from Abkhazia. In spite of the 1994 ceasefire agreement and years of negotiations, the status dispute has not been resolved, and despite the long-term presence of a United Nations monitoring force and a Russian-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) peacekeeping operation, the conflict has flared up on several occasions. In August 2008, the sides again fought during the South Ossetia War, which was followed by the formal recognition of Abkhazia by Russia, the annulment of the 1994 cease fire agreement and the termination of the UN and CIS missions.[citation needed]
wn.com/Abkhazia -
Adélie Land
Adélie Land is a claimed territory in the continent of Antarctica. It stretches from a coastline area along the Great Southern Ocean back to the South Pole. The territory is claimed by France as one of five districts of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, although not all nations have given it diplomatic recognition.
Adélie Land lies between 136° E (near Pourquoi Pas Point at 66°12′S 136°11′E / 66.2°S 136.183°E / -66.2; 136.183) and 142° E (near Point Alden at 66°48′S 142°02′E / 66.8°S 142.033°E / -66.8; 142.033), with a shore length of 350 kilometres (220 mi) and with its hinterland extending as a sector about 2,600 kilometres (1,600 mi) toward the South Pole. It borders on the Australian Antarctic Territory both West and East, namely on Clarie Land (part of Wilkes Land) in the West, and George V Land in the East. The total land area, mostly ice covered, is estimated at 432,000 square kilometres (167,000 sq mi).
The coast was discovered in 1840 by French explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville (1790–1842) who named it after his wife, Adélie.
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Ain
Ain (French pronunciation: [ɛ̃]; Arpitan: En) is a department named after the Ain River on the eastern edge of France. Being part of the region Rhône-Alpes and bordered by the rivers Saône and Rhône, the department of Ain enjoys a privileged geographic situation. It has an excellent transport network (TGV, highways) and benefits from the proximity to the international airports of Lyon and Geneva.
Ain is composed of four geographically different areas (Bresse, Dombes, Bugey and Pays de Gex) which – each with its own characteristics – contribute to the diversity and the dynamic economic development of the department. In the Bresse agriculture and agro-industry are dominated by the cultivation of cereals, cattle breeding, milk and cheese production as well as poultry farming. In the Dombes, pisciculture assumes greater importance as does viticulture in the Bugey. The high diversification of the department's industry is accompanied by a strong presence of the plastics sector in and around Oyonnax (so-called "Plastics Valley").
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Aisne
Aisne (French pronunciation: [ɛːn]) is a department in the northern part of France, named after a river.
Aisne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Île-de-France, Picardie, and Champagne.
Most of the old growth forests in the area were destroyed during battles in World War I. The French offensive against the Chemin des Dames in spring 1917 is sometimes referred to as the Second Battle of the Aisne.
Aisne borders the Ardennes Forest and Belgium to the northeast. The Aisne River crosses the area from east to west, where it joins the Oise River. The Marne forms part of the southern boundary of the department with the department of Seine-et-Marne. The southern part of the department is the geographical region known as la Brie poilleuse, a drier plateau known for its dairy products and Brie cheese.
The landscape is dominated by masses of rock which often have steep flanks. These rocks appear all over the region, but the most impressive examples are at Laon and the Chemin des Dames ridge.
wn.com/Aisne -
Albania
Albania (
i/ælˈbeɪniə/ al-BAY-nee-ə, Albanian: Shqipëri/Shqipëria; Gheg Albanian: Shqipnia), officially known as the Republic of Albania (Albanian: Republika e Shqipërisë pronounced Albanian pronunciation: [ɾɛpuˈblika ɛ ʃcipəˈɾiːs]), is a country in Southern Europe. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the west, and on the Ionian Sea to the southwest. It is less than 72 km (45 mi) from Italy, across the Strait of Otranto which links the Adriatic Sea to the Ionian Sea.
Albania is a member of the UN, NATO, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Council of Europe, World Trade Organisation, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and one of the founding members of the Union for the Mediterranean. Albania has been a potential candidate for accession to the European Union since January 2003, and it formally applied for EU membership on 28 April 2009.
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Algeria
Coordinates: 28°N 2°E / 28°N 2°E / 28; 2
Algeriai/ælˈdʒɪəriə/ (Arabic: الجزائر, al-Jazā'ir; Berber: ⴷⵣⴰⵢⴻⵔ Dzayer), officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria (الجمهورية الجزائرية الديمقراطية الشعبية, al-Jumhūriyyah al-Jazāʾiriyyah ad-Dīmuqrāṭiyyah ash-Shaʿbiyyah), also formally referred to as the Democratic and Popular Republic of Algeria, is a large country in the Maghreb region of Northwest Africa with Algiers as its capital.
When referring to its land area, Algeria is the largest country in Africa, Maghreb and the Arab World. It is also the largest of the countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea; it is also the tenth-largest country in the world. The country is bordered in the northeast by Tunisia, in the east by Libya, in the west by Morocco, in the southwest by Western Sahara, Mauritania, and Mali, in the southeast by Niger, and in the north by the Mediterranean Sea. Its size is almost 2,400,000 square kilometres (926,645 sq mi) with an estimated population of 37.1 million as of 2012. Algeria is a member of the African Union, the Arab League, OPEC and the United Nations. The country is also a founding member of the Arab Maghreb Union.
wn.com/Algeria -
Allier
Allier (French pronunciation: [a.lje]; Occitan: Alèir) is a department in central France named after the river Allier.
Allier is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Auvergne and Bourbonnais.
In 1940, the government of Marshal Philippe Pétain chose the town of Vichy as its capital. Vichy also became the department's second sub-prefecture in 1940, since the department now found itself split by the demarcation line between the occupied and (relatively, at least initially) free zones of France.
The department belongs to the region Auvergne and is surrounded by the following French departments: Cher, Nièvre, Saône-et-Loire, Loire, Puy-de-Dôme, and Creuse.
The following rivers run through Allier:
Allier is the most productive agricultural area of the Auvergne. Vichy has long been known for its water, which is exported worldwide.
Montluçon, Vichy, and Moulins are the principal cities. The rest of the department consists of smaller towns, mostly along the rivers. In general, the department is sparsely populated. The population increased until the end of the 19th century because of the growth of industry in Montluçon and Moulins and development of the thermal resources at Vichy. At that time the department had over 420,000 inhabitants. After the losses of World War I, the population stagnated, with a small increase in the 1960s. Since then, it has decreased slightly from 386,533 in 1968 to 344,721 in 1999.
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Alpes-Maritimes
Alpes-Maritimes (French pronunciation: [alp.ma.ʁi.tim]; Occitan: Aups Maritims) is a department in the extreme southeast corner of France.
Alpes Maritimae was created by Octavian as a Roman military district in 14 BC, and became a full Roman province in the middle of the 1st century with its capital first at Cemenelum (today Cimiez, a neighbourghood in Nice) and subsequently at Embrun. At its greatest extent in AD 297, the province reached north to Digne and Briançon.
A first French département of Alpes-Maritimes existed in the same area from 1793 to 1814. Its boundaries differed from those of the modern department, however. In 1793 Alpes-Maritimes included Monaco and San Remo, but not Grasse which was then part of the départment of Var.
The department was reconstituted in 1860 when the county of Nice was annexed to France. It included the county of Nice as well as the previously (at least nominally) independent towns of Menton and Roquebrune, and the arrondissement of Grasse in the department of Var.
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Alsace
Alsace (French: Alsace [alzas]; Alsatian: Elsàss [ˈɛlsɑs]; German: Elsass, pre-1996: Elsaß, IPA: [ˈɛlzas]; Latin: Alsatia) is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area (8,280 km²), and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km² (total population in 2006: 1,815,488; 1 January 2008 estimate: 1,836,000). Alsace is located on France's eastern border and on the west bank of the upper Rhine adjacent to Germany and Switzerland. The political, economic and cultural capital as well as largest city of Alsace is Strasbourg. Because that city is the seat of dozens of international organizations and bodies, Alsace is politically one of the most important regions in the European Union.
The name "Alsace" can be traced back to the Old High German Ali-saz or Elisaz, meaning "foreign domain". An alternative explanation derives it from a Germanic Ell-sass, meaning "seated on the Ill", a river in Alsace. The region was historically part of the Holy Roman Empire. It was gradually annexed by France in the 17th century under kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV and made one of the provinces of France. Alsace is frequently mentioned in conjunction with Lorraine, because German possession of parts of these two régions (as the imperial province Alsace-Lorraine, 1871–1918) was contested in the 19th and 20th centuries, during which Alsace changed hands four times between France and Germany in 75 years.
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Alsace-Moselle
The Imperial territory of Alsace-Lorraine (German: Reichsland Elsass-Lothringen) generally Elsass-Lothringen, was a territory created by the German Empire in 1871 after it annexed most of Alsace and the Moselle region of Lorraine following its victory in the Franco-Prussian War. The Alsatian part lay in the Rhine Valley on the west bank of the Rhine River and east of the Vosges Mountains. The Lorraine section was in the upper Moselle valley to the north of the Vosges Mountains.
The Imperial territory of Alsace-Lorraine was made up of 93% of Alsace (7% remained French) and 26% of Lorraine (74% remained French). For historical reasons, specific legal dispositions are still applied in the territory in form of a local law. In relation to its special legal status, since its reversion to France following World War I, the territory has been referred to administratively as Alsace-Moselle.
The Imperial territory of Alsace-Lorraine had a land area of 14,496 km2 (5,597 sq mi). Its capital was Strasbourg. It was divided in three districts (Bezirke in German):
wn.com/Alsace-Moselle -
Amiens Cathedral
The Cathedral of Our Lady of Amiens (French: Cathédrale Notre-Dame d'Amiens), or simply Amiens Cathedral, is a Roman Catholic cathedral and seat of the Bishop of Amiens (currently Jean-Luc Bouilleret). It is situated on a slight ridge overlooking the River Somme in the administrative capital of the Picardy region of France, some 120 km north of Paris.
The cathedral is the tallest complete cathedral in France, its stone-vaulted nave reaching a height of 42.30 metres (138.8 ft) (surpassed only by the incomplete Beauvais Cathedral). It also has the greatest interior volume of any French cathedral, estimated at 200,000 cubic metres (260,000 cu yd). The cathedral was built between 1220 and c.1270 and has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1981. Although it has lost most of its original stained glass, Amiens Cathedral is renowned for the quality and quantity of early 13th century Gothic sculpture in the main west facade and the south transept portal, and a large quantity of polychrome sculpture from later periods inside the building.
wn.com/Amiens_Cathedral -
Andorra
Andorra (i/ænˈdɔrə/; Catalan pronunciation: [ənˈdorə], locally: [anˈdɔra]), officially the Principality of Andorra (Catalan: Principat d'Andorra), also called the Principality of the Valleys of Andorra, (Catalan: Principat de les Valls d'Andorra), is a small landlocked country in southwestern Europe, located in the eastern Pyrenees mountains and bordered by Spain and France. It is the sixth smallest nation in Europe having an area of 468 km2 (181 sq mi) and an estimated population of 84,082 in 2009. Its capital, Andorra la Vella, is the highest capital city in Europe, at an elevation of 1,023 metres (3,356 ft) above sea level. The official language is Catalan, although Spanish, Portuguese, and French are also commonly spoken.
The Principality was formed in 1278. The role of monarch is exercised jointly by the two co-princes, the Catalan Bishop of Urgell and the President of France (the whole state is a part of Diocese of Urgell).
Andorra is a prosperous country mainly because of its tourism industry, which services an estimated 10.2 million visitors annually, and also because of its status as a tax haven. It is not a member of the European Union, but the euro is the de facto currency. The people of Andorra have the 4th highest human life expectancy in the world — 82 years at birth.
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Angola
Angola, officially the Republic of Angola (Portuguese: República de Angola, pronounced: [ʁɨˈpublikɐ dɨ ɐ̃ˈɡɔla];Kikongo, Kimbundu, Umbundu: Repubilika ya Ngola), is a country in southern Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city. The exclave province of Cabinda has borders with the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Portuguese were present in some—mostly coastal—points of the territory of what is now Angola, from the 16th to the 19th century, interacting in diverse ways with the peoples that lived there. In the 19th century they slowly and hesitantly began to establish themselves in the interior. Angola as a Portuguese colony encompassing the present territory was not established before the end of the 19th century, and "effective occupation", as required by the Berlin Conference (1884) was achieved only by the 1920s. Independence was achieved in 1975, after a protracted liberation war. After independence, Angola was the scene of an intense civil war from 1975 to 2002. The country has vast mineral and petroleum reserves, and its economy has on average grown at a two-digit pace since the 1990s, especially since the end of the civil war. In spite of this, standards of living remain low for the majority of the population, and life expectancy and infant mortality rates in Angola are among the worst-ranked in the world. At the same time, a minority has reached comfortable life standards, and the dominant stratum has succeeded in accumulating considerable wealth, so that social inequality in Angola is one of the highest in the world.
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Anguilla
Anguilla (
/æŋˈɡwɪlə/ ang-GWIL-ə) is a British overseas territory in the Caribbean. It is one of the most northerly of the Leeward Islands in the Lesser Antilles, lying east of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and directly north of Saint Martin. The territory consists of the main island of Anguilla itself, approximately 26 km (16 mi) long by 5 km (3.1 mi) wide at its widest point, together with a number of much smaller islands and cays with no permanent population. The island's capital is The Valley. The total land area of the territory is 91 km2 (35 sq mi), with a population of approximately 13,500 (2006 estimate).
Anguilla has become a popular tax haven, having no capital gains, estate, profit or other forms of direct taxation on either individuals or corporations.
Anguilla was first settled by Amerindian tribes who migrated from South America. The earliest Amerindian artifacts found on Anguilla have been dated to around 1300 BC, and remains of settlements date from 600 AD. The date of European discovery is uncertain: some sources claim that Columbus sighted the island in 1493, while others state that the island was first discovered by the French in 1564 or 1565. The name Anguilla derives from the word for "eel" in any of various Romance languages (modern Spanish: anguila; French: anguille; Italian: anguilla; Portuguese: enguia), probably chosen because of the island's eel-like shape.
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Antarctica
Antarctica
This map uses an orthographic projection, near-polar aspect. The South Pole is near the center, where longitudinal lines converge.
Antarctica (
i/æntˈɑrtɨkə/ or /ænˈtɑːktɨkə/) is Earth's southernmost continent, containing the geographic South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctic region of the Southern Hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean. At 14.0 million km2 (5.4 million sq mi), it is the fifth-largest continent in area after Asia, Africa, North America, and South America. For comparison, Antarctica is nearly twice the size of Australia. About 98% of Antarctica is covered by ice that averages at least 1 mile (1.6 km) in thickness.
Antarctica, on average, is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Antarctica is considered a desert, with annual precipitation of only 200 mm (8 inches) along the coast and far less inland. The temperature in Antarctica has reached −89 °C (−129 °F). There are no permanent human residents, but anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 people reside throughout the year at the research stations scattered across the continent. Only cold-adapted organisms survive there, including many types of algae, animals (for example mites, nematodes, penguins, seals and tardigrades), bacteria, fungi, plants, and protista. Vegetation where it occurs is tundra.
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Antigua and Barbuda
Antigua and Barbuda (i/ænˈtiːɡə ænd bɑrˈbjuːdə/; Spanish for "ancient" and "bearded") is a twin-island nation lying between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. It consists of two major inhabited islands, Antigua and Barbuda, and a number of smaller islands (including Great Bird, Green, Guinea, Long, Maiden and York Islands and further south, the island of Redonda). The permanent population number approximately 81,800 (at the 2011 Census) and the capital and largest port and city is St. John's, on Antigua.
Separated by a few nautical miles, Antigua and Barbuda are in the middle of the Leeward Islands, part of the Lesser Antilles, roughly at 17 degrees north of the Equator. The country is nicknamed "Land of 365 Beaches" due to the many beaches surrounding the islands. Its governance, language, and culture have all been strongly influenced by the British Empire, of which the country was formerly a part.
Antigua was first settled by Archaic Age hunter-gatherer Amerindians, erroneously referred to as Siboney or Ciboney.Carbon-dating has established that the earliest settlements started around 3100 BC. They were succeeded by the Ceramic Age pre-Columbian Arawak-speaking Saladoid people who migrated from the lower Orinoco River.
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Aquitaine
Aquitaine (French pronunciation: [a.ki.tɛn], English /ˌækwɪˈteɪn/; Occitan: Aquitània; Basque: Akitania), archaic Guyenne/Guienne (Occitan: Guiana), is one of the 27 regions of France, in the south-western part of metropolitan France, along the Atlantic Ocean and the Pyrenees mountain range on the border with Spain. It is composed of the 5 departments of Dordogne, Lot et Garonne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Landes and Gironde. In the Middle Ages Aquitaine was a kingdom and a duchy, whose boundaries fluctuated considerably.
There are traces of human settlement by prehistoric peoples, especially in the Périgord, but the earliest attested inhabitants in the south-west were the Aquitani, who were not proper Celtic people, but more akin to the Iberians (see Gallia Aquitania). Although a number of different languages and dialects were in use in the area during ancient times, it is most likely that the prevailing language of Aquitaine during the late pre-historic to Roman period was an early form of the Basque language. This has been demonstrated by various Aquitanian names and words that were recorded by the Romans, and which are currently easily readable as Basque. Whether this Aquitanian language (Proto-Basque) was a remnant of a Vasconic language group that once extended much farther, or whether it was generally limited to the Aquitaine/Basque region is not currently known. One reason the language of Aquitaine is important is because Basque is the last surviving non-Indo-European language in western Europe and it has had some effect on the languages around it, including Spanish and, to a lesser extent, French.
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Arc de Triomphe
The Arc de Triomphe (Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile) is one of the most famous monuments in Paris. It stands in the centre of the Place Charles de Gaulle (originally named Place de l'Étoile), at the western end of the Champs-Élysées. There is a smaller arch, the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, which stands west of the Louvre. The Arc de Triomphe (in English: "Triumphal Arch") honours those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars, with the names of all French victories and generals inscribed on its inner and outer surfaces. Beneath its vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I.
The Arc de Triomphe is the linchpin of the historic axis (Axe historique) – a sequence of monuments and grand thoroughfares on a route which goes from the courtyard of the Louvre, to the Grande Arche de la Défense. The monument was designed by Jean Chalgrin in 1806, and its iconographic program pitted heroically nude French youths against bearded Germanic warriors in chain mail. It set the tone for public monuments, with triumphant patriotic messages.
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Ardèche
Ardèche (French pronunciation: [aʁ.dɛʃ]; Occitan and Arpitan: Ardecha) is a department in south-central France named after the Ardèche River.
The area has been inhabited by humans at least since the Upper Paleolithic, as attested by the famous cave paintings at Chauvet Pont d'Arc. The plateau of the Ardeche River has extensive standing stones (dolmens and menhirs), erected thousands of years ago.[citation needed] The river is the largest natural canyon in Europe and the caves that dot the cliffs (which go as high as 300 m (1,000 feet) are known for signs of prehistoric inhabitants (arrowheads and flint knives are often found).
The Vivarais, as the Ardèche is still called, takes its name and coat-of-arms from Viviers, which was the capital of the Gaulish tribe of Helvii, part of Gallia Narbonensis, after the destruction of their previous capital at Alba-la-Romaine. Saint Andéol, a disciple of St Polycarp, is supposed to have evangelized the Vivarais during the reign of Emperor Septimius Severus, and was supposedly martyred in 208. (Legend tells of Andéol's burial by Amycia Eucheria Tullia.) Auxonius, in 430, transferred the see to Viviers as a result of the problems suffered at its previous site in Alba Augusta.
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Argentina
Argentinai/ˌɑrdʒənˈtiːnə/, officially the Argentine Republic (Spanish: República Argentina [reˈpuβlika aɾxenˈtina]), is a country in South America, the continent's second largest by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires. It is the eighth-largest country in the world by land area and the largest among Spanish-speaking nations.
Argentina's continental area is between the Andes mountain range in the west and the Atlantic Ocean in the east. It borders Paraguay and Bolivia to the north, Brazil and Uruguay to the northeast, and Chile to the west and south. Argentine claims over Antarctica, as well as overlapping claims made by Chile and the United Kingdom, are suspended by the Antarctic Treaty of 1961. Argentina also claims the Falkland Islands (Spanish: Islas Malvinas) and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, which are administered by the United Kingdom as British Overseas Territories.
A recognised middle power, Argentina is Latin America's third-largest economy, with a "very high" rating on the Human development index. Within Latin America, Argentina has the fifth highest nominal GDP per capita and the highest in purchasing power terms. Analysts have argued that the country has a "foundation for future growth due to its market size, levels of foreign direct investment, and percentage of high-tech exports as share of total manufactured goods", and it is classed by investors as middle emerging economy. Argentina is a founding member of the United Nations, Mercosur, the Union of South American Nations, the Organization of Ibero-American States, the World Bank Group and the World Trade Organization, and is one of the G-15 and G-20 major economies.
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Ariège
Ariège (French pronunciation: [aʁjɛʒ]; Occitan: Arièja) is a department in southwestern France named after the Ariège River.
Ariège is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from the counties of Foix and Couserans.
Foix is the administrative capital of the Ariège. It is an ancient medieval town with a fortress Chateau de Foix perched on a hill overlooking it. The fortress has been attacked many times without capture, including an attempt by Simon de Montfort. It has also been used as a prison, and the names of English Prisoners of War can still be seen on the cell walls. Another famous chateau in the Ariège is Montségur, located on a rocky outcrop at a height of 1200 metres (3,900 ft). During the Albigensian Crusade and siege of 1244 AD the chateau was largely destroyed, with more than two hundred Cathar priests burnt at the stake as heretics. The chateau was gradually rebuilt by Royalists over a period of the next three hundred years.
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Armenia
Armeniai/ɑrˈmiːniə/ (Armenian: Հայաստան Hayastan [hɑjɑsˈtɑn]), officially the Republic of Armenia (Հայաստանի Հանրապետություն, Hayastani Hanrapetut’yun, [hɑjɑstɑˈni hɑnɾɑpɛtuˈtʰjun]), is a landlocked, mountainous country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the south.
A former republic of the Soviet Union, Armenia is a unitary, multiparty, democratic nation-state with an ancient and historic cultural heritage. The Kingdom of Armenia became the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as its religion, in the early years of the 4th century (the traditional date is 301 AD). The modern Republic of Armenia recognizes the Armenian Apostolic Church, the world's oldest national church, as the country's primary religious establishment. Armenians have their own unique alphabet invented by Mesrob Mashtots in 406 AD.
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Aruba
Aruba ( /əˈruːbə/ ə-ROO-bə, Dutch pronunciation: [aˈruba]) is a 33 km-long island of the Lesser Antilles in the southern Caribbean Sea, located 27 km north of the coast of Venezuela and 130 km (approx.) east of Guajira Peninsula (Colombia). Together with Bonaire and Curaçao, it forms a group referred to as the ABC islands of the Leeward Antilles, the southern island chain of the Lesser Antilles.
Aruba is one of the four constituent countries that form the Kingdom of the Netherlands, together with the Netherlands, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten whose citizens share a single nationality: Dutch citizen. Aruba has no administrative subdivisions, but for census purposes is divided into 8 regions. Its capital is Oranjestad. Unlike much of the Caribbean region, Aruba has a dry climate and an arid, cactus-strewn landscape. This climate has helped tourism as visitors to the island can reliably expect warm, sunny weather. It has a land area of 179 square kilometres (69 sq mi) and is densely populated with a total of 101,484 inhabitants at the 2010 Census. It lies outside the hurricane belt. It is also home to the endemic Aruba Island Rattlesnake.
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Aube
Aube (French pronunciation: [ob]) is a department in the northeastern part of France named after the Aube River. In 1995, its population was 293,100 inhabitants.
Aube is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from part of the former province of Champagne.
The territory making up Aube was first attached to France in 843, following the Treaty of Verdun.
After the allied victory over Napoleon at Waterloo the department was occupied by Russian troops between June 1815 and November 1818.
In 1911, following the revolt of the Champagne producers, a series of major riots erupted in Aube. Dozens of serious injuries resulted.
In 1919, by a new decree, Aube wine producers were authorized to produce champagne.
Aube is perhaps best known for the 1932 visit of the late Turkish president Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who signed a friendship treaty with France there on 4 July 1938.
The department is part of the current region of Champagne-Ardenne. It is surrounded by the departments of Marne, Haute-Marne, Côte-d'Or, Yonne, and Seine-et-Marne.
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Aude
Aude (French pronunciation: [od]; Occitan: Aude) is a department in south-central France named after the river Aude. The local council also calls the department "Cathar Country".
Aude is also a frequent feminine French given name in Francophone countries, deriving initially from Aude or Oda, a wife of Bertrand, Duke of Aquitaine, and mother of Saint Hubertus's brother Eudo. Aude was the name of Roland's fiancée in the chansons de gestes.
Human traces have been found in the department from 1,500,000 years BCE in the form of hammers and worked tools on the hill of Grazailles at Carcassonne. The most interesting discovery, however, is that of the skull of ‘Tautavel Man’ made by Henry de Lumley in the commune of Tautavel in the Pyrénées-Orientales. It is the oldest skull known in Europe. It dates from about 450,000 years BCE. It is likely that Tautavel Man lived in all of this region.
The Romans, led by the consul-general Domitius Ahenobarbus, installed themselves first of all at Narbonne in 118 BCE on the oppidum of Montlaurès, which became the provincial capital and a very active mercantile port. The position was strategically important since it stood at the cross roads of two Roman roads, the Via Aquitania and the Via Domitia, as well as by the sea and near the mouth of the River Aude. Carcassonne became Latin in 30 BCE with the creation of numerous grain farms. For almost two centuries, the Aude enjoyed peace and strong economic growth.
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Australia
Australia ( /əˈstreɪljə/), officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent as well as the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area. Neighbouring countries include Indonesia, East Timor and Papua New Guinea to the north; the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia to the north-east; and New Zealand to the south-east.
For at least 40,000 years before European settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who belonged to one or more of roughly 250 language groups. After discovery by Dutch explorers in 1606, Australia's eastern half was claimed by Great Britain in 1770 and settled through penal transportation to the colony of New South Wales from 26 January 1788. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades; the continent was explored and an additional five self-governing Crown Colonies were established.
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Austria
Austria (i/ˈɒstriə/ or /ˈɔːstriə/; German: Österreich [ˈøːstɐˌʁaɪç] (
listen)), officially the Republic of Austria (German: Republik Österreich (help·info)), is a landlocked country of roughly 8.47 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers 83,855 square kilometres (32,377 sq mi) and has a temperate and alpine climate. Austria's terrain is highly mountainous due to the presence of the Alps; only 32% of the country is below 500 metres (1,640 ft), and its highest point is 3,798 metres (12,461 ft). The majority of the population speak local Austro-Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, and German in its standard form is the country's official language. Other local official languages are Burgenland Croatian, Hungarian and Slovene.
The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty when the vast majority of the country was a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Austria became one of the great powers of Europe and, in response to the coronation of Napoleon I as the Emperor of the French, the Austrian Empire was officially proclaimed in 1804. In 1867, the Austrian Empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary.
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Aveyron
Aveyron (French pronunciation: [avɛʁɔ̃]; Occitan: Avairon [avajˈɾu]) is a département in southern France named after the Aveyron River.
Aveyron is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790.
The first known historical inhabitants of the region were the Rutenii tribe, but the area was inhabited previously to this, boasting many prehistoric ruins.
During the medieval and early modern periods, and until the 1790s, the territory covered by Aveyron was a province known as Rouergue.
In 1817, a local prosecutor Antoine Bernardin Fualdès was assassinated. The sordid circumstances of his death, following which his body was found floating in the Aveyron River, led to the matter becoming publicised as a cause célèbre. Recent studies have indicated that he met his end on the initiative of a right wing royalist organisation known as the Chevaliers de la Foi (Knights of the Faith).
The department is part of the current Midi-Pyrénées region. It is surrounded by the départements of Tarn, Tarn-et-Garonne, Lot, Hérault, Gard, Lozère, and Cantal.
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Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan (i/ˌæzərbaɪˈdʒɑːn/ AZ-ər-by-JAHN; Azerbaijani: Azərbaycan), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan (Azerbaijani: Azərbaycan Respublikası) is the largest country in the Caucasus region located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south. The exclave of Nakhchivan is bounded by Armenia to the north and east, Iran to the south and west, while having a short borderline with Turkey to the northwest.
Azerbaijan has an ancient and historic cultural heritage. Aside from having been the first Muslim-majority country to have operas, theater and plays, Azerbaijan today is among the Muslim-majority countries where support for secularism and tolerance is the highest. The Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, the first democratic and secular republic in the Muslim world, was established in 1918, but was incorporated into the Soviet Union in 1920. Azerbaijan regained independence in 1991. Shortly thereafter, during the Nagorno-Karabakh War, neighboring Armenia occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, its surrounding territories and the enclaves of Karki, Yukhary Askipara, Barkhudarly and Sofulu. The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which emerged in Nagorno-Karabakh, continues to be not diplomatically recognized by any nation and the region is still considered a de jure part of Azerbaijan, despite being de facto independent since the end of the war. Azerbaijan has come under repeated international criticism for its record on human rights.
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Banque de France
The Banque de France is the central bank of France; it is linked to the European Central Bank (ECB). Its main charge is to implement the interest rate policy of the European System of Central Banks (ESCB). It is headquartered in Paris.
On 1 June 1998, a new institution was created, the European Central Bank (ECB), charged with steering the single monetary policy for the euro. The body formed by the ECB, and the national central banks (NCB) of all the member states of the European Union, constitute the European System of Central Banks (ESCB).
The ESCB is an institutional framework of a single monetary policy for the euro. According to the Banque de France's website, the "sharing of responsibilities between the ECB and the NCBs is based upon significant decentralization of the conduct of the ESCB's single monetary policy".
In 2010, the French government's Autorité de la concurrence (the department in charge of regulating competition) fined eleven banks, including Banque de France, the sum of €384,900,000 for colluding to charge unjustified fees on check processing, especially for extra fees charged during the transition from paper check transfer to "Exchanges Check-Image" electronic transfer.
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Barbados
Coordinates: 13°10′N 59°33′W / 13.167°N 59.55°W / 13.167; -59.55
Barbados (i/bɑrˈbeɪdɒs/ or /bɑrˈbeɪdoʊs/) is a sovereign island country in the Lesser Antilles. It is 34 kilometres (21 mi) in length and up to 23 kilometres (14 mi) in width, covering an area of 431 square kilometres (166 sq mi). It is situated in the western area of the North Atlantic and 100 kilometres (62 mi) east of the Windward Islands and the Caribbean Sea; therein, it is about 168 kilometres (104 mi) east of the islands of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and 400 kilometres (250 mi) north-east of Trinidad and Tobago. Barbados is outside of the principal Atlantic hurricane belt.
Barbados was initially visited by the Spanish around the late 1400s to early 1500s and first appears on a Spanish map from 1511. The Spanish explorers may have plundered the island of whatever native peoples resided therein to become slaves. The Portuguese visited in 1536, but they too left it unclaimed, with their only remnants being an introduction of wild hogs for a good supply of meat whenever the island was visited. The first English ship, the Olive Blossom, arrived in Barbados in 1624. They took possession of it in the name of the British king James I. Two years later in 1627 the first permanent settlers arrived from England and it became an English and later British colony.
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Bas-Rhin
Bas-Rhin (French pronunciation: [bɑ.ʁɛ̃]; Alsatian: Unterelsàss) is a department of France. The name means "Lower Rhine". It is the more populous and densely populated of the two departments of the Alsace region, with 1,079,013 inhabitants in 2006.
Bas-Rhin is one of the original 83 departments created on 4 March 1790, during the French Revolution.
In the mid-1790s, following the French occupation of the entire left bank of the Rhine, the northern boundary of the department was extended north beyond the Lauter to the Queich river to include the areas of Annweiler am Trifels, Landau in der Pfalz, Bad Bergzabern, and Wörth am Rhein. However, upon Napoleon's second defeat in 1815, the Congress of Vienna reassigned the areas north of the Lauter to Bavaria; and those territories are now presently located in the neighbouring German state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
The department has twice been incorporated into Germany: from 1871 (after France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War) until the end of World War I in 1918, and again briefly during World War II (from 1940 to 1945) during the German occupation of France.
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Basse-Normandie
Lower Normandy (French: Basse-Normandie, IPA: [bas nɔr.mɑ̃.di]; Norman: Basse-Normaundie) is an administrative region of France. It was created in 1956, when the Normandy region was divided into Lower Normandy and Upper Normandy. The region includes three departments, Calvados, Manche and Orne, that cover the part of Normandy traditionally termed "Lower Normandy" lying west of the Dives River, the Pays d'Auge (except a small part remaining in Upper Normandy), a small part of the Pays d'Ouche (the main part remaining in Upper Normandy), the Norman Perche and part of the "French" Perche. It covers 10,857 km2, 3.2 percent of the surface area of France.
The traditional districts of Lower Normandy include the Cotentin Peninsula and La Hague, the Campagne de Caen, the Norman Bocage, the Bessin and the Avranchin.
The traditional province of Normandy, with an integral history reaching back to the 10th century, was divided in 1957 into two regions: Lower Normandy and Upper Normandy.
During the Roman era, the region was divided into several different city-states. That of Vieux was excavated in the 17th century, revealing numerous structures and vestiges bearing testimony to the prosperity of the Caen region.
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Battle of Hastings
Coordinates: 50°54′43″N 0°29′15″E / 50.91194°N 0.4875°E / 50.91194; 0.4875
The Battle of Hastings occurred on 14 October 1066 during the Norman conquest of England, between the Norman-French army of Duke William II of Normandy and the English army under King Harold II. It took place at Senlac Hill, approximately 10 km (61⁄4 miles) northwest of Hastings, close to the present-day town of Battle, East Sussex, and was a decisive Norman victory.
Harold II was killed in the battle—legend has it that he was shot through the eye with an arrow. He was the last English king to die in battle on English soil until Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth Field. The battle marked the last successful foreign invasion of the British Isles. Although there was further English resistance, this battle is seen as the point at which William gained control of England, becoming its first Norman ruler as King William I.
The battle also established the superiority of the combined arms attack over an army predominately composed of infantry, demonstrating the effectiveness of archers, cavalry and infantry working cooperatively together. The dominance of cavalry forces over infantry would continue until the emergence of the longbow, and battles such as Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt in the Hundred Years War.
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Battle of Waterloo
Coordinates: 50°40′45″N 4°24′25″E / 50.67917°N 4.40694°E / 50.67917; 4.40694 The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday, 18 June 1815 near Waterloo in present-day Belgium, then part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. An Imperial French army under the command of Emperor Napoleon was defeated by combined armies of the Seventh Coalition, an Anglo-Allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington combined with a Prussian army under the command of Gebhard von Blücher. It was the culminating battle of the Waterloo Campaign and Napoleon's last. The defeat at Waterloo ended his rule as Emperor of the French, marking the end of his Hundred Days return from exile.
Upon Napoleon's return to power in 1815, many states that had opposed him formed the Seventh Coalition and began to mobilise armies. Two large forces under Wellington and Blücher assembled close to the north-eastern border of France. Napoleon chose to attack in the hope of destroying them before they could join in a coordinated invasion of France with other members of the coalition. The decisive engagement of this three-day Waterloo Campaign (16–19 June 1815) occurred at the Battle of Waterloo. According to Wellington, the battle was "the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life."
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Belarus
Belarus (i/bɛləˈruːs/ bel-ə-ROOSS; Belarusian: Беларусь, Russian pronunciation: [bʲɛlaˈrusʲ] Russian: Беларусь, Белоруссия, Belarus', Belorussiya), officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno (Hrodna), Gomel (Homiel), Mogilev (Mahilyow) and Vitebsk (Vitsebsk). Over forty percent of its 207,600 square kilometres (80,200 sq mi) is forested, and its strongest economic sectors are agriculture and manufacturing.
Until the 20th century, the lands of modern-day Belarus belonged to several countries, including the Principality of Polotsk, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Russian Empire. In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Belarus became a founding constituent republic of the Soviet Union and was renamed as the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (BSSR). The borders of Belarus took their modern shape in 1939 when some lands of the Second Polish Republic were incorporated into it after the Soviet invasion of Poland. The nation and its territory were devastated in World War II, during which Belarus lost about a third of its population and more than half of its economic resources. The republic was redeveloped in the post-war years. In 1945 the Belorussian SSR became a founding member of the United Nations, along with the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian SSR.
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Belgium
Belgium (i/ˈbɛldʒəm/ BEL-jəm), officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO. Belgium covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres (11,787 sq mi), and it has a population of about 11 million people. Straddling the cultural boundary between Germanic and Latin Europe, Belgium is home to two main linguistic groups, the Dutch-speakers, mostly Flemish (about 60%), and the French-speakers, mostly Walloons (about 40%), plus a small group of German-speakers. Belgium's two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders in the north and the French-speaking southern region of Wallonia. The Brussels-Capital Region, officially bilingual, is a mostly French-speaking enclave within the Flemish Region. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in the political history and a complex system of government.
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Belize
Belizei/bəˈliːz/ (formerly British Honduras) is a country located on the north eastern coast of Central America and it is the only country in the area where English is the official language, although Kriol and Spanish are more commonly spoken. Belize is bordered to the north by Mexico, south and west by Guatemala, and to the east by the Caribbean Sea. Its mainland is about 290 kilometres (180 mi) long and 110 kilometres (68 mi) wide.
With 22,960 square kilometres (8,860 sq mi) of land and a population of only 333,200 inhabitants (2010 est.), Belize possesses the lowest population density in Central America. The country's population growth rate of 2.21% (2008 est.), however, is the highest in the region and one of the highest in the western hemisphere. Belize's abundance of terrestrial and marine species, and its diversity of ecosystems give it a key place within the globally significant Mesoamerican Biological Corridor.
Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages and it is the only nation in the region with a British colonial heritage but as a part of the Western Caribbean Zone, it also shares a common heritage with the Caribbean portions of other Central American countries. In general, Belize is considered to be a Central American nation with strong ties to both the Caribbean and Latin America. Belize is a member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), and Sistema de la Integración Centroamericana (SICA).
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Benin
Benini/bɨˈniːn/ (formerly, Dahomey), officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Togo to the west, by Nigeria to the east and by Burkina Faso and Niger to the north. A majority of the population live on its small southern coastline on the Bight of Benin. The capital of Benin is Porto-Novo, but the seat of government is in Cotonou, the country's largest city. Benin covers an area of approximately 110,000 square kilometers (42,000 sq mi), with a population of approximately 9.05 million. Benin is a tropical, sub-Saharan nation, highly dependent on agriculture, with substantial employment and income arising from subsistence farming.
The official language of Benin is French, however, indigenous languages such as Fon and Yoruba are commonly spoken. The largest religious group in Benin is Roman Catholicism, followed closely by Islam, Vodun and Protestantism. Benin is a member of the United Nations, the African Union, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone, La Francophonie, the Community of Sahel-Saharan States, the African Petroleum Producers Association and the Niger Basin Authority.
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Bermuda
Bermuda ( /bɜrˈmjuːdə/), officially the Bermudas or Somers Islands, is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about 1,030 kilometres (640 mi) to the west-northwest. It is about 1,373 kilometres (853 mi) south of Halifax, Nova Scotia and 1,770 kilometres (1,100 mi) northeast of Miami, Florida, USA. Its capital city is Hamilton.
Bermuda was discovered in 1505 by Spanish sea captain Juan de Bermúdez, after whom the islands are named. Apparently uninhabited, he claimed them for the Spanish Empire. Although he paid two visits to the archipelago, Bermúdez was persuaded never to set foot on any of the islands by the dangerous reef surrounding them. Subsequent Spanish or other visitors are believed to have released the feral pigs that were abundant on the island when settlement began. In 1609, the Virginia Company, which had established Virginia and Jamestown on the American continent two years earlier, established a settlement on behalf of the English colonial empire. Initially, it was administered as an extension of Virginia by the Company until 1614, before its successor, the Somers Isles Company, took over until 1684. Bermuda then became a British colony following the 1707 unification of the Kingdom of England with the Kingdom of Scotland to create the unified Kingdom of Great Britain. After Newfoundland became part of Canada in 1949, Bermuda became the oldest (and, since the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997, the most populous) remaining British overseas territory. Its first capital, St George's, was established in 1612 and is the oldest continuously-inhabited English town in the Americas.
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Bolivia
Coordinates: 16°42′43″S 64°39′58″W / 16.712°S 64.666°W / -16.712; -64.666 Bolivia (i/bəˈlɪviə/, Spanish: [boliˈβja]) officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia (Spanish: Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, Quechua: Bulivya Mamallaqta, Aymara: Wuliwya Suyu), is a landlocked country in central South America. It is bordered by Brazil to the north and east, Paraguay and Argentina to the south, Chile to the southwest, and Peru to the west.
Prior to European colonization, the Andean region of Bolivia was a part of the Inca Empire – the largest state in Pre-Columbian America. The Spanish Empire conquered the region in the 16th century. During most of the Spanish colonial period, this territory was called Upper Peru and was under the administration of the Viceroyalty of Peru, which included most of Spain's South American colonies. After declaring independence in 1809, 16 years of war followed before the establishment of the Republic, named for Simón Bolívar, on 6 August 1825. Bolivia has struggled through periods of political instability, dictatorships and economic woes.
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Bonaire
Bonaire ( /bɒˈnɛər/; Dutch: Bonaire, Papiamentu: Boneiru) is a special municipality (officially public body) of the Netherlands, consisting of the Caribbean island of Bonaire and, nestled in its western crescent, the uninhabited islet of Klein Bonaire. Together with Aruba and Curaçao it forms a group referred to as the ABC islands of the Leeward Antilles, the southern island chain of the Lesser Antilles. The name Bonaire is thought to have originally come from the Caiquetio word 'Bonay'. The early Spanish and Dutch modified its spelling to Bojnaj and also Bonaire, which means "Good Air".
Bonaire was part of the Netherlands Antilles until the country's dissolution on 10 October 2010, when the island (including Klein Bonaire) became a special municipality within the country of the Netherlands.
Bonaire's earliest known inhabitants were the Caquetio Indians, a branch of the Arawak who came by canoe from Venezuela in about AD 1000. Archeological remains of Caquetio culture have been found at certain sites northeast of Kralendijk and near Lac Bay. Caquetio rock paintings and petroglyphs have been preserved in caves at Spelonk, Onima, Ceru Pungi, and Ceru Crita-Cabai. The Caquetios were apparently a very tall people, for the Spanish name for the ABC Islands was 'las Islas de los Gigantes' or 'the islands of the giants.'
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Bonin Islands
The Bonin Islands, known in Japan as the Ogasawara Group (小笠原群島, Ogasawara Guntō?) are an archipelago of over 30 subtropical and tropical islands, some 1,000 kilometres (540 nmi; 620 mi) directly south of Tokyo, Japan. Administratively, they are part of Ogasawara Municipality (mura) of Ogasawara Subprefecture, Tokyo. The total area of the islands is 73 square kilometres (28 sq mi), with a population of 2,440 (2000 on Chichi-jima, and 440 on Haha-jima).
The Ogasawara Islands were added to UNESCO's list of World Natural Heritage sites in July 2011 as animals and plants there have undergone unique evolutionary processes since these islands have never been connected with a continent, thus often dubbed as the "Galapagos of the Orient".
The only inhabited islands of the group are Chichi-jima (父島), the seat of the municipal government, and Haha-jima (母島) includes what is within Ogasawara Village.
In Japanese, the archipelago is called Ogasawara Group (小笠原群島, Ogasawara Guntō?). By contrast, the term Ogasawara Archipelago (小笠原諸島, Ogasawara shotō?), is a wider, collective term for all islands of Ogasawara Municipality, which also includes the Volcano Islands and a few isolated islands. The common English name for Ogasawara Guntō is Bonin Islands, from bunin, an archaic reading of 無人 (mujin), that means "no people" or "uninhabited." Rich of unique forms of life, the archipelago was nominated as a natural World Heritage Site on June 24, 2011.
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Bora Bora
Bora Bora is an island in the Leeward group of the Society Islands of French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France in the Pacific Ocean. The original name of the island in the Tahitian language might be better rendered as Pora Pora, meaning "First Born"; an early transcription found in 18th- and 19th-century accounts, is Bolabolla or Bollabolla. The island, located about 230 kilometres (140 mi) northwest of Papeete, is surrounded by a lagoon and a barrier reef. In the center of the island are the remnants of an extinct volcano rising to two peaks, Mount Pahia and Mount Otemanu, the highest point at 727 metres (2,385 ft).
Bora Bora is a major international tourist destination, famous for its aqua-centric luxury resorts. The island is served by Bora Bora Airport on Motu Mete in the north, with Air Tahiti providing daily flights to and from Papeete on Tahiti. The major settlement, Vaitape is on the western side of the main island, opposite the main channel into the lagoon. Produce of the island is mostly limited to what can be obtained from the sea and the plentiful coconut trees, which were historically of economic importance for copra. According to a census performed in 2008, the permanent population of Bora Bora is 8,880.
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Botswana
Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana (Tswana: Lefatshe la Botswana), is a landlocked country located in Southern Africa. The citizens are properly referred to as "Batswana" (singular: Motswana), but many English-language sources use "Botswanan". Formerly the British protectorate of Bechuanaland, Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966. It has held free and fair democratic elections since independence.
Botswana is flat, and up to 70% is covered by the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast, Namibia to the west and north, and Zimbabwe to the northeast. Its border with Zambia to the north near Kazungula, Zambia is poorly defined but at most is a few hundred meters long.
A mid-sized country of just over two million people, Botswana is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world. Botswana was one of the poorest countries in Africa when it gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1966, with a GDP per capita of about US$70. Botswana has since transformed itself, becoming one of the fastest-growing economies in the world to a GDP (purchasing power parity) per capita of about $14,000. The country also has a strong tradition as a representative democracy.
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Bouches-du-Rhône
Bouches-du-Rhône (French pronunciation: [buʃ.dy.ʁon]; Occitan: Bocas de Ròse, lit. "Mouths of the Rhône") is a department in the south of France named after the mouth of the Rhône River. It is the most populous department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Its INSEE and postal code is 13.
Bouches-du-Rhône is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from the western part of the former province of Provence and the principalities of Orange, Martigues, and Lambesc. It lost part of its territory in 1793, including Orange and Apt, when the Vaucluse department was created.
Following its creation, the department was immediately strongly and actively supportive of the French Revolution, containing 90 "Jacobin Clubs" by 1794. It was also noteworthy that more than 50% of the priests in the department accepted the Civil Constitution of the Clergy which in effect subordinated the church to the government. During the ascendancy of the Communist Party in the twentieth century election results indicated that support for left-wing politics remained relatively strong in the department, and especially in the northern suburbs of Marseille.
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Bourgogne
Burgundy (French: Bourgogne, IPA: [buʁɡɔɲ] ( listen)) is one of the 27 regions of France.
The name comes from the Burgundians, an ancient Germanic people who settled in the area during the early Middle Ages. The region of Burgundy is both larger than the old Duchy of Burgundy and smaller than the area ruled by the Dukes of Burgundy, from the modern Netherlands to the border of Auvergne.
Burgundy is made up of the following old provinces:
The climate of this region is essentially oceanic (Cfb in Köppen classification), with a continental influence (sometimes called a "half-continental climate").
Coordinates: 47°00′N 4°30′E / 47°N 4.5°E / 47; 4.5
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Brazil
Brazili/brəˈzɪl/ (Portuguese: Brasil, IPA: [bɾaˈziw]), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: República Federativa do Brasil, listen (help·info)), is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people. It is the only Portuguese-speaking country in the Americas and the largest lusophone country in the world.
Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of 7,491 km (4,655 mi). It is bordered on the north by Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and the French overseas region of French Guiana; on the northwest by Colombia; on the west by Bolivia and Peru; on the southwest by Argentina and Paraguay and on the south by Uruguay. Numerous archipelagos form part of Brazilian territory, such as Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Saint Peter and Paul Rocks, and Trindade and Martim Vaz. It borders all other South American countries except Ecuador and Chile.
Brazil was a colony of Portugal from the landing of Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500 until 1815, when it was elevated to the rank of kingdom and the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves was formed. The colonial bond was in fact broken in 1808, when the capital of the Portuguese colonial empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, after Napoleon invaded Portugal.Independence was achieved in 1822 with the formation of the Empire of Brazil, a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system. The country became a presidential republic in 1889, when a military coup d'état proclaimed the Republic, although the bicameral legislature, now called Congress, dates back to the ratification of the first constitution in 1824. Its current Constitution, formulated in 1988, defines Brazil as a Federal Republic. The Federation is formed by the union of the Federal District, the 26 States, and the 5,564 Municipalities.
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British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1922 the British Empire held sway over about 458 million people, one-fifth of the world's population at the time, and covered more than 33,700,000 km2 (13,012,000 sq mi), almost a quarter of the Earth's total land area. As a result, its political, linguistic and cultural legacy is widespread. At the peak of its power, it was often said that "the sun never sets on the British Empire" because its span across the globe ensured that the sun was always shining on at least one of its numerous territories.
During the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain pioneered European exploration of the globe, and in the process established large overseas empires. Envious of the great wealth these empires generated, England, France and the Netherlands began to establish colonies and trade networks of their own in the Americas and Asia. A series of wars in the 17th and 18th centuries with the Netherlands and France left England (and then, following union between England and Scotland in 1707, Great Britain) the dominant colonial power in North America and India. The loss of the Thirteen Colonies in North America in 1783 after a war of independence deprived Britain of some of its oldest and most populous colonies.
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Brittany
Brittany (French: Bretagne [bʁətaɲ] ( listen); Breton: Breizh, pronounced [brɛjs]; Gallo: Bertaèyn) is a cultural region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain (as opposed to Great Britain). Brittany is considered as one of the six Celtic nations.
Brittany occupies the northwest peninsula of continental Europe in northwest France. It is bordered by the English Channel to the north, the Celtic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and the Bay of Biscay to the south. Its land area is 34,023 km² (13,136 sq mi). The historical province of Brittany is divided into five departments: Finistère in the west, Côtes-d'Armor in the north, Ille-et-Vilaine in the north east, Loire-Atlantique in the south east and Morbihan in the south on the Bay of Biscay.
In 1956, French regions were created by gathering departments between them. The Region of Brittany comprises, since then, four of the five Breton departments (80% of historical Brittany), while the remaining area of the old Brittany, the Loire-Atlantique department, around Nantes, forms part of the Pays de la Loire region. This territorial organisation is regularly contested. The Kingdom and the Duchy of Brittany, the province of Brittany, and the modern Region of Brittany cover the Western part of Armorica, as it was known during the period of Roman occupation.
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Bulgaria
Coordinates: 42°45′N 25°30′E / 42.75°N 25.5°E / 42.75; 25.5
Bulgariai/bʌlˈɡɛəriə/ (Bulgarian: България, IPA: [bɤ̞ɫˈɡarijɐ]), is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and the Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south and the Black Sea to the east. With a territory of 110,994 square kilometres (42,855 sq mi), Bulgaria is Europe's 14th-largest country. Its location has made it a historical crossroad for various civilisations and as such it is the home of some of the earliest metalworking, religious and other cultural artifacts in the world.
Prehistoric cultures began developing on Bulgarian lands during the Neolithic period. Its ancient history was marked by the presence of the Thracians, and later by the Greeks and Romans. The emergence of a unified Bulgarian ethnicity and state dates back to the First Bulgarian Empire, which dominated most of the Balkans and functioned as a cultural hub for Slavic peoples during the Middle Ages. With the downfall of the Second Bulgarian Empire in 1396, its territories came under Ottoman rule for nearly five hundred years. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 resulted in the Third Bulgarian State, recognised in 1908. The following years saw several conflicts with its neighbours, which prompted Bulgaria to align with Germany in both World Wars. In 1946 it became a Communist republic with a single-party system until 1989, when the Communist Party allowed multi-party elections. After 1990 Bulgaria transitioned to democracy and a market-based economy.
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Burkina Faso
Burkina Faso (i/bərˌkiːnə ˈfɑːsoʊ/ bər-KEE-nə FAH-soh; French: [buʁkina faso]) – also known by its short-form name Burkina – is a landlocked country in west Africa. It is surrounded by six countries: Mali to the north, Niger to the east, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the south, and Côte d'Ivoire to the southwest. The country's capital is Ouagadougou.
Its size is 274,200 square kilometres (105,900 sq mi) with an estimated population of more than 15,757,000. Formerly called the Republic of Upper Volta, it was renamed on 4 August 1984, by President Thomas Sankara, to mean "the land of upright people" in Mòoré and Dioula, the major native languages of the country. Figuratively, "Burkina" may be translated, "men of integrity", from the Mòoré language, and "Faso" means "fatherland" in Dioula. The inhabitants of Burkina Faso are known as Burkinabè (
/bərˈkiːnəbeɪ/ bər-KEE-nə-bay).
Burkina Faso was populated between 14,000 and 5000 BC by hunter-gatherers in the country's northwestern region. Farm settlements appeared between 3600 and 2600 BC. What is now central Burkina Faso was principally composed of Mossi kingdoms. These Mossi Kingdoms would become a French protectorate in 1896. After gaining independence from France in 1960, the country underwent many governmental changes until arriving at its current form, a semi-presidential republic. The president is Blaise Compaoré.
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Calvados
The French department of Calvados (pronounced: [kal.va.dos]) is part of the region of Basse-Normandie in Normandy. It takes its name from a cluster of rocks off the English Channel coast. The pronunciation varies: in French the final 's' is not mute; in English usually Calvadoss with stress on the first syllable.
Calvados is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from a part of the former province of Normandy. The name "Orne inférieure" was originally proposed for the department, but it was ultimately decided to call the area Calvados.
Its etymology is most likely derived from the Salvador, a ship from the Spanish Armada that sank by the rocks near Arromanches-les-bains in 1588. However, others insist that the name Calvados was derived from calva dorsa, meaning bare backs, in reference to two sparsely vegetated rocks off its shore.
After the allied victory at Waterloo the department was occupied by Prussian troops between June 1815 and November 1818.
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Camargue
Coordinates: 43°32′N 04°30′E / 43.533°N 4.5°E / 43.533; 4.5
The Camargue (Occitan: Camarga in classical norm or Camargo in Mistralian norm) is the region located south of Arles, France, between the Mediterranean Sea and the two arms of the Rhône River delta. The eastern arm is called the Grand Rhône; the western one is the Petit Rhône.
Administratively it lies within the département of Bouches-du-Rhône, the appropriately named "Mouths of the Rhône", and covers parts of the territory of the communes of Arles - the largest commune in Metropolitan France, Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer - the second largest - and Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône. A further expanse of marshy plain, the Petite Camargue (little Camargue), just to the west of the Petit Rhône, is in the département of Gard.
Camargue was designated a Ramsar site as a "Wetland of International Importance" on December 1, 1986. The area was also the inspiration for naming Operation Camargue during the First Indochina War.
With an area of over 930 km2 (360 sq mi), the Camargue is western Europe's largest river delta. It is a vast plain comprising large brine lagoons or étangs, cut off from the sea by sandbars and encircled by reed-covered marshes. These are in turn surrounded by a large cultivated area.
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Cambodia
Cambodia (i/kæmˈboʊdiə/;Khmer: ព្រះរាជាណាចក្រកម្ពុជា, Kampuchea, IPA: [kɑmˈpuˈciə]), officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. With a total landmass of 181,035 square kilometres (69,898 sq mi), it is bordered by Thailand to the northwest, Laos to the northeast, Vietnam to the east, and the Gulf of Thailand to the southwest.
With a population of over 14.8 million, Cambodia is the 68th most populous country in the world. The official religion is Theravada Buddhism, which is practiced by around 95% of the Cambodian population. The country minority groups include Vietnamese, Chinese, Chams and 30 various hill tribes. The capital and largest city is Phnom Penh; the political, economic, and cultural center of Cambodia. The kingdom is a constitutional monarchy with Norodom Sihamoni, a monarch chosen by the Royal Throne Council, as head of state. The head of government is Hun Sen, who is currently the longest serving leader in South East Asia and has ruled Cambodia for over 25 years.
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Cameroon
Cameroon, officially the Republic of Cameroon (French: République du Cameroun), is a country in west Central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west; Chad to the northeast; the Central African Republic to the east; and Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo to the south. Cameroon's coastline lies on the Bight of Bonny, part of the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean. The country is called "Africa in miniature" for its geological and cultural diversity. Natural features include beaches, deserts, mountains, rainforests, and savannas. The highest point is Mount Cameroon in the southwest, and the largest cities are Douala, Yaoundé, and Garoua. Cameroon is home to over 200 different linguistic groups. The country is well known for its native styles of music, particularly makossa and bikutsi, and for its successful national football team. French and English are the official languages.
Early inhabitants of the territory included the Sao civilisation around Lake Chad and the Baka hunter-gatherers in the southeastern rainforest. Portuguese explorers reached the coast in the 15th century and named the area Rio dos Camarões ("River of Prawns"), the name from which Cameroon derives. Fulani soldiers founded the Adamawa Emirate in the north in the 19th century, and various ethnic groups of the west and northwest established powerful chiefdoms and fondoms. Cameroon became a German colony in 1884.
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Canada
Canada ( /ˈkænədə/) is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean. Spanning over 9,900,000 km2 (3,800,000 sq mi), Canada is the world's second-largest country by total area, and its common border with the United States is the longest land border in the world.
The land that is now Canada has been inhabited for millennia by various Aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French colonial expeditions explored, and later settled, along the region's Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy; the Canada Act 1982 severed the vestiges of legal dependence on Britain.
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Canary Islands
The Canary Islands (English /kəˈnɛəri ˈaɪləndz/; Spanish: Islas Canarias [ˈizlas kaˈnaɾjas, ˈihlah kaˈnaɾjas]), also known as the Canaries (Spanish: Canarias), is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union. The islands include (from largest to smallest): Tenerife, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, La Palma, La Gomera, El Hierro, La Graciosa, Alegranza, Isla de Lobos, Montaña Clara, Roque del Este and Roque del Oeste. The Canary Islands are legally recognized as a nationality of Spain. Geographically it is a part of the African Continent.[citation needed]
The archipelago's beaches, climate and important natural attractions, especially Teide National Park and Mount Teide (the third tallest volcano in the world measured from its base on the ocean floor), make it a major tourist destination, with over 12 million visitors per year, especially Tenerife, Gran Canaria and Lanzarote. The islands have a subtropical climate, with long warm summers and moderately warm winters. Due to their location above the temperature inversion layer, these islands are ideal for astronomical observation. For this reason, two professional observatories, Teide Observatory on the island of Tenerife and Roque de los Muchachos Observatory on the island of La Palma, have been built on the islands.
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Cannes Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival (French: Le Festival International du Film de Cannes or just Festival de Cannes), is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is the world's most prestigious and publicized film festival. The invitation-only festival is held annually (usually in May) at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès.
The 2012 Cannes Film Festival took place from May 16 to May 27, 2012. The President of the Jury was the Italian film director Nanni Moretti.
The Cannes Film Festival has its origins in the late 1930s when Jean Zay, the French Minister of National Education, on the proposal of Philippe Erlanger and with the support of the British and Americans,[clarification needed] set up an international cinematographic festival. In 1947, the festival was held as the "Festival du film de Cannes", where films from sixteen countries were presented. Moreover, the principle of equality was introduced, so that the jury was to be made up only of one representative per country. Also, this year the festival was held at the made-for-the-occasion Palais des Festivals, although the roof was unfinished and blew off during a storm. The festival was not held in 1948 and 1950 on account of budgetary problems. In 1951, owing to better relations between France and Italy, the Cannes Festival was moved to Spring, while the Mostra remained in Autumn.
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Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival (French: Le Festival International du Film de Cannes or just Festival de Cannes), is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is the world's most prestigious and publicized film festival. The invitation-only festival is held annually (usually in May) at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès.
The 2012 Cannes Film Festival took place from May 16 to May 27, 2012. The President of the Jury was the Italian film director Nanni Moretti.
The Cannes Film Festival has its origins in the late 1930s when Jean Zay, the French Minister of National Education, on the proposal of Philippe Erlanger and with the support of the British and Americans,[clarification needed] set up an international cinematographic festival. In 1947, the festival was held as the "Festival du film de Cannes", where films from sixteen countries were presented. Moreover, the principle of equality was introduced, so that the jury was to be made up only of one representative per country. Also, this year the festival was held at the made-for-the-occasion Palais des Festivals, although the roof was unfinished and blew off during a storm. The festival was not held in 1948 and 1950 on account of budgetary problems. In 1951, owing to better relations between France and Italy, the Cannes Festival was moved to Spring, while the Mostra remained in Autumn.
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Cantal
Cantal (French pronunciation: [kɑ̃.tal]; Occitan: Cantal, Cantau, Chantal, Chantau) is a department in south-central France. It is named after the Cantal mountain range, a group of extinct, eroded volcanic peaks, which covers much of the department. Residents are known as Cantaliens or Cantalous.
Cantal is part of the current region of Auvergne. It borders the departments of Puy-de-Dôme, Haute-Loire, Aveyron, Lot, Lozère, and Corrèze. Its principal towns are Aurillac, Saint-Flour, and Mauriac. The highest point in Cantal is Le Plomb du Cantal at 1858 metres.
Cantal remains, with Lozère and Creuse, one of the most sparsely populated and geographically isolated French departments. Aurillac is the farthest removed departmental capital from a major motorway.
Cantal is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from a part of the former province of Auvergne, called Haute-Auvergne.
The Occitan language was historically dominant in Cantal.
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Cape Verde
Cape Verdei/ˌkeɪp ˈvɜrd/ (Portuguese: Cabo Verde, pronounced: [ˈkabu ˈveɾdɨ]), officially the Republic of Cape Verde, is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa. The islands, covering a combined area of slightly over 4,000 square kilometres (1,500 sq mi), are of volcanic origin and while three of them (Sal, Boa Vista and Maio) are fairly flat, sandy and dry, the remaining ones are generally rockier and have more vegetation. However, because of the infrequent occurrence of rainfall the overall landscape is not particularly green.
The name of the country stems from the nearby Cap Vert, on the Senegalese coast, which in its turn was originally named "Cabo Verde" when it was sighted by Portuguese explorers in 1444, a few years before the islands were discovered (verde is Portuguese for "green").
The previously uninhabited islands were discovered and colonized by the Portuguese in the 15th Century, and became important in the Atlantic slave trade for their location. The islands' prosperity often attracted privateers and pirates, including Sir Francis Drake, a corsair (privateer) under the authority of the British crown, who twice sacked the (then) capital Ribeira Grande, in the 1580s. The islands were also visited by Charles Darwin's expedition in 1832. The decline in the slave trade in the 19th century resulted in an economic crisis for the islands. With few natural resources, and without strong sustainable investment from the Portuguese, the citizens grew increasingly discontent with the colonial masters, who nevertheless refused to provide the local authorities with more autonomy. This discontent festered and culminated in 1975, when a movement originally led by Amílcar Cabral who was assassinated on 20 January 1973 then passed onto his half-brother Luís Cabral, achieved independence for the archipelago.
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Capitole de Toulouse
The Capitole de Toulouse is the heart of the municipal administration of the French city of Toulouse.
The Capitouls (governing magistrates) of the Toulouse embarked on the construction of the original building in 1190, to provide a seat for the government of a province growing in wealth and influence. The name "Capitole" referred not only to the Roman Capitol but also to the capitulum which was the chapter of the governing magistrates.
In the 20th century, the structures surrounding the vast (2 hectares) Place du Capitole were redesigned. Some of the interior of the Capitole can be traced back to the 16th century, but the current façade, 135 metres long and built of the characteristic pink brick in Neoclassical style, dates from 1750, built according to plans by Guillaume Cammas. The eight columns represent the original eight capitouls. In 1873, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc built a bell tower typical of the style of northern France on top of the donjon of the building. It was in this donjon that Jean Calas, a Protestant victim of a religiously biased trial, was interrogated. Only the Henri IV courtyard and gate survive from the original medieval buildings. It was in this courtyard that the Duke de Montmorency was decapitated after his rebellion against Cardinal Richelieu.
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Caribbean
The Caribbean (pronounced /ˌkærɨˈbiːən/ or /kəˈrɪbiən/) is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles (3,200 km) long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north. From the peninsula of Florida on the mainland of the United States, the islands stretch 1,200 miles (1,900 km) southeastward, then 500 miles (800 km) south, then west along the north coast of Venezuela on the South American mainland.
Situated largely on the Caribbean Plate, the region comprises more than 7,000 islands, islets, reefs, and cays. These islands generally form island arcs that delineate the eastern and northern edges of the Caribbean Sea.
The Caribbean islands are part of the somewhat larger West Indies grouping, which consists of the Greater Antilles on the north, the Lesser Antilles on the south and east (including the Leeward Antilles), as well as the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands (the Lucayan Archipelago, which does not border the Caribbean Sea). Due to its proximity to the equator, the sun rises from 3am EST to 5am EST.[citation needed]
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Carnac stones
The Carnac stones are an exceptionally dense collection of megalithic sites around the French village of Carnac, in Brittany, consisting of alignments, dolmens, tumuli and single menhirs. The more than 3,000 prehistoric standing stones were hewn from local rock and erected by the pre-Celtic people of Brittany, and are the largest such collection in the world. Local tradition claims that the reason they stand in such perfectly straight lines is that they are a Roman legion turned to stone by Merlin or Saint Cornelius – Brittany has its own local versions of the Arthurian cycle. A Christian legend associated with the stones held that they were pagan soldiers in pursuit of Pope Cornelius when he turned them to stone.
Most of the stones are within the Breton village of Carnac, but some to the east are within La Trinité-sur-Mer. The stones were erected at some stage during the Neolithic period, probably around 3300 BC, but some may date to as old as 4500 BC. In recent centuries, many of the sites have been neglected, with reports of dolmens being used as sheep shelters, chicken sheds or even ovens. Even more commonly, stones have been removed to make way for roads, or as building materials. The continuing management of the sites remains a controversial topic.
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Catalan Countries
The Catalan term Països Catalans (Eastern Catalan: [pəˈizus kətəˈɫans], Western Catalan: [paˈizos kataˈlans]; English: Catalan Countries) refers to the territories where the Catalan language is spoken.
The first mentions of the term date back to the late 19th century, but it never surpassed the limits of a small circle of Catalan authors[citation needed] until its strictly cultural dimension became increasingly politically charged by the late 1960s and early 1970s, as Francoism began to die out in Spain. Thus, what had remained to date as a cultural term restricted to connoisseurs of Catalan philology, then rose to prominence and became highly controversial during the Spanish Transition period, most acrimoniously in Valencia during the 1980s.
The Països Catalans do not have any legal entity nor is there any universal territorial definition of the scope covered by this concept. It may refer strictly to the territories in which the different varieties of Catalan are traditionally spoken, or it may be extended to the entire political entities in which Catalan has some official status, in spite of the fact that those entities include areas where Catalan is not spoken (the map to the right covers this latter usage).
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Cayman Islands
The Cayman Islands ( /ˈkeɪmən/ or /keɪˈmæn/) is a British Overseas Territory located in the western Caribbean Sea. The territory comprises the three islands of Grand Cayman, Cayman Brac, and Little Cayman, located south of Cuba and northwest of Jamaica. The Cayman Islands are considered to be part of the geographic Western Caribbean Zone as well as the Greater Antilles. The territory is a major world offshore financial centre.
The Cayman Islands were first logged as sighted by Christopher Columbus on 10 May 1503 during his fourth and final voyage to the New World. He named the islands Las Tortugas after the large number of sea turtles observed there. The first recorded English visitor to the islands was Sir Francis Drake in 1586. He subsequently named the islands "Cayman" after caiman, a Neo-Taino word for "alligator".
The Cayman Islands remained largely uninhabited until the 17th century. While there is no archaeological evidence for an indigenous people on the islands, a variety of settlers from various backgrounds made their home on the islands, including pirates, refugees from the Spanish Inquisition, shipwrecked sailors, and deserters from Oliver Cromwell's army in Jamaica.
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Chad
Chadi/ˈtʃæd/ (French: Tchad, Arabic: تشاد Tšād), officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west. Due to its distance from the sea and its largely desert climate, the country is sometimes referred to as the "Dead Heart of Africa".
Chad is divided into multiple regions: a desert zone in the north, an arid Sahelian belt in the centre and a more fertile Sudanese savanna zone in the south. Lake Chad, after which the country is named, is the largest wetland in Chad and the second largest in Africa. Chad's highest peak is the Emi Koussi in the Sahara, and N'Djamena, (formerly Fort-Lamy), the capital, is the largest city. Chad is home to over 200 different ethnic and linguistic groups. Arabic and French are the official languages. Islam and Christianity are the most widely practiced religions.
Beginning in the 7th millennium BC, human populations moved into the Chadian basin in great numbers. By the end of the 1st millennium BC, a series of states and empires rose and fell in Chad's Sahelian strip, each focused on controlling the trans-Saharan trade routes that passed through the region. France conquered the territory by 1920 and incorporated it as part of French Equatorial Africa.
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Champagne-Ardenne
Champagne-Ardenne (French pronunciation: [ʃɑ̃paɲ aʁdɛn]) is one of the 27 regions of France. It is located in the northeast of the country, bordering Belgium, and consists of four departments: Aube, Ardennes, Haute-Marne, and Marne. The region is famous for its sparkling white wine (champagne). Its rivers, most of which flow west, include the Seine, the Marne, and the Aisne. The Meuse flows north.
The rail network includes the Paris–Strasbourg line, which follows the Marne Valley and serves Épernay, Châlons-en-Champagne, and Vitry-le-François. The LGV Est TGV line also connecting Paris and Strasbourg opened in 2007 and serves Reims with a train station in the commune of Bezannes.
The region's canals include the Canal latéral à la Marne and Marne-Rhine Canal, the latter connecting to the Marne at Vitry-le-François. These are petit gabarit canals.
The Vatry International Airport, primarily dedicated to air freight, has a runway 3650 m long, yet it is often unused. The airport is in a sparsely populated area just 150 km from Paris. Some people say it is a good candidate for transformation into a third Parisian airport. Les verts (the French green party) supported such a move because the resulting noise pollution would affect fewer people than an airport closer to Paris.
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Charente
Charente (French pronunciation: [ʃa.ʁɑ̃t], Saintongeais: Chérente, Occitan: Charanta) is a department in southwestern France, in the Poitou-Charentes region, named after the Charente River, the most important river in the department, and also the river beside which the department's two largest towns, Angoulême and Cognac, are sited.
Charente is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from the former province of Angoumois, west and south of Saintonge.
Prior to the creation of the department, the area was not a natural unit, but much of it was commercially prosperous thanks to traditional industries such as salt and cognac production. Although the river became silted up and was unnavigable for much of the twentieth century, in the eighteenth century it provided important links with coastal shipping routes both for traditional businesses and for newly evolving ones such as paper goods and iron smelting.
The accelerating pace of industrial and commercial development during the first half of the nineteenth century led to a period of prosperity, and the department's population peaked in 1851. During the second half of the nineteenth century Charente, like many of France's rural departments, experienced a declining population as the economic prospects available in the cities and in France's overseas empire attracted the working age generations away. Economic ruin came to many in the Charentais wine industry with the arrival in 1872 of phylloxera.
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Charente-Maritime
Charente-Maritime (French pronunciation: [ʃa.ʁɑ̃t ma.ʁi.tim]) is a department on the west coast of France named after the Charente River.
Previously a part of Saintonge, Charente-Inférieure was one of the 83 original departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. On 4 September 1941, it was renamed Charente-Maritime.
When first created, the commune of Saintes was assigned as the prefecture of the department (Saintes had previously been the capital of Saintonge). This changed in 1810 when Napoléon passed an imperial decree which moved the prefecture to La Rochelle.
During World War II, the department was invaded by the German army and became part of occupied France. To provide defence against a possible beach landing, the Organisation Todt constructed a number of sea defences in the area. Defences such as pillboxes are particularly noticeable on the beaches of the presqu'île d'Arvert and the island of Oléron.
At the end of the war there were only two pockets of German resistance: La Rochelle, in the north and Royan in the south. Despite being almost completely destroyed during an RAF bombing raid on 5 January 1945, the town of Royan wasn't liberated by the French resistance until April of the same year. La Rochelle was finally captured on 9 May 1945.
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Cher (department)
Cher (French pronunciation: [ʃɛʁ]; Berrichon: Char) is an administrative department located in the centre of France. It is named after the Cher River.
Cher is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. Most of it was created, along with the adjacent department of Indre from the former province of Berry. The south-eastern corner of the department was part of the Duchy of Bourbon, however.
The department is part of the current administrative region of Centre (Val de Loire). It is surrounded by the departments of Indre, Loir-et-Cher, Loiret, Nièvre, Allier, and Creuse.
The inhabitants of the department are called Berrichons from the former province of Berry.
The President of the General Council is Alain Rafesthain of the Socialist Party.
The Bourges Cathedral of St. Étienne is a major tourist attraction.
The historical languages are Berrichon and the northern version of Bourbonais. These are both dialects of French, or the Langues d'oïl. They are named respectively after the former Province of Berry and the former Duchy of Bourbon. Some 11 communes in the extreme South used to speak Occitan.
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Chile
Chile (i/ˈtʃɪliː/ or /ˈtʃɪleɪ/), officially the Republic of Chile (Spanish: República de Chile [reˈpuβlika ðe ˈtʃile] ( listen)), is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow strip of land between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far south. Along with Ecuador, it is one of two countries in South America that do not border Brazil. Chilean territory includes the Pacific islands of Juan Fernández, Salas y Gómez, Desventuradas and Easter Island. Chile also claims about 1,250,000 square kilometres (480,000 sq mi) of Antarctica, although all claims are suspended under the Antarctic Treaty.
Chile's distinctive shape—4,300 kilometres (2,700 mi) long and on average 175 kilometres (109 mi) wide—makes it the longest country in the world, north to south, with the fifth lengthiest coastline at over 78 thousand kilometers. The diverse climate of Chile ranges from the world's driest desert in the north—the Atacama—through a Mediterranean climate in the centre, humid subtropical in Easter Island, to an Oceanic climate, including alpine tundra and glaciers in the east and south. The northern desert contains great mineral wealth, principally copper. The relatively small central area dominates in terms of population and agricultural resources, and is the cultural and political center from which Chile expanded in the late 19th century when it incorporated its northern and southern regions. Southern Chile is rich in forests and grazing lands, and features a string of volcanoes and lakes. The southern coast is a labyrinth of fjords, inlets, canals, twisting peninsulas, and islands.
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China
China (i/ˈtʃaɪnə/; Chinese: 中国; pinyin: Zhōngguó; see also Names of China), officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is the world's most-populous country, with a population of over 1.3 billion. Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometres, the East Asian state is the world's second-largest country by land area, and the third- or fourth-largest in total area, depending on the definition of total area.
The People's Republic of China is a single-party state governed by the Communist Party of China. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four directly controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). Its capital city is Beijing. The PRC also claims Taiwan—which is controlled by the Republic of China (ROC), a separate political entity—as its 23rd province, a claim controversial due to the complex political status of Taiwan and the unresolved Chinese Civil War. The PRC government denies the legitimacy of the ROC.
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Chinon (castle)
Château de Chinon is a castle located on the bank of the Vienne river in Chinon, France. It was founded by Theobald I, Count of Blois. In the 11th century the castle became the property of the counts of Anjou. In 1156 Henry II of England, a member of the House of Anjou, took the castle from his brother Geoffrey after he had rebelled for a second time. Henry favoured the Château de Chinon as a residence: most of the standing structure can be attributed to his reign and he died there in 1189.
Early in the 13th century, King Philip II of France harassed the English lands in France and in 1205 he captured Chinon after a siege that lasted several months, after which the castle remained under French control. When King Philip IV accused the Knights Templar of heresy during the first decade of the 14th century, several leading members of the order were imprisoned there.
Used by Charles VII in the 15th century, the Château de Chinon became a prison in the second half of the 16th century, but then fell out of use and was left to decay. It has been recognised as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture since 1840. The castle, which contains a museum, is now owned and managed by the Indre-et-Loire General Council and is a major tourist attraction. In the early 21st century it was restored at a cost of 14.5 million euros.
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Christmas Island
Coordinates: 10°29′S 105°38′E / 10.483°S 105.633°E / -10.483; 105.633 The Territory of Christmas Island is a territory of Australia in the Indian Ocean. It is 2,600 kilometres (1,600 mi) northwest of the Western Australian city of Perth, 360 km (220 mi) south of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, 975 km (606 mi) ENE of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, and 2,748 km (1,708 mi) west of the Territorian city of Darwin.
Christmas Island has a population of 1,403 residents who live in a number of "settlement areas" on the northern tip of the island: Flying Fish Cove (also known as Kampong), Silver City, Poon Saan, and Drumsite.
The island’s geographic isolation and history of minimal human disturbance has led to a high level of endemism among its flora and fauna, which is of significant interest to scientists and naturalists. 63% of its 135 square kilometres (52 sq mi) is an Australian national park. There exist large areas of primary monsoonal forest.
Phosphate, deposited originally as dead marine organisms (not guano as often thought), has been mined on the island for many years.
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Château d'Amboise
The royal Château at Amboise is a château located in Amboise, in the Indre-et-Loire département of the Loire Valley in France. Confiscated by the monarchy in the 15th century, it became a favoured royal residence and was extensively rebuilt. King Charles VIII died at the château in 1498 after hitting his head on a door lintel. It has been recognised as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture since 1840.
Château d'Amboise was built on a spur above the River Loire. The strategic qualities of the site were recognised before the medieval the construction of the castle, and a Gallic oppidum was built there. In the late 9th century Ingelgarius was made viscount of Orléans and through his mother was related to Hugh the Abbot, tutors to the French kings. Ingelgarius married Adelais, a member of a prominent family (a bishop and archbishop were her uncles) who controlled Château d'Amboise. He was later made Count of the Angevins and his rise can be attributed to his political connections and reputation as a soldier. Château d'Amboise would pass through Ingelgarius and Adelais' heirs, and he was succeeded by their son, Fulk the Red. As Fulk the Red expanded his territory, Amboise, Loches, and Villentrois formed the core of his possessions. Amboise lay on the eastern frontier of the Angevins holdings.
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Château d'Angers
The Château d'Angers is a castle in the city of Angers in the Loire Valley, in the département of Maine-et-Loire, in France. Founded in the 9th century by the Counts of Anjou, was expanded to its current size in the 13th century. It is located on a rocky ridge overhanging the river Maine. Now open to the public, the Château d'Angers is home of the Apocalypse Tapestry.
Originally, this castle was built as a fortress at one of the sites inhabited by the Romans because of its strategic defensive location.
In the 9th century, the Bishop of Angers gave the Counts of Anjou permission to build a castle in Angers. It became part of the Angevin empire of the Plantagenet Kings of England during the 12th century. In 1204, the region was conquered by Philip II and an enormous castle was built during the minority of his grandson, Louis IX ("Saint Louis") in the early part of the 13th century.[citation needed] The construction undertaken in 1234 cost 4,422 livres, roughly one per cent of the estimated royal revenue at the time. Louis gave the castle to his brother, Charles in 1246.
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Château d'Ussé
The Château d'Ussé is located in the commune of Rigny-Ussé in the Indre-et-Loire département, in France. The stronghold at the edge of the Chinon forest overlooking the Indre Valley was first fortified in the eleventh century by the Norman seigneur of Ussé, Gueldin de Saumur, who surrounded the fort with a palisade on a high terrace. The site passed to the Comte de Blois, who rebuilt in stone.
In the fifteenth century, the ruined castle of Ussé was purchased by Jean V de Bueil, a captain-general of Charles VII who became seigneur of Ussé in 1431 and began rebuilding it in the 1440s; his son Antoine de Bueil married in 1462 Jeanne de Valois, the natural daughter of Charles VII and Agnès Sorel, who brought as dowry 40000 golden écus. Antoine was heavily in debt and in 1455, sold the château to Jacques d’Espinay, son of a chamberlain to the Duke of Brittany and himself chamberlain to the king; Espinay built the chapel, completed by his son Charles in 1612, in which the Flamboyant Gothic style is mixed with new Renaissance motifs, and began the process of rebuilding the fifteenth-century château that resulted in the sixteenth-seventeenth century aspect of the structure to be seen today.
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Château de Chambord
The royal Château de Chambord at Chambord, Loir-et-Cher, France is one of the most recognizable châteaux in the world because of its very distinct French Renaissance architecture which blends traditional French medieval forms with classical Renaissance structures. The building, which was never completed, was constructed by King François I in part to be near to his mistress the Comtesse de Thoury, Claude Rohan, wife of Julien de Clermont, a member of a very important family of France, whose domaine, the château de Muides, was adjacent. Her arms figure in the carved decor of the château.
Chambord is the largest château in the Loire Valley; it was built to serve as a hunting lodge for François I, who maintained his royal residences at Château de Blois and Château d'Amboise. The original design of the Château de Chambord is attributed, though with several doubts, to Domenico da Cortona. Some authors claim that the French Renaissance architect Philibert Delorme had a considerable role in the château's design, and others have suggested that Leonardo da Vinci may have designed it.
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Château de Lusignan
The Château de Lusignan (in Lusignan, Vienne département, France) was the seat of the Lusignan family, Poitevin Marcher Lords, who distinguished themselves in the First Crusade and held the crowns of two Crusader kingdoms, the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Kingdom of Cyprus, and even claimed the title King of Armenia.
Lusignan was constructed in the region of Poitou, occupying a natural strongpoint: a narrow promontory that overlooked steep valleys on either side. It was already so impressive in the 12th century that a legend developed to the effect that its founder had faery aid, in the guise of the water spirit Melusine, who built it and its church through her arts, as a gift for her husband Raymondin.
Lusignan at its height, just as it was in the early 15th century, is illustrated in the Très Riches Heures of Jean, duc de Berri, for whom it was a favorite residence until his death in 1416. It rises in the background of the miniature for the month of March (see illustration), clearly shown in perspective, with its barbican tower at the left, the clock tower — with the exterior chute of the garderobe to its right — and the Tour Poitevine on the right, above which the gilded dragon flies, the protective spirit of Marc Lacombe. After the duc de Berri's death, Lusignan became briefly the property of John, Dauphin (died May 1417) and then passed to his brother, Charles, the future Charles VII.
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Château de Villandry
The Château de Villandry is a castle-palace located in Villandry, in the département of Indre-et-Loire, France.
The lands where an ancient fortress once stood were known as Colombier until the 17th century. Acquired in the early 16th century by Jean Le Breton, France's Controller-General for War under King Francis I, a new château was constructed around the original 14th-century keep where King Philip II of France once met Richard I of England to discuss peace. It is also known for its beautiful gardens.
The château remained in the Le Breton family for more than two centuries until it was acquired by the Marquis de Castellane. During the French Revolution the property was confiscated and in the early 19th century, Emperor Napoleon acquired it for his brother Joseph Bonaparte.
In 1906, Joachim Carvallo purchased the property and poured an enormous amount of time, money and devotion into repairing it and creating what many consider to be the most beautiful gardens anywhere. Its famous Renaissance gardens include a water garden, ornamental flower gardens, and vegetable gardens. The gardens are laid out in formal patterns created with low box hedges. In 1934, Château de Villandry was designated a Monument historique. Like all the other châteaux of the Loire Valley, it is a World Heritage Site.
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Château de Vincennes
The Château de Vincennes is a massive 14th and 17th century French royal castle in the town of Vincennes, to the east of Paris, now a suburb of the metropolis.
Like other more famous châteaux it had its origins in a hunting lodge, constructed for Louis VII about 1150 in the forest of Vincennes. In the 13th century, Philip Augustus and Louis IX erected a more substantial manor: Louis IX is reputed to have departed from Vincennes on the crusade from which he did not return.
Vincennes was more than the grim fortress: Philippe III (in 1274) and Philippe IV (in 1284) were each married there and three 14th-century kings were born at Vincennes: Louis X (1316), Philippe V (1322) and Charles IV (1328).
To strengthen the site the castle was greatly enlarged replacing the earlier site in the later 14th century. A donjon tower, 52 meters high, the tallest medieval fortified structure of Europe, was added by Philip VI of France, a work that was started about 1337. The grand rectangular circuit of walls, was completed by the Valois about two generations later (ca. 1410). The donjon served as a residence for the royal family, and its buildings are known to have once held the library and personal study of Charles V. Henry V of England died in the donjon of dysentery in 1422 following the siege of Meaux.
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Cluny Abbey
Cluny Abbey (or Cluni, or Clugny, French pronunciation: [klyˈni]) is a Benedictine monastery in Cluny, Saône-et-Loire, France. It was built in the Romanesque style, with three churches built in succession from the 10th to the early 12th centuries.
Cluny was founded by William I, Duke of Aquitaine in 910. He nominated Berno as the first Abbot of Cluny, subject only to Pope Sergius III. The Abbey was notable for its stricter adherence to the Rule of St. Benedict and the place where the Benedictine Order was formed, whereby Cluny became acknowledged as the leader of western monasticism. The establishment of the Benedictine order was a keystone to the stability of European society that was achieved in the 11th century. In 1790 during the French Revolution, the abbey was sacked and mostly destroyed. Only a small part of the original remains.
Dating around 1334, the abbots of Cluny had a townhouse in Paris known as the Hôtel de Cluny, which has been a public museum since 1833. Apart from the name, it no longer possesses anything originally connected with Cluny.
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Colombia
Colombia ( /kəˈlʌmbiə/ kə-LUM-biə, or /kəˈlɒmbiə/ kə-LOM-biə), officially the Republic of Colombia (Spanish: República de Colombia [reˈpuβlika ðe koˈlombja]), is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the northwest by Panama; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; and to the west by the Pacific Ocean. Colombia has maritime borders with Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela, Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Colombia is the 26th largest country by area and the fourth largest in South America after Brazil, Argentina and Peru. With over 46 million people, Colombia is the 27th largest country in the world by population and has the second largest population of any Spanish-speaking country in the world, after Mexico. Colombia is a middle power, with the fourth largest economy in Latin America, and the third largest in South America. Colombia is famous for the production of coffee, flowers, emeralds, coal, and oil. All of these products make up the primary sector of economy.
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Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is an American private Ivy League research university located in New York City, New York, United States. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution. Today the university operates seven Columbia Global Centers overseas in Amman, Beijing, Istanbul, Paris, Mumbai, Santiago and Nairobi.
The university was founded in 1754 as King's College by royal charter of George II of Great Britain. After the American Revolutionary War, King's College briefly became a state entity, and was renamed Columbia College in 1784. The University now operates under a 1787 charter that places the institution under a private board of trustees, and in 1896 it was further renamed Columbia University. That same year, the university's campus was moved from Madison Avenue to its location in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, where it occupies more than six city blocks, or 32 acres (0.13 km2). The university encompasses twenty schools and is affiliated with numerous institutions, including Teachers College, Barnard College, and the Union Theological Seminary, with joint undergraduate programs available through the Jewish Theological Seminary of America as well as the Juilliard School.
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Comoros
The Comorosi/ˈkɒməroʊz/ (Arabic: جزر القمر, Ǧuzur al-Qumur/Qamar), officially the Union of the Comoros (Comorian: Udzima wa Komori, French: Union des Comores, Arabic: الاتحاد القمري al-Ittiḥād al-Qumurī/Qamarī) is a sovereign, archipelago island nation in the Indian Ocean, located off the eastern coast of Africa, on the northern end of the Mozambique Channel, between northeastern Mozambique and northwestern Madagascar. Other countries near to the Comoros are Tanzania to the northwest and the Seychelles to the northeast. The capital is Moroni on Grande Comore.
At 1,862 km2 (719 sq mi) (excluding Mayotte), the Comoros is the third-smallest African nation by area. The population (excluding Mayotte) is estimated at 798,000. Its name derives from the Arabic word قمر qamar ("moon"). The archipelago is notable for its diverse culture and history, as a nation formed at the crossroads of many civilizations. It is the southernmost member state of the Arab League. Though in the contested island of Mayotte the sole official language is French, the "Union of the Comoros" has three official languages: Comorian, Arabic, and French.
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Comédie-Française
The Comédie-Française (French pronunciation: [kɔmedi fʁɑ̃sɛz]) or Théâtre-Français (IPA: [teatʁ fʁɑ̃sɛ]) is one of the few state theaters in France. It is the only state theater to have its own troupe of actors. It is located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris.
The theatre has also been known as the Théâtre-Nautique, the théâtre de la République and La maison de Molière. It inherited the latter name (English: House of Molière) along with the dramatic venue of the best-known playwright associated with the Comédie-Française, Molière. He was considered the patron of French actors. He died seven years before “La maison de Molière” was rechristened the “Comédie-Française,” and it continued to be known popularly by the former name even after the official change of name.
The Comédie-Française was founded by a decree of Louis XIV on 24 August 1680 to merge the only two Parisian acting troupes of the time, the troupe of the Guénégaud Theatre and that of the Hôtel de Bourgogne. On the death of Molière in 1673, the troupe at the Guénégaud had been formed by a merger of the Théâtre du Marais and the Troupe de Molière. Thus the Comédie-Française may be said to have an unbroken tradition reaching back to the days of Molière, and to have had theatre connections for more than a century previous to the death of the great dramatist in 1673. In 1680, the repertoire consisted of the collection of theatrical works by Molière and Jean Racine, along with a few works by Pierre Corneille, Paul Scarron and Jean Rotrou. Two years after the amalgamation of the dramatic companies, they received a royal grant of 12,000 livres per year; and seven years later they took as their name their present designation of “players of the Comédie Française.”
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Cook Islands
The Cook Islands (i/ˈkʊk ˈaɪləndz/; Cook Islands Māori: Kūki 'Āirani) is a self-governing parliamentary democracy in the South Pacific Ocean in free association with New Zealand. The 15 small islands have a total land area of 240 square kilometres (92.7 sq mi), but the Cook Islands Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covers 1,800,000 square kilometres (690,000 sq mi) of ocean.
The main population centres are on the island of Rarotonga (14,153 in 2006), where there is an international airport. There is a much larger population of Cook Islanders in New Zealand, particularly the North Island. In the 2006 census, 58,008 self-identified as being of ethnic Cook Island Māori descent.
With about 100,000 visitors travelling to the islands in the 2010-11 financial year,tourism is the country's main industry, and the leading element of the economy, far ahead of offshore banking, pearls, and marine and fruit exports.
Defence and foreign affairs are the responsibility of New Zealand, in consultation with the Cook Islands. In recent times, the Cook Islands have adopted an increasingly independent foreign policy. Although Cook Islanders are citizens of New Zealand, they have the status of Cook Islands nationals, which is not given to other New Zealand citizens.
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Coral Sea Islands
The Coral Sea Islands Territory includes a group of small and mostly uninhabited tropical islands and reefs in the Coral Sea, northeast of Queensland, Australia. The only inhabited island is Willis Island. The territory covers 780,000 km2, extending east and south from the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef, and including Heralds Beacon Island, Osprey Reef, the Willis Group, and fifteen other reef/island groups.
The Coral Sea Islands were first charted in 1803; in the 1870 and 1880s the islands were mined for guano but the absence of a permanent supply of fresh water prevented long-term habitation. The territory was created in 1969 by the Coral Sea Islands Act (before, the area was considered part of Queensland) and extended in 1997 to include Elizabeth and Middleton Reefs nearly 800 km further South, already in the Tasman Sea.
The two latter reefs are much closer to Lord Howe Island, New South Wales (about 150 km) than to the southernmost island of the rest of the territory, Cato Island. The islands, cays and reefs of the Great Barrier Reef are not part of the territory, belonging to Queensland instead. The outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef is the boundary between Queensland and the Coral Sea Islands Territory.
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Corrèze
Corrèze (French pronunciation: [kɔ.ʁɛːz]; Occitan: Corresa) is a department in south central France, named after the Corrèze River.
The inhabitants of the department are called Corréziens or Corréziennes according to gender.
Corrèze is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It includes part of the former province of Limousin (the Bas-Limousin).
The 1851 census recorded a population of 320,866: this remained relatively constant for the rest of the nineteenth century. During the twentieth century, however, Corrèze shared the experience of many of the country's rural departments as the population fell steadily.
Within Corrèze the nineteenth-century railway planners, influenced in part by the department's topography, endowed Brive-la-Gaillarde with good connections and a major junction from which railway lines fanned out in six different directions. The railways arrived in 1860, at an opportune moment, directly after phylloxera had destroyed the local wine industry. The new railways enabled the farms in the area surrounding Brive to specialise in fruits and vegetables which they could now transport rapidly to the larger population centres of central and southern France. Locally, the new agriculture triggered the development, in the Brive basin, of related businesses and industries such as the manufacture of jams and liquors, as well as timber/paper-based packaging businesses.
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Corse-du-Sud
Corse-du-Sud (French pronunciation: [kɔʁs.dy.syd]; Corsican: Corsica suttana) (English: South Corsica) is a French département composed of the southern part of the island of Corsica.
The department was formed on 15 September 1975, when the corsican department was divided into Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud. Its boundaries correspond to the former department of Liamone, which existed from 1793 to 1811.
The department hit the head-lines at the end of the twentieth century with the assassination at Ajaccio of the prefect Claude Érignac on 6 February 1998.
The department is surrounded on three sides by the Mediterranean Sea and on the north by the department of Haute-Corse.
The entire island of Corsica is mountainous with many beautiful beaches.
The inhabitants of all of Corsica are called Corsicans.
Corsicans are a fiercely independent people. However, a 6 July 2003 referendum on increased autonomy was voted down by a very thin majority: 50.98 percent against to 49.02 percent for. This was a major setback for French Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy, who had hoped to use Corsica as the first step in his decentralization policies.
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Corsica
Corsica ( /ˈkɔːrsɪkə/; French: Corse, IPA: [kɔʁs]; Corsican: Corsica; Italian: Corsica, IPA: [ˈkɔrsika]) is a French island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the Italian island of Sardinia. Mountains comprise two-thirds of the island, forming a single chain.
Corsica is one of the 27 régions of France, although strictly speaking Corsica is designated as a territorial collectivity (collectivité territoriale) by law. As a territorial collectivity, it enjoys greater powers than other French régions, but for the most part its status is quite similar. Corsica is referred to as a "région" in common speech, and is almost always listed among the other régions of France.
Although the island is separated from the continental mainland by the Ligurian Sea and is closer to Italy than to the French mainland, politically Corsica is part of Metropolitan France. It was once briefly an independent Corsican Republic, until being incorporated into France in 1769. Its culture has French and Italian elements blended into it.
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Costa Rica
Costa Rica is a country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west, and the Caribbean Sea to the east.
Costa Rica, which means "Rich Coast", constitutionally abolished its army permanently in 1949. It is the only Latin American country included in the list of the world's 22 older democracies. Costa Rica has consistently been among the top Latin American countries in the Human Development Index (HDI), ranked 69th in the world in 2011. Also was cited by the UNDP in 2010 as one of the countries that have attained much higher human development than other countries at the same income levels, and in 2011 was highlighted by UNDP for being a good performer on environmental sustainability, and better record on human development and inequality than the median of their region. It was also the only country to meet all five criteria established to measure environmental sustainability. The country is ranked fifth in the world, and first among the Americas, in terms of the 2012 Environmental Performance Index.
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Council of Europe
The Council of Europe (French: Conseil de l'Europe) is an international organization promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation. It was founded in 1949, has 47 member states with some 800 million citizens, and is an entirely separate body from the European Union (EU), which has only 27 member states. Unlike the EU, the Council of Europe cannot make binding laws. The two do however share certain symbols such as the flag of Europe. The Council of Europe has nothing to do with either the Council of the European Union or the European Council, which are both EU bodies.
The best known bodies of the Council of Europe are the European Court of Human Rights, which enforces the European Convention on Human Rights, and the European Pharmacopoeia Commission, which sets the quality standards for pharmaceutical products in Europe. The Council of Europe's work has resulted in standards, charters and conventions to facilitate cooperation between European countries.
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Creuse
Creuse (French pronunciation: [kʁøz]; Occitan: Cruesa) is a department in central France named after the Creuse River.
Creuse is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from the former province of La Marche.
The County of Marche (Occitan: la Marcha) was a medieval French county, approximately corresponding to the modern département of Creuse. Marche first appeared as a separate fief about the middle of the 10th century, when William III, Duke of Aquitaine, gave it to one of his vassals named Boso, who took the title of count. In the 12th century, the countship passed to the family of Lusignan. They also were sometimes counts of Angoulême and counts of Limousin. With the death of the childless Count Guy in 1308, his possessions in La Marche were seized by Philip IV of France. In 1316 the king made La Marche an appanage for his youngest son the Prince, afterwards Charles IV. Several years later in 1327, La Marche passed into the hands of the House of Bourbon. The family of Armagnac held it from 1435 to 1477, when it reverted to the Bourbons. In 1527 La Marche was seized by Francis I and became part of the domains of the French crown. It was divided into Haute Marche and Basse Marche, the estates of the former continuing until the 17th century. From 1470 until the Revolution, the province was under the jurisdiction of the parlement of Paris.
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Croatia
Croatia (i/kroʊˈeɪʃə/ kroh-AY-shə; Croatian: Hrvatska pronounced [xř̩ʋaːtskaː]), officially the Republic of Croatia (Croatian: Republika Hrvatska listen (help·info)), is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of Central Europe, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers 56,594 square kilometres (21,851 square miles) and has diverse, mostly continental and Mediterranean climates. Croatia's Adriatic Sea coast contains more than a thousand islands. The country's population is 4.29 million, most of whom are Croats, with the most common religious denomination being Roman Catholicism.
In the early 7th century the Croats arrived in area of present-day Croatia. They organised the state into two dukedoms by the 9th century. Tomislav became the first king by 925 AD, elevating Croatia to the status of a kingdom. The Kingdom of Croatia retained its sovereignty for nearly two centuries, reaching its peak during the rule of Kings Peter Krešimir IV and Dmitar Zvonimir. Croatia entered a personal union with Hungary in 1102. In 1527, faced with Ottoman conquest the Croatian Parliament elected Ferdinand I of the House of Habsburg to the Croatian throne. In 1918, after World War I, Croatia was included in the short-lived State of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs that declared independence from Austria–Hungary and co-founded the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. A Croatian state briefly existed during World War II as a fascist puppet state. After the war, Croatia became a founding member and a federal constituent of the Second Yugoslavia, a socialist state. In June 1991, Croatia declared independence, which came into effect on 8 October of the same year. The Croatian War of Independence was fought successfully during the four years following the declaration.
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Cuba
Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, (i/ˈkjuːbə/; Spanish: República de Cuba, pronounced: [reˈpuβlika ðe ˈkuβa] ( listen)) is an island country in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city. To the north of Cuba lies the United States (140 km or 90 mi away) and the Bahamas, Mexico is to the west, the Cayman Islands and Jamaica are to the south, and Haiti and the Dominican Republic are to the southeast.
In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed on and claimed the island now occupied by Cuba, for the Kingdom of Spain. Cuba remained a territory of Spain until the Spanish–American War ended in 1898, and gained formal independence from the U.S. in 1902. A fragile democracy, increasingly dominated by radical politics eventually evolved, solidified by the Cuban Constitution of 1940, but was definitely quashed in 1952 by former president Fulgencio Batista, and an authoritarian regime was set up, intensifying and catalyzing already rampant corruption, political repression and crippling economic regulations.Batista was ousted in January 1959 by the July 26 movement, and a new administration under Fidel Castro established, which had by 1965 evolved into a single-party state under the revived Communist Party of Cuba, which holds power to date.
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Curaçao
Curaçao (Dutch: Curaçao;Papiamentu: Kòrsou) is an island in the southern Caribbean Sea, off the Venezuelan coast. The Country of Curaçao (Dutch: Land Curaçao, Papiamentu: Pais Kòrsou), which includes the main island plus the small, uninhabited island of Klein Curaçao ("Little Curaçao"), is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Its capital is Willemstad.
Curaçao is the largest and most populous of the three ABC islands (for Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao) of the Lesser Antilles, specifically the Leeward Antilles. It has a land area of 444 square kilometres (171 square miles). As of 1 January 2009, it had a population of 141,766.
Prior to 10 October 2010, when the Netherlands Antilles was dissolved, Curaçao was administered as the Island Territory of Curaçao (Dutch: Eilandgebied Curaçao, Papiamentu: Teritorio Insular di Kòrsou), one of five island territories of the former Netherlands Antilles. The ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 country code CUW and the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code CW has been assigned to Curaçao.
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Cyprus
Cyprusi/ˈsaɪprəs/ (Greek: Κύπρος, Kýpros, IPA: [ˈcipɾos]; Turkish: Kıbrıs, IPA: [ˈkɯbɾɯs]), officially the Republic of Cyprus (Greek: Κυπριακή Δημοκρατία, Kypriakī́ Dīmokratía, IPA: [cipɾiaˈci ðimokɾaˈtia]; Turkish: Kıbrıs Cumhuriyeti, IPA: [ˈkɯbɾɯs dʒumhuɾijeˈti]), is an island country in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria, Lebanon, northwest of Israel and north of Egypt. Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and the Republic of Cyprus is a member state of the European Union.
The earliest known human activity on the island dates back to around the 10th millennium BC. Archaeological remains from this period include the well-preserved Neolithic village of Khirokitia, which has been declared a World Heritage Site with an "enhanced protection" status in the event of armed conflict by UNESCO, along with the archaeological sites of Paphos and the Painted Churches of the Troodos Region. Cyprus is home to some of the oldest water wells in the world.
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Czech Republic
The Czech Republic (i/ˈtʃɛk/ CHEK;Czech: Česká republika, pronounced [ˈtʃɛskaː ˈrɛpuˌblɪka] ( listen), short form Česko Czech pronunciation: [ˈtʃɛskɔ]) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the north, Germany to the west, Austria to the south and Slovakia to the east. Its capital and largest city, with 1.3 million inhabitants, is Prague.
It is a pluralist multi-party parliamentary representative democracy, a member of the European Union, NATO, the OECD, the OSCE, the Council of Europe and the Visegrád Group.
The Czech state, formerly known as Bohemia, was formed in the late 9th century as a small duchy around Prague, at that time under dominance of the powerful Great Moravian Empire (which reached its greatest territorial extent during the reign of Svatopluk I from the House of Mojmír). After the fall of the Empire in 907, the centre of power was transferred from Moravia to Bohemia, under the Přemyslids. During the rule of Přemyslid dukes/kings and their successors, the Luxembourgs, the country reached its greatest territorial extent (13th–14th century). Life in the country was significantly affected by the Hussite wars, during which it faced economic embargo and crusades from all over Europe. Following the Battle of Mohács in 1526, the Crown of Bohemia was gradually integrated into the Habsburg monarchy as one of its three principal parts alongside the Archduchy of Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary. The Bohemian Revolt (1618–20) led to the further centralization of the monarchy including forced recatholization and Germanization. During radical reforms in the 18th century the Bohemian Crown was even de facto abolished (1749). In the 19th century the Czech lands became the industrial powerhouse of the monarchy and the core of the Republic of Czechoslovakia which was formed in 1918, following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire after World War I.
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Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia (Czech and Slovak: Československo, Česko-Slovensko) was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992. From 1939 to 1945, the state did not de facto exist because of its forced division and partial incorporation into Nazi Germany, but the Czechoslovak government-in-exile nevertheless continued to exist during this period. In 1945, the eastern part of Carpathian Ruthenia was taken over by the Soviet Union. On 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Form of state:
Neighbours:
Topography:
The country was of generally irregular terrain. The western area was part of north-central European uplands. The eastern region was composed of northern reaches of Carpathian Mountains and Danube River basin lands.
Climate:
The weather was predominantly continental, but varied from the moderate temperature of Western Europe in the west, to more severe weather of Eastern Europe and the western Soviet Union in the east.
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Côte d'Ivoire
The Republic of Côte d'Ivoirei/ˌkoʊt dɨˈvwɑr/ (French: [kot d‿ivwaʁ]) or Ivory Coast i/ˌaɪvəri ˈkoʊst/ is a country in West Africa. It has an area of 322,462 square kilometres (124,503 sq mi), and borders the countries Liberia, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana; its southern boundary is along the Gulf of Guinea. The country's population was 15,366,672 in 1998 and was estimated to be 20,617,068 in 2009. Côte d'Ivoire's first national census in 1975 counted 6.7 million inhabitants.
Prior to its colonization by Europeans, Côte d'Ivoire was home to several states, including Gyaaman, the Kong Empire, and Baoulé. There were two Anyi kingdoms, Indénié and Sanwi, which attempted to retain their separate identity through the French colonial period and after Côte d'Ivoire's independence. An 1843–1844 treaty made Côte d'Ivoire a protectorate of France and in 1893, it became a French colony as part of the European scramble for Africa.
Côte d'Ivoire became independent on 7 August 1960. From 1960 to 1993, the country was led by Félix Houphouët-Boigny. It maintained close political and economic association with its West African neighbours, while at the same time maintaining close ties to the West, especially to France. Since the end of Houphouët-Boigny's rule, Côte d'Ivoire has experienced one coup d’état, in 1999, and a civil war, which broke out in 2002. A political agreement between the government and the rebels brought a return to peace. Côte d'Ivoire is a republic with a strong executive power invested in the President. Its de jure capital is Yamoussoukro and the biggest city is the port city of Abidjan. The country is divided into 19 regions and 81 departments. It is a member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, African Union, La Francophonie, Latin Union, Economic Community of West African States and South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone.
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Côte de Nuits
The Côte de Nuits is a French wine region located in the northern part of the Côte d'Or, the limestone ridge that is at the heart of the Burgundy wine region. It extends from Dijon to just south of Nuits-Saint-Georges, which gives its name to the district and is the regional center. Though some white and rosé wines are produced in the region, the Côte de Nuits is most famous for reds made from Pinot noir. The Côte de Nuits covers fourteen communes. Six produce grand cru wines, in the central district between Gevrey-Chambertin and Nuits-Saint-Georges, with four lesser villages either side. The Grand Crus of the Cote de Nuits are some of the smallest appellations in France, less than a hectare in the case of La Romanée.
Among the northern villages of the Côte de Nuits there are several distinct terroir. Uniquely in Burgundy, Marsannay-la-Côte produces wine of all three colors - red and rosé from Pinot Noir, white from Chardonnay. The 529 acres (214 ha) of the Marsannay appellation extends into Couchey and Chênove. The village of Fixin has its own appellation, but the area of Brochon Côte de Nuits Villages extends into the commune with 55 acres (22 ha) of premier cru vineyards out of 193 acres (78 ha) of Pinot Noir and 3 acres (1.2 ha) of Chardonnay. The village of Gevrey-Chambertin has more Grand Crus than any other village, with nine. Chambertin and its extension Chambertin-Clos de Beze are widely recognized for the quality of their red Burgundy. The other Grand Crus are Mazis-Chambertin, Chapelle-Chambertin, Charmes-Chambertin, Mazoyeres-Chambertin, Griotte-Chambertin, Latricieres-Chambertin and Ruchottes-Chambertin. Morey-Saint-Denis is a small commune with four Grand Crus: Clos de la Roche, Clos St. Denis, Clos des Lambrays and Clos de Tart.
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Côte-d'Or
Côte-d'Or (IPA: [kot dɔːʁ]; English: Golden Hillside) is a department in the eastern part of France.
Côte-d'Or is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was formed from part of the former province of Burgundy.
The department is part of the current region of Bourgogne. It is surrounded by the departments of Yonne, Nièvre, Saône-et-Loire, Jura, Aube, and Haute-Marne.
A chain of hills called the Plateau de Langres runs from north-east to south-west through the department to the north of Dijon and continues south-westwards as the Côte d'Or escarpment, which is named from the department's name. It is the south-east facing slope of the escarpment which is the site of the celebrated Burgundy vineyards. To the west of the Plateau de Langres, towards Champagne, lies the densely wooded district of Châtillonais. To the south-east of the plateau and escarpment, the department lies in the broad, flat-bottomed valley of the middle course of the Saône.
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Côtes-d'Armor
Côtes-d'Armor (French pronunciation: [kot.daʁ.mɔʁ]; Breton: Aodoù-an-Arvor) is a department in the north of Brittany, in northwestern France.
Côtes-du-Nord was one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from part of the former province of Brittany. Its name was changed in 1990 to Côtes-d'Armor (ar mor meaning the sea in Breton). The name also has a historical connotation recalling the Roman province of Armorica.
The present department corresponds to most of historical Trégor, part of Cornouaille, and most of Saint-Brieuc.
Côtes-d'Armor is part of the current administrative region of Brittany and is surrounded by the departments of Finistère, Morbihan, and Ille-et-Vilaine, with the English Channel to the north.
The inhabitants of the department are called Costarmoricains.
The Côtes-d'Armor has usually been a left-wing holdout in a historically strongly clerical and right-wing Brittany, due to the department's more anti-clerical nature, especially in the inland area around Guingamp, a former Communist stronghold.
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Denmark
The Kingdom of Denmark (Danish: Kongeriget Danmark, pronounced [ˈkɔŋəʁiːəð ˈdanmɑɡ̊] ( listen)) is a constitutional monarchy and sovereign state consisting the country of Denmark in northern Europe and two autonomous constituent countries, the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic and Greenland in North America. The kingdom is a unitary state with some power being devolved from Denmark proper to Greenland and the Faroe Islands; this polity is referred to as the Danish Realm. Denmark proper is the hegemonial area, where judicial, executive, and legislative power resides. The Faroe Islands are defined to be a community of people within the kingdom, and the Greenlandic people are defined as a separate people with the right to self-determination.
Denmark is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, located southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. The country consists of a large peninsula, Jutland and many islands, most notably Zealand, Funen, Lolland, Falster and Bornholm, as well as hundreds of minor islands often referred to as the Danish Archipelago.
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Deux-Sèvres
Deux-Sèvres (French pronunciation: [dø sɛvʁ]) is a French département. Deux-Sèvres literally means "two Sèvres": the Sèvre Nantaise and the Sèvre Niortaise are two rivers which have their sources in the department.
Deux-Sèvres was one of the 83 original départements created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790.
Departmental borders were changed in 1973 when the inhabitants of the little commune of Puy-Saint-Bonnet became formally associated with the rapidly growing adjacent commune of Cholet. Cholet is in the neighbouring department of Maine-et-Loire: in order to avoid the associated communes being administered in separate departments, Puy-Saint-Bonnet was transferred into Maine-et-Loire.
The climate is mild, the annual temperature averaging 11 degrees Celsius.
The département remains rural: three-quarters of the area consists of arable land. Wheat and oats are the main products grown, as well as potatoes, apples, and walnuts. Niort is the center for growing vegetables and angelica. Some beetroot is grown in the district of Melle. Vineyards are numerous in the north (Vins du Haut-Poitou), and there are some in the south. The département is also well known for the breeding of cattle, mules, and horses. The Parthenais breed of cattle is named after the town of Parthenay in the north of the département. Also, dairy products are produced in significant quantities (butter in Échiré and goats' cheese).
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Disneyland Paris
Disneyland Paris is a holiday and recreation resort in Marne-la-Vallée, a new town in the eastern suburbs of Paris, France. The complex is located 32 km (20 mi) from the centre of Paris and lies for the most part within the commune of Chessy, Seine-et-Marne.
Disneyland Paris is composed of two theme parks, a retail, dining and entertainment district, and seven Disney-owned hotels. Operating since 12 April 1992, it was the second Disney resort to open outside the United States (following Tokyo Disney Resort) and the first to be owned and operated by Disney.
Disneyland Paris is operated by French company Euro Disney S.C.A., a public company of which 39.78 percent of its stock is held by The Walt Disney Company, 10 percent by the Saudi Prince Alwaleed and 50.22 percent by other shareholders. The senior leader at the resort is chairman and CEO Philippe Gas.
The complex was a subject of controversy during the periods of negotiation and construction in the late 1980s and early '90s, when a number of prominent French figures voiced their opposition and protests were held by French labour unions and others. A further setback followed the opening of the resort as park attendance, hotel occupancy and revenues fell below projections. The complex was renamed from Euro Disney Resort to Disneyland Paris in 1994. In July 1995, the company saw its first quarterly profit.
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Djibouti
Djibouti (Arabic: جيبوتي Jībūtī, French: Djibouti, Somali: Jabuuti, Afar: Gabuuti), officially the Republic of Djibouti (Arabic: جمهورية جيبوتي Jumhūriyyat Jībūtī, French: République de Djibouti, Afar: Gabuutih Ummuuno, Somali: Jamhuuriyadda Jabuuti), is a country in the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Eritrea in the north, Ethiopia in the west and south, and Somalia in the southeast. The remainder of the border is formed by the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden at the east. Djibouti, which had a population of 818,159 at the 2009 census, is one of the least populous countries in Africa.Islam is the largest religion in the country, practiced by 94% of the population. The land was known as Obock and French Somaliland (Côte française des Somalis) in the 19th century; in 1967, it changed its name to Afars and Issas after new treaties with France. The territory was declared an independent nation in 1977 and changed its name to the "Republic of Djibouti" after its principal city. Djibouti joined the United Nations on September 20, 1977. While Djibouti is an independent sovereign state, it maintains deep French relations, and through various military and economic agreements with France, it receives continued security and economic assistance.
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Dominica
Dominica ( /ˌdɒmɪˈniːkə/ DOM-i-NEE-kə;French: Dominique; Kali‘na (Carib): Wai‘tu kubuli), officially the Commonwealth of Dominica, is an island nation in the Lesser Antilles region of the Caribbean Sea, south-southeast of Guadeloupe and northwest of Martinique. Its size is 750 square kilometres (290 sq mi) and the highest point in the country is Morne Diablotins, which has an elevation of 1,447 metres (4,747 ft). The Commonwealth of Dominica had a population of 71,293 at the 2011 Census. The capital is Roseau.
Dominica has been nicknamed the "Nature Isle of the Caribbean" for its unspoiled natural beauty. It is the youngest island in the Lesser Antilles, still being formed by geothermal-volcanic activity, as evidenced by the world's second-largest hot spring, Boiling Lake. The island features lush mountainous rainforests, home of many rare plant, animal, and bird species. There are xeric areas in some of the western coastal regions, but heavy rainfall can be expected inland. The Sisserou Parrot (also known as the Imperial Amazon), the island's national bird, is featured on the national flag. Dominica's economy is heavily dependent on tourism, agriculture and heavy taxation.
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Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic (i/dəˌmɪnɨkən rɨˈpʌblɪk/; Spanish: República Dominicana [reˈpuβlika ðominiˈkana]) is a nation on the island of Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries. Both by area and population, the Dominican Republic is the second largest Caribbean nation (after Cuba), with 48,442 square kilometres (18,704 sq mi) and an estimated 10 million people.
Taínos inhabited what is now the Dominican Republic since the 7th century. Christopher Columbus landed on it in 1492, and it became the site of the first permanent European settlement in the Americas, namely Santo Domingo, the country's capital and Spain's first capital in the New World. Santo Domingo can boast of many firsts in the Americas, including the first cathedral, and castle, both in the Ciudad Colonial area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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Dordogne
Dordogne (French pronunciation: [dɔʁ.dɔɲ]; Occitan: Dordonha) is a départment in south-west France. The départment is located in the region of Aquitaine, between the Loire valley and the High Pyrénées named after the great Dordogne River that runs through it. It roughly corresponds with the ancient county of Périgord.
The county of Périgord dates back to when the area was inhabited by the Gauls, it was home to four tribes, the name for "four tribes" in the Gaulish language was "Petrocore". The area eventually became known as the county of Le Périgord and its inhabitants became known as the Périgordins (or Périgourdins). There are four Périgords in the Dordogne: the "Périgord Vert" (Green Périgord) with its main town of Nontron, consists of verdant valleys in a region crossed by many rivers and streams; the "Périgord Blanc" (White Périgord) situated around the department's capital of Périgueux, is a region of limestone plateaux, wide valleys and meadows; the "Périgord Pourpre" (Purple Périgord) with its capital of Bergerac, is a wine region; and the "Périgord Noir" (Black Périgord) surrounding the administrative center of Sarlat, overlooks the valleys of the Vézère and the Dordogne, where the woods of oak and pine give it its name.
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Douaumont ossuary
The Douaumont ossuary is a memorial containing the remains of soldiers who died on the battlefield during the Battle of Verdun in World War I. It is located in Douaumont, France, within the Verdun battlefield. It has been designated a "nécropole nationale", or "national cemetery".
During the 300 days of the Battle of Verdun (21 February 1916 – 19 December 1916) approximately 230,000 men died out of a total of 700,000 casualties (dead, wounded and missing). The battle became known in German as Die Hölle von Verdun (English: The Hell of Verdun), or in French as L'Enfer de Verdun, and was conducted on a battlefield covering less than 20 square kilometers (7.7 sq mi).
The ossuary is a memorial containing the remains of both French and German soldiers who died on the Verdun battlefield. Through small outside windows, the skeletal remains of at least 130,000 unidentified combatants of both nations can be seen filling up alcoves at the lower edge of the building. On the inside of the ossuary building, the ceiling and walls are partly covered by plaques bearing names of French soldiers who fell during the Battle of Verdun. A few of the names are from fighting that took place in the area during World War II. The families of the soldiers that are recognized here by name contributed for those individual plaques. In front of the monument and sloping downhill, lies the largest single French military cemetery of WWI with 16,142 graves. It was initiated in 1923 by Verdun veteran André Maginot of future Maginot Line fame.
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Doubs
Doubs (French pronunciation: [du]; Arpitan: Dubs) is a department the Franche-Comté region of eastern France named after the Doubs River.
As early as the 13th century, inhabitants of the northern two-thirds of Doubs spoke the Franc-Comtois language, a dialect of Langue d'Oïl. Residents of the southern third of Doubs spoke a dialect of the Arpitan language. Both languages co-existed with French, the official language of law and commerce, and continued to be spoken frequently in rural areas into the 20th century. They are both still spoken today but not on a daily basis.
Doubs was important as a portal to Switzerland through the pass at Joux. Many famous people, including Mirabeau, Toussaint Louverture and Heinrich von Kleist, were imprisoned in the Château de Joux.
Doubs is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from part of the former province of Franche-Comté. The prefecture (capital) is Besançon.
In 1793, the republic of Mandeure was annexed by France and incorporated into the department. This district was passed between various territories and departments in the ensuing administrative reorganisations and wars, but was restored to Doubs in 1816 when the former principality of Montbéliard was also added to the department.
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Drôme
Drôme (French pronunciation: [dʁom]; Droma in Occitan, Drôma in Arpitan), a département in southeastern France, takes its name from the Drôme River.
St Vallier in Drôme, was the birthplace of one of France's most famous courtesans, the noble-born Diane de Poitiers (1499-1566), long-term mistress of King Henri II (1547-1559).
The French National Constituent Assembly set up Drôme as one of the original 83 departments of France on March 4, 1790, during the French Revolution. The territory formed part of the former French province of Dauphiné.
Drôme lies within the region of Rhône-Alpes (Rôno-Arpes) and is surrounded by the departments of Ardèche, Isère, Hautes-Alpes, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and Vaucluse.
The boundaries of the department have changed several times with the incorporation of the Comtat Venaissin in 1792 and the creation of the department of Vaucluse in 1793. Drôme surrounds an enclave of the department of Vaucluse, the Canton of Valréas (Enclave des Papes).
The President of the General Council is Didier Guillaume of the Socialist Party.
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East Timor
The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (tiˈmɔr ˈlɛʃteɪ), commonly known as East Timori/ˌiːst ˈtiːmɔr/ (Tetum: Timór Lorosa'e, Portuguese: Timor-Leste), is a sovereign state in Southeast Asia. It comprises the eastern half of the island of Timor, the nearby islands of Atauro and Jaco, and Oecusse, an exclave on the northwestern side of the island, within Indonesian West Timor. The small country of 15,410 km² (5,400 sq mi) is located about 640 km (400 mi) northwest of Darwin, Australia.
East Timor was colonized by Portugal in the 16th century, and was known as Portuguese Timor until Portugal's decolonization of the country. In late 1975, East Timor declared its independence, but later that year was invaded and occupied by Indonesia and was declared Indonesia's 27th province the following year. In 1999, following the United Nations-sponsored act of self-determination, Indonesia relinquished control of the territory and East Timor became the first new sovereign state of the 21st century on May 20, 2002. East Timor is one of only two predominantly Roman Catholic countries in Asia, the other being the Philippines.
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Easter Island
Coordinates: 27°7′S 109°22′W / 27.117°S 109.367°W / -27.117; -109.367
Easter Island (Rapa Nui: Rapa Nui, Spanish: Isla de Pascua) is a Polynesian island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle. A special territory of Chile that was annexed in 1888, Easter Island is famous for its 887 extant monumental statues, called moai, created by the early Rapanui people. It is a World Heritage Site (as determined by UNESCO) with much of the island protected within Rapa Nui National Park. In recent times the island has served as a warning of the cultural and environmental dangers of overexploitation. Ethnographers and archaeologists also blame diseases carried by European colonizers and slave raiding of the 1860s for devastating the local peoples.
Easter Island is claimed to be the most remote inhabited island in the world.
The name "Easter Island" was given by the island's first recorded European visitor, the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who encountered it on Easter Sunday 1722, while searching for Davis or David's island. Roggeveen named it Paasch-Eyland (18th century Dutch for "Easter Island"). The island's official Spanish name, Isla de Pascua, also means "Easter Island".
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Ecuador
Ecuador (i/ˈɛkwədɔr/ E-kwə-dawr), officially the Republic of Ecuador (Spanish: República del Ecuador [reˈpuβlika ðel ekwaˈðor], which literally translates to the "Republic of the Equator") is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, (along with Chile), that do not have a border with Brazil. The country also includes the Galápagos Islands in the Pacific, about 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) west of the mainland.
The main spoken language in Ecuador is Spanish. Ecuador straddles the equator, from which it takes its name, and has an area of 275,830 km2 (106,500 sq mi). Its capital city is Quito, which was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in the 1970s for having the best preserved and least altered historic center in Latin America. The country's largest city is Guayaquil. The historic center of Cuenca, the third largest city in the country, was also declared a World Heritage Site in 1999, for being an outstanding example of a planned inland Spanish style colonial city in the Americas. Ecuador is also home—despite its size—to a great variety of species, many of them endemic, like those of the Galápagos islands. This species diversity makes Ecuador one of the 17 megadiverse countries in the world. The new constitution of 2008 is the first in the world to recognize legally enforceable Rights of Nature, or ecosystem rights.
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Egypt
Egypti/ˈiːdʒɪpt/ (Arabic: مصر, Miṣr, Egyptian Arabic: [mɑsˤɾ] ; Coptic: Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, Kīmi ; Sahidic Coptic: ⲕⲏⲙⲉ, Kēme), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: جمهوريّة مصر العربيّة (help·info), is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world. Covering an area of about 1,010,000 square kilometers (390,000 sq mi), Egypt is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west.
Egypt is one of the most populous countries in Africa and the Middle East. The great majority of its over 81 million people live near the banks of the Nile River, in an area of about 40,000 square kilometers (15,000 sq mi), where the only arable land is found. The large areas of the Sahara Desert are sparsely inhabited. About half of Egypt's residents live in urban areas, with most spread across the densely populated centres of greater Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities in the Nile Delta.
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Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower (French: La Tour Eiffel, [tuʁ ɛfɛl], nickname La dame de fer, the iron lady) is a puddle ironlattice tower located on the Champ de Mars in Paris. Built in 1889 as the entrance arch to the 1889 World's Fair, it has become both a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world. The tower is the tallest building in Paris and the most-visited paid monument in the world; millions of people ascend it every year. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower.
The tower stands 320 metres (1,050 ft) tall, about the same height as an 81-story building. During its construction, the Eiffel Tower surpassed the Washington Monument to assume the title of the tallest man-made structure in the world, a title it held for 41 years, until the Chrysler Building in New York City was built in 1930. However, because of the addition, in 1957, of the antenna atop the Eiffel Tower, it is now taller than the Chrysler Building. Not including broadcast antennas, it is the second-tallest structure in France, after the Millau Viaduct.
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El Salvador
El Salvadori/ɛl ˈsælvədɔr/ (Spanish: República de El Salvador, literally 'Republic of The Savior') is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country as well as Central America. El Salvador borders the Pacific Ocean on the west, and the countries of Guatemala to the north and Honduras to the east. Its easternmost region lies on the coast of the Gulf of Fonseca, opposite Nicaragua. As of 2009, El Salvador had a population of approximately 5,744,113 people, composed predominantly of Mestizos.
The colón was the official currency of El Salvador from 1892 to 2001, when it adopted the U.S. Dollar.
In 2010 El Salvador ranked in the top 10 among Latin American countries in terms of the Human Development Index and in the top 3 in Central America (behind Costa Rica and Panama), due in part to ongoing rapid industrialization. In addition, tropical forests and overall forest cover has expanded by nearly 20 percent from the year 1992 to 2010. Making it one of the few countries experiencing reforestation.
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English Channel
The English Channel (French: la Manche, Breton: Mor Breizh, Cornish: Mor Bretannek), often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about 560 km (350 mi) long and varies in width from 240 km (150 mi) at its widest to 34 km (21 mi) in the Strait of Dover. It is the smallest of the shallow seas around the continental shelf of Europe, covering an area of some 75,000 km2 (29,000 sq mi).
The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the English Channel as follows:
On the West. A line joining Isle Vierge (48°38′23″N 4°34′13″W / 48.63972°N 4.57028°W / 48.63972; -4.57028) to Lands End (50°04′N 5°43′W / 50.067°N 5.717°W / 50.067; -5.717).
On the East. The Southwestern limit of the North Sea.
The IHO defines the southwestern limit of the North Sea as "a line joining the Walde Lighthouse (France, 1°55'E) and Leathercoat Point (England, 51°10'N)". The Walde Lighthouse is 6 km east of Calais (50°59′06″N 1°55′00″E / 50.985°N 1.9166667°E / 50.985; 1.9166667), and Leathercoat Point is at the north end of St Margaret's Bay, Kent (51°10′00″N 1°24′00″E / 51.1666667°N 1.4°E / 51.1666667; 1.4).
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Equatorial Guinea
Equatorial Guinea, officially the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, is a country located in Middle Africa. It has two parts: a Continental Region (Río Muni), including several small offshore islands including Corisco, Elobey Grande and Elobey Chico; and an insular region containing Annobón island and Bioko island (formerly Fernando Po) where the capital Malabo is situated.
Annobón is the southernmost island of Equatorial Guinea and is situated just south of the equator. Bioko island is the northernmost point of Equatorial Guinea. Between the two islands and to the east is the mainland region. Equatorial Guinea is bordered by Cameroon on the north, Gabon on the south and east, and the Gulf of Guinea on the west, where the island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe is located between Bioko and Annobón. Formerly the colony of Spanish Guinea, its post-independence name is suggestive of its location near both the equator and the Gulf of Guinea. Besides the Spanish cities of Ceuta and Melilla on the Mediterranean coast next to Morocco, it is the only territory in mainland Africa with Spanish as the official language.
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Eritrea
Eritrea ( /ˌɛrɨˈtreɪ.ə/ or /ˌɛrɨˈtriːə/;Ge'ez: ኤርትራ ʾErtrā, Arabic: إرتريا Iritrīyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea is the Italian form of the Greek name Ἐρυθραίᾱ (Erythraíā), meaning "red [land]". The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast. The northeast and east of the country has an extensive coastline on the Red Sea, directly across from Saudi Arabia and Yemen. The Dahlak Archipelago and several of the Hanish Islands are part of Eritrea. Eritrea's size is approximately 117,600 km2 (45,406 sq mi) with an estimated population of 6 million.
Together with northern Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and the Red Sea coast of Sudan, Eritrea is considered the most likely location of the land known to the ancient Egyptians as Punt (or "Ta Netjeru", meaning "God's Land"), whose first mention dates to the 25th century BC. The ancient Puntites were a nation of people that had close relations with Pharaonic Egypt during the times of Pharaoh Sahure and Queen Hatshepsut.
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Essonne
Essonne (pronounced: [ɛ.sɔn]) is a French department in the region of Île-de-France. It is named after the Essonne River.
It was formed on 1 January 1968 when Seine-et-Oise was split into smaller departments.
The Essonne department was created on 1 January 1968, from the southern portion of the former department of Seine-et-Oise.
In June 1963 Carrefour S.A. opened the first hypermarket in the Paris region at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois (although the word "hypermarche" was first used only in 1966). Based on the ideas put forward by the American logistics pioneer Bernardo Trujillo, the centre offered on a single 2,500 m2 (26,909.78 sq ft) site a hitherto unknown combination of wide choice and low prices, supported by 400 car parking spaces.
In 1969, the communes of Châteaufort and Toussus-le-Noble were separated from Essonne and added to the department of Yvelines.
Essonne belongs to the region of Île-de-France.
It has borders with the departments of:
All of northern Essonne department belongs to the Parisian agglomeration and is very urbanized. The south remains rural.
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Ethiopia
Ethiopia ( /ˌiːθiˈoʊpiə/) (Ge'ez: ኢትዮጵያ ʾĪtyōṗṗyā), officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2. Ethiopia is bordered by Eritrea to the north, Djibouti and Somalia to the east, Sudan and South Sudan to the west, and Kenya to the south. With its capital at Addis Ababa, it is also the most populous landlocked nation in the world.
Ethiopia was a monarchy for most of its history, and the Ethiopian dynasty traces its roots to the 2nd century BC. Ethiopia is also one of the oldest sites of human existence known to scientists today, having yielded some of humanity's oldest traces. It may be the region from which Homo sapiens first set out for the Middle East and points beyond. Alongside Rome, Persia, China and India, the Ethiopian Aksum Empire was considered one of the great world powers of the 3rd century. During the Scramble for Africa, Ethiopia was the only African country beside Liberia that retained its sovereignty as a recognized independent country, and was one of only four African members of the League of Nations. After a brief period of Italian occupation, Ethiopia became a charter member of the United Nations. When other African nations received their independence following World War II, many of them adopted the colors of Ethiopia's flag, and Addis Ababa became the location of several international organizations focused on Africa.
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Eure
Eure (French pronunciation: [œʁ]) is a department in the north of France named after the river Eure.
Eure is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from part of the former province of Normandy.
After the allied victory at Waterloo, Eure was occupied by Prussian troops between June 1815 and November 1818.
In the wake of Louis-Napoléons December coup of 1851, Eure was one of the departments placed under a state of emergency in order to avert resistance to the post-republican régime. In the event fewer than 100 government opponents in Eure were arrested.
Eure is part of the current region of Haute-Normandie and is surrounded by the departments of Seine-Maritime, Oise, Val-d'Oise, Yvelines, Eure-et-Loir, Orne, and Calvados.
The department is a largely wooded plateau intersected by the valleys of the Seine River and its tributaries.
The altitude varies from sea level to 248 metres in the south.
The President of the General Council is Jean-Louis Destans of the Socialist Party.
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Eure-et-Loir
Eure-et-Loir (French pronunciation: [œ.r‿e.lwaʁ]) is a French department, named after the Eure and Loir rivers.
Eure-et-Loir is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790 pursuant to the Act of December 22, 1789. It was created from parts of provinces of Orléanais (Beauce), Maine (Perche), but also Île-de-France (Drouais, Thimerais, Valley Avre Hurepoix).
The current department corresponds to the central part of the land of the Carnutes who had their capital at Autricum (Chartres). The Carnutes are known for their commitment, real or imagined, to the ancient Druidic religion. A holy place in the "Forest of the Carnutes" used to host the annual Druidic assembly. In the north of the department another pre-Roman people, the little-known Durocasses, had their capital at Dreux.
Eure-et-Loir comprises the main part of the region of Beauce, politically it belongs to the current region of Centre (Val de Loire) and is surrounded by the departments of Loir-et-Cher, Loiret, Essonne, Yvelines, Eure, Orne, and Sarthe.
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European Commission
The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union.
The Commission operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "commissioners" ). There is one member per member state, though members are bound to represent the interests of the EU as a whole rather than their home state. One of the 27 is the Commission President (currently José Manuel Durão Barroso) proposed by the European Council and elected by the European Parliament. The Council then appoints the other 26 members of the Commission in agreement with the nominated President, and then the 27 members as a single body are subject to a vote of approval by the European Parliament. The first Barroso Commission took office in late 2004 and its successor, under the same President, took office in 2010.
The term "Commission" is used either in the narrow sense of the 27-member College of Commissioners (or College) or to also include the administrative body of about 23,000 European civil servants who are split into departments called Directorates-General and Services. The internal working languages of the Commission are English, French and German. The Members of the Commission and their "cabinets" (immediate teams) are based in the Berlaymont building of Brussels.
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Falkland Islands
The Falkland Islands (English pronunciation: /ˈfɒlklənd/ or English pronunciation: /ˈfɔːlklənd/; Spanish: Islas Malvinas) are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located more than 250 nautical miles (460 km; 290 mi) east of the coast of mainland South America. The archipelago comprises East Falkland, West Falkland, and 776 lesser islands. Stanley, the capital and only city, is on East Falkland. The islands are a self-governing British Overseas Territory, with the United Kingdom responsible for their defence and foreign affairs.
Controversy exists over the Falklands' original discovery and subsequent colonisation by Europeans. At various times there have been French, British, Spanish, and Argentine settlements. Britain re-established its rule in 1833, yet the islands continue to be claimed by Argentina. In 1982, following Argentina's invasion of the islands, the two-month-long undeclared Falklands War between both countries resulted in the withdrawal of all Argentine forces. Despite its defeat, Argentina still pursues its claim; however, UK policy supports the islanders' self-determination to remain British citizens.
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Faroe Islands
Coordinates: 62°00′N 06°47′W / 62°N 6.783°W / 62; -6.783
The Faroe Islands (Faroese: Føroyar pronounced [ˈfœɹjaɹ], Danish: Færøerne Danish pronunciation: [ˈfæɐ̯øːˀɐnə]) are an island group situated between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately halfway between Norway and Iceland. The islands form a self-governing country under the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Denmark. The total area is approximately 1,400 km² (540 sq mi) with a 2010 population of almost 50,000 people.
The Faroe Islands has been a self-governing dependency of Denmark since 1948. Over the years, the Faroese have taken control of most domestic matters. Areas that remain the responsibility of Denmark include military defence, police, justice, currency and foreign affairs. The Faroe Islands also has representatives in the Nordic Council as members of the Danish delegation.
The Faroe Islands were associated with and taxed by Denmark and Norway up to 1814, when Norway fell under the rule of Sweden. Scandinavia was in political turmoil following the Sixth Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars, when the Treaty of Kiel granted Denmark control over the Faroes, Iceland and Greenland in 1814. The Danish trade monopoly ended in 1856.
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Fiji
Fijii/ˈfiːdʒiː/ (Fijian: Viti; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी), officially the Republic of Fiji (Fijian: Matanitu ko Viti; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी गणराज्यFijī Gaṇarājya), is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about 1,100 nautical miles (2,000 km; 1,300 mi) northeast of New Zealand's North Island. Its closest neighbours are Vanuatu to the west, France's New Caledonia to the southwest, New Zealand's Kermadec to the southeast, Tonga to the east, the Samoas, France's Wallis and Futuna to the northeast and Tuvalu to the north.
The majority of Fiji's islands were formed through volcanic activity started around 150 million years ago. Today, some geothermal activity still occurs on the islands of Vanua Levu and Taveuni. Fiji has been inhabited since the second millennium BC. The country comprises an archipelago of more than 332 islands, of which 110 are permanently inhabited, and more than 500 islets, amounting to a total land area of circa 18,300 square kilometres (7,100 sq mi). The two major islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, account for 87% of the population of almost 850,000. The former contains Suva, the capital and largest city. Most of Fijians live on Viti Levu's coasts, either in Suva or in smaller urban centres. Viti Levu's interior is sparsely inhabited due to its terrain.
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Finistère
Finistère (French pronunciation: [fi.nis.tɛʁ]; Breton: Penn-ar-Bed) is a département of France, in the extreme west of Brittany.
The name Finistère derives from the Latin Finis Terræ, meaning end of the earth, and may be compared with Land's End on the opposite side of the English Channel. The Breton name for Finistère Penn ar Bedd translates as Head/End of the World and is cognate with the Cornish equivalent for Land's End Pen-an-Wlas (Head/End of the country). Finistère is not to be confused with Finisterre in Spain.
The present department consists of the historical region of Léon and parts of Cornouaille and Trégor.
The largest population center in Finistère is Brest. Other large towns in the department include Quimper (the capital), Morlaix, Carhaix, and Douarnenez. Finistère includes the island of Ushant (Eusa in Breton, Ouessant in French).
Finistère is the westernmost region of France (excluding the overseas departments). By several criteria, Finistère can also claim to be the most coastal department in Metropolitan France. Of its 283 communes, 118 are located on the coast. Its total coastline of approximately 1,250 km (776.71 mi) accounts for almost a quarter of the entire French coast-line.
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Finland
Coordinates: 65°N 27°E / 65°N 027°E / 65; 027
Finlandi/ˈfɪnlənd/ ( Finnish: Suomi; Swedish: Finland (help·info)), officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.
Around 5.4 million people reside in Finland, with the majority concentrated in the southern region. It is the eighth largest country in Europe in terms of area and the most sparsely populated country in the European Union. Finland is a parliamentary republic with a central government based in Helsinki and local governments in 336 municipalities, and an autonomous region of the Åland Islands. About one million residents live in the Greater Helsinki area, which consists of Helsinki, Espoo, Kauniainen and Vantaa, and a third of the country's GDP is produced there. Other larger cities include Tampere, Turku, Oulu, Jyväskylä, Lahti and Kuopio.
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France
France (Englishi/ˈfræns/ FRANSS or /ˈfrɑːns/ FRAHNSS; French: [fʁɑ̃s] ( listen)), officially the French Republic (French: République française [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is often referred to as l’Hexagone ("The Hexagon") because of the geometric shape of its territory. It is the largest western European country and it possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone in the world, covering 11,035,000 km2 (4,260,000 sq mi), just behind that of the United States (11,351,000 km2 / 4,383,000 sq mi).
Over the past 500 years, France has been a major power with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and around the world. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America and Southeast Asia; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, France built the second largest colonial empire of the time, including large portions of North, West and Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and many Caribbean and Pacific Islands.
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Franche-Comté
Franche-Comté (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃ʃ kɔ̃te]; Franc-Comtois: Fraintche-Comtè; Arpitan: Franche-Comtât) the former "Free County" of Burgundy, as distinct from the neighbouring Duchy, is an administrative region and a traditional province of eastern France. It is composed of the modern departments of Doubs, Jura, Haute-Saône and Territoire de Belfort and has a population of 1,159,000 (2008).
The principal cities are the capital Besançon, Belfort, and Montbéliard (Aire Urbaine Belfort-Montbéliard-Héricourt-Delle). Other important cities are Dole (capital before the region was conquered by Louis XIV in the late 17th century), Vesoul (capital of Haute-Saône), Arbois (the "wine capital" of the Jura), and Lons-le-Saunier (capital of Jura).
The region has been inhabited since the Paleolithic age and was occupied by the Gauls. Little touched by the Germanic migrations, it was part of the territory of the Alamanni in the 5th century, then the Kingdom of Burgundy from 457 to 534. It was Christianized through the influence of St. Columbanus, who founded several monasteries there. In 534, it became part of the Frankish kingdom. In 561 it was included in the Merovingian Kingdom of Burgundy, under Guntram, the third son of Clotaire I. In 613, Clotaire II reunited the Frankish Kingdom under his rule, and the region remained a part of the Kingdom of Burgundy under the later Merovingians and Carolingians.
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Francophonie
Francophonie is an international organization of politics and governments with French as the mother or customary language, where a significant proportion of people are francophones (French speakers), or where there is a notable affiliation with the French language or culture.
Formally known as the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) or the International Organization of the Francophonie, the organization comprises 56 member states and governments, 3 associate members, and 16 observers. The term francophonie (with a lower case 'f') also refers to the global community of French-speaking peoples, comprising a network of private and public organizations promoting special ties among all Francophones. In a majority of member states, French is not the predominant native language. The prerequisite for admission to the Francophonie is not the degree of French usage in the member countries, but a prevalent presence of French culture and language in the member country's identity, usually stemming from France's colonial ambitions with other nations in its history.[citation needed]
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French Polynesia
French Polynesia (i/ˈfrɛntʃ pɒlɨˈniːʒə/; French: Polynésie française, pronounced: [pɔlinezi fʁɑ̃sɛz]; Tahitian: Pōrīnetia Farāni) is an overseas country of the French Republic (pays d'outre-mer). It is made up of several groups of Polynesian islands, the most famous island being Tahiti in the Society Islands group, which is also the most populous island and the seat of the capital of the territory (Papeetē). Although not an integral part of its territory, Clipperton Island was administered from French Polynesia until 2007.
The island groups that make up French Polynesia were not officially united until the establishment of the French protectorate in 1889. The first of these islands to be settled by indigenous Polynesians were the Marquesas Islands in AD 300 and the Society Islands in AD 800. The Polynesians were organized in loose chieftainships.
European communication began in 1521 when the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan sighted Pukapuka in the Tuāmotu-Gambier Archipelago. Dutchman Jakob Roggeveen came across Bora Bora in the Society Islands in 1722, and the British explorer Samuel Wallis visited Tahiti in 1767. The French explorer Louis Antoine de Bougainville visited Tahiti in 1768, while the British explorer James Cook visited in 1769. Christian missions began with Spanish priests who stayed in Tahiti for a year from 1774; Protestants from the London Missionary Society settled permanently in Polynesia in 1797.
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French Riviera
The Côte d'Azur, pronounced [kot dazyːʁ], often known in English as the French Riviera (French: Côte d'Azur; Occitan: Còsta d'Azur; that is "Azure Coast"), is the Mediterranean coastline of the southeast corner of France, also including the sovereign state of Monaco. There is no official boundary, but it is usually considered to extend from the Italian border in the east to Saint Tropez, Hyères, Toulon or Cassis in the west.
This coastline was one of the first modern resort areas. It began as a winter health resort for the British upper class at the end of the 18th century. With the arrival of the railway in the mid-19th century, it became the playground and vacation spot of British, Russian, and other aristocrats, such as Queen Victoria and King Edward VII, when he was Prince of Wales. In the summer, it also played home to many members of the Rothschild family. In the first half of the 20th century it was frequented by artists and writers, including Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Edith Wharton, Somerset Maugham and Aldous Huxley, as well as wealthy Americans and Europeans. After World War II it became a popular tourist destination and convention site. Many celebrities, such as Elton John and Brigitte Bardot, have homes in the region. Officially, the Côte d'Azur is home to 163 nationalities with 83,962 foreign residents, although estimates of the number of non-French nationals living in the area are often much higher.
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Futuroscope
Futuroscope, or Parc du Futuroscope is a French theme park based upon multimedia, cinematographic futuroscope and audio-visual techniques. It has several 3D cinemas and a few 4D cinemas along with other attractions and shows, some of which are the only examples in the world.
It is located in the department of Vienne, 10 kilometres north of Poitiers, on the territory of the communes of Chasseneuil-du-Poitou and Jaunay-Clan.
The park had 1.826 million visitors in 2010. In total, 40 million visitors have been to the park since it opened in 1987.[citation needed] (By comparison, Disneyland Paris saw 15.3 million visitors in 2008.)
Futuroscope currently employs 600 people, including 400 temporary staff. Stages of the Tour de France cycle race have begun and ended at the park several times since its opening.
The pavilions of Futuroscope are mainly made up of metal and glass: modern materials which give the buildings form and texture, as works of art that make the observer stand and stare. The design of the pavilions was led by architect Denis Laming.
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Gabon
Gabon ( /ɡəˈbɒn/; French pronunciation: [ɡabɔ̃]), officially the Gabonese Republic (French: République Gabonaise) is a state in west central Africa sharing borders with Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, and with the Republic of the Congo curving around the east and south. The Gulf of Guinea, an arm of the Atlantic Ocean is to the west. It covers a land area of nearly 270,000 km² and has an estimated population of 1,500,000. Its capital and largest city is Libreville.
Since its independence from France on August 17, 1960, Gabon has been ruled by three presidents. In the early 1990s, Gabon introduced a multi-party system and a new democratic constitution that allowed for a more transparent electoral process and reformed many governmental institutions. Gabon is also a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for the 2010-2011 term.
Low population density together with abundant natural resources and foreign private investment have helped make Gabon one of the most prosperous countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, with the highest HDI and the third highest GDP per capita (PPP) (after Equatorial Guinea and Botswana) in the region.
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Garabit viaduct
The Garabit Viaduct (Viaduc de Garabit in French) is a railway arch bridge spanning the River Truyère near Ruynes-en-Margeride (Fr), Cantal, France, in the mountainous Massif Central region. The bridge was constructed between 1882 and 1884 by Gustave Eiffel, with structural engineering by Maurice Koechlin, and was opened in 1885. It is 565 m (1,854 ft) in length and has a principal arch of 165 m (541 ft) span.
By the end of the 1870s Eiffel & Cie, the company formed by Gustave Eiffel in partnership with Theophile Seyrig, had an established position among the leading French engineering companies. Between 1885 and 1887 the company had built the Maria Pia Bridge over the Douro at Porto, and when it was proposed to construct a railway between Marvejols and Neusseargues in the Cantal department the work of constructing a viaduct to cross the River Truyère was given to Eiffel without the usual process of competitive tendering at the recommendation of the engineers of the state Highways Department since the technical problems involved were similar to those of the Maria Pia Bridge; indeed, it was Eiffel & Cie's success with this project that had led to the proposal for a viaduct at Garabit.
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Gard
Gard (French pronunciation: [ɡaʁ]; Occitan: Gard) is a département located in southern France in the Languedoc-Roussillon region.
The department is named after the River Gardon, and the Occitan name of the river has been replacing the French name of the department in recent decades, even among French speakers.
The Gard area was settled by the Romans in classical times. It was crossed by the Via Domitia, which was constructed in 118 BC.
Gard is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from the ancient province of Languedoc.
It was originally intended to include the canton of Ganges in the department which would have been geographically logical, but Ganges was transferred to the neighbouring department of Hérault at the outset. In return, Gard received from Hérault the fishing port of Aigues Mortes which gave the department its own outlet to the Gulf of Lion.
During the middle of the nineteenth century the prefecture, traditionally a centre of commerce with a manufacturing sector focused on textiles, was an early beneficiary of railway development, becoming an important railway junction. Several luxurious hotels were built, and the improved market access provided by the railways also encouraged, initially, a rapid growth in wine growing: however, many of the department's viticulturalists were ruined by the arrival in 1872 of phylloxera.
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Gare d'Orsay
Coordinates: 48°51′37″N 2°19′31″E / 48.860283°N 2.325392°E / 48.860283; 2.325392
Gare d'Orsay is a former Paris railway station and hotel, built in 1900 to designs by Victor Laloux, Lucien Magne and Émile Bénard; it served as a terminus for the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans (Paris-Orléans Railway). It was the first electrified urban rail terminal in the world, opened 28 May 1900, in time for the 1900 Exposition Universelle. After closure as a station, it reopened in December 1986 as the Musée d'Orsay, an art museum. The museum is currently served by the RER station of the same name.
The site was occupied by the Palais d'Orsay, intended for the Conseil d'État. It was begun in 1810 but not completed until 1840, when its ground floor was occupied by the Council. In 1842 the Cour des Comptes was housed in the first floor. After the fall of the French Second Empire in 1870, the Paris Commune created a provisional commission to replace the Conseil (March 1870 to August 1872), and the archives, library and works of art were removed to Versailles. Eventually both the Conseil and the Cour des Comptes were rehoused in the Palais-Royal.
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Geography of France
Coordinates: 46°00′N 2°00′E / 46°N 2°E / 46; 2
France is a country located primarily in Western Europe, but containing territory in South America, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean, as well as numerous territories of various status. In Europe France borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean. To the west is the Bay of Biscay, to the north is the English Channel.
Mostly flat plains or gently rolling hills in north and west.
Elevation extremes:
Irrigated land: 16,300 km² (1995 est.)
Coal, iron ore, fish, zinc, timber
Flooding, avalanches, forest fires, earthquakes
Some forest damage from acid rain (major forest damage occurred as a result of severe December 1999 windstorm); air pollution from industrial and vehicle emissions; water pollution from urban wastes, agricultural runoff, high pesticide use (honeybee mortality)
An open grassland during the Pleistocene Ice Age, France gradually became forested as the glaciers retreated starting in 10,000 BC. Clearing of the primeval forests began in Neolithic times, but they were still fairly extensive until major clearing began in medieval times. By the 15th century, France had largely been denuded of its forests and was forced to rely on Scandinavia and their North American colonies for lumber. Significant remaining forested areas are in the Gascony region and north in the Alsace-Ardennes area. The Ardennes Forest was the scene of extensive fighting in both world wars.
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Georgia (country)
Georgiai/ˈdʒɔrdʒə/ (Georgian: საქართველო Sakartvelo, IPA: [sɑkʰɑrtʰvɛlɔ] ( listen)) is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of Georgia is Tbilisi. Georgia covers a territory of 69,700 km² and its population is almost 4.7 million. Georgia is a unitary, semi-presidential republic, with the government elected through a representative democracy.
During the classical era independent kingdoms became established in what is now Georgia. The kingdoms of Colchis and Iberia adopted Christianity in the early 4th century. A unified Georgia reached the peak of its political and economic strength during the reign of King David IV and Queen Tamar in the 11th–12th centuries. At the beginning of the 19th century, Georgia was annexed by the Russian Empire. After a brief period of independence following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia was occupied by Soviet Russia in 1921, becoming the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic and part of the Soviet Union. After independence in 1991, post-communist Georgia suffered from civil unrest and economic crisis for most of the 1990s. This lasted until the Rose Revolution of 2003, after which the new government introduced democratic and economic reforms.
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Germany
Germany (i/ˈdʒɜrməni/), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, pronounced [ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant] ( listen)), is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With 81.8 million inhabitants, it is the most populous member state and the largest economy in the European Union. It is one of the major political powers of the European continent and a technological leader in many fields.
A region named Germania, inhabited by several Germanic peoples, was documented before AD 100. During the Migration Period, the Germanic tribes expanded southward, and established successor kingdoms throughout much of Europe. Beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation while southern and western parts remained dominated by Roman Catholic denominations, with the two factions clashing in the Thirty Years' War, marking the beginning of the Catholic–Protestant divide that has characterized German society ever since. Occupied during the Napoleonic Wars, the rise of Pan-Germanism inside the German Confederation resulted in the unification of most of the German states into the German Empire in 1871 which was Prussian dominated. After the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and the subsequent military surrender in World War I, the Empire was replaced by the Weimar Republic in 1918, and partitioned in the Treaty of Versailles. Amidst the Great Depression, the Third Reich was proclaimed in 1933. The latter period was marked by Fascism and World War II. After 1945, Germany was divided by allied occupation, and evolved into two states, East Germany and West Germany. In 1990 Germany was reunified.
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Gers
The Gers (French: le Gers, Gascon: Gers, pronounced: [ʒɛʁs] or [ʒɛʁ]) is a department in the Midi-Pyrénées region in the southwest of France named after the Gers River.
Inhabitants are called les Gersois or Gersoises.
In the Middle Ages, the Lordship of L'Isle-Jourdain was nearby.
The Gers is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Guyenne and Gascony.
In 1808 it lost Lavit on its the north-eastern side to the newly created department of Tarn-et-Garonne.
The culture is largely agricultural, with great emphasis on the local gastronomical specialties such as:
Also, some prominent cultivated crops are corn, colza, sunflowers and grain.
The Gascon language is a dialect of Occitan, but it is not widely spoken.The department is characterised by sleepy bastide villages and rolling hills with the Pyrenees visible to the south.
Alexandre Dumas, père created the famous Gersois d'Artagnan, the fourth musketeer of The Three Musketeers. A museum to d'Artagnan is found in the Gersois village of Lupiac.
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Ghana
Ghanai/ˈɡɑːnə/ is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south. The word Ghana means "Warrior King" and is derived from the ancient Ghana Empire.
Ghana was inhabited in pre-colonial times by a number of ancient predominantly Akan kingdoms, including the inland Ashanti Empire, the Akwamu, the Akyem, the Bonoman, the Denkyira, and the Fante among others. Non-Akan states created by the Ga also existed as did states by the Dagomba. Prior to contact with Europeans trade between the Akan and various African states flourished due to Akan's gold wealth. Trade with European states began after contact with the Portuguese in the 15th century, and the British established the Gold Coast Crown colony in 1874 over parts but not all of the country.
The Gold Coast achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1957, becoming the First sub-Saharan African nation to do so from European Colonialism. The name Ghana was chosen for the new nation to reflect the ancient Empire of Ghana, which once extended throughout much of west Africa.
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Gibraltar
Gibraltar ( /dʒɨˈbrɒltər/) is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. It has an area of 6.8 square kilometres (2.6 sq mi) and a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region. At its foot is the densely populated city area, home to almost 30,000 Gibraltarians and other nationalities.
An Anglo-Dutch force captured Gibraltar from Spain in 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession. The territory was subsequently ceded to Britain "in perpetuity" under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. It was an important base for the Royal Navy; today its economy is based largely on tourism, financial services, and shipping.
The sovereignty of Gibraltar is a major point of contention in Anglo-Spanish relations as Spain asserts a claim to the territory. Gibraltarians rejected proposals for Spanish sovereignty in a 1967 referendum and again in 2002. Under the Gibraltar constitution of 2006, Gibraltar governs its own affairs, though some powers, such as defence and foreign relations, remain the responsibility of the UK Government.
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Gironde
For the Revolutionary party, see Girondists.
Gironde (French pronunciation: [ʒiʁɔ̃d]; in Gascon Gironda) is a common name for the Gironde estuary, where the mouths of the Garonne and Dordogne rivers merge, and for a department in the Aquitaine region situated in southwest France. The Bordeaux wine region is in the Gironde.
Gironde is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Guyenne and Gascogne.
From 1793 to 1795, the department's name was changed to Bec-d'Ambès to avoid the association with the revolutionary party, the Girondists.
Gironde is part of the current region of Aquitaine and is surrounded by the departments of Landes, Lot-et-Garonne, Dordogne and Charente-Maritime and the Atlantic Ocean on the west. With an area of 10,000 km², Gironde is the largest department in metropolitan France. If overseas departments are included, however, Gironde's land area is dwarfed by the 83,846 km² of Guyane.
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Greece
Greecei/ˈɡriːs/ (Greek: Ελλάδα, Ellada, IPA: [eˈlaða] ( listen) historically in Katharevousa and Ancient Greek: Ἑλλάς, Hellas, IPA: [eˈlas] and [helːás] respectively), officially the Hellenic Republic (Ελληνική Δημοκρατία, Elliniki Dimokratia, IPA: [eliniˈci ðimokraˈtia]), is a country in Southern Europe, politically considered part of Western Europe.Athens is the capital and the largest city in the country (its urban area also including Piraeus). The population of the country is around 11 million.
Greece has land borders with Albania, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the east. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of mainland Greece, the Ionian Sea to the west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km (8,498 mi) in length, featuring a vast number of islands (approximately 1,400, of which 227 are inhabited), including Crete, the Dodecanese, the Cyclades, and the Ionian Islands among others. Eighty percent of Greece consists of mountains, of which Mount Olympus is the highest at 2,917 m (9,570 ft).
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Greenland
Greenland (Kalaallisut: Kalaallit Nunaat, "Land of the Kalaallit";Danish: Grønland) is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe (specifically Norway and later Denmark) for more than a millennium. Greenland is, by area, the world's largest island. With a population of 56,615 (January 2011 estimate) it is the least densely populated dependency or country in the world.
Greenland has been inhabited, though not continuously, by Arctic peoples via Canada for 4500–5000 years. In the 10th century, Norsemen settled on the uninhabited southern part of Greenland. In the 13th century, the Inuit arrived, and in the late 15th century the Norse colonies were abandoned. In the early 18th century, contact between Scandinavia and Greenland was re-established and Denmark established rule over Greenland.
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Grenada
Grenada (i/ɡrɨˈneɪdə/) is an island country and Commonwealth realm consisting of the island of Grenada and six smaller islands at the southern end of the Grenadines in the southeastern Caribbean Sea. Grenada is located northwest of Trinidad and Tobago, northeast of Venezuela, and southwest of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
Grenada is also known as the "Island of Spice" because of the production of nutmeg and mace crops of which Grenada is one of the world's largest exporters. Its size is 344 square kilometres (133 sq mi), with an estimated population of 110,000. Its capital is St. George's. The national bird of Grenada is the critically endangered Grenada Dove.
Grenada was first sighted by Europeans in 1498 during the third voyage of Christopher Columbus to the new world. At the time the indigenous Island Caribs (Kalinago) who lived there called it Camahogne. The Spaniards did not permanently settle on Camahogne. The English failed in their attempt at settlement in 1609.
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Guadeloupe
Coordinates: 16°15′N 61°35′W / 16.25°N 61.583°W / 16.25; -61.583
Guadeloupe ( /ɡwɑːdəˈluːp/; French pronunciation: [ɡwadəlup]; Antillean Creole: Gwadloup) is a Caribbean island located in the Leeward Islands, in the Lesser Antilles, with a land area of 1,628 square kilometres (629 sq. mi) and a population of 400,000. It is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. Its departmental code is "971". As the other overseas departments, Guadeloupe is also an integral part of the Republic. Besides Guadeloupe island, the smaller islands of Marie-Galante, La Désirade, and the Îles des Saintes are included in Guadeloupe.
As part of France, Guadeloupe is part of the European Union and the Eurozone; hence, as for all Eurozone countries, its currency is the euro. However, Guadeloupe is not part of the Schengen Area. The prefecture and the capital of Guadeloupe is Basse-Terre. Christopher Columbus named the island Santa María de Guadalupe in 1493 after the Virgin Mary, venerated in the Spanish town of Guadalupe, in Extremadura.
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Guam
Guam (i/ˈɡwɑːm/; Chamorro: Guåhån) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of sixteen Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United Nations. The island's capital is Hagåtña (formerly Agaña). Guam is the largest and southernmost of the Mariana Islands.
The Chamorros, Guam's indigenous people, first populated the island approximately 4,000 years ago. The island has a long history of European colonialism. Discovered by Ferdinand Magellan during a Spanish expedition on March 6, 1521, the first colony was established in 1668 by Spain with the arrival of settlers including Padre San Vitores, a Catholic missionary. For more than two centuries Guam was an important stopover for the Spanish Manila Galleons that crossed the Pacific annually. The island was controlled by Spain until 1898, when it was surrendered to the United States during the Spanish-American War and later formally ceded as part of the Treaty of Paris.
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Guatemala
Guatemala (i/ˌɡwɑːtəˈmɑːlə/ GWAH-tə-MAH-lə), officially the Republic of Guatemala (Spanish: República de Guatemala [reˈpuβlika ðe ɣwateˈmala]), is a country in Central America bordered by Mexico to the north and west, the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, Belize to the northeast, the Caribbean to the east, and Honduras and El Salvador to the southeast. Its area is 108,890 km2 (42,043 mi2) with an estimated population of 13,276,517.
A representative democracy, its capital is Guatemala de la Asunción, also known as Guatemala City. Guatemala's abundance of biologically significant and unique ecosystems contributes to Mesoamerica's designation as a biodiversity hotspot. The former Mayan civilization was a Mesoamerican civilization, which continued throughout the Post-Classic period until the arrival of the Spanish. The Mayas live in Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, the southern part of Mexico and northern parts of El Salvador.
Guatemala became independent from Spain in 1821, joining the Mexican Empire. After it became an independent country in its own right, it was ruled by a series of dictators, assisted by the United Fruit Company. The late 20th century saw Guatemala embroiled in a 36-year-long civil war. Following the war, Guatemala has witnessed both economic growth and successful democratic elections. In the most recent election, held in 2011, Otto Pérez Molina of the Patriotic Party, won the presidency.
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Guernsey
Guernsey, officially the Bailiwick of Guernsey ( /ˈɡɜrnzi/ GURN-zee; French: Bailliage de Guernesey, IPA: [bajaʒ də ɡɛʁnəzɛ]), is a British Crown dependency in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy.
The Bailiwick of Guernsey embraces not only all 10 parishes on the Island of Guernsey, but also the islands of Herm, Jethou, and Lihou. Furthermore, the Bailiwick includes Alderney and Sark, which each has its own parliament.
Although its defence is the responsibility of the United Kingdom, the Bailiwick of Guernsey is not part of the UK; and while it participates in the Common Travel Area, it is not part of the European Union.
The Bailiwick of Guernsey is included (along with the Bailiwick of Jersey) in the grouping known as the Channel Islands.
The name of Guernsey, as well as that of neighbouring Jersey, is of Old Norse origin. The second element of Guernsey (-ey) is the Old Norse for "island". Guern similar to Spanish "Cuerno", French "Coi(r)n", Dutch "Hoorn", Frisian "Hoarn", Swedish "Hörn", Swiss "Gorn" means "Corner". - Corner Island.
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Guinea
Guineai/ˈɡɪni/, officially the Republic of Guinea (French: République de Guinée), is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea (Guinée française), it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau and the Republic of Equatorial Guinea. Guinea has almost 246,000 square kilometres (94,981 sq mi) and a population of 10,057,975. It forms a crescent by curving from its western border on the Atlantic Ocean toward the east and the south. Its northern border is shared with Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, and Mali, the southern one with Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Côte d'Ivoire. The Niger River's source is in the Guinea Highlands in southeastern Guinea.
Guinea is geographically divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures. Conakry is the capital, largest city and economic centre. The other major cities in the country include Kankan, Nzérékoré, Kindia, Labe, Guéckédou, Mamou and Boke.
Guinea's 10 million people belong to twenty-four ethnic groups. The largest and most prominent groups are the Fula 40%, Mandingo 30%, and Susu 20%.
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Guinea-Bissau
Guinea-Bissau, officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissaui/ˈɡɪni bɪˈsaʊ/ (Portuguese: República da Guiné-Bissau, pronounced: [ʁeˈpublikɐ dɐ ɡiˈnɛ biˈsaw]), is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Senegal to the north and Guinea to the south and east, with the Atlantic Ocean to its west. It covers 36,125 km² (nearly 14,000 sq mi) with an estimated population of 1,600,000.
Guinea-Bissau was once part of the kingdom of Gabu, as well as part of the Mali Empire. Parts of this kingdom persisted until the 18th century, while a few others were part of the Portuguese Empire since the 16th century. It then became the Portuguese colony of Portuguese Guinea in the 19th century. Upon independence, declared in 1973 and recognised in 1974, the name of its capital, Bissau, was added to the country's name to prevent confusion with the bordering Republic of Guinea. Guinea-Bissau has a history of political instability since gaining independence and no elected president has successfully served a full five-year term. On the evening of 12 April 2012, members of the country's military staged a coup and arrested the interim president and a leading presidential candidate. The military has yet to declare a current leader for the country. However, former vice chief of staff, General Mamadu Ture Kuruma took the care of the country in the transitional period and started negotiations with opposition parties.
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Guyana
Coordinates: 5°00′N 58°45′W / 5°N 58.75°W / 5; -58.75
Guyana (i/ɡaɪˈænə/ gy-AN-ə), officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and (for over 200 years) the British. It is the only state of the Commonwealth of Nations on mainland South America, and the only one on that continent where English is an official language.It is one of the few Caribbean countries that is not an island. It is also a member of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), which has its secretariat headquarters in Guyana's capital, Georgetown. Guyana achieved independence from the United Kingdom on 26 May 1966, and became a republic on 23 February 1970. In 2008 the country joined the Union of South American Nations as a founding member.
Historically, the region known as "Guiana" or "Guyana" comprised the large shield landmass north of the Amazon River and east of the Orinoco River known as the "Land of many waters". Historical Guyana is made up of three Dutch colonies: Essequibo, Demerara, and Berbice. Modern Guyana is bordered to the east by Suriname, to the south and southwest by Brazil, to the west by Venezuela, and on the north by the Atlantic Ocean.
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Haiti
Haitii/ˈheɪti/ (French: Haïti [aiti]; Haitian Creole Ayiti [ajiti]), officially the Republic of Haiti (République d'Haïti; Repiblik Ayiti), is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti (land of high mountains) was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island. The country's highest point is Pic la Selle, at 2,680 metres (8,793 ft). The total area of Haiti is 27,750 square kilometres (10,714 sq mi) and its capital is Port-au-Prince. Haitian Creole and French are the official languages.
Haiti's regional, historical, and ethno-linguistic position is unique for several reasons. It was the first independent nation of Latin America and the Caribbean, the first black-led republic in the world, and the second republic in the Americas when it gained independence in 1804 as part of a successful slave revolution lasting nearly a decade. In 2012, Haiti announced its intention to seek associate membership status in the African Union. Haiti is the only predominantly Francophone independent nation in the Americas. It is one of only two independent nations in the Americas (along with Canada) to designate French as an official language; the other French-speaking areas are all overseas départements, or collectivités, of France.
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Haut-Rhin
Haut-Rhin (French pronunciation: [oʁɛ̃]; Alsatian: Owerelsàss) is a département of the Alsace region of France, named after the Rhine river. Its name means Upper Rhine. Haut-Rhin is the smaller and less populated of the two departements of Alsace, although is still densely populated compared to the rest of France.
The department consists of the following arrondissements:
Haut-Rhin is one of the original 83 départements, created during the French Revolution, on 4 March 1790 through the application of the law of 22 December 1789 in respect of the southern half of the province of Alsace (Haute-Alsace).
Its boundaries have been modified many times:
Haut-Rhin is bordered by the Territoire de Belfort and Vosges départements and the Vosges Mountains to the west, the Bas-Rhin département to the North, Switzerland to the south and its eastern border with Germany is also the River Rhine. In the centre of the département lies a fertile plain. The climate is semi-continental.
Haut-Rhin is one of the richest French départements. Mulhouse is the home of a Peugeot automobile factory, manufacturing the 106 and 206 models. The lowest unemployment rate in France can be found in the Southern Sundgau region (approximately 2%). The countryside is marked by hills. Many Haut-Rhinois work in Switzerland, especially in the chemical industries of Basel, but prefer to commute from France where living cost are lower.
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Haute-Corse
Haute-Corse (French pronunciation: [ot.kɔʁs]; Corsican: Corsica suprana) (English: Upper Corsica) is a French department. It constitutes the northern part of the island of Corsica.
The department was formed on 15 September 1975, when the department of Corse was divided into Haute-Corse and Corse-du-Sud. The department corresponds exactly to the former department of Golo which existed between 1793 and 1811.
The department is surrounded on three sides by the Mediterranean Sea and on the south by the department of Corse-du-Sud.
The inhabitants of the entire island of Corsica are called Corsicans.
The Corsicans are a fiercely independent people. However, a 6 July 2003 referendum on increased autonomy was voted down by a very thin majority: 50.98 percent against to 49.02 percent for. This was a major setback for French Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy, who had hoped to use Corsica as the first step in his decentralization policies.
The President of the General Council is Paul Giacobbi, who has held the office since 1998.
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Haute-Garonne
Haute-Garonne (French pronunciation: [ot ɡaʁɔn]; Occitan: Nauta Garona; English: Upper Garonne) is a department in the southwest of France named after the Garonne river. Its main city is Toulouse.
Haute-Garonne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from part of the former province of Languedoc.
The department was originally larger. The reduction in its area resulted from an imperial decree dated 21 November 1808 and which established the neighbouring department of Tarn-et-Garonne, to the north. The new department, created in response to the pleadings of various locally powerful politicians, took territory from five surrounding departments including Haute-Garonne. The districts lost to Tarn-et-Garonne in 1808 were those of Montech and Castelsarrasin.
Haute-Garonne is part of the current region of Midi-Pyrénées and is surrounded by the departments of Hautes-Pyrénées, Gers, Tarn-et-Garonne, Tarn, Aude, and Ariège. It also borders Spain in the south (province of Lleida and province of Huesca).
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Haute-Loire
Haute-Loire (French pronunciation: [ot lwaʁ]; Occitan: Naut Léger) is a department in south-central France named after the Loire River.
Haute-Loire is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Auvergne, Languedoc, and Lyonnais.
Haute-Loire is part of the current region of Auvergne and is surrounded by the departments of Loire, Ardèche, Lozère, Cantal, and Puy-de-Dôme.
The department covers the upper reaches of the Loire. Parts of the department belong to Parc naturel régional Livradois-Forez.
The inhabitants of the department are called Altiligériens.
The de Polignac family has its historic seat there, and various descendants of Lafayette were senators for this region in the nineteenth century.
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Haute-Marne
Haute-Marne (French pronunciation: [ot.maʁn]) is a department in the northeast of France named after the Marne River.
Haute-Marne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Champagne, Burgundy, Lorraine and Franche-Comté
In March 1814 the departmental prefecture, Chaumont, was the unwitting witness to the end of the First Empire. On 1 March, Prussia, Russia, the United Kingdom and Austria signed an accord forbidding any individual peace deal with Napoleon I, and to fight until his final defeat.
During World War II, Haute-Marne was partitioned under German occupation. The canal which runs from the Marne to the Saône served as a border, dividing the department into east and west. The east was a "reserved zone", intended for the creation of a new German (Ripuarian) state, whereas to the west would be the traditional "occupied zone". Haute-Marne was finally liberated by the Allies, in the form of the division of General Leclerc, between August and September 1944.
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Haute-Normandie
Upper Normandy (French: Haute-Normandie, IPA: [ot nɔʁmɑ̃di]; Norman: Ĥâote-Normaundie) is one of the 27 regions of France. It was created in 1984 from two départements: Seine-Maritime and Eure, when Normandy was divided into Lower Normandy and Upper Normandy. This division continues to provoke controversy, and some continue to call for reuniting the two regions. However, the name Upper Normandy existed prior to 1956 and referred by tradition to territories currently included within the administrative region: the Pays de Caux, the Pays de Bray (not that of Picardy), the Roumois, the Campagne of Le Neubourg, the Plaine de Saint André and the Norman Vexin. Today, most of the Pays d'Auge, as well as a small portion of the Pays d'Ouche, are located in Lower Normandy.
Rouen is the regional capital, historically important with many fine churches and buildings, including the tallest cathedral tower in France. The region's largest city, in terms of metropolitan population, is Le Havre. The region is twinned with the London Borough of Redbridge in England. Its economy is centered around agriculture, industry, petrochemicals and tourism.
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Haute-Savoie
Haute-Savoie ([ot savwa] ( listen); Arpitan : Savouè d’Amont / Hiôta-Savouè; English: Upper Savoy) is a department in the Rhône-Alpes region of eastern France, bordering both Switzerland and Italy. Its capital is Annecy. To the north is Lake Geneva and Switzerland; to the south and southeast are the Mont Blanc and Aravis mountain ranges. The French entrance to the Mont Blanc Tunnel to Italy is in Haute-Savoie. It is noted for winter sports; the first Winter Olympic Games were held at Chamonix in 1924.
Before 1860, the territory occupied by modern Haute-Savoie and the adjoining department of Savoie was part of the Kingdom of Sardinia since the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. Annexation of the region by France was formalized in the Treaty of Turin on March 24, 1860.
From November 1942 to September 1943, Haute-Savoie was subjected to military occupation by Italy. The Maquis des Glières (a band of Free French Resistance fighters who opposed the Nazi, Vichy and Milice regimes during World War II) operated from Haute-Savoie.
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Haute-Saône
Haute-Saône (French pronunciation: [ot.soːn]; Arpitan: Hiôta-Sona) is a French department of the Franche-Comté (Franche-Comtât) région, named after the Saône River.
The department was created in the early years of the French Revolution through the application of a law dated 22 December 1789, from part of the former province of Franche-Comté. The frontiers of the new department corresponded approximately to those of the old Bailiwick of Amont.
Haute-Saône is part of the Franche-Comté region.
Neighbouring departments are Côte-d'Or to the west, Haute-Marne to the north-west, Vosges to the north, Territoire de Belfort to the east, Doubs to the south and east and Jura to south.
Haute-Saône is divided into 32 cantons
Te department can be presented as a transitional territory positioned between several of the more depressed departments of eastern France and the so called Blue Banana zone characterised, in recent decades by relatively powerful economic growth.
The department is overwhelmingly rural, despite the area having been at the forefront of industrialisation in the eighteenth century. The industrial tradition endures, but industrial businesses tend to be on a small scale. In 2006 employment by economic sector was reported as follows:
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Haute-Vienne
Haute-Vienne (French pronunciation: [ot vjɛn]) is a French department named after the Vienne River. It is one of three departments that together constitute the French region of Limousin.
The chief and largest city is Limoges. The other towns in the department each have fewer than 20,000 inhabitants.
The source of the Charente River is in the department, in the commune of Chéonnac, near Rochechouart.
The neighboring departments are: Creuse, Corrèze, Dordogne, Charente, Vienne and Indre.
The three arrondissements of the Haute-Vienne department are:
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Hautes-Alpes
Hautes-Alpes (French pronunciation: [ot.z‿alp]; Occitan: Auts Aups) is a department in southeastern France named after the Alps mountain range.
Hautes-Alpes is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It consists of the southeast of the former province of Dauphiné and the north of Provence.
At the time when the department was created, the two mountain communes of La Grave and Villar-d'Arêne successfully campaigned to be included in Hautes-Alpes and not in the neighbouring department of Isère to which they had originally been assigned. This was because they hoped to benefit from the relative autonomy and certain fiscal privileges enjoyed by the region since the fourteenth century under the terms of the Statute of the Briançon Escartons.
Napoleon passed through Gap when he returned to reclaim France after his exile on Elba.
The department is surrounded by the following French departments: Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Drôme, Isère, and Savoie. Italy borders it on the east.
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Hautes-Pyrénées
Hautes-Pyrénées (French pronunciation: [ot pi.ʁe.ne]) (Gascon: Nauts Pirenèus / Hauts Pirenèus) is a department in southwestern France. It is part of the Midi-Pyrénées region.
Historically the area broadly covered by the département was known as Bigorre, a territory at times independent but later part of Gascony province. Large parts of the area were held by the English after the Treaty of Brétigny, 1360. In the 16th century, it was part of the Huguenot domain of the monarchs of Navarre, brought to France by Henri IV. For its early history, see Bigorre and Gascony.
The département of Hautes-Pyrénées was created at the time of the French Revolution, on 4 March 1790, through the influence of Tarbes politician Bertrand Barère, a member of the Convention.
Hautes-Pyrénées consists of several distinct geographical areas. The southern portion, along the border with Spain, consists of mountains such as the Vignemale, the Pic du Midi de Bigorre, and the Neouvielle and Arbizon ranges. A second area consists of low-altitude rolling hills. The Northern part of the département consists of largely flat agricultural land. Hautes-Pyrénées has two small territorial exclaves -a remnant from the Middle Ages- located within the neighboring département of Pyrenees-Atlantiques
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Hauts-de-Seine
Hauts-de-Seine (pronounced: [o.də.sɛn]; literally "Seine Heights") is designated number 92 of the 101 départements in France. It is part of the Île-de-France region, and covers the western inner suburbs of Paris. It is small and densely populated and contains the modern office, theatre and shopping complex known as La Défense.
Hauts-de-Seine and two other small départements, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne, form a ring around Paris, known as the Petite Couronne (i.e. "little crown").
Hauts-de-Seine is made up of three departmental arrondissements and 36 communes:
The department of Hauts-de-Seine was created in 1968, from parts of the former départements of Seine and Seine-et-Oise. Its creation reflected the implementation of a law passed in 1964, and Nanterre had already been selected as the prefecture for the new department early in 1965.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Hauts-de-Seine received national attention as the result of a corruption scandal concerning the misuse of public funds provided for the department's housing projects. Implicated were former minister and former President of the general council of the Hauts-de-Seine, Charles Pasqua, and other personalities of the RPR party. (See corruption scandals in the Paris region.)
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Hawaii
Coordinates: 21°18′41″N 157°47′47″W / 21.31139°N 157.79639°W / 21.31139; -157.79639
Hawaii (i/həˈwaɪ.iː/ or /həˈwaɪʔiː/; Hawaiian: Hawaiʻi Hawaiian pronunciation: [hɐˈvɐiʔi]) is the most recent of the 50 U.S. states (August 21, 1959), and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean.
Hawaii’s diverse natural scenery, warm tropical climate, abundance of public beaches and oceanic surrounding, and active volcanoes make it a popular destination for tourists, surfers, biologists, and volcanologists alike. Due to its mid-Pacific location, Hawaii has many North American and Asian influences along with its own vibrant native culture. Hawaii has over a million permanent residents along with many visitors and U.S. military personnel. Its capital is Honolulu on the island of Oʻahu.
The state encompasses nearly the entire volcanic Hawaiian Island chain, which comprises hundreds of islands spread over 1,500 miles (2,400 km). At the southeastern end of the archipelago, the eight "main islands" are (from the northwest to southeast) Niʻihau, Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi, Kahoʻolawe, Maui, and the island of Hawaiʻi. The last is by far the largest and is often called "The Big Island" to avoid confusion with the state as a whole. The archipelago is physiographically and ethnologically part of the Polynesian subregion of Oceania.
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HEC Paris
HEC Paris or École des Hautes Études Commerciales de Paris is one of the foremost business schools in France and in Europe. It was created in 1881 by the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry on the model of French Grandes Ecoles and has progressively become one of the most selective graduate school in France. It has been constantly ranked the best business school in Europe by the Financial Times since the ranking's inception.
HEC is the business school of ParisTech, a gathering of top-ranked Grandes Ecoles willing to create a collegiate university by the year 2020.
The school grants a Grande Ecole degree (MSc in Management), pre-experience master’s degrees, an MBA, two EMBA and offers a PhD program. It has several double degree agreements (Engineering, Law, Economics, Public Affairs...) with foreign business schools and universities as well as other French institutions.
As well as other top French Grandes Ecoles, HEC’s reputation relies on its highly competitive entrance exam, a concours jointly organized with other French business schools. Among the 9,500 students seating the concours after 2 years of preparatory classes, HEC has an admission rate of 4% and a yield of 99%.
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Honduras
Honduras is a republic in Central America. It was at times referred to as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize. The country is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, and to the north by the Gulf of Honduras, a large inlet of the Caribbean Sea.
Honduras was home to several important indigenous cultures, most notably the Maya. Much of the country was conquered by Spain who introduced its predominant language and many of its customs in the sixteenth century. It became independent in 1821 and has been a republic since the end of Spanish rule.
Its size is just over 112,492 km² with an estimated population of almost eight million. Its capital is Tegucigalpa. Its northern portions are part of the Western Caribbean Zone.
It is notable for its production of minerals, tropical fruit, and recently for exportation of clothing for the international market.
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Hungary
Hungaryi/ˈhʌŋɡəri/ (Hungarian: Magyarország [ˈmɒɟɒrorsaːɡ] ( listen)) is a country, which is located in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The country's capital, and largest city, is Budapest. Hungary is a member of the European Union, NATO, the OECD, the Visegrád Group, and is a Schengen state. The official language is Hungarian, also known as Magyar, which is part of the Finno-Ugric group and is the most widely spoken non-Indo-European language in Europe.
Following a Celt (after c. 450 BC) and a Roman (AD 9 - c. 430) period, the foundation of Hungary was laid in the late 9th century by the Hungarian prince Árpád, whose great-grandson Saint Stephen I was crowned with a crown sent by the pope from Rome in 1000 AD. The Kingdom of Hungary lasted for 946 years, and at various points was regarded as one of the cultural centres of the Western world. After about 150 years of partial Ottoman occupation (1541–1699), Hungary was integrated into the Habsburg Monarchy, and later constituted half of the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy (1867–1918).
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Hérault
Hérault (French pronunciation: [eʁo]; Occitan: Erau) is a department in the south of France named after the Hérault river.
Hérault is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from part of the former province of Languedoc.
At the beginning of the 20th century, viticulture in the region was devastated by a slump in sales combined with disease affecting the vines, and thousands of small scale producers revolted. This revolt was suppressed very harshly by the government of Georges Clemenceau.
The catastrophic frost of the winter of 1956 damaged the olive trees, and the olive-growing regions did not recover until the late 1980s. Many of the olive-industry co-ops closed.
During the second half of the twentieth century the Montpellier basin underwent one of the most rapid population increases experienced anywhere in France.
Hérault is part of the current region of Languedoc-Roussillon and is surrounded by the departments of Aude, Tarn, Aveyron, Gard, and the Mediterranean (Gulf of Lion) on the south.
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Iceland
Icelandi/ˈaɪslənd/ (Icelandic: Ísland, IPA: [ˈislant]) is a Nordic European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. The country has a population of about 320,000 and a total area of 103,000 km2 (40,000 sq mi). The capital and largest city is Reykjavík, with the surrounding areas in the southwestern region of the country being home to two-thirds of the country's population. Iceland is volcanically and geologically active. The interior mainly consists of a plateau characterised by sand fields, mountains and glaciers, while many glacial rivers flow to the sea through the lowlands. Iceland is warmed by the Gulf Stream and has a temperate climate despite a high latitude just outside the Arctic Circle.
According to Landnámabók, the settlement of Iceland began in AD 874 when the chieftain Ingólfur Arnarson became the first permanent Norse settler on the island. Others had visited the island earlier and stayed over winter. Over the following centuries, Norsemen settled Iceland, bringing with them thralls (slaves) of Gaelic origin. From 1262 to 1918 Iceland was part of the Norwegian and later the Danish monarchies. Until the 20th century, the Icelandic population relied largely on fisheries and agriculture, and the country was one of the poorest and least developed in the world. Industrialisation of the fisheries and aid from the Marshall Plan brought prosperity in the years after World War II, and by the 1990s it was one of the world's wealthiest countries. In 1994, Iceland became party to the European Economic Area, which made it possible for the economy to diversify into economic and financial services.
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Ille-et-Vilaine
Ille-et-Vilaine (French pronunciation: [i.l‿e.vi.lɛn]; Breton: Il-ha-Gwilen) is a department of France, located in the region of Brittany in the northwest of the country.
Ille-et-Vilaine is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from part of the province of Brittany.
Ille-et-Vilaine is a part of the current region of Brittany and is bordered by the departments of Manche to the north-east, Mayenne to the east, Maine-et-Loire to the south-east, Loire-Atlantique to the south, Morbihan to the south-west, and Côtes-d'Armor to the west and north-west. Also the English Channel (locally named la Manche in French) borders the department to the north.
The department is named after its two main rivers, the Ille and the Vilaine, whose confluence is in Rennes, the capital of the department and of the region. Other important rivers include :
The department is moderately elevated above the level of the sea, with many hills; however the central part has a dense network of many tributaries to the Ille or the Vilaine from all around the large basin of Rennes. The elevated hills bordering this basin are covered by several old forests now exploited by men for the production of wood. The basin itself is a rich agriculture area, as well as the north-west of the department near the Rance.
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India
India (i/ˈɪndiə/), officially the Republic of India (Bhārat Gaṇarājya), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the south-west, and the Bay of Bengal on the south-east, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west;China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north-east; and Burma and Bangladesh to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; in addition, India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.
Home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four of the world's major religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism—originated here, whereas Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam arrived in the 1st millennium CE and also helped shape the region's diverse culture. Gradually annexed by and brought under the administration of the British East India Company from the early 18th century and administered directly by the United Kingdom from the mid-19th century, India became an independent nation in 1947 after a struggle for independence that was marked by non-violent resistance led by Mahatma Gandhi.
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Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula (or, more generally, by southern and western Asia); on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and Australia; and on the south by the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, by Antarctica). The ocean is named after the geographic location of India.
As one component of the interconnected global ocean, the Indian Ocean is delineated from the Atlantic Ocean by the 20° east meridian running south from Cape Agulhas, and from the Pacific by the meridian of 146°55' east. The northernmost extent of the Indian Ocean is approximately 30° north in the Persian Gulf. This ocean is nearly 10,000 kilometres (6,200 mi) wide at the southern tips of Africa and Australia; its area is 73,556,000 square kilometres (28,350,000 sq mi), including the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.
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Indonesia
Indonesia (i/ˌɪndəˈniːʒə/ IN-də-NEE-zhə or /ˌɪndoʊˈniːziə/ IN-doh-NEE-zee-ə), officially the Republic of Indonesia (Indonesian: Republik Indonesia Indonesian pronunciation: [rɛpʊblɪk ɪndɔnɛsɪa]), is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 17,508 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an elected legislature and president. The nation's capital city is Jakarta. The country shares land borders with Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Malaysia. Other neighboring countries include Singapore, Philippines, Australia, and the Indian territory of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Indonesia is a founding member of ASEAN and a member of the G-20 major economies. The Indonesian economy is the world's 17th largest economy by nominal GDP.
The Indonesian archipelago has been an important trade region since at least the 7th century, when Srivijaya and then later Majapahit traded with China and India. Local rulers gradually absorbed foreign cultural, religious and political models from the early centuries CE, and Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms flourished. Indonesian history has been influenced by foreign powers drawn to its natural resources. Muslim traders brought Islam, and European powers brought Christianity and fought one another to monopolize trade in the Spice Islands of Maluku during the Age of Discovery. Following three and a half centuries of Dutch colonialism, Indonesia secured its independence after World War II. Indonesia's history has since been turbulent, with challenges posed by natural disasters, corruption, separatism, a democratization process, and periods of rapid economic change.
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Indre
Indre (French pronunciation: [ɛ̃dʁ]) is a department in the center of France named after the river Indre. The inhabitants of the department are called Indriens.
Indre is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from part of the former province of Berry.
Indre is part of the current region of Centre (Val de Loire) and is surrounded by the departments of Indre-et-Loire, Loir-et-Cher, Cher, Creuse, Vienne, and Haute-Vienne.
The President of the General Council is Louis Pinton of the Union for a Popular Movement.
The Indre has two villages classified among the most beautiful villages of France: Saint-Benoît-du-Sault and Gargilesse-Dampierre.
Media related to Indre (department) at Wikimedia Commons
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Indre-et-Loire
Indre-et-Loire (French pronunciation: [ɛ̃dʁ‿e lwaʁ]) is a department in west-central France named after the Indre and the Loire rivers.
Indre-et-Loire is one of the original 83 départements created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from the former province of Touraine.
Tours, the departmental prefecture, was a center of learning in the early Middle Ages.
After the creation of the department it remained politically conservative, as Honoré de Balzac recorded in several of his novels. Conservative Tours refused to welcome the railways which instead were obliged to route their lines by way of Saint-Pierre-des-Corps on the city's eastern edge. The moderate temper of the department's politics remained apparent after the trauma of 1870: sentiment remained pro-royalist during the early years of the Third Republic.
For most of the nineteenth century Indre-et-Loire was a rural department, but pockets of heavy-duty industrialisation began to appear towards century's end, accompanied by left-wing politics. 1920 saw the birth of the French Communist Party at the Congress of Tours. By 1920 Saint-Pierre-des-Corps had become a major railway junction and a centre of railway workshops: it had also acquired a reputation as a bastion of working class solidarity.
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Interpol
Coordinates: 45°46′56″N 4°50′54″E / 45.78219°N 4.84838°E / 45.78219; 4.84838 The International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO), widely known as INTERPOL or Interpol, is an organization facilitating international police cooperation. It was established as the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC) in 1923 and adopted its telegraphic address as its common name in 1956.
Its membership of 190 countries provides finance of around €59 million through annual contributions. The organization's headquarters is in Lyon, France. It is the second largest intergovernmental organization after the United Nations, in terms of number of member states.
Its current Secretary-General is Ronald Noble, a former United States Under Secretary of the Treasury for Enforcement. Its current President is Singapore's Senior Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs and former Commissioner of Police Khoo Boon Hui; the President before that, Jackie Selebi, National Commissioner of the South African Police Service, held his term from 2004 till his resignation on 13 January 2008, after which he was charged in South Africa on three counts of corruption and one of defeating the course of justice, and replaced by Arturo Herrera Verdugo, current National Commissioner of Investigations Police of Chile and former vice president for the American Zone, who remained acting president until the organization meeting in October 2008.
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Isle of Man
The Isle of Man ( /ˈmæn/; Manx: Ellan Vannin, pronounced [ˈɛlʲən ˈvanɪn]), otherwise known simply as Mann (Manx: Mannin, IPA: [ˈmanɪn]), is a self-governing Crown Dependency of the United Kingdom, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is represented by a Lieutenant Governor. The island is not part of the United Kingdom, but its foreign relations and defence are the responsibility of the UK Government. Although the United Kingdom does not usually interfere in the island's domestic matters, its "good government" is ultimately the responsibility of the Crown (that is, in practice, the Government of the United Kingdom).
The island has been inhabited since before 6500 BC. Gaelic cultural influence began in the 5th century AD, and the Manx language, a branch of the Gaelic languages, gradually emerged. In the 9th century, the Norse began to settle there. A Norse-Gaelic culture arose and the island came under Norse control. In 1266, the island became part of Scotland as formalised by the Treaty of Perth. After a period of alternating rule by the kings of Scotland and England, the island came under the feudal overlordship of the English Crown in 1399. The lordship revested into the British Crown in 1764 but the island never became part of Great Britain or its successor the United Kingdom and retained its status as an internally self-governing Crown dependency.
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Israel
Coordinates: 31°N 35°E / 31°N 35°E / 31; 35
Israel, officially the State of Israel ( /ˈɪzriːəl/ or /ˈɪzreɪəl/; Hebrew: מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, Medīnat Yisrā'el, IPA: [me̞diˈnät jisʁäˈʔe̞l] ( listen); Arabic: دَوْلَة إِسْرَائِيل, Dawlat Isrāʼīl, IPA: [dawlat ʔisraːˈʔiːl]), is a parliamentary republic in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan and the West Bank in the east, Egypt and the Gaza Strip on the southwest, and the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea to the south, and it contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area. Israel is defined as a Jewish and Democratic State in its Basic Laws and is the world's only Jewish-majority state.
Following the adoption of a resolution by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 29 November 1947 recommending the adoption and implementation of the United Nations plan to partition Palestine, on 14 May 1948 David Ben-Gurion, the Executive Head of the World Zionist Organization and president of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, declared the establishment of a Jewish state in Eretz Israel, to be known as the State of Israel, a state independent from the British Mandate for Palestine. Neighboring Arab states invaded the next day in support of the Palestinian Arabs. Israel has since fought several wars with neighboring Arab states, in the course of which it has occupied the West Bank, Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. Portions of these territories, including east Jerusalem, have been annexed by Israel, but the border with the neighboring West Bank has not yet been permanently defined.[neutrality is disputed] Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, but efforts to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict have so far not resulted in peace.
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Isère
Isère (pronounced: [izɛːʁ]; Arpitan: Isera, Occitan: Isèra) is a department in the Rhône-Alpes (Rôno-Arpes in Arpitan) region in the east of France named after the river Isère.
Isère is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from part of the former province of Dauphiné. Its area has been reduced twice, in 1852 and again in 1967, on both occasions losing territory to the department of Rhône.
In 1852 in response to rapid urban development round the edge of Lyon, the (hitherto Isère) communes of Bron, Vaulx-en-Velin, Vénissieux and Villeurbanne were transferred to Rhône. In 1967 the redrawing of local government frontiers led to the creation of the Urban Community of Lyon (more recently known simply as Greater Lyon / Grand Lyon). At that time intercommunal groupings of this nature were not permitted to straddle departmental frontiers, and accordingly 23 more Isère communes (along with 6 communes from Ain) found themselves transferred to Rhône. The affected Isère communes were Chaponnay, Chassieu, Communay, Corbas, Décines-Charpieu, Feyzin, Genas, Jonage, Jons, Marennes, Meyzieu, Mions, Pusignan, Saint-Bonnet-de-Mure, Saint-Laurent-de-Mure, Saint-Pierre-de-Chandieu, Saint-Priest, Saint-Symphorien-d'Ozon, Sérézin-du-Rhône, Simandres, Solaize, Ternay and Toussieu.
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Italy
Italyi/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia [iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic or the Republic of Italy (Italian: Repubblica italiana), is a unitary parliamentary republic in south-central Europe. To the north, it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia along the Alps. To the south, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Sardinia–the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea–and many other smaller islands. The independent states of San Marino and the Vatican City are enclaves within Italy, while Campione d'Italia is an Italian exclave in Switzerland. The territory of Italy covers some 301,338 km2 (116,347 sq mi) and is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. With 60.6 million inhabitants, it is the fifth most populous country in Europe, and the 23rd most populous in the world.
Rome, the capital of Italy, was for centuries a political and religious centre of Western civilisation as the capital of the Roman Empire and site of the Holy See. After the decline of the Roman Empire, Italy endured numerous invasions by foreign peoples, from Germanic tribes such as the Lombards and Ostrogoths, to the Byzantines and later, the Normans, among others. Centuries later, Italy became the birthplace of Maritime republics and the Renaissance, an immensely fruitful intellectual movement that would prove to be integral in shaping the subsequent course of European thought.
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Jamaica
Coordinates: 18°10′57″N 77°19′18″W / 18.1823878°N 77.3217773°W / 18.1823878; -77.3217773
Jamaica (i/dʒəˈmeɪkə/), officially the Commonwealth of Jamaica, is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, 234 kilometres (145 mi) in length, up to 80 kilometres (50 mi) in width, and 10,990 square kilometres (4,240 sq mi) in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about 145 kilometres (90 mi) south of Cuba, and 191 kilometres (119 mi) west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The indigenous Arawakan-speaking Taíno name for the island was Xaymaca, meaning the "Land of Wood and Water" or the "Land of Springs".
Once a Spanish possession known as Santiago, it became an English colony in 1655 under the name "Jamaica". It achieved full independence from Britain on August 6, 1962. With 2.8 million people, it is the third most populous anglophone country in the Americas, after the United States and Canada. It remains a Commonwealth realm in concert with the Monarchy of Jamaica holding ultimate executive power, where Queen Elizabeth II is the current head of state and Queen of Jamaica.Kingston is the country's largest city and the capital.
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Japan
Japani/dʒəˈpæn/ (Japanese: 日本 Nihon or Nippon; formally 日本国 Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, literally the State of Japan) is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is sometimes referred to as the "Land of the Rising Sun".
Japan is an archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest islands are Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū and Shikoku, together accounting for ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan has the world's tenth-largest population, with over 127 million people. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes the de facto capital city of Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with over 30 million residents.
Archaeological research indicates that people lived in Japan as early as the Upper Paleolithic period. The first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other nations followed by long periods of isolation has characterized Japan's history. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, victory in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War and World War I allowed Japan to expand its empire during a period of increasing militarism. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since adopting its revised constitution in 1947, Japan has maintained a unitary constitutional monarchy with an emperor and an elected parliament called the Diet.
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Jersey
Jersey, officially the Bailiwick of Jersey, French: Bailliage de Jersey ( /ˈdʒɜrzi/, French: [ʒɛʁzɛ]; Jèrriais: Jèrri), is a British Crown Dependency off the coast of Normandy, France. As well as the island of Jersey itself, the bailiwick includes two groups of small islands that are no longer permanently inhabited, the Minquiers and Écréhous, and the Pierres de Lecq and other rocks and reefs.
Jersey is a self-governing parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy, with its own financial, legal and judicial systems.
The island of Jersey is the largest of the Channel Islands. Although the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey are often referred to collectively as 'the Channel Islands', they are not a constitutional or political unit. Jersey has a separate relationship to the British Crown from the other Crown Dependencies of Guernsey and the Isle of Man. It is not part of the United Kingdom, and has an international identity separate from that of the UK but the United Kingdom is constitutionally responsible for the defence of Jersey. Jersey is not a part of the European Union but has a special relationship with it, being treated as part of the European Community for the purposes of free trade in goods.
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Johnston Atoll
Johnston Atoll is a 1.03 sq mi (2.7 km2) atoll in the North Pacific Ocean about 750 nmi (860 mi; 1,390 km) west of Hawaii. The atoll, which is located on the coral reef platform, comprises four islands. Johnston and Sand islands are both enlarged natural features, while North (Akau) and East (Hikina) are two artificial islands formed by coral dredging. Johnston Atoll is grouped as one of the United States Minor Outlying Islands.
For nearly 70 years, the atoll was under the control of the American military. In that time it was used as an airbase, a naval refuelling depot and a weapons testing area. In the mid 1980s, the atoll became a facility for Chemical weapons disposal. In 2004 the military base was closed; island control was handed over to civilian authorities.
Johnston is an unincorporated territory of the United States administered by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service of the Department of the Interior as part of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument.
The first European record of the atoll was on September 2, 1796 when the American brig Sally accidentally grounded on a shoal near the islands. The ship's captain, Joseph Pierpont, published his experience in several American newspaper the following year giving an accurate position of Johnston and Sand Island along with part of the reef. However he did not name or lay claim to the area. The islands were not officially named until Captain Charles J. Johnston of the Royal Naval ship HMS Cornwallis sighted them on December 14, 1807.
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Jura (department)
Jura (French pronunciation: [ʒyʁa]) is a department in the east of France named after the Jura mountains.
Historically, Jura belonged to the Free County of Burgundy, known in French as the Franche-Comté. Dole was the capital until the region was conquered by Louis XIV and it was moved to Besançon. It is now a sous-préfecture of Jura.
As early as the 13th century, inhabitants of the southern 2/3 of Jura spoke a dialect of Arpitan language. It continued to be spoken in rural areas into the 20th century.
Jura is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from part of the former province of Franche-Comté. The departments of Jura, Doubs, and Haute-Saône form the modern Franche-Comté region of France. The prefecture (capital) is Lons-le-Saunier.
Jura is one of four departments of the Franche-Comté region and is surrounded by the French departments of Doubs, Haute-Saône, Côte-d'Or, Saône-et-Loire, and Ain, as well as the Swiss canton of Vaud on the east.
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Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan (i/ˌkɑːzəkˈstɑːn/ or /ˌkæzəkˈstæn/) (Kazakh: Қазақстан, Qazaqstan, pronounced [qɑzɑqstɑ́n]; Russian: Казахстан [kəzɐxˈstan]), officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Europe. The ninth largest country in the world by land area, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of 2,727,300 square kilometres (1,053,000 sq mi) is larger than Western Europe. It is neighbored clockwise from the north by Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and also borders on a significant part of the Caspian Sea. Although Kazakhstan does not share a border with Mongolia, its most easterly point is only 38 kilometres (24 mi) from Mongolia's western tip. The terrain of Kazakhstan ranges from flatlands, steppes, taigas, rock-canyons, hills, deltas, and snow-capped mountains to deserts. With 16.6 million people (2011 estimate) Kazakhstan has the 62nd largest population in the world, though its population density is less than 6 people per square kilometre (15 per sq. mi.). The capital was moved in 1998 from Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city, to Astana.
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Kenya
Kenya ( /ˈkɛnjə/ or /ˈkiːnjə/), officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator. With the Indian Ocean to its south-east, it is bordered by Tanzania to the south, Uganda to the west, South Sudan to the north-west, Ethiopia to the north and Somalia to the north-east. Kenya has a land area of 580,000 km2 and a population of nearly 41 million, representing 42 different peoples and cultures. The country is named after Mount Kenya, a significant landmark and second among Africa's highest mountain peaks. Kenya's capital and largest city is Nairobi.
Kenya has a warm and humid climate along its coastline on the Indian Ocean which changes to wildlife-rich savannah grasslands moving inland towards the capital Nairobi. Nairobi has a cool climate that gets colder approaching Mount Kenya, which has three permanently snow-capped peaks. The warm and humid tropical climate reappears further inland towards lake Victoria, before giving way to temperate forested and hilly areas in the western region. The North Eastern regions along the border with Somalia and Ethiopia are arid and semi-arid areas with near-desert landscapes. Lake Victoria, the world's second largest fresh-water lake (after Lake Superior in the US and Canada) and the world's largest tropical lake, is situated to the southwest and is shared with Uganda and Tanzania. Kenya is famous for its safaris and diverse world-famous wildlife reserves such as Tsavo National Park, the Maasai Mara, Nakuru National Park, and Aberdares National Park.
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Kiribati
Kiribati ([kɪribas] KIRR-i-bas or ˌkɪrəˈbɑdi;Gilbertese: [ˈkiɾibas]), officially the Republic of Kiribati, is an island nation located in the central tropical Pacific Ocean. The permanent population is just over 100,000 (2011), and the island nation is composed of 32 atolls and one raised coral island, dispersed over 3.5 million square kilometres, (1,351,000 square miles) straddling the equator, and bordering the International Date Line at its easternmost point.
The name Kiribati is the local pronunciation of "Gilberts", derived from the main island chain, the Gilbert Islands. The capital of South Tarawa consists of a number of islets connected through a series of causeways, located in the Tarawa archipelago. Kiribati became independent from the United Kingdom in 1979. It is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the IMF and the World Bank, and became a full member of the United Nations in 1999.
Kiribati was named in French by captains Krusenstern and Louis Isidore Duperrey "îles Gilbert", Gilbert Islands, after the British Captain Thomas Gilbert, who sighted the islands in 1788. The current name, Kiribati, is an adaptation of "Gilberts", from the former European name the "Gilbert Islands". Although the indigenous Gilbertese language name for the Gilbert Islands proper is Tungaru, the new state chose the name "Kiribati", the Gilbertese rendition of "Gilberts", as an equivalent of the former colony to acknowledge the inclusion of islands which were never considered part of the Gilberts chain.
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La Defense
La Défense (pronounced [la de.fɑ̃s]) is a major business district of the Paris aire urbaine. With a population of 20,000, it is centered in an orbital motorway straddling the Hauts-de-Seine département municipalities of Nanterre, Courbevoie and Puteaux. The district is at the westernmost extremity of Paris's 10 km long Historical Axis, which starts at the Louvre in Central Paris and continues along the Champs-Élysées, well beyond the Arc de Triomphe before culminating at La Défense.
Around its 110-metre (360 ft)-high Grande Arche and esplanade ("le Parvis"), la Défense holds many of the Paris urban area's tallest high-rises. With its 77.5 acres (314,000 m2), its 72 glass-and-steel slick buildings including 14 high-rises above 150 metres (490 ft), its 180,000 daily workers and 3.5 million square metres (37.7 million sq ft) of office space, La Défense is Europe's largest purpose-built business district.
La Défense is named after the iconic statue La Défense de Paris, which was erected in 1883 to commemorate the soldiers who had defended Paris during the Franco-Prussian War.
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La Défense
La Défense (pronounced [la de.fɑ̃s]) is a major business district of the Paris aire urbaine. With a population of 20,000, it is centered in an orbital motorway straddling the Hauts-de-Seine département municipalities of Nanterre, Courbevoie and Puteaux. The district is at the westernmost extremity of Paris's 10 km long Historical Axis, which starts at the Louvre in Central Paris and continues along the Champs-Élysées, well beyond the Arc de Triomphe before culminating at La Défense.
Around its 110-metre (360 ft)-high Grande Arche and esplanade ("le Parvis"), la Défense holds many of the Paris urban area's tallest high-rises. With its 77.5 acres (314,000 m2), its 72 glass-and-steel slick buildings including 14 high-rises above 150 metres (490 ft), its 180,000 daily workers and 3.5 million square metres (37.7 million sq ft) of office space, La Défense is Europe's largest purpose-built business district.
La Défense is named after the iconic statue La Défense de Paris, which was erected in 1883 to commemorate the soldiers who had defended Paris during the Franco-Prussian War.
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La Francophonie
Francophonie is an international organization of politics and governments with French as the mother or customary language, where a significant proportion of people are francophones (French speakers), or where there is a notable affiliation with the French language or culture.
Formally known as the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) or the International Organization of the Francophonie, the organization comprises 56 member states and governments, 3 associate members, and 16 observers. The term francophonie (with a lower case 'f') also refers to the global community of French-speaking peoples, comprising a network of private and public organizations promoting special ties among all Francophones. In a majority of member states, French is not the predominant native language. The prerequisite for admission to the Francophonie is not the degree of French usage in the member countries, but a prevalent presence of French culture and language in the member country's identity, usually stemming from France's colonial ambitions with other nations in its history.[citation needed]
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Landes (department)
Landes (French pronunciation: [lɑ̃d]; Gascon : Lanas or Lanes) is a département in southern France.
Landes is one of the original 83 départements that were created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from parts of the provinces of Guyenne and Gascony.
During the first part of the nineteenth century large parts of the department were covered with poorly drained heathland (lande in French) which is the origin of its name. The vegetation covered rich soil and was periodically burned off, leaving excellent pasturage for sheep, which around 1850 are thought to have numbered between 900,000 and 1,000,000 in this area. The sheep were managed by shepherds who moved around on stilts and became proficient at covering long distances thus supported. Most of the sheep departed during the second half of the nineteenth century when systematic development of large pine plantations transformed the landscape and the local economy.
The Nobel Prize winning novelist François Mauriac set his novels in the Landes.
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Languedoc-Roussillon
Languedoc-Roussillon (French pronunciation: [lɑ̃ɡdɔk ʁusijɔ̃]; Occitan: Lengadòc-Rosselhon; Catalan: Llenguadoc-Rosselló) is one of the 27 regions of France. It comprises five departments, and borders the other French regions of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Rhône-Alpes, Auvergne, Midi-Pyrénées on the one side, and Spain, Andorra and the Mediterranean sea on the other side.
The region is made up of the following historical provinces:
Llívia is a town of Cerdanya, province of Girona, Catalonia, Spain, that forms a Spanish exclave surrounded by French territory (Pyrénées-Orientales département).
At the regional elections in March 2004, the socialist mayor of Montpellier Georges Frêche, a maverick in French politics[citation needed], defeated its center-right president. Since then, Georges Frêche has embarked on a complete overhaul of the region and its institutions. The flag of the region, which displayed the cross of Languedoc as well as the Flag of Roussillon (the "Senyera"), was changed for a new flag with no reference to the old provinces, except in terms of the colors (red and yellow), which are the colors of both Languedoc and all the territories from the former Crown of Aragon.
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Laos
Laos ((i/ˈlaʊs/, /ˈlɑː.ɒs/, /ˈlɑː.oʊs/, or /ˈleɪ.ɒs/) Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, pronounced [sǎː.tʰáː.laʔ.naʔ.lat páʔ.sáː.tʰiʔ.páʔ.tàj páʔ.sáː.són.láːw] Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west. Its population was estimated to be 6.5 million in 2012.
Laos traces its history to the Kingdom which existed from the 14th to the 18th century when it split into three separate kingdoms. In 1893, it became a French protectorate, with the three kingdoms, Luang Phrabang, Vientiane and Champasak, uniting to form what is now known as Laos. It briefly gained independence in 1945 after Japanese occupation, but returned to French rule until it was granted autonomy in 1949. Laos became independent in 1953, with a constitutional monarchy under Sisavang Vong. Shortly after independence, a long civil war ended the monarchy, when the Communist Pathet Lao movement came to power in 1975.
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Lascaux
Lascaux is the setting of a complex of caves in southwestern France famous for its Paleolithic cave paintings. The original caves are located near the village of Montignac, in the department of Dordogne. They contain some of the best-known Upper Paleolithic art. These paintings are estimated to be 17,300 years old. They primarily consist of primitive images of large animals, most of which are known from fossil evidence to have lived in the area at the time. In 1979, Lascaux was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list along with other prehistoric sites in the Vézère valley.
The cave was discovered on September 12, 1940 by four teenagers, Marcel Ravidat, Jacques Marsal, Georges Agnel, and Simon Coencas, as well as Marcel's dog, Robot. The cave complex was opened to the public in 1948. By 1955, the carbon dioxide produced by 1,200 visitors per day had visibly damaged the paintings. The cave was closed to the public in 1963 in order to preserve the art. After the cave was closed, the paintings were restored to their original state, and were monitored on a daily basis. Rooms in the cave include The Hall of the Bulls, the Passageway, the Shaft, the Nave, the Apse, and the Chamber of Felines.
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Latin Union
The Latin Union is an international organization of nations that use Romance languages, with the aim of protecting, projecting, and promoting the common cultural heritage and unifying identities of the Latin, and Latin-influenced, world. It was created in 1954 in Madrid, Spain, and has existed as a functional institution since 1983. Its membership has risen from 12 to 36 states, including countries in Latin America, Europe, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific region.
The official names of the Latin Union are: Unió Llatina in Catalan, Union latine in French, Unione Latina in Italian, União Latina in Portuguese, Uniunea Latină in Romanian, and Unión Latina in Spanish.
According to the Latin Union's website, membership is open to any nation that meets the following criteria:
The official languages of the Latin Union are Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian, and Catalan. Spanish, Portuguese, French and Italian are used as working languages. All the texts of general diffusion are translated into these four languages, with some also going into Romanian and Catalan.
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Latvia
Latviai/ˈlætviə/ (Latvian: Latvija), officially the Republic of Latvia (Latvian: Latvijas Republika), is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia (border length 343 km), to the south by Lithuania (588 km), to the east by the Russian Federation (276 km), to the southeast by Belarus (141 km), and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden. With 2,067,887 inhabitants and a territory of 64,589 km2 (24,938 sq mi) it is one of the least populous and least densely populated countries of the European Union. The capital of Latvia is Riga. The official language is Latvian and the currency is called Lats (Ls). The country has a temperate seasonal climate.
The Latvians are a Baltic people, culturally related to the Lithuanians. Together with the Finno-Ugric Livs (or Livonians), the Latvians are the indigenous people of Latvia.Latvian is an Indo-European language and along with Lithuanian the only two surviving members of the Baltic branch. Indigenous minority languages are Latgalian and the nearly extinct Finno-Ugric Livonian language. In terms of geography, territory and population Latvia is the middle of three Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Latvia and Estonia share a long common history: historical Livonia, times of German (Teutonic Order), Polish-Lithuanian, Swedish, Russian, Nazi German and Soviet rule, 13th century Christianization and 16th century Protestant Reformation. Both countries are home to a large number of ethnic Russians (26.9% in Latvia and 25.5% in Estonia) of whom some are non-citizens. Latvia is historically predominantly Protestant, except for the region of Latgalia in the southeast which is historically predominantly Roman Catholic.
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Lebanon
Lebanon (i/ˈlɛbənɒn/ or /ˈlɛbənən/; Arabic: لبنان Libnān or Lubnān, Lebanese Arabic: [lɪbˈneːn]), officially the Lebanese Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية اللبنانية al-Jumhūrīyah al-Libnānīyah, Lebanese Arabic: [elˈʒʊmhuːɾɪjje l.ˈlɪbneːnɪjje]), is a country in the East Mediterranean. It is bordered by Syria to the north and east, and Israel to the south. Lebanon's location at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Basin and the Arabian hinterland has dictated its rich history, and shaped a cultural identity of religious and ethnic diversity.
The earliest evidence of civilization in Lebanon dates back more than 7,000 years—predating recorded history. Lebanon was the home of the Phoenicians, a maritime culture that flourished for nearly 2,500 years (3000–539 BC). Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, the five provinces that comprise modern Lebanon were mandated to France. The French expanded the borders of Mount Lebanon, which was mostly populated by Maronite Catholics and Druze, to include more Muslims. Lebanon gained independence in 1943, and established a unique political system, known as confessionalism, a power-sharing mechanism based on religious communities – Bechara El Khoury who became independent Lebanon's first President and Riad El-Solh, who became Lebanon's first prime minister, are considered the founders of the modern Republic of Lebanon and are national heroes for having led the country's independence. French troops withdrew from Lebanon in 1946.
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Les Invalides
Coordinates: 48°51′18″N 2°18′45″E / 48.855°N 2.3125°E / 48.855; 2.3125
Les Invalides (French pronunciation: [lezɛ̃valid]), officially known as L'Hôtel national des Invalides (The National Residence of the Invalids), is a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and a retirement home for war veterans, the building's original purpose. The buildings house the Musée de l'Armée, the military museum of the Army of France, the Musée des Plans-Reliefs, and the Musée d'Histoire Contemporaine, as well as the burial site for some of France's war heroes, notably Napoleon Bonaparte (lists below).
Louis XIV initiated the project by an order dated 24 November 1670, as a home and hospital for aged and unwell soldiers: the name is a shortened form of hôpital des invalides. The architect of Les Invalides was Libéral Bruant. The selected site was in the then suburban plain of Grenelle (plaine de Grenelle). By the time the enlarged project was completed in 1676, the river front measured 196 metres and the complex had fifteen courtyards, the largest being the cour d'honneur ("court of honour") for military parades. It was then felt that the veterans required a chapel. Jules Hardouin Mansart assisted the aged Bruant, and the chapel was finished in 1679 to Bruant's designs after the elder architect's death. The chapel is known as Église Saint-Louis des Invalides. Daily attendance was required.
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Lesotho
Lesotho (i/lɨˈsuːtuː/ li-SOO-too), officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a landlocked country and enclave, completely surrounded by its only neighboring country, the Republic of South Africa. It is just over 30,000 km2 (11,583 sq mi) in size with a population of approximately 2,067,000. Its capital and largest city is Maseru. Lesotho is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations. The name Lesotho translates roughly into the land of the people who speak Sesotho. About 40% of the population live below the international poverty line of US $1.25 a day.
The earliest known inhabitants of the area were Khoisan hunter-gatherers. They were largely replaced by Wasja-speaking tribes during Bantu migrations. The Sotho-Tswana people colonized the general region of South Africa between the 3rd and 11th centuries.
The present Lesotho (then called Basutoland) emerged as a single polity under king Moshoeshoe I in 1822. Moshoeshoe, a son of Mokhachane, a minor chief of the Bakoteli lineage, formed his own clan and became a chief around 1804. Between 1821 and 1823, he and his followers settled at the Butha-Buthe Mountain, joining with former adversaries in resistance against the Lifaqane associated with the reign of Shaka Zulu from 1818 to 1828.[citation needed]
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Liberia
Liberiai/laɪˈbɪəriə/, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Sierra Leone on the west, Guinea on the north and Ivory Coast on the east. Liberia's coastline is composed of mostly mangrove forests while the more sparsely populated inland consists of forests that open to a plateau of drier grasslands. The country possesses 40% of the remaining Upper Guinean rainforest. Liberia has a hot equatorial climate, with significant rainfall during the May to October rainy season and harsh harmattan winds the remainder of the year. Liberia covers an area of 111,369 km2 (43,000 sq mi) and is home to about 3.7 million people. English is the official language, while over 30 indigenous languages are spoken within the country.
Along with Ethiopia, Liberia is one of the two modern countries in Sub-Saharan Africa without roots in the European colonization of Africa. Beginning in 1820, the region was colonized by freed American slaves with the help of the American Colonization Society, a private organization that believed ex-slaves would have greater freedom and equality in Africa. Slaves freed from slave ships were also sent there instead of being repatriated to their countries of origin. In 1847, these colonists founded the Republic of Liberia, establishing a government modeled on that of the United States and naming the capital city Monrovia after James Monroe, the fifth president of the United States and a prominent supporter of the colonization. The colonists, known as Americo-Liberians, led the political and economic sectors of the country.
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Libya
Libya (Arabic: ليبيا Lībyā), Berber: ⵍⵉⴱⵢⴰ) is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west.
With an area of almost 1.8 million square kilometres (700,000 sq mi), Libya is the third largest country in Africa by area, and the 17th largest in the world. The largest city, Tripoli, is home to 1.7 million of Libya's 6.4 million people. The three traditional parts of the country are Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica.
In 2009 Libya had the highest HDI in Africa and the fourth highest GDP (PPP) per capita in Africa, behind Seychelles, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon. Libya has the 10th-largest proven oil reserves of any country in the world and the 17th-highest petroleum production.
As a result of the Libyan civil war, the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, which had at that time been in existence for 34 years, collapsed and Libya entered a period of governance by a transitional administration called the National Transitional Council. The NTC has stated its intention to oversee the first phase of a transition to constitutional democracy, after which it claims it will dissolve in favor of a representative legislature.
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Liechtenstein
Liechtenstein, officially the Principality of Liechtenstein (i/ˈlɪktənstaɪn/ LIK-tən-styn; German: Fürstentum Liechtenstein, German pronunciation: [ˈfʏʁstn̩tuːm ˈlɪçtn̩ʃtaɪn]) is a doubly landlocked alpine country in Central Europe, bordered by Switzerland to the west and south and by Austria to the east. Its area is just over 160 square kilometres (62 sq mi), and it has an estimated population of 35,000. Its capital is Vaduz. The biggest town is Schaan. Liechtenstein has the highest gross domestic product per person in the world when adjusted by purchasing power parity, and has the world's lowest external debt. Liechtenstein also has the second lowest unemployment rate in the world at 1.5% (Monaco is first).
Liechtenstein is the smallest yet the richest (by measure of GDP per capita) German-speaking country in the world and the only country to lie entirely within the Alps. It is known as a principality as it is a constitutional monarchy headed by a prince. Liechtenstein is divided into 11 municipalities. Much of its terrain is mountainous, making it a winter sports destination. Many cultivated fields and small farms characterize its landscape both in the south (Oberland, upper land) and in the north (Unterland, lower land). The country has a strong financial sector located in the capital, Vaduz, and has been identified as a tax haven. It is a member of the European Free Trade Association and part of the European Economic Area, the Schengen Area but not of the European Union.
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Lithuania
Lithuania (i/ˌlɪθuːˈeɪniə/ or /ˌlɪθjuːˈeɪniə/; Lithuanian: Lietuva), officially the Republic of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos Respublika) is a country in Northern Europe, the largest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark. It borders Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, and a Russian exclave (Kaliningrad Oblast) to the southwest. Lithuania has an estimated population of 3.2 million as of 2011, and its capital and largest city is Vilnius. The Lithuanians are a Baltic people, and the official language, Lithuanian, is one of only two living languages (together with Latvian) in the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family.
For centuries, the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea was inhabited by various Baltic tribes. In the 1230s the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, who was crowned as King of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the first Lithuanian state, on 6 July 1253. During the 14th century, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was the largest country in Europe: present-day Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia were territories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. With the Lublin Union of 1569, Lithuania and Poland formed a voluntary two-state union, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth lasted more than two centuries, until neighboring countries systematically dismantled it from 1772 to 1795, with the Russian Empire annexing most of Lithuania's territory.
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Loir-et-Cher
Loir-et-Cher (French pronunciation: [lwa.ʁ‿e.ʃɛʁ]) is a département in north-central France named after the rivers Loir and Cher.
Loir-et-Cher is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Orléanais and Touraine.
Loir-et-Cher is part of the modern region of Centre. Adjacent departments are Eure-et-Loir to the north, Loiret to the north-east, Cher to the south-east, Indre to the south, Indre-et-Loire to the south-west, and Sarthe to the west.
The department comprises 6,314 km2, which makes it the 31st largest of the French departments in terms of area. The line of the river Loire traverses the land, ensuring easy communication between its own capital, Blois, and the vibrant cultural and commercial centres of Tours to the west and the fringes of the Seine-Paris basin at Orléans to the east.
Its main rivers are the Loire, on which its prefecture (capital) Blois is situated, the Loir and the Cher.
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Loire
Loire (French pronunciation: [lwaʁ]; Arpitan: Lêre; Occitan: Léger) is an administrative department in the east-central part of France occupying the River Loire's upper reaches.
Loire was created in 1793 when after just 3½ years the young Rhône-et-Loire department was split into two. This was a response to counter-Revolutionary activities in Lyon which, by population, was the country's second largest city. By splitting Rhône-et-Loire the government sought to protect the French Revolution from the potential power and influence of counter revolutionary activity in the Lyon region.
The departmental capitals have been / are as follows:
Loire is part of the current administrative region of Rhône-Alpes and is surrounded by the departments of Rhône, Isère, Ardèche, Haute-Loire, Puy-de-Dôme, Allier, and Saône-et-Loire.
The River Loire traverses the department from south to north.
The Loire department is split into three arrondissements:
Parts of the department belong to Parc naturel régional Livradois-Forez.
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Loire Valley
The Loire Valley (French: Vallée de la Loire, pronounced: [va.le də la lwaːʁ]), spanning 280 kilometres (170 mi), is located in the middle stretch of the Loire River in central France. Its area comprises approximately 800 square kilometres (310 sq mi). It is referred to as the Cradle of the French Language, and the Garden of France due to the abundance of vineyards, fruit orchards (such as cherries), and artichoke and asparagus fields, which line the banks of the river. Notable for its historic towns, architecture and wines, the valley has been inhabited since the Middle Palaeolithic period. In 2000, UNESCO added the central part of the Loire River valley to its list of World Heritage Sites.
The valley includes historic towns such as Amboise, Angers, Blois, Chinon, Nantes, Orléans, Saumur, and Tours.
The climate is favorable most of the year, the river often acting as a line of demarcation in France's weather between the northern climate and the southern. The river has a significant effect on the mesoclimate of the region, adding a few degrees of temperature. The climate can be cool with springtime frost while wine harvest months may have rain. Summers are hot; however influences from the Atlantic moderate the temperature with breezes.
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Loire-Atlantique
Loire-Atlantique (French pronunciation: [lwa.ʁat.lɑ̃.tik]; formerly Loire-Inférieure) is a department on the west coast of France named after the Loire River and the Atlantic Ocean.
Loire-Atlantique is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. Originally, it was named Loire-Inférieure, but its name was changed in 1957 to Loire-Atlantique.
The area is part of Brittany, and contains what many people still consider to be Brittany's capital, Nantes. There is a campaign to have it reintegrated in Brittany.
Loire-Atlantique is part of the current region of Pays-de-la-Loire and is surrounded by the department of Morbihan, Ille-et-Vilaine, Maine-et-Loire, and Vendée, with the Atlantic on the west.
Upper Brittany's indigenous language is Gallo, a romance language related to French. The number of Gallo language speakers has been in steady decline since the early 20th century. The language is neither official nor taught in primary or secondary education. The Breton language, a Celtic language, native to Lower Brittany, was historically spoken in the western area of Loire-Atlantique, and up to 1920 in Batz-sur-Mer. This area (Guérande, Le Croisic, and La Baule) has a rather Breton toponymy: for instance, Guérande originates from the Breton Gwenn Rann (white or pure place).
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Loiret
Loiret (French pronunciation: [lwaʁɛ]) is a department in north-central France
The department is named after the river Loiret, a tributary of the Loire. The Loiret is located wholly within the department.
Loiret is one of the original 83 departments that was created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from the former province of Orléanais.
Loiret is part of the current region of Centre and is surrounded by the departments of Essonne, Seine-et-Marne, Yonne, Nièvre, Cher, Loir-et-Cher, and Eure-et-Loir.
Orléans is a popular tourist destination, with its cathedral of Ste. Croix.
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Lorraine (region)
Lorraine (French pronunciation: [lɔʁɛn]; Lorrain: Louréne; Lorraine Franconian: Lottringe; German: Lothringen) is one of the 27 régions of France. The administrative region has two cities of equal importance, Metz and Nancy. Metz is considered to be the official capital since that is where the regional parliament is situated. The region's name is derived from the medieval Lotharingia.
The region consists of four departments: Meurthe-et-Moselle, Meuse, Moselle and Vosges and contains 2,337 communes.
The borders of the area called Lorraine changed much in its long history. In 843, Charlemagne had died, and the Holy Roman Empire was divided among his three grandsons. One of them was Lothair, and his realm, reaching from Frisia to Rome, was called Lotharingia. In 870, it was decided that the realm should be a duchy within the kingdom of East Francia. In 962, when Otto the Great restored the Empire (restauratio imperii), Lorraine remained a duchy within the Holy Roman Empire until 1766.
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Lot (department)
Lot (French pronunciation: [lɔt]; Occitan: Òlt) is a department in the southwest of France named after the Lot River.
Lot is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from part of the province of Languedoc. In 1808, some of the original southeastern cantons were separated from it to form the department of Tarn-et-Garonne. It originally extended much farther to the south and included the city of Montauban.
Lot is part of the region of Midi-Pyrénées and is surrounded by the departments of Corrèze, Cantal, Aveyron, Tarn-et-Garonne, Lot-et-Garonne, and Dordogne.
For a full list, see Communes of the Lot department. Settlements in the Lot include:
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Lot-et-Garonne
Lot-et-Garonne (French: [lɔt‿e ɡaʁɔn], Occitan: Òlt e Garona) is a department in the southwest of France named after the Lot and Garonne rivers.
Lot-et-Garonne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from part of the provinces of Guyenne and Gascogne.
Several of the original southeastern cantons in the arrondissements of Agen and Villeneuve-sur-Lot were separated from it in 1808 to become a part of the newly ceated department of Tarn-et-Garonne.
Lot-et-Garonne is part of the current region of Aquitaine and is surrounded by the departments of Lot, Tarn-et-Garonne, Gers, Landes, Gironde, and Dordogne.
Food-processing, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals are all major industries of the department.
The inhabitants of the department are called Lot-et-Garonnais.
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Louvre Palace
The Louvre Palace (French: Palais du Louvre, IPA: [palɛ dy luvʁ]), on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, is a former royal palace situated between the Tuileries Gardens and the church of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois. Its origins date back to the medieval period, and its present structure has evolved in stages since the 16th century.
According to the French historian Henri Sauval, the Louvre gets its name from a Frankish word leovar or leower, signifying a fortified place. But this is now known to be wrong; no such word exists, and Wolf derives Louvre instead from Latin Rubras meaning `red soil' (H. Wolf, Louvre, Révue internationale d’onomastique, 21 (1969), 223–234; Keith Briggs, The Domesday Book castle LVVRE, Journal of the English Place-Name Society, 40 (2008), 113-118). It was the actual seat of power in France until Louis XIV moved to Versailles in 1682, bringing the government perforce with him. The Louvre remained the nominal, or formal, seat of government to the end of the Ancien Régime in 1789. Since then it has housed the celebrated Musée du Louvre as well as various government departments.
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Louvre Pyramid
The Louvre Pyramid (Pyramide du Louvre) is a large glass and metal pyramid, surrounded by three smaller pyramids, in the main courtyard (Cour Napoléon) of the Louvre Palace (Palais du Louvre) in Paris. The large pyramid serves as the main entrance to the Louvre Museum. Completed in 1989, it has become a landmark of the city of Paris.
Commissioned by the President of France François Mitterrand in 1984, it was designed by the architect I. M. Pei, who is responsible for the design of the Miho Museum in Japan, and Place Ville-Marie in Montreal, and the National Gallery of Art (East Building) in Washington, D.C. among others. The structure, which was constructed entirely with glass segments, reaches a height of 20.6 metres (about 70 feet); its square base has sides of 35 metres (115 ft). It consists of 603 rhombus-shaped and 70 triangular glass segments.
The pyramid structure was engineered by Nicolet Chartrand Knoll Ltd. of Montreal (Pyramid structure / Design Consultant) and Rice Francis Ritchie (also known as RFR) of Paris (Pyramid Structure / Construction Phase).
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Lozère
Lozère (French pronunciation: [lɔzɛʁ]; Occitan: Losera), is a department in southeast France near the Massif Central, named after Mont Lozère.
Lozère is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from part of the former province of Languedoc.
The Beast of Gévaudan was a creature that terrorized the general area of the former province of Gévaudan, with nearly identical borders to today's Lozère, in the Margeride Mountains, in the general timeframe of 1764 to 1767.
Pliny's Natural History praised the cheese of Lozère:
The geography of Lozère is complicated, covering four mountain ranges. In the north-west, the basalt plateau of Aubrac rises between 1,000 and 1,450m, with a cold humid climate influenced by the Atlantic. The north and north-east of the department contains the Margeride mountains, which are formed of granite, and have peaks between 1,000 and 1,550m. The climate here is also cold, but dryer than Aubrac, with less snow.
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Luxembourg
Luxembourg (i/ˈlʌksəmbɜrɡ/ LUKS-əm-burg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg (Luxembourgish: Groussherzogtum Lëtzebuerg, French: Grand-Duché de Luxembourg, German: Großherzogtum Luxemburg, Dutch: Groothertogdom Luxemburg), is a landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany. It has two principal regions: the Oesling in the North as part of the Ardennes massif, and the Gutland ("good country") in the south. Luxembourg has a population of over half a million people in an area of approximately 2,586 square kilometres (998 sq mi). A representative democracy with a constitutional monarch, it is ruled by a grand duke. It is now the world's only remaining sovereign grand duchy. The country has a highly developed economy, with the world's highest GDP (nominal) per capita according to the IMF. Its historic and strategic importance dates back to its founding as a Roman era fortress site and Frankish count's castle site in the Early Middle Ages. It was an important bastion along the Spanish Road when Spain was the principal European power influencing the whole western hemisphere and beyond in the 16th–17th centuries.
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Madagascar
Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar (older name Malagasy Republic, Malagasy: Repoblikan'i Madagasikara [republiˈkʲan madaɡasˈkʲarə̥], French: République de Madagascar) is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa. The nation comprises the island of Madagascar (the fourth-largest island in the world), as well as numerous smaller peripheral islands. Following the prehistoric breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana, Madagascar split from India around 88 million years ago, allowing plants and animals on the island to evolve in complete isolation. Consequently, Madagascar is a biodiversity hotspot in which over 90% of its wildlife is found nowhere else on Earth. The island's diverse ecosystems and unique wildlife are threatened by human settlement.
Initial human settlement of Madagascar occurred from 350 BCE and 550 CE by Austronesian peoples arriving on outrigger canoes from Borneo who were later joined around 1000 CE by Bantu migrants crossing the Mozambique Channel. Other groups continued to settle on Madagascar over time, each one making lasting contributions to Malagasy cultural life. The Malagasy ethnic group is often divided into eighteen or more sub-groups of which the largest are the Merina of the central highlands.
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Maine-et-Loire
Maine-et-Loire (French pronunciation: [mɛn.e.lwaʁ]) is a department in west-central France, in the Pays de la Loire region.
Maine-et-Loire is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. Originally it was called Mayenne-et-Loire, but its name was changed to Maine-et-Loire in 1791. It was created from part of the former province of Anjou. Its present name is drawn from the former province of Maine and the Loire River, which runs through it.
Maine-et-Loire is part of the current region of Pays-de-la-Loire and is surrounded by the departments of Ille-et-Vilaine, Mayenne, Sarthe, Indre-et-Loire, Vienne, Deux-Sèvres, Vendée, and Loire-Atlantique.
It has a varied landscape, with forested ranges of hills in the south and north separated by the valley of the Loire. The highest point is Colline des Gardes (689 feet/210m).
The area has many navigable rivers such as the Loire, Sarthe, Mayenne, Loir, and Authion.
The inhabitants of Maine-et-Loire are called Angevins, from the former province of Anjou.
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Maison Carrée
The Maison Carrée is an ancient building in Nîmes, southern France; it is one of the best preserved temples to be found anywhere in the territory of the former Roman Empire.
It was built c. 16 BC, and reconstructed in the following years, by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, who was also the original patron of the Pantheon in Rome, and was dedicated or rededicated c. 2-4/5 AD to his two sons, Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar, adopted heirs of Augustus who both died young. The inscription dedicating the temple to Gaius and Lucius was removed in medieval times. However, a local scholar, Jean-François Séguier, was able to reconstruct the inscription in 1758 from the order and number of the holes in the portico's facade, to which the bronze letters had been affixed by projecting tines. According to Séguier's reconstruction, the text of the dedication read (in translation): "To Gaius Caesar, son of Augustus, Consul; to Lucius Caesar, son of Augustus, Consul designate; to the princes of youth."
The temple owes its preservation to the fact that it was rededicated as a Christian church in the fourth century, saving it from the widespread destruction[citation needed] of temples that followed the adoption of Christianity as Rome's official state religion. It subsequently became a meeting hall for the city's consuls, a canon's house, a stable for government-owned horses during the French Revolution and a storehouse for the city archives. It became a museum after 1823. Its French name derives from the archaic term carré long, literally meaning a "long square", or oblong - a reference to the building's shape.
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Malawi
Malawi ( /məˈlɑːwi/; Chichewa [malaβi][need tone]), officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Malawi is over 118,000 km2 (45,560 sq mi) with an estimated population of more than 13,900,000. Its capital is Lilongwe, which is also Malawi's largest city; the second largest is Blantyre and the third is Mzuzu. The name Malawi comes from the Maravi, an old name of the Nyanja people that inhabit the area. The country is also nicknamed "The Warm Heart of Africa".
The area of Africa now known as Malawi was colonized by migrating tribes of Bantu around the 10th century. In 1891 the area was colonized again, this time by the British. In 1953 Malawi, then known as Nyasaland, became part of the semi-independent Central African Federation (CAF). The Federation was dissolved in 1963 and in 1964, Nyasaland gained full independence and was renamed Malawi. Upon gaining independence it became a single-party state under the presidency of Hastings Banda, who remained president until 1994, when he was ousted from power. Joyce Banda (no relation) is the current president, raised to that position after president Bingu Mutharika died in 2012. She is the first female leader in Malawi. Malawi has a democratic, multi-party government. Malawi has a small military force that includes an army, a navy and an air wing. Malawi's foreign policy is pro-Western and includes positive diplomatic relations with most countries and participation in several international organizations.
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Mali
Malii/ˈmɑːli/, officially the Republic of Mali (French: République du Mali, French pronunciation: [maˈli]), is a landlocked country in Western Africa. Mali borders Algeria on the north, Niger on the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d'Ivoire on the south, Guinea on the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania on the west. Its size is just over 1,240,000 km² with a population of 14.5 million. Its capital is Bamako. Mali consists of eight regions and its borders on the north reach deep into the middle of the Sahara, while the country's southern part, where the majority of inhabitants live, features the Niger and Sénégal rivers. The country's economic structure centers around agriculture and fishing. Some of Mali's natural resources are gold, uranium, livestock, and salt. About half the population live below the international poverty line of US$1.25 a day.
Present-day Mali was once part of three West African empires that controlled trans-Saharan trade: the Ghana Empire, the Mali Empire (from which Mali is named), and the Songhai Empire. In the late 19th century, during the Scramble for Africa, France seized control of Mali making it a part of French Sudan. French Sudan (then known as the Sudanese Republic) joined with Senegal in 1959, achieving independence in 1960 as the Mali Federation. Shortly thereafter, following Senegal's withdrawal from the federation, the Sudanese Republic declared itself the independent Republic of Mali. After a long period of one-party rule, a 1991 coup led to the writing of a new constitution and the establishment of Mali as a democratic, multi-party state. On 22 March, 2012, a group of junior soldiers seized control of the country's presidential palace and declared the government dissolved and its constitution suspended. On 6 April, 2012, rebels from the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) declared the secession of a new state, Azawad, from Mali.
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Malta
Maltai/ˈmɒltə/, officially known as the Republic of Malta (Maltese: Repubblika ta' Malta), is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, 80 km (50 mi) south of Sicily, 284 km (176 mi) east of Tunisia and 333 km (207 mi) north of Libya, with Gibraltar 1,755 km (1,091 mi) to the west and Alexandria 1,508 km (937 mi) to the east. Malta covers just over 316 km2 (122 sq mi) in land area, making it one of the world's smallest states. It is also one of the most densely populated countries worldwide. The de facto capital city of Malta is Valletta; the largest town, Birkirkara. The main island comprises many towns, which together form one Larger Urban Zone (LUZ) with a population of 368,250 according to Eurostat. The country has two official languages, Maltese (constitutionally the national language) and English.
Throughout history, Malta's location has given it great strategic importance, and a succession of powers including the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Aragonese, Habsburg Spain, Knights of St John, French and the British ruled the islands. Malta gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1964 and became a republic in 1974, whilst retaining membership in the Commonwealth of Nations. Malta was admitted to the United Nations in 1964 and to the European Union in 2004. Malta is also party to the Schengen Agreement and in 2008 it became part of the eurozone.
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Manche
Manche (French pronunciation: [mɑ̃ʃ]) is a French department in Normandy named after La Manche ("the sleeve"), which is the French name for the English Channel.
Manche is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from part of the province of Normandie.
The first capital was Coutances until 1796, and it resumed that role after World War II because of the almost complete destruction of Saint-Lô during the D-Day invasion of Normandy. When Saint-Lô was rebuilt, it again became the capital.
The Department includes the Cotentin Peninsula down to the famous Mont St Michel; though not the off-shore Îles Anglo-Normandes, which are British Crown Dependencies. These islands are a wonderful example of when Normandy invaded England and vice-versa, and oaths of allegiance to new kings got mixed up. Other reefs and not quite islands such as the Minquiers are technically British, though they are annually contested in good fun by French and Channel Island fishermen. The coast is fantastic for sailing and boating though the unusually fast tidal races require a certain yachting skill to navigate safely.
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Marne
Marne (French pronunciation: [maʁn]) is a department in north-eastern France named after the river Marne (Matrona in Roman times) which flows through the department. The prefecture (capital) of Marne is Châlons-en-Champagne (formerly known as Châlons-sur-Marne). The subprefectures are Épernay, Reims, Sainte-Menehould, and Vitry-le-François.
The Champagne vineyards producing the world-famous sparkling wine are located within Marne.
Marne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from the province of Champagne.
Marne has a long association with the French Army. The training ground of the Camp Militaire de Mailly straddles the border with the département of Aube in the south while that of the Camp de Mourmelon occupies a large area north of Châlons-en-Champagne. The smaller Camp de Moronvilliers lies to the east of Reims and the Camp Militaire de Suippes lies to the east of that. These are all on the chalk of the Champagne plateau, a feature comparable in geology but not size, with the British military training ground on Salisbury Plain.
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Marshall Islands
The Marshall Islands, officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands (Marshallese: Aolepān Aorōkin M̧ajeļ), is an island country located in the northern Pacific Ocean. Geographically, the country is part of the larger island group of Micronesia, with the population of around 68,000 people spread out over 34 low-lying coral atolls, comprising 1,156 individual islands and islets. The islands share maritime boundaries with the Federated States of Micronesia to the west, Wake Island to the north,Kiribati to the south-east, and Nauru to the south. The most populous atoll is Majuro, which also acts as the capital.
Micronesian colonists gradually settled the Marshall Islands during the 2nd millennium BC, with inter-island navigation made possible using traditional stick charts. Islands in the archipelago were first explored by Europeans in the 1520s, with Spanish explorer Alonso de Salazar sighting an atoll in August 1526. Other expeditions by Spanish and English ships followed, with the islands' current name stemming from British explorer John Marshall. Recognised as part of the Spanish East Indies in 1874, the islands were sold to Germany in 1884, and became of German New Guinea in 1885. The Empire of Japan occupied the Marshall Islands in World War I, which were later joined with other former German territories in 1919 by the League of Nations to form the South Pacific Mandate. In World War II, the islands were conquered by the United States in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign. Along with other Pacific Islands, the Marshall Islands were then consolidated into the United-States-governed Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Self-government was achieved in 1979, and full sovereignty in 1986, under a Compact of Free Association with the United States.
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Martinique
Martinique (French pronunciation: [maʁtinik]) is an island in the Lesser Antilles in the eastern Caribbean Sea, with a land area of 1,128 km2 (436 sq mi). Like Guadeloupe, it is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department. To the northwest lies Dominica, to the south St Lucia, and to the southeast Barbados. As with the other overseas departments, Martinique is one of the twenty-seven regions of France (being an overseas region) and an integral part of the Republic. The first European to encounter the island was Christopher Columbus in 1502.
As part of France, Martinique is part of the European Union, and its currency is the Euro. Its official language is French, although many of its inhabitants also speak Antillean Creole (Créole Martiniquais).
The island was occupied first by Arawaks, then by Caribs. It was charted by Columbus in 1493, but Spain had little interest in the territory. It was claimed by France in 1635 and, despite several interludes of British occupation, once during the Seven Years' War and twice during the Napoleonic Wars, has remained a French possession. In 1946, the French National Assembly voted unanimously to transform the colony into an overseas department.
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Massif Central
The Massif Central (Occitan: Massís Central / Massís Centrau) is an elevated region in south-central France, consisting of mountains and plateaux.
Subject to volcanism that has subsided in the last 10,000 years, these central mountains are separated from the Alps by a deep north-south cleft created by the Rhône River and known in French as the sillon rhodanien (literally "the furrow of the Rhône").
The region was a barrier to communication until the opening of the A75 motorway, which not only made north-south travel easier, but also opened up the Massif Central itself.
It is situated in the middle of southern France and it covers 15 percent of the country.
The following départements are generally considered as part of the Massif Central: Allier, Ardèche, Aude, Aveyron, Cantal, Corrèze, Creuse, Gard, Haute-Loire, Haute-Vienne, Hérault, Loire, Lot, Lozère, Puy-de-Dôme, Rhône and Tarn.
The following régions are part of the Massif Central: Auvergne, Limousin. Part of the following régions are in the Massif Central: Languedoc-Roussillon, Midi-Pyrénées, and Rhône-Alpes.
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Mata-Utu
Mata-Utu (ʻUvean: Matāʻutu) is the capital of the Wallis and Futuna Territory. It is located on the island of Wallis (ʻUvea), in the district of Hahake, of which it is also the capital. Its population (2003 census) is 1,191 .
Downtown Mata-Utu is dominated by the Matâ'Utu Cathedral, a French national monument. Within its vicinity there are, as well as several restaurants, hotels and the post office, the palace of the King of Uvéa (one of the three traditional kingdoms that the overseas territory is divided into). A short distance out of town are the police station and shopping mall. Near Mata-Utu are two important archaeological sites: Talietumu and Tonga Toto.
Coordinates: 13°17′S 176°11′W / 13.283°S 176.183°W / -13.283; -176.183
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Mauritania
Mauritaniai/mɔrɪˈteɪniə/ (Arabic: موريتانيا Mūrītānyā; Berber: Muritanya / Agawej; Wolof: Gànnaar; Soninke: Murutaane; Pulaar: Moritani; French: Mauritanie), officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a country in West Africa and in the Maghreb. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara (controlled by Morocco) in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest. It is named after the ancient Berber Kingdom of Mauretania, which later became a province of the Roman Empire, even though the modern Mauritania covers a territory far to the south of the old Berber kingdom that had no relation with it. The capital and largest city is Nouakchott, located on the Atlantic coast.
The government of Mauritania was overthrown on 6 August 2008, in a military coup d'état led by General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz. On 16 April 2009, General Aziz resigned from the military to run for president in the 19 July elections, which he won. In Mauritania about 20% of the population live on less than US$1.25 per day.
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Mauritius
Coordinates: 20°12′S 57°30′E / 20.2°S 57.5°E / -20.2; 57.5
Mauritiusi/məˈrɪʃəs/ (Mauritian Creole: Moris; French: Maurice, pronounced: [mɔˈʁis]), officially the Republic of Mauritius (Mauritian Creole: Republik Moris; French: République de Maurice) is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about 870 kilometres (540 mi) east of Madagascar. In addition to the island of Mauritius, the Republic includes the islands of Cargados Carajos, Rodrigues, Tromelin and the Agalega Islands. Mauritius Island is part of the Mascarene Islands, with the French island of Réunion 170 km (110 mi) to the southwest and the island of Rodrigues 570 km (350 mi) to the east. The area of Mauritius is 2040 km2; its capital city is Port Louis.
The United Kingdom took control of the islands in 1810, from France during the Napoleonic Wars, and Mauritius became independent from the UK in 1968. It is a parliamentary republic and is a member of the Southern African Development Community, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, the African Union, La Francophonie and the Commonwealth of Nations.
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Mayenne
Mayenne (French pronunciation: [majɛn]) is a department in northwest France named after the Mayenne River.
Mayenne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. The northern two thirds correspond to the western part of the former province of Maine. The southern third of Mayenne corresponds to the northern portion of the old province of Anjou.
After the Coalition's victory at Waterloo, between June 1815 and November 1818, Mayenne was occupied by Prussian troops.
Mayenne is part of the current region of Pays de la Loire and is surrounded by the departments of Manche, Orne, Sarthe, Maine-et-Loire, and Ille-et-Vilaine.
The inhabitants of the department are called Mayennais. This demonym is not the source of the word mayonnaise.
The town is featured as a level in the World War II video game Call of Duty 3.
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Mayotte
Mayotte (French: Mayotte, pronounced: [majɔt]; Shimaore: Maore, IPA: [maˈore]; Malagasy: Mahori) is an overseas department and region of France consisting of a main island, Grande-Terre (or Mahoré), a smaller island, Petite-Terre (or Pamanzi), and several islets around these two. The archipelago is located in the northern Mozambique Channel in the Indian Ocean, namely between northwestern Madagascar and northeastern Mozambique. Mayotte's area is 374 square kilometres (144 sq mi), and with its estimated 194,000 people is very densely populated (520 /km2 or 1,300 /sq mi). Its biggest city and prefecture is Mamoudzou. The territory is geographically part of the Comoro Islands, but has been politically separate since a 1974 referendum in which it elected to remain under French rule. The territory is also known as Mahoré, the native name of its main island, especially by advocates of its inclusion in the Union of Comoros. In a 2009 referendum, the population overwhelmingly approved accession to status of department (95.2% voted in favour of departmental status). On March 31, 2011, Mayotte became an overseas department.
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Melilla
Melilla (Spanish pronunciation: [meˈliʎa]) is an autonomous city of Spain and an exclave on the north coast of Morocco, with an area of 12.3 square kilometres (4.7 sq mi). Melilla, along with the Spanish exclave Ceuta, is one of the two Spanish territories located in mainland Africa. It was regarded as a part of Málaga province prior to 14 March 1995, when the city's Statute of Autonomy was passed.
Melilla (like Ceuta) was a free port before Spain joined the European Union. As of 2008 it has a population of 73,460. Its population consists of Christians, Muslims (chiefly Riffians), and small minorities of Jews. Both Spanish and Tarifit are widely spoken. Spanish is the only official language, while there have been calls to recognise Tamazight, a standardized version of all Berber languages official in Morocco, as well.
Morocco had previously called for negotiations on the future of Melilla, Ceuta and a number of Mediterranean islands which border it. The majority of the city's population are ethnic Spanish who are opposed to the idea of being a part of Morocco. A poll conducted by Instituto Opina found that 87.9% of people from mainland Spain consider the two cities to be Spanish.
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Metz
Metz (French pronunciation: [mɛs] ( listen); German: [ˈmɛts]) is a city in the northeast of France located at the confluence of the Moselle and the Seille rivers.
Metz is the capital of the Lorraine region and prefecture of the Moselle department. Located near the tripoint along the junction of France, Germany, and Luxembourg, Metz forms a central place of the European Greater Region and of the SaarLorLux Euroregion. So, Metz is a fellow member of the QuattroPole union of cities, along with Luxembourg City and German Saarbrücken and Trier.
A Celtic oppidum, an important Gallo-Roman city, the Merovingian capital of the Austrasia kingdom, the birthplace of the Carolingian dynasty, a cradle of the Gregorian chant, and one of the oldest republics of the common era in Europe, Metz has a rich 3,000 year history. The city has been steeped in Romance culture, but has been strongly influenced by Germanic culture due to its location and history. A basin of urban ecology, pioneered under the leadership of people like Jean-Marie Pelt, Metz gained its nickname, The Green City, boasting over 37 m2 (398 sq ft) of open ground per inhabitant and the city's historic downtown also displays one of the largest commercial, pedestrian areas in France.
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Meurthe-et-Moselle
Meurthe-et-Moselle (French pronunciation: [mœʁte mɔzɛl]) is a department in the Lorraine region of France, named after the Meurthe and Moselle rivers.
Meurthe-et-Moselle was created in 1871 at the end of the Franco-Prussian War from the parts of the former departments of Moselle and Meurthe which remained French territory.
The current boundary between Meurthe-et-Moselle and Moselle was the border between France and Germany from 1871 to 1919 and again between 1940 and 1944. The only subsequent change took place in 1997 and involved the incorporation, for administrative reasons, of the little commune of Han-devant-Pierrepont which had previously fallen within the Meuse department.
Meurthe-et-Moselle is part of the region of Lorraine and is surrounded (counter-clockwise) by the departments of Meuse, Vosges, Bas-Rhin, and Moselle; and by the nations of Luxembourg and Belgium. Parts of Meurthe-et-Moselle belong to Parc naturel régional de Lorraine.
Its extends from north to south for 130 kilometers and between 7 and 103 kilometers from west to east.
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Meuse
Meuse (French pronunciation: [møz]) is a department in northeast France, named after the River Meuse.
Meuse is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from the former provinces of Barrois (area of Bar-le-Duc) and Three Bishoprics (area of Verdun).
The department was one of the great battlefields of World War I; an important battle was fought in 1916 at Verdun.
Meuse is part of the current region of Lorraine and is surrounded by the French departments of Ardennes, Marne, Haute-Marne, Vosges, Meurthe-et-Moselle, and Belgium on the north. Parts of Meuse belong to Parc naturel régional de Lorraine.
The important rivers are the following:
The population has decreased sharply since the 19th century, with the rural exodus to the cities.
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Mexico
Mexico (i/ˈmɛksɨkoʊ/; Spanish: México, IPA: [ˈmexiko] ( listen)), officially the United Mexican States (Spanish: Estados Unidos Mexicanos (help·info)), is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States of America; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost two million square kilometres (over 760,000 sq mi), Mexico is the fifth largest country in the Americas by total area and the thirteenth largest independent nation in the world. With an estimated population of over 113 million, it is the eleventh most populous country and the most populous Spanish-speaking country. Mexico is a federation comprising thirty-one states and a Federal District, the capital city.
In Pre-Columbian Mexico many cultures matured into advanced civilizations such as the Olmec, the Toltec, the Teotihuacan, the Zapotec, the Maya and the Aztec before the first contact with Europeans. In 1521, Spain conquered and colonized the territory from its base in México-Tenochtitlan, which was administered as the Viceroyalty of New Spain. This territory would eventually become Mexico as the colony's independence was recognized in 1821. The post-independence period was characterized by economic instability, the Mexican-American War and territorial cession to the United States, a civil war, two empires and a domestic dictatorship. The latter led to the Mexican Revolution in 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the country's current political system. Elections held in July 2000 marked the first time that an opposition party won the presidency from the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
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Midi-Pyrénées
Midi-Pyrénées (French: [midi piʁene] ( listen); Occitan: Miègjorn-Pirenèus or Mieidia-Pirenèus) is the largest region of metropolitan France by area, larger than the Netherlands or Denmark.
Midi-Pyrénées has no historical or geographical unity. It is one of the regions of France created in the late 20th century to serve as a hinterland and zone of influence for its capital, Toulouse, one of a handful of so-called "balancing metropolises" (métropoles d'équilibre). Another example of this is the region of Rhône-Alpes which was created as the region for Lyon.
The name chosen for the new region was decided by the French government without reference to the historical provinces (too many of them inside the region) and based on geography: Midi (i.e. "southern France") - Pyrénées (Pyrénées mountains that serve as the region's southern boundary). The French adjective and name of the inhabitants of the region is: Midi-Pyrénéen.
Historically, Midi-Pyrénées is made up of several former French provinces:
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Millau Viaduct
The Millau Viaduct (French: le Viaduc de Millau, IPA: [vjadyk də mijo]) is a cable-stayed road-bridge that spans the valley of the river Tarn near Millau in southern France. Designed by the French structural engineer Michel Virlogeux and British architect Norman Foster, it is the tallest bridge in the world with one mast's summit at 343.0 metres (1,125 ft) above the base of the structure. It is the 12th highest bridge in the world, at 270 metres (890 ft) high below the road deck. The viaduct is part of the A75-A71 autoroute axis from Paris to Montpellier. Construction cost was approximately €400 million. It was formally dedicated on 14 December 2004, inaugurated the day after and opened to traffic two days later. The bridge received the 2006 IABSE Outstanding Structure Award.
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Moldova
Moldovai/mɒlˈdoʊvə/, officially the Republic of Moldova (Moldovan/Romanian: Republica Moldova pronounced [reˈpublika molˈdova]) is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991 as part of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. On 29 July 1994, the new constitution of Moldova was adopted. A strip of Moldova's internationally recognized territory on the east bank of the river Dniester has been under the de facto control of the breakaway government of Transnistria since 1990.
The nation is a parliamentary republic with a president as head of state and a prime minister as head of government. Moldova is a member state of the United Nations, Council of Europe, WTO, OSCE, GUAM, CIS, BSEC and other international organizations. Moldova currently aspires to join the European Union, and has implemented the first three-year Action Plan within the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP).
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Monaco
Monacoi/ˈmɒnəkoʊ/, officially the Principality of Monaco (French: Principauté de Monaco; Monégasque: Principatu de Múnegu; Italian: Principato di Monaco; Occitan: Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city state, located on the French Riviera in Western Europe. Bordered by France on three sides, with one side bordering the Mediterranean Sea, its center is about 16 km (9.9 mi) from Italy, and is only 15 km (9.3 mi) north east of Nice, France. It has an area of 1.98 km2 (0.76 sq mi), and a population of 35,986, making Monaco the second smallest and the most densely populated country in the world. Monaco has a land border of only 4.4 km (2.7 mi), a coastline of 4.1 km (2.5 mi), and a width that varies between 1.7 km (1.1 mi) and 349 metres (382 yards). The highest point in the country is a narrow pathway named Chemin des Révoires on the slopes of Mont Agel, in the Les Révoires district, which is 161 metres (528 feet) above sea level. Monaco's most populated Quartier is Monte Carlo, and the most populated Ward is Larvotto/Bas Moulins. After a recent expansion of Port Hercules, Monaco's total area is 2.05 km2 (0.79 sq mi), with new plans to extend the district of Fontvieille, with land reclaimed from the Mediterranean Sea.
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Montenegro
Montenegro (i/ˌmɒntɨˈneɪɡroʊ/ or /ˌmɒntɨˈniːɡroʊ/; or /ˌmɒntɨˈnɛɡroʊ/; Montenegrin: Crna Gora Црна Гора [tsr̩̂ːnaː ɡɔ̌ra] ( listen), meaning "Black Mountain") is a country in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south-west and is bordered by Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the southeast. Its capital and largest city is Podgorica, while Cetinje is designated as the Prijestonica (Пријестоница), meaning the former Royal Capital City.
In the 10th century, there existed three Slavic principalities on the territory of Montenegro: Duklja, roughly corresponding to the southern half, Travunia, the west, and Rascia, the north. In 1042, archon Stefan Vojislav led a revolt that resulted in independence of Duklja and the establishment of the Vojislavljević dynasty. Duklja reached its zenith under Vojislav's son, Mihailo (1046–81), and his son Bodin (1081–1101). By the 13th century, Zeta had replaced Duklja when referring to the realm, which at the time was part of the Serbian Grand Principality of the Nemanjić dynasty.
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Montserrat
Coordinates: 16°45′N 62°12′W / 16.75°N 62.2°W / 16.75; -62.2
Montserrat ( /mɒntsəˈræt/) is an island that is a British overseas territory located in the Leeward Islands, part of the chain of islands called the Lesser Antilles in the West Indies. This island measures approximately 16 km (9.9 mi) long and 11 km (6.8 mi) wide, giving 40 kilometres (25 mi) of coastline. Montserrat is nicknamed the Emerald Isle of the Caribbean both for its resemblance to coastal Ireland and for the Irish ancestry of some of its inhabitants.
Montserrat's Georgian era historic capital city of Plymouth was destroyed and two-thirds of the island's population was forced to flee because of an eruption of the previously dormant Soufriere Hills volcano that began on July 18, 1995. The eruption continues today on a much reduced scale, the damage being confined to the area around Plymouth, including its docking facilities, and also the area around the former W. H. Bramble Airport on the eastern side of the island, the remnants of which were buried by flows from volcanic activity on February 11, 2010.
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Morbihan
Morbihan (French pronunciation: [mɔʁbi.ɑ̃]; Breton: Mor-Bihan) is a department in Brittany, situated in the northwest of France. It is named after the Morbihan (small sea in Breton), the enclosed sea that is the principal feature of the coastline. It is famous for the Carnac stones, which are more extensive and predates the more familiar Stonehenge.
Morbihan is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from a part of the Duchy of Brittany. It is the only French department which has no French name; the word Morbihan is Breton. It is also the only department in France which has kept its original name.
Morbihan is part of the current region of Brittany and is surrounded by the departments of Finistère, Côtes-d'Armor, Ille-et-Vilaine, and Loire-Atlantique, and the Atlantic Ocean on the southwest.
The Gulf of Morbihan has many islands: 365 according to legend, but, in reality, between 30 and 40, according to how they are counted. There are also many islets which are too small to be built on. Of these islands, all but two are private: l'Île aux Moines and l'Île D'Arz. The others are privately owned, some by movie stars or fashion designers.
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Morocco
Morocco (Arabic: المغرب al-Maghrib ; Berber: ⵍⵎⴻⵖⵔⵉⴱ / ⴰⵎⴻⵔⵔⵓⴽElmeɣrib / Amerruk), officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of about 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², including the disputed region of the Western Sahara, seen by and mostly administered by Morocco as the Southern Provinces. Morocco is part of the Maghreb region, in addition to Tunisia, Algeria, Mauritania, and Libya, with which it shares cultural, historical and linguistic ties.
Morocco is a constitutional monarchy with an elected parliament. The King of Morocco holds vast executive powers, including the power to dissolve the parliament. Executive power is exercised by the government but more importantly by the king himself. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of parliament, the Assembly of Representatives and the Assembly of Councillors. The king can also issue decrees called dahirs which have the force of law. The latest Parliamentary elections were held in November 25, 2011, and were considered by some neutral observers to be mostly free and fair. Voter turnout in these elections was estimated to be 43% of registered voters, but only about 25% of Moroccan adult citizens actually voted. The rest either chose not to vote or they were not registered as voters. The political capital is Rabat, but the largest city is Casablanca; other main cities include Marrakesh, Tetouan, Tangier, Salé, Fes, Agadir, Meknes, Oujda, Kenitra, and Nador.
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Moselle
Moselle (French pronunciation: [mɔ.zɛl]) is a department in the east of France named after the river Moselle.
Moselle is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from the former province of Lorraine.
In 1793, the foreign enclaves of Manderen, Lixing-lès-Rouhling, Momerstroff, and Créhange (Kriechingen), all possessions of princes of the German Holy Roman Empire, were annexed by France and incorporated into the Moselle département.
By the Treaty of Paris of 1814 following the first defeat and abdication of Napoleon, France had to surrender almost all its conquests since 1792. On the northeastern border, France was not restored to its 1792 borders, but a new border was established to put an end to the convoluted nature of the border, with all its enclaves and exclaves. As a result, the French exclave of Tholey (now in Saarland, Germany) as well as a few communes near Sierck-les-Bains (both territories until then part of the Moselle département) were ceded to Austria. On the other hand, the French annexations of 1793 were confirmed, and furthermore, the south of the Napoleonic département of Sarre was ceded to France, including the town of Lebach, the city of Saarbrücken, and the rich coal basin nearby. France was thus a net beneficiary of the Treaty of Paris, all the new territories ceded to her being far larger and more strategic than the few territories ceded to Austria. All these new territories were incorporated into the Moselle department, and so Moselle had now a larger territory than ever since 1790.
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Mozambique
Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique (Portuguese: Moçambique or República de Moçambique, pronounced: [ʁɛˈpublikɐ di musɐ̃ˈbiki]), is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest. The capital city is Maputo, formerly known as Lourenço Marques.
Between the 1st and 5th centuries AD, Bantu-speaking peoples migrated from farther north and west. Swahili, and later also Arab, commercial ports existed along the coasts until the arrival of Europeans. The area was explored by Vasco da Gama in 1498 and colonized by Portugal in 1505. Mozambique became independent in 1975, and became the People's Republic of Mozambique shortly thereafter. It was the scene of an intense civil war lasting from 1977 to 1992.
Mozambique is endowed with rich and extensive natural resources. The country's economy is based largely on agriculture, but with industry, mainly food and beverages, chemical manufacturing, aluminium and petroleum production, is growing fast. The country's tourism sector is also growing. South Africa is Mozambique's main trading partner and source of foreign direct investment. Portugal, Spain, and Belgium are also among the country's most important partners. Since 2001 Mozambique is one of the world's top ten for annual average GDP growth. However, Mozambique still has one of the lowest GDP per capita, one of the worst human development index and one of the highest inequality in the world, as well as having the world's lowest life expectancy.
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Museum of Grenoble
Coordinates: 45°11′40″N 5°43′57″E / 45.1945°N 5.7324°E / 45.1945; 5.7324 The Museum of Grenoble (French: Musée de Grenoble) is a city museum of Fine Arts and antiques in the city of Grenoble in France.
Located on the left bank of the Isère, place Lavalette, it is known both for its collections of ancient art for its collections of modern and contemporary art.
The Museum of Grenoble was founded February 16, 1798 by Louis-Joseph Jay, well before other French provincial museums. That day, an order of the local administration detailing the creation of a museum in Grenoble, in which article 10 stipulates that the citizen Louis-Joseph Jay was appointed curator of this museum. In May, the Interior Minister canceled the creation of the museum but a provisional authorization is obtained in December, which became final April 3, 1800. Beginning in 1799, while engaged in collecting works of art of the Isère, Jay requested public subscription to purchase paintings and drawings.
Housed in four halls of the first floor of the former bishopric from its opening December 31, 1800, the museum has 298 works of art including 177 paintings, 80 drawings and 45 engravings or sculptures placed in the garden. Each room has a name, the first room of Apollo, is devoted to French painters, the second of Castor and Pollux, is devoted to Italian and French schools, the third exhibition of Gladiator, has copies of the life of San Bruno by Eustache Lesueur, and the last room of the Venus de Medici, this Flemish school. A few months after its opening, the Concordat of 1801 by Napoleon Bonaparte forced the evacuation of the premises of the museum to restore their original destination.
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Musée Picasso
The Musée Picasso is an art gallery located in the Hôtel Salé in rue de Thorigny, in the Marais district of Paris dedicated to the work of the artist Pablo Picasso (1881-1973).
The hôtel particulier that houses the collection was built between 1656 and 1659 for Pierre Aubert, seigneur de Fontenay, a tax farmer who became rich collecting the gabelle or salt tax (the name of the building means "salted"). The architect was Jean Boullier from Bourges, also known as Boullier de Bourges; sculpture was carried out by the brothers Gaspard and Balthazard Marsy and by Martin Desjardins. It is considered to be one of the finest historic houses in the Marais.
The mansion has changed hands several times by sale or inheritance. The occupants have included the Embassy of the Republic of Venice (1671), then François de Neufville, duc de Villeroi; it was expropriated by the State during the French Revolution; in 1815 it became a school, in which Balzac studied; it also housed the municipal École des Métiers d'Art. It was acquired by the City of Paris in 1964, and was granted historical monument status in 1968. The mansion was restored by Bernard Vitry and Bernard Fonquernie of the Monuments Historiques in 1974-1980.
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Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia (Afrikaans: Republiek van Namibië, German: Republik Namibia (help·info)), is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March 1990, following the Namibian War of Independence. Its capital and largest city is Windhoek. Namibia is a member state of the United Nations (UN), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the African Union (AU), and the Commonwealth of Nations.
The dry lands of Namibia were inhabited since early times by Bushmen, Damara, and Namaqua, and since about the 14th century AD by immigrating Bantu who came with the Bantu expansion. It became a German Imperial protectorate in 1884 and remained a German colony until the end of World War I. In 1920, the League of Nations mandated the country to South Africa, which imposed its laws and, from 1948, its apartheid policy.
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NATO
Coordinates: 50°52′34.16″N 4°25′19.24″E / 50.8761556°N 4.4220111°E / 50.8761556; 4.4220111
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization or NATO ( /ˈneɪtoʊ/ NAY-toh; French: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique Nord (OTAN)), also called the (North) Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party. NATO's headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium, one of the 28 member states across North America and Europe, the newest of which, Albania and Croatia, joined in April 2009. An additional 22 countries participate in NATO's Partnership for Peace, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programs. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the world's defence spending.
For its first few years, NATO was not much more than a political association. However, the Korean War galvanized the member states, and an integrated military structure was built up under the direction of two U.S. supreme commanders. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, which formed in 1955. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, stated in 1949 that the organization's goal was "to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down." Doubts over the strength of the relationship between the European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along with doubts over the credibility of the NATO defence against a prospective Soviet invasion—doubts that led to the development of the independent French nuclear deterrent and the withdrawal of the French from NATO's military structure in 1966.
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Nauru
Coordinates: 0°31′38″S 166°56′12″E / 0.527288°S 166.936724°E / -0.527288; 166.936724
Nauru (Englishi/nɑːˈuːruː/ nah-OO-roo), officially the Republic of Nauru and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country in Micronesia in the South Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in Kiribati, 300 kilometres (186 mi) to the east. Nauru is the world's smallest republic, covering just 21 square kilometres (8.1 sq mi). With just over 9,322 residents, it is the second least-populated country after Vatican City.
Settled by Micronesian and Polynesian people, Nauru was annexed and claimed as a colony by the German Empire in the late 19th century. After World War I, Nauru became a League of Nations mandate administered by Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. During World War II, Nauru was occupied by Japanese troops, who were bypassed by the Allied advance across the Pacific. After the war ended, it entered into trusteeship again. Nauru gained its independence in 1968.
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Nauru was a "rentier state". Nauru is a phosphate rock island, with rich deposits close to the surface, which allow for simple strip mining operations; moreover, it has some phosphate reserves which are presently (as of 2011) not economically viable for extraction. Nevertheless, this island was a major exporter of phosphate starting in 1907, when the Pacific Phosphate Company began mining there, through the formation of the British Phosphate Commission in 1919, and continuing after independence. This returned to Nauru full control of its minerals under the Nauru Phosphate Corporation, until the deposits ran out during the 1980s. For this reason, Nauru briefly boasted the highest per-capita income enjoyed by any sovereign state in the world during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
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Nazi Germany
The Third Reich, also Nazi Germany, is the common name for Germany when it was a totalitarian state ruled by Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). On 30 January 1933 Hitler became chancellor of Germany, quickly eliminating all opposition to rule as sole leader. The state idolized Hitler as its Führer ("leader"), centralizing all power in his hands. Historians have emphasized the hypnotic effect of his rhetoric on large audiences, and of his eyes in small groups. Kessel writes, "Overwhelmingly...Germans speak with mystification of Hitler's 'hypnotic' appeal..." Under the "leader principle", the Führer's word was above all other laws. Top officials reported to Hitler and followed his policies, but they had considerable autonomy. The government was not a coordinated, cooperating body, but rather a collection of factions struggling to amass power and curry favor with the Führer. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazi government restored prosperity and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending and a mixed economy of free-market and central-planning practices. Extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of the Autobahns. The return to prosperity gave the regime enormous popularity; the suppression of all opposition made Hitler's rule mostly unchallenged.
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Netherlands
The Netherlands (i/ˈnɛðərləndz/; Dutch: Nederland [ˈneːdə(r)lɑnt] or [ˈneɪ̯də(r)lɑnt] (
listen); West Frisian: Nederlân; Papiamento: Hulanda) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with some islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders with Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. It is a parliamentary democracy organised as a unitary state. The country capital is Amsterdam and the seat of government is The Hague. The Netherlands in its entirety is often referred to as Holland, although North and South Holland are actually only two of its twelve provinces (a case of pars pro toto; see terminology of "the Netherlands").
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New Brunswick
New Brunswick (French: Nouveau-Brunswick; pronounced: [nuˈvo bʁɔnˈzwik]) is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the only province in the federation that is constitutionally bilingual (English–French).Fredericton is the capital and Saint John is the most populous city. Greater Moncton is the province's largest Census Metropolitan Area. Through the 2011 nation wide census, Statistics Canada estimates the provincial population in 2011 to have been 751,171; a majority of the population is English-speaking, but there is also a large Francophone minority (33%), chiefly of Acadian origin.
The province's name comes from the English and French partial transcription of the city of Brunswick (Braunschweig in German) located in modern day Lower Saxony, northern Germany (and former duchy of the same name), the ancestral home of the Hanoverian George III of the United Kingdom.
New Brunswick is bounded by: on the north by Quebec's Gaspé Peninsula and Chaleur Bay; along the east coast by the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and Northumberland Strait; in the southeast corner the narrow Isthmus of Chignecto connects New Brunswick to the Nova Scotia peninsula; in the south by the Bay of Fundy coast, (which with a rise of 16 m (52 ft), has amongst the highest tides in the world); and in the west by the US state of Maine.
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New Caledonia
Coordinates: 21°15′S 165°18′E / 21.25°S 165.30°E / -21.25; 165.30
New Caledonia (French: Nouvelle-Calédonie) is a special collectivity of France located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, 1,500 kilometres (930 mi) east of Australia and about 20,000 kilometres (12,000 mi) from Metropolitan France. The archipelago, part of the Melanesia subregion, includes the main island of Grande Terre, the Loyalty Islands, the Belep archipelago, the Isle of Pines and a few remote islets. The Chesterfield Islands in the Coral Sea are also part of New Caledonia. Locals refer to Grande Terre as "Le Caillou", the rock.
New Caledonia has a land area of 18,576 square kilometres (7,172 sq mi). The population (2011 estimate) is 256,275. The capital of the territory is Nouméa.
The earliest traces of human presence in New Caledonia date back to the Lapita period. The Lapita were highly skilled navigators and agriculturists with influence over a large area of the Pacific.
The British first sighted New Caledonia on September 4, 1774, during the second voyage of Captain James Cook. He named the territory New Caledonia, as the north-east of the island reminded him of Scotland. The west coast of Grande Terre was approached by Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse in 1788, shortly before his disappearance, and the Loyalty Islands were first visited in 1796. From then until 1840, only a few sporadic contacts with the archipelago were recorded. Contacts became more frequent after 1840, because of the interest in sandalwood from New Caledonia.
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New Zealand
New Zealand (Māori: Aotearoa) is an island country located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses ‒ that of the North and South Islands ‒ as well as numerous smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some 1,500 kilometres (900 mi) east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly 1,000 kilometres (600 mi) south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. Because of its remoteness, it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans.
During its long isolation, New Zealand developed a distinctive biodiversity of both animal and plant life. Most notable are the large number of unique bird species, many of which became extinct after the arrival of humans and introduced mammals. With a mild maritime climate, the land was mostly covered in forest. The country's varied topography and its sharp mountain peaks owe much to the tectonic uplift of land and volcanic eruptions caused by the Pacific and Indo-Australian Plates clashing beneath the earth's surface.
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Nicaragua
Nicaragua (i/ˌnɪkəˈrɑːɡwə/ nik-ə-RAH-gwə), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (Spanish: República de Nicaragua [reˈpuβlika ðe nikaˈɾaɣwa] ( listen)), is the largest country in the Central American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean lies to the west, and the Caribbean Sea to the east. The country's physical geography divides it into three major zones: Pacific lowlands; wet, cooler central highlands; and the Caribbean lowlands. On the Pacific side of the country are the two largest fresh water lakes in Central America—Lake Managua and Lake Nicaragua. Surrounding these lakes and extending to their northwest along the rift valley of the Gulf of Fonseca are fertile lowland plains, with soil highly enriched by ash from nearby volcanoes of the central highlands. Nicaragua's abundance of biologically significant and unique ecosystems contribute to Mesoamerica's designation as a biodiversity hotspot.
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Niger
Niger (French pronunciation: [niʒɛʁ], but occasionally pronounced as /niːˈʒɛər/ ori/ˈnaɪdʒər/), officially the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east. Niger covers a land area of almost 1,270,000 km2, making it the largest nation in West Africa, with over 80 percent of its land area covered by the Sahara desert. The country's predominantly Islamic population of just above 15,000,000 is mostly clustered in the far south and west of the nation. The capital city is Niamey, located in the far southwest corner of Niger.
Niger is a developing country, and consistently ranks as one of the lowest ranks of the United Nations' Human Development Index (HDI), 186th of 187 countries in 2011. Much of the non-desert portions of the country are threatened by periodic drought and desertification. The economy is concentrated around subsistence and some export agriculture clustered in the more fertile south, and the export of raw materials, especially uranium ore. Niger remains handicapped by its landlocked position, desert terrain, poor education and poverty of its people, lack of infrastructure, poor health care, and environmental degradation.
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Nigeria
Nigeriai/naɪˈdʒɪəriə/, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in the north. Its coast in the south lies on the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean. The three largest and most influential ethnic groups in Nigeria are the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba.
In terms of religion Nigeria is roughly split half and half between Muslims in the North and Christians in the South; a very small minority practice traditional religion. Since 2002 there have been a spate of clashes, particularly in the North of the country, between government forces and the Islamists Boko Haram, militant jihadists who seek to establish sharia law.
The people of Nigeria have an extensive history. Archaeological evidence shows that human habitation of the area dates back to at least 9000 BCE. The area around the Benue and Cross River is thought to be the original homeland of the Bantu migrants who spread across most of central and southern Africa in waves between the 1st millennium BC and the 2nd millennium.
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Niue
Niue ( /ˈnjuːeɪ/ NEW-ay; Niuean: Niuē) is an island country in the South Pacific Ocean. It is commonly known as the "Rock of Polynesia", and inhabitants of the island call it "the Rock" for short. Niue is 2,400 kilometres (1,500 mi) northeast of New Zealand in a triangle between Tonga to the southwest, the Samoas to the northwest, and the Cook Islands to the southeast. The land area is 260 square kilometres (100 sq mi) with about 1,400 people who are predominantly Polynesian.
Though self-governing, Niue is in free association with New Zealand, and lacks full sovereignty. All Niueans are New Zealand citizens and Queen Elizabeth II is Niue's head of state in her capacity as Queen of New Zealand. Most diplomatic relations are conducted by New Zealand on Niue's behalf. 90-95% of Niuean people live in New Zealand, along with about 70% of the speakers of the Niuean language.[citation needed]
In 2003, Niue became the world's first "WiFi nation", in which free wireless Internet access is provided throughout the country by The Internet Users Society-Niue.
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Nièvre
Nièvre (IPA: [njɛvʁ]) is a department in the centre of France named after the Nièvre River.
Nièvre is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from the former province of Nivernais.
Nièvre is part of the current region of Burgundy, although historically it was not part of the province of Burgundy, and it is surrounded by the departments of Yonne, Côte-d'Or, Saône-et-Loire, Allier, Cher, and Loiret. The département is crossed by the Loire river, the longest river in France.
Nièvre is a rural department with about 50 inhabitants / km². The main cities are : Nevers, Cosne-sur-Loire, Varennes-Vauzelles, Marzy, Decize, Imphy and La Charité. Only three cities reach 10 000 inhabitants. It indicates the characteristic of the département, which is predominantly rural.
Nièvre is also well known for its white wine, Pouilly Fumé. The vineyards are scattered around villages including Pouilly-Sur-Loire, which lends its name to the appellation, Tracy sur Loire, Boisgibault, Saint Andelain. The word fumé is French for "smoky", and it's said the name comes from the smoky or flinty quality of these wines. The only grape allowed in the Pouilly-Fumé AC is Sauvignon Blanc, which produces wines that are generally crisp, tart, and somewhat grassy.
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Nomad
Nomadic people (Greek: νομάδες, nomádes, "those who let pasture herds"), commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world.
Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but traditional nomadic behavior is increasingly rare in industrialized countries. Nomadic cultures are discussed in three categories according to economic specialization: hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads, and "peripatetic nomads".
Nomadic hunting and gathering, following seasonally available wild plants and game, is by far the oldest human subsistence method. Pastoralists raise herds, driving them or moving with them, in patterns that normally avoid depleting pastures beyond their ability to recover. Peripatetic nomads, who offer the skills of a craft or trade to those with whom they travel, are most common in industrialized nations.
Many groups of 'nomadic' hunter-gatherers (also known as foragers) moved from campsite to campsite, following game and wild fruits and vegetables. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were hunter-gatherers until around 10,000 years ago.
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Nord-Pas-de-Calais
Nord-Pas de Calais (French pronunciation: [nɔʁ pa də kalɛ] ( listen); Dutch: Noord-Nauw van Calais), Nord for short, is one of the 27 regions of France. It consists of the departments of Nord and Pas-de-Calais, in the north and has a border with Belgium. Most of the region was once part of the Southern Netherlands, within the Low Countries, and gradually became part of France between 1477 and 1678. The historical provinces now included in Nord-Pas-de-Calais are Artois, Boulonnais, Calaisis, Cambraisis, French Flanders, French Hainaut and portions of northern Picardy, and the regional nickname Bassin Minier or Meiners-Bassen (Miners' or Mining Basin in the region's two languages) derived from historically large mining deposits. These provincial designations are still frequently used by the inhabitants, which offers a sense of civic pride.
With its 323.7 people per km2 on just over 12,400 km2, it is a densely populated region, having some four million inhabitants—seven percent of France's total population, making it the fourth most populous region in the country—83% of whom live in urban communities. Its administrative centre and largest city is Lille. The second largest city is Calais, which serves as a major continental economic/transportation hub with Dover of Great Britain 42 kilometres (26 mi) away; the White Cliffs of Dover are visible from Calais on a clear day. Other major towns include Valenciennes, Lens, Douai, Béthune, Dunkirk, Maubeuge, Boulogne, Arras, Cambrai and Saint-Omer.
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Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island (i/ˈnɔrfək ˈaɪlənd/; Norfuk: Norfuk Ailen) is a small island in the Pacific Ocean located between Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia, 1,412 kilometres (877 mi) directly east of mainland Evans Head, and about 600 kilometres (370 mi) from Lord Howe Island. The island is part of the Commonwealth of Australia, but it enjoys a large degree of self-governance. Together with two neighbouring islands, it forms one of Australia's external territories.
Originally colonised by East Polynesians, Norfolk Island was colonised by Britain as part of its settlement in Australia in 1788. It then served as a convict penal settlement until 1794, when it was abandoned until 1856, when permanent residence on the island for civilians began. In 1901, the island became a part of the Commonwealth of Australia which it has remained until this day.
The evergreen Norfolk Island pine is a symbol of the island and thus pictured on its flag (see illustration). Native to the island, the pine is a key export industry for Norfolk Island, being a popular ornamental tree on mainland Australia, where two related species grow, and also in Europe.
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Northern Cyprus
The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) (Turkish: Kuzey Kıbrıs Türk Cumhuriyeti), commonly called Northern Cyprus, is a self-declared state that comprises the northeastern part of the island of Cyprus. Recognised only by Turkey, Northern Cyprus is considered by the international community to be occupied territory of the Republic of Cyprus.
Northern Cyprus extends from the tip of the Karpass Peninsula in the north east, westward to Morphou Bay and Cape Kormakitis (the Kokkina/Erenköy exclave marks the westernmost extent of the area), and southward to the village of Louroujina/Akıncılar. A buffer zone under the control of the United Nations stretches between Northern Cyprus and the rest of the island and divides Nicosia, the island's largest city and capital of both states.
Tensions between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot populations in Cyprus culminated in 1974 with a coup d'état, an attempt to annex the island to Greece, and an invasion by Turkey in response. This resulted in the partitioning of the island, the resettlement of many of its inhabitants, and a unilateral declaration of independence by the north in 1983. Due to its lack of recognition, Northern Cyprus is heavily dependent on Turkey for economic, political and military support.
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Norway
Norwayi/ˈnɔrweɪ/ (Norwegian: Norge (Bokmål) or Noreg (Nynorsk)), officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and the subantarctic Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of 385,252 square kilometres (148,747 sq mi) and a population of about 5 million. It is the second least densely populated country in Europe. The majority of the country shares a border to the east with Sweden; its northernmost region is bordered by Finland to the south and Russia to the east; in its south Norway borders the Skagerrak Strait across from Denmark. The capital city of Norway is Oslo. Norway's extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea, is home to its famous fjords.
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Oise
Oise (French pronunciation: [waz]) is a department in the north of France. It is named after the river Oise.
Oise is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from part of the province of Île-de-France and Picardy.
After the coalition victory at Waterloo, the department was occupied by British troops between June 1815 and November 1818.
Oise is part of the current region of Picardie and is situated 35 km north of Paris. It is surrounded by the departments of Somme, Aisne, Seine-et-Marne, Val-d'Oise, Eure, and Seine-Maritime.
Natives of the department are called Isariens.
The major tourist attraction of the department is the Parc Astérix, which opened in 1989. Another very interesting site is Beauvais Cathedral. Also to be seen is the Chateau de Pierrefonds, restored by Viollet-le-Duc.
Oise is twinned with Bedfordshire. One of the villages along the river Oise is Auvers-sur-Oise, famous for having been visited by several impressionist artists. This is where Vincent Van Gogh spent his last 70 days and it is his and his brother Theo's resting place.
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Opéra Bastille
L'Opéra Bastille (Bastille Opera) is a modern opera house in Paris, France. It is the home base of the Opéra national de Paris and was designed to replace the Palais Garnier, which is nowadays mainly used for ballet performances.
In 1968, the idea for a new opera house in Paris first came from the composer Pierre Boulez, Maurice Béjart, along with Jean Vilar, a believer in the need for popular theatre. Their report inspired François Mitterrand, the French president, to sponsor a competition to build a new house. He wanted it to become a "modern and popular" place in order to share classical music with the masses.
Therefore, he created the Opera Bastille Public Establishment (l'Établissement PuA) competition to select an architect to build this new opera house. 756 entries were received, and, in November 1983, the competition was won by, at the time, an unknown architect, Carlos Ott, a Uruguayan who lives in Canada.
Located at the Place de la Bastille, in the 12th arrondissement, the house was designed with 2,723 seats, every one of which has an unrestricted view of the stage. The theatre, was "surmounted by the opaque cube of the stage building and wrapped in gridded walls of glass...... the Opera stands sociably open to the world outside, whereas the foyers, with their broad overview of the city, have the slick, impersonal look of an airport lounge". Beauvert also describes the theatre's backstage facilities as being extremely modern, allowing for nine times the volume of the stage and the ability to roll entire sets off and on intact. However, compared to other world-class opera houses, the acoustics have been described as disappointing at best.
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Orne
Orne (French pronunciation: [ɔʁn]) is a department in the northwest of France, named after the river Orne.
Orne is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution, on March 4, 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Normandy and Perche.
Orne is in the region of Basse-Normandie neighbouring Eure, Eure-et-Loir, Sarthe, Mayenne, and Calvados. It is the only department of Basse Normandie and Haute Normandie to be landlocked.
The largest town by a considerable margin is the prefecture, Alençon which is an administrative and commercial centre for what is still an overwhelmingly rural department. There are no large industrial centres: agriculture remains the economic focus of Orne.
The inhabitants of the department are called Ornais.
The recorded population level peaked at 443,688 in 1836. Declining farm incomes and the lure of better prospects in the overseas empire led to a sustained reduction in population levels in many rural departments, and by the time of the 1936 census the recorded population stood at just 269,331. Once motor car ownership started to surge in the 1960s employment opportunities became less restricted and by 2008 the population level had recovered a little to 292,282.
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Pacific
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.
At 165.2 million square kilometres (64.1 million square miles) in area, this largest division of the World Ocean – and, in turn, the hydrosphere – covers about 46% of the Earth's water surface and about one-third of its total surface area, making it larger than all of the Earth's land area combined. The equator subdivides it into the North Pacific Ocean and South Pacific Ocean, with two exceptions: the Galápagos and Gilbert Islands, while straddling the equator, are deemed wholly within the South Pacific. The Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres (35,797 ft).
The eastern Pacific Ocean was first sighted by Europeans early in the 16th century. Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 and named it Mar del Sur (South Sea). The ocean's current name was given by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish expedition of world circumnavigation in 1521, who encountered favourable winds as he reached the ocean and called it Mar Pacifico in Portuguese, meaning "peaceful sea".
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Pakistan
Pakistan (i/ˈpækɨstæn/ or i/pɑːkiˈstɑːn/; Urdu: پاکستان) (Urdu pronunciation: [paːkɪˈst̪aːn] ( listen)), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Urdu: اسلامی جمہوریۂ پاکستان), is a sovereign country in South Asia. It sits at the crossroads of the strategically important regions of South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. It has a 1,046-kilometre (650 mi) coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by India to the east, Afghanistan to the west and north, Iran to the southwest and China in the far northeast. It is separated from Tajikistan by Afghanistan's narrow Wakhan Corridor in the north, and it shares a marine border with Oman.
The territory of modern Pakistan was the site of several ancient cultures, including the Neolithic Mehrgarh and the Bronze Age Indus Valley Civilisation, and has undergone invasions or settlements by Hindu, Persian, Indo-Greek, Islamic, Turco-Mongol, Afghan and Sikh cultures. Thus the area has been ruled by numerous empires and dynasties, including the Indian Mauryan Empire, the Persian Achaemenid Empire, the Arab Umayyad Caliphate, the Mongol Empire, the Mughal Empire, the Durrani Empire, the Sikh Empire and the British Empire. As a result of the Pakistan Movement led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and India's struggle for independence, Pakistan was created in 1947 as an independent nation for Muslims from the regions in the east and west of India where there was a Muslim majority. Initially a dominion, Pakistan adopted a new constitution in 1956, becoming an Islamic republic. A civil war in 1971 resulted in the secession of East Pakistan as the new country of Bangladesh.
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Palace of Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( /vɛərˈsaɪ/ vair-SY or /vərˈsaɪ/; French: [vɛʁˈsaj]), or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles.
When the château was built, Versailles was a country village; today, however, it is a suburb of Paris, some 20 kilometres southwest of the French capital. The court of Versailles was the centre of political power in France from 1682, when Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in October 1789 after the beginning of the French Revolution. Versailles is therefore famous not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime.
The earliest mention of the name of Versailles is in a document dated 1038, relating to the village of Versailles. In 1575, the seigneury of Versailles was bought by Albert de Gondi, a naturalized Florentine, who invited Louis XIII on several hunting trips in the forests surrounding Versailles. Pleased with the location, Louis ordered the construction of a hunting lodge in 1624. Eight years later, Louis obtained the seigneury of Versailles from the Gondi family and began to make enlargements to the château. This structure would become the core of the new palace. Louis XIII's successor, Louis XIV, had it expanded into one of the largest palaces in the world. Following the Treaties of Nijmegen in 1678, he began to gradually move the court to Versailles. The court was officially established there on 6 May 1682.
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Palau
Palau (i/pəˈlaʊ/, sometimes spelled Belau or Pelew), officially the Republic of Palau (Palauan: Beluu ęr a Belau), is an island country located in the western Pacific Ocean. Geographically part of the larger island group of Micronesia, with the country's population of around 21,000 people spread out over 250 islands forming the western chain of the Caroline Islands. The islands share maritime boundaries with Indonesia, the Philippines, and the Federated States of Micronesia. The most populous island in the group is Koror, with the capital city, Ngerulmud, located on nearby Babeldaob.
The country were originally settled around 3000 years ago by migrants from the Philippines, with a Negrito population sustained until around 900 years ago. The islands were first visited by Europeans in the 18th century, and were made part of the Spanish East Indies in 1885. Following Spain's defeat in the Spanish–American War in 1898, the islands were sold to Imperial Germany in 1899 under the terms of the German–Spanish Treaty, where they were administered as part of German New Guinea. The Imperial Japanese Navy conquered Palau during World War I, and the islands were later made a part of the Japanese-ruled South Pacific Mandate by the League of Nations. During World War II, skirmishes, including the major Battle of Peleliu, were fought between American and Japanese troops as part of the Mariana and Palau Islands campaign. Along with other Pacific Islands, Palau was made a part of the United States-governed Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands in 1947. Having voted against joining the newly-independent Federated States of Micronesia in 1979, the islands gained full sovereignty in 1994 under a Compact of Free Association with the United States.
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Palmyra Atoll
Palmyra Atoll ( /pælˈmaɪrə/) is an essentially unoccupied equatorial Northern Pacific atoll administered as an unorganized incorporated territory by the United States federal government. The variable temporary population of 4–20 "non-occupants" are essentially staff and scientists employed by various departments of the US government and The Nature Conservancy, as well as a rotating mix of Palmyra Atoll Research Consortium scholars pursuing research.
Palmyra is one of the Northern Line Islands (southeast of Kingman Reef and north of Kiribati Line Islands), located almost due south of the Hawaiian Islands, roughly halfway between Hawaii and American Samoa. The atoll is 4.6 sq mi (12 km2), and it is located in the equatorial Northern Pacific Ocean. Its 9 mi (14 km) of coastline has one anchorage known as West Lagoon.
The atoll consists of an extensive reef, two shallow lagoons, and some 50 sand and reef-rock islets and bars covered with vegetation—mostly coconut trees, Scaevola, and tall Pisonia trees.
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Panama
Panama (i/ˈpænəmɑː/ PAN-ə-mah; Spanish: Panamá), officially the Republic of Panama (Spanish: República de Panamá [reˈpuβlika ðe panaˈma]), is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The capital is Panama City. Explored and settled by the Spanish in the 16th century, Panama broke with Spain in 1821 and joined a union of Nueva Granada, Ecuador, and Venezuela, named the Republic of Gran Colombia.When Gran Colombia the dissolved in 1831, Panama and Nueva Granada remained joined. Nueva Granada later became the Republic of Colombia.
With the backing of the United States, Panama seceded from Colombia in 1903, allowing the Panama Canal to be built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1904 and 1914. In 1977, an agreement was signed for the complete transfer of the Canal from the United States to Panama by the end of the century.
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Pantelleria
Pantelleria (Sicilian: Pantiddirìa), the ancient Cossyra, is an Italian island in the Strait of Sicily in the Mediterranean Sea, 100 km (62.1 mi) southwest of Sicily and just 60 km (37.3 mi) east of the Tunisian coast. Administratively Pantelleria is a comune belonging to the Sicilian province of Trapani. With an area of 83 km2 (32 sq mi), it is the largest volcanic satellite island of Sicily.
The island of Pantelleria is located above a drowned continental rift in the Strait of Sicily and has been the locus of intensive volcano-tectonic activity. The 15-km-long (9.3 mi) island is the emergent summit of a largely submarine edifice. Two large Pleistocene calderas dominate the island, the older of the two formed about 114,000 years ago and the younger, Cinque Denti caldera formed about 45,000 years ago. The eruption that formed the Cinque Denti caldera produced the distinctive Green Tuff deposit that covers much of the island, and is found across the Mediterranean, as far away as the island of Lesbos in the Aegean.Holocene eruptions have constructed pumice cones, lava domes, and short, blocky lava flows. Post Green Tuff activity constructed the cone of Monte Gibele, part of which was subsequently uplifted to form Montagna Grande. Several vents are located on three sides of the uplifted Montagna Grande block on the southeast side of the island. A submarine eruption in 1891 from a vent off the northwest coast is the only confirmed historical activity.
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Panthéon, Paris
The Panthéon (Latin: Pantheon, from Greek Πάνθειον meaning "Every god") is a building in the Latin Quarter in Paris. It was originally built as a church dedicated to St. Genevieve and to house the reliquary châsse containing her relics but, after many changes, now functions as a secular mausoleum containing the remains of distinguished French citizens. It is an early example of neoclassicism, with a façade modeled on the Pantheon in Rome, surmounted by a dome that owes some of its character to Bramante's "Tempietto". Located in the 5th arrondissement on the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, the Panthéon looks out over all of Paris. Designer Jacques-Germain Soufflot had the intention of combining the lightness and brightness of the gothic cathedral with classical principles, but its role as a mausoleum required the great Gothic windows to be blocked.
King Louis XV vowed in 1744 that if he recovered from his illness he would replace the ruined church of the Abbey of St Genevieve with an edifice worthy of the patron saint of Paris. He did recover, and entrusted Abel-François Poisson, marquis de Marigny with the fulfillment of his vow. In 1755, Marigny commissioned Jacques-Germain Soufflot to design the church, with construction beginning two years later.
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Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea (PNG; Tok Pisin: Papua Niugini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands (the western portion of the island is a part of the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua). It is located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, in a region defined since the early 19th century as Melanesia. The capital is Port Moresby.
Papua New Guinea is one of the most culturally diverse countries on Earth. According to recent data, 841 different languages are listed for the country, although 11 of these have no known living speakers. . (A detailed series of language maps of Papua New Guinea may be found at Ethnologue) There may be at least as many traditional societies,out of a population of about 6.2 million. It is also one of the most rural, as only 18% of its people live in urban centres. The country is one of the world's least explored, culturally and geographically, and many undiscovered species of plants and animals are thought to exist in the interior of Papua New Guinea.
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Paraguay
Paraguay (i/ˈpɛərəɡwaɪ/, PAIR-ə-gwy), officially the Republic of Paraguay (Spanish: República del Paraguay [reˈpuβlika ðel paɾaˈɣwai], Guaraní: Tetã Paraguái [teˈtã paɾaˈɣwaj]), is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the country from north to south. Due to its central location in South America, it is sometimes referred to as Corazón de América, or the Heart of America.
The Guaraní have been living in Paraguay since before the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century, when Paraguay became part of the Spanish colonial empire. Following independence from Spain in 1811, Paraguay was ruled by a series of dictators who followed isolationist and protectionist policies. This development was truncated by the disastrous Paraguayan War (1864–1870) in which the country lost 60% to 70% of its population and large amounts of territory. During a large part of the 20th century, Paraguay was ruled by Alfredo Stroessner, who led one of South America's longest lived military dictatorships. In 1989 Stroessner was toppled and free elections were celebrated in 1993. In 1994 Paraguay joined Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay to found Mercosur.
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Parc Astérix
Parc Astérix is a theme amusement park in France, based on the stories of Asterix (by Albert Uderzo and René Goscinny). Situated approximately 35 km (22 mi) north of Paris and 32 km (20 mi) from Disneyland Resort Paris, in Plailly in the département of Oise, it opened in 1989. The park is operated by Compagnie des Alpes.
It is especially well known for its large variety of roller coasters, and has begun incorporating rides and themes from historic cultures such as the Romans and the ancient Greeks.
There are many attractions and shows including:
Coordinates: 49°08′07″N 2°34′18″E / 49.13528°N 2.57167°E / 49.13528; 2.57167
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Pas-de-Calais
Pas-de-Calais (French pronunciation: [pɑ d(ə) kalɛ]) is a department in northern France. Its name is the French equivalent of the Strait of Dover, which it borders.
Inhabited since prehistoric times, the Pas-de-Calais region was populated in turn by the Celtic Belgae, the Romans, the Germanic Franks and the Alemanni. During the fourth and fifth centuries, the Roman practice of coopting Germanic tribes to provide military and defense services along the route from Boulogne to Cologne created a Germanic-Romance linguistic border in the region that persisted until the eighth century.
Saxon colonization into the region from the fifth to the eighth centuries likely extended the linguistic border somewhat south and west so that by the ninth century most inhabitants north of the line between Béthune and Berck spoke a dialect of Middle Dutch, while the inhabitants to the south spoke Picard, a variety of Romance dialects.
This linguistic border is still evident today in the toponyms and patronyms of the region. Beginning in the ninth century, the linguistic border began a steady move to north and the east, and by the end of the 15th century Romance dialects had completely displaced those of Dutch.
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Pays de la Loire
Pays de la Loire (French pronunciation: [pɛ.i də la lwaʁ]; Breton: Broioù al Liger) is one of the 27 regions of France. It is one of the regions created in the late 20th century to serve as a zone of influence for its capital, Nantes, one of a handful so-called "balancing metropolises" (métropoles d'équilibre)¹. Other examples of "artificially created" regions include Rhône-Alpes, which was created as the region for Lyon, and Midi-Pyrénées, which was created as the region for Toulouse.
Pays de la Loire is made up of the following historical provinces:
Consequently, the name of the region, chosen by the French central government, was not based on history, but purely on geographical references: Pays (i.e. "lands") de la Loire (i.e. "of the Loire River"). However, the majority of the famous châteaux of the Loire Valley are located in the Centre region, and not inside Pays de la Loire, despite the confusing name. The Pays de la Loire present many great monuments as the castles of Angers, Laval, Mayenne and the Nantes "Château des Ducs de Bretagne", the Royal Fontevraud Abbey (the widest monastic ensemble in Europe), the old city of Le Mans, and also many natural parks such as the Brière and the Marsh of Poitou.
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Philippines
The Philippinesi/ˈfɪlɨpiːnz/ FI-lə-peenz (Filipino: Pilipinas [ˌpɪlɪˈpinɐs]), officially known as the Republic of the Philippines (Filipino: Republika ng Pilipinas) is a sovereign country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam. The Sulu Sea to the southwest lies between the country and the island of Borneo, and to the south the Celebes Sea separates it from other islands of Indonesia. It is bounded on the east by the Philippine Sea. Its location on the Pacific Ring of Fire and its tropical climate make the Philippines prone to earthquakes and typhoons but have also endowed the country with natural resources and made it one of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world. An archipelago comprising 7,107 islands, the Philippines is categorized broadly into three main geographical divisions: Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Its capital city is Manila.
With an estimated population of about 98 million people, the Philippines is the 7th most populated Asian country and the 12th most populated country in the world. An additional 12.5 million Filipinos live overseas. Multiple ethnicities and cultures are found throughout the islands. In prehistoric times, Negritos were some of the archipelago's earliest inhabitants. They were followed by successive waves of Austronesian peoples who brought with them influences from Malay, Hindu, and Islamic societies. Trade introduced Chinese cultural influences which remain to this day.
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Phocaea
Phocaea, or Phokaia, (Greek: Φώκαια) (modern-day Foça in Turkey) was an ancient Ionian Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia. Greek colonists from Phocaea founded the colony of Massalia (modern day Marseille, in France) in 600 BC, Emporion (modern day Empúries, in Catalonia, Spain) in 575 BC and Elea (modern day Velia, in Campania, Italy) in 540 BC.
Phocaea was the northernmost of the Ionian cities, on the boundary with Aeolis. It was located near the mouth of the river Hermus (now Gediz), and situated on the coast of the peninsula separating the Gulf of Cyme to the north, named for the largest of the Aeolian cities, and the Gulf of Smyrna (now İzmir) to the south.
Phocaea had two natural harbours within close range of the settlement, both containing a number of small islands. Phocaea's harbours allowed it to develop a thriving seafaring economy, and to become a great naval power, which greatly influenced its culture.[citation needed]
Recent archaeological surveys have shown that the city of Phocaea was large for the archaic period. Herodotus gives an idea of the size of Phocaea by the describing the walls of Phocaea as having a diameter of 5 km, large even by modern standards. Phocaea was one of the largest cities in the ancient world.[citation needed]
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Pitcairn Islands
The Pitcairn Islands ( /ˈpɪtkɛərn/;Pitkern: Pitkern Ailen), officially named the Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, form a group of four volcanic islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. The islands are a British Overseas Territory. The four islands—named Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie, and Oeno—are spread over several hundred miles of ocean and have a total land area of about 18 square miles (47 km2). Only Pitcairn, the second largest and measuring about 2 miles (3.2 km) across, is inhabited.
The islands are best known as home of the descendants of the Bounty mutineers and the Tahitians (or Polynesians) who accompanied them, an event retold in numerous books and films. This history is still apparent in the surnames of many of the islanders. With only about 48 inhabitants (currently from four main families: Christian, Warren, Young, and Brown), Pitcairn is the least populous jurisdiction in the world. The United Nations Committee on Decolonisation includes the Pitcairn Islands on the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories.
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Place Stanislas
The Place Stanislas, known colloquially as the place Stan', is a large pedestrianized square in Nancy, Lorraine, France. Since 1983, the architectural ensemble comprising the Place Stanislas and the extension of its axis, the Place de la Carrière and Place d'Alliance, has been on the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
After the War of the Polish Succession in 1737, the Duchy of Upper Lorraine, of which Nancy was the capital, was given to Stanisław Leszczyński, former king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and father-in-law to King Louis XV of France. An earlier ruler, Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, had undertaken a lot of reconstruction in Lorraine, which had been ravaged by a series of wars. He'd surrounded himself by artists and architects including Germain Boffrand, who trained Emmanuel Héré: hence Stanisław found a pool of talent and experience to draw from on his arrival.
The square was a major project in urban planning dreamt up by Stanisław Leszczyński as a way to link the medieval old town of Nancy and the new town built under Charles III in the 17th century. The square would also be a place royale to honour his son-in-law, Louis XV. The design linked two handsome buildings that already existed, the Hôtel de Ville, now centred on its grand square, and the Hôtel du Gouvernement. The seat of city government and the seat of ducal government faced one another as complements through a series of rational, symmetrical, yet varied urban spaces unequalled in Europe at the time.
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Place Vendôme
Place Vendôme (French pronunciation: [plas vɑ̃dom]) is a square in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France, located to the north of the Tuileries Gardens and east of the Église de la Madeleine. It is the starting point of the Rue de la Paix. Its regular architecture by Jules Hardouin-Mansart and pedimented screens canted across the corners give the rectangular Place Vendôme the aspect of an octagon. The original Vendôme Column at the center of the square was erected by Napoleon I to commemorate the battle of Austerlitz; it was torn down on 16 May 1871, by decree of the Paris Commune, but subsequently re-erected and remains a prominent feature on the square today.
Place Vendôme was laid out in 1702 as a monument to the glory of the armies of Louis XIV, the Grand Monarque and called Place des Conquêtes, to be renamed Place Louis le Grand, when the conquests proved temporary; an over life-size equestrian statue of the king was set up in its centre, donated by the city authorities; this was by François Girardon (1699) and is supposed to have been the first large modern equestrian statue to be cast in a single piece. It was destroyed in the French Revolution; however, there is a small version in the Louvre. This led to the popular joke that while Henri IV dwelled among the people by the Pont Neuf, and Louis XIII among the aristocrats of the Place des Vosges, Louis XIV preferred the company of the tax farmers in the Place Vendôme; each reflecting the group they had favoured in life.
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Poitou-Charentes
Poitou-Charentes (French pronunciation: [pwatu ʃaʁɑ̃t] ( listen)) is an administrative region in central western France comprising four departments: Charente, Charente-Maritime, Deux-Sèvres and Vienne. The regional capital is Poitiers.
The regional council is composed of 56 members. The region is the home of France's losing presidential candidate Socialist Ségolène Royal in the election of 2007.
In French its residents are known as Picto-Charentais. In 2003, the region ranked 15th out of 26 in population. In area it ranked 12th in size.
Three regional languages, Poitevin, Saintongeais and Limousin are spoken by a minority of people in the region.
Poitou is believed to be the region of origin of most of the Acadian and Cajun populations of North America (settlements founded in New Brunswick, Louisiana, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, the Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec, Maine and Newfoundland). Their ancestors emigrated from the region in the 17th and 18th centuries.
At first, these French immigrants from Poitou settled in eastern Canada, and established an agricultural and maritime economy (farming and fishing). This area of the "New World" was dubbed Acadia by the French, after the Greek Arcadia - the idyllic part of the Peloponnesian peninsula in Greece. It was renamed Nova Scotia (New Scotland) in the aftermath of the 1755 expulsion of most of the Acadians by the English.
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Poland
Polandi/ˈpoʊlənd/ (Polish: Polska), officially the Republic of Poland (Polish: Rzeczpospolita Polska; Kashubian: Pòlskô Repùblika; Silesian: Polsko Republika), is a country in Central Europe, bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north. The total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres (120,726 sq mi), making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. Poland has a population of over 38 million people, which makes it the 34th most populous country in the world and the sixth most populous member of the European Union, being its most populous post-communist member. Poland is a unitary state made up of 16 voivodeships. Poland is a member of the European Union, NATO, the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), European Economic Area, International Energy Agency, Council of Europe, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, International Atomic Energy Agency, G6, Council of the Baltic Sea States, Visegrád Group, Weimar Triangle and Schengen Agreement.
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Port-aux-Français
Port-aux-Français is the capital settlement of the Kerguelen Islands, French territory in the south Indian Ocean. The port station is located on the Gulf of Morbihan, at 49°21′00″S 70°13′08″E / 49.35°S 70.219°E / -49.35; 70.219. It has about 60 inhabitants in winter, which can rise to more than 120 in summer.
The station was selected because of its sheltered position which was suitable for a runway that was never built. From 1955 to 1957, and using Australian equipment, a French slaughterhouse company called Sidap constructed a sealing factory. The factory opened following the first marriage on the islands, that of Marc Pechenart and Martine Raulin on 16 December 1957. The factory closed in 1960, and the equipment was sent to Réunion in 2005.
Port-aux-Français has a shallow seaport and a quay for unloading supply ships, including the Marion Dufresne. The station, in addition to logistics necessary to its operation, consists of scientific laboratories (biology, geophysics), technical installations (meteorology, telecommunications, satellite tracking, et cetera), and a small medical centre.
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Portugal
Portugali/ˈpɔrtʃʉɡəl/ (Portuguese: Portugal, IPA: [puɾtuˈɣaɫ]), officially the Portuguese Republic (Portuguese: República Portuguesa) is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula . Portugal is the westernmost country of mainland Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira are part of Portugal. The country is named after its second largest city, Porto, whose Latin name was Portus Cale.
The land within the borders of the current Portuguese Republic has been continuously settled since prehistoric times: occupied by Celts like the Gallaeci and the Lusitanians, integrated into the Roman Republic and later settled by Germanic peoples such as the Suebi, Swabians, Vandals and the Visigoths. In the 8th century most of the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by Moorish invaders professing Islam, which were later expelled by the Knights Templar under the Order of Christ. During the Christian Reconquista, Portugal established itself as an independent kingdom from León in 1139, claiming to be the oldest European nation state.
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Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (/ˌpɔrtə ˈriːkoʊ/ or /ˌpwɛərtə ˈriːkoʊ/), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (Spanish: Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, [esˈtaðo ˈlibɾe asoˈsjaðo ðe ˈpweɾto ˈriko]—literally, "Associated Free State of Puerto Rico"), is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.
Puerto Rico (Spanish for "rich port") comprises an archipelago that includes the main island of Puerto Rico and a number of smaller islands, the largest of which are Vieques, Culebra, and Mona. The main island of Puerto Rico is the smallest by land area of the Greater Antilles. However, it ranks third in population amongst that group of four islands, which also include Cuba, Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti), and Jamaica. Due to its location, Puerto Rico enjoys a tropical climate and also experiences the Atlantic hurricane season.
Originally populated for centuries by indigenous aboriginal peoples known as Taínos, the island was claimed by Christopher Columbus for Spain during his second voyage to the Americas on November 19, 1493. Under Spanish rule, the island was colonized and the indigenous population was forced into slavery and nearly wiped out due to, among other things, European infectious diseases. The remaining population was emancipated by King Charles I in 1520. Spain possessed Puerto Rico for over 400 years, despite attempts at capture of the island by the French, Dutch, and British. The Spanish Crown, in an attempt to keep Puerto Rico from gaining its independence, revived the Royal Decree of Graces of 1815. The decree was printed in three languages — Spanish, English and French — and it fostered the immigration of hundreds of non-Spanish European families.
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Puy du Fou
Le Puy du Fou (from the name of the place which translates as "the hill of the beech", from puy and fagus) is a historical theme park in Les Epesses (between Cholet and La Roche-sur-Yon) in the heart of the Vendée region of Western France. The park brings in some 1.5 million visitors every year, making it the fourth most popular attraction in France after Disneyland Paris.
The history of the Puy du Fou as a theme park started in 1977 when Phillippe de Villiers, a twenty-seven-year-old student (now a French politician) decided to create an original show named the Cinéscénie which means "the stage in moving".
When he discovered on the 13th of June 1977 the ruins of an old renaissance castle in the village of Les Epesses near Cholet, he wrote a good scenario very quickly about a local family named Maupillier (the real name of a soldier of Vendee at the time of the conflict between Vendee and French Republic during the French Revolution), spanning from the fourteenth century until World War II.
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Puy-de-Dôme
Puy-de-Dôme (French pronunciation: [pɥi də dom]; lo Puèi de Doma / lo Puèi Domat in the Auvergnat dialect of the Occitan language) is a department in the centre of France named after the famous dormant volcano, the Puy-de-Dôme.
Inhabitants were called Puydedomois until December 2005. With effect from Spring 2006, in response to a letter writing campaign, the name used for the inhabitants was change by the departmental General Council to Puydômois, and this is the name that has since then been used in all official documents and publications.
Puy-de-Dôme is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790. It was created from the former province of Auvergne. Originally, the department was to be called Mont-d'Or ("Golden Mountain"), but this was changed to Puy-de-Dôme following the intervention of Jean-François Gaultier de Biauzat, a local deputy, because of a concern that the name originally chosen risked attracting excessive unwelcome attention from the national taxation authorities.
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Pyrenees
Coordinates: 42°40′N 1°00′E / 42.667°N 1°E / 42.667; 1
The Pyrenees ( /ˈpɪərɨniːz/; Spanish: Pirineos or Pirineo, French: Pyrénées, Catalan: Pirineus, Occitan: Pirenèus, Aragonese: Perinés, Basque: Pirinioak or Auñamendiak), also spelled Pyrénées, is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain. It separates the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of continental Europe, and extends for about 491 km (305 mi) from the Bay of Biscay (Cap Higuer) to the Mediterranean (Cap de Creus).
For the most part, the main crest forms a massive divider between France and Spain, with the tiny country of Andorra sandwiched in between. Catalonia and Navarre have historically extended on both sides of the mountain range, with small northern portions now in France and much larger southern parts now in Spain.
The adjective related to the noun "Pyrenees" in English is Pyrenean.
In classical mythology, Pyrene is a princess who gave her name to the Pyrenees. The Greek historian Herodotus says Pyrene is the name of a town in Celtic Europe. According to Silius Italicus, she was the virginal daughter of Bebryx, a king in Mediterranean Gaul by whom the hero Hercules was given hospitality during his quest to steal the cattle of Geryon during his famous Labors. Hercules, characteristically drunk and lustful, violates the sacred code of hospitality and rapes his host's daughter. Pyrene gives birth to a serpent and runs away to the woods, afraid that her father will be angry. Alone, she pours out her story to the trees, attracting the attention instead of wild beasts who tear her to pieces.
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Pyrénées-Atlantiques
Pyrénées-Atlantiques (French pronunciation: [pi.ʁe.ne.at.lɑ̃.tik]; Gascon: Pirenèus-Atlantics; Basque: Pirinio-Atlantiarrak or Pirinio-Atlantikoak) is a department in the southwest of France which takes its name from the Pyrenees mountains and the Atlantic Ocean.
Basses-Pyrénées is one of the original 83 departments of France created during the French Revolution, on March 4, 1790. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Guyenne, Béarn, and Gascony and included the three traditional provinces of the northern Basque Country: Labourd, Soule, and Basse-Navarre. It also included two tiny exclaves of Bigorre which were located within Béarn.
The previous history of the region, under the Ancien Régime, can be found at those individual articles.
On October 10, 1969, Basses-Pyrénées was renamed Pyrénées-Atlantiques.
Pyrénées-Atlantiques is part of the Aquitaine region of Southwest France. It is bordered by the Landes, Hautes-Pyrénées, Gers departments and the Bay of Biscay.
Principal settlements include Pau, Oloron-Sainte-Marie, Orthez, Biarritz, Bayonne, Anglet, Urrugne, Saint-Jean-de-Luz and Hendaye.
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Pyrénées-Orientales
Pyrénées-Orientales (French pronunciation: [pi.ʁe.ne.ɔ.ʁjɑ̃.tal]; English: Eastern Pyrenees; Catalan: Pirineus Orientals; Occitan: Pirenèus Orientals) is a department of southern France adjacent to the northern Spanish frontier and the Mediterranean Sea. It also surrounds the tiny Spanish enclave of Llívia, and thus has two distinct borders with Spain.
Prior to the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, most of the present department was part of the former Principality of Catalonia, within the Kingdom of Spain, so the majority of it has historically been Catalan-speaking, and it is still sometimes referred to as Northern Catalonia.
The modern department was created early during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790, through the application of a law dated 22 December 1789. Pyrénées-Orientales corresponds almost exactly to the pre-Revolutionary province of Roussillon, but it also includes Fenolheda, a small piece of territory which had formerly been on the southern edge of Languedoc. See also: French Cerdagne.
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Quebec
Coordinates: 53°45′N 071°59′W / 53.75°N 71.983°W / 53.75; -71.983 (Quebec)
Quebec /kwəˈbɛk/ or /kəˈbɛk/ (French: Québec [kebɛk] ( listen)) is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level.
Quebec is Canada's largest province by area and its second-largest administrative division; only the territory of Nunavut is larger. It is bordered to the west by the province of Ontario, James Bay and Hudson Bay, to the north by Hudson Strait and Ungava Bay, to the east by the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador and New Brunswick. It is bordered on the south by the US states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and New York. It also shares maritime borders with Nunavut, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia.
Quebec is Canada's second most populous province, after Ontario. Most inhabitants live in urban areas near the Saint Lawrence River between Montreal and Quebec City, the capital. English-speaking communities and English-language institutions are concentrated in the west of the island of Montreal but are also significantly present in the Outaouais, Eastern Townships, and Gaspé regions. The Nord-du-Québec region, occupying the northern half of the province, is sparsely populated and inhabited primarily by Aboriginal peoples.
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Republic of Ireland
Ireland (/ˈaɪərlənd/ or /ˈɑrlənd/; Irish: Éire, pronounced [ˈeːɾʲə] ( listen)) is a sovereign state in Europe occupying about five-sixths of the island of Ireland. Its capital is Dublin. The population of the state was 4.59 million in 2011. It is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy, with an elected president serving as head of state. In the 1937 constitution, the name of the state is given as simply "Ireland". The Constitution of Ireland (Article 4) and the Republic of Ireland Act 1948 provides that the "Republic of Ireland" (Irish: Poblacht na hÉireann) is "the description of the state".
Ireland is a member of the European Union, the Council of Europe, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organisation and the United Nations. A developed country with the seventh highest Human Development Index, Ireland is also highly ranked for press freedom, economic freedom and democracy and political freedom.
The modern Irish state was established in 1922 as the Irish Free State, a dominion within the British Empire, following the Anglo-Irish Treaty which brought an end to the Irish War of Independence. The partition of Ireland had already been provided for in previous British legislation in 1921 in response to opposition to Irish Home Rule or independence by Unionists, who formed a majority in the north-eastern part of the country. Six of the nine counties in the northern province of Ulster were established under that legislation as Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, with which the Irish state shares its only land border. The state is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the Celtic Sea to the south, St George's Channel to the south east, and the Irish Sea to the east.
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Rhône (department)
Rhône (French pronunciation: [ʁon]; Franco-Provençal : Rôno) is a French department located in the central Eastern region of Rhône-Alpes. It is named after the Rhône River.
The Rhône department was created on August 12, 1793 when the former département of Rhône-et-Loire was split into two departments: Rhône and Loire.
Originally, the eastern border of Rhône was the city of Lyon itself, so that the communes immediately east of Lyon belonged to neighboring department. With the growth of Lyon and the spilling of the urban area over the suburban communes of Lyon, the limits of the department were judged impractical as they left the suburbs of Lyon outside of Rhône . Thus, Rhône was enlarged several times to incorporate into it the suburbs of Lyon from neighboring department:
With these enlargements, the area of the Rhône department increased from 2,791 km² to the current 3,249 km² (16.4% larger). At the 1999 French census, the original Rhône department would have had only 1,071,288 inhabitants, which means that the population in the territories added in the last two centuries was 507,581 inhabitants in 1999.
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Roman Forum
Coordinates: 41°53′32″N 12°29′07″E / 41.8922°N 12.4852°E / 41.8922; 12.4852
The Roman Forum (Latin: Forum Romanum, Italian: Foro Romano) is a rectangular forum (plaza) surrounded by the ruins of several important ancient government buildings at the center of the city of Rome. Citizens of the ancient city referred to this space, originally a marketplace, as the Forum Magnum, or simply the Forum.
It was for centuries the center of Roman public life: the site of triumphal processions and elections, venue for public speeches, criminal trials, and gladiatorial matches, and nucleus of commercial affairs. Here statues and monuments commemorated the city's great men. The teeming heart of ancient Rome, it has been called the most celebrated meeting place in the world, and in all history. Located in the small valley between the Palatine and Capitoline Hills, the Forum today is a sprawling ruin of architectural fragments and intermittent archeological excavations attracting numerous sightseers.
Many of the oldest and most important structures of the ancient city were located on or near the Forum. The Roman kingdom's earliest shrines and temples were located on the southeastern edge. These included the ancient former royal residence, the Regia (8th century BC), and the Temple of Vesta (7th century BC), as well as the surrounding complex of the Vestal Virgins, all of which were rebuilt after the rise of imperial Rome.
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Romania
Romania (i/roʊˈmeɪniə/ roh-MAY-nee-ə; dated: Roumania; or Rumania;Romanian: România [romɨˈni.a] ( listen)) is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea. Romania shares a border with Hungary and Serbia to the west, Ukraine and Moldova to the northeast and east, and Bulgaria to the south.
At 238,400 square kilometers (92,000 sq mi), Romania is the ninth largest country of the European Union by area, and has the seventh largest population of the European Union with over 19 million people. Its capital and largest city is Bucharest, the tenth largest city in the EU with about two million people.
The Kingdom of Romania emerged when the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia were united under Prince Alexander Ioan Cuza in 1859. Independence from the Ottoman Empire was declared on 9 May 1877, and was internationally recognized the following year. At the end of World War I, Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia united with the Kingdom of Romania. Greater Romania emerged into an era of progression and prosperity that would continue until World War II. By the end of the War, many north-eastern areas of Romania's territories were occupied by the Soviet Union, and Romania forcibly became a socialist republic and a member of the Warsaw Pact.
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Russia
Russiai/ˈrʌʃə/ or /ˈrʊʃə/ (Russian: Россия, tr. Rossiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijə] ( listen)), also officially known as the Russian Federation (Russian: Российская Федерация, tr. Rossiyskaya Federatsiya; IPA: [rɐˈsʲijskəjə fʲɪdʲɪˈratsɨjə] ( listen)), is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects. From northwest to southeast, Russia shares borders with Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland (both via Kaliningrad Oblast), Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, and North Korea. It also has maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, and the US state of Alaska by the Bering Strait. At 17,075,400 square kilometres (6,592,800 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than one eighth of the Earth's inhabited land area. Russia is also the eighth most populous nation with 143 million people. It extends across the whole of northern Asia and 40% of Europe, spanning nine time zones and incorporating a wide range of environments and landforms. Russia has the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources and is the largest producer of oil and natural gas globally. Russia has the world's largest forest reserves and its lakes contain approximately one-quarter of the world's fresh water.
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Rwanda
Rwanda /ruːˈɑːndə/ or /ruːˈændə/, officially the Republic of Rwanda (Kinyarwanda: Repubulika y'u Rwanda; French: République du Rwanda), is a country in central and eastern Africa with a population of approximately 11.7 million (2012). Located a few degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. All of Rwanda is at high elevation, with a geography dominated by mountains in the west, savanna in the east, and numerous lakes throughout the country. The climate is temperate, with two rainy seasons and two dry seasons every year.
The population is young and predominantly rural, with a density among the highest in Africa. Rwandans form three groups: the Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa. The Twa are a pygmy people who descend from Rwanda's earliest inhabitants, but scholars disagree on the origins of and differences between the Hutu and Tutsi; some believe that they are derived from former social castes, while others view them as being races or tribes. Christianity is the largest religion in the country, and the principal language is Kinyarwanda, which is spoken by most Rwandans. Rwanda has a presidential system of government. The President is Paul Kagame of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Rwanda has low corruption compared with neighbouring countries, but human rights organisations allege suppression of opposition groups, intimidation, and restrictions on freedom of speech. The country has been governed by a strict administrative hierarchy since precolonial times; there are currently five provinces, which are delineated by borders drawn in 2006.
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Réunion
Réunion (French: La Réunion, IPA: [la 'ʁeynjɔ̃] ( listen); previously Île Bourbon) is a French island with a population of about 800,000 located in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, about 200 kilometres (120 mi) south west of Mauritius, the nearest island.
Administratively, Réunion is one of the overseas departments of France. Like the other overseas departments, Réunion is also one of the 27 regions of France (being an overseas region) and an integral part of the Republic with the same status as those situated on the European mainland.
Réunion is an outermost region of the European Union and, as an overseas department of France, is part of the Eurozone.
Before the arrival of the Portuguese in the early sixteenth century, there is little to Réunion's recorded history. Arab traders were familiar with it by the name Dina Morgabin,. The island possibly features on a map from 1153 AD by Al Sharif el-Edrisi. The island may also have been visited by Swahili or Malay sailors.
The first European discovery of the area was made around 1507 by Portuguese explorers, but the specifics are unclear. The uninhabited island may have been first sighted by the expedition led by Don Pedro Mascarenhas, who gave his name to the island group around Réunion, the Mascarenes. Réunion itself was dubbed Santa Apolonia after a favorite saint, which suggests that the date of the Portuguese discovery may have been February 9, her saint day. Diego Lopes de Sequeira is claimed to have landed on the island in 1509.
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Saba
Saba ( /ˈseɪbə/) is a Caribbean island and the smallest special municipality (officially public body) of the Netherlands. It consists largely of the potentially active volcano Mount Scenery (877 m), the highest point within both the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Netherlands proper.
Saba, including the islet of Green Island, became a special municipality within the country of the Netherlands after the dissolution of the Netherlands Antilles on 10 October 2010.
The island has a land area of 13 km² (5 sq. miles). At the 2001 Netherlands Antilles census, the population was 1,824 inhabitants, which means a population density of 140 inhabitants per km². Its current major towns and settlements include The Bottom (the capital), Windwardside, Hell's Gate and St. Johns.
As the island is part of the Netherlands, Dutch is the official language. Despite the island's Dutch affiliation, English is the principal language spoken on the island and has been used in its school system since the 19th century. English can therefore be used in communications of and to the government although there is a local dialect. Since January 1, 2011, the U.S. dollar has been the official currency, replacing the Netherlands Antillian Guilder.
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Saint Barthélemy
Saint Barthélemy (French: Saint-Barthélemy, French pronunciation: [sɛ̃baʁtelemi]), officially the Territorial collectivity of Saint Barthélemy (French: Collectivité territoriale de Saint-Barthélemy), is an overseas collectivity of France. Often abbreviated to Saint-Barth in French, or St. Barts (also, St. Barth's) in English, the indigenous people called the island Ouanalao. The collectivity is one of four territories among the Leeward Islands in the northeastern Caribbean that comprise the French West Indies, along with Guadeloupe (200 km southeast), Martinique and Saint Martin. St. Barts lies c. 35 km southeast of Sint Maarten/Saint Martin, and north of St Kitts. Puerto Rico is 240 km to its west in the Lesser Antilles.
Saint Barthélemy, a volcanic island fully encircled by shallow reefs, has an area of 21 km² and a population of 8,823 (census 2008). Its capital is Gustavia, which also contains the main harbour to the island. It is the only Caribbean island which was a Swedish colony for any significant length of time; Guadeloupe was under Swedish rule only briefly, at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Symbolism from the Swedish national arms, the Three Crowns, still appears in the island's coat of arms. The language, cuisine and culture, however, are distinctly French. The island is a popular tourist destination during the winter holiday season, especially the rich and famous during the Christmas and New Year period.
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Saint Denis Basilica
The Cathedral Basilica of Saint Denis (French: Cathédrale royale de Saint-Denis, or simply Basilique Saint-Denis, previously the Abbaye de Saint-Denis) is a large medieval abbey church in the commune of Saint-Denis, now a northern suburb of Paris. The abbey church was created a cathedral in 1966 and is the seat of the Bishop of Saint-Denis, Pascal Michel Ghislain Delannoy. The building is of unique importance historically and architecturally.
The site originated as a Gallo-Roman cemetery, in late Roman times - the archeological remains still lie beneath the cathedral; the people buried there seem to have had a faith that was a mix of Christian and pre-Christian beliefs and practices. Around 475 St. Genevieve purchased some of the land and built a church. In the 7th century, the earlier church was replaced by a much grander construction, on the orders of Dagobert I; it is claimed that Dagobert also moved the body of Saint Denis, a patron saint of France, to the building.
The church became a place of pilgrimage and the burial place of the French Kings, nearly every king from the 10th to the 18th centuries being buried there, as well as many from the previous centuries. (It was not used for the coronations of kings, this role being designated to the Cathedral of Reims; however, queens were commonly crowned there.) "Saint-Denis" soon became the abbey church of a growing monastic complex. In the 12th century the Abbot Suger rebuilt portions of the abbey church using innovative structural and decorative features that were drawn from a number of other sources. In doing so, he is said to have created the first truly Gothic building. The basilica's 13th century nave is also the prototype for the Rayonnant Gothic style, and provided an architectural model for cathedrals and abbeys of northern France, England and other countries.
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Saint Lucia
Saint Luciai/seɪnt ˈluːʃə/ (French: Sainte-Lucie) is a sovereign island country in the eastern Caribbean Sea on the boundary with the Atlantic Ocean. Part of the Lesser Antilles, it is located north/northeast of the island of Saint Vincent, northwest of Barbados and south of Martinique. It covers a land area of 617 km2 (238.23 sq mi) and has a population of 174,000 (2010). Its capital is Castries. Two Nobel laureates, Arthur Lewis, an economist, and Derek Walcott, a poet and playwright, have come from the island. It is the nation with the second most such honorees per capita after the Faroe Islands.
One of the Windward Islands, it was named after Saint Lucy of Syracuse by the French, the first European colonizers. They signed a treaty with the native Carib people in 1660. England took control of the island from 1663 to 1667; in ensuing years, it was at war with France 14 times and rule of the island changed frequently (it was seven times each ruled by the French and British). In 1814, the British took definitive control of the island. Because it switched so often between British and French control, Saint Lucia was also known as the "Helen of the West Indies".
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Sainte Chapelle
La Sainte-Chapelle (French pronunciation: [la sɛ̃t ʃapɛl], The Holy Chapel) is the only surviving building of the Capetian royal palace on the Île de la Cité in the heart of Paris, France. It was commissioned by King Louis IX of France to house his collection of Passion Relics, including the Crown of Thorns - one of the most important relics in medieval Christendom. Begun some time after 1239 and consecrated on the 26th of April 1248, the Sainte-Chapelle is considered among the highest achievements of the Rayonnant period of Gothic architecture. Although damaged during the French revolution and heavily restored in the 19th century, it retains one of the most extensive in-situ collections of 13th century stained glass anywhere in the world.
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Sainte-Chapelle
La Sainte-Chapelle (French pronunciation: [la sɛ̃t ʃapɛl], The Holy Chapel) is the only surviving building of the Capetian royal palace on the Île de la Cité in the heart of Paris, France. It was commissioned by King Louis IX of France to house his collection of Passion Relics, including the Crown of Thorns - one of the most important relics in medieval Christendom. Begun some time after 1239 and consecrated on the 26th of April 1248, the Sainte-Chapelle is considered among the highest achievements of the Rayonnant period of Gothic architecture. Although damaged during the French revolution and heavily restored in the 19th century, it retains one of the most extensive in-situ collections of 13th century stained glass anywhere in the world.
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Samoa
Samoa (i/səˈmoʊ.ə/; Samoan: Sāmoa, IPA: [ˌsaːˈmoa]), officially the Independent State of Samoa (Samoan: Malo Sa'oloto Tuto'atasi o Sāmoa), formerly known as Western Samoa, is a country encompassing the western part of the Samoan Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. It became independent from New Zealand in 1962. The two main islands of Samoa are Upolu and one of the biggest islands in Polynesia, Savai'i. The capital city, Apia, and Faleolo International Airport are situated on the island of Upolu.
Samoa was admitted to the United Nations on 15 December 1976. The entire island group, inclusive of American Samoa, was called Navigators Islands by European explorers before the 20th century because of the Samoans' seafaring skills.
The oldest date so far from pre-historic remains in Samoa has been calculated by New Zealand scientists to a likely true age of circa 3,000 years ago from a Lapita site at Mulifanua during the 1970s.
The origins of the Samoans is closely linked to modern research about Polynesia in various scientific disciplines such as genetics, linguistics and anthropology. Scientific research is ongoing although a number of different theories exist; including one proposing that the Samoans originated from Austronesian predecessors during the terminal eastward Lapita expansion period from Southeast Asia and Melanesia between 2,500 and 1,500 BCE. The Samoan origins are currently being reassessed due to new scientific evidence and carbon dating findings from 2003 and onwards.
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San Marino
San Marino, officially the Republic of San Marino (i/sæn məˈriːnoʊ/ san-mə-REE-noh; Italian: Repubblica di San Marino) and also known as the Most Serene Republic of San Marino (Italian: Serenissima Repubblica di San Marino), is a state situated on the Italian Peninsula on the eastern side of the Apennine Mountains. It is an enclave surrounded by Italy. Its size is just over 61 km2 (24 sq mi) with an estimated population of over 30,000. Its capital is the City of San Marino. San Marino has the smallest population of all the members of the Council of Europe.
San Marino is the oldest surviving sovereign state and constitutional republic in the world, as the continuation of the monastic community founded on 3 September 301, by stonecutter Marinus of Rab. Legend has it that Marinus left Rab, then the Roman colony of Arba, in 257 when the future emperor, Diocletian, issued a decree calling for the reconstruction of the city walls of Rimini, which had been destroyed by Liburnian pirates.
The constitution of San Marino, enacted in 1600, is the world's oldest constitution still in effect. The country's economy mainly relies on finance, industry, services and tourism. It is one of the wealthiest countries in the world in terms of GDP (per capita), with a figure comparable to some of the more developed Italian regions, such as Lombardy and Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. San Marino is considered to have a highly stable economy, with one of the lowest unemployment rates in Europe, no national debt and a budget surplus.
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Sarthe
Sarthe (French pronunciation: [saʁt]) is a French department, named after the Sarthe River.
The department was created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790, pursuant to the law of December 22, 1789, starting from a part of the province of Maine which was divided into two departments, Sarthe to the east and Mayenne to the west.
In Roman Times, this province contained the city of Mans, and many of its ruins are still left standing. The Thermal Bathhouse attracts many tourists, as does the Theater of Aubigné-Racan, both located on the outskirts of Anjou, Maine, and Touraine.
Marin Mersenne, perhaps the most important scientific figure in the early 1600s, was born in the vicinity of Sarthe.
The department of Sarthe is at the north end of the administrative region of Pays-de-la-Loire. This places it south of Basse-Normandie and on the south edge of the Armorican Massif. It is bordered by the departments of Orne, Eure-et-Loir, Loir-et-Cher, Indre-et-Loire, Maine-et-Loire and Mayenne.
Approximately 300,000 people, comprising more than half of the department's population, live in Le Mans, its conurbation or the essentially urban communes close by. The rest of the department retains its rural character, however, being dominated economically by agriculture.
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Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia (i/ˌsaʊdi əˈreɪbi.ə/ or i/ˌsɔːdiː əˈreɪbi.ə/; Arabic: السعودية as-Su‘ūdīyah[citation needed] or incorrectly as-Sa‘ūdīyah, officially known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Arabic: المملكة العربية السعودية al-Mamlakah al-‘Arabīyah as-Su‘ūdīyah Arabic pronunciation (help·info)), is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab world, after Algeria. It is bordered by Jordan, and Iraq on the north and northeast, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates on the east, Oman on the southeast, and Yemen on the south. The Red Sea lies to its west, and the Persian Gulf lies to the east. Saudi Arabia has an area of approximately 2,250,000 km2 (870,000 sq mi), and it has an estimated population of 27 million, of which 9 million are registered foreign expatriates and an estimated 2 million are illegal immigrants. Saudi nationals comprise an estimated 16 million people.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was founded by Abdul-Aziz bin Saud (known for most of his career as Ibn Saud) in 1932, although the conquests which eventually led to the creation of the Kingdom began in 1902 when he captured Riyadh, the ancestral home of his family, the House of Saud, referred to in Arabic as the Al Saud. The Saudi Arabian government, which has been an absolute monarchy since its inception, refers to its system of government as being Islamic, though this is contested by many due to its strong basis in Salafism, a minority school of thought in Islam. The kingdom is sometimes called "The Land of the Two Holy Mosques" in reference to Al-Masjid al-Haram (in Mecca), and Al-Masjid al-Nabawi (in Medina), the two holiest places in Islam.
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Savoie
Savoie (pronounced: [sa.vwa]; Arpitan: Savouè d’Avâl, Italian: Savoia, pronounced [saˈvɔja], English: Savoy, /səˈvɔɪ/) is a French department located in the Rhône-Alpes region in the French Alps.
Together with the Haute-Savoie, Savoie is one of the two departments of the historic region of Savoy that was annexed by France on June 14, 1860, following the signature of the Treaty of Turin on March 24, 1860. For history before 1860, details of the annexation, and modern regionalism, see Savoy.
It is widely accepted that Savoie takes its name from the Latin Sapaudia or Sabaudia, meaning land covered in fir trees.
Savoie was long part of the states of Savoy, though it was occupied many times by France starting in the 16th century. It was integrated into the Mont-Blanc department from 1792 to 1815 (and partially into the Léman department from 1798 to 1814). The province was annexed by France in 1860. The former Duchy of Savoy became the two departments of Savoie and Haute-Savoie.
Moûtiers, capital of the former province of Tarentaise Valley (French: Vallée de la Tarentaise) ceased to be the county seat after a law passed on September 10, 1926.
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Savoy
Savoy (/ˈsævɔɪ/; Arpitan: Savouè, IPA: [saˈvwɛ]; French: Savoie, IPA: [savwa]; Italian: Savoia) is a region of France. It comprises roughly the territory of the Western Alps situated between Lake Geneva in the north and Dauphiné in the south.
The historical land of Savoy emerged as the feudal territory of the house of Savoy during the 11th to 14th centuries. The historical territory is shared between the modern republics of France and Italy.
Installed by Rudolph III, King of Burgundy, officially in 1003, the House of Savoy became the longest surviving royal house in Europe.[citation needed] It ruled the County of Savoy to 1416 and then the Duchy of Savoy from 1416 to 1714.
The territory of Savoy was annexed to France in 1792 under the French First Republic, before being returned to the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in 1815. Savoy was finally annexed to France, under the Second French Empire in 1860, as part of a political agreement brokered between the French emperor Napoleon III and King Victor Emmanuel II of the Kingdom of Sardinia that began the process of unification of Italy. Victor Emmanuel's dynasty, the House of Savoy, retained its Italian lands of Piedmont and Liguria and became the ruling dynasty of Italy.
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Saône-et-Loire
Saône-et-Loire (French pronunciation: [soː.n‿e.lwaʁ]; Arpitan: Sona-et-Lêre) is a French department, named after the Saône and the Loire rivers between which it lies.
When it was formed during the French Revolution, as of March 4, 1790 in fulfillment of the law of December 22, 1789, the new department combined parts of the provinces of southern Burgundy and Bresse, uniting lands that had no previous common history nor political unity and which have no true geographical unity. Thus its history is that of Burgundy, and is especially to be found in the local histories of Autun, Mâcon, Chalon-sur-Saône, Charolles and Louhans.
Saône-et-Loire is the seventh largest department of France and the most densely populated in the region of Bourgogne. In the east the department is composed of the hills of the Autunois, the region around Autun, of the Charollais and of the Mâconnais. In the centre it is traversed from north to south by the Saône in its wide plain; the Saône is a tributary of the River Rhône that joins it at Lyon and thus is connected to the Mediterranean Sea. The Loire makes its way in the opposite direction, draining into the Atlantic Ocean. The Canal du Centre links the Saône to the Loire between Chalon-sur-Saône and Digoin, thereby linking the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic ocean. In the east the department occupies the northern part of the plain of Bresse. In the west its industrial heart is in Le Creusot and Montceau-les-Mines.
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Sciences Po Paris
The Institut d'études politiques de Paris (English: Paris Institute of Political Studies), simply referred to as Sciences Po (French pronunciation: [sijɑ̃s po]), is a public research and higher education institution in Paris, France, specialised in the social sciences. It has the status of grand établissement, which allows its admissions process to be highly selective. Established in 1872, Sciences Po has traditionally educated France's political and diplomatic elite.
Its name refers to the political sciences, in the plural. Accordingly, its academic scope includes political science, as well as economics, history, sociology, law, finance, business, communication, social and urban policy, management and journalism. It offers several dual master’s degrees, in partnership with such institutions as the London School of Economics, King's College London, the Free University of Berlin, Bocconi University in Milan, ESADE in Barcelona, the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore and the University of Pennsylvania Law School. At the undergraduate level, it also offers a dual degree programmes with the School of General Studies at Columbia University and the University College London.
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Second French Empire
The Second French Empire (French: Le Second Empire Français) was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France.
Although the machinery of government was almost the same under the Second Empire as it had been under the First, its founding principles were different. The function of the Empire, as Emperor Napoleon III often repeated, was to guide the people internally towards justice and externally towards perpetual peace. Holding his power by universal male suffrage, and having frequently, from his prison or in exile, reproached previous oligarchical governments with neglecting social questions, he set out to solve them by organising a system of government based on the principles of the "Napoleonic Idea", i.e. of the emperor, the elect of the people as the representative of the democracy, and as such supreme; and of himself, the representative of the great Napoleon I of France, "who had sprung armed from the French Revolution like Minerva from the head of Jove", as the guardian of the social gains of the revolutionary period.
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Seine-et-Marne
Seine-et-Marne (French pronunciation: [sɛn e maʁn]) is a French department, named after the Seine and Marne rivers, and located in the Île-de-France region.
Seine-et-Marne is one of the original 83 departments, created on March 4, 1790 during the French Revolution in application of the law of December 22, 1789. It had previously belonged to the former province of Île-de-France.
Seine-et-Marne forms a part of the Île-de-France region; the department covers 49% of the region's land area. It is bordered by Val-d'Oise, Seine-Saint-Denis, Val-de-Marne, Essonne to the West; Loiret and Yonne to the South; Aube and Marne to the East; and Aisne and Oise to the North.
The department has many natural reserves, notably Brie and Gâtinais.
Principal Towns include: Chelles, Torcy, Pontault-Combault, Lagny-sur-Marne, Coulommiers, Champs-sur-Marne, Nemours, Meaux, Melun, Montereau-Fault-Yonne, Brie-Comte-Robert, Provins, Fontainebleau as well as the new towns of Marne-la-Vallée and Sénart.
The highest point of the département is Saint-George’s Hill (215 m).
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Seine-Maritime
Seine-Maritime (French pronunciation: [sɛn.ma.ʁi.tim]) is a French department in the Haute-Normandie region in northern France. It is situated on the northern coast of France, at the mouth of the Seine, and includes the cities of Rouen and Le Havre. Until 1955 it was named Seine-Inférieure.
The department can be split into three main areas:
The département was created in 1790 as Seine-Inférieure, one of five departements that replaced the former province of Normandy. In 1800 five arrondissements were created within the département, namely Rouen, Le Havre, Dieppe, Neufchatel and Yvetot, although the latter two were disbanded in 1926. On 18 January 1955 the name of the département was changed to Seine-Maritime, in order to provide a more positive-sounding name and in-keeping with changes made in a number of other French departements.
In 1843 the railway from Paris reached the region. The département is connected to the adjacent Eure department via the Tancarville and Pont de Normandie bridge crossings of the Seine.
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Seine-Saint-Denis
Seine-Saint-Denis (French pronunciation: [sɛn.sɛ̃.də.ni]) is a French department located in the Île-de-France region. In local slang, it is known as "quatre-vingt treize" (i.e. "ninety-three") or "neuf trois" (i.e. "nine three"), after the official administrative number of the department, 93. The inhabitants are called Séquano-Dionysiens.
Seine-Saint-Denis is located to the northeast of Paris. It has a surface area of only 236 km², making it one of the smallest departments in France. Seine-Saint-Denis and two other small departments, Hauts-de-Seine and Val-de-Marne, form a ring around Paris, known as the Petite Couronne ("little crown"). They form, together with Paris and four other departments, the region of Île-de-France.
Seine-Saint-Denis is made up of 3 departmental arrondissements and 40 communes:
Seine-Saint-Denis was created in January 1968, through the implementation of a law passed in July 1964. It was formed from the part of the (hitherto larger) Seine department to the north and north-east of the Paris ring road (and the line of the old city walls), together with a small slice taken from Seine-et-Oise.
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Senegal
Senegali/ˌsɛnɨˈɡɔːl/ (French: le Sénégal), officially the Republic of Senegal (République du Sénégal, IPA: [ʁepyblik dy seneɡal]), is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north. Senegal is externally bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Mauritania to the north, Mali to the east, and Guinea and Guinea-Bissau to the south; internally it almost completely surrounds The Gambia, namely on the north, east and south, exempting Gambia's short Atlantic Ocean coastline. Senegal covers a land area of almost 197,000 square kilometres (76,000 sq mi), and has an estimated population of about 13 million. The climate is tropical with two seasons: the dry season and the rainy season.
Dakar, the capital city of Senegal, is located at the westernmost tip of the country on the Cap-Vert peninsula. About 500 kilometres (300 mi) off the coast, in the Atlantic Ocean, lie the Cape Verde Islands. During the 17th and 18th centuries, numerous trading posts, belonging to various colonial empires, were established along the coast. The town of St. Louis became the capital of French West Africa (Afrique occidentale française, or AOF) before it was moved to Dakar in 1902. Dakar later became its capital in 1960 at the time of independence from France.
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Septimania
Septimania (French: Septimanie, IPA: [sɛptimani]; Occitan: Septimània, IPA: [septiˈmanjɔ]; Catalan: Septimània, IPA: [səptiˈmaniə]) was the western region of the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis that passed under the control of the Visigoths in 462, when Septimania was ceded to their king, Theodoric II. Under the Visigoths it was known as simply Gallia or Narbonensis. It corresponded roughly with the modern French region of Languedoc-Roussillon. It passed briefly to the Emirate of Córdoba in the eighth century before its conquest by the Franks, who by the end of the ninth century termed it Gothia or the Gothic March (Marca Gothica).
Septimania was a march of the Carolingian Empire and then West Francia down to the thirteenth century, though it was culturally and politically separate from northern France and the central royal government. The region was under the influence of the Toulousain, Provence, and Catalonia. It was part of the cultural and linguistic region named Occitania that was finally brought within the control of the French kings in the early 13th century as a result of the Albigensian Crusade after which it came under French governors. From the end of the thirteenth century it was known as Languedoc and its history is tied up with that of France.
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Serbia
Serbiai/ˈsɜrbiə/, officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: Република Србија / Republika Srbija, pronounced [rɛpǔblika sř̩bija]), is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans. Serbia borders Hungary to the north; Romania and Bulgaria to the east; the Republic of Macedonia to the south; and Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro to the west; additionally, it borders Albania through Kosovo, whose status as part of Serbia is disputed. Serbia covers an area of 88,361 km2 and has a population of just over 7.1 million, while the capital and largest city is Belgrade.
The arrival of the Serbs to the Balkans in the 7th century, established several states, eventually forming the Serbian Empire in the 14th century. By the 16th century, Serbia was conquered and occupied by the Ottoman Empire, at times interrupted by the Habsburgs. In the early 19th century the Serbian revolution re-established the country as the region's first constitutional monarchy, which subsequently expanded its territory and pioneered the abolition of feudalism in the Balkans. The former Habsburg crownland of Vojvodina united with Serbia in 1918. Following World War I, Serbia formed Yugoslavia with other South Slavic peoples which existed in several forms up until 2006, when the National Assembly of Serbia declared independence and the legal succession to the former State Union. In February 2008 the parliament of UNMIK-governed Kosovo, Serbia's southern province, declared independence, with mixed responses from international governments.
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Seychelles
Seychelles (i/seɪˈʃɛlz/ say-SHELZ; French: [sɛʃɛl]), officially the Republic of Seychelles (French: République des Seychelles; Creole: Repiblik Sesel), is an island country spanning an archipelago of 115 islands in the Indian Ocean, some 1,500 kilometres (932 mi) east of mainland Africa, northeast of the island of Madagascar.
Other nearby island countries and territories include Zanzibar to the west, Mauritius, Rodrigues, Agalega and Réunion to the south, Comoros and Mayotte to the southwest. Seychelles, with an estimated population of 86,525, has the smallest population of any African state. It also has the highest Human Development Index in Africa.
Scholars assume that Austronesian seafarers, and later Maldivian and Arab traders were the first to visit the uninhabited Seychelles. Remains of Maldivian mariner presence from the 12th century were found in Silhouette Island. The earliest recorded sighting by Europeans took place in 1502 by the Portuguese Admiral Vasco da Gama, who passed through the Amirantes and named them after himself (islands of the Admiral).
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Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone (i/siːˌɛrə liːˈoʊn/), officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Guinea to the northeast, Liberia to the southeast, and the Atlantic Ocean to the southwest. Sierra Leone is a constitutional representative democratic republic and covers a total area of 71,740 km2 (27,699 sq mi) Sierra Leone has a tropical climate, with a diverse environment ranging from savannah to rainforests. As of 2011, Sierra Leone has an estimated population of 6 million[1] (2011 United Nations estimte). Freetown is the capital, largest city as well as its economic, commercial, educational, cultural and political centre. Bo is the country's second largest city and the second major economic and commercial centre.
Sierra Leone is divided into four geographical regions: the Northern Province, Eastern Province, Southern Province and the Western Area; which are subdivided into fourteen districts. The districts have their own directly elected local government known as district council, headed by a council chairman. The country's six municipalities of Freetown, Bo, Kenema, Makeni, Koidu Town and the coastal town of Bonthe have their own directly elected city councils headed by mayors.
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Sint Eustatius
Sint Eustatius, also known affectionately to the locals as Statia/ˈsteɪʃə/ or Statius, is a Caribbean island and a special municipality (officially public body) of the Netherlands.
It lies in the northern Leeward Islands portion of the West Indies, southeast of the Virgin Islands and immediately to the northwest of Saint Kitts and Nevis and to the southeast of Saba, at 17°30′N 62°58′W / 17.5°N 62.967°W / 17.5; -62.967. The island is named after the legendary Christian martyr Saint Eustace. The regional capital is Oranjestad.
The island has an area of 21 km² (8.1 sq. miles). In the 2001 census, the population was recorded as 3,543 inhabitants, equating to a population density of 169 inhabitants per square kilometre. The official language is Dutch, however English is also recognised as an administrative language. A local English-based creole is also spoken informally. Travel to the island by air is through F.D. Roosevelt Airport.
Formerly part of the Netherlands Antilles, Sint Eustatius became a special municipality within the country of the Netherlands on 10 October 2010.
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Slovakia
The Slovak Republic (short form: Slovakiai/sloʊˈvɑːkiə/ or /sləˈvækiə/; Slovak: Slovensko (help·info), long form Slovenská republika (help·info)) is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about 49,000 square kilometres (19,000 sq mi). Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south. The largest city is the capital, Bratislava, and the second largest is Košice. Slovakia is a member state of the European Union, NATO, United Nations, OECD and WTO among others. The official language is Slovak, a member of the Slavic language family.
The Slavs arrived in the territory of present day Slovakia in the 5th and 6th centuries during the migration period. In the course of history, various parts of today's Slovakia belonged to Samo's Empire (the first known political unit of Slavs), Principality of Nitra (as independent polity, as part of Great Moravia and as part of Hungarian Kingdom), Great Moravia, Kingdom of Hungary, the Austro-Hungarian Empire or Habsburg Empire, and Czechoslovakia. A separate Slovak state briefly existed during World War II, during which Slovakia was a dependency of Nazi Germany between 1939 and 1944. From 1945 Slovakia once again became a part of Czechoslovakia. The present-day Slovakia became an independent state on 1 January 1993 after the peaceful dissolution of Czechoslovakia.
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Slovenia
Slovenia (i/sloʊˈviːniə/ sloh-VEE-nee-ə, Slovene: Slovenija), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Republika Slovenija, [reˈpublika sloˈveːnija]) is a Slavic nation state, situated in South-Central Europe, at the crossroad of main European cultural and trade routes. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Croatia to the south and southeast, and Hungary to the northeast. It covers 20,273 square kilometres (7,827 sq mi) and has a population of 2.05 million. It is a parliamentary republic, member of the European Union and NATO. Relative to its geography, history, economy, culture, and language, it is a very diverse country distinguished by a transitional character. It is characterised by a high economic and social level. Its capital and largest city is Ljubljana.
The territory of Slovenia is mainly hilly or mountainous and has an exceptionally high landscape and biological diversity and a mosaic structure, which are a result of natural attributes and the long-lasting presence of humans. Four major European geographic units interweave here: the Alps, the Dinaric Alps, the Mediterranean, with a small portion of coastline along the Adriatic Sea, and the Pannonian Plain. The climate is temperate and significantly influenced by the variety of territory, with a strong interaction of the continental climate, the sub-Mediterranean climate and Alpine climate across most of the country. The country is one of the water-richest in Europe, with a dense river network, a rich aquifer system, and significant karstic underground watercourses. Over half of the territory is covered by forest.
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Solomon Islands
Solomon Islandsi/ˈsɒləmən ˈaɪləndz/ is a sovereign state in Oceania, east of Papua New Guinea, consisting of nearly one thousand islands. It covers a land mass of 28,400 square kilometres (11,000 sq mi). The capital, Honiara, is located on the island of Guadalcanal. The nation of the Solomon Islands is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations.
The Solomon Islands are believed to have been inhabited by Melanesian people for many thousands of years. Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña was the first European to arrive in Solomon Islands in 1568 and named them Islas Salomón. The United Kingdom established a protectorate over the Solomon Islands in 1893. In the Second World War there was fierce fighting between the Americans and the Japanese in the Solomon Islands campaign of 1942–45, including the Battle of Guadalcanal.
Self-government was achieved in 1976 and independence two years later. The Solomon Islands is a constitutional monarchy with the Queen of the Solomon Islands, at present Elizabeth II, as the head of state. Gordon Lilo Darcy is the eleventh and current Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands.
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Somalia
Somalia ( /soʊˈmɑːliə/ soh-MAH-lee-ə; Somali: Soomaaliya; Arabic: الصومال aṣ-Ṣūmāl), officially the Somali Republic (Somali: Jamhuuriyadda Soomaaliya, Arabic: جمهورية الصومال Jumhūriyyat aṣ-Ṣūmāl) and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory. The internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government controls only a small part of the country. Somalia has been characterized as a failed state and is one of the poorest and most violent states in the world.
Somalia lies in the easternmost part of Africa. It is bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, the Gulf of Aden with Yemen to the north, the Indian Ocean to the east, and Ethiopia to the west. It has the longest coastline on the continent, and its terrain consists mainly of plateaus, plains and highlands. Hot conditions prevail year-round, along with periodic monsoon winds and irregular rainfall.
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Somaliland
Somaliland (Somali: Soomaaliland, Arabic: صوماللاند Ṣūmālilānd or أرض الصومال Arḍ aṣ-Ṣūmāl) is an unrecognised self-declared de facto sovereign state that is internationally recognised as an autonomous region of Somalia. The government of Somaliland regards itself as the successor state to the British Somaliland protectorate, which was independent on June 26, 1960 as the State of Somaliland, before uniting with the Trust Territory of Somalia (the former Italian Somaliland) on July 1, 1960 to form the Somali Republic.
Somaliland is bordered by Ethiopia in the south and west, Djibouti in the northwest, the Gulf of Aden in the north, and the autonomous Puntland region of Somalia to the east.
In 1988, the Siad Barre regime committed massacres against the people of Somaliland, which were among the events that led to the Somali Civil War. The war left the economic and military infrastructure severely damaged. After the collapse of the central government in 1991, the local government, led by the Somali National Movement (SNM), declared independence from the rest of Somalia on May 18 of the same year.
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Somme
Somme (French pronunciation: [sɔm]) is a department of France, located in the north of the country and named after the Somme river. It is part of the Picardy region of France.
The north central area of the Somme département was the site of a series of battles through the Great War. Particularly significant was the 1916 Battle of the Somme. As a result of this and other battles fought in the area the department is home to many military cemeteries and several major monuments commemorating the many soldiers from various countries who died on its battlefields.
At the beginning of the First World War, during the September 1914 Race to the Sea, the Somme became the site of the Battle of Albert. The battle was a five day engagement between the 25th and 29 September, with the French Tenth Army attacking at Albert and pushing toward Bapaume, and the German Sixth Army counter-attacking back towards Albert. The line settled around the town of Thiepval and remained there until July 1916, when the Battle of the Somme would be fought on and around the same ground.
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South Africa
Coordinates: 30°S 25°E / 30°S 25°E / -30; 25
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is a country located at the southern tip of Africa. It is divided into nine provinces and has 2,798 kilometres (1,739 mi) of coastline. To the north of the country lie the neighbouring territories of Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe; to the east are Mozambique and Swaziland; while Lesotho is an enclave surrounded by South African territory.
South Africa is multi-ethnic and has diverse cultures and languages. Eleven official languages are recognised in the constitution. Two of these languages are of European origin: South African English and Afrikaans, a language which originated mainly from Dutch that is spoken by the majority of white and Coloured South Africans. Though English is commonly used in public and commercial life, it is only the fifth most-spoken home language. All ethnic and language groups have political representation in the country's constitutional democracy comprising a parliamentary republic; unlike most parliamentary republics, the positions of head of state and head of government are merged in a parliament-dependent President.
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South Korea
South Korea ( listen), officially the Republic of Korea (Hangul: 대한민국; Hanja: 大韓民國; Daehan Minguk listen), is a sovereign state in the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. The name "Korea" is derived from Goryeo, a dynasty which ruled in the Middle Ages (an initial "G" in Korean is pronounced like an English "K").
Its neighbors are China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the Korea Strait to the south. South Korea lies in the north temperate zone with a predominantly mountainous terrain. It covers a total area of 99,392 square kilometers and has a population of almost 50 million. The capital and largest city is Seoul, with a population of 9,794,304.
Archaeological findings show that the Korean Peninsula was occupied by the Lower Paleolithic period.Korean history begins with the founding of Gojoseon in 2333 BC by the legendary Dan-gun. Following the unification of the Three Kingdoms of Korea under Silla 668 AD, Korea went through the Goryeo Dynasty and Joseon Dynasty as one nation until the end of the Korean Empire in 1910, when it was annexed by Japan. After liberation and occupation by Soviet and U.S. forces at the end of World War II, the nation was divided into North and South Korea. The latter was established in 1948 as a democracy, though political turmoil and times of military rule and martial law characterized much of the period until the foundation of the Sixth Republic in 1987.
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South Ossetia
South Ossetia ( /əˈsɛtiə/ə-SET-ee-ə or /ɒˈsiːʃə/o-SEE-shə; Ossetic: Хуссар Ирыстон, Xussar Iryston; Georgian: სამხრეთ ოსეთი, Samxret Oseti; Russian: Южная Осетия, Yuzhnaya Osetiya) or Tskhinvali Region (Georgian: ცხინვალის რეგიონი, Tsxinvalis regioni; Russian: Цхинвальский регион, Tskhinvalskiy region) is a disputed region and partly recognized state in the South Caucasus, located in the territory of the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast within the former Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.
South Ossetians declared independence from Georgia in 1990, calling themselves the Republic of South Ossetia. The Georgian government responded by abolishing South Ossetia's autonomy and trying to retake the region by force. This led to the 1991–1992 South Ossetia War. Georgian fighting against those controlling South Ossetia occurred on two other occasions, in 2004 and 2008. The last conflict led to the 2008 South Ossetia war, during which Ossetian and Russian forces gained full, de facto control of the territory of the former South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast.
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South Sudan
South Sudan (i/ˌsaʊθ suːˈdæn/ or /suːˈdɑːn/), officially the Republic of South Sudan, is a landlocked country in the east-central African region of northeastern Africa. It is also part of the North Africa UN subregion. Its current capital is Juba, which is also its largest city; the capital city is planned to be moved to the more centrally located Ramciel in the future. South Sudan is bordered by Ethiopia to the east, Kenya to the southeast, Uganda to the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the southwest, the Central African Republic to the west, and Sudan to the north. South Sudan includes the vast swamp region of the Sudd formed by the White Nile, locally called the Bahr al Jabal.
The modern states of South Sudan and Sudan were part of Egypt under the Muhammad Ali Dynasty, later being governed as an Anglo-Egyptian condominium until Sudanese independence was achieved in 1956. Following the First Sudanese Civil War, the Southern Sudan Autonomous Region was formed in 1972 and lasted until 1983. A second Sudanese civil war soon developed and ended with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2005. Later that year, southern autonomy was restored when an Autonomous Government of Southern Sudan was formed.
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Spain
Spain (i/ˈspeɪn/ SPAYN; Spanish: España, pronounced: [esˈpaɲa] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a sovereign state and a member of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar; to the north and north east by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the northwest and west by the Atlantic Ocean and Portugal.
Spanish territory also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the African coast, and two autonomous cities in North Africa, Ceuta and Melilla, that border Morocco. Furthermore, the town of Llívia is a Spanish exclave situated inside French territory. With an area of 504,030 square kilometres (194,610 sq mi), it is the second largest country in Western Europe and the European Union after France, and the fourth largest country in Europe after Russia, Ukraine and France.
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Stade de France
The Stade de France (French pronunciation: [stad də fʁɑ̃s]) is the national stadium of France, situated just north of Paris in the commune of Saint-Denis. It has an all-seater capacity of 81,338, making it the eighth largest stadium in Europe, and is used by both the France national football team and French rugby union team for international competition. On 12 July 1998, France defeated Brazil 3–0 in the FIFA World Cup Final contested at the stadium. The Stade de France is listed as a category four stadium by UEFA and has hosted matches for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, some matches for the 1999 Rugby World Cup, 2003 World Championships in Athletics, and the 2007 Rugby World Cup making it the only stadium in the world to have hosted both a Football World Cup final and a Rugby World Cup final. The facility also hosted the annual Motorsport event Race of Champions in 2004, 2005, and 2006 before the event moved to Wembley Stadium in London. The stadium hosted the 2003 World Championships in Athletics and since 1999 it has hosted the annual Meeting Areva athletics meet.
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Sudan
Sudan (i/suːˈdæn/ or /suːˈdɑːn/;Arabic: السودان, as-Sūdān), officially the Republic of the Sudan (Arabic: جمهورية السودان, Jumhūrīyat as-Sūdān), sometimes called North Sudan, is an Arab state in North Africa (sometimes also considered to be part of the Middle East). It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, and Libya to the northwest. The population of Sudan is a combination of indigenous inhabitants of Nile Valley, and descendants of migrants from the Arabian Peninsula. Due to the process of Arabisation common throughout the rest of the Arab World, today Arab culture predominates in Sudan. The majority of the population of Sudan adheres to Islam. The Nile divides the country between east and west sides.
The people of Sudan have a long history extending from antiquity which is intertwined with the history of Egypt. Sudan suffered seventeen years of civil war during the First Sudanese Civil War (1955–1972) followed by ethnic, religious and economic conflicts between the Muslim Arab northern Sudanese and the mostly animist and Christian Nilotes of Southern Sudan. This led to the Second Sudanese Civil War in 1983. Because of continuing political and military struggles, Sudan was seized in a bloodless coup d'état by colonel Omar al-Bashir in 1989, who thereafter proclaimed himself President of Sudan. The civil war ended with the signing of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement which granted autonomy to what was then the southern region of the country. Following a referendum held in January 2011, South Sudan seceded on 9 July 2011 with the consent of Sudan's President al-Bashir.
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Suriname
Suriname, officially the Republic of Suriname (Dutch: Republiek Suriname, Dutch pronunciation: [ˌrepyˈblik ˌsyriˈnaːmə]), is a country in northern South America. It borders French Guiana to the east, Guyana to the west, Brazil to the south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the north. Suriname was first colonized by the British, and captured by the Dutch in 1667, who governed it as the colony of Suriname until 1954. The country of Suriname achieved independence from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, in which Suriname, the Netherlands Antilles, and the Netherlands itself cooperated on a basis of equality since 1954, on 25 November 1975.
At just under 165,000 km2 (64,000 sq mi) Suriname is the smallest sovereign state in South America (French Guiana comprises less territory, but is French territory). It has an estimated population of approximately 560,000, most of whom live on the country's north coast, where the capital Paramaribo is located.
The name Suriname may derive from a Taino (Arawak-speaking) group called "Surinen" who first inhabited the region prior to European arrival.
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Swaziland
Swaziland, officially the Kingdom of Swaziland (Umbuso weSwatini), and sometimes called Ngwane or Swatini, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa, bordered to the north, south and west by South Africa, and to the east by Mozambique. The nation, as well as its people, are named after the 19th century king Mswati II.
Swaziland is a small country, no more than 200 kilometres (120 mi) north to south and 130 kilometres (81 mi) east to west. The western half is mountainous, descending to a lowveld region to the east. The eastern border with Mozambique and South Africa is dominated by the escarpment of the Lebombo Mountains. The climate is temperate in the west, but may reach 40 °C (104 °F) in summer in the lowveld. Rainfall occurs mainly in the summer and may reach 2 metres (6.6 ft) in the west.
The area that Swaziland now covers has been continuously inhabited since prehistory. Today, the population is primarily ethnic Swazis whose language is siSwati, though English is spoken as a second language. The Swazi people descend from the southern Bantu who migrated from Central Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Anglo-Boer War saw the United Kingdom make Swaziland a protectorate under its direct control. Swaziland gained independence in 1968. Swaziland is a member of the Southern African Development Community, the African Union, and the Commonwealth of Nations. The head of state is the king, who appoints the prime minister and a small number of representatives for both chambers of parliament. Elections are held every five years to determine the majority of the representatives. A new constitution was adopted in 2005.
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Sweden
Sweden (i/ˈswiːdən/ SWEE-dən; Swedish: Sverige [ˈsværjɛ] ( listen)), officially the Kingdom of Sweden (Swedish: Konungariket Sverige (help·info)), is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland, and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Øresund.
At 450,295 square kilometres (173,860 sq mi), Sweden is the third largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of about 9.4 million. Sweden has a low population density of 21 inhabitants per square kilometre (54 /sq mi) with the population mostly concentrated to the southern half of the country. About 85% of the population live in urban areas. Sweden's capital city is Stockholm, which is also the largest city.
Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages. In the 17th century, the country expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire. The empire grew to be one of the great powers of Europe in the 17th and early 18th century. Most of the conquered territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were lost during the 18th and 19th centuries. The eastern half of Sweden, present-day Finland, was lost to Russia in 1809. The last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Sweden by military means forced Norway into a personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, practicing "non-participation in military alliances during peacetime and neutrality during wartime". However, Sweden has been a member of the European Union since 1 January 1995 and is a member of the OECD.
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Swiss
Switzerland (German: die Schweiz[ˈʃvaɪts]; French: Suisse [sɥis(ə)]; Italian: Svizzera [ˈzvit͡sːɛra]; Romansh: Svizra [ˈʒviːtsrɐ] or [ˈʒviːtsʁːɐ]), in its full name the Swiss Confederation (Latin: Confoederatio Helvetica, hence its abbreviation CH), is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western Europe, where it is bordered by Germany to the north, France to the west, Italy to the south, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east.
Switzerland is a landlocked country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2 (15,940 sq mi). While the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, the Swiss population of approximately 8 million people is concentrated mostly on the Plateau, where the largest cities are to be found. Among them are the two global cities and economic centres of Zurich and Geneva.
The Swiss Confederation has a long history of armed neutrality—it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815—and did not join the United Nations until 2002. It pursues, however, an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. Switzerland is also the birthplace of the Red Cross and home to a large number of international organizations, including the second largest UN office. On the European level, it is a founding member of the European Free Trade Association and is part of the Schengen Area – although it is notably not a member of the European Union, nor the European Economic Area.
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Switzerland
Switzerland (German: die Schweiz[ˈʃvaɪts]; French: Suisse [sɥis(ə)]; Italian: Svizzera [ˈzvit͡sːɛra]; Romansh: Svizra [ˈʒviːtsrɐ] or [ˈʒviːtsʁːɐ]), in its full name the Swiss Confederation (Latin: Confoederatio Helvetica, hence its abbreviation CH), is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western Europe, where it is bordered by Germany to the north, France to the west, Italy to the south, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east.
Switzerland is a landlocked country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2 (15,940 sq mi). While the Alps occupy the greater part of the territory, the Swiss population of approximately 8 million people is concentrated mostly on the Plateau, where the largest cities are to be found. Among them are the two global cities and economic centres of Zurich and Geneva.
The Swiss Confederation has a long history of armed neutrality—it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815—and did not join the United Nations until 2002. It pursues, however, an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. Switzerland is also the birthplace of the Red Cross and home to a large number of international organizations, including the second largest UN office. On the European level, it is a founding member of the European Free Trade Association and is part of the Schengen Area – although it is notably not a member of the European Union, nor the European Economic Area.
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Syria
Syria (/ˈsɪriə/ ( listen) SIRR-ee-ə; Arabic: سورية Sūriyya or سوريا Sūryā; Syriac: ܣܘܪܝܐ; Kurdish: Sûrî), officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية العربية السورية al-Jumhūriyyah al-‘Arabīyah as-Sūriyyah Arabic pronunciation (help·info)), is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest.
In English, the name Syria was formerly synonymous with the Levant, known in Arabic as Sham, while the modern state encompasses the sites of several ancient kingdoms and empires, including the Eblan civilization of the third millennium BC. In the Islamic era, its capital city, Damascus, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, was the seat of the Umayyad Caliphate, and a provincial capital of the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt.
The population of Syria is 74% Sunni, 12% Alawi, 10% Christian, and 3% Druze. Combined, 87% of the Syrian population is Muslim, while the other 10% is Christian, which includes mainly Arab Christians but also Assyrians and Armenians. Major ethnic minorities in Syria include Kurds (9%), Assyrians, Armenians, Turkmens and Circassians. The majority of the population is Arab (90%).
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Tanzania
Coordinates: 6°18′25″S 34°51′14″E / 6.307°S 34.854°E / -6.307; 34.854 Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania ( /ˌtænzəˈniːə/ Swahili: Jamhuri ya Muungano wa Tanzania), is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern border lies on the Indian Ocean.
Tanzania is a state composed of 26 regions (mikoa), including those of the semi-autonomous region of Zanzibar. The head of state is President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, elected in 2005. Since 1996, the official capital of Tanzania has been Dodoma, where Parliament and some government offices are located. Between independence and 1996, the main coastal city of Dar es Salaam served as the country's political capital. Today, Dar es Salaam remains the principal commercial city of Tanzania and the de facto seat of most government institutions. It is the major seaport for the country and its landlocked neighbours.
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Tarn (department)
Tarn (French pronunciation: [taʁn]; Occitan: Tarn) is a department of 5,758 km2 in the Midi-Pyrénées region in the southwest of France, named after the Tarn River. It was formed in 1790 of the three dioceses of Albi, Castres and Lavaur, belonging to the province of Languedoc. In 1906, the population was 330,533. In 1999, it stood at 343,402.
Of particular note in the department are Albi (the capital), Castres, Gaillac, Lavaur, Mazamet and Cordes.
Other places of interest are:
Tarn is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790, through application of the Law of 22 December 1789. It was created from part of the former province of Languedoc, and comprised the dioceses of Albi and Castres (which found themselves merged in 1817).
By the law of 28 Pluviôse, Year 5, the departments of Hérault and of Tarn exchanged the canton of Anglès (which had been part of the diocese of Saint-Pons, but which has remained in Tarn) for that of Saint-Gervais-sur-Mare (which had been part of the diocese of Castres, but which today remains in Hérault ).
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Tarn-et-Garonne
Tarn-et-Garonne (French pronunciation: [taʁn‿e ɡa.ʁɔn]) is a French department in the southwest of France. It is traversed by the Rivers Tarn and Garonne, from which it takes its name.
The department was created on November 4, 1808 during the First French Empire by a decision of Napoleon I. It was formed out of territories belonging to neighboring areas. More than half of the territory was taken from the Lot (including Montauban and Moissac), over one-third was taken from Haute-Garonne (including Castelsarrasin), and the rest from the departments of Lot-et-Garonne, Gers, and Aveyron.
Tarn-et-Garonne constitutes part of the Midi-Pyrénées region. It borders the departments of Lot, Aveyron, Tarn, Haute-Garonne, Gers, and Lot-et-Garonne.
The highest point in the department, at 510 m, is the Pech Maurel, situated in the commune of Castanet.
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Thailand
Thailand ( /ˈtaɪlænd/ TY-land or /ˈtaɪlənd/;Thai: ประเทศไทย, RTGS: Prathet Thai), officially the Kingdom of Thailand (Thai: ราชอาณาจักรไทย, RTGS: Ratcha Anachak Thai; IPA: [râːt.tɕʰā ʔāːnāːtɕàk tʰāj] ( listen)), formerly known as Siam (Thai: สยาม; RTGS: Sayam), is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the west by the Andaman Sea and the southern extremity of Burma. Its maritime boundaries include Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand to the southeast, and Indonesia and India in the Andaman Sea to the southwest.
The country is a constitutional monarchy, headed by King Rama IX, the ninth king of the House of Chakri, who, having reigned since 1946, is the world's longest-serving head of state and the longest-reigning monarch in Thai history. The king of Thailand is titled Head of State, Head of the Armed Forces, the Upholder of the Buddhist religion, and the Defender of all Faiths.
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The Bahamas
The Bahamasi/bəˈhɑːməz/, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is a country consisting of more than 3,000 islands, cays, and islets. It is located in the Atlantic Ocean north of Cuba and Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti), northwest of the Turks and Caicos Islands, and southeast of the United States (nearest to the state of Florida). Its land area is 13,939 km2 (5,382 sq mi), with a population of 353,658. Its capital is Nassau. Geographically, the Bahamas lie in the same island chain as Cuba, Hispaniola and the Turks and Caicos Islands; the designation of Bahamas refers normally to the Commonwealth and not the geographic chain.
Originally inhabited by the Lucayans, a branch of the Arawakan-speaking Taino people, the Bahamas were the site of Columbus' first landfall in the New World in 1492. Although the Spanish never colonized the Bahamas, they shipped the native Lucayans to slavery in Hispaniola. The islands were mostly deserted from 1513 to 1648, when English colonists from Bermuda settled on the island of Eleuthera.
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The Gambia
The Republic of The Gambia, commonly referred to as The Gambia, or Gambiai/ˈɡæmbiə/, is a country in West Africa. Gambia is the smallest country on mainland Africa, surrounded by Senegal except for a short coastline on the Atlantic Ocean in the west.
The country is situated around the Gambia River, the nation's namesake, which flows through the country's centre and empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Its area is 11,295 km² with an estimated population of 1.7 million.
On 18 February 1965, Gambia gained independence from the United Kingdom and joined the Commonwealth of Nations. Banjul is Gambia's capital, but the largest cities are Serekunda and Brikama.
Gambia shares historical roots with many other West African nations in the slave trade, which was the key factor in the placing and keeping of a colony on the Gambia River, first by the Portuguese and later by the British. Since gaining independence in 1965, Gambia has enjoyed relative political stability, with the exception of a brief period of military rule in 1994.
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Théâtre du Capitole
The Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse is an opera house and ballet company located within the main administration buildings, the Capitole, of the city of Toulouse in south-west France.
The first performance space, a salle du jeu de spectacle, was created in the building in 1736 by Guillaume Cammas. Following a period of neglect, the current space was created during the rebuild of 1818. The theatre suffered fire damage in 1917, but was restored in 1923. The front of house areas were modernised in 1996. The current capacity is 1156 seats.
Michel Plasson was responsible for the artistic direction of the company from 1973. He was followed by Jacques Doucet in 1981, by Nicolas Joel in 1991, and by Frédéric Chambert in 2009, after Joel's move to the Opéra national de Paris. Chambert's first season was marked by the use of alternate spaces while the theatre was renovated, and the theatre was re-opened for the beginning of the 2010-11 season.
The opera company is a member of the Réunion des Opéras de France.
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Théâtre du Châtelet
The Théâtre du Châtelet (French pronunciation: [teɑtʁ dy ʃatlɛ]) is a theatre and opera house, located in the place du Châtelet in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France.
One of two theatres (the other being the Théâtre de la Ville) built on the site of a châtelet, a small castle or fortress, it was designed by Gabriel Davioud at the request of Baron Haussmann between 1860 and 1862. Originally built with 3,000 seats, it was named the Théâtre Impérial du Châtelet, but has undergone remodeling and name changes over the years. Currently it seats 2,500 people.
The theatre is one of two apparent twins constructed along the quays of the Seine, facing each other across the open Place du Châtelet and its ornate fountain. The other is the Théâtre de la Ville (previously the Sarah Bernhardt). Their external architecture is essentially Palladian entrances under arcades, although their interior layouts differ considerably. At the centre of the plaza is a sphinx-endowed fountain, erected in 1808, which commemorates Napoleon's victory in Egypt.
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Théâtre Mogador
Théâtre Mogador founded in 1913 and designed by Bertie Crewe, is a Parisian music hall theatre located at 25, rue de Mogador in the 9th district. It seats 1,800 people on three tiers.
In 1913 financier Sir Alfred Butt rented an area in Paris. Built according to English music hall principles and style during World War I, the theatre was originally named the "Palace Theatre", after the like-named one in London, in order to appeal to British soldiers. The name was shortly thereafter changed to "Théâtre Mogador", Mogador being the old name of the town of Essaouira in Morocco. The inauguration guests include President Wilson, in France to negotiate the Treaty of Versailles.
From 1920 it was a Cine-variety, and gained fame with the performances of Sergei Diaghilev's "Ballets Russes", and with the Thés Mogador – performances of operettas and plays in the afternoon. Until the seventies, the Théâtre Mogador was mainly used for performances of operettas, including Mistinguett. Marcel Merkès was a regular performer here from the late 1940s to the mid 1970s.
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Togo
Togo, officially the Togolese Republici/ˈtoʊɡoʊ/, is a country in West Africa bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east, and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, on which the capital Lomé is located. Togo covers an area of approximately 57,000 square kilometres (22,000 sq mi) with a population of approximately 6.7 million.
Togo is a tropical, sub-Saharan nation, highly dependent on agriculture, with a climate that provides good growing seasons. The official language is French, with many other languages spoken in Togo, particularly those of the Gbe family. The largest religious group in Togo are those with indigenous beliefs, and there are significant Christian and Muslim minorities. Togo is a member of the United Nations, African Union, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, South Atlantic Peace and Cooperation Zone, La Francophonie and Economic Community of West African States.
From the 11th to the 16th century, various tribes entered the region from all directions. From the 16th century to the 18th century, the coastal region was a major trading centre for Europeans in search of slaves, earning Togo and the surrounding region the name "The Slave Coast". In 1884, Germany declared Togoland a protectorate. After World War I, rule over Togo was transferred to France. Togo gained its independence from France in 1960.
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Tokelau
Tokelau ( /ˈtoʊkəlaʊ/) is a territory of New Zealand in the South Pacific Ocean that consists of three tropical coral atolls with a combined land area of 10 km2 and a population of approximately 1,400. The atolls lie north of the Samoan Islands, east of Tuvalu, south of the Phoenix Islands, southwest of the more distant Line Islands (both island groups belonging to Kiribati) and northwest of the Cook Islands.
The United Nations General Assembly designated Tokelau a Non-Self-Governing Territory. Until 1976 the official name was Tokelau Islands. Tokelau is sometimes referred to by the older, colonial name of The Union Islands.
The name Tokelau is a Polynesian word meaning "North Wind". The islands were named the Union Islands and Union Group by European explorers at an unknown time. Tokelau Islands was adopted as the name in 1946, and was contracted to Tokelau on 9 December 1976.
The change from Tokelau Islands to Tokelau marked a slight shift in emphasis, with consequences in regional diplomacy, in that the term Tokelau Islands clearly and substantially referred to a geographical expression, that is, a range of islands, whatever else it may connote. It is not necessarily controversial to refer by name to a range of islands, even though they may come under two or more political jurisdictions. Tokelau, on the other hand, can be taken to refer more immediately to some concept of nationhood, arguably infusing increased meaning to the draft 2006 independence constitution of Tokelau (which somewhat controversially claims Tokelauan inhabited Olohega (or Swains Island), currently part of American Samoa, as part of its national territory).[citation needed]
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Tonga
Tonga, officially the Kingdom of Tonga (Tongan: Puleʻanga Fakatuʻi ʻo Tonga), is a sovereign state and an archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean, comprising 176 islands scattered over 700,000 square kilometres (270,000 sq mi) of ocean in the South Pacific. Fifty-two of the islands are inhabited.
The Kingdom stretches over a distance of about 800 kilometres (500 mi) in a north-south line located at about a third of the distance from New Zealand to Hawaii.
Tonga also became known as the Friendly Islands because of the friendly reception accorded to Captain James Cook on his first visit there in 1773. He happened to arrive at the time of the ʻinasi festival, the yearly donation of the first fruits to the Tuʻi Tonga, the islands' paramount chief, and received an invitation to the festivities. According to the writer William Mariner, in reality the chiefs had wanted to kill Cook during the gathering, but could not agree on a plan.
Tonga is also the only island nation in the region to have avoided formal colonisation. In 2010, Tonga took a decisive step towards becoming a fully functioning constitutional monarchy after legislative reforms paved the way for its first ever fully representative elections which resulted in the election of Noble Sialeʻataongo Tuʻivakanō as its first democratically elected Prime Minister.
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Transnistria
Transnistria (also called "Trans-Dniestr" or "Transdniestria") is a breakaway territory located mostly on a strip of land between the Dniester River and the eastern Moldovan border to Ukraine. Since its declaration of independence in 1990, and especially after the War of Transnistria in 1992, it is governed as the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (PMR, also known as "Pridnestrovie"), a state with limited recognition which claims the territory to the east of the river Dniester, the city of Bender and its surrounding localities located on the west bank. The Republic of Moldova does not recognize the secession and considers the territories controlled by the PMR to be part of Moldova's autonomous region of Stînga Nistrului ("Left Bank of the Dniester").
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Trinidad and Tobago
Trinidad and Tobago (i/ˌtrɪnɨdæd/ & /tɵˈbeɪɡoʊ/) officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is an archipelagic state in the southern Caribbean, lying just off the coast of northeastern Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles. It shares maritime boundaries with other nations including Barbados to the northeast, Guyana to the southeast, and Venezuela to the south and west.
The country covers an area 5,128 square kilometres (1,980 sq mi) and consists of two main islands, Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous smaller landforms. Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the main islands, comprising about 94% of the total area and 96% of the total population of the country. The nation lies outside the hurricane belt.
The island of Trinidad was a Spanish colony from the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1498 to the capitulation of the Spanish Governor, Don José Maria Chacón, on the arrival of a British fleet of 18 warships on 18 February 1797. During the same period, the island of Tobago changed hands between Spanish, British, French, Dutch and Courlander colonizers. Trinidad and Tobago was ceded to Britain in 1802 under the Treaty of Amiens. The country obtained independence in 1962, becoming a republic in 1976. Unlike most of the English-speaking Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago's economy is primarily industrial, with an emphasis on petroleum and petrochemicals.
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Tunisia
Tunisia (USi/tuːˈniːʒə/ two-NEE-zhə or UK /tjuːˈnɪziə/ tew-NIZ-iə; Arabic: تونس Tūnis pronounced [ˈtuːnɪs]), officially the Republic of Tunisia (Arabic: الجمهورية التونسية al-Jumhūriyyah at-Tūnisiyyah), is the northernmost country in Africa. It is an Arab Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area is almost 165,000 square kilometres (64,000 sq mi), with an estimated population of just under 10.7 million. Its name is derived from the capital Tunis located in the northeast.
Tunisia is the smallest country in North Africa. The south of the country is composed of the Sahara desert, with much of the remainder consisting of particularly fertile soil and 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) of coastline.
Tunisia has relations with both the European Union—with whom it has an association agreement—and the Arab world. Tunisia is also a member of the Arab Maghreb Union, the Arab League, and the African Union. Tunisia has established close relations with France in particular, through economic cooperation, industrial modernization, and privatisation programs.
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Turkey
Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye), known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( Türkiye Cumhuriyeti (help·info)), is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia (mostly in the Anatolian peninsula) and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe. Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan (the exclave of Nakhchivan) and Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. The Mediterranean Sea and Cyprus are to the south; the Aegean Sea is to the west; and the Black Sea is to the north. The Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles (which together form the Turkish Straits) demarcate the boundary between East Thrace and Anatolia; they also separate Europe and Asia.
Turkey is one of the six independent Turkic states. The vast majority of the population are Muslims. The country's official language is Turkish, whereas Kurdish and Zazaki languages are spoken by Kurds and Zazas, who constitute 18% of the population.
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Tuvalu
Tuvalu (i/tuːˈvɑːluː/ too-VAH-loo or /ˈtuːvəluː/ TOO-və-loo), formerly known as the Ellice Islands, is a Polynesian island nation located in the Pacific Ocean, midway between Hawaii and Australia. It comprises four reef islands and five true atolls spread out from 6° to 10° south. Its nearest neighbours are Kiribati, Nauru, Samoa and Fiji. Its population of 10,544 makes it the third-least populous sovereign state in the world, with only Vatican City and Nauru having fewer inhabitants. In terms of physical land size, at just 26 square kilometres (10 sq mi) Tuvalu is the fourth smallest country in the world, larger only than the Vatican City at 0.44 km2 (0.17 sq mi), Monaco at 1.98 km2 (0.76 sq mi) and Nauru at 21 km2 (8.1 sq mi).
The first inhabitants of Tuvalu were Polynesian people. In 1568 Spanish navigator Álvaro de Mendaña sailed through the islands and is understood to have sighted Nui during his expedition in search of Terra Australis. In 1819 the island of Funafuti was named Ellice's Island; the name Ellice was applied to all nine islands after the work of English hydrographer Alexander George Findlay (1812–1876). The islands came under Britain's sphere of influence in the late 19th century, when the Ellice Islands were declared a British protectorate by Captain Gibson, R. N. of HMS Curaçao between 9th and 16 October 1892. The Ellice Islands were administered as British protectorate by a Resident Commissioner from 1892 to 1916 as part of the British Western Pacific Territories (BWPT), and later as part of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony from 1916 to 1974.
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Uganda
Coordinates: 1°17′N 32°23′E / 1.28°N 32.39°E / 1.28; 32.39
Uganda ( /juːˈɡændə/ yew-GAN-də or /juːˈɡɑːndə/ yew-GAHN-də), officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by Tanzania. The southern part of the country includes a substantial portion of Lake Victoria, which is also shared by Kenya and Tanzania.
Uganda takes its name from the Buganda kingdom, which encompasses a large portion of the south of the country including the capital Kampala.
The people of Uganda were hunter-gatherers until 1,700 to 2,300 years ago, when Bantu-speaking populations migrated to the southern parts of the country. Uganda gained independence from Britain on 9 October 1962.
The official languages are English and Swahili, although multiple other languages are spoken in the country.
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Ukraine
Ukraine (i/juːˈkreɪn/ yew-KRAYN; Ukrainian: Україна, transliterated: Ukrayina, [ukrɑˈjinɑ]; Russian: Украина; Crimean Tatar: Ukraina) is a country in Central and Eastern Europe. Ukraine borders the Russian Federation to the east and northeast, Belarus to the northwest, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to the west, Romania and Moldova to the southwest, and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south and southeast, respectively. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after the Russian Federation.
According to a popular and well established theory, the medieval state of Kievan Rus was established by the Varangians in the 9th century as the first historically recorded East Slavic state which emerged as a powerful nation in the Middle Ages until it disintegrated in the 12th century. By the middle of the 14th century, Ukrainian territories were under the rule of three external powers—the Golden Horde, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Kingdom of Poland. After the Great Northern War (1700–1721) Ukraine was divided between a number of regional powers and, by the 19th century, the largest part of Ukraine was integrated into the Russian Empire with the rest under Austro-Hungarian control. A chaotic period of incessant warfare ensued, with several internationally recognized attempts at independence from 1917 to 1921, following World War I and the Russian Civil War. Ukraine emerged from its own civil war, and on December 30, 1922 Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic became one of the founding republics of the Soviet Union. The Ukrainian SSR's territory was enlarged westward during the civil war shortly before, and after World War II, and further south in 1954 with the Crimea transfer. In 1945, the Ukrainian SSR became one of the founding members of the United Nations.
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United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK, or Britain) is a sovereign state located off the north-western coast of continental Europe. The country includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel and the Irish Sea.
The United Kingdom is a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system, with its seat of government in the capital city of London. It is a country in its own right and consists of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. There are three devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff, the capitals of Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Associated with the UK, but not constitutionally part of it, are three Crown Dependencies. The United Kingdom has fourteen overseas territories. These are remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in 1922, encompassed almost a quarter of the world's land surface and was the largest empire in history. British influence can still be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former territories.
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United States
The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km2) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity). Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.
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Uruguay
Uruguayi/ˈjʊərəɡwaɪ/, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; (Spanish: República Oriental del Uruguay pronounced: [re̞ˈpuβ̞lika o̞ɾje̞n̪ˈt̪al̪ d̪e̞l uɾuˈɰwai̯]) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to 3.3 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area. An estimated 88% of the population are of European ancestry.
Except for the recent union of Timoteo Domínguez Island and Argentina's Martín García Island, Uruguay's only land border is with Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, to the north. To the west lies the Uruguay River and the estuary of the Río de la Plata to the southwest. To the southeast lies the southern part of the Atlantic Ocean. With an area of approximately 176,000 square kilometres (68,000 sq mi), Uruguay is the second-smallest nation in South America by area, after Suriname.
Colonia del Sacramento, one of the oldest European settlements in the country, was founded by the Portuguese in 1680. Montevideo was founded by the Spanish in the early 18th century as a military stronghold. Uruguay won its independence in 1811–28 following a three-way struggle between the claims of Spain, Argentina and Brazil. It is a constitutional democracy, with a president who is both the head of state and the head of government.
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Val-d'Oise
Val-d'Oise (French pronunciation: [val dwaz]) is a French department, created in 1968 after the split of the Seine-et-Oise department and located in the Île-de-France region. In local slang, it is known as "quatre-vingt quinze" (i.e. "ninety-five") or "neuf cinq" (i.e. "nine five"). It gets its name from the Oise River, a major tributary of the Seine, which crosses the region after having started in Belgium and flowed through north-eastern France. Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, France's main international airport is partially located in Roissy-en-France, a commune of Val d'Oise.
Val-d'Oise was created when the former departments Seine and Seine-et-Oise were broken up into six departments in 1968.
In descending order, the largest communes (over 25,000 population as of the 1999 census) are: Argenteuil, Sarcelles, Cergy, Garges-lès-Gonesse, Franconville, Ermont, Pontoise, Goussainville, Bezons, Villiers-le-Bel, Taverny, and Sannois.
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Val-de-Marne
Val-de-Marne (French pronunciation: [val.də.maʁn]) is a French department, named after the Marne River, located in the Île-de-France region. The department is situated to the southeast of the city of Paris.
Val-de-Marne is, together with Seine-Saint-Denis and Hauts-de-Seine, one of three small departments in Île-de-France that form a ring around Paris, known as the Petite Couronne (i.e. "inner ring").
Val-de-Marne is made up of 3 departmental arrondissements and 47 communes:
Val-de-Marne was created in January 1968, through the implementation of a law passed in July 1964. Positioned to the south-east of the Paris ring road (and the line of the old city walls), it was formed from the southern-eastern part of the (previously much larger) Seine department, together with a small portion taken from the broken-up department of Seine-et-Oise.
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Vanuatu
Vanuatu (Englishi/ˌvɑːnuːˈɑːtuː/ vah-noo-AH-too or /vænˈwɑːtuː/ van-WAH-too; Bislama IPA: [vanuaˈtu]), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (French: République de Vanuatu, Bislama: Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island nation located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is some 1,750 kilometres (1,090 mi) east of northern Australia, 500 kilometres (310 mi) northeast of New Caledonia, west of Fiji, and southeast of the Solomon Islands, near New Guinea.
Vanuatu was first inhabited by Melanesian people. The first Europeans to visit the islands were the members of a Spanish expedition led by Portuguese navigator Fernandes de Queirós who arrived in Espiritu Santo in 1605. In the 1880s France and the United Kingdom claimed parts of the country, and in 1906 they agreed on a framework for jointly managing the archipelago as the New Hebrides through a British–French Condominium. An independence movement arose in the 1970s, and the Republic of Vanuatu was created in 1980.
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Var (department)
The Var (French pronunciation: [vaʁ]) is a French department in the region Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur in Provence, in southeast France. It takes its name from the river Var, which used to flow along its eastern boundary, but the boundary was moved in 1860. The Var is bordered on the east by the department of Alpes-Maritimes; to the west by Bouches-du-Rhône to the north of the Verdon River by the department of Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, and to the south by the Mediterranean Sea.
Toulon is the largest city and administrative capital of the Var. Other important towns in the Var include Fréjus, Saint-Raphael, Draguignan, Brignoles and Hyères.
The Var is known for the harbour of Toulon, the main port of the French Navy; for its seaside resorts, the most famous of which is Saint-Tropez; for some fine examples of Romanesque and medieval architecture, such as the Le Thoronet Abbey and Fréjus Cathedral; and for its wines, particularly the wines of Bandol.
The Department of the Var was created at the time of the French Revolution, on March 4, 1790, from a portion of the former Royal province of Provence. Its capital was originally Toulon, but this was moved to Grasse in 1793 to punish the Toulonnais for having handed the town to British in 1793. The capital was moved to Brignoles in 1795, then to Draguignan in 1797. It was not returned to Toulon until 1974.
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Vatican City
Vatican Cityi/ˈvætɨkən ˈsɪti/, or Vatican City State, in Italian officially Stato della Città del Vaticano (pronounced [ˈstaːto della t͡ʃitˈta del vatiˈkaːno]), is a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the city of Rome, Italy. It has an area of approximately 44 hectares (110 acres), and a population of just over 800. This makes Vatican City the smallest independent state in the world by both area and population.
Vatican City State was established in 1929 by the Lateran Treaty, signed by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri, on behalf of Pope Pius XI and by Prime Minister and Head of Government Benito Mussolini on behalf of King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy. Vatican City State is distinct from the Holy See, which dates back to early Christianity and is the main episcopal see of 1.2 billion Latin and Eastern Catholic adherents around the globe. Ordinances of Vatican City are published in Italian; official documents of the Holy See are issued mainly in Latin. The two entities have distinct passports: the Holy See, not being a country, issues only diplomatic and service passports, whereas Vatican City State issues normal passports. In each case very few passports are issued.
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Vaucluse
The Vaucluse (French pronunciation: [vokˈlyz]; Occitan: Vauclusa in classical norm or Vau-Cluso in Mistralian norm) is a department in the southeast of France, named after the famous spring, the Fontaine-de-Vaucluse.
Vaucluse was created on 12 August 1793 out of parts of the departments of Bouches-du-Rhône, Drôme, and Basses-Alpes (later renamed Alpes-de-Haute-Provence). The then rural department was, like the nearby city of Lyon, a hotbed of the French Resistance in World War II.
Vaucluse is bordered by the Rhône to the west and the River Durance to the south. Mountains occupy a significant proportion of the eastern half of the department, with Mont Ventoux (1,912 m), also known as "the Giant of Provence", dominating the landscape. Other important mountain ranges include the Dentelles de Montmirail, the Monts de Vaucluse, and the Luberon. Fruit and vegetables are cultivated in great quantities in the lower-lying parts of the department, on one of the most fertile plains in southern France. The Vaucluse département has a rather large exclave within the Drôme department, the canton of Valréas (Enclave des Papes).
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Vendée
The Vendée (French pronunciation: [vɑ̃.de]) is a department in the Pays-de-la-Loire region in west central France, on the Atlantic Ocean. The name Vendée is taken from the Vendée river which runs through the south-eastern part of the department.
The area today called the Vendée was originally known as the Bas-Poitou and is part of the former province of Poitou. In the south-east corner, the village of Nieul-sur-l'Autise is believed to be the birthplace of Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122–1204) and was part of her kingdom. Eleanor's son, Richard I of England (the Lionheart) often had his base in Talmont. The Hundred Years' War (1337–1453) turned much of the Vendée into a battleground.
Since the Vendée held a considerable number of influential Protestants, including control by Jeanne d'Albret, the region was greatly affected by the French Wars of Religion which broke out in 1562 and continued until 1598. Eventually King Henri IV issued the Edict of Nantes and the Wars came to an end. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 caused many Huguenots to flee from the Vendée.
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Venezuela
Venezuela (i/ˌvɛnɨˈzweɪlə/ VEN-ə-ZWAY-lə), officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (Spanish: República Bolivariana de Venezuela [repuˈβlika βoliβaˈɾjana ðe βeneˈswela]), is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south. Its northern coastline of roughly 2,800 kilometres (1,700 mi) includes numerous islands in the Caribbean Sea, and in the north east borders the northern Atlantic Ocean. Caribbean islands such as Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Curaçao, Bonaire, Aruba and the Leeward Antilles lie near the Venezuelan coast. Venezuela's territory covers around 916,445 square kilometres (353,841 sq mi) with an estimated population of 29,105,632. Venezuela is considered a state with extremely high biodiversity, with habitats ranging from the Andes mountains in the west to the Amazon Basin rainforest in the south, via extensive llanos plains and Caribbean coast in the center and the Orinoco River Delta in the east.
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Verdon Gorge
The Verdon Gorge (in French: Gorges du Verdon or Grand canyon du Verdon), in south-eastern France (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence), is a river canyon that is often considered to be one of Europe's most beautiful. It is about 25 kilometres long and up to 700 metres deep. It was formed by the Verdon River, which is named after its startling turquoise-green colour, one of the canyon's most distinguishing characteristics. The most impressive part lies between the towns of Castellane and Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, where the river has cut a ravine up to 700 metres down through the limestone mass. At the end of the canyon, the Verdon river flows into the artificial lake of Sainte-Croix-du-Verdon (in French: Lac de Sainte-Croix).
Because of its proximity to the French Riviera, the canyon is very popular with tourists, who can drive around its rim, rent kayaks or hike. The limestone walls, which are several hundreds of metres high, attract many rock climbers. It is considered an outstanding destination for multi-pitch climbing. There are routes encompassing cracks, pillars and seemingly endless walls. The climbing is generally of a technical nature, and there are over 1,500 routes, ranging from 20m to over 400m.
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Vienne
Vienne (French pronunciation: [vjɛn]) is the northernmost département of the Poitou-Charentes region of France, named after the river Vienne.
Vienne is one of the original 83 departments, established on March 4, 1790 during the French Revolution. It was created from parts of the former provinces of Poitou, Touraine, and Berry. The original Acadians who settled in Nova Scotia and what is today other maritime provinces of Canada, left Vienne for North America after 1604.
Goat cheese making is an important industry of Vienne.
The most famous tourist sites include the Futuroscope theme park, Poitiers (city of Art and History), the Abbey Church of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, a UNESCO world heritage site, the animal parks of Monkey's Valley in Romagne & the Crocodile Planet in Civaux.
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Vietnam
Vietnam ( listen), formally the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Cộng hòa xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam; listen), is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. With an estimated 91.5 million inhabitants as of 2012, it is the world's 13th-most-populous country, and the eighth-most-populous Asian country. The name Vietnam translates as "South Viet", and was officially adopted in 1945. The country is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea to the east.
The Vietnamese became independent from Imperial China in 938 AD, following the Battle of Bạch Đằng River. Successive Vietnamese royal dynasties flourished as the nation expanded geographically and politically into Southeast Asia, until the Indochina Peninsula was colonized by the French in the mid-19th century. The First Indochina War eventually led to the expulsion of the French in 1954, leaving Vietnam divided politically into two states, North and South Vietnam. Conflict between the two sides intensified, with heavy foreign intervention, during the Vietnam War, which ended with a North Vietnamese victory in 1975.
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Vosges
Vosges (French pronunciation: [voʒ]) is a French department, named after the local mountain range. It contains the hometown of Joan of Arc, Domrémy.
The Vosges department is one of the original 83 departments of France, created on February 9, 1790 during the French Revolution. It was made of territories that had been part of the province of Lorraine. In German it is referred to as Vogesen.
In 1793 the independent principality of Salm-Salm (town of Senones and its surroundings), enclosed inside the Vosges department, was annexed to France and incorporated into Vosges. In 1795 the area of Schirmeck was detached from the Bas-Rhin department and incorporated into the Vosges department. The Vosges department had now an area of 6,127 km² (2,366 sq. miles) which it kept until 1871.
In 1794 the Vosges was the site of a major battle between the forces of Revolutionary France and the Allied Coalition. See Battle of the Vosges.
The Place des Vosges in Paris was so renamed in 1799 when the department became the first to pay the new Revolutionary taxes.
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Wallis and Futuna
Wallis and Futuna, officially the Territory of the Wallis and Futuna Islands (French: Wallis et Futuna or Territoire des îles Wallis et Futuna, Fakauvea and Fakafutuna: Uvea mo Futuna), is a Polynesian French island territory in the South Pacific between Tuvalu to the northwest, Rotuma of Fiji to the west, the main part of Fiji to the southwest, Tonga to the southeast, Samoa to the east, the New Zealand-associated state of Tokelau to the northeast and to a more distant north the Phoenix Islands (Kiribati). (However, Wallis and Futuna is not part of, nor even contiguous with, French Polynesia. Wallis and Futuna is located at the very opposite western end of Polynesia.)
Its land area is 264 km2 with a population of about 15,000. Mata-Utu is the capital and biggest city. The territory is made up of three main volcanic tropical islands along with a number of tiny islets, and is split into two island groups that lie about 260 km apart, namely Wallis Islands (Uvea) in the northeast, and Hoorn Islands (also called the Futuna Islands) in the southwest, including Futuna Island proper and the mostly uninhabited Alofi Island.
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Way of St. James
The Way of St. James or St. James' Way (Spanish: El Camino de Santiago, Galician: O Camiño de Santiago, French: Chemins de Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle, German: Jakobsweg, Basque: Done Jakue bidea) is the pilgrimage route to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where tradition has it that the remains of the apostle Saint James are buried.
The Way of St. James has existed for over a thousand years. It was one of the most important Christian pilgrimages during medieval times, together with Rome and Jerusalem, and a pilgrimage route on which a plenary indulgence could be earned; other major pilgrimage routes include the Via Francigena to Rome and the pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
Legend holds that St. James's remains were carried by boat from Jerusalem to northern Spain where he was buried on the site of what is now the city of Santiago de Compostela.
The Way can take one of any number of pilgrimage routes to Santiago de Compostela. Traditionally, as with most pilgrimages, the Way of Saint James began at one's home and ended at the pilgrimage site. However a few of the routes are considered main ones. During the Middle Ages, the route was highly traveled. However, the Black Death, the Protestant Reformation and political unrest in 16th-century Europe led to its decline. By the 1980s, only a few pilgrims arrived in Santiago annually. Since then however the route has attracted a growing number of modern-day pilgrims from around the globe. The route was declared the first European Cultural Route by the Council of Europe in October 1987; it was also named one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites.
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West Indies
The Caribbean (pronounced /ˌkærɨˈbiːən/ or /kəˈrɪbiən/) is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles (3,200 km) long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north. From the peninsula of Florida on the mainland of the United States, the islands stretch 1,200 miles (1,900 km) southeastward, then 500 miles (800 km) south, then west along the north coast of Venezuela on the South American mainland.
Situated largely on the Caribbean Plate, the region comprises more than 7,000 islands, islets, reefs, and cays. These islands generally form island arcs that delineate the eastern and northern edges of the Caribbean Sea.
The Caribbean islands are part of the somewhat larger West Indies grouping, which consists of the Greater Antilles on the north, the Lesser Antilles on the south and east (including the Leeward Antilles), as well as the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands (the Lucayan Archipelago, which does not border the Caribbean Sea). Due to its proximity to the equator, the sun rises from 3am EST to 5am EST.[citation needed]
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Western Sahara
Coordinates: 25°N 13°W / 25°N 13°W / 25; -13
Western Sahara (USi/ˌwɛstərn səˈhærə/, UK /ˌwɛstən səˈhɑrə/; Arabic: الصحراء الغربية Aṣ-Ṣaḥrā’ al-Gharbīyah; Spanish: Sahara Occidental), is a disputed territory in North Africa, bordered by Morocco to the north, Algeria to the northeast, Mauritania to the east and south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. Its surface area amounts to 266,000 square kilometres (103,000 sq mi). It is one of the most sparsely populated territories in the world, mainly consisting of desert flatlands. The population is estimated at just over 500,000, many of whom live in El Aaiún (also called Laâyoune), the largest city in Western Sahara.
A colony of Spain since the late 19th century, the Western Sahara has been on the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories since 1963. In 1965, the UN General Assembly adopted its first resolution on Western Sahara, asking Spain to decolonise the territory. One year later, a new resolution was passed by the General Assembly requesting that a referendum be held by Spain on self-determination. In 1975, Spain relinquished the administrative control of the territory to a joint administration by Morocco, which had formally claimed the territory since 1957, and Mauritania. A war erupted between those countries and the Sahrawi national liberation movement Polisario Front, which proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) (exiled government in Tindouf, Algeria). Mauritania withdrew in 1979 and Morocco eventually secured effective control of most of the territory, including all the major cities and natural resources.
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Yemen
The Republic of Yemen (Arabic: الجمهورية اليمنية al-Jumhūrīyah al-Yamanīyah), commonly known as Yemeni/ˈjɛmən/ (Arabic: اليَمَن al-Yaman), is a country located in Western Asia, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east. Yemen is considered one of the poorest countries in the Arab world. Its capital and largest city is Sana'a. Yemen's territory includes over 200 islands, the largest of which is Socotra, about 415 km (258 mi) to the south of mainland Yemen, off the coast of Somalia. It is the only state in the Arabian Peninsula to have a purely republican form of government. Approximately 53% of Yemenis are Sunnis, while 45% are Zaydi Shias.
One etymology derives Yemen from yamin, meaning "on the right side", as the south is on the right when facing the sunrise. Another derives Yemen from yumn, meaning "felicity", as the region is fertile. The Romans called it Arabia Felix (Happy Arabia) as opposed to Arabia Deserta (Deserted Arabia), which was their term for northern Arabia.
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Yonne
Yonne (French pronunciation: [jɔn]) is a French department named after the Yonne River. It is one of the four constituent departments of Burgundy in eastern France and its prefecture (capital) is Auxerre. Its official number is 89.
It elects three members of parliament to the National Assembly - in the 2002-7 parliamentary term, all three are drawn from the right-wing Union for a Popular Movement (UMP). Its two senators also represent the UMP.
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Yvelines
Yvelines (French pronunciation: [ivlin]) is a French department in the region of Île-de-France.
Yvelines was created from the western part of the defunct department of Seine-et-Oise on 1 January 1968 in accordance with a law passed on 10 January 1964 and a décret d'application (a decree specifying how a law should be enforced) from 26 February 1965.
It gained the communes of Châteaufort and Toussus-le-Noble from the adjacent department of Essonne in 1969.
The departmental capital, Versailles, which grew up around Louis XIV's château, was also the French capital for more than a century under the Ancien Régime and again between 1871 and 1879 during the early years of the Third Republic. Since then the château has continued to welcome the parlement when called upon to sit in a congressional sitting, jointly with the upper house in order to enact constitutional changes or, as happened most recently in June 2009, to listen to a formal declaration by the president.
Yvelines is bordered by the departments of Val-d'Oise on the north, Hauts-de-Seine on the east, Essonne on the southeast, Eure-et-Loir on the southwest, and Eure on the west.
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Zambia
Zambia ( /ˈzæmbiə/), officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west. The capital city is Lusaka, located in the south-central part of the country. The population is concentrated mainly around Lusaka in the south and the Copperbelt Province to the northwest.
Originally inhabited by Khoisan peoples, the region which comprises modern Zambia was colonised during the Bantu expansion of the thirteenth century. After visits by European explorers in the eighteenth century, Zambia became the British colony of Northern Rhodesia towards the end of the nineteenth century. For most of the colonial period, the country was governed by an administration appointed from London with the advice of the British South Africa Company.
On 24 October 1964, the country declared independence from the United Kingdom and then-prime minister Kenneth Kaunda became the inaugural president. Kaunda's socialist United National Independence Party (UNIP) maintained power from the 1964 until 1991. From 1972 to 1991 Zambia was a single-party state with the UNIP as the sole-legal political party, with the goal of uniting the nation under the banner of 'One Zambia, One Nation'. Kaunda was succeeded by Frederick Chiluba of the social-democratic Movement for Multi-Party Democracy in 1991, during which the country saw a rise in social-economic growth and increased decentralisation of government.
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Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe (/zɪmˈbɑːbweɪ/ zim-BAHB-way; officially the Republic of Zimbabwe) is a landlocked country of southern Africa. It shares a 125-mile (200-kilometre) border on the south with the Republic of South Africa and is bounded on the southwest and west by Botswana, on the north by Zambia, and on the northeast and east by Mozambique. The capital is Harare (formerly called Salisbury). Zimbabwe achieved majority rule and internationally recognised independence in April 1980 following a long period of colonial rule and a 15-year period of white-dominated minority rule, instituted after the minority regime’s so-called Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in 1965.
Zimbabwe has three official languages: English, Shona and Ndebele. Zimbabwe began as the British self-governing colony of Southern Rhodesia, created from land held by the British South Africa Company. President Robert Mugabe is the head of State and Commander in Chief of the armed forces. Morgan Tsvangirai is the Prime Minister. Mugabe has been in power since the country's internationally recognised independence in 1980.
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Åland Islands
The Åland Islands (Swedish pronunciation: [ˈoːland], Finnish: Ahvenanmaa) form an archipelago in the Baltic Sea. They are situated at the entrance to the Gulf of Bothnia and form an autonomous, demilitarised, monolingually Swedish-speaking region of Finland. The islands collectively constitute the smallest region of Finland, with only 0.49% of its land area, and 0.50% of its population.
Åland comprises Fasta Åland (the "Main Island," with 90% of the population), together with an archipelago to the east that comprises over 6,500 skerries and islands. Fasta Åland is separated from the coast of Sweden by 38 kilometres (24 mi) of open water to the west. In the east, the Åland archipelago is contiguous with the Finnish Archipelago Sea. Åland's only land border is located on the uninhabited skerry of Märket, which it shares with Sweden.
Because of the autonomous status of the Åland Islands, the powers exercised at the provincial level by representatives of the central state administration in the rest of Finland are largely exercised by the Government of Åland in Åland.
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Élysée Montmartre
Open in 1807, the Élysée Montmartre (French: L'Élysée Montmartre) is a music venue, at 72 Boulevard de Rochechouart, in Paris, France. It has a capacity of 1,200 patrons. The nearest métro station is Anvers.
In 1900, the venue was damaged by fire, and was re-decorated. The concert hall suffered another fire on March 22, 2011, and is currently closed to the public.
It is one of the most famous music venues in the city. The venue can also host boxing matches.
David Bowie's performance, during The Hours... Tour, on October 14, 1999, was filmed and recorded, with three songs later appearing on the CD single of "Survive".
In 2007, The Counting Crows re-released their debut album, August and Everything After, as a two-disc deluxe edition. The second disc is a recording of a performance at the theatre on December 9, 1994.
The venue is mentioned in The Roots' song, "You Got Me", as a place where the subject saw the band and narrator perform, even though they both lived in the same building in Philadelphia.
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Air (French band)
Air is a music duo from Versailles, France, consisting of Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel. The name Air is derived from the backronym Amour, Imagination, Rêve which translates to Love, Imagination, Dream.
Air's debut EP, Premiers Symptômes, was followed by the critically acclaimed album Moon Safari, the re-release of Premiers Symptômes, The Virgin Suicides score, and subsequently albums 10 000 Hz Legend, Everybody Hertz, Talkie Walkie, Pocket Symphony, Love 2, and Le Voyage Dans La Lune.
Nicolas Godin studied architecture at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Versailles whereas Jean-Benoît Dunckel studied mathematics before forming a band in 1995. Before founding Air, Dunckel and Godin played together in the band Orange, with others such as Alex Gopher, Xavier Jamaux, Éric LaCourt, and Étienne de Crécy. These musicians have subsequently contributed to remixes of tracks recorded by Air.
Initially Nicholas Godin was alone. He recorded a demo with members of Funkadelic as his backing band before releasing his first entirely solo effort 'Modular Mix', which featured production by Étienne de Crécy.
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Alans
The Alans, or the Alani, occasionally termed Alauni or Halani, were a group of Sarmatian tribes, nomadic pastoralists of the 1st millennium AD who spoke an Eastern Iranian language which derived from Scytho-Sarmatian and which in turn evolved into modern Ossetian.
The various forms of Alan — Greek: Αλανοί, Αλαννοί; Chinese: 阿蘭聊 Alanliao (Pinyin) in the 2nd century, 阿蘭 Alan (Pinyin) in the 3rd century — and Iron (a self-designation of the Alans' modern Ossetian descendants, indicating early tribal self-designation) are Iranian dialectical forms of Aryan. These and other variants of Aryan (such as Iran), were common self-designations of the Indo-Iranians, the common ancestors of the Indo-Aryans and Iranian peoples to whom the Alans belonged.
The Alans were also known over the course of their history by another group of related names including the variations Asi, As, and Os (Bulgarian Uzi, Hungarian Jász, Russian Jasy, Georgian Osi). It is this name that is the root of the modern Ossetian.
<timeline> ImageSize = width:680 height:200 PlotArea = left:72 right:8 bottom:20 top:2 AlignBars = justify Define $wide = width:35
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Albert Camus
Albert Camus (French pronunciation: [albɛʁ kamy] ( listen); 7 November 1913 – 4 January 1960) was a French author, journalist, and philosopher. His views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as absurdism. He wrote in his essay "The Rebel" that his whole life was devoted to opposing the philosophy of nihilism while still delving deeply into individual freedom.
Although often cited as a proponent of existentialism, the philosophy with which Camus was associated during his own lifetime, he rejected this particular label. In an interview in 1945, Camus rejected any ideological associations: "No, I am not an existentialist. Sartre and I are always surprised to see our names linked..."
In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.
Camus was awarded the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature "for his important literary production, which with clear-sighted earnestness illuminates the problems of the human conscience in our times". He was the second-youngest recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, after Rudyard Kipling, and the first African-born writer to receive the award. He is the shortest-lived of any Nobel literature laureate to date, having died in an automobile accident just over two years after receiving the award.
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Alexandre Dumas
Alexandre Dumas, pronounced: [a.lɛk.sɑ̃dʁ dy.ma], born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie ([dy.ma da.vi də pa.jət.ʁi]) (24 July 1802 – 5 December 1870) was a French writer, best known for his historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world. Many of his novels, including The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, Twenty Years After, and The Vicomte de Bragelonne were originally serialized. He also wrote plays and magazine articles and was a prolific correspondent. Born in poverty, Dumas was the grandson of a French nobleman and a Haitian slave.
Alexandre Dumas was born in Villers-Cotterêts in the department of Aisne, in Picardy, France.
Dumas' paternal grandparents were Marquis Alexandre-Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a French nobleman and Général commissaire in the Artillery in the colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) and Marie-Cesette Dumas, an Afro-Caribbean Creole of mixed French and African ancestry. Their son, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, married Marie-Louise Élisabeth Labouret, the daughter of an innkeeper. Thomas-Alexandre, then a general in Napoleon's army, fell out of favor and the family was impoverished when Dumas was born.
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Alsace
Alsace (French: Alsace [alzas]; Alsatian: Elsàss [ˈɛlsɑs]; German: Elsass, pre-1996: Elsaß, IPA: [ˈɛlzas]; Latin: Alsatia) is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area (8,280 km²), and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km² (total population in 2006: 1,815,488; 1 January 2008 estimate: 1,836,000). Alsace is located on France's eastern border and on the west bank of the upper Rhine adjacent to Germany and Switzerland. The political, economic and cultural capital as well as largest city of Alsace is Strasbourg. Because that city is the seat of dozens of international organizations and bodies, Alsace is politically one of the most important regions in the European Union.
The name "Alsace" can be traced back to the Old High German Ali-saz or Elisaz, meaning "foreign domain". An alternative explanation derives it from a Germanic Ell-sass, meaning "seated on the Ill", a river in Alsace. The region was historically part of the Holy Roman Empire. It was gradually annexed by France in the 17th century under kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV and made one of the provinces of France. Alsace is frequently mentioned in conjunction with Lorraine, because German possession of parts of these two régions (as the imperial province Alsace-Lorraine, 1871–1918) was contested in the 19th and 20th centuries, during which Alsace changed hands four times between France and Germany in 75 years.
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Amedeo Modigliani
Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (Italian pronunciation: [ameˈdɛo modiʎˈʎani]; July 12, 1884 – January 24, 1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. Primarily a figurative artist, he became known for paintings and sculptures in a modern style characterized by mask-like faces and elongation of form. He died in Paris of tubercular meningitis, exacerbated by poverty, overwork and addiction to alcohol and narcotics.
Modigliani was born into a Jewish family in Livorno, Italy. A port city, Livorno had long served as a refuge for those persecuted for their religion, and was home to a large Jewish community. His maternal great-great-grandfather, Solomon Garsin, had immigrated to Livorno in the 18th century as a refugee.
Modigliani's mother (Eugénie Garsin) who was born and grew up in Marseille, was descended from an intellectual, scholarly family of Sephardic Jews, generations of whom had resided along the Mediterranean coastline. Her ancestors were learned people, fluent in many languages, known authorities on sacred Jewish texts and founders of a school of Talmudic studies. Family legend traced the Garsin's lineage to the 17th-century Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza. The family business was believed to be a credit agency with branches in Livorno, Marseille, Tunis, and London. Their financial fortunes ebbed and flowed. At times they enjoyed affluence, at other times they were subject to dire financial crises and reduced circumstances.
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André Derain
André Derain (10 June 1880 – 8 September 1954) was a French artist, painter, sculptor and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse.
Derain was born in 1880 in Chatou, Yvelines, Île-de-France, just outside Paris. In 1898, while studying to be an engineer at the Académie Camillo, he attended painting classes under Eugène Carrière, and there met Matisse. In 1900, he met and shared a studio with Maurice de Vlaminck and began to paint his first landscapes. His studies were interrupted from 1901 to 1904 when he was conscripted into the French army. Following his release from service, Matisse persuaded Derain's parents to allow him to abandon his engineering career and devote himself solely to painting; subsequently Derain attended the Académie Julian.
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Anne of Austria
Anne of Austria (22 September 1601 – 20 January 1666) was Queen consort of France and Navarre, regent for her son, Louis XIV of France, and a Spanish Infanta by birth. During her regency (1643–1651) Cardinal Mazarin served as France's chief minister.
Born at Benavente Palace in Valladolid, Spain, and baptised Ana María Mauricia, she was the eldest daughter of Habsburg parents, Philip III of Spain and Margaret of Austria. She held the titles of Infanta of Spain and of Portugal and Archduchess of Austria. Despite having been a native of Spain, she was referred to as "...of Austria" due to the fact that the Habsburgs were originally from Austria.
Anne was raised mainly at the Royal Alcazar of Madrid. Unusually, Anne grew up close to her parents, and lived a rather calm and orderly life when compared to other royal children. Her parents were very religious, and she therefore was raised to be as well, often visiting monasteries during her childhood. In 1611, she lost her mother, who died in childbirth; despite her grief, Anne did her best to take care of her younger siblings, who referred to her with affection as mother.
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Antoine Lavoisier
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier (also Antoine Lavoisier after the French Revolution); 26 August 1743 – 8 May 1794; French pronunciation: [ɑ̃twan lɔʁɑ̃ də lavwazje]), the "father of modern chemistry", was one of the French nobleman prominent in the histories of chemistry and biology. He named both oxygen (1778) and hydrogen (1783) and helped construct the metric system, put together the first extensive list of elements, and helped to reform chemical nomenclature. He was also the first to establish that sulfur was an element (1777) rather than a compound. He discovered that, although matter may change its form or shape, its mass always remains the same.
He was an administrator of the "Ferme Générale" and a powerful member of a number of other aristocratic councils. All of these political and economic activities enabled him to fund his scientific research. At the height of the French Revolution he was accused by Jean-Paul Marat of selling watered-down tobacco, and of other crimes and was eventually guillotined a year after Marat's death. Benjamin Franklin was familiar with Antoine as they were both members of the "Benjamin Franklin inquiries" into Mesmer and animal magnetism.
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Antoine Watteau
Jean-Antoine Watteau (French pronunciation: [ʒan‿ɑ̃twan wato]; October 10, 1684 – July 18, 1721) was a French painter whose brief career spurred the revival of interest in colour and movement (in the tradition of Correggio and Rubens). He revitalized the waning Baroque style, and indeed moved it to the less severe, more naturalistic, less formally classical Rococo.
Watteau is credited with inventing the genre of fêtes galantes: scenes of bucolic and idyllic charm, suffused with an air of theatricality. Some of his best known subjects were drawn from the world of Italian comedy and ballet.
Watteau was born in the town of Valenciennes, which had recently passed from the Spanish Netherlands to France. His father was a master tiler. Showing an early interest in painting, he was apprenticed to Jacques-Albert Gérin, a local painter. Having little to learn from Gérin, Watteau left for Paris in about 1702. There he found employment in a workshop at Pont Notre-Dame, making copies of popular genre paintings in the Flemish and Dutch tradition; it was in that period that he developed his characteristic sketchlike technique.
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Augustus
Augustus ( /ɔːˈɡʌstəs/;Classical Latin: [awˈɡʊstʊs]; Latin: Imperator Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD. Born Gaius Octavius Thurinus, he was adopted posthumously by his great-uncle Gaius Julius Caesar in 44 BC via his last will and testament, and between then and 27 BC was officially named Gaius Julius Caesar. In 27 BC the Senate awarded him the honorific Augustus ("the revered one"), and thus consequently he was Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus.
The young Octavius came into his inheritance after Caesar's assassination in 44 BC. In 43 BC, Octavian joined forces with Mark Antony and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus in a military dictatorship known as the Second Triumvirate. As a triumvir, Octavian ruled Rome and many of its provinces. The triumvirate was eventually torn apart under the competing ambitions of its rulers: Lepidus was driven into exile, and Antony committed suicide following his defeat at the Battle of Actium by Octavian's fleet under the command of Agrippa in 31 BC.
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Austria
Austria (i/ˈɒstriə/ or /ˈɔːstriə/; German: Österreich [ˈøːstɐˌʁaɪç] ( listen)), officially the Republic of Austria (German: Republik Österreich (help·info)), is a landlocked country of roughly 8.47 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the west. The territory of Austria covers 83,855 square kilometres (32,377 sq mi) and has a temperate and alpine climate. Austria's terrain is highly mountainous due to the presence of the Alps; only 32% of the country is below 500 metres (1,640 ft), and its highest point is 3,798 metres (12,461 ft). The majority of the population speak local Austro-Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, and German in its standard form is the country's official language. Other local official languages are Burgenland Croatian, Hungarian and Slovene.
The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty when the vast majority of the country was a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Austria became one of the great powers of Europe and, in response to the coronation of Napoleon I as the Emperor of the French, the Austrian Empire was officially proclaimed in 1804. In 1867, the Austrian Empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary.
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Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II (i/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. In January 2005, Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator in the state of Illinois. He would hold this office until November 2008, when he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.
Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.
Following an unsuccessful bid against the Democratic incumbent for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for the United States Senate in 2004. Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, including his victory in the March 2004 Illinois Democratic primary for the Senate election and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in Illinois in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In April 2011, he announced that he would be running for re-election in 2012.
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Barbarian
Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage. In idiomatic or figurative usage, a "barbarian" may also be an individual reference to a brutal, cruel, warlike, insensitive person.
The term originates from the Greek civilization, meaning "anyone who is not Greek". In ancient times, Greeks used it for the people of the Persian Empire; in the early modern period and sometimes later, they used it for the Turks, in a clearly pejorative way. Comparable notions are found in non-European civilizations. In the Roman empire, barbarian was meant as "anyone not educated in Roman ways".
The Ancient Greek word βάρβαρος (barbaros), "barbarian", was an antonym for πολίτης (politis) "citizen," from polis "city-state." The sound of barbaros onomatopoetically evokes the image of babbling (a person speaking a non-Greek language). The earliest attested form of the word is the Mycenaean Greek pa-pa-ro, written in Linear B syllabic script.
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Baron de Montesquieu
Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (/ˈmɒntɨskjuː/; French pronunciation: [mɔ̃tɛskjø]; 18 January 1689 – 10 February 1755), generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French social commentator and political thinker who lived during the Enlightenment. He is famous for his articulation of the theory of separation of powers, which is taken for granted in modern discussions of government and implemented in many constitutions throughout the world. He was largely responsible for the popularization of the terms feudalism and Byzantine Empire.
He was born at the Château de la Brède in the southwest of France. His father, Jacques de Secondat, was a soldier with a long noble ancestry. His mother, Marie Françoise de Pesnel who died when Charles de Secondat was seven, was a female inheritor of a large monetary inheritance who brought the title of barony of La Brède to the Secondat family.[citation needed] After having studied at the Catholic College of Juilly, Charles-Louis de Secondat married. His wife, Jeanne de Lartigue, a Protestant, brought him a substantial dowry when he was 26. The next year, he inherited a fortune upon the death of his uncle, as well as the title Baron de Montesquieu and Président à Mortier in the Parliament of Bordeaux. By that time, England had declared itself a constitutional monarchy in the wake of its Glorious Revolution (1688–89), and had joined with Scotland in the Union of 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1715 the long-reigning Louis XIV died and was succeeded by the five-year-old Louis XV. These national transformations impacted Montesquieu greatly; he would later refer to them repeatedly in his work.
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Baron Haussmann
Georges-Eugène Haussmann, commonly known as Baron Haussmann (French pronunciation: [ʒɔʁʒ øʒɛn pʁə.mje ba.ʁɔ̃ os.man], 27 March 1809 – 11 January 1891), was a French civic planner whose name is associated with the rebuilding of Paris. He was born in Paris to a Protestant merchant from Alsace and the daughter of the General Georges Frédéric Dentzel from Dürckheim, who served mainly for Napoleon III.
The son of Nicolas Valentin Haussmann, a merchant, was born in Paris and educated at the College Henri IV and subsequently studied law, attending concurrently the classes at the Paris conservatory of music, for he was a good musician.[citation needed] He became sous-préfet of Nérac in 1830, and advanced rapidly in the civil service until in 1853 he was chosen by Persigny to be prefect of the Seine département in succession to Jean Jacques Berger, who hesitated to incur the vast expenses of the imperial schemes for the embellishment of Paris. Haussmann would remain in this post until 1870.
Commissioned by Napoleon III to instigate a program of planning reforms in Paris, Haussmann laid out the Bois de Boulogne, and made extensive improvements in the smaller parks. The gardens of the Luxembourg Palace (Luxembourg Garden) were cut down to allow the formation of new streets, and the Boulevard de Sebastopol, the southern half of which is now the Boulevard St Michel, was driven through a populous district. Additional, sweeping changes made wide "boulevards" of hitherto narrow streets. A new water supply, a gigantic system of sewers, new bridges, the opera house, and other public buildings, the inclusion of outlying districts – these were among the new prefect's achievements, accomplished by the aid of a bold handling of the public funds which called forth Jules Ferry's indictment, Les Comptes fantastiques de Haussmann, in 1867 (a play on words between contes, stories or tales – as in Les contes d'Hoffmann or Tales of Hoffmann, and comptes, accounts.)
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Blaise Pascal
Blaise Pascal (French pronunciation: [blɛz paskal]; 19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662), was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pascal's earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences where he made important contributions to the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum by generalizing the work of Evangelista Torricelli. Pascal also wrote in defense of the scientific method.
In 1642, while still a teenager, he started some pioneering work on calculating machines, and after three years of effort and 50 prototypes he invented the mechanical calculator. He built twenty of these machines (called the Pascaline) in the following ten years. Pascal was an important mathematician, helping create two major new areas of research: he wrote a significant treatise on the subject of projective geometry at the age of sixteen, and later corresponded with Pierre de Fermat on probability theory, strongly influencing the development of modern economics and social science. Following Galileo and Torricelli, in 1646 he refuted Aristotle's followers who insisted that nature abhors a vacuum. Pascal's results caused many disputes before being accepted.
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Bob Sinclar
Bob Sinclar (born Christophe Le Friant, 10 May 1969), is a French record producer, house music DJ, remixer and the owner of the label Yellow Productions. He is known for popularising the "French touch" of house music with heavy use of sampled and filtered disco strings. He describes his musical style as inspired by "peace, love, and house-music".
Several of Sinclar's songs have became international hits, being particularly popular in Europe. Some of his most popular hits include "Love Generation" (with Gary Pine) and "World, Hold On" (with Steve Edwards).
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Britannicus
Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus (12 February AD 41 — 11 February AD 55) was the son of the Roman emperor Claudius and his third wife Valeria Messalina. He became the heir-designate of the empire at his birth, less than a month into his father's reign. He was still a young boy at the time of his mother's downfall and Claudius' marriage to Agrippina the Younger. This allowed Agrippina's older son Nero to eclipse him in the public's mind. He lived only months into his step brother Nero's reign, murdered just before his 14th birthday.
Britannicus was probably born on 12 February 41 to the Roman Emperor Claudius and his wife Valeria Messalina. He was the oldest surviving son of his father at birth, Claudius's son by his first marriage to Plautia Urgulanilla having died at the age of 14 nearly two decades before. He was accordingly named Tiberius Claudius Germanicus, sharing his father's praenomen as recognition of his status as heir. Britannicus' father had been reigning for less than a month, and his position was boosted greatly by the arrival of a successor. To mark the birth, the emperor issued sestertii with the obverse Spes Augusta - the hope of the imperial family. Two years later, in 43, Claudius was granted the honorific "Britannicus" by the senate as a reward for his conquest of Britain. The emperor refused it for himself, but accepted it on behalf of his young son. This is the name by which the boy became known to posterity. According to Suetonius, Claudius doted extensively on Britannicus. He carried him around at public events, and shouted "Good luck to you, my boy!" to elicit a similar response from the crowds. He was supposedly a precocious child.
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Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy indigenous to the Indian subcontinent and encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs, and practices largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, who is commonly known as the Buddha (meaning "the awakened one" in Sanskrit and Pāli). The Buddha lived and taught in the eastern part of Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE. He is recognized by Buddhists as an awakened or enlightened teacher who shared his insights to help sentient beings end ignorance (avidyā), craving (taṇhā), and suffering (dukkha), by recognizing dependent origination and sunyata, and attain Nirvana.
Two major branches of Buddhism are recognized: Theravada ("The School of the Elders") and Mahayana ("The Great Vehicle"). Theravada has a widespread following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Mahayana is found throughout East Asia and includes the traditions of Pure Land, Zen, Nichiren Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Shingon, Tiantai (Tendai) and Shinnyo-en. In some classifications, Vajrayana—practiced mainly in Tibet and Mongolia, and adjacent parts of China and Russia—is recognized as a third branch, while others classify it as a part of Mahayana. There are other categorisations of these three Vehicles or Yanas.
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Burgundians
The Burgundians (Latin: Burgundiōnes; Old Norse: Burgundar; Old English: Burgendas; Greek: Βούργουνδοι) were an East Germanic tribe which may have emigrated from mainland Scandinavia to the island of Bornholm, whose old form in Old Norse still was Burgundarholmr (the Island of the Burgundians), and from there to mainland Europe.
The name of the Burgundians has since remained connected to the area of modern France that still bears their name: see the later history of Burgundy. Between the 6th and 20th centuries, however, the boundaries and political connections of this area have changed frequently; none of those changes have had anything to do with the original Burgundians. The name Burgundians used here and generally used by English writers to refer to the Burgundiones is a later formation and more precisely refers to the inhabitants of the territory of Burgundy which was named from the people called Burgundiones. The descendants of the Burgundians today are found primarily among the west Swiss and neighbouring regions of France.
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Camille Corot
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ ba.tist ka.mij kɔ.ʁo]) (July 17, 1796 – February 22, 1875) was a French landscape painter and printmaker in etching. Corot was the leading painter of the Barbizon school of France in the mid-nineteenth century. He is a pivotal figure in landscape painting and his vast output simultaneously references the Neo-Classical tradition and anticipates the plein-air innovations of Impressionism.
Camille Corot was born in Paris in 1796, in a house at 125 Rue du Bac, now demolished. His family were bourgeois people—his father was a wigmaker and his mother a milliner—and unlike the experience of some of his artistic colleagues, throughout his life he never felt the want of money, as his parents made good investments and ran their businesses well. After his parents married, they bought the millinery shop where his mother had worked and his father gave up his career as a wigmaker to run the business side of the shop. The store was a famous destination for fashionable Parisians and earned the family an excellent income. Corot was the middle of three children born to the family, who lived above their shop during those years.
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Camille Pissarro
Camille Pissarro (French pronunciation: [kamij pisaʁo]) (10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903) was a French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but then in the Danish West Indies). His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. Pissarro studied from great forerunners, including Gustave Courbet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. He later studied and worked alongside Georges Seurat and Paul Signac when he took on the Neo-Impressionist style at the age of 54.
In 1873 he helped establish a collective society of fifteen aspiring artists, becoming the “pivotal” figure in holding the group together and encouraging the other members. Art historian John Rewald called Pissarro the “dean of the Impressionist painters", not only because he was the oldest of the group, but also "by virtue of his wisdom and his balanced, kind, and warmhearted personality”.Cézanne said "he was a father for me. A man to consult and a little like the good Lord," and he was also one of Gauguin's masters. Renoir referred to his work as “revolutionary”, through his artistic portrayals of the "common man", as Pissarro insisted on painting individuals in natural settings without "artifice or grandeur".
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Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (French pronunciation: [ʃaʁl kamij sɛ̃sɑ̃s]; 9 October 1835 – 16 December 1921) was a French late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony No. 3 (Organ Symphony).
Saint-Saëns was born in Paris, France, on 9 October 1835. His father, a government clerk, died three months after his birth. He was raised by his mother, Clémence, with the assistance of her aunt, Charlotte Masson, who moved in. Masson introduced Saint-Saëns to the piano, and began giving him lessons on the instrument. At about this time, age two, Saint-Saëns was found to possess perfect pitch. His first composition, a little piece for the piano dated 22 March 1839, is now kept in the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Saint-Saëns's precocity was not limited to music. He learned to read and write by age three, and had some mastery of Latin by the age of seven. His first public concert appearance occurred when he was five years old, when he accompanied a Beethoven violin sonata. He went on to begin in-depth study of the full score of Don Giovanni. In 1842, Saint-Saëns began piano lessons with Camille-Marie Stamaty, a pupil of Friedrich Kalkbrenner, who had his students play the piano while resting their forearms on a bar situated in front of the keyboard, so that all the pianist's power came from the hands and fingers but not the arms. At ten years of age, Saint-Saëns gave his debut public recital at the Salle Pleyel, with a performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 15 in B-flat major (K. 450), and various pieces by Handel, Kalkbrenner, Hummel, and Bach. As an encore, Saint-Saëns offered to play any of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas from memory. Word of this incredible concert spread across Europe, and as far as the United States with an article in a Boston newspaper.
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Cardinal Mazarin
Jules Mazarin (French: [ʒyl mazaʁɛ̃]; 1602–1661), born Giulio Raimondo Mazzarino [ˈdʒuljo raiˈmondo maddzaˈrino] or Mazarini, was a French-Italian cardinal, diplomat, and politician, who served as the chief minister of France from 1642 until his death. Mazarin succeeded his mentor, Cardinal Richelieu. He was a noted collector of art and jewels, particularly diamonds, and he bequeathed the "Mazarin diamonds" to Louis XIV in 1661, some of which remain in the collection of the Louvre museum in Paris. His personal library was the origin of the Bibliothèque Mazarine in Paris.
Giulio Mazzarino was born in Pescina, then part of the Kingdom of Naples, where his parents were travelling, but was raised in Rome. His father Pietro was a notary with connections to the Colonna, who became chamberlain to the Constable Filippo I Colonna and gained an easy situation for his family; Mazarin never forgot that the basis of his fortune in life was the patronage of the Colonna, who had provided his father with a wife, Ortensia Buffalini, of a noble family of Città di Castello in Umbria with an ample dowry. He had a younger sister, Laura Margherita Mazzarini.
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Cardinal Richelieu
Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu et de Fronsac (French pronunciation: [ʁiʃəljø]; 9 September 1585 – 4 December 1642) was a French clergyman, noble and statesman.
Consecrated as a bishop in 1608, he later entered politics, becoming a Secretary of State in 1616. Richelieu soon rose in both the Catholic Church and the French government, becoming a Cardinal in 1622, and King Louis XIII's chief minister in 1624. He remained in office until his death in 1642; he was succeeded by Cardinal Mazarin, whose career he had fostered.
The Cardinal de Richelieu was often known by the title of the King's "Chief Minister" or "First Minister". As a result, he is considered to be the world's first Prime Minister, in the modern sense of the term.[who?] He sought to consolidate royal power and crush domestic factions. By restraining the power of the nobility, he transformed France into a strong, centralized state. His chief foreign policy objective was to check the power of the Austro-Spanish Habsburg dynasty, and to ensure French dominance in the Thirty Years' War that engulfed Europe. Although he was a cardinal, he did not hesitate to make alliances with Protestant rulers in attempting to achieve his goals.
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Carolingian dynasty
The Carolingian dynasty (known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolings, or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family with origins in the Arnulfing and Pippinid clans of the 7th century AD. The name "Carolingian", Medieval Latin karolingi, an altered form of an unattested Old High German *karling, kerling (meaning "descendant of Charles", cf. MHG kerlinc), derives from the Latinised name of Charles Martel: Carolus. The family consolidated its power in the late 7th century, eventually making the offices of mayor of the palace and dux et princeps Francorum hereditary and becoming the de facto rulers of the Franks as the real powers behind the throne. By 751, the Merovingian dynasty which until then had ruled the Franks by right was deprived of this right with the consent of the Papacy and the aristocracy and a Carolingian, Pepin the Short, was crowned King of the Franks.
Traditional historiography has seen the Carolingian assumption of kingship as the product of a long rise to power, punctuated even by a premature attempt to seize the throne through Childebert the Adopted. This picture, however, is not commonly accepted today. Rather, the coronation of 751 is seen typically as a product of the aspirations of one man, Pepin, and of the Church, which was always looking for powerful secular protectors and for the extension of its spiritual and temporal influence.
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Carolingian Empire
Carolingian Empire (800–888) is a historiographical term which has been used to refer to the realm of the Franks under the Carolingian dynasty in the Early Middle Ages. This dynasty is seen as the founders of France and Germany, and its beginning date is based on the crowning of Charlemagne, or Charles the Great, and ends with the death of Charles the Fat. Depending on one's perspective, this Empire can be seen as the later history of the Frankish Realm or the early history of France and of the Holy Roman Empire.
The term refers to the coronation of Charlemagne by Pope Leo III in 800. Because Charles and his ancestors had been rulers of the Frankish realm earlier (his grandfather Charles Martel had essentially founded the empire during his lifetime), the coronation did not actually constitute a new empire. Most historians prefer to use the term "Frankish Kingdoms" or "Frankish Realm" to refer to the area covering parts of today's Germany and France from the 5th to the 9th century.
Though Charles Martel chose not to take the title King, as his son Pepin III the Short would, or Emperor, as his grandson Charlemagne would be titled, he was absolute ruler of virtually all of today's continental Western Europe north of the Pyrenees. Only the remaining Saxon realms, which he partly conquered, Lombardy, and the Marca Hispanica north of the Pyrenees were significant additions to the Frankish realms after his death.
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Celts
The Celts (usually pronounced /ˈkɛlts/ but sometimes /ˈsɛlts/, see pronunciation of Celtic) or Kelts were an ethno-linguistic group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Medieval Europe who spoke Celtic languages and had a similar culture.
The earliest archaeological culture that may justifiably be considered as Proto-Celtic is the Late Bronze Age Urnfield culture of central Europe from the last quarter of the second millennium BC. Their fully Celtic descendants in central Europe were the people of the Iron Age Hallstatt culture (c. 800-450 BC) named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria. By the later La Tène period (c. 450 BC up to the Roman conquest), this Celtic culture had expanded over a wide range of regions, whether by diffusion or migration: to the British Isles (Insular Celts), France and The Low Countries (Gauls), much of Central Europe, the Iberian Peninsula (Celtiberians, Celtici and Gallaeci) and northern Italy (Golaseccans and Cisalpine Gauls) and following the Gallic invasion of the Balkans in 279 BC as far east as central Anatolia (Galatians).
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Charlemagne
Charlemagne ( /ˈʃɑrlɨmeɪn/ or /ˈʃɑrləmeɪn/; French pronunciation: [ʃaʁ.lə.maɲ]; c. 742 – 28 January 814), also known as Charles the Great (Latin: Carolus Magnus or Karolus Magnus), was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans (Imperator Romanorum) from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800 in Rome.
His rule is also associated with the Carolingian Renaissance, a revival of art, religion, and culture through the medium of the Catholic Church. Through his foreign conquests and internal reforms, Charlemagne helped define both Western Europe and the European Middle Ages. He is numbered as Charles I in the regnal lists of Germany, the Holy Roman Empire, and France.
The son of King Pepin the Short and Bertrada of Laon, a Frankish queen, he succeeded his father in 768 and was initially co-ruler with his brother Carloman I. It has often been suggested that the relationship between Charlemagne and Carloman was not good, but it has also been argued that tensions were exaggerated by Carolingian chroniclers.
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Charles Aznavour
Charles Aznavour, OC (born Shahnour Vaghenag Aznavourian; Armenian: Շահնուր Վաղինակ Ազնավուրեան; Shahnour Vaghinak Aznavurian; May 22, 1924) is an Armenian-French singer, songwriter, actor, public activist and diplomat. Besides being one of France's most popular and enduring singers, he is also one of the best-known singers in the world. Charles Aznavour (pronounced in French as Sharl Aznavoor) is known for his unique tenor voice: clear and ringing in its upper reaches, with gravelly and profound low notes. He has appeared in more than sixty movies, composed about a thousand songs (including 150 at least in English, 100 in Italian, 70 in Spanish, and 50 in German), and sold well over 100 million records.
In 1998, Charles Aznavour was named Entertainer of the Century by CNN and users of Time Online from around the globe. He was recognized as the century's outstanding performer, with nearly 18% of the total vote, edging out Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan. He has sung for presidents, popes, and royalty, as well as at humanitarian events, and is the founder of the charitable organization Aznavour for Armenia along with his long-time friend impresario Levon Sayan.
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Charles Baudelaire
Charles Pierre Baudelaire (French: [ʃaʁl bodlɛʁ]; April 9, 1821 – August 31, 1867) was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil), expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the 19th century. Baudelaire's highly original style of prose-poetry influenced a whole generation of poets including Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud and Stéphane Mallarmé among many others. He is credited with coining the term "modernity" (modernité) to designate the fleeting, ephemeral experience of life in an urban metropolis, and the responsibility art has to capture that experience.
Baudelaire is one of the major innovators in French literature. His poetry is influenced by the French romantic poets of the earlier 19th century, although its attention to the formal features of verse connect it more closely to the work of the contemporary 'Parnassians'. As for theme and tone, in his works we see the rejection of the belief in the supremacy of nature and the fundamental goodness of man as typically espoused by the romantics and expressed by them in rhetorical, effusive and public voice in favor of a new urban sensibility, an awareness of individual moral complexity, an interest in vice (linked with decadence) and refined sensual and aesthetical pleasures, and the use of urban subject matter, such as the city, the crowd, individual passers-by, all expressed in highly ordered verse, sometimes through a cynical and ironic voice. Formally, the use of sound to create atmosphere, and of 'symbols', (images which take on an expanded function within the poem), betray a move towards considering the poem as a self-referential object, an idea further developed by the Symbolists Verlaine and Mallarmé, who acknowledge Baudelaire as a pioneer in this regard.
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Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (/ˈtʃɑrlz/ or /ˈʃɑrl dəˈɡɔːl/; French: [ʃaʁl də ɡol] ( listen); 22 November 1890 – 9 November 1970) was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969.
A veteran of World War I, in the 1920s and 1930s de Gaulle came to the fore as a proponent of mobile armoured divisions, which he considered would become central in modern warfare. During World War II, he earned the rank of brigadier general (retained throughout his life), leading one of the few successful armoured counter-attacks during the 1940 Battle of France in May in Montcornet, and then briefly served in the French government as France was falling. De Gaulle was the most senior French military officer to reject the June 1940 armistice to Nazi Germany right from the outset.
He escaped to Britain and gave a famous radio address, broadcast by the BBC on 18 June 1940, exhorting the French people to resist Nazi Germany and organised the Free French Forces with exiled French officers in Britain. As the war progressed de Gaulle gradually gained control of all French colonies except Indochina most of which had at first been controlled by the pro-German Vichy regime. Despite earning a reputation for being a difficult man to do business with, by the time of the Allied invasion of France in 1944 he was heading what amounted to a French government in exile, but although he insisted that France be treated as a great independent power by the other Allies, the Americans in particular remained deeply suspicious of his motives. De Gaulle became prime minister in the French Provisional Government, resigning in 1946 because of political conflicts.
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Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod (French pronunciation: [ʃaʁl fʁɑ̃swa ɡuno]; 17 June 1818 – 17 October or 18 October 1893) was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.
Gounod was born in Paris, the son of a pianist mother and an artist father. His mother was his first piano teacher. Under her tutelage, Gounod first showed his musical talents. He entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied under Fromental Halévy and Pierre Zimmermann (he later married Zimmermann's daughter). In 1839, he won the Prix de Rome for his cantata Fernand. He was following his father; François-Louis Gounod (d. 1823) had won the second Prix de Rome in painting in 1783. During his stay of four years in Italy, Gounod studied the music of Palestrina and other sacred works of the sixteenth century; these he never ceased to cherish. Around 1846-47 he gave serious consideration to joining the priesthood, but he changed his mind before actually taking holy orders, and went back to composition. During that period, he was attached to the Church of Foreign Missions in Paris.
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Charles IV of France
Charles IV, known as the Fair (18/19 June 1294 – 1 February 1328), was the King of France and of Navarre (as Charles I) and Count of Champagne from 1322 to his death: he was the last French king of the senior Capetian lineage.
Charles IV was the third son of Philip IV; like his father, Charles was known as "the fair" or "the handsome". By virtue of his mother, Joan I of Navarre's, birthright, Charles claimed the title Charles I, King of Navarre. From 1314 to his accession to the throne, he held the title of Count of La Marche, and was crowned King of France in 1322 at the cathedral in Reims. Unlike either Philip IV or Philip V, Charles is usually felt to have been a relatively conservative, "strait laced" king – he was "inclined to forms and stiff-necked in defence of his prerogatives", but disinclined either to manipulate them to his own ends or achieve wider reform.
Charles married his first wife, Blanche of Burgundy, the daughter of Otto IV, Count of Burgundy in 1308, but Blanche was caught up in the Tour de Nesle scandals of 1314 and imprisoned. After Charles assumed the throne he refused to release Blanche, their marriage was annulled and Blanche retreated to a nunnery. His second wife, Marie of Luxembourg, the daughter of Henry VII, the Holy Roman Emperor, died following a premature birth.
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Charles Martel
Charles Martel (Latin: Carolus Martellus) (23 August 686 – 22 October 741), also known as Charles the Hammer, was a Frankish military and political leader, who served as Mayor of the Palace under the Merovingian kings and ruled de facto during an interregnum (737–43) at the end of his life, using the title Duke and Prince of the Franks. In 739 he was offered the title of Consul by the Pope, but he refused. He is remembered for winning the Battle of Tours in 732, in which he defeated an invading Moorish army. This victory is traditionally credited with halting northward Islamic expansion in western Europe.
A brilliant general, he is considered to be a founding figure of the Middle Ages, often credited with a seminal role in the development of feudalism and knighthood, and laying the groundwork for the Carolingian Empire. He was also the father of Pepin the Short and grandfather of Charlemagne.
Martel was born in Herstal, the illegitimate son of duke Pepin II and his concubine Alpaida. In German-speaking countries he is known as Karl Martell. Alpaida also bore Pepin another son, Childebrand.
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Charles Perrault
Charles Perrault (12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) was a French author and member of the Académie française. He laid the foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, with his works derived from pre-existing folk tales. The best known of his tales include Le Petit Chaperon rouge (Little Red Riding Hood), Cendrillon (Cinderella), Le Chat Botté (Puss in Boots) and La Barbe bleue (Bluebeard). Many of Perrault's stories were rewritten by the Brothers Grimm, continue to be printed and have been adapted to opera, ballet (such as Tchaikovsky's The Sleeping Beauty), theatre, and film (Disney). Perrault was an influential figure in the 17th century French literary scene, and was the leader of the Modern faction during the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns.
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Charles the Bald
Charles the Bald (13 June 823 – 6 October 877), Holy Roman Emperor (875–877, as Charles II) and King of West Francia (840–877, as Charles II, with the borders of his land defined by the Treaty of Verdun, 843), was the youngest son of the Emperor Louis the Pious by his second wife Judith.
He was born on 13 June 823 in Frankfurt, when his elder brothers were already adults and had been assigned their own regna, or subkingdoms, by their father. The attempts made by Louis the Pious to assign Charles a subkingdom, first Alemannia and then the country between the Meuse and the Pyrenees (in 832, after the rising of Pepin I of Aquitaine) were unsuccessful. The numerous reconciliations with the rebellious Lothair and Pepin, as well as their brother Louis the German, King of Bavaria, made Charles's share in Aquitaine and Italy only temporary, but his father did not give up and made Charles the heir of the entire land which was once Gaul and would eventually be France. At a diet near Crémieux in 837, Louis the Pious bade the nobles do homage to Charles as his heir. This led to the final rising of his sons against him and Pepin of Aquitaine died in 838, whereupon Charles received that kingdom, finally once and for all. Pepin's son Pepin II would be a perpetual thorn in his side.
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Charles X of France
Charles X (Charles Philippe; 9 October 1757 – 6 November 1836) was known for most of his life as the Comte d'Artois before he reigned as King of France and of Navarre from 16 September 1824 until 2 August 1830. A younger brother to Kings Louis XVI and Louis XVIII, he supported the latter in exile and eventually succeeded him. His rule of almost six years ended in the July Revolution of 1830, which frustrated his attempts to keep the crown in the senior branch of the House of Bourbon and resulted in the election of Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans, as King of the French. Exiled once again, Charles died in Gorizia, then part of the Austrian Empire.
Charles Philippe of France was born in 1757, the youngest son of the Dauphin Louis and his wife, the Dauphine Marie Josèphe, at the Palace of Versailles. Charles was created "Count of Artois" at birth by his grandfather, the reigning King Louis XV. As the youngest male in the family, Charles seemed unlikely ever to become king. His eldest brother, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, died unexpectedly in 1761, which moved Charles up one place in the line of succession. He was raised by Madame de Marsan, the Governess of the Children of France.
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China
China (i/ˈtʃaɪnə/; Chinese: 中国; pinyin: Zhōngguó; see also Names of China), officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is the world's most-populous country, with a population of over 1.3 billion. Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometres, the East Asian state is the world's second-largest country by land area, and the third- or fourth-largest in total area, depending on the definition of total area.
The People's Republic of China is a single-party state governed by the Communist Party of China. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four directly controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). Its capital city is Beijing. The PRC also claims Taiwan—which is controlled by the Republic of China (ROC), a separate political entity—as its 23rd province, a claim controversial due to the complex political status of Taiwan and the unresolved Chinese Civil War. The PRC government denies the legitimacy of the ROC.
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Christian Lacroix
Christian Marie Marc Lacroix (French pronunciation: [kʁistjɑ̃ lakʁwa]; born 16 May 1951) is a French fashion designer. The name may also refer to the company he founded.
Lacroix was born in Arles, Bouches-du-Rhône in southern France. At a young age he began sketching historical costumes and fashions. Lacroix graduated from high school in 1969 and moved to Montpellier, to study Art History at the University of Montpellier. In 1971, he enrolled at the Sorbonne in Paris. While working on a dissertation on dress in French 18th-century painting, Lacroix also pursued a program in museum studies at the École du Louvre. His aspiration during this time was to become a museum curator. It was during this time he met his future wife Françoise Rosenthiel, whom he married in 1974.
In 1987 he opened his own couture house. He began putting out ready-to-wear in 1988 drawing inspiration from diverse cultures. Critics commented that he did not seem to understand the type of clothing the working woman needed. In 1989, Lacroix launched jewelry, handbags, shoes, glasses, scarves and ties (along with ready-to-wear). In this same year, he opened boutiques within Paris, Arles, Aix-en-Provence, Toulouse, London, Geneva and Japan.
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Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy (French pronunciation: [klod aʃil dəbysi]) (22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions. In France, he was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1903. A crucial figure in the transition to the modern era in Western music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers.
His music is noted for its sensory component and for not often forming around one key or pitch. Often Debussy's work reflected the activities or turbulence in his own life. In French literary circles, the style of this period was known as symbolism, a movement that directly inspired Debussy both as a composer and as an active cultural participant.
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Claude Lorrain
Claude Lorrain, (French pronunciation: [klod lɔ.ʁɛ̃]), traditionally just Claude in English (also Claude Gellée, his real name, or in French Claude Gellée, (French pronunciation: [ʒəle]), dit le Lorrain) (c. 1600 – 21 or 23 November 1682) was an artist of the Baroque era who was active in Italy, and is admired for his achievements in landscape painting.
Claude was born in 1604 or 1605 into poverty in the town of Chamagne, Vosges in Lorraine – then the Duchy of Lorraine, an independent state until 1766 and now in northeast France. He was one of five children. His actual name was Claude Gellée, but he is better known by the province in which he was born. Orphaned by age of twelve, he went to live at Freiburg with an elder brother, Jean Gellée, a woodcarver. He afterwards went to Rome to seek a livelihood and then to Naples, where he apprenticed for two years, from 1619 to 1621, under Goffredo (Gottfried) Wals. He returned to Rome in April 1625 and was apprenticed to Agostino Tassi. He got into a fight with Leonaert Bramer.
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Claude Monet
Claude Monet (French pronunciation: [klod mɔnɛ/mɔne]) (14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. The term Impressionism is derived from the title of his painting Impression, Sunrise (Impression, soleil levant).
Claude Monet was born on 14 November 1840 on the 5th floor of 45 rue Laffitte, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris. He was the second son of Claude Adolphe Monet and Louise Justine Aubrée Monet, both of them second-generation Parisians. On 20 May 1841, he was baptized in the local parish church, Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, as Oscar-Claude, but his parents called him simply Oscar. In 1845, his family moved to Le Havre in Normandy. His father wanted him to go into the family grocery business, but Monet wanted to become an artist. His mother was a singer.
On 1 April 1851, Monet entered Le Havre secondary school of the arts. Locals knew him well for his charcoal caricatures, which he would sell for ten to twenty francs. Monet also undertook his first drawing lessons from Jacques-François Ochard, a former student of Jacques-Louis David. On the beaches of Normandy in about 1856/1857, he met fellow artist Eugène Boudin, who became his mentor and taught him to use oil paints. Boudin taught Monet "en plein air" (outdoor) techniques for painting. Both received the influence of Johan Barthold Jongkind.
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Claude Montana
Claude Montana is a French fashion designer. His company, The House of Montana, founded in 1979, went bankrupt in 1997.
Born in Paris in 1949 to a Catalonian father and German mother, Montana began his career by designing papier-mâché jewelry covered with rhinestones. Later, he discovered leather and the complex techniques associated with it, eventually becoming a leading force in leather. His first fashion show took place in 1976. He was an avid colorist and favored blue, red, metallic, and neutral tones, in luxurious materials such as cashmere, leather and silk. He started his own company in 1979, and quickly became a darling of 1980s high fashion along with Thierry Mugler, who also favored aggressive shapes and strong colours.
In 1981, Montana designed his first collection for men, called Montana Hommes, in which he focused on the color and material of each garment rather than trivial details. From 1990 to 1992 he designed haute couture collections for the House of Lanvin, for which he received two consecutive Golden Thimble awards. Despite critical acclaim, Montana's bold designs were financially disastrous for the house, created at a total estimated loss of $50 million, and he was ultimately replaced by Dominique Morlotti. In 1999, he designed an affordable line of clothing for women, Montana BLU. It was inspired by his favorite themes but modified to fit the style of sportswear and citywear.
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Clovis I
Clovis (c. 466 – 511) or Chlodowech (Latin Chlodovechus) was the first King of the Franks to unite all the Frankish tribes under one ruler, changing the leadership from a group of royal chieftains, to rule by kings, ensuring that the kingship was held by his heirs. He was also the first Catholic King to rule over Gaul, known today as France. He was the son of Childeric I and Basina. In 481, when he was fifteen, he succeeded his father. Clovis was not only a Frankish king, he was also a Roman official. The Salian Franks were one of two Frankish tribes who were then occupying the area west of the lower Rhine, with their center in an area known as Toxandria, between the Meuse and Scheldt (in what is now the Netherlands and Belgium). Clovis's power base was to the southwest of this, around Tournai and Cambrai along the modern frontier between France and Belgium. Clovis conquered the neighboring Salian Frankish kingdoms and established himself as sole king of the Salian Franks before his death. The small church in which he was baptized stood in the vicinity of the subsequent abbey of Saint-Remi in Reims, and a statue of him being baptized by Saint Remigius can be seen there. Clovis and his wife Clotilde were buried in the St. Genevieve church (St. Pierre) in Paris, the original name of the Church was the Church of the Holy Apostles. An important part of Clovis' legacy is that he locally succeeded to the power of the Romans in 486 by beating the Gallo-Roman ruler Syagrius in the battle of Soissons.
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David Guetta
Pierre David Guetta (7 November 1967), known professionally as David Guetta (French pronunciation: [daˌvid ɡɛˈta]), is a French house music producer and DJ. Originally a DJ at nightclubs during the 1980s and 1990s, he co-founded Gum Productions and released his first album, Just a Little More Love, in 2002. Later, he released Guetta Blaster (2004) and Pop Life (2007). His 2009 album One Love included the hit singles "When Love Takes Over" (featuring Kelly Rowland), "Gettin' Over You" (featuring Chris Willis, Fergie & LMFAO) and "Sexy Bitch" (featuring Akon), the last becoming a top five hit in the United States and all three reaching #1 in the United Kingdom, as well as another internationally known single called "Memories" featuring Kid Cudi which became a top five hit in many countries. Guetta has sold over three million albums and 15 million singles worldwide. He is currently one of the most sought-after music producers. As at 2012 David Guetta is the world's most popular DJ, claiming the #1 poll position of the DJ Mag 100 popularity poll.
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David Hume
David Hume (7 May [O.S. 26 April] 1711 – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and scepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment. Hume is often grouped with John Locke, George Berkeley, and a handful of others as a British Empiricist.
Beginning with his A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), Hume strove to create a total naturalistic "science of man" that examined the psychological basis of human nature. In stark opposition to the rationalists who preceded him, most notably Descartes, he concluded that desire rather than reason governed human behaviour, saying: "Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions." A prominent figure in the sceptical philosophical tradition and a strong empiricist, he argued against the existence of innate ideas, concluding instead that humans have knowledge only of things they directly experience. Thus he divides perceptions between strong and lively "impressions" or direct sensations and fainter "ideas", which are copied from impressions. He developed the position that mental behaviour is governed by "custom"; our use of induction, for example, is justified only by our idea of the "constant conjunction" of causes and effects. Without direct impressions of a metaphysical "self", he concluded that humans have no actual conception of the self, only of a bundle of sensations associated with the self.
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Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot (October 5, 1713 – July 31, 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer. He was a prominent person during the Enlightenment and is best known for serving as co-founder and chief editor of and contributor to the Encyclopédie.
Diderot also contributed to literature, notably with Jacques le fataliste et son maître (Jacques the Fatalist and his Master), which emulated Laurence Sterne in challenging conventions regarding novels and their structure and content, while also examining philosophical ideas about free will. Diderot is also known as the author of the dialogue, Le Neveu de Rameau (Rameau's Nephew), upon which many articles and sermons about consumer desire have been based. His articles included many topics of the Enlightenment.
Denis Diderot was born in Langres and began his formal education at the jesuitic Collège Louis-leGrand in Langres. In 1732 he earned a master of arts degree in philosophy. Then he entered at the Collège d’Harcourt in Paris. He abandoned the idea of entering the clergy and decided instead to study law. His study of law was short-lived however and in 1734 Diderot decided to become a writer. Because of his refusal to enter one of the learned professions, he was disowned by his father, and for the next ten years he lived a bohemian existence.
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Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas (US /deɪˈɡɑː/ or UK /ˈdeɪɡɑː/; French: [ilɛʁ ʒɛʁmɛnɛdɡɑʁ dəɡɑ]; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, 1834–1917), was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist. A superb draftsman, he is especially identified with the subject of the dance, and over half of his works depict dancers. These display his mastery in the depiction of movement, as do his racecourse subjects and female nudes. His portraits are notable for their psychological complexity and depiction of human isolation.
Early in his career, he wanted to be a history painter, a calling for which he was well prepared by his rigorous academic training and close study of classic art. In his early thirties, he changed course, and by bringing the traditional methods of a history painter to bear on contemporary subject matter, he became a classical painter of modern life.
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Francia
Francia or Frankia, also called the Kingdom of the Franks or Frankish Kingdom (Latin: regnum Francorum), Frankish Realm or occasionally Frankland, was the territory inhabited and ruled by the Franks from the 3rd to the 10th century. Under the nearly continuous campaigns of Charles Martel, Pepin the Short, and Charlemagne—father, son, grandson—the greatest expansion of the Frankish empire was secured by the early 9th century.
The tradition of dividing patrimonies among brothers meant that the Frankish realm was ruled, nominally, as one polity subdivided into several regna (kingdoms or subkingdoms). The geography and number of subkingdoms varied over time, but the particular term Francia came generally to refer to just one regnum, that of Austrasia, centred on the Rhine and Meuse rivers in northern Europe; even so, sometimes the term was used as well to encompass Neustria north of the Loire and west of the Seine. Eventually, the singular use of the name Francia shifted towards Paris, and settled on the region of the Seine basin surrounding Paris, which still today bears the name Île-de-France, and which region gave its name to the entire Kingdom of France.
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Francis Poulenc
Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃sis ʒɑ̃ maʁsɛl pulɛ̃k]) (7 January 1899 – 30 January 1963) was a French composer and a member of the French group Les Six. He composed solo piano music, chamber music, oratorio, choral music, opera, ballet music, and orchestral music. Critic Claude Rostand, in a July 1950 Paris-Presse article, coined the term "half monk, half thug" (translated by Ivry from "le moine et le voyou"), a phrase that would often be used to describe Poulenc.
Poulenc was born in Paris in 1899. His father Emile Poulenc was a second generation director of the Poulenc, and later Rhône-Poulenc, chemical corporation. His mother, an amateur pianist, taught him to play. He was introduced to Ricardo Viñes in 1914, a champion of the music of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, and became his pupil shortly afterwards. He was a capable pianist, and the keyboard dominated his early compositions.
In 1916 a childhood friend, Raymonde Linossier (1897-1930), introduced Poulenc to Adrienne Monnier's bookshop, the Maison des Amis des Livres. There he met avant-garde poets such as Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Paul Eluard and Louis Aragon. He was to set many of their poems to music.
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Franks
The Franks (Latin: Franci or gens Francorum) were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as populating a broad strip of land on the right bank of the Lower and Middle Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a kingdom on Roman-held soil that was acknowledged by the Romans after 357. In the climate of the collapse of imperial authority in the West, the Frankish tribes were united under the Merovingians and conquered all of Gaul except Septimania in the 6th century. The Salian political elite was one of the most active forces in spreading Christianity over western Europe. The Franks had created one of the most strong and stable barbaric kingdoms.
The Merovingian dynasty, descended from the Salians, founded one of the Germanic monarchies which replaced the Western Roman Empire from the fifth century. The Frankish state consolidated its hold over large parts of western Europe by the end of the eighth century, developing into the Carolingian Empire which dominated most of Western Europe. This empire would gradually evolve into France and the Holy Roman Empire.
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François Boucher
François Boucher (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃swa buʃe]) (29 September 1703 – 30 May 1770) was a French painter, a proponent of Rococo taste, known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories representing the arts or pastoral occupations, intended as a sort of two-dimensional furniture. He also painted several portraits of his illustrious patroness, Madame de Pompadour.
Born in Paris, the son of a lace designer Nicolas Boucher, François Boucher was perhaps the most celebrated decorative artist of the 18th century, with most of his work reflecting the Rococo style. At the young age of 17, Boucher was apprenticed by his father to François Lemoyne, but after only three months he went to work for the engraver Jean-François Cars. Within three years Boucher had already won the elite Grand Prix de Rome, although he did not take up the consequential opportunity to study in Italy until four years later. On his return from studying in Italy in 1731, he was admitted to the Académie de peinture et de sculpture as a historical painter, and became a faculty member in 1734.
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François Couperin
François Couperin (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃swa kuˈpʁɛ̃]) (10 November 1668 – 11 September 1733) was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as Couperin le Grand ("Couperin the Great") to distinguish him from other members of the musically talented Couperin family.
Couperin was born in Paris. He was taught by his father, Charles Couperin, who died when François was 10, and by Jacques Thomelin. In 1685 he became the organist at the church of Saint-Gervais, Paris, a post he inherited from his father and that he would pass on to his cousin, Nicolas Couperin. Other members of the family also later held the same position. In 1693 Couperin succeeded his teacher Thomelin as organist at the Chapelle Royale (Royal Chapel) with the title organiste du Roi, organist by appointment to Louis XIV.
In 1717 Couperin became court organist and composer, with the title ordinaire de la musique de la chambre du Roi. With his colleagues, Couperin gave a weekly concert, typically on Sunday. Many of these concerts were in the form of suites for violin, viol, oboe, bassoon and harpsichord, on which he was a virtuoso player.
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François Rabelais
François Rabelais (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃swa ʁablɛ]) (c. 1494 – 9 April 1553) was a major French Renaissance writer, doctor, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, bawdy jokes and songs. His best known work is Gargantua and Pantagruel.
Although the place or date of his birth is not reliably documented, and some scholars put it as early as 1483, it is probable that François Rabelais was born in November 1494 near Chinon, Indre-et-Loire, where his father worked as a lawyer.La Devinière in Seuilly, Indre-et-Loire, is the name of the estate that claims to be the writer's birthplace and houses a Rabelais museum.
Rabelais was first a novice of the Franciscan order, and later a friar at Fontenay-le-Comte, where he studied Greek and Latin, as well as science, philology, and law, already becoming known and respected by the humanists of his era, including Budé. Harassed due to the directions of his studies, Rabelais petitioned Pope Clement VII and was granted permission to leave the Franciscans and enter the Benedictine order at Maillezais, where he was more warmly received.
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French people
The French (French: Français) are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups. Within France, the French are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence.
However, the word can also refer to people of French descent who are found in other countries, with significant French-speaking population groups or not, such as Argentina (French Argentines), Brazil (French Brazilians), French West Indies (the French Caribbean people), Canada (French Canadians) and the United States (French Americans), and some of them have a French cultural identity. The United Kingdom also has a large French population, mainly in England, and due to historic relations and immigration.
To be French, according to the first article of the Constitution, is to be a citizen of France, regardless of one's origin, race, or religion (sans distinction d'origine, de race ou de religion). According to its principles, France has devoted herself to the destiny of a proposition nation, a generic territory where people are bounded only by the French language and the assumed willingness to live together, as defined by Ernest Renan's "plébiscite de tous les jours" ("daily referendum" on the willingness to live together, in Renan's 1882 essay "Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?").
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Frenchmen
The French (French: Français) are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups. Within France, the French are defined by citizenship, regardless of ancestry or country of residence.
However, the word can also refer to people of French descent who are found in other countries, with significant French-speaking population groups or not, such as Argentina (French Argentines), Brazil (French Brazilians), French West Indies (the French Caribbean people), Canada (French Canadians) and the United States (French Americans), and some of them have a French cultural identity. The United Kingdom also has a large French population, mainly in England, and due to historic relations and immigration.
To be French, according to the first article of the Constitution, is to be a citizen of France, regardless of one's origin, race, or religion (sans distinction d'origine, de race ou de religion). According to its principles, France has devoted herself to the destiny of a proposition nation, a generic territory where people are bounded only by the French language and the assumed willingness to live together, as defined by Ernest Renan's "plébiscite de tous les jours" ("daily referendum" on the willingness to live together, in Renan's 1882 essay "Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?").
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Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré (pronounced: [ɡabʁiɛl yʁbɛ̃ fɔʁe]; 12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers. Among his best-known works are his Pavane, Requiem, nocturnes for piano, and the songs "Après un rêve" and "Clair de lune". Although his best-known and most accessible compositions are generally his earlier ones, Fauré composed many of his greatest works in his later years, in a harmonically and melodically much more complex style.
Fauré was born into a cultured but not especially musical family. His talent became clear when he was a small boy. At the age of nine he was sent to a music college in Paris, where he was trained to be a church organist and choirmaster. Among his teachers was Camille Saint-Saëns, who became a lifelong friend. After graduating from the college in 1865 Fauré earned a modest living as an organist and teacher, leaving him little time for composition. When he became successful in his middle age, holding the important posts of organist of the Église de la Madeleine and director of the Paris Conservatoire, he still lacked time for composing; he retreated to the countryside in the summer holidays to concentrate on composition. By his last years, Fauré was recognised in France as the leading French composer of his day. An unprecedented national musical tribute was held for him in Paris in 1922, headed by the president of the French Republic. Outside France, Fauré's music took decades to become widely accepted, except in Britain, where he had many admirers during his lifetime.
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George Berkeley
George Berkeley ( /ˈbɑrkliː/; 12 March 1685 – 14 January 1753), also known as Bishop Berkeley (Bishop of Cloyne), was an Anglo-Irish philosopher whose primary achievement was the advancement of a theory he called "immaterialism" (later referred to as "subjective idealism" by others). This theory denies the existence of material substance and instead contends that familiar objects like tables and chairs are only ideas in the minds of perceivers, and as a result cannot exist without being perceived. Thus, as Berkeley famously put it, for physical objects "esse est percipi" ("to be is to be perceived"). Berkeley is also known for his critique of abstraction, an important premise in his argument for immaterialism.
In 1709, Berkeley published his first major work, An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision, in which he discussed the limitations of human vision and advanced the theory that the proper objects of sight are not material objects, but light and color. This foreshadowed his chief philosophical work A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge in 1710 which, after its poor reception, he rewrote in dialogue form and published under the title Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in 1713.
In this book, Berkeley's views were represented by Philonous (Greek: 'lover of mind'), while Hylas (Greek: 'matter') embodies the Irish thinker’s opponents, in particular John Locke. Berkeley argued against Sir Isaac Newton's doctrine of absolute space, time and motion in De Motu (on Motion), published 1721. His arguments were a precursor to the views of Mach and Einstein. In 1732, he published Alciphron, a Christian apologetic against the free-thinkers, and in 1734, he published The Analyst, an empiricist critique of the foundations of infinitesimal calculus, which was influential in the development of mathematics.
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Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet (French pronunciation: [ʒɔʁʒ bizɛ]) formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, (25 October 1838 – 3 June 1875) was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.
During a brilliant student career at the Conservatoire de Paris, Bizet won many prizes, including the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1857. He was recognised as an outstanding pianist, though he chose not to capitalise on this skill and rarely performed in public. Returning to Paris after almost three years in Italy, he found that the main Parisian opera theatres preferred the established classical repertoire to the works of newcomers. His keyboard and orchestral compositions were likewise largely ignored; as a result, his career stalled, and he earned his living mainly by arranging and transcribing the music of others. Restless for success, he began many theatrical projects during the 1860s, most of which were abandoned. Neither of the two operas that reached the stage—Les pêcheurs de perles and La jolie fille de Perth—was immediately successful.
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Georges Braque
Georges Braque[p] (13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th century French painter and sculptor who, along with Pablo Picasso, developed the art style known as Cubism.
Georges Braque was born on 13 May 1882, in Argenteuil, Val-d'Oise. He grew up in Le Havre and trained to be a house painter and decorator like his father and grandfather. However, he also studied artistic painting during evenings at the École des Beaux-Arts, in Le Havre, from about 1897 to 1899. In Paris, he apprenticed with a decorator and was awarded his certificate in 1902. The next year, he attended the Académie Humbert, also in Paris, and painted there until 1904. It was here that he met Marie Laurencin and Francis Picabia.
His earliest works were impressionistic, but after seeing the work exhibited by the artistic group known as the "Fauves" (Beasts) in 1905, Braque adopted a Fauvist style. The Fauves, a group that included Henri Matisse and André Derain among others, used brilliant colors to represent emotional response. Braque worked most closely with the artists Raoul Dufy and Othon Friesz, who shared Braque's hometown of Le Havre, to develop a somewhat more subdued Fauvist style. In 1906, Braque traveled with Friesz to L'Estaque, to Antwerp, and home to Le Havre to paint.
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Georges Brassens
Georges Brassens (French pronunciation: [ʒɔʁʒ bʁasɛ̃s]), 22 October 1921 – 29 October 1981), was a French singer-songwriter and poet.
Brassens was born in Sète, a town in southern France near Montpellier. Now an iconic figure in France, he achieved fame through his elegant songs with their harmonically complex music for voice and guitar and articulate, diverse lyrics; indeed, he is considered one of France's most accomplished postwar poets. He has also set to music poems by both well-known and relatively obscure poets, including Louis Aragon (Il n'y a pas d'amour heureux), Victor Hugo (La Légende de la Nonne, Gastibelza), Jean Richepin, François Villon (La Ballade des Dames du Temps Jadis), and Guillaume Apollinaire, Antoine Pol (Les Passantes).
During World War II, he was forced by the Germans to work in a labor camp at a BMW aircraft engine plant in Basdorf near Berlin in Germany (March 1943). Here Brassens met some of his future friends, such as Pierre Onténiente, whom he called Gibraltar because he was "steady as a rock." They would later become close friends.
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Georges Seurat
Georges Pierre Seurat (French pronunciation: [ʒɔʁʒ pjɛʁ søʁa]; 2 December 1859 – 29 March 1891) was a French Post-Impressionist painter and draftsman. He is noted for his innovative use of drawing media and for devising a technique of painting known as pointillism. His large-scale work A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (1884–1886) altered the direction of modern art by initiating Neo-impressionism, and is one of the icons of 19th century painting.
Seurat was born into a wealthy family in Paris, France. His father, Antoine Chrysostome Seurat, was a legal official and a native of Champagne; his mother, Ernestine Faivre, was Parisian. Georges Seurat first studied art with Justin Lequien, a sculptor. Seurat attended the École des Beaux-Arts in 1878 and 1879. After a year of service at Brest Military Academy, he returned to Paris in 1880. He shared a small studio on the Left Bank with two student friends before moving to a studio of his own. For the next two years he devoted himself to mastering the art of black-and-white drawing. He spent 1883 on his first major painting—a huge canvas titled Bathers at Asnières.
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Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European (IE) language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic (also known as Common Germanic), which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe. Proto-Germanic, along with all of its descendants, is characterized by a number of unique linguistic features, most famously the consonant change known as Grimm's law. Early varieties of Germanic enter history with the Germanic peoples moving south from northern Europe in the 2nd century BC, to settle in north-central Europe.
The most widely spoken Germanic languages are English and German, with approximately 300–400 million and over 100 million native speakers respectively. They belong to the West Germanic family. The West Germanic group also includes other major languages, such as Dutch with 23 million and Afrikaans with over 6 million native speakers;. The North Germanic languages include Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and Faroese, which have a combined total of about 20 million speakers. The SIL Ethnologue lists 53 different Germanic languages.
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Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples (also called Teutonic or Gothic in older literature) are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.
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Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze (French pronunciation: [ʒil dəløz]), (18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (1980), both co-written with Félix Guattari. His metaphysical treatise Difference and Repetition (1968) is considered by some scholars to be his magnum opus.
Deleuze was born into a middle-class family in Paris and lived there for most of his life. His initial schooling was undertaken during World War II, during which time he attended the Lycée Carnot. He also spent a year in khâgne at the Lycée Henri IV. During the Nazi occupation of France, Deleuze's older brother, Georges, was arrested for his participation in the French Resistance, and died while in transit to a concentration camp. In 1944, Deleuze went to study at the Sorbonne. His teachers there included several noted specialists in the history of philosophy, such as Georges Canguilhem, Jean Hyppolite, Ferdinand Alquié, and Maurice de Gandillac, and Deleuze's lifelong interest in the canonical figures of modern philosophy owed much to these teachers. Nonetheless, Deleuze also found the work of non-academic thinkers such as Jean-Paul Sartre strongly attractive. He agrégated in philosophy in 1948.
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Great Italian Wars
The Italian Wars, often referred to as the Great Italian Wars or the Great Wars of Italy and sometimes as the Habsburg–Valois Wars or the Renaissance Wars, were a series of conflicts from 1494 to 1559 that involved, at various times, most of the city-states of Italy, the Papal States, most of the major states of Western Europe (France, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, England, and Scotland) as well as the Ottoman Empire. Originally arising from dynastic disputes over the Duchy of Milan and the Kingdom of Naples, the wars rapidly became a general struggle for power and territory among their various participants, and were marked with an increasing number of alliances, counter-alliances, and betrayals.
Following the Wars in Lombardy between Venice and Milan, which ended in 1454, Northern Italy had been largely at peace during the reigns of Cosimo de' Medici and Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence, with the notable exception of the War of Ferrara in 1482-1484.
Spain had promised not to interfere with France's adventures in Italy in return for Roussillon and Cerdagne, which were ceded to Spain under the Treaty of Barcelona of 1492.
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Gustave Courbet
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet (10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realist movement in 19th-century French painting. The Realist movement bridged the Romantic movement (characterized by the paintings of Théodore Géricault and Eugène Delacroix) with the Barbizon School and the Impressionists. Courbet occupies an important place in 19th century French painting as an innovator and as an artist willing to make bold social commentary in his work.
Courbet painted figurative compositions, landscapes, seascapes, and still-lifes. He courted controversy by addressing social issues in his work, and by painting subjects that were considered vulgar, such as the rural bourgeoisie, peasants, and working conditions of the poor. His work belonged neither to the predominant Romantic nor Neoclassical schools. History painting, which the Paris Salon esteemed as a painter's highest calling, did not interest Courbet, who stated that "the artists of one century [are] basically incapable of reproducing the aspect of a past or future century ..." Instead, he believed that the only possible source for a living art is the artist's own experience.
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Gustave Eiffel
Alexandre Gustave Eiffel ( /ˈaɪfəl/ French pronunciation: [efɛl]) (December 15, 1832 – December 27, 1923) was a French civil engineer and architect. A graduate of the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, he made his name with various bridges for the French railway network, most famously the Garabit viaduct. He is best known for the world-famous Eiffel Tower, built for the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris, France. After his retirement from engineering, Eiffel concentrated his energies on research into meteorology and aerodynamics, making important contributions in both fields.
Gustave Eiffel was born in Dijon, in the Côte-d'Or department of France, the first child of Alexandre and Catherine Eiffel. The family was originally from Germany, being descended from Jean-René Bönickhausen, who emigrated from Marmagen and settled in Paris at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The family adopted the name Eiffel as a reference to the Eifel mountains in the region from which it had come. Although the family always used the name Eiffel, Gustave's name was registered at birth as Bönickhausen, and was not formally changed to Eiffel until 1880.
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Guy Canivet
Guy Canivet (born 23 September 1943 in Lons-le-Saunier) is a French judge.
As of 2005[update], he is president of the Court of Cassation and as such is the highest judge in France.
On 22 February 2007, Jean-Louis Debré, president of the French National Assembly, appointed Guy Canivet to the Constitutional Council of France, replacing Jean-Claude Colliard.
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Guy de Maupassant
Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (5 August 1850 – 6 July 1893) was a popular 19th-century French writer, considered one of the fathers of the modern short story and one of the form's finest exponents.
A protégé of Flaubert, Maupassant's stories are characterized by their economy of style and efficient, effortless dénouement. Many of the stories are set during the Franco-Prussian War of the 1870s and several describe the futility of war and the innocent civilians who, caught in the conflict, emerge changed. He authored some 300 short stories, six novels, three travel books, and one volume of verse. The story "Boule de Suif" ("Ball of Fat", 1880) is often accounted his masterpiece. His most unsettling horror story, "Le Horla" (1887), was about madness and suicide.
Henri-René-Albert-Guy de Maupassant was born on August 5, 1850 at the château de Miromesnil, near Dieppe in the Seine-Inférieure (now Seine-Maritime) department in France. He was the first son of Laure Le Poittevin and Gustave de Maupassant, both from prosperous bourgeois families. When Maupassant was eleven and his brother Hervé was five, his mother, an independent-minded woman, risked social disgrace to obtain a legal separation from her husband.
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Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz (pronounced: [ɛktɔʁ bɛʁˈljoːz]; 11 December 1803 – 8 March 1869) was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts (Requiem). Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a conductor, he performed several concerts with more than 1,000 musicians. He also composed around 50 songs. His influence was critical for the further development of Romanticism, especially in composers like Richard Wagner, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Franz Liszt, Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler and many others.
Hector Berlioz was born in France at La Côte-Saint-André in the département of Isère, near Grenoble. His father, a respected provincial physician and scholar, was responsible for much of the young Berlioz's education. His father, Louis-Joseph Berlioz, was an atheist, with a liberal outlook; his mother, Marie-Antoinette, was an orthodox Roman Catholic. He had five siblings in all, three of whom did not survive to adulthood. The other two, Nanci and Adèle, remained close to Berlioz throughout his life.
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Henri Bergson
Henri-Louis Bergson (French pronunciation: [bɛʁksɔn] 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality.
He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his rich and vitalizing ideas and the brilliant skill with which they have been presented".
Bergson was born in the Rue Lamartine in Paris, not far from the Palais Garnier (the old Paris opera house) in 1859 (the year in which France emerged as a victor in the Second Italian War of Independence, and in the month before the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species). His father, the pianist Michał Bergson, was of a Polish Jewish family background (originally bearing the name Bereksohn). His mother, Katherine Levison, daughter of a Yorkshire doctor, was from an English and Irish Jewish background. The Bereksohns were a famous[citation needed] Jewish entrepreneurial family of Polish descent. Henri Bergson's great-great-grandfather, Szmul Jakubowicz Sonnenberg, called Zbytkower, was a prominent banker and a protégé of Stanisław August Poniatowski, King of Poland from 1764 to 1795.
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Henri Matisse
Henri-Émile-Benoît Matisse (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃ʁi matis]; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter. Matisse is commonly regarded, along with Picasso and Marcel Duchamp, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture. Although he was initially labelled a Fauve (wild beast), by the 1920s he was increasingly hailed as an upholder of the classical tradition in French painting. His mastery of the expressive language of colour and drawing, displayed in a body of work spanning over a half-century, won him recognition as a leading figure in modern art. While most widely recognized for his paintings, Matisse actively worked in a variety of media throughout his career.
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Henry IV of France
Henry IV (13 December 1553 – 14 May 1610), Henri-Quatre, was King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610 and King of France from 1589 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France.
Baptised Catholic, he converted to Protestantism along with his mother Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre. He inherited the throne of Navarre, in 1572, on the death of his mother. As a Huguenot, Henry was involved in the Wars of Religion, he barely escaped the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre and later led protestant forces against the French Royal Army.
As a prince de sang by his father, Antoine de Bourbon, he was also the natural heir to the throne of France. On the death of the childless Henry III, he ascended the throne of France in 1589, but had to abjure his Calvinist faith. However, his coronation was followed by a four-year war against the Catholic League to establish his legitimacy.
One of the most popular French kings, both during and after his reign, Henry showed great care for the welfare of his subjects and, as a politique, displayed an unusual religious tolerance for the time. He notably enacted the Edict of Nantes, in 1598, which guaranteed religious liberties to the Protestants, thereby effectively ending the civil war. He was assassinated by François Ravaillac, a fanatical Catholic.
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Homer
In the Western classical tradition, Homer ( /ˈhoʊmər/; Ancient Greek: Ὅμηρος, Hómēros) is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.
When he lived is unknown. Herodotus estimates that Homer lived 400 years before Herodotus' own time, which would place him at around 850 BC; while other ancient sources claim that he lived much nearer to the supposed time of the Trojan War, in the early 12th century BC. Modern researchers appear to place Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC.
The formative influence played by the Homeric epics in shaping Greek culture was widely recognized, and Homer was described as the teacher of Greece. Homer's works, which are about fifty percent speeches, provided models in persuasive speaking and writing that were emulated throughout the ancient and medieval Greek worlds. Fragments of Homer account for nearly half of all identifiable Greek literary papyrus finds.
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Honoré de Balzac
Honoré de Balzac (French pronunciation: [ɔnɔʁe də balzak]; 20 May 1799 – 18 August 1850) was a French novelist and playwright. His magnum opus was a sequence of short stories and novels collectively entitled La Comédie humaine, which presents a panorama of French life in the years after the 1815 fall of Napoleon.
Due to his keen observation of detail and unfiltered representation of society, Balzac is regarded as one of the founders of realism in European literature. He is renowned for his multifaceted characters, who are complex, morally ambiguous and fully human. His writing influenced many subsequent novelists such as Marcel Proust, Émile Zola, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Gustave Flaubert, Marie Corelli, Henry James, William Faulkner, Jack Kerouac, and Italo Calvino, and philosophers such as Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. Many of Balzac's works have been made into or have inspired films, and they are a continuing source of inspiration for writers, filmmakers and critics.
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Hugh Capet
Hugh Capet (c. 939 – 24 October 996), called in contemporary sources "Hugh the Great" (Latin: Hugo Magnus), was the first King of the Franks of the eponymous Capetian dynasty from his election to succeed the Carolingian Louis V in 987 until his death.
The son of Hugh the Great, Duke of France, and Hedwige of Saxony, daughter of the German king Henry the Fowler, Hugh was born in 939. His paternal family, the Robertians, were powerful landowners in the Île-de-France. His grandfather had been King Robert I. His grandmother Beatrice was a Carolingian, a daughter of Herbert I of Vermandois. This makes him the great-great-great-great-great grandson of Charlemagne through Pepin of Italy. King Odo was his grand-uncle and King Rudolph the son-in-law of his grandfather, King Robert I. Hugh was born into a well-connected and powerful family with many ties to the reigning nobility of Europe. But for all this, Hugh's father was never king. When Rudolph died in 936, Hugh the Great organised the return of Louis d'Outremer, son of Charles the Simple, from his exile at the court of Athelstan of England. Hugh's motives are unknown, but it is presumed that he acted to forestall Rudolph's brother and successor as Duke of Burgundy, Hugh the Black, from taking the French throne, or to prevent it from falling into the grasping hands of Herbert II of Vermandois or Richard the Fearless, Duke of Normandy.
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Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forager society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species.
Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were hunter-gatherers until around 10,000 years ago. Following the invention of agriculture hunter-gatherers have been displaced by farming or pastoralist groups in most parts of the world. Only a few contemporary societies are classified as hunter-gatherers, and many supplement, sometimes extensively, their foraging activity with farming and/or keeping animals.
The earliest humans probably lived primarily on scavenging, not actual hunting. Early humans in the Lower Paleolithic lived in mixed habitats which allowed them to collect seafood, eggs, nuts, and fruits besides scavenging. Rather than killing large animals themselves for meat, they used carcasses of large animals killed by other predators or carcasses from animals that died by natural causes.
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Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (German pronunciation: [ɪˈmaːnu̯eːl ˈkant]; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher from Königsberg (today Kaliningrad of Russia), who researched, lectured, and wrote on philosophy and anthropology during the Enlightenment at the end of the 18th century. At the time, there were major successes and advances in the sciences (for example, Isaac Newton, Carl Friedrich Gauss, and Robert Boyle) applying reason and logic.
Kant’s major work, the Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, 1781), aimed to unite reason with experience to move beyond what he took to be failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics. He hoped to end an age of speculation where objects outside experience were used to support what he saw as futile theories, while opposing the skepticism of thinkers such as Descartes, Berkeley and Hume.
He stated:
Kant proposed a ‘Copernican Revolution’ in reverse, saying that:
Kant published other important works on ethics, religion, law, aesthetics, astronomy, and history. These included the Critique of Practical Reason (Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, 1788) and the Metaphysics of Morals (Die Metaphysik der Sitten, 1797), which dealt with ethics. And the Critique of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft, 1790), which looks at aesthetics and teleology. He aimed to resolve disputes between empirical and rationalist approaches. The former asserted that all knowledge comes through experience; the latter maintained that reason and innate ideas were prior. Kant argued that experience is purely subjective without first being processed by pure reason. He also said that using reason without applying it to experience only leads to theoretical illusions. The free and proper exercise of reason by the individual was both a theme of the Enlightenment, and of Kant's approaches to the various problems of philosophy.
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Interpol
Coordinates: 45°46′56″N 4°50′54″E / 45.78219°N 4.84838°E / 45.78219; 4.84838 The International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO), widely known as INTERPOL or Interpol, is an organization facilitating international police cooperation. It was established as the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC) in 1923 and adopted its telegraphic address as its common name in 1956.
Its membership of 190 countries provides finance of around €59 million through annual contributions. The organization's headquarters is in Lyon, France. It is the second largest intergovernmental organization after the United Nations, in terms of number of member states.
Its current Secretary-General is Ronald Noble, a former United States Under Secretary of the Treasury for Enforcement. Its current President is Singapore's Senior Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs and former Commissioner of Police Khoo Boon Hui; the President before that, Jackie Selebi, National Commissioner of the South African Police Service, held his term from 2004 till his resignation on 13 January 2008, after which he was charged in South Africa on three counts of corruption and one of defeating the course of justice, and replaced by Arturo Herrera Verdugo, current National Commissioner of Investigations Police of Chile and former vice president for the American Zone, who remained acting president until the organization meeting in October 2008.
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Jacques Cartier
Jacques Cartier (December 31, 1491 – September 1, 1557) was a French explorer of Breton origin who claimed what is now Canada for France. He was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, which he named "The Country of Canadas", after the Iroquois names for the two big settlements he saw at Stadacona (Quebec City) and at Hochelaga (Montreal Island).
Jacques Cartier was born in 1491 in Saint-Malo, the port on the extreme north-east coast of Brittany. Cartier, who was a respectable mariner, improved his social status in 1520 by marrying Mary Catherine des Granches, member of a leading family. His good name in Saint-Malo is recognized by its frequent appearance in baptismal registers as godfather or witness.
In 1534, the year the Duchy of Brittany was formally united with France in the Edict of Union, Cartier was introduced to King Francis I by Jean le Veneur, bishop of Saint-Malo and abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel, at the Manoir de Brion. The king had previously invited (although not formally commissioned) the Florentine explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano to explore the eastern coast of North America on behalf of France in 1524. Le Veneur cited voyages to Newfoundland and Brazil as proof of Cartier's ability to "lead ships to the discovery of new lands in the New World".
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Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida ( /ʒɑːk ˈdɛrɨdə/; French pronunciation: [ʒak dɛʁida]; July 15, 1930 – October 9, 2004) was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy.
His more than 40 published books, together with essays and public speaking, has had a significant impact upon the humanities, particularly on Anthropology, Sociology, Semiotics, Jurisprudence, Literary Theory and Cultural Studies in general. His influence in the academe in Continental Europe, South America and all countries where continental philosophy is predominant, is enormous; becoming crucial in debates around Ontology, Epistemology (especially concerning Social Sciences), Ethics, Esthetics, Hermeneutics and Philosophy of Language.
His work also influenced architecture (in the form of deconstructivism), music and plastic arts. and art critics. Particularly in his later writings, he frequently addressed ethical and political themes, and his work influenced various activist and other political movements.
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Jacques Lacan
Jacques Marie Émile Lacan (French pronunciation: [ʒak lakɑ̃]; April 13, 1901 – September 9, 1981) was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who made prominent contributions to psychoanalysis and philosophy, and has been called "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud". Giving yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced France's intellectuals in the 1960s and the 1970s, especially the post-structuralist philosophers. His interdisciplinary work was as a "self-proclaimed Freudian....'It is up to you to be Lacanians if you wish. I am a Freudian'"; and featured the unconscious, the castration complex, the ego, identification, and language as subjective perception. His ideas have had a significant impact on critical theory, literary theory, 20th-century French philosophy, sociology, feminist theory, film theory and clinical psychoanalysis.
Lacan was born in Paris, the eldest of Emilie and Alfred Lacan's three children. His father was a successful soap and oils salesman. His mother was ardently Catholic—his younger brother went to a monastery in 1929 and Lacan attended the Jesuit Collège Stanislas. During the early 1920s, Lacan attended right-wing Action Française political meetings and met the founder, Charles Maurras. By the mid-1920s, Lacan had become dissatisfied with religion and quarrelled with his family over it.
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Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach (20 June 1819 – 5 October 1880) was a German-born French composer, cellist and impresario of the romantic period. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr. and Arthur Sullivan. His best-known works were continually revived during the 20th century, and many of his operettas continue to be staged in the 21st. The Tales of Hoffman remains part of the standard opera repertory.
Born in Cologne, the son of a synagogue cantor, Offenbach showed early musical talent. At the age of 14, he was accepted as a student at the Paris Conservatoire but found academic study unfulfilling and left after a year. From 1835 to 1855 he earned his living as a cellist, achieving international fame, and as a conductor. His ambition, however, was to compose comic pieces for the musical theatre. Finding the management of Paris's Opéra-Comique company uninterested in staging his works, in 1855 he leased a small theatre in the Champs-Élysées. There he presented a series of his own small-scale pieces, many of which became popular.
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Jacques-Louis David
Jacques-Louis David ( /ʒɒkˈlwiˈdɒvid/) (30 August 1748 – 29 December 1825) was an influential French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in taste away from Rococo frivolity toward a classical austerity and severity, heightened feeling chiming with the moral climate of the final years of the Ancien Régime.
David later became an active supporter of the French Revolution and friend of Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794), and was effectively a dictator of the arts under the French Republic. Imprisoned after Robespierre's fall from power, he aligned himself with yet another political regime upon his release, that of Napoleon I. It was at this time that he developed his Empire style, notable for its use of warm Venetian colours. David had a huge number of pupils, making him the strongest influence in French art of the early 19th century, especially academic Salon painting.
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Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard (27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ bodʁijaʁ]) was a French sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator, and photographer. His work is frequently associated with postmodernism and specifically post-structuralism.
Baudrillard was born in Reims, northeastern France, on July 27, 1929. He told interviewers that his grandparents were peasants and his parents were civil servants. During his high school studies at the Reims Lycée, he came into contact with pataphysics (via the philosophy professor Emmanuel Peillet), which is said to be crucial for understanding Baudrillard's later thought. He became the first of his family to attend university when he moved to Paris to attend Sorbonne University. There he studied German language and literature, which led to him to begin teaching the subject at several different lycées, both Parisian and provincial, from 1960 until 1966. While teaching, Baudrillard began to publish reviews of literature and translated the works of such authors as Peter Weiss, Bertolt Brecht, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Wilhelm Emil Mühlmann.
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Jean de La Fontaine
Jean de La Fontaine (IPA: [ʒɑ̃ də la fɔ̃tɛn]; July 8, 1621, Château-Thierry – April 13, 1695, Paris) was the most famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous alternative versions in France, and in French regional languages.
According to Flaubert, he was the only French poet to understand and master the texture of the French language before Hugo. A set of postage stamps celebrating La Fontaine and the Fables was issued by France in 1995.
La Fontaine was born at Château-Thierry in France. His father was Charles de La Fontaine, maître des eaux et forêts - a kind of deputy-ranger - of the duchy of Château-Thierry; his mother was Françoise Pidoux. Both sides of his family were of the highest provincial middle class; though they were not noble, his father was fairly wealthy.
Jean, the eldest child, was educated at the collège (grammar school) of Reims, and at the end of his school days he entered the Oratory in May 1641, and the seminary of Saint-Magloire in October of the same year; but a very short sojourn proved to him that he had mistaken his vocation. He then apparently studied law, and is said to have been admitted as avocat (lawyer).
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Jean Fouquet
Jean (or Jehan) Fouquet (1420–1481) was a preeminent French painter of the 15th century, a master of both panel painting and manuscript illumination, and the apparent inventor of the portrait miniature. He was the first French artist to travel to Italy and experience at first hand the Italian Early Renaissance.
Jean Fouquet was born in Tours. Little is known of his life, but it is certain that he was in Italy before 1447, where he executed a portrait of Pope Eugene IV who died in that year (now surviving only in much later copies), and that upon his return to France, while retaining his purely French sentiment, he grafted the elements of the Tuscan style, which he had acquired during his period in Italy, upon the style of the Van Eycks, which was the basis of early 15th-century French art, and thus became the founder of an important new school. He worked for the French court, including King Charles VII, the treasurer Etienne Chevalier, and the chancellor Guillaume Jouvenel des Ursins; near the end of his career, he became court painter to Louis XI. His work can be associated with the French court's attempt to solidify French national identity in the wake of its long struggle with England in the Hundred Years' War.
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Jean Nouvel
Jean Nouvel (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ nu.vɛl]) (born August 12, 1945) is a French architect. Nouvel studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and was a founding member of Mars 1976 and Syndicat de l'Architecture. He has obtained a number of prestigious distinctions over the course of his career, including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (technically, the prize was awarded for the Institut du Monde Arabe which Nouvel designed), the Wolf Prize in Arts in 2005 and the Pritzker Prize in 2008. A number of museums and architectural centres have presented retrospectives of his work.
Nouvel was born August 12, 1945, in Fumel, Lot-et-Garonne, France, the son of Renée and Roger Nouvel who were teachers. His family moved often when his father became the county's chief school superintendent. His parents encouraged Nouvel to study mathematics and language, but when he was 16 years old he was captivated by art when a teacher taught him drawing. Although he later said he thought that his parents were guiding him to pursue a career in education or engineering, the family reached a compromise that he could study architecture which they thought was less risky than art.
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Jean Pisani-Ferry
Jean Pisani-Ferry (born July 28, 1951) is a French economist and public policy expert. He is currently Director of Bruegel, the Brussels-based economic think tank. He is also a professor of economics with Université Paris-Dauphine.
After having held positions in research and government in France, he joined the European Commission in 1989 as economic adviser to the Director-General of DG ECFIN. From 1992 to 1997 he was the director of CEPII, the main French research centre in international economics. In 1997, he became senior economic adviser to the French minister of Finance and was later appointed executive president of the French prime minister's Council of Economic Analysis (2001-2002). From 2002 to 2004, he was senior adviser to the director of the French Treasury.
Pisani-Ferry has held teaching positions with various universities including Ecole polytechnique in Paris and Université libre de Bruxelles. In 2006-2007, he was president of the French economic association. Born in 1951, Pisani-Ferry was initially trained as an engineer and also holds a Master in mathematics. He holds an advanced degree in economics from the Centre d'études des programmes économiques (CEPE, Paris). Pisani-Ferry has a regular column in Le Monde and Handelsblatt.
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Jean Racine
Jean Racine (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃ ʁaˈsin]), baptismal name Jean-Baptiste Racine (22 December 1639 – 21 April 1699), was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France (along with Molière and Corneille), and an important literary figure in the Western tradition. Racine was primarily a tragedian, producing such 'examples of neoclassical perfection' as Phèdre,Andromaque, and Athalie, although he did write one comedy, Les Plaideurs, and a muted tragedy,Esther, for the young.
Racine's plays displayed his mastery of the dodecasyllabic alexandrine; his verse is renowned for elegance, purity, speed, and fury, and for what Robert Lowell described as a 'diamond-edge', and the 'glory of its hard, electric rage'. The language effects of Racine's works are widely considered to be untranslatable, although many eminent poets have attempted to do so, including Lowell, Ted Hughes, and Derek Mahon into English, and Schiller into German. The latest to attempt to translate Racine's plays into English, and the first to render the plays in rhymed heroic couplets, earned a 2011 American Book Award for the poet Geoffrey Argent. Racine's dramaturgy is marked by his psychological insight, the prevailing passion of his characters, and the nakedness of both the plot and stage.
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Jean-Baptiste Lully
Jean-Baptiste de Lully (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃batist də lyˈli]; Italian: Giovanni Battista Lulli; 28 November 1632 – 22 March 1687) was an Italian-born French composer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. He is considered the chief master of the French Baroque style. Lully disavowed any Italian influence in French music of the period. He became a French subject in 1661.
Lully, son of a working-class miller, was born in Florence, Italy. Lully had little education, but he learned basic techniques on the guitar, originally taught by a Franciscan friar of Florence. Later in France, he learned how to play the violin, and to dance. In 1646, he was discovered by Roger de Lorraine, the chevalier de Guise, son of Charles, Duke of Guise, and was taken to France, where he entered the services of Mademoiselle de Montpensier (la Grande Mademoiselle) as a scullery-boy and Italian-language teacher. With the help of this princess, his talent increased. He studied the theory of music under Nicolas Métru. It has been said that a scurrilous song on his patroness (the doggerel he set to music refers to a "sigh" she produced while at stool) resulted in his dismissal. It is far more likely that he did not want to moulder out in the provinces with the exiled princess.[citation needed]
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Jean-François Millet
Jean-François Millet (October 4, 1814 – January 20, 1875) was a French painter and one of the founders of the Barbizon school in rural France. Millet is noted for his scenes of peasant farmers; he can be categorized as part of the naturalism and realism movements.
Millet was the first child of Jean-Louis-Nicolas and Aimée-Henriette-Adélaïde Henry Millet, members of the peasant community in the village of Gruchy, in Gréville-Hague (Normandy). Under the guidance of two village priests, Millet acquired a knowledge of Latin and modern authors, before being sent to Cherbourg in 1833 to study with a portrait painter named Paul Dumouchel. By 1835 he was studying full-time with Lucien-Théophile Langlois, a pupil of Baron Gros, in Cherbourg. A stipend provided by Langlois and others enabled Millet to move to Paris in 1837, where he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts with Paul Delaroche. In 1839 his scholarship was terminated, and his first submission to the Salon was rejected.
After his first painting, a portrait, was accepted at the Salon of 1840, Millet returned to Cherbourg to begin a career as a portrait painter. However, the following year he married Pauline-Virginie Ono, and they moved to Paris. After rejections at the Salon of 1843 and Pauline's death by consumption, Millet returned again to Cherbourg. In 1845 Millet moved to Le Havre with Catherine Lemaire, whom he would marry in a civil ceremony in 1853; they would have nine children, and remain together for the rest of Millet's life. In Le Havre he painted portraits and small genre pieces for several months, before moving back to Paris.
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Jean-Marc Ayrault
Jean-Marc Ayrault (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃.maʁk e.ʁo] ; born 25 January 1950) is the current Prime Minister of France, having been appointed on 15 May 2012. He has also been the Mayor of Nantes since 1989, and has led the French Socialist Party in the National Assembly since 1997.
Born at Maulévrier in Maine-et-Loire, Jean-Marc Ayrault is the son of Joseph Ayrault of Maulévrier, formerly an agricultural worker who was subsequently employed in a textile factory, and of Georgette Uzenot, a former seamstress who later became a full time housewife.
His early schooling was at the St Joseph catholic primary school at Maulévrier, after which, between 1961 and 1968, he attended the Lycée Colbert, at Cholet. He subsequently studied German at Nantes University. In 1969/70 he spent a term in Würzburg in southern Germany. He graduated with a degree in German in 1971 and in 1972 obtained his graduate teaching diploma. He stayed in the Nantes area for his probationary teaching year which was undertaken at Rezé. Between 1973 and his election to the National Assembly in 1986 he worked as a German language teacher in nearby Saint-Herblain.
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Jean-Michel Jarre
Jean Michel André Jarre (born 24 August 1948 in Lyon) is a French composer, performer and music producer. He is a pioneer in the electronic, ambient and New Age genres, and known as an organiser of outdoor spectacles of his music featuring lights, laser displays, and fireworks.
Jarre was raised in Lyon by his mother and grandparents, and trained on the piano. From an early age he was introduced to a variety of art forms, including those of street performers, jazz musicians, and the artist Pierre Soulages. He played guitar in a band, but his musical style was perhaps most heavily influenced by Pierre Schaeffer, a pioneer of musique concrète at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales.
His first mainstream success was the 1976 album Oxygène. Recorded in a makeshift studio at his home, the album sold an estimated 12 million copies. Oxygène was followed in 1978 by Équinoxe, and in 1979 Jarre performed to a record-breaking audience of more than a million people at the Place de la Concorde, a record he has since broken three times. More albums were to follow, but his 1979 concert served as a blueprint for his future performances around the world. Several of his albums have been released to coincide with large-scale outdoor events, and he is now perhaps as well known as a performer as a musician.
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Jean-Paul Gaultier
Jean Paul Gaultier (French: [ʒɑ̃ pɔl ɡotje]; born 24 April 1952 in Arcueil, Val-de-Marne, France) is a French haute couture fashion designer. Gaultier was the creative director of Hermès from 2003 to 2010. In the past, he has hosted the television series Eurotrash.
Gaultier never received formal training as a designer. Instead, he started sending sketches to famous couture stylists at an early age. Pierre Cardin was impressed by his talent and hired him as an assistant in 1970. Afterwards he worked with Jacques Esterel in 1971 and Jean Patou later that year, then returning to manage the Pierre Cardin boutique in Manila for a year in 1974.
His first individual collection was released in 1976 and his characteristic irreverent style dates from 1981, and he has long been known as the enfant terrible of French fashion. Many of Gaultier's following collections have been based on street wear, focusing on popular culture, whereas others, particularly his Haute Couture collections, are very formal yet at the same time unusual and playful.
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Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (/ˈsɑːtrə/; French pronunciation: [saʁtʁ]; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism, and one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy and Marxism. His work, in addition to being influential to existentialism and Marxism, has also influenced sociology, critical theory, and literary studies, and continues to influence these disciplines. Sartre has also been noted for his relationship with the prominent feminist theorist Simone de Beauvoir.
He was awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize in Literature but refused it, saying that he always declined official honours and that, "a writer should not allow himself to be turned into an institution."
Jean-Paul Sartre was born in Paris as the only child of Jean-Baptiste Sartre, an officer of the French Navy, and Anne-Marie Schweitzer. His mother was of Alsatian origin and the first cousin of Nobel Prize laureate Albert Schweitzer. (Her father, Charles Schweitzer, was the older brother of Albert Schweitzer's father, Louis Théophile.) When Sartre was only a year old, his father died of a fever. Anne-Marie moved back to her parents' house in Meudon, where she raised Sartre with help from her father, a professor of German, who taught Sartre mathematics and introduced him to classical literature at a very early age. When he was twelve, Satre's mother remarried, and the family moved to La Rochelle, where he was frequently bullied.
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Jean-Philippe Rameau
Jean-Philippe Rameau (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃filip ʁaˈmo]; September 25, 1683, Dijon – September 12, 1764) was one of the most important French composers and music theorists of the Baroque era. He replaced Jean-Baptiste Lully as the dominant composer of French opera and is also considered the leading French composer for the harpsichord of his time, alongside François Couperin.
Little is known about Rameau's early years, and it was not until the 1720s that he won fame as a major theorist of music with his Treatise on Harmony (1722). He was almost 50 before he embarked on the operatic career on which his reputation chiefly rests. His debut, Hippolyte et Aricie (1733), caused a great stir and was fiercely attacked for its revolutionary use of harmony by the supporters of Lully's style of music. Nevertheless, Rameau's pre-eminence in the field of French opera was soon acknowledged, and he was later attacked as an "establishment" composer by those who favoured Italian opera during the controversy known as the Querelle des Bouffons in the 1750s. Rameau's music had gone out of fashion by the end of the 18th century, and it was not until the 20th that serious efforts were made to revive it. Today, he enjoys renewed appreciation with performances and recordings of his music ever more frequent.
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Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc, nicknamed "The Maid of Orléans" (French: Jeanne d'Arc,IPA: [ʒan daʁk]; ca. 1412 – 30 May 1431), is a folk heroine of France and a Roman Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in what is now eastern France who claimed divine guidance, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, which paved the way for the coronation of Charles VII of France. She was captured by the Burgundians, transferred to the English in exchange for money, put on trial by the pro-English Bishop of Beauvais Pierre Cauchon for charges of "insubordination and heterodoxy," and was burned at the stake for heresy when she was only 19 years old.
Twenty-five years after her execution, an inquisitorial court authorized by Pope Callixtus III examined the trial, pronounced her innocent, and declared her a martyr. Joan of Arc was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920. She is – along with St. Denis, St. Martin of Tours, St. Louis IX, and St. Theresa of Lisieux – one of the patron saints of France. Joan said that she had visions from God that instructed her to recover her homeland from English domination late in the Hundred Years' War. The uncrowned King Charles VII sent her to the siege of Orléans as part of a relief mission. She gained prominence when she overcame the dismissive attitude of veteran commanders and lifted the siege in only nine days. Several additional swift victories led to Charles VII's coronation at Reims and settled the disputed succession to the throne.
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Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (French pronunciation: [ʒyl emil fʁedeʁik masnɛ]) (May 12, 1842 – August 13, 1912) was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas fell into almost total oblivion. Apart from Manon and Werther, his works were rarely performed. However, since the mid-1970s, many operas of his such as Thaïs and Esclarmonde have undergone periodic revivals.
Massenet was born in Montaud, then an outlying hamlet and now a part of the city of Saint-Étienne, in the Loire. When he was six, his family moved to Paris due to his father's ill-health. There his mother (Adélaïde Massenet, née Royer; her husband's second wife) started taking piano pupils. She also taught Jules so well that at the age of 11 he was able to enter the Paris Conservatoire. He was still a student when his family moved from Paris to Chambéry, but Jules returned to Paris after a few months, living with a married member of his father's family by his first wife. To support himself during his studies, he worked as timpanist for six years at the Théâtre Lyrique, playing also other percussion instruments in other theatres, and working as a pianist in the Café de Belleville.
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Jules Verne
Jules Gabriel Verne (French pronunciation: [ʒyl vɛʁn]; February 8, 1828 – March 24, 1905) was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873). Verne wrote about space, air, and underwater travel before air travel and practical submarines were invented, and before practical means of space travel had been devised. He is the second most translated author in the world (after Agatha Christie). Some of his books have also been made into live-action and animated films and television shows. Verne is often referred to as the "Father of Science Fiction", a title sometimes shared with Hugo Gernsback and H. G. Wells.
Jules Verne was born in Nantes, in France, to Pierre Verne, an attorney, and his wife, Sophie Allote de la Fuÿe. Jules spent his early years at home with his parents in the bustling harbor city of Nantes. The family spent summers in a country house just outside the city, in Brains on the banks of the Loire River. Here Jules and his brother Paul would often rent a boat for one franc a day. The sight of the many ships navigating the river sparked Jules's imagination, as he describes in the autobiographical short story "Souvenirs d'Enfance et de Jeunesse". At the age of nine, Jules and Paul, of whom he was very fond, were sent to boarding school at the Saint Donatien College (Petit séminaire de Saint-Donatien). As a child, he developed a great interest in travel and exploration, a passion he showed as a writer of adventure stories and science fiction. His interest in writing often cost him progress in other subjects.
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Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar (Classical Latin: [ˈɡaː.i.ʊs ˈjuː.lɪ.ʊs ˈkaj.sar], July 100 BC – 15 March 44 BC) was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire.
In 60 BC, Caesar, Crassus and Pompey formed a political alliance that was to dominate Roman politics for several years. Their attempts to amass power through populist tactics were opposed by the conservative elite within the Roman Senate[citation needed], among them Cato the Younger with the frequent support of Cicero. Caesar's conquest of Gaul, completed by 51 BC, extended Rome's territory to the English Channel and the Rhine. Caesar became the first Roman general to cross both when he built a bridge across the Rhine and conducted the first invasion of Britain.
These achievements granted him unmatched military power and threatened to eclipse Pompey's standing. The balance of power was further upset by the death of Crassus in 53 BC. Political realignments in Rome finally led to a standoff between Caesar and Pompey, the latter having taken up the cause of the Senate. Ordered by the Senate to stand trial in Rome for various charges, Caesar marched on Rome with one legion—legio XIII—from Gaul to Italy, crossing the Rubicon in 49 BC. This sparked a civil war from which he emerged as the unrivaled leader of the Roman world.
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Jürgen Schmidhuber
Jürgen Schmidhuber (born 17 January 1963 in Munich) is a computer scientist and artist known for his work on machine learning, universal Artificial Intelligence (AI), artificial neural networks, digital physics, and low-complexity art. His contributions also include generalizations of Kolmogorov complexity and the Speed Prior. From 2004 to 2009 he was professor of Cognitive Robotics at the Tech. University Munich. Since 1995 he has been co-director of the Swiss AI Lab IDSIA in Lugano, since 2009 also professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Lugano. In honor of his achievements he was elected to the European Academy of Sciences and Arts in 2008.
The dynamic recurrent neural networks developed in his lab are simplified mathematical models of the biological neural networks found in human brains. A particularly successful model of this type is called Long short term memory. From training sequences it learns to solve numerous tasks unsolvable by previous such models. Applications range from automatic music composition to speech recognition, reinforcement learning and robotics in partially observable environments. As of 2010, his group has the best results on benchmarks in automatic handwriting recognition, obtained with deep neural networks and recurrent neural networks.
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La Hire
Étienne de Vignolles, called La Hire, (born 1390 - died 11 January 1443) was a French military commander during the Hundred Years' War.
One explanation for his nickname of La Hire would be that the English had nicknamed "the Hire-God" (Ira Dei: the wrath of God). Alternatively, his name may simply come from the French "hedgehog" because he had a prickly disposition.
La Hire joined Charles VII in 1418, when the English army invaded France. Three years later, in 1421 he fought at the Battle of Baugé. He was a close comrade of Joan of Arc, and, in 1429, as the King's captain he commanded the advance guard at the Battle of Patay, a French victory. He was imprisoned in Dourdan in the spring of 1431. He won the Battle of Gerbevoy in 1435 and was made Captain General of Normandy in 1438. He died at Montauban on 11 January 1443, of an unknown illness.
He held the titles of Lord of Montmorillon and chatelaine of Longueville.
La Hire is commemorated as the face of the Jack of Hearts in French playing cards. His name remains a byword for a choleric disposition.
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Laurent Garnier
Laurent Garnier (also known as Choice), (born 1 February 1966, Boulogne-sur-Seine, France) is a French techno music producer and DJ. Garnier began DJ-ing in Manchester during the late 1980s. By the following decade, he had a broad stylistic range, able to span deep house, Detroit techno, trance and jazz. He added production work to his schedule in the early 1990s, and recorded several albums.
During the late 1970s, Garnier discovered clubbing with his brother in Paris, where his family lived. He loved disco but also listened to all other contemporary musical genres including reggae, funk, and punk. At the age of 16, Garnier had started recording and mixing music on tape recorders.
In 1984, Garnier started working as a waiter for the French Embassy in London. He stayed there for a year and a half before moving to Manchester in 1986. Living in England he discovered the booming UK house scene and started DJing.
In 1987, he discovered the The Haçienda in Manchester, and met Mike Pickering the resident DJ. Chicago house and Detroit techno became popular, and Garnier started mixing there under the name of DJ Pedro.
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Le Corbusier
Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier (French pronunciation: [lə kɔʁbyzje]; October 6, 1887 – August 27, 1965), was an architect, designer, urbanist,and writer, famous for being one of the pioneers of what is now called modern architecture. He was born in Switzerland and became a French citizen in 1930. His career spanned five decades, with his buildings constructed throughout Europe, India and America.
He was a pioneer in studies of modern high design and was dedicated to providing better living conditions for the residents of crowded cities.
Le Corbusier adopted his pseudonym in the 1920s, allegedly deriving it in part from the name of a distant ancestor, "Lecorbésier."
He was awarded the Frank P. Brown Medal in 1961.
He was born as Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris in La Chaux-de-Fonds, a small city in Neuchâtel canton in north-western Switzerland, in the Jura mountains, just 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) across the border from France. He attended a kindergarten that used Fröbelian methods.
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Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (sometimes von Leibniz) (German pronunciation: [ˈɡɔtfʁiːt ˈvɪlhɛlm fɔn ˈlaɪbnɪts] or [ˈlaɪpnɪts]) (July 1, 1646 – November 14, 1716) was a German mathematician and philosopher. He wrote in several languages, but primarily in Latin (~40%), French (~30%) and German (~15%).
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Louis IX of France
Louis IX (25 April 1214 – 25 August 1270), commonly Saint Louis, was King of France from 1226 until his death. He was also styled Louis II, Count of Artois from 1226 to 1237. Born at Poissy, near Paris, he was an eighth-generation descendant of Hugh Capet, and thus a member of the House of Capet, and the son of Louis VIII and Blanche of Castile. He worked with the Parliament of Paris in order to improve the professionalism of his legal administration.
He is the only canonised king of France; consequently, there are many places named after him, most notably St. Louis, Missouri and Mission San Luis Rey de Francia in the United States, São Luís do Maranhão, Brazil and both the state and city of San Luis Potosí, in Mexico. Saint Louis was also a tertiary of the Order of the Holy Trinity and Captives (known as the Trinitarians).[citation needed] On 11 June 1256, the General Chapter of the Trinitarian Order formally affiliated Louis IX at the famous monastery of Cerfroid, which had been constructed by Felix of Valois north of Paris.
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Louis Lavelle
Louis Lavelle (July 15, 1883, Saint-Martin-de-Villeréal—September 1, 1951, Parranquet) was a French philosopher. His magnum opus is La Dialectique de l'éternel présent, a metaphysical work in four volumes: De l'Être (1928), De l'Acte (1937), Du Temps et de l'Eternité (1945), and De l'Âme Humaine (1951).
Lavelle's other writings include La dialectique du monde sensible: Lu perception visuelle de la profondeur (1921), La conscience de soi (1933), La présence totale (1934), L'Erreur de Narcisse (1939), Le Mal et la Souffrance (1940), La Parole et l'Écriture (1947), and Les puissances du Moi (1948).
From the Inside Dust Jacket cover of his book Evil and Suffering “About the author: Louis Lavelle was born in France in 1883 and died there in 1951, one of the most prominent Christian Philosophers of our time. He was Professor at the College de France; at the Sorbonne; and lectured at German, Italian, Swiss, Belgian and Dutch universities. In 1947 he was recognized for his many philosophical and religious writings, and named to the Académie des sciences morales et politiques. Evil and Suffering is the first of his philosophical works to be published in this country.” - From back inside Dust Jacket of the book Evil and Suffering, The Macmillan Company , New York, 1963. Originally published in 1940 as Le mal et la suffrance.
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Louis the German
Louis (also Ludwig or Lewis) the German (806 – 28 August 876), also known as Louis II or Louis the Bavarian, was a grandson of Charlemagne and the third son of the succeeding Frankish Emperor Louis the Pious and his first wife, Ermengarde of Hesbaye.
He received the appellation 'Germanicus' shortly after his death in recognition of the fact that the bulk of his territory had been in the former Germania.
Louis II was made the King of Bavaria from 817 following the Emperor Charlemagne's practice of bestowing a local kingdom on a family member who then served as one of his lieutenants and the local governor. When his father, Louis I (called the pious), partitioned the empire toward the end of his reign in 843, he was made King of East Francia, a region that spanned the Elbe drainage basin from Jutland southeasterly through the Thuringerwald into modern Bavaria from the Treaty of Verdun in 843 until his death.
His early years were partly spent at the court of his grandfather, Charlemagne, whose special affection he is said to have won. When the emperor Louis divided his dominions between his sons in 817, Louis received Bavaria and the neighbouring lands but did not undertake the governing of such until 825, when he became involved in wars with the Wends and Sorbs on his eastern frontier. In 827, he married Emma of Altdorf, sister of his stepmother Judith of Bavaria, and daughter of Welf, whose possessions ranged from Alsace to Bavaria. Louis soon began to interfere in the quarrels arising from Judith's efforts to secure a kingdom for her own son Charles (later known as Charles the Bald) and the consequent struggles of his brothers with their father.
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Louis the Pious
Louis the Pious (778 – 20 June 840), also called the Fair, and the Debonaire, was the King of Aquitaine from 781. He was also King of the Franks and co-Emperor (as Louis I) with his father, Charlemagne, from 813. As the only surviving adult son of Charlemagne and Hildegard, he became the sole ruler of the Franks after his father's death in 814, a position which he held until his death, save for the period 833–34, during which he was deposed.
During his reign in Aquitaine, Louis was charged with the defence of the Empire's southwestern frontier. He conquered Barcelona from the Muslims in 801 and asserted Frankish authority over Pamplona and the Basques south of the Pyrenees in 812. As emperor he included his adult sons, Lothair, Pepin, and Louis, in the government and sought to establish a suitable division of the realm among them. The first decade of his reign was characterised by several tragedies and embarrassments, notably the brutal treatment of his nephew Bernard of Italy, for which Louis atoned in a public act of self-debasement. In the 830s his empire was torn by civil war between his sons, only exacerbated by Louis's attempts to include his son Charles by his second wife in the succession plans. Though his reign ended on a high note, with order largely restored to his empire, it was followed by three years of civil war. Louis is generally compared unfavourably to his father, though the problems he faced were of a distinctly different sort.
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Louis XIII of France
Louis XIII (27 September 1601 – 14 May 1643) was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1610 to 1643.
Louis was only eight years old when he succeeded his father. His mother, Marie de Medici, acted as regent during Louis' minority. Mismanagement of the kingdom and ceaseless political intrigues by Marie de Medici and her Italian favourites led the young king to take power, in 1617, by exiling his mother and executing her followers, including Concino Concini, the most influential Italian at the French court.
Louis XIII, taciturn and suspicious, leaned heavily on his Prime Minister Cardinal Richelieu, to govern the Kingdom. They are remembered for the establishment of the Académie française and for putting an end to the revolt of the great feudal lords. The reign of Louis "the Just" was also marked by the struggles against Huguenots and Habsburg Spain.
France's greatest victory in the war against the Habsburg Empire came at the Battle of Rocroi (1643), five days after Louis's death—apparently from complications of intestinal tuberculosis. This battle marked the end of Spain's military ascendancy in Europe and foreshadowed French dominance in Europe under Louis XIV.
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Louis XIV of France
Louis XIV (5 September 1638 – 1 September 1715), known as Louis the Great or the Sun King (French: le Roi-Soleil), was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre. He holds the distinction of being the longest-reigning king in European history, reigning for 72 years and 110 days.
Louis began his personal rule of France in 1661 after the death of his chief minister, the Italian Cardinal Mazarin. An adherent of the theory of the divine right of kings, which advocates the divine origin and lack of temporal restraint of monarchical rule, Louis continued his predecessors' work of creating a centralized state governed from the capital. He sought to eliminate the remnants of feudalism persisting in parts of France and, by compelling the nobility to inhabit his lavish Palace of Versailles, succeeded in pacifying the aristocracy, many members of which had participated in the Fronde rebellion during Louis's minority. By these means he consolidated a system of absolute monarchical rule in France that endured until the French Revolution.
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Louis XV of France
Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774) was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, though Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, his first cousin twice removed, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723. Cardinal de Fleury was his chief minister from 1726 until the Cardinal's death in 1743, at which time the young king took over control of the Kingdom.
Louis enjoyed a favorable reputation at the beginning of his reign and earned the epithet "le Bien-Aimé" ("the Beloved"). In time, the debauchery of his court, his ill-advised financial policies, the return of the Austrian Netherlands (which were gained following the Battle of Fontenoy) at Aix-la-Chapelle, and the cession of New France at the conclusion of the Seven Years' War led Louis to become one of the most unpopular kings in the history of France. He even suffered an assassination attempt in 1757. However, his reign saw the incorporation of Lorraine and Corsica to the Kingdom.
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Louis XVI of France
Louis XVI (23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and Navarre until 1791, and then as King of the French from 1791 to 1792, before being executed in 1793.
Succeeding Louis XV, his unpopular grandfather, Louis XVI was well aware of the growing discontent of the French population against the absolute monarchy. The first part of his reign is marked by his attempts to reform the kingdom in accordance with the Enlightenment ideals (abolition of torture, abolition of the serfdom, tolerance towards Jews and Protestants, abolition of the Taille etc.). However, Louis XVI failed to impose his will, as his reforms stumbled on the hostility of the nobles.
Louis XVI actively supported the Americans, who were seeking their independence from Great Britain, which was realized in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. The example of the American Revolution and the financial crisis which followed France's involvement in the war were two of the many contributing factors to the French Revolution, which broke out in 1789.
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Léo Ferré
Léo Ferré (24 August 1916 – 14 July 1993) was a Franco-Monegasque poet, composer, singer and musician.
Born in Monaco, Ferré mixed love and melancholy with moral anarchy, lyricism with slang, rhyming verse with prose monologues. He moved from music-hall to orchestral music, breaking free from the traditional song structure during the 1970s, inventing his own musical territory, powerfully dramatic and unique. He also set to music several poems by the French poètes maudits, such as François Villon, Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, and Arthur Rimbaud, as well as French poets from the 20th century like Guillaume Apollinaire and Louis Aragon.
He took a central place in the French song world and is a prominent figure in this domain. He was involved in anarchism and worked with Radio Libertaire, an anarchist free radio broadcasting in Paris and around France. Along with Georges Brassens and Jacques Brel, he is considered one of the greatest composers and writers of French songs.
Excludes numerous compilations.
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Madame de La Fayette
Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, comtesse de La Fayette (baptized 18 March 1634 – 25 May 1693), better known as Madame de La Fayette, was a French writer, the author of La Princesse de Clèves, France's first historical novel and one of the earliest novels in literature.
Christened Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, she was born in Paris to a family of minor but wealthy nobility. At 16, de la Vergne became the maid of honor to Queen Anne of Austria and began also to acquire a literary education from Gilles Ménage, who gave her lessons in Italian and Latin. Ménage would lead her to join the fashionable salons of Madame de Rambouillet and Madeleine de Scudéry. Her father, Marc Pioche de la Vergne, had died a year before, and the same year her mother married Renaud de Sévigné, uncle of Madame de Sévigné, who would remain her lifelong intimate friend.
In 1655, de la Vergne married François Motier, comte de La Fayette, a widowed nobleman some eighteen years her senior, with whom she would have two sons. She accompanied him to country estates in Auvergne and Bourbonnais although she made frequent trips back to Paris, where she began to mix with court society and formed her own successful salon. Some of her acquaintances included Henrietta of England, future Duchess of Orleans, who asked La Fayette to write her biography; Antoine Arnauld; and the leading French writers Segrais and Huet. Earlier on, during the Fronde, La Fayette had also befriended the Cardinal de Retz.
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Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall (/ʃəˈɡɑːl/ shə-GAHL;Russian: Марк Заха́рович Шага́л; (7 July [O.S. 24 June] 1887 – 28 March 1985), was a Russian-French artist associated with several major artistic styles and one of the most successful artists of the 20th century. He was an early modernist, and created works in virtually every artistic medium, including painting, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramic, tapestries and fine art prints.
Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century". According to art historian Michael J. Lewis, Chagall was considered to be "the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists". For decades, he "had also been respected as the world's preeminent Jewish artist". Using the medium of stained glass, he produced windows for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz, windows for the UN, and the Jerusalem Windows in Israel. He also did large-scale paintings, including part of the ceiling of the Paris Opéra.
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Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (French pronunciation: [maʁsɛl pʁust]; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time; earlier translated as Remembrance of Things Past). It was published in seven parts between 1913 and 1927.
Proust was born in Auteuil (the southern sector of Paris' then-rustic 16th arrondissement) at the home of his great-uncle, two months after the Treaty of Frankfurt formally ended the Franco-Prussian War. His birth took place during the violence that surrounded the suppression of the Paris Commune, and his childhood corresponds with the consolidation of the French Third Republic. Much of In Search of Lost Time concerns the vast changes, most particularly the decline of the aristocracy and the rise of the middle classes that occurred in France during the Third Republic and the fin de siècle.
Proust's father, Achille Adrien Proust, was a prominent pathologist and epidemiologist, responsible for studying and attempting to remedy the causes and movements of cholera through Europe and Asia; he was the author of many articles and books on medicine and hygiene. Proust's mother, Jeanne Clémence Weil, was the daughter of a rich and cultured Jewish family from Alsace. She was literate and well-read; her letters demonstrate a well-developed sense of humour, and her command of English was sufficient for her to provide the necessary assistance to her son's later attempts to translate John Ruskin. Proust was raised in his father's Catholic faith. He was baptized (on August 5, 1871, at the church of Saint-Louis d'Antin) and later confirmed as a Catholic, but he never formally practiced that faith.
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Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette ( /məˈriː æntwəˈnɛt/ or /æntwɑːˈnɛt/; French pronunciation: [maʁi ɑ̃twanɛt]; baptised Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna (or Maria Antonia Josephina Johanna); 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was an Archduchess of Austria and the Queen of France and of Navarre. She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Holy Roman Emperor Francis I.
In April 1770, on the day of her marriage to Louis-Auguste, Dauphin of France, she subsequently became Dauphine of France. Marie Antoinette assumed the title of Queen of France and of Navarre when her husband, Louis XVI of France, ascended the throne upon the death of Louis XV in May 1774. After seven years of marriage, she gave birth to a daughter, Marie-Thérèse Charlotte, the first of four children.
Initially charmed by her personality and beauty, the French people generally came to dislike her, accusing "L'Autre-chienne" (a pun in French playing with the words "Autrichienne" meaning Austrian (woman) and "Autre-chienne" meaning Other bitch) of being profligate and promiscuous, and of harboring sympathies for France's enemies, particularly Austria, her country of origin.
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Martin Solveig
Martin Laurent Picandet (French pronunciation: [maʁtɛ̃ pikɑ̃dɛ]) (born 22 September 1976), better known under his stage name Martin Solveig, is a French electronic music DJ and producer from Paris. He also hosts a weekly radio show called "C'est La Vie" on stations worldwide including FG DJ Radio in his homeland. His label is called Mixture Stereophonic. Martin Solveig had been ranked 29th in the 2011 DJ Mag Top 100 DJs popularity poll. He has collaborated with Dragonette, Kele of Bloc Party, and Madonna.
As a child, Martin Solveig joined the choir of the Petits Chanteurs de Sainte-Croix de Neuilly, where he had a classical music training and became soprano soloist under the direction of François Polgár. At the age of 18, he became a DJ and then started to work in famous Parisian nightclubs : L'Enfer, Le Queen, Les Bains Douches.
Solveig chose his pseudonym as an homage to the French actress Solveig Dommartin.
In 2011, Solveig was officially named as one of the producers for Madonna's new studio album, MDNA.
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Maurice de Vlaminck
Maurice de Vlaminck (4 April 1876 – 11 October 1958) was a French painter. Along with André Derain and Henri Matisse he is considered one of the principal figures in the Fauve movement, a group of modern artists who from 1904 to 1908 were united in their use of intense color.
Maurice de Vlaminck was born in Paris to a family of musicians. His father taught him to play the violin. He began painting in his late teens. In 1893, he studied with a painter named Henri Rigalon on the Ile de Chatou. In 1894 he married Suzanne Berly. The turning point in his life was a chance meeting on the train to Paris towards the end of his stint in the army. Vlaminck, then 23, met an aspiring artist, André Derain, with whom he struck up a lifelong friendship. When Vlaminck completed his army service in 1900, the two rented a studio together for a year before Derain left to do his own military service. In 1902 and 1903 he wrote several mildly pornographic novels illustrated by Derain. He painted during the day and earned his livelihood by giving violin lessons and performing with musical bands at night.
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Maurice Ohana
Maurice Ohana (June 12, 1913 – November 13, 1992 in Paris) was an Anglo-French composer of Sephardic Jewish origin.
Ohana was born in Casablanca, Morocco. He was a British citizen until 1976, as his father had been born in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. He originally studied architecture, but abandoned this in favour of a musical career, initially as a pianist. He studied under Alfredo Casella in Rome, returning to France in 1946. Around this time he founded the "Groupe Zodiaque", which fought against prevailing musical dogma. His mature musical style shows the influence of Mediterranean folk music, particularly the Andalusian cante jondo.
Ohana's output includes the choral works Office des Oracles and Avoaha (1992), three string quartets (1963, 1980, 1989), and two suites for ten-string guitar: Si le jour paraît... (1963) and Cadran lunaire (1981-2), as well as a Tiento for six-string guitar (1957). He also wrote an opera entitled Syllabaire pour Phèdre.
He is also known for his extensive use of microtonality; for example, third- and quarter-tones in pieces like Le Tombeau de Debussy and Si le jour paraît.... He was influenced by the use of microintervals in the cante jondo.
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Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel (March 7, 1875 – December 28, 1937) was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects. Much of his piano music, chamber music, vocal music and orchestral music has entered the standard concert repertoire.
Ravel's piano compositions, such as Jeux d'eau, Miroirs, Le tombeau de Couperin and Gaspard de la nuit, demand considerable virtuosity from the performer, and his orchestral music, including Daphnis et Chloé and his arrangement of Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, uses a variety of sound and instrumentation.
Ravel is perhaps known best for his orchestral work Boléro (1928), which he considered trivial and once described as "a piece for orchestra without music".
According to SACEM, Ravel's estate earns more royalties than that of any other French composer. According to the law of most countries (including all members of the World Trade Organization), Ravel's works have been in the public domain since January 1, 2008, in most countries.
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Merovingian dynasty
The Merovingians were a Salian Frankish dynasty that came to rule the Franks in a region known as Francia in Latin, largely corresponding to ancient Gaul, for 300 years from the middle of the 5th century.
The Merovingian dynasty was founded by Childeric I (c.457 – 481) the son of Merovech, leader of the Salian Franks, but it was his famous son Clovis I (481 – 511) who united all of Gaul under Merovingian rule.
After the death of Clovis there were frequent clashes between different branches of the family, but when threatened by its neighbours the Merovingians presented a strong united front.
During the final century of the Merovingian rule, the dynasty was increasingly pushed into a ceremonial role. The Merovingian rule ended in March 752 when Pope Zachary formally deposed Childeric III. Zachary's successor, Pope Stephen II, confirmed and annointed Pepin the Short, in 754 beginning the Carolingian monarchy.
The Merovingian ruling family were sometimes referred to as the "long-haired kings" (Latin reges criniti) by contemporaries, as their long hair distinguished them among the Franks, who commonly cut their hair short. The term "Merovingian" comes from medieval Latin Merovingi or Merohingi ("sons of Merovech"), an alteration of an unattested Old West Low Franconian form, akin to their dynasty's Old English name Merewīowing, with the final -ing being a typical patronymic suffix.
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Michel de Montaigne
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (French pronunciation: [miʃɛl ekɛm də mɔ̃tɛɲ]), February 28, 1533 – September 13, 1592, was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance, known for popularising the essay as a literary genre and is popularly thought of as the father of Modern Skepticism. He became famous for his effortless ability to merge serious intellectual speculation with casual anecdotes and autobiography—and his massive volume Essais (translated literally as "Attempts") contains, to this day, some of the most widely influential essays ever written. Montaigne had a direct influence on writers the world over, including René Descartes,Blaise Pascal, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Friedrich Nietzsche, Stefan Zweig, Eric Hoffer,Isaac Asimov, and possibly on the later works of William Shakespeare.
In his own time, Montaigne was admired more as a statesman than as an author. The tendency in his essays to digress into anecdotes and personal ruminations was seen as detrimental to proper style rather than as an innovation, and his declaration that, 'I am myself the matter of my book', was viewed by his contemporaries as self-indulgent. In time, however, Montaigne would be recognized as embodying, perhaps better than any other author of his time, the spirit of freely entertaining doubt which began to emerge at that time. He is most famously known for his skeptical remark, 'Que sçay-je?' ('What do I know?' in Middle French; modern French Que sais-je?). Remarkably modern even to readers today, Montaigne's attempt to examine the world through the lens of the only thing he can depend on implicitly—his own judgment—makes him more accessible to modern readers than any other author of the Renaissance. Much of modern literary non-fiction has found inspiration in Montaigne and writers of all kinds continue to read him for his masterful balance of intellectual knowledge and personal story-telling.
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Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault (French pronunciation: [miʃɛl fuko]), born Paul-Michel Foucault (15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984) was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas. He held a chair at the Collège de France with the title "History of Systems of Thought," and lectured at the University at Buffalo and the University of California, Berkeley.
Foucault is best known for his critical studies of social institutions, most notably psychiatry, social anthropology of medicine, the human sciences and the prison system, as well as for his work on the history of human sexuality. His writings on power, knowledge, and discourse have been widely influential in academic circles.
In the 1960s, he was associated with structuralism, a theoretical movement in social anthropology from which he later distanced himself. He also rejected the poststructuralist and postmodernist labels later attributed to him, preferring to classify his thought as a critical history of modernity rooted in Immanuel Kant. His project was particularly influenced by Nietzsche, his "genealogy of knowledge" being a direct allusion to Nietzsche's "genealogy of morality". In a late interview he definitively stated: "I am a Nietzschean."
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Migration Period
The Migration Period, also known as the Barbarian Invasions (German: Völkerwanderung "migration of peoples"), was a period of intensified human migration in Europe from about 400 to 800 AD. This period marked the transition from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. Migrations were catalyzed by profound changes within the Roman Empire and on its "barbarian frontier". The migrants who came first were Germanic tribes such as the Goths, Vandals, Lombards, Suebi, Frisii and Franks; they were later pushed westwards by the Huns, Avars, Slavs, Bulgars and Alans. Later migrations (such as the Arab conquest and Viking, Magyar, Moorish, Turkic, and Mongol invasions) also had significant effects (especially in North Africa, the Iberian peninsula, Anatolia and Central and Eastern Europe); however, they are outside the scope of the Migration Period.
Germanic peoples moved out of southern Scandinavia, Denmark and adjacent lands between the Elbe and Oder rivers after 1000 BC. The first wave moved westward and southward (pushing the resident Celts west to the Rhine River by about 200 BC) and moving into southern Germany up to the Roman province of Gaul by 100 BC, where they were stopped by Gaius Marius and Julius Caesar. It is this western group who was described by the Roman historian Tacitus (56 – 117 AD) and Julius Caesar (100 - 44 BC). A later wave of German tribes migrated eastward and southward from Scandinavia between 600 and 300 BC to the opposite coast of the Baltic Sea, moving up the Vistula near the Carpathians. During Tacitus' era they included lesser-known tribes such as the Tencteri, Cherusci, Hermunduri and Chatti; however, a period of federation and intermarriage resulted in the familiar groups known as the Alamanni, Franks, Saxons, Frisians and Thuringians.
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Mireille Mathieu
Mireille Mathieu (French pronunciation: [miˈʁɛj maˈtjø]) (born 22 July 1946) is a French chanteuse, and pop singer. Hailed in the French press as the successor to Édith Piaf, she has achieved great commercial success, recording over 1200 songs in nine different languages, with more than 120 million records sold worldwide.
Mireille Mathieu was born and raised in Avignon, Vaucluse département, France, the eldest daughter of a family of fourteen children. The youngest brother born after she had moved to Paris. Her father Roger (French pronunciation: [ʁɔ.ʒe]) was from Avignon, and her mother Marcelle-Sophie Poirier came to Avignon from Dunkirk in 1944, as a refugee from World War II. Roger, with his father Arcade, ran a stonemason shop outside the Saint-Véran Cemetery in Avignon, which is still in business today. The family lived in poverty, and were dependent on government housing.
Roger had once dreamed of becoming a singer, but his father Arcade disapproved, inspiring him to have one of his children learn to sing with him in church. Mireille's first paid performance before an audience, at age four, was rewarded with a lollipop. Another defining moment was seeing Édith Piaf sing on television.
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Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, (French pronunciation: [mo.ljɛːʁ]; baptised January 15, 1622 – February 17, 1673) was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature. Among Molière's best-known works are Le Misanthrope (The Misanthrope), L'École des femmes (The School for Wives), Tartuffe ou L'Imposteur, (Tartuffe or the Hypocrite), L'Avare (The Miser), Le Malade imaginaire (The Imaginary Invalid), and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (The Bourgeois Gentleman).
Born into a prosperous family and having studied at the Collège de Clermont (now Lycée Louis-le-Grand), Molière was well suited to begin a life in the theatre. Thirteen years as an itinerant actor helped him polish his comic abilities while he began writing, combining Commedia dell'arte elements with the more refined French comedy.
Through the patronage of a few aristocrats, including Philippe I, Duke of Orléans – the brother of Louis XIV – Molière procured a command performance before the King at the Louvre. Performing a classic play by Pierre Corneille and a farce of his own, Le Docteur amoureux (The Doctor in Love), Molière was granted the use of salle du Petit-Bourbon near the Louvre, a spacious room appointed for theatrical performances. Later, Molière was granted the use of the Palais-Royal. In both locations he found success among the Parisians with plays such as Les Précieuses ridicules (The Affected Ladies), L'École des maris (The School for Husbands) and L'École des femmes (The School for Wives). This royal favor brought a royal pension to his troupe and the title "Troupe du Roi" (The King's Troupe). Molière continued as the official author of court entertainments.
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Montgolfier brothers
Joseph-Michel Montgolfier (26 August 1740 – 26 June 1810) and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier (6 January 1745 – 2 August 1799) were the inventors of the montgolfière-style hot air balloon, globe aérostatique. The brothers succeeded in launching the first manned ascent, carrying Étienne into the sky. Later, in December 1783, in recognition of their achievement, their father Pierre was elevated to the nobility and the hereditary appellation of de Montgolfier by King Louis XVI of France.
The brothers were born into a family of paper manufacturers in Annonay, in Ardèche, France. Their parents were Pierre Montgolfier (1700–1793) and his wife, Anne Duret (1701–1760), who had sixteen children. Pierre established his eldest son, Raymond Montgolfier, later Raymond de Montgolfier (1730–1772), as his successor.
Joseph, the 12th child, possessed a typical inventor's temperament—a maverick and dreamer, and impractical in terms of business and personal affairs. Étienne had a much more even and businesslike temperament. As the 15th child, and particularly troublesome to his elder siblings, he was sent to Paris to train as an architect. However, after the sudden and unexpected death of Raymond in 1772, he was recalled to Annonay to run the family business. In the subsequent 10 years, Étienne applied his talent for technical innovation to the family business; paper making was a high-tech industry in the 18th century. He succeeded in incorporating the latest Dutch innovations of the day into the family mills. His work led to recognition by the government of France as well as the awarding of a government grant to establish the Montgolfier factory as a model for other French paper makers.
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Mylène Farmer
Mylène Farmer (pronounced: [milɛn faʁmœʁ]), born Mylène Jeanne Gautier[milɛn ɡotje]; born 12 September 1961), is a French singer, songwriter, occasional actress and author.
She has sold more than 30 million records and is among the most successful recording artists of all time in France. She holds the record for the most number one hits in the French charts, with twelve to date, eight of which were consecutive.
Mylène Farmer was born in Pierrefonds, Quebec, Canada. Her parents moved from France in the late 1950s as Farmer's father, Max, pursued an engineering contract on a dam. Her family returned to France when she was eight, settling in the Parisian suburb of Ville d'Avray. In her teenage years, Farmer was passionate about horse-riding, qualifying as a riding instructor at the equestrian centre in Saumur. At the age of 17, however, Farmer discovered acting and she abandoned the stables to take a three-year course at the Cours Florent, a drama school in Paris. Changing her name to Mylène Farmer as a tribute to her idol, 1930s Hollywood actress Frances Farmer, she began to earn a living as a model acting in several TV ads such as Fiskars, Caisse d'Epargne etc.
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Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte (French: Napoléon Bonaparte [napoleɔ̃ bɔnɑpaʁt]) (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821) was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the latter stages of the French Revolution. As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815. His legal reform, the Napoleonic Code, has been a major influence on many civil law jurisdictions worldwide, but he is best remembered for his role in the wars led against France by a series of coalitions, the so-called Napoleonic Wars. He established hegemony over most of continental Europe and sought to spread the ideals of the French Revolution, while consolidating an imperial monarchy which restored aspects of the deposed Ancien Régime. Due to his success in these wars, often against numerically superior enemies, he is generally regarded as one of the greatest military commanders of all time and his campaigns are studied at military academies throughout much of the world.
Napoleon was born in Corsica to parents of noble Genoese ancestry, and trained as an artillery officer in mainland France. He rose to prominence under the French First Republic and led successful campaigns against the First and Second Coalitions arrayed against France. In 1799, he staged a coup d'état and installed himself as First Consul; five years later the French Senate proclaimed him emperor. In the first decade of the 19th century, the French Empire under Napoleon engaged in a series of conflicts—the Napoleonic Wars—involving every major European power.
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Napoleon I
Napoleon Bonaparte (French: Napoléon Bonaparte [napoleɔ̃ bɔnɑpaʁt]) (15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821) was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the latter stages of the French Revolution. As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815. His legal reform, the Napoleonic Code, has been a major influence on many civil law jurisdictions worldwide, but he is best remembered for his role in the wars led against France by a series of coalitions, the so-called Napoleonic Wars. He established hegemony over most of continental Europe and sought to spread the ideals of the French Revolution, while consolidating an imperial monarchy which restored aspects of the deposed Ancien Régime. Due to his success in these wars, often against numerically superior enemies, he is generally regarded as one of the greatest military commanders of all time and his campaigns are studied at military academies throughout much of the world.
Napoleon was born in Corsica to parents of noble Genoese ancestry, and trained as an artillery officer in mainland France. He rose to prominence under the French First Republic and led successful campaigns against the First and Second Coalitions arrayed against France. In 1799, he staged a coup d'état and installed himself as First Consul; five years later the French Senate proclaimed him emperor. In the first decade of the 19th century, the French Empire under Napoleon engaged in a series of conflicts—the Napoleonic Wars—involving every major European power.
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Napoleon III
Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte (20 April 1808 – 9 January 1873) was the President of the French Second Republic and as Napoleon III, the emperor of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I, christened as Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte. Elected President by popular vote in 1848, he initiated a coup d'état in 1851, before ascending the throne as Napoleon III on 2 December 1852, the forty-eighth anniversary of Napoleon I's coronation. He ruled as Emperor of the French until 4 September 1870. He holds the unusual distinction of being both the first titular president and the last monarch of France.
Napoleon III is primarily remembered for an energetic foreign policy which aimed to jettison the limitations imposed on France since 1815 by the Concert of Europe and reassert French influence in Europe and abroad. A brief war against Austria in 1859 largely brought an end to the process of Italian unification. In the Near East, Napoleon III spearheaded allied action against Russia in the Crimean War and restored French presence in the Levant, claiming for France the role of protector of the Maronite Christians. A French garrison in Rome likewise secured the Papal States against annexation by Italy, defeating the Italians at Mentana and winning the support of French Catholics for Napoleon's regime.
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Niagara (band)
Niagara is the name of a French synthpop duo that achieved popularity both in France and Canada from 1986 to 1989. The band, who was known under the name L'Ombre jaune from 1982 to 1984, was formed in Rennes, France, in 1984, by vocalist Muriel Laporte (later known as Muriel Moreno) ) and keyboardist Daniel Chenevez. They were frequently compared to the UK duo Eurythmics.
They became famous in France when they issued in 1985 their first single, "Tchiki boum", which was followed in the summer 1986 by their second single, "L'amour à la plage". 200,000 copies of each single were sold in France, becoming both silver disc. Driven by exotic-looking Laporte's charisma and singing ability, the duo released their first album in 1986, Encore un dernier baiser which included their first two hits and a new single, "Je dois m'en aller". Their second and most popular release was the album Quel enfer in 1989 ; the video for the lightweight "Soleil d'hiver" received frequent airplay in Canada, leading to the group forming a following in North America. Also in 1989, their singles "J'ai vu" and "Pendant que les champs brûlent" became minor hits in central Europe.
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Nicolas Poussin
Nicolas Poussin (pronounced: [ni.kɔ.lɑ pu.sɛ̃]; 15 June 1594 – 19 November 1665) was a French painter in the classical style. His work predominantly features clarity, logic, and order, and favors line over color. His work serves as an alternative to the dominant Baroque style of the 17th century. Until the 20th century he remained the major inspiration for such classically oriented artists as Jacques-Louis David, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Paul Cézanne.
He spent most of his working life in Rome, except for a short period when Cardinal Richelieu ordered him back to France to serve as First Painter to the King.
Nicolas Poussin's early biographer was his friend Giovanni Pietro Bellori, who relates that Poussin was born near Les Andelys in Normandy and that he received an education that included some Latin, which would stand him in good stead. Early sketches attracted the notice of Quentin Varin, a local painter, whose pupil Poussin became, until he ran away to Paris at the age of eighteen. There he entered the studios of the Flemish painter Ferdinand Elle and then of Georges Lallemand, both minor masters now remembered for having tutored Poussin. He found French art in a stage of transition: the old apprenticeship system was disturbed, and the academic training destined to supplant it was not yet established by Simon Vouet; but having met Courtois the mathematician, Poussin was fired by the study of his collection of engravings by Marcantonio Raimondi after Italian masters.
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Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso, known as Pablo Picasso (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈpaβlo piˈkaso], 25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973), was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, he is widely known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907), and Guernica (1937), a portrayal of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War.
Picasso, Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp are commonly regarded as the three artists who most defined the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting, sculpture, printmaking and ceramics.
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Paul Andreu
Paul Andreu (born 10 July 1938 in Caudéran / Gironde) is a renowned French architect. He is best known for having planned numerous airports worldwide, notably Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Manila), Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (Jakarta), Shanghai Pudong International Airport (China) Abu Dhabi International Airport, Dubai International Airport, Cairo International Airport, Brunei International Airport, Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, and Paris - Orly Airport.
Other prestigious projects include the Grande Arche at La Défense in Paris (as associate of Johann Otto von Spreckelsen) and the National Grand Theater of China enclosed in a titanium and glass shell near Beijing's Tiananmen Square which was inaugurated on 22 December 2007.
Andreu graduated in 1958 from the École Polytechnique.
He has been in charge of planning and constructing Charles de Gaulle Airport (Roissy) in Paris since 1967. On May 23, 2004, a portion of Terminal 2E's ceiling collapsed, killing four people. Terminal 2E, inaugurated in 2003, is the seventh terminal at Roissy by Andreu, and has been described as one of his boldest designs. The collapse was attributed by the ad hoc administrative enquiry commission to a variety of technical causes and the lack of margins of safety in the design. Andreu blamed the collapse on poor execution by the building companies.
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Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne (US /seɪˈzæn/ or UK /sɨˈzæn/; French: [pɔl sezan]; 1839–1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th century Impressionism and the early 20th century's new line of artistic enquiry, Cubism. The line attributed to both Matisse and Picasso that Cézanne "is the father of us all" cannot be easily dismissed.
Cézanne's often repetitive, sensitive and exploratory brushstrokes are highly characteristic and clearly recognizable. He used planes of colour and small brushstrokes that build up to form complex fields, at once both a direct expression of the sensations of the observing eye and an abstraction from observed nature. The paintings convey Cézanne's intense study of his subjects, a searching gaze and a dogged struggle to deal with the complexity of human visual perception.
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Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (French pronunciation: [øˈʒɛn ãˈʁi ˌpol ɡoˈɡɛ̃]; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist who was not well appreciated until after his death. Gauguin was later recognized for his experimental use of colors and synthetist style that was distinguishably different from Impressionism. His work was influential to the French avant-garde and many modern artists, such as Pablo Picasso, and Henri Matisse. Gauguin’s art became popular after his death and many of his paintings were in the possession of Russian collector, Sergei Shchukin. He was an important figure in the Symbolist movement as a painter, sculptor, print-maker, ceramist, and writer. His bold experimentation with coloring led directly to the Synthetist style of modern art while his expression of the inherent meaning of the subjects in his paintings, under the influence of the cloisonnist style, paved the way to Primitivism and the return to the pastoral. He was also an influential proponent of wood engraving and woodcuts as art forms.
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Paul Verlaine
Paul-Marie Verlaine (French pronunciation: [vɛʁˈlɛn]; 30 March 1844 – 8 January 1896) was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.
Born in Metz, he was educated at the Lycée impérial Bonaparte (now the Lycée Condorcet) in Paris and then took up a post in the civil service. He began writing poetry at an early age, and was initially influenced by the Parnassien movement and its leader, Leconte de Lisle. Verlaine's first published poem was published in 1863 in La Revue du progrès, a publication founded by poet Louis-Xavier de Ricard. Verlaine was a frequenter of the salon of the Marquise de Ricard (Louis-Xavier de Ricard's mother) at 10 Boulevard des Batignolles and other social venues, where he rubbed shoulders with prominent artistic figures of the day: Anatole France; Emmanuel Chabrier; inventor-poet and humorist Charles Cros; the cynical anti-bourgeois idealist Villiers de l'Isle-Adam; Theodore de Banville; François Coppée; Jose-Maria de Heredia; Leconte de Lisle; Catulle Mendes, and others. Verlaine's first published collection, Poèmes saturniens (1866), though adversely commented upon by Sainte-Beuve, established him as a poet of promise and originality.
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Philip II of France
Philip II Augustus (French: Philippe Auguste; 21 August 1165 – 14 July 1223) was the last King of the Franks from 1180 to 1190, and the first King of France from 1190 until his death. A member of the House of Capet, Philip Augustus was born at Gonesse in the Val-d'Oise, the son of Louis VII and his third wife, Adela of Champagne. He was originally nicknamed Dieudonné—the God-given—as he was the first son of Louis VII late in his father's life.
Philip was one of the most successful medieval French monarchs in expanding the royal demesne and the influence of the monarchy. He broke up the great Angevin Empire and defeated a coalition of his rivals (German, Flemish and English) at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214. He reorganized the government, bringing financial stability to the country and thus making possible a sharp increase in prosperity. His reign was popular with ordinary people because he checked the power of the nobles and passed some of it on to the growing middle class.
Philip was born in Gonesse on 21 August 1165. As soon as he was able, Louis planned to associate Philip with him on the throne, but it was delayed when Philip, at the age of thirteen, was separated from his companions during a royal hunt and became lost in the Forest of Compiègne. He spent much of the following night attempting to find his way out, but to no avail. Exhausted by cold, hunger and fatigue, he was eventually discovered by a peasant carrying a charcoal burner, but his exposure to the elements meant he soon contracted a dangerously high fever. His father went on pilgrimage to the Shrine of Thomas Becket to pray for Philip's recovery, and was told that his son had indeed recovered. However, on his way back to Paris, he suffered a stroke.
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Philip IV of France
Philip IV (French: Philippe le Bel, April–June 1268 – 29 November 1314), called the Fair, was King of France from 1285 until his death. He was the husband of Joan I of Navarre, by virtue of which he was, as Philip I, King of Navarre and Count of Champagne from 1284 to 1305.
A member of the House of Capet, Philip was born at the Palace of Fontainebleau at Seine-et-Marne, the son of King Philip III and Isabella of Aragon. Philip was nicknamed the Fair (le Bel) because of his handsome appearance, but his inflexible personality gained him other epithets, from friend and foe alike. His fierce opponent Bernard Saisset, bishop of Pamiers, said of him, "He is neither man nor beast. He is a statue."
His education was guided by Guillaume d'Ercuis, the almoner of his father.[citation needed]
As prince, just before his father's death, he negotiated the safe passage of the royal family out of Aragon after the unsuccessful Aragonese Crusade.[citation needed]
Philip ascended to the throne and became King at age 17, although according to the publication titled "The Life And Times Of Jacques de Molay", Philip was 16. As a king, Philip was determined to strengthen the monarchy at any cost. He relied, more than any of his predecessors, on a professional bureaucracy of legalists. Because to the public he kept aloof and left specific policies, especially unpopular ones, to his ministers, he was called a "useless owl" by his contemporaries, among them Bishop Bernard Saisset. His reign marks the French transition from a charismatic monarchy – which could all but collapse in an incompetent reign – to a bureaucratic kingdom, a move, under a certain historical reading, towards modernity.
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Pierre Boulez
Pierre Boulez (French pronunciation: [pjɛʁ bu.lɛːz]) (born 26 March 1925) is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.
Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics. He pursued the latter at Lyon before pursuing music at the Paris Conservatoire under Olivier Messiaen and the wife of Arthur Honegger, Andrée Vaurabourg.
Through Messiaen, Boulez discovered twelve-tone technique — which he would later study privately with René Leibowitz — and went on to write atonal music in a post-Webernian serial style. Boulez was initially part of a cadre of early supporters of Leibowitz, but due to an altercation with Leibowitz, their relations turned divisive, as Boulez spent much of his career promoting the music of Messiaen instead.
The first fruits of this were his cantatas Le visage nuptial and Le soleil des eaux for female voices and orchestra, both composed in the late 1940s and revised several times since, as well as the Second Piano Sonata of 1948, a well-received 32-minute work that Boulez composed at the age of 23. Thereafter, Boulez was influenced by Messiaen's research to extend twelve-tone technique beyond the realm of pitch organization, serialising durations, dynamics, mode of attack, and so on. This technique became known as integral serialism.
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Pierre Corneille
Pierre Corneille (French pronunciation: [pjɛːʁ kɔʁ.nɛj]) (6 June 1606 – 1 October 1684) was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine. He has been called “the founder of French tragedy” and produced plays for nearly forty years.
Corneille was born at Rouen, France, to Marthe le Pesant de Boisguilbert and Pierre Corneille, a distinguished lawyer. His younger brother, Thomas Corneille, also became a noted playwright. He was given a rigorous Jesuit education at the then named Collège de Bourbon which has been known as the Lycée Pierre Corneille since 1873. At 18 he began to study law but his practical legal endeavors were largely unsuccessful. Corneille’s father secured two magisterial posts for him with the Rouen department of Forests and Rivers. During his time with the department, he wrote his first play. It is unknown exactly when he wrote it, but the play, the comedy Mélite, surfaced when Corneille brought it to a group of traveling actors in 1629. The actors approved of the work and made it part of their repertoire. The play was a success in Paris and Corneille began writing plays on a regular basis. He moved to Paris in the same year and soon became one of the leading playwrights of the French stage. His early comedies, starting with Mélite, depart from the French farce tradition by reflecting the elevated language and manners of fashionable Parisian society. Corneille describes his variety of comedy as "une peinture de la conversation des honnêtes gens" ("a painting of the conversation of the gentry"). His first true tragedy is Médée, produced in 1635.
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Pierre de Coubertin
Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin (French pronunciation: [pjɛʁ də kubɛʁtɛ̃]; 1 January 1863 – 2 September 1937) was a French educationalist and historian, founder of the International Olympic Committee, and is considered the father of the modern Olympic Games. Born into a French aristocratic family, he became an academic and studied a broad range of topics, most notably education and history.
Pierre Frédy was born in Paris on 1 January 1863 into an established aristocratic family. He was the fourth child of Baron Charles Louis Frédy, Baron de Coubertin and Marie–Marcelle Gigault de Crisenoy. Family tradition held that the Frédy name had first arrived in France in the early 15th century, and the first recorded title of nobility granted to the family was given by Louis XI to an ancestor, also named Pierre de Frédy, in 1477. But other branches of his family tree delved even further into French history, and the annals of both sides of his family included nobles of various stations, military leaders, and associates of kings and princes of France.
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Pierre Schaeffer
Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer (i/piːˈɛər ˈhɛnriː məˈriː ˈʃeɪfər/; 14 August 1910 – 19 August 1995) was a French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist and acoustician of the 20th century. His innovative work in both the sciences —particularly communications and acoustics— and the various arts of music, literature and radio presentation after the end of World War II, as well as his anti-nuclear activism and cultural criticism garnered him widespread recognition in his lifetime.
Amongst the vast range of works and projects he undertook, Schaeffer is most widely and currently recognized for his accomplishments in electronic and experimental music, at the core of which stands his role as the chief developer of a unique and early form of avant-garde music known as musique concrète. The genre emerged out of Europe from the utilization of new music technology developed in the post-Nazi Germany era, following the advance of electroacoustic and acousmatic music.
Schaeffer's writings (which include written and radio-narrated essays, biographies, short novels, a number of musical treatises and several plays) are often oriented towards his development of the genre, as well as the theoretics and philosophy of music in general.
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Pope Leo III
Pope Saint Leo III (750 – 12 June 816) was Pope from 795 to his death in 816. Protected by Charlemagne from his enemies in Rome, he subsequently strengthened Charlemagne's position by crowning him as Roman Emperor.
Leo, who was of non-noble birth, had risen in the hierarchy of Rome and was elected Pope only one day after the burial of his predecessor, Pope Adrian I, who had worked for good relations between Rome and the Frankish Empire under Charlemagne. Leo announced his election to Charlemagne, sending him the keys of Saint Peter's tomb and the banner of Rome, requesting an envoy. Charlemagne's reply stated that it was his function to defend the Church, and the function of the Pope to pray for the realm and for the victory of his army.
Leo aroused the hostility of Rome's nobility, who saw the papal post as reserved only for noble candidates. During his rule, he was accused of adultery and perjury. In April 799, he was attacked by a gang who unsuccessfully attempted to gouge out his eyes and cut off his tongue for his earlier actions, only to be saved by Magnus Forteman and 700 Frisian nobles of his army. He was then formally deposed and sent to a monastery, but escaped and made his way to Paderborn, where he met Charlemagne.
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Primaticcio
Francesco Primaticcio (April 30, 1504 – 1570) was an Italian Mannerist painter, architect and sculptor who spent most of his career in France.
Born in Bologna, he trained under Giulio Romano in Mantua and became a pupil of Innocenzo da Imola, executing decorations at the Palazzo Te before securing a position in the court of Francis I of France in 1532.
Together with Rosso Fiorentino he was one of the leading artists to work at the Chateau Fontainebleau (where he is grouped with the so-called "First School of Fontainebleau") spending much of his life there. Following Rosso's death in 1540, Primaticcio took control of the artistic direction at Fontainebleau, furnishing the painters and stuccators of his team, such as Nicolò dell'Abate, with designs. He made cartoons for tapestry-weavers and, like all 16th-century court artists, was called upon to design elaborate ephemeral decorations for masques and fêtes, which survive only in preparatory drawings and, sometimes, engravings. Francis I trusted his eye and sent him back to Italy on buying trips in 1540 and again in 1545.
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Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror (5 September 1793 – 28 July 1794) (the latter is date 10 Thermidor, year II of the French Revolutionary Calendar), also known simply as The Terror (French: la Terreur), was a period of violence that occurred after the onset of the French Revolution, incited by conflict between rival political factions, the Girondins and the Jacobins, and marked by mass executions of "enemies of the revolution." The death toll ranged in the tens of thousands, with 16,594 executed by guillotine (2,639 in Paris), and another 25,000 in summary executions across France.
The guillotine (called the "National Razor") became the symbol of the revolutionary cause, strengthened by a string of executions: Marie Antoinette, King Louis XVI, the Girondins, Philippe Égalité (Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans) and Madame Roland, as well as many others, such as pioneering chemist Antoine Lavoisier, lost their lives under its blade. During 1794, revolutionary France was beset with conspiracies by internal and foreign enemies. Within France, the revolution was opposed by the French nobility, which had lost its inherited privileges. The Roman Catholic Church was generally against the Revolution, which had turned the clergy into employees of the state and required they take an oath of loyalty to the nation (through the Civil Constitution of the Clergy). In addition, the First French Republic was engaged in a series of wars with neighboring powers intent on crushing the revolution to prevent its spread.
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René Cassin
René Samuel Cassin (born 5 October 1887 in Bayonne, France – died 20 February 1976 in Paris, France) was a French jurist, law professor and judge. The son of a French-Jewish merchant, he served as a soldier in World War I, and later went on to form the Union Fédérale, a leftist, pacifist Veterans organisation. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1968 for his work in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December 1948. That same year, he was also awarded one of the UN's own Human Rights Prizes. René Cassin founded the French Institute of Administrative Sciences (IFSA) which was recognized as a public utility association.
As French delegate to the League of Nations from 1924 to 1938, Cassin pressed for progress on disarmament and in developing institutions to aid the resolution of international conflicts.
Working from a draft composed by Canadian scholar and professor of law, John Humphrey, he reduced the draft from 46 basic articles to 44. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as eventually adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 10 December contained 30 human rights articles from the original draft.
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René Descartes
René Descartes (French pronunciation: [ʁəne dekaʁt]; Latinized form: Renatus Cartesius; adjectival form: "Cartesian"; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, mathematician, and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day. In particular, his Meditations on First Philosophy continues to be a standard text at most university philosophy departments. Descartes' influence in mathematics is equally apparent; the Cartesian coordinate system — allowing algebraic equations to be expressed as geometric shapes in a two-dimensional coordinate system — was named after him. He is credited as the father of analytical geometry, the bridge between algebra and geometry, crucial to the discovery of infinitesimal calculus and analysis. Descartes was also one of the key figures in the Scientific Revolution and has been described as an example of genius.
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Richard I of England
Richard I (8 September 1157 – 6 April 1199) was King of England from 6 July 1189 until his death. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Count of Nantes, and Overlord of Brittany at various times during the same period. He was known as Cœur de Lion, or Richard the Lionheart, even before his accession, because of his reputation as a great military leader and warrior. The Saracens called him Melek-Ric or Malek al-Inkitar – King of England.
By the age of sixteen, Richard was commanding his own army, putting down rebellions in Poitou against his father, King Henry II. Richard was a central Christian commander during the Third Crusade, effectively leading the campaign after the departure of Philip II of France and scoring considerable victories against his Muslim counterpart, Saladin, but was unable to reconquer Jerusalem.
Although speaking only langue d'oïl and langue d'oc and spending very little time in England (he lived in his Duchy of Aquitaine in the southwest of France, preferring to use his kingdom as a source of revenue to support his armies), he was seen as a pious hero by his subjects. He remains one of the very few Kings of England remembered by his epithet, rather than regnal number, and is an enduring, iconic figure in England and France.
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Rosso Fiorentino
Giovanni Battista di Jacopo (8 March 1494 – 14 November 1540), known as Rosso Fiorentino (meaning "the Red Florentine" in Italian), or Il Rosso, was an Italian Mannerist painter, in oil and fresco, belonging to the Florentine school.
Born in Florence Italy with the red hair that gave him his nickname, Rosso first trained in the studio of Andrea del Sarto alongside his contemporary, Pontormo. In late 1523, Rosso moved to Rome, where he was exposed to the works of Michelangelo, Raphael, and other Renaissance artists, resulting in the realignment of his artistic style.
Fleeing Rome after the Sacking of 1527, Rosso eventually went to France where he secured a position at the court of Francis I in 1530, remaining there until his death. Together with Francesco Primaticcio, Rosso was one of the leading artists to work at the Chateau Fontainebleau as part of the "First School of Fontainebleau", spending much of his life there. Following his death in 1540 (which, according to an unsubstantiated claim by Vasari, was a suicide [1]), Francesco Primaticcio took charge of the artistic direction at Fontainebleau.
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Samuel de Champlain
Samuel de Champlain (French pronunciation: [samɥɛl də ʃɑ̃plɛ̃] born Samuel Champlain; August 13 1574 – December 25, 1635), "The Father of New France", was a French navigator, cartographer, draughtsman, soldier, explorer, geographer, ethnologist, diplomat, and chronicler. He founded New France and Quebec City on July 3, 1608. He is important to Canadian history because he made the first accurate map of the coast and he helped establish the settlements.
Born into a family of master mariners, Champlain, while still a young man, began exploring North America in 1603 under the guidance of François Gravé Du Pont. From 1604 to 1607 Champlain participated in the exploration and settlement of the first permanent European settlement north of Florida, Port Royal, Acadia (1605). Then, in 1608, he established the French settlement that is now Quebec City. Champlain was the first European to explore and describe the Great Lakes, and published maps of his journeys and accounts of what he learned from the natives and the French living among the Natives. He formed relationships with local Montagnais and Innu and later with others farther west (Ottawa River, Lake Nipissing, or Georgian Bay), with Algonquin and with Huron Wendat, and agreed to provide assistance in their wars against the Iroquois.
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September Massacres
The September Massacres were a wave of mob violence which overtook Paris in late summer 1792, during the French Revolution. By the time it had subsided, half the prison population of Paris had been executed: some 1,200 trapped prisoners, including many women and young boys. Sporadic violence, in particular against the Roman Catholic Church, would continue throughout France for nearly a decade to come.
The political situation in Paris on the eve of the September Massacres was dire. No individual or organized body could truly claim exclusive sovereignty. The monarchy and short-lived Constitution of 1791 had been overthrown with the bloody journée of 10 August 1792, in which the Tuileries Palace was stormed by the mob and the royal family fled for their lives. The Legislative Assembly had been left impotent after a large number of deputies had fled, and its successor, the National Convention, had not yet met. To further complicate this matter, the insurrectionary Paris commune established 9 August 1792 incorporated some of the most radical revolutionary elements, including the sans-culottes, and briefly contended for the role of de facto government of France. Lacking a sovereign power, the Parisians' fear, hatred, and prejudice proved to be the seeds of the September Massacres[citation needed].
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Serge Gainsbourg
Serge Gainsbourg, born Lucien Ginsburg (French pronunciation: [sɛʁʒ ɡɛ̃sbuʁ]; 2 April 1928 – 2 March 1991) was a French singer, songwriter, poet, composer, artist, actor and director. Gainsbourg's extremely varied musical style and individuality make him difficult to categorize. His legacy has been firmly established, and he is often regarded as one of the world's most influential popular musicians.
He was born Lucien Ginsburg in Paris, France, the son of Russian Jewish emigrants, Joseph Ginsburg (28 December 1898, Kharkov (Ukraine) – 22 April 1971) and Olga Bessman (1894 – 16 March 1985), who fled to France after the 1917 Russian Revolution. He had a twin sister, Liliane. His childhood was profoundly affected by the occupation of France by Nazi Germany, during which he and his family, as Jews, were forced to wear the yellow star and eventually flee Paris. Before he was 30 years old, Gainsbourg was a disillusioned painter, but earned his living as a piano player in bars.
He first married Elisabeth "Lize" Levitsky on 3 November 1951, and divorced her in 1957. He married a second time on 7 January 1964, to Françoise-Antoinette "Béatrice" Pancrazzi (b. 28 July 1931), with whom he had two children: a daughter named Natacha (b. 8 August 1964) and a son, Paul (born in spring 1968, after Serge had gotten back together with Béatrice). They divorced in February 1966.
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Shakespeare
William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564; died 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.
Shakespeare was born and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon. At the age of 18, he married Anne Hathaway, with whom he had three children: Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith. Between 1585 and 1592, he began a successful career in London as an actor, writer, and part owner of a playing company called the Lord Chamberlain's Men, later known as the King's Men. He appears to have retired to Stratford around 1613 at age 49, where he died three years later. Few records of Shakespeare's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others.
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Sonia Rykiel
Sonia Rykiel née Flis (French pronunciation: [sɔn.ja ʁi.kjɛl]; born 25 May 1930 in Paris) is a French fashion designer.
Ethnically a Russian-Romanian Jew, Sonia Rykiel was born in Neuilly, a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France, the eldest of five daughters of a Russian mother and a Romanian father. At the age of 17, she was employed to dress the window displays in a Parisian textile store. In 1953 Sonia married Sam Rykiel, owner of a boutique selling elegant clothing. In 1962, she couldn't find any soft sweaters to wear when she was pregnant, so she used a supplier to her husband from Venice to design her own.
Sonia Rykiel thereafter created her first maternity dresses and a tiny sweater, called the Poor Boy Sweater, which she started selling from her husband's label "Laura". The Poor Boy Sweater made the cover of ELLE fashion magazine, and brought Rykiel fame; because of it, she was crowned "Queen of Knits" by the Americans in 1967.
Since then, she has continued to experiment to expand her offerings. She later became the first designer to put seams on the outside of a garment, and to print words on her sweaters. In particular, she favours long clinging sweaters or small cropped pullovers, large rolled-back cuffs and long shawls. Her color palette usually features beige, grey, dark blue and charcoal.
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Spinoza
Baruch Spinoza and later Benedict de Spinoza (24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677) was a Dutch philosopher. Revealing considerable scientific aptitude, the breadth and importance of Spinoza's work was not fully realized until years after his death. By laying the groundwork for the 18th century Enlightenment[citation needed] and modern biblical criticism, he came to be considered one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy. His magnum opus, the posthumous Ethics, in which he opposed Descartes's mind–body dualism, has earned him recognition as one of Western philosophy's most important contributors. In the Ethics, "Spinoza wrote the last indisputable Latin masterpiece, and one in which the refined conceptions of medieval philosophy are finally turned against themselves and destroyed entirely." Philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel said of all contemporary philosophers, "You are either a Spinozist or not a philosopher at all."
Spinoza's name in different languages is Hebrew: ברוך שפינוזה Baruch Spinoza, Portuguese: Benedito or Bento de Espinosa and Latin: Benedictus de Spinoza; in all these languages, the given name means "the Blessed". Spinoza was raised in the Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam. He developed highly controversial ideas regarding the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible and the nature of the Divine. The Jewish religious authorities issued a cherem (Hebrew: חרם, a kind of ban, shunning, ostracism, expulsion, or excommunication) against him, effectively excluding him from Jewish society at age 23. His books were also later put on the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books.
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Stendhal
Marie-Henri Beyle (23 January 1783 – 23 March 1842), better known by his pen name Stendhal, was a 19th-century French writer. Known for his acute analysis of his characters' psychology, he is considered one of the earliest and foremost practitioners of realism in his two novels Le Rouge et le Noir (The Red and the Black, 1830) and La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma, 1839).
Born in Grenoble, Isère, he had an unhappy childhood in what he found to be stifling provincial France, disliking his "unimaginative" father and mourning his mother, who had died when he was young. His closest friend was his younger sister, Pauline, with whom he maintained a steady correspondence throughout the first decade of the 19th century.
The military and theatrical worlds of the First French Empire were a revelation to Beyle. He was named an auditor with the Conseil d'État on 3 August 1810, and thereafter took part in the French administration and in the Napoleonic wars in Italy. He travelled extensively in Germany and was part of Napoleon's army in the 1812 invasion of Russia.
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Stéphane Mallarmé
Stéphane Mallarmé (pronounced [ste.fan ma.laʁ.me]) (18 March 1842 – 9 September 1898), whose real name was Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism.
Stéphane Mallarmé was born in Paris. He worked as an English teacher and spent much of his life in relative poverty; but was famed for his salons, occasional gatherings of intellectuals at his house on the rue de Rome for discussions of poetry, art, philosophy. The group became known as les Mardistes, because they met on Tuesdays (in French, mardi), and through it Mallarmé exerted considerable influence on the work of a generation of writers. For many years, those sessions, where Mallarmé held court as judge, jester, and king, were considered the heart of Paris intellectual life. Regular visitors included W.B. Yeats, Rainer Maria Rilke, Paul Valéry, Stefan George, Paul Verlaine, and many others.
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Suebi
The Suebi or Suevi (from Proto-Germanic *swēbaz based on the Proto-Germanic root *swē- meaning "one's own" people, from an Indo-European root *swe-, the third person reflexive pronoun) were a group of Germanic peoples who were first mentioned by Julius Caesar in connection with Ariovistus' campaign, c. 58 BC;
Some Suebi remained a periodic threat against the Romans on the Rhine, until, toward the end of the empire, the Alamanni, including elements of Suebi, brushed aside Roman defenses and occupied Alsace, and from there Bavaria and Switzerland. A pocket remained in Swabia (an area in southwest Germany whose modern name derives from the ancient name), whereas migrants to Gallaecia (modern Galicia, in Spain, and Northern Portugal) established a kingdom there which lasted for 170 years until its integration into the Visigothic Kingdom.
In the classical sources, the ethnonym Suebi is used with two different meanings: the specific tribe of Caesar's campaign, "dwelling on the Main", and "broadly, to cover a large number of tribes in central Germany." The broad view is expressed in Tacitus's Germania, a basic written source for the Suebic peoples that states:
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Thierry Mugler
Thierry Mugler (French pronunciation: [tjɛʁi myɡˈle]) is a French fashion designer and creator of several perfumes.
Mugler was born in Strasbourg, France on 21 December 1948. His passion led him to focus more on drawing than on school[citation needed] and at the age of 9, he began to study classical dance.[citation needed] By 14, he joined the ballet corps for the Rhin Opera (Opéra national du Rhin).
At the same time, Mugler began taking classes in interior design at the Strasbourg School of Decorative Art.[citation needed]
At the age of 24, Mugler decided to travel the world and left Strasbourg to go live in Paris. He began designing clothes for a small, trendy Parisian boutique by the name of "Gudule". At 26, Mugler, who was working as a freelance designer, began to work for a variety of large ready-to-wear fashion houses in Paris, Milan, London and Barcelona.[citation needed]
In 1973 Mugler created his first personal collection called "Café de Paris". The style of the collection was both sophisticated and urban. Melka Tréanton, a powerful fashion editor, helped launched his career. In 1976, she asked him to show his work in Tokyo, for an event organized by Shiseido. In 1978 he opened his first Paris boutique at the place des Victoires (in the 1st arrondissement). At the same time, Thierry Mugler launched a fashion collection for men. For this collection, he reworked classical masculinity giving it a definitively modern style. A clean, precise, structured cut which outlined a highly-recognizable silhouette: prominent shoulders, both "anatomical and classic", for a dynamic and slender look.
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Théodore Géricault
Jean-Louis André Théodore Géricault (26 September 1791 – 26 January 1824) was a profoundly influential French artist, painter and lithographer, known for The Raft of the Medusa and other paintings. Although he died young, he became one of the pioneers of the Romantic movement.
Born in Rouen, France, Géricault was educated in the tradition of English sporting art by Carle Vernet and classical figure composition by Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, a rigorous classicist who disapproved of his student's impulsive temperament yet recognized his talent. Géricault soon left the classroom, choosing to study at the Louvre instead, where (from 1810 to 1815) he copied from paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, Titian, Diego Velázquez, and Rembrandt. During this period at the Louvre he discovered a vitality he found lacking in the prevailing school of Neoclassicism. Much of his time was spent in Versailles, where he found the stables of the palace open to him, and where he gained his knowledge of the anatomy and action of horses.
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Théophile Gautier
Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier (pronounced: [pjɛʁ ʒyl teofil ɡotje]; August 30, 1811 – October 23, 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, art critic and literary critic.
While Gautier was an ardent defender of Romanticism, his work is difficult to classify and remains a point of reference for many subsequent literary traditions such as Parnassianism, Symbolism, Decadence and Modernism. He was widely esteemed by writers as diverse as Balzac, Baudelaire, the Goncourt brothers, Flaubert, Proust and Oscar Wilde.
Gautier was born on August 30, 1811, in Tarbes, capital of Hautes-Pyrénées département in southwestern France. His father, Pierre Gautier, was a fairly cultured minor government official and his mother was Antoinette-Adelaïde Concarde. The family moved to Paris in 1814, taking up residence in the ancient Marais district.
Gautier's education commenced at the prestigious Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris (fellow alumni include Voltaire and Charles Baudelaire), which he attended for three months before being brought home due to illness. Although he completed the remainder of his education at Collège Charlemagne (alumni include Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve), Gautier's most significant instruction came from his father, who prompted him to become a Latin scholar by age 18.
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Tony Parker
William Anthony "Tony" Parker Jr. (born 17 May 1982) is a French professional basketball player with the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association (NBA).
The son of a professional basketball player, Parker played for two years in the French basketball league before entering the 2001 NBA Draft. He was selected by the San Antonio Spurs with the 28th overall pick in the draft and quickly became their starting point guard, helping the Spurs win three NBA Championships in 2003, 2005 and 2007. Employing his pace and high field goal percentage to great effect, Parker has been named to four NBA All-Star games, an All-NBA Second Team, and an All-NBA Third Team. He was the 2007 NBA Finals MVP.
Parker is also a music artist with his own music album TP. He married actress Eva Longoria, best known for her role in the ABC television series Desperate Housewives, on 7 July 2007. In November 2010, both parties filed for divorce.
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Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa or simply Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃ʁi də tuluz loˈtʁɛk]; 24 November 1864 – 9 September 1901) was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, and illustrator, whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of Paris in the late 1800s yielded a collection of exciting, elegant and provocative images of the modern and sometimes decadent life of those times. Toulouse-Lautrec is known along with Cézanne, Van Gogh, and Gauguin as one of the greatest painters of the Post-Impressionist period. In a 2005 auction at Christie's auction house a new record was set when La blanchisseuse, an early painting of a young laundress, sold for $22.4 million U.S.
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa was born at the chateau de Malromé near Albi, Tarn in the Midi-Pyrénées région of France, the firstborn child of Comte Alphonse de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa and Adèle Tapié de Celeyran. He was therefore a member of an aristocratic family (descendants of the Counts of Toulouse and Lautrec and the Viscounts of Montfa, a village and commune of the Tarn department of southern France). A younger brother was also born to the family on 28 August 1867, but died the following year.
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Treaty of Verdun
The Treaty of Verdun (Verdun-sur-Meuse, August 843) was a treaty between the three surviving sons of Louis the Pious, the son and successor of Charlemagne, which divided the Carolingian Empire into three kingdoms. It ended the three year long Carolingian Civil War.
When Louis the Pious died in 840, his eldest son, Lothair I, claimed overlordship over his brothers' kingdoms and supported the claim of his nephew Pepin II as king of Aquitaine, a large province in western France. After his brother Louis the German and his half-brother Charles the Bald defeated his forces at the Battle of Fontenay (841) and sealed their alliance with the Oaths of Strasbourg (842), Lothair became willing to negotiate instead of continuing the warfare.
Each of the three brothers was already established in one kingdom: Lothair in Italy, Louis the German in Bavaria, and Charles the Bald in Aquitaine. In the settlement, Lothair (who had been named co-emperor in 817) retained his title as emperor and:
After the death of Lothair in 855, Upper and Lower Burgundy (Arles and Provence) passed to his third son Charles of Provence, and the remaining territory north of the Alps to his second son Lothair II, after whom the hitherto nameless territory was called Lotharingia, which name eventually evolved into the modern Lorraine. Lothair's eldest son, Louis II inherited Italy and his father's claim to the Imperial title.
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Vandals
The Vandals were an East Germanic tribe who in 429 under king Genseric entered Africa and by 439 established a kingdom which included the Roman Africa province, besides the islands of Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia, Malta and the Balearics. In 455, they sacked the city of Rome. Their kingdom collapsed in the Vandalic War of 533–4, in which Justinian I managed to reconquer the Africa province for the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire.
Renaissance and Early Modern writers characterized the Vandals as barbarians, "sacking and looting" Rome. This led to the use of the term "vandalism", to describe any senseless destruction, particularly the "barbarian" defacing of artworks. However, modern historians tend to regard the Vandals during the transitional period (from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages) as perpetuators, not destroyers, of Roman culture.
The name of the Vandals has often been connected to that of Vendel,[citation needed] the name of a province in Uppland, Sweden, which is also eponymous of the Vendel period of Swedish prehistory, corresponding to the late Germanic Iron Age leading up to the Viking Age. The connection would be that Vendel is the original homeland of the Vandals prior to the Migration Period, and retains their tribal name as a toponym.
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Vauban
Sébastien Le Prestre, Seigneur de Vauban and later Marquis de Vauban (15 May 1633 – 30 March 1707), commonly referred to as Vauban, was a Marshal of France and the foremost military engineer of his age, famed for his skill in both designing fortifications and breaking through them. He also advised Louis XIV on how to consolidate France's borders, to make them more defensible. Vauban made a radical suggestion of giving up some land that was indefensible to allow for a stronger, less porous border with France's neighbours.
Vauban was born in Saint-Léger-de-Foucheret (renamed Saint-Léger-Vauban in his honour in 1867), in the département of Yonne, in Burgundy, France, into a family of minor nobility. At the age of ten he was left an orphan in very poor circumstances, and his boyhood and youth were spent amongst the peasantry of his native place. A fortunate event brought him under the care of the Carmelite prior of Semur, who undertook his education, and the grounding in mathematics, science and geometry which he thus received was of the highest value in his subsequent career.
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Vercingetorix
Vercingetorix ( /ˌvɜrsɪnˈdʒɛtərɪks/ VUR-sin-JET-ə-riks or /ˌvɜrsɪŋˈɡɛtərɪks/ VUR-sing-GET-ə-riks; Latin pronunciation: [werkiŋˈɡetoriːks]); c. 82 BC – 46 BC) was the chieftain of the Arverni tribe, who united the Gauls in an ultimately unsuccessful revolt against Roman forces during the last phase of Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars.
Vercingetorix came to power in 52 BC, when he raised an army and was proclaimed king at Gergovia. He soon established an alliance with other tribes and took control of their combined armies, leading them in Gaul's most significant revolt against Roman power. Vercingetorix surrendered to the Romans after being defeated at the Battle of Alesia in 52 BC, after which he was imprisoned for five years. In 46 he was paraded through Rome as part of Caesar's triumph before being executed. Vercingetorix is primarily known through Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico.
The etymology of the name Vercingetorix is still contested. The most generally accepted analysis interprets it as Gaulish ver- ("over, superior" – an etymological cognate of Latin super or Greek hyper),cingeto- ("warrior", related to roots meaning "tread, step, walk", so possibly "infantry"), and rix ("king") (cf. Latin rex, Sanskrit rāja-), i.e. "great warrior king" or "king of great warriors". In his Life of Caesar, Plutarch renders the name as Vergentorix.
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Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo (French pronunciation: [viktɔʁ maʁi yɡo]) (26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist[citation needed] and exponent of the Romantic movement in France.
In France, Hugo's literary fame comes first from his poetry but also rests upon his novels and his dramatic achievements. Among many volumes of poetry, Les Contemplations and La Légende des siècles stand particularly high in critical esteem, and Hugo is sometimes identified as the greatest French poet. Outside France, his best-known works are the novels Les Misérables and Notre-Dame de Paris (also known in English as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame).
Though a committed royalist when he was young, Hugo's views changed as the decades passed; he became a passionate supporter of republicanism[citation needed], and his work touches upon most of the political and social issues and artistic trends of his time. He is buried in the Panthéon.
Hugo was the third, illegitimate, son of Joseph Léopold Sigisbert Hugo (1774–1828) and Sophie Trébuchet (1772–1821); his brothers were Abel Joseph Hugo (1798–1855) and Eugène Hugo (1800–1837). He was born in 1802 in Besançon (in the region of Franche-Comté) and lived in France for the majority of his life. However, he decided to live in exile as a result of Napoleon III's Coup d'état at the end of 1851.
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Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (UK /ˌvæn ˈɡɒx/, US /ˌvæn ˈɡoʊ/;Dutch: [vɑŋ ˈɣɔχ] ( listen); 30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890) was a Dutch post-Impressionist painter whose work, notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty, and bold color, had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. After years of painful anxiety and frequent bouts of mental illness, he died at the age of 37 from a gunshot wound, generally accepted to be self-inflicted (although no gun was ever found). His work was then known to only a handful of people and appreciated by fewer still.
Van Gogh began to draw as a child, and he continued to draw throughout the years that led up to his decision to become an artist. He did not begin painting until his late twenties, completing many of his best-known works during the last two years of his life. In just over a decade, he produced more than 2,100 artworks, consisting of 860 oil paintings and more than 1,300 watercolors, drawings, sketches and prints. His work included self portraits, landscapes, still lifes of flowers, portraits and paintings of cypresses, wheat fields and sunflowers.
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Visigothic Kingdom
The Visigothic Kingdom was a kingdom which occupied what is now southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th to 8th century AD. One of the Germanic successor states to the Western Roman Empire, it was originally created by the settlement of the Visigoths under King Wallia in the province of Aquitaine in south-west France by the Roman government and then extended by conquest over all of the Iberian peninsula. The Kingdom maintained independence from the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, the attempts of which to re-establish Roman authority in Iberia were only partially successful and short-lived. By the early 6th century, the Kingdom's territory in Gaul had been lost to the Franks, save the narrow coastal strip of Septimania, but the Visigoth control of Iberia was secured by the end of that century with the submission of the Suebi and the Basques. The ethnic distinction between the indigenous Hispano-Roman population and the Visigoths had largely disappeared by this time (the Gothic language lost its last and probably already declining function as a church language when the Visigoths converted to Catholicism in 589).Liber Iudiciorum (completed in 654) abolished the old tradition of having different laws for Romans and for Visigoths. Most of the Visigothic Kingdom was conquered by Islamic troops from Morocco in 711 AD, only the northern reaches of Spain remaining in Christian hands. These gave birth to the medieval Kingdom of Asturias when a local landlord called Pelayo, most likely of Gothic origin, was elected Princeps by the Astures.
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Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃.swa ma.ʁi aʁ.wɛ]; 21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778), known by the pen name Voltaire (pronounced: [vɔl.tɛːʁ]), was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, freedom of expression, free trade and separation of church and state. Voltaire was a prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including plays, poetry, novels, essays, and historical and scientific works. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and more than 2,000 books and pamphlets. He was an outspoken supporter of social reform, despite strict censorship laws with harsh penalties for those who broke them. As a satirical polemicist, he frequently made use of his works to criticize intolerance, religious dogma and the French institutions of his day.
Voltaire was one of several Enlightenment figures (along with Montesquieu, John Locke, Richard Price, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Émilie du Châtelet) whose works and ideas influenced important thinkers of both the American and French Revolutions.
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Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance (1955–1991), more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty between eight communist states of Eastern Europe in existence during the Cold War. The founding treaty was established under the initiative of the Soviet Union and signed on 14 May 1955, in Warsaw. The Warsaw Pact was the military complement to the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CoMEcon), the regional economic organization for the communist states of Eastern Europe. The Warsaw Pact was a Soviet military response to the integration of West Germany into NATO in 1955, per the Paris Pacts of 1954.
In the West, the Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance is often called the Warsaw Pact military alliance; abbreviated WAPA, Warpac, and WP. Elsewhere, in the former member states, the Warsaw Treaty is known as:
The Warsaw Treaty’s organization was two-fold: the Political Consultative Committee handled political matters, and the Combined Command of Pact Armed Forces controlled the assigned multi-national forces, with headquarters in Warsaw, Poland. Furthermore, the Supreme Commander of the Unified Armed Forces of the Warsaw Treaty Organization was also a First Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR, and the head of the Warsaw Treaty Combined Staff also was a First Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR. Therefore, although ostensibly an international collective security alliance, the USSR dominated the Warsaw Treaty armed forces.
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Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky /kænˈdɪnski/ (Russian: Васи́лий Васи́льевич Канди́нский, Vasilij Vasil'evič Kandinskij, Russian pronunciation: [vaˈsʲilʲɪj kɐnˈdʲinskʲɪj]; 16 December [O.S. 4 December] 1866 – 13 December 1944) was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics. Successful in his profession—he was offered a professorship (chair of Roman Law) at the University of Dorpat—he began painting studies (life-drawing, sketching and anatomy) at the age of 30.
In 1896 Kandinsky settled in Munich, studying first at Anton Ažbe's private school and then at the Academy of Fine Arts. He returned to Moscow in 1914, after the outbreak of World War I. Kandinsky was unsympathetic to the official theories on art in Moscow, and returned to Germany in 1921. There, he taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from 1922 until the Nazis closed it in 1933. He then moved to France where he lived the rest of his life, becoming a French citizen in 1939. He died at Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1944.
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William James
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He was the first educator to offer a psychology course in the U.S. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism. He was the brother of novelist Henry James and of diarist Alice James. In the summer of 1878, James married Alice Gibbens.
William James was born at the Astor House in New York City. He was the son of Henry James Sr., a noted and independently wealthy Swedenborgian theologian well acquainted with the literary and intellectual elites of his day. The intellectual brilliance of the James family milieu and the remarkable epistolary talents of several of its members have made them a subject of continuing interest to historians, biographers, and critics.
James interacted with a wide array of writers and scholars throughout his life, including his godfather Ralph Waldo Emerson, his godson William James Sidis, as well as Charles Sanders Peirce, Bertrand Russell, Josiah Royce, Ernst Mach, John Dewey, Macedonio Fernández, Walter Lippmann, Mark Twain, Horatio Alger, Jr., Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud.
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Édith Piaf
Édith Piaf (US /piːˈɑːf/ or UK /ˈpiːæf/; French: [eˈdit pjaf]; 19 December 1915 – 11 October 1963), born Édith Giovanna Gassion, was a French singer and cultural icon who became widely regarded as France's national popular singer, as well as being one of France's greatest international stars. Her singing reflected her life, with her specialty being ballads. Among her songs are "La Vie en rose" (1946), "Non, je ne regrette rien" (1960), "Hymne à l'amour" (1949), "Milord" (1959), "La Foule" (1957), "l'Accordéoniste" (1955), and "Padam... Padam..." (1951).
Despite numerous biographies, much of Piaf's life is shrouded in mystery. She was born Édith Giovanna Gassion in Belleville, Paris. Legend has it that she was born on the pavement of Rue de Belleville 72, but her birth certificate cites the Hôpital Tenon, the hospital for the 20th arrondissement of which Belleville is part.
She was named Édith after the World War I British nurse Edith Cavell, who was executed for helping French soldiers escape from German captivity. Piaf—an argot colloquialism for "sparrow"—was a nickname she would receive 20 years later.
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Édouard Lalo
Édouard-Victoire-Antoine Lalo (27 January 1823 – 22 April 1892) was a French composer.
Lalo was born in Lille (Nord), in northernmost France. He attended that city's music conservatory in his youth. Then, beginning at age 16, Lalo studied at the Paris Conservatoire under Berlioz's old enemy François Antoine Habeneck. For several years, he worked as a string player and teacher in Paris. In 1848, he joined with friends to found the Armingaud Quartet, playing viola and later second violin. Lalo's earliest surviving compositions are songs and chamber works (two early symphonies were destroyed).
Julie Besnier de Maligny, a contralto from Brittany, became his bride in 1865. She aroused Lalo's early interest in opera and led him to compose works for the stage. Unfortunately, they were deemed too progressive and Wagnerian and were not initially well received despite their freshness and originality. This led him to dedicate most of his career to the composition of chamber music, which was gradually coming into vogue for the first time in France, and works for orchestra.
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Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (US /mæˈneɪ/ or UK /ˈmæneɪ/; French: [edwaʁ manɛ]; 1832–1883) was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
His early masterworks, The Luncheon on the Grass (Le déjeuner sur l'herbe) and Olympia, engendered great controversy and served as rallying points for the young painters who would create Impressionism. Today, these are considered watershed paintings that mark the genesis of modern art.
Born into an upper class household with strong political connections, Manet rejected the future originally envisioned for him, and became engrossed in the world of painting. He married Suzanne Leenhoff in 1863. The last 20 years of Manet's life saw him form bonds with other great artists of the time, and develop his own style that would be heralded as innovative and serve as a major influence for future painters.
Édouard Manet was born in Paris on 23 January 1832, to an affluent and well connected family. His mother, Eugénie-Desirée Fournier, was the daughter of a diplomat and goddaughter of the Swedish crown prince, Charles Bernadotte, from whom the current Swedish monarchs are descended. His father, Auguste Manet, was a French judge who expected Édouard to pursue a career in law. His uncle, Edmond Fournier, encouraged him to pursue painting and often took young Manet to the Louvre. In 1841 he enrolled at secondary school, the Collège Rollin. In 1845, at the advice of his uncle, Manet enrolled in a special course of drawing where he met Antonin Proust, future Minister of Fine Arts and subsequent life-long friend.
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Émile Zola
Émile François Zola (French pronunciation: [e.mil zɔ.la]; 2 April 1840 – 29 September 1902) was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France and in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus, which is encapsulated in the renowned newspaper headline J'Accuse.
Zola was born in Paris in 1840. His father, François Zola (originally Francesco Zolla), was an Italian engineer. With his French wife Émilie Aurélie Aubert, the family moved to Aix-en-Provence in the southeast, when Émile was three years old. Four years later in 1847, his father died leaving his mother on a meager pension. In 1858 the Zolas moved to Paris, where Émile's childhood friend Paul Cézanne soon joined him. Zola started to write in the romantic style. His widowed mother had planned a law career for Émile but he failed his Baccalauréat examination.
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Érik Satie
Éric Alfred Leslie Satie (pronounced: [eʁik sati]) (17 May 1866 – Paris, 1 July 1925; signed his name Erik Satie after 1884) was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde. His work was a precursor to later artistic movements such as minimalism, repetitive music, and the Theatre of the Absurd.
An eccentric, Satie was introduced as a "gymnopedist" in 1887, shortly before writing his most famous compositions, the Gymnopédies. Later, he also referred to himself as a "phonometrician" (meaning "someone who measures sounds") preferring this designation to that of a "musician", after having been called "a clumsy but subtle technician" in a book on contemporary French composers published in 1911.
In addition to his body of music, Satie also left a remarkable set of writings, having contributed work for a range of publications, from the dadaist 391 to the American culture chronicle Vanity Fair. Although in later life he prided himself on always publishing his work under his own name, in the late nineteenth century he appears to have used pseudonyms such as Virginie Lebeau and François de Paule in some of his published writings.
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18. The Dark Years: Vichy France
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 51:26
- Updated: 20 Dec 2012
France Since 1871 (HIST 276) For decades after the end of World War II the question of French collaboration with the Nazis was obscured. One of the reasons for this was the desire of de Gaulle and others to downplay the central role of communists in resisting the occupation. In fact, many French civilians were involved to greater or lesser degrees in informing upon their fellows or otherwise furthering the interests of the German invaders. Under the Vichy regime, right-wing politics in France developed an ideological program founded upon an appeal to nationalism, the soil, and the rejection of perceived decadence. 00:00 - Chapter 1. The Outbreak of War: French and German Military Capacities 05:32 - Chapter 2. The Fall of France 09:02 - Chapter 3. Collaboration: Vichy France in Power 12:35 - Chapter 4. Gaps in National Memory: Problems in the History of Collaboration 21:16 - Chapter 5. The Collaborator Trials: The Vindication of History 33:20 - Chapter 6. The Character of the Collaborators: Identity and Motives Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: open.yale.edu This course was recorded in Fall 2007.
http://wn.com/18_The_Dark_Years_Vichy_France
France Since 1871 (HIST 276) For decades after the end of World War II the question of French collaboration with the Nazis was obscured. One of the reasons for this was the desire of de Gaulle and others to downplay the central role of communists in resisting the occupation. In fact, many French civilians were involved to greater or lesser degrees in informing upon their fellows or otherwise furthering the interests of the German invaders. Under the Vichy regime, right-wing politics in France developed an ideological program founded upon an appeal to nationalism, the soil, and the rejection of perceived decadence. 00:00 - Chapter 1. The Outbreak of War: French and German Military Capacities 05:32 - Chapter 2. The Fall of France 09:02 - Chapter 3. Collaboration: Vichy France in Power 12:35 - Chapter 4. Gaps in National Memory: Problems in the History of Collaboration 21:16 - Chapter 5. The Collaborator Trials: The Vindication of History 33:20 - Chapter 6. The Character of the Collaborators: Identity and Motives Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: open.yale.edu This course was recorded in Fall 2007.
Vichy France
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:16
- Updated: 07 Oct 2012
"I'd rather have the Germans in front of me than the French behind me" How can you tell when troops are French? Their armpits are sunburnt. Did you know that Inglourious Basterds takes place in Vichy France? DO YOU KNOW how hard it is to get videos of Vichy France when there's a hit movie set there? O_O-/ "Ze Germans" There. Now officially two rather cult films of Brad Pitt's have been referenced in this doobleydoo. coughTheRiverRunsThroughItandSpyGamecough make that four, good sir. Cheerio. It is so late, like... should be called early, not late, late. Why are you still reading this? It's obviously not a legit description. Did you know France rhymes with Pants? Like Vichy France is in yo pants!
http://wn.com/Vichy_France
"I'd rather have the Germans in front of me than the French behind me" How can you tell when troops are French? Their armpits are sunburnt. Did you know that Inglourious Basterds takes place in Vichy France? DO YOU KNOW how hard it is to get videos of Vichy France when there's a hit movie set there? O_O-/ "Ze Germans" There. Now officially two rather cult films of Brad Pitt's have been referenced in this doobleydoo. coughTheRiverRunsThroughItandSpyGamecough make that four, good sir. Cheerio. It is so late, like... should be called early, not late, late. Why are you still reading this? It's obviously not a legit description. Did you know France rhymes with Pants? Like Vichy France is in yo pants!
- published: 23 Mar 2011
- views: 4916
- author: againstnormal
Anthem of Vichy France (Marechal Nous Voila)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:06
- Updated: 16 Dec 2012
Vichy France, or the Vichy regime, was the government of France from July 1940 to August 1944. It succeeded the Third Republic. The "French state" (L'État Français), as it called itself in contrast with the "French Republic", was proclaimed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, following the military defeat of France by Nazi Germany during World War II, and the vote by the National Assembly on July 10, 1940, to grant extraordinary powers to Pétain, who held the title of "President of the Council" instead of President of France. Pétain headed the reactionary program of the so-called "Révolution nationale", aimed at "regenerating the Nation." Vichy France had legal authority in both the northern zone of France, which was occupied by the German Wehrmacht, and the unoccupied southern "free zone", where the regime's administrative center of Vichy was located. The southern zone remained under Vichy control until the Allies landed in French North Africa in November 1942. Recent research by the historian Simon Kitson has shown that, in spite of extensive State Collaboration, Vichy led an ultimately unsuccessful campaign to preserve the sovereignty of this southern zone by arresting German spies Pétain and the Vichy regime willfully collaborated with Nazi Germany to a high degree. The French police organized raids to capture Jews and others considered "undesirables" by the Germans in both the northern and southern zones. The legitimacy of Vichy France and Pétain's leadership was challenged ...
http://wn.com/Anthem_of_Vichy_France_Marechal_Nous_Voila
Vichy France, or the Vichy regime, was the government of France from July 1940 to August 1944. It succeeded the Third Republic. The "French state" (L'État Français), as it called itself in contrast with the "French Republic", was proclaimed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, following the military defeat of France by Nazi Germany during World War II, and the vote by the National Assembly on July 10, 1940, to grant extraordinary powers to Pétain, who held the title of "President of the Council" instead of President of France. Pétain headed the reactionary program of the so-called "Révolution nationale", aimed at "regenerating the Nation." Vichy France had legal authority in both the northern zone of France, which was occupied by the German Wehrmacht, and the unoccupied southern "free zone", where the regime's administrative center of Vichy was located. The southern zone remained under Vichy control until the Allies landed in French North Africa in November 1942. Recent research by the historian Simon Kitson has shown that, in spite of extensive State Collaboration, Vichy led an ultimately unsuccessful campaign to preserve the sovereignty of this southern zone by arresting German spies Pétain and the Vichy regime willfully collaborated with Nazi Germany to a high degree. The French police organized raids to capture Jews and others considered "undesirables" by the Germans in both the northern and southern zones. The legitimacy of Vichy France and Pétain's leadership was challenged ...
- published: 23 Feb 2008
- views: 171228
- author: zzahier
Hilarious Vichy Propaganda: Mickey bombing France.
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:23
- Updated: 20 Dec 2012
This is an excerpt from the Eye of Vichy, A movie from Claude Chabrol, which offers us a detailed view of Vichy regime propaganda. Mickey & Friends Bombing France.
http://wn.com/Hilarious_Vichy_Propaganda_Mickey_bombing_France
This is an excerpt from the Eye of Vichy, A movie from Claude Chabrol, which offers us a detailed view of Vichy regime propaganda. Mickey & Friends Bombing France.
- published: 22 Jul 2007
- views: 56710
- author: larkooo
Vichy - The French Collaborationist Newsreels.
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:41
- Updated: 27 Sep 2012
A remarkable record of the period 1940-44 in the unoccupied and occupied parts of defeated France. Based at the spa town of Vichy and led by Marshal Petain, French hero of WW1, the 'collaborationist' government mades its own laws and enjoyed a surprising degree of autonomy. Here are a wide selection from their own propaganda newsreels. Features speeches by Marcel Deat, Jacques Doriot, Abel Bonnard and many others. The full 110 minute DVD is available from the AK Chesterton Trust, BM Candour, London, WC1N 3XX for £8.00 See www.candour.org.uk for more details.
http://wn.com/Vichy_The_French_Collaborationist_Newsreels
A remarkable record of the period 1940-44 in the unoccupied and occupied parts of defeated France. Based at the spa town of Vichy and led by Marshal Petain, French hero of WW1, the 'collaborationist' government mades its own laws and enjoyed a surprising degree of autonomy. Here are a wide selection from their own propaganda newsreels. Features speeches by Marcel Deat, Jacques Doriot, Abel Bonnard and many others. The full 110 minute DVD is available from the AK Chesterton Trust, BM Candour, London, WC1N 3XX for £8.00 See www.candour.org.uk for more details.
- published: 11 Dec 2010
- views: 5938
- author: CandourMagazine
Vichy - Archictecture, Spas, War, History - France Revisited
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:59
- Updated: 17 Jun 2012
"Vichy, France: Not That Vichy, This Vichy" reveals the Napoleon III, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco details of a town whose name is generally associated with France's WWII government. A France Revisited Production by Gary Lee Kraut.
http://wn.com/Vichy_Archictecture,_Spas,_War,_History_France_Revisited
"Vichy, France: Not That Vichy, This Vichy" reveals the Napoleon III, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco details of a town whose name is generally associated with France's WWII government. A France Revisited Production by Gary Lee Kraut.
- published: 06 Sep 2009
- views: 968
- author: FranceRevisited
French Newsreel, Vichy Government - 1944
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:14
- Updated: 28 Oct 2012
Excerpts: · Anti-Bolshevism, Laval & Darnan Reviewing Troops. Franco greeting. · Military band. VIPs thru crowd giving Nazi fascist salute; French officers speaking from podium · Fete de Camaraderie: French soldiers march, German Nazi officers walking, French soldiers strip down & perform military exercises & contests. Winners receivin...g beer from German officer. WW2 Vichy France; WWII Nazi Fascist Propaganda; Youth; Wartime; Daily Life
http://wn.com/French_Newsreel,_Vichy_Government_1944
Excerpts: · Anti-Bolshevism, Laval & Darnan Reviewing Troops. Franco greeting. · Military band. VIPs thru crowd giving Nazi fascist salute; French officers speaking from podium · Fete de Camaraderie: French soldiers march, German Nazi officers walking, French soldiers strip down & perform military exercises & contests. Winners receivin...g beer from German officer. WW2 Vichy France; WWII Nazi Fascist Propaganda; Youth; Wartime; Daily Life
- published: 04 Apr 2011
- views: 4003
- author: footagefarmusa
Let's Discover the City of Vichy (France)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 8:19
- Updated: 31 Oct 2012
Discover Vichy (Allier - France), its beauty and its marvelous and relaxing environment. Country : France Region : Auvergne County : Allier ZIP Code : 03200 Population : 25 221 inhabitants Density : 4 311 inhabitants / km2 Urban area : 80 194 inhabitants Surface : 5,85 km2 Mayor : Claude Malhuret Website : www.ville-vichy.fr Music : - Infected Mushroom - Artillery - Infected Mushroom - Change the Formality
http://wn.com/Let's_Discover_the_City_of_Vichy_France
Discover Vichy (Allier - France), its beauty and its marvelous and relaxing environment. Country : France Region : Auvergne County : Allier ZIP Code : 03200 Population : 25 221 inhabitants Density : 4 311 inhabitants / km2 Urban area : 80 194 inhabitants Surface : 5,85 km2 Mayor : Claude Malhuret Website : www.ville-vichy.fr Music : - Infected Mushroom - Artillery - Infected Mushroom - Change the Formality
- published: 18 Jan 2012
- views: 1823
- author: JuDalei
Vichy French cartoon
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:33
- Updated: 06 Aug 2012
Propaganda cartoon made by the Vichy French government
http://wn.com/Vichy_French_cartoon
Propaganda cartoon made by the Vichy French government
- published: 03 Mar 2009
- views: 5979
- author: bveles88
British Battle Victories over the French: WWII
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:00
- Updated: 16 Dec 2012
The list is big.... Britain fought the treacherous & unpredictable Vichy from 1940-45
http://wn.com/British_Battle_Victories_over_the_French_WWII
The list is big.... Britain fought the treacherous & unpredictable Vichy from 1940-45
- published: 08 Jun 2009
- views: 7121
- author: LordGeorgeRodney
Stuka pilot interview 23: Vichy French pilots in Rhodes
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:44
- Updated: 30 Nov 2012
Thisinterview was done at Dr Migeod's house on 29 May 2010 in Somerset West South Africa. Dr Migeod is 92 years old and was a Luftwaffe stuka pilot who saw service in France, BOB, Balkans, Crete and Africa. Web site www.heinzmigeod.com Encounter with Vichy French pilots in Rhodes
http://wn.com/Stuka_pilot_interview_23_Vichy_French_pilots_in_Rhodes
Thisinterview was done at Dr Migeod's house on 29 May 2010 in Somerset West South Africa. Dr Migeod is 92 years old and was a Luftwaffe stuka pilot who saw service in France, BOB, Balkans, Crete and Africa. Web site www.heinzmigeod.com Encounter with Vichy French pilots in Rhodes
- published: 01 Jul 2010
- views: 1831
- author: Tinus le Roux
Preview of 2010 ICF Canoe Sprint World Cup, Vichy, France
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:14
- Updated: 16 Nov 2012
Eager for new footage from major ICF events? How about some interviews and quick previews of the venue and races? If so, then we at the ICF have you covered. ICF staff members will be attending as many events as we can, shooting footage and giving you a quick preview and interviews from these exciting events. Here is the first of what we hope will be many videos!
http://wn.com/Preview_of_2010_ICF_Canoe_Sprint_World_Cup,_Vichy,_France
Eager for new footage from major ICF events? How about some interviews and quick previews of the venue and races? If so, then we at the ICF have you covered. ICF staff members will be attending as many events as we can, shooting footage and giving you a quick preview and interviews from these exciting events. Here is the first of what we hope will be many videos!
- published: 17 May 2010
- views: 5912
- author: CanoeKayakTV
Very old elevator modernized by Schindler in Vichy, France.AVI
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:55
- Updated: 20 Jan 2012
http://wn.com/Very_old_elevator_modernized_by_Schindler_in_Vichy,_FranceAVI
Kosovo is as independent as Vichy France - RT 100722
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:50
- Updated: 22 May 2012
rt.com
http://wn.com/Kosovo_is_as_independent_as_Vichy_France_RT_100722
Amazing glass traction elevator at Vichy, France.AVI
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:53
- Updated: 29 Nov 2012
http://wn.com/Amazing_glass_traction_elevator_at_Vichy,_FranceAVI
Ann Coulter: Chris Matthews would've been great in Vichy France
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:13
- Updated: 27 Nov 2012
Coulter breaks down while liberal men are just searching for acceptance
http://wn.com/Ann_Coulter_Chris_Matthews_would've_been_great_in_Vichy_France
Coulter breaks down while liberal men are just searching for acceptance
- published: 09 Jun 2011
- views: 17039
- author: HumanEvents
2010 Canoe Sprint World Cup, Vichy - Highlights
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 26:22
- Updated: 16 Nov 2012
Here is the first highlights package of the season! Produced by our very own team, Hit the Roof, this is an impressive beginning to this year. We hope you enjoy it.
http://wn.com/2010_Canoe_Sprint_World_Cup,_Vichy_Highlights
Here is the first highlights package of the season! Produced by our very own team, Hit the Roof, this is an impressive beginning to this year. We hope you enjoy it.
- published: 25 May 2010
- views: 13356
- author: CanoeKayakTV
Nimbus Libere
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:34
- Updated: 08 Dec 2012
Vichy France propaganda cartoon about the allied bombings of France.
http://wn.com/Nimbus_Libere
Vichy France propaganda cartoon about the allied bombings of France.
- published: 22 Feb 2007
- views: 23199
- author: Julian Meyer
October Favourites '11.....MAC, Sleek, Vichy, Pixi & More!
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 21:13
- Updated: 01 Nov 2012
Makeup tutorial..... www.youtube.com Go to my blog for pictures, extra information & more..... www.letzmakeup.com Facebook page..... www.facebook.com Twitter..... www.twitter.com Personal (Non-makeup) Youtube Channel..... www.youtube.com Non-makeup twitter ..... www.twitter.com Website (Makeup) ..... www.siobhanmcdonnell.com E-mail ..... siobhanmcdonnellmakeup@gmail.com Thanks for Watching!!! Siobhán. xx
http://wn.com/October_Favourites_'11MAC,_Sleek,_Vichy,_Pixi_More!
Makeup tutorial..... www.youtube.com Go to my blog for pictures, extra information & more..... www.letzmakeup.com Facebook page..... www.facebook.com Twitter..... www.twitter.com Personal (Non-makeup) Youtube Channel..... www.youtube.com Non-makeup twitter ..... www.twitter.com Website (Makeup) ..... www.siobhanmcdonnell.com E-mail ..... siobhanmcdonnellmakeup@gmail.com Thanks for Watching!!! Siobhán. xx
- published: 01 Nov 2011
- views: 6816
- author: LetzMakeup
2010 Canoe Sprint World Cup, Vichy - Interview Montage
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:19
- Updated: 16 Nov 2012
Here's a montage of interviews we've pulled together from the footage shot at Vichy. We hope you enjoy the exclusive expose of some of Canoe Sprint's top athletes.
http://wn.com/2010_Canoe_Sprint_World_Cup,_Vichy_Interview_Montage
Here's a montage of interviews we've pulled together from the footage shot at Vichy. We hope you enjoy the exclusive expose of some of Canoe Sprint's top athletes.
- published: 22 May 2010
- views: 2662
- author: CanoeKayakTV
THE FRENCH WEHRMACHT AND WAFFEN-SS
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:05
- Updated: 01 Dec 2012
ALL MONETARY CONTRIBUTIONS WILL BE APPRECIATED! thirdreich88.blogspot.com THE MUSIC IS THE NATIONAL ANTHEM OF VICHY FRANCE
http://wn.com/THE_FRENCH_WEHRMACHT_AND_WAFFEN-SS
ALL MONETARY CONTRIBUTIONS WILL BE APPRECIATED! thirdreich88.blogspot.com THE MUSIC IS THE NATIONAL ANTHEM OF VICHY FRANCE
- published: 15 Sep 2009
- views: 7119
- author: WaffenSS397
Finale 4XJH Coupe de France Vichy 2006
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 0:54
- Updated: 24 Aug 2010
Finale 4XJH Coupe de France Vichy 2006 (PROVENCE: Nicolas, Jeremie, Alexandre et Clement)
http://wn.com/Finale_4XJH_Coupe_de_France_Vichy_2006
Finale 4XJH Coupe de France Vichy 2006 (PROVENCE: Nicolas, Jeremie, Alexandre et Clement)
- published: 24 Sep 2006
- views: 729
- author: alexencou25
1943 Fort Cambronne - The French Volunteer Legion in Russia (II)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:57
- Updated: 02 Nov 2012
1943. Vichy French newsreel of the French Volunteer Legion (Legion des Volontaires Francais) at Fort Cambronne in Western Russia. Filmed probably in 1942.
http://wn.com/1943_Fort_Cambronne_The_French_Volunteer_Legion_in_Russia_II
1943. Vichy French newsreel of the French Volunteer Legion (Legion des Volontaires Francais) at Fort Cambronne in Western Russia. Filmed probably in 1942.
- published: 10 Mar 2010
- views: 8267
- author: skoblinI
photo: AP / Carolyn Kaster
20 Dec 2012
Obama held a White House news conference on Wednesday to announce that Vice President Joe Biden will lead an interagency effort to craft new gun policies. The group is expected to offer its proposals in January. “We know this is a complex issue that stirs deeply held passions and political divides,” Obama said. “But the fact that this problem is complex can no longer be an excuse for doing nothing.” ... WAKE-UP CALL ... ....(size: 6.1Kb)
photo: AP / Pablo Martinez Monsivais
19 Dec 2012
WASHINGTON. US President Barack Obama backs a new bill to revive an assault weapons ban and other new gun laws, the White House said Tuesday, fleshing out his nascent response to a shocking school massacre. Obama also called an ardently pro-gun senator who has shifted his position on firearms laws since Friday's carnage in Connecticut and has begun meeting top cabinet officials to consider his options, his spokesman Jay Carney said ... ....(size: 4.9Kb)
photo: Creative Commons / Joachim Huber
18 Dec 2012
Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling. When a Stanford geneticist, Gerald Crabtree, published a provocative and controversial new view on evolutionary change, namely that humans are actually getting dumber, he should have also added that humans are still developing an extermination gene ... Paleontologist Tim Flannery would more than likely agree with Crabtree ... Strange strings of gravel also overlaid some bones ... (1) Kane, Alex ... 195....(size: 9.4Kb)
photo: AP / Charles Krupa
18 Dec 2012
Article by WN.com Correspondent Dallas Darling. "Most people reason dramatically, not quantitatively." -Oliver Wendell Holmes. On the same day that a 20-year-old, described as brilliant but remote, walked into an elementary school in Connecticut and massacred 26 children and adults, the school where I teach went on "lock-down." Four students with a handgun were arrested ... That morning before school, he had posted on Twitter and Facebook....(size: 14.0Kb)
photo: AP / Mohammad Hannon
19 Dec 2012
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said she accepts the findings of an independent panel that faulted the State Department over the deadly September attack on the US mission in Benghazi, Libya. An inquiry into the attack on the US mission, which saw the US ambassador and three other US citizens killed, found that the State Department security arrangements there were "grossly inadequate" ... 390 Source. ... Share ... Jaws ... Anaheim....(size: 19.2Kb)
Philadelphia Daily News
18 Dec 2012
JOHN F. MORRISON, Daily News Staff Writer morrisj@phillynews.com, 215-854-5573. Posted. Tuesday, December 18, 2012, 3.01 AM. WOMEN ROWING competitively? Forget it. Back in the late '30s, you didn't see women competing on the Schuylkill in racing sculls. It was a male preserve, like so much in American society in those years. But Ruth Adams wouldn't hear of it ... 13. She was 99 ... at the European Championships in Vichy, France, in 1967 ... obituaries ... ....(size: 18.6Kb)
Philadelphia Daily News
18 Dec 2012
Gallery. She brought women to row hard on the river. Bonnie L. Cook, Inquirer Staff Writer. Posted. Tuesday, December 18, 2012, 3.01 AM. Ruth A ... 13, of pneumonia at Chestnut Hill Hospital. The former Ruth Adams had placed an ad in a local newspaper seeking women to form a rowing club ... National Women's Championships and then represent the United States in international competition at the European Championships in Vichy, France, in 1967 ... ....(size: 18.9Kb)
France24
04 Dec 2012
By FRANCE 24 (text) ... FRANCE-ALGERIA ... Algerians in France, 1954-1962. FRANCE - ALGERIA. 'Algerians in France, 1954-1962', a FRANCE 24 documentary. FRANCE-ALGERIA ... the shadow of Vichy. FRANCE ... FRANCE ... MEDIAWATCH FRANCE ... FRANCE ... FRANCE-GERMANY ... FRANCE. Ex-France Telecom CEO probed over 35 suicides ... France and Turkey Feud (part 2) ... France and Turkey Feud. FRANCE ... Watch France 24 ... FRANCE 24 live ... FRANCE 24 PARTNERS....(size: 7.0Kb)
The Independent
18 Nov 2012
Set in the Languedoc region of France where Mosse has a home, it combined history and fantasy in a tale that entwines the 1209-1255 Albigensian crusade against the Cathars with a story set in 2005 about a female architect who happens upon a buried relic from that time. In both Labyrinth and its sequel, Sepulchre, feisty female heroines led the action ... She conveys the realities of life in Vichy France with a deft touch ... ....(size: 2.4Kb)
Yahoo Daily News
17 Nov 2012
PARIS (Reuters) - France's conservatives will elect a new leader on Sunday who will determine whether the party ousted in May from a 17-year presidential reign will hold to the centre or move to the right in a quest to regain power in 2017 ... France has far fewer complexes than its politicians have," he said, stating his values as authority, courage and measured generosity ... Vichy France was a great place!....(size: 10.8Kb)
Ha'aretz
11 Nov 2012
On this day in 1942, the Jewish community of Casablanca, Morocco, celebrated the liberation of that country from the control of Vichy France. ... Specifically, the 1940 decision of Vichy France to cancel the application of the Cremieux Decree, by which Algerian Jews were offered full French citizenship, was not reversed....(size: 3.8Kb)
noodls
08 Nov 2012
It made it easy being that we had a chartered flight (from France to London) ... We had a water slide at our training camp in Vichy (France), and I went down it every day ... It was horrible (laughs) because we weren't allowed to have any wine in France and I couldn't enjoy half the culinary stuff! Seriously though, the training camp was awesome because Vichy was so beautiful....(size: 17.3Kb)
STL Today
01 Nov 2012
Is warfare inevitable? The course of history suggests that the answer is yes. In its second concert of the season, the St ... The coming of World War II inspired Darius Milhaud to set a text by the distinguished French writer Paul Claudel, “Cantate pour le temps de la Guerre.” It was written in 1939; Milhaud set it the next year, a few weeks before he and his wife fled the initial roundup of Jews in Vichy France ... His response ... The St ... When....(size: 4.6Kb)
France24
31 Oct 2012
Archaeologists in Bulgaria have discovered the oldest prehistoric town ever found in Europe, dating back to the fifth millennium BC ... By News Wires (text). ... Why? What did they hide behind them?" Nikolov asked ... Algerians in France, 1954-1962. FRANCE - ALGERIA. 'Algerians in France, 1954-1962', a FRANCE 24 documentary ... FRANCE-ALGERIA ... the shadow of Vichy. FRANCE ... FRANCE ... Watch France 24 ... FRANCE 24 live ... FRANCE 24 PARTNERS ... ....(size: 9.8Kb)
Richmond Times Dispatch
28 Oct 2012
In life, Némirovsky's mother was indeed a monster. She spent World War II comfortably in Vichy France while both Némirovsky and her husband died in Auschwitz, and she refused to take in her granddaughters after they had spent the war in hiding ... that, at least, was exciting, dangerous, thrilling." ... After the revolution begins and the violence increases, the Karols and Max flee to Finland, then France ... ....(size: 2.4Kb)
noodls
18 Oct 2012
Julie Fette, an associate professor in the Department of French Studies and a scholar of modern France, dug deep into French archives to uncover the roots and impact of prejudice in 1930s and '40s France ... Or as Robert Paxton, the Columbia University professor emeritus and a leading American historian specializing in Vichy France, concluded in his review....(size: 5.5Kb)
Chicago Tribune
18 Oct 2012
As with his films "The Chorus" and "Paris 36," director Christophe Barratier anchors the action to a reassuring middle ground, bathing it in the golden light of nostalgia ... Though it's handled with little subtlety, the way the atmosphere of suspicion in Vichy France filters down to the kids is a smart slant on the material ... 'War of the Buttons' -- 2 stars ... ....(size: 2.1Kb)
Newsvine
15 Oct 2012
— Today is Monday, Oct. 15, the 289th day of 2012. There are 77 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History.. On Oct. 15, 1917, Dutch dancer Mata Hari, convicted of spying for the Germans, was executed by a French firing squad outside Paris. On this date. ... In 1945, the former premier of Vichy France, Pierre Laval, was executed for treason ... In 1964, it was announced that Soviet leader Nikita S ... Ten years ago ... Five years ago ... 15) ... ....(size: 4.9Kb)
This article is about World War II France. For other uses, see Vichy (disambiguation).
| French State État français |
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| Axis collaborator state | |||||
|
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|
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| Motto Travail, Famille, Patrie "Work, Family, Fatherland" |
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| Anthem La Marseillaise "The Song of Marseille" |
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 Teal: De jure part of French State, Axis occupied Sky blue: Vichy possessions under firm control Lightest blue: Vichy possessions lost relatively early Red: French possessions never held by Vichy |
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| Capital | Vichy (de facto) Paris[1] (de jure) |
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| Capital-in-exile | Sigmaringen (1944–1945) | ||||
| Language(s) | French | ||||
| Religion | Roman Catholic | ||||
| Government | Authoritarian State[1] | ||||
| Chief of the French State | |||||
| - 1940–1944 | Philippe Pétain | ||||
| President of the Council of Ministers | |||||
| - 1940–1942 | Philippe Pétain | ||||
| - 1942–1944 | Pierre Laval | ||||
| Legislature | National Assembly | ||||
| Historical era | World War II | ||||
| - Full powers given to Pétain | 10 July 1940 | ||||
| - Compiègne armistice | 22 June 1940 | ||||
| - Occupation of the southern former free zone | 11 November 1942 | ||||
| - Liberation of Paris | 25 August 1944 | ||||
| - Liberation of France | June–November 1944 | ||||
| - Capture of Sigmaringen | 22 April 1945 | ||||
| Currency | Franc | ||||
| 1. ^ Paris remained the formal capital of the French State, though the Vichy regime never operated from it during its existence. | |||||
Vichy France,[2] Vichy Regime, Vichy Government, or simply Vichy are common terms used to describe the government of France which collaborated with the Axis powers from July 1940 to August 1944, during the Second World War. It officially called itself the French State (État Français) and was headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain, who proclaimed the government following the 1940 allied defeat against Axis Powers.
The Vichy regime maintained some legal authority in the northern zone of France (the Zone occupée), which was occupied by the German Wehrmacht, but was most powerful in the unoccupied southern "free zone", where its administrative centre of Vichy was located. In November 1942 the southern zone was also occupied and fully subjected to German rule.
Pétain collaborated with the German occupying forces in exchange for an agreement to not divide France between the Axis Powers. Vichy authorities aided in the rounding-up of Jews and other "undesirables", and at times, Vichy French military forces actively opposed the Allies. Much of the French public initially supported the new government despite its pro-Nazi policies, seeing it as necessary to maintain a degree of French autonomy and territorial integrity.
The legitimacy of Vichy France and Pétain's leadership was constantly challenged by the exiled General Charles de Gaulle, who claimed to represent the legitimacy and continuity of the French government. Public opinion turned against the Vichy regime and the occupying German forces over time, and resistance to them increased. Following the Allied invasion of France in June 1944, de Gaulle proclaimed the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF).
Most of the Vichy regime's leaders were put on trial by the GPRF, and a number were executed. Pétain was sentenced to death for treason, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Only four senior Vichy officials were tried for crimes against humanity, although more were alleged to have participated in deportation of Jews for extermination in concentration camps, abuses of prisoners, and severe acts against members of the Resistance.
Overview[link]
Further information: World War II, Events preceding World War II in Europe, and Causes of World War II
Vichy France was established after France surrendered to Germany on 22 June 1940, and took its name from the government's administrative centre of Vichy, in central France. Paris remained the official capital, to which Pétain always intended to return the government when this became possible.
In 1940, Marshal Pétain was known mainly as a World War One hero, the victor of Verdun. As last Prime Minister of the Third Republic, Pétain, a reactionary by inclination, blamed the Third Republic's democracy for France's quick defeat. He set up a paternalistic, semi-fascist regime that actively collaborated with Germany, its official neutrality notwithstanding. The Vichy government cooperated with the Nazis' racial policies.
It is a common misconception that the Vichy Regime administered only the unoccupied zone of southern France (named "free zone" [zone libre] by Vichy), while the Germans directly administered the occupied zone. In fact, the civil jurisdiction of the Vichy government extended over most of metropolitan France. Only the disputed border territory of Alsace-Lorraine was placed under direct German administration, and (despite another common misconception) even these lands were never formally annexed by Germany. Similarly, a sliver of French territory in the Alps was under direct Italian administration from June 1940 to September 1943. Throughout the rest of the country, civil servants were under the authority of French ministers in Vichy. René Bousquet, the head of French police nominated by Vichy, exercised his power directly in Paris through his second-in-command, Jean Leguay, who coordinated raids with the Nazis. German laws, however, took precedence over French ones in the occupied territories, and the Germans often rode roughshod over the sensibilities of Vichy administrators.
On 11 November 1942, the Germans launched Operation Case Anton, occupying southern France, following the landing of the Allies in North Africa (Operation Torch). Although Vichy's "Armistice Army" was disbanded, thus diminishing Vichy's independence, the abolition of the line of demarcation in March 1943 made civil administration easier. Vichy continued to exercise jurisdiction over almost all of France until the collapse of the regime following the Allied invasion in June 1944.
Until 23 October 1944,[3] the Vichy Regime was acknowledged as the official government of France by the United States and other countries, including Canada, which were at the same time at war with Germany. The United Kingdom maintained unofficial contacts with Vichy, at least until it became apparent that the Vichy Prime Minister, Pierre Laval, intended full collaboration with the Germans. Even after that it maintained an ambivalent attitude towards the alternative Free French movement and future government.
The Vichy government's claim that it was the de jure French government was challenged by the Free French Forces of Charles de Gaulle (based first in London and later in Algiers) and subsequent French governments. They continuously held that the Vichy Regime was an illegal government run by traitors. Historians have particularly debated the circumstances of the vote granting full powers to Pétain on 10 July 1940. The main arguments advanced against Vichy's right to incarnate the continuity of the French State were based on the pressure exerted by Laval on deputies in Vichy, and on the absence of 27 deputies and senators who had fled on the ship Massilia, and could thus not take part in the vote.
Internal strife[link]
Within Vichy France, there was a low-intensity civil war between the French Resistance, drawn mainly, though not exclusively, from the Communist and Republican elements of society against reactionary elements who desired a fascist or similar regime, as in Francisco Franco's Spain. A part of French society had never accepted the republican regime issuing from the Revolution, and wished to re-establish traditional lines of authoritarianism and religion.[4] The leader of the Action Française, Charles Maurras, qualified the German invasion and suppression of the French Republic as a "divine surprise".[5]
Fall of France and establishment of the Vichy Regime[link]
France declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939 following the German invasion of Poland. After the eight-month Phoney War, the Germans launched their offensive in the west on 10 May 1940. Within days, it became clear that French forces were overwhelmed and that military collapse was imminent.[6] Government and military leaders, deeply shocked by the debacle, debated how to proceed. Many officials, including Prime Minister Paul Reynaud, wanted to move the government to French territories in North Africa, and continue the war with the French Navy and colonial resources. Others, particularly the Vice-Premier Philippe Pétain and the Commander-in-Chief, General Maxime Weygand, insisted that the responsibility of the government was to remain in France and share the misfortune of its people. The latter view called for an immediate cessation of hostilities.[7]
While this debate continued, the government was forced to relocate several times, finally reaching Bordeaux, in order to avoid capture by advancing German forces. Communications were poor and thousands of civilian refugees clogged the roads. In these chaotic conditions, advocates of an armistice gained the upper hand. The Cabinet agreed on a proposal to seek armistice terms from Germany, with the understanding that, should Germany set forth dishonourable or excessively harsh terms, France would retain the option to continue to fight. General Charles Huntziger, who headed the French armistice delegation, was told to break off negotiations if the Germans demanded the occupation of all metropolitan France, the French fleet or any of the French overseas territories. They did not.[8]
Prime Minister Paul Reynaud was in favor of continuing the war, from North Africa if necessary; however, he was soon outvoted by those who advocated surrender. Facing an untenable situation, Reynaud resigned and, on his recommendation, President Albert Lebrun appointed the 84-year-old Pétain as his replacement on 16 June. The Armistice with France (Second Compiègne) agreement was signed on 22 June. A separate agreement was reached with Italy, which had entered the war against France on 10 June, well after the outcome of the battle was decided.
Adolf Hitler had a number of reasons for agreeing to the armistice. He feared that France would continue to fight from North Africa, and he wanted to ensure that the French Navy was taken out of the war. In addition, leaving a French government in place would relieve Germany of the considerable burden of administering French territory, particularly as he turned his attentions toward Britain. Finally, as Germany lacked a navy sufficient to occupy France's overseas territories, Hitler's only practical recourse to deny the British use of them was to maintain France's status as a supposedly independent and neutral nation.
Conditions of armistice and 10 July 1940 vote of full powers[link]
Further information: Armistice with France (Second Compiègne)
The armistice divided France into occupied and unoccupied zones: northern and western France including the entire Atlantic coast were occupied by Germany, and the remaining two-fifths of the country were under the control of the French government with the capital at Vichy under Pétain. Ostensibly, the French government administered the entire territory.
Army of the Armistice[link]
The Germans preferred to occupy northern France themselves. For the most part, the 1.6 million French prisoners of war who were transferred to Germany at the end of 1940 would remain in captivity throughout the war. The French were required to pay costs for the 300,000-strong German occupation army, amounting to 20 million Reichmarks per day, paid at the artificial rate of twenty francs to the Mark. This was 50 times the actual costs of the occupation garrison. The French government also had responsibility for preventing citizens from escaping into exile.
Article IV of the Armistice allowed for a small French army—the Army of the Armistice (Armée de l'Armistice)—to be kept in the unoccupied zone, and for the military provision of the French colonial empire overseas. The function of these forces was to keep internal order and to defend French territories from Allied assault. The French forces were to remain under the overall direction of the German armed forces.
The exact strength of the Vichy French Metropolitan Army was set at 3,768 officers, 15,072 non-commissioned officers, and 75,360 men. All members had to be volunteers. In addition to the army, the size of the Gendarmerie was fixed at 60,000 men plus an anti-aircraft force of 10,000 men. Despite the influx of trained soldiers from the colonial forces (reduced in size in accordance with the Armistice), there was a shortage of volunteers. As a result, 30,000 men of the "class of 1939" were retained to fill the quota. At the beginning of 1942 these conscripts were released, but there was still an insufficient number of men. This shortage was to remain until the dissolution, despite Vichy appeals to the Germans for a regular form of conscription.
The Vichy French Metropolitan Army was deprived of tanks and other armored vehicles, and was desperately short of motorized transport, a particular problem for cavalry units. Surviving recruiting posters stress the opportunities for athletic activities, including horsemanship - which reflects both the general emphasis placed by the Vichy regime on rural virtues and outdoor activities, and the realities of service in a small and technologically backward military force. Traditional features characteristic of the pre-1940 French Army, such as kepis and heavy capotes (buttoned back greatcoats), were replaced by berets and simplified uniforms.
The Army of the Armistice was not used against resistance groups active in the south of France, leaving this role to the Vichy Milice (militia).[9] Members of the regular army were therefore able to defect in significant numbers to the Maquis, following the German occupation of southern France and the disbandment of the Army of the Armistice in November 1942. By contrast the Milice continued to collaborate and were subject to reprisals after the Liberation.
Vichy French colonial forces were reduced in accordance with the terms of the Armistice; still, in the Mediterranean area alone, the Vichy French had nearly 150,000 men in arms. There were approximately 55,000 in the Protectorate of Morocco, 50,000 in French Algeria, and almost 40,000 in the "Army of the Levant" (Armée du Levant), in the Mandate of Lebanon and the Mandate of Syria. Colonial forces were allowed to keep some armored vehicles, though these were mostly "vintage" tanks as old as the World War I-era Renault FT.
German custody[link]
France was required to turn over any German citizens within the country whom the Germans demanded custody of. The French thought this to be a "dishonourable" term, since it would require France to hand over persons who had entered France seeking refuge from Germany. Attempts to negotiate the point with Germany were unsuccessful, and the French decided not to press the issue to the point of refusing the Armistice, though they may have hoped to ameliorate the requirement in future negotiations with Germany after the signing.
Vichy government[link]
On 1 July 1940, the Parliament and the government gathered in the town of Vichy, their provisional capital in central France. Laval and Raphaël Alibert began their campaign to convince the assembled Senators and Deputies to vote full powers to Pétain. They used every means available, promising ministerial posts to some while threatening and intimidating others. They were aided by the absence of popular, charismatic figures who might have opposed them, such as Georges Mandel and Édouard Daladier, then aboard the ship Massilia on their way to North Africa and exile. On 10 July the National Assembly, comprising both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, voted by 569 votes to 80, with 20 voluntary abstentions, to grant full and extraordinary powers to Marshal Pétain. By the same vote, they also granted him the power to write a new constitution.[10] The minority of mostly Radicals and Socialists who opposed Laval became known as the Vichy 80. Deputies and senators who voted to grant full powers to Pétain were condemned on an individual basis after the liberation.
The legality of this vote has been contested by the majority of French historians and by all post-war French governments. Three main arguments are put forward:
- Abrogation of legal procedure
- The impossibility for parliament to delegate its constitutional powers without controlling its use a posteriori
- The 1884 constitutional amendment making it impossible to put into question the "republican form" of the regime
Partisans of the Vichy, on the contrary, point out that the revision was voted by the two chambers (the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies), in conformity with the law.
The argument concerning the abrogation of procedure is based on the absence and non-voluntary abstention of 176 representatives of the people - the 27 on board the Massilia, and an additional 92 deputies and 57 senators, some of whom were in Vichy, but not present for the vote. In total, the parliament was composed of 846 members, 544 Deputies and 302 Senators. One Senator and 26 Deputies were on the Massilia. One Senator did not vote. 8 Senators and 12 MPs voluntarily abstained. 57 Senators and 92 MPs abstained involuntarily. Thus, out of a total of 544 Deputies, only 414 voted; and out of a total of 302 Senators, only 235 voted. Of these, 357 Deputies voted in favor of Pétain and 57 against, while 212 Senators voted for Pétain, and 23 against. Although Pétain could claim for himself legality - particularly in comparison with the essentially self-appointed leadership of Charles de Gaulle - the dubious circumstances of the vote explain why a majority of French historians do not consider Vichy a complete continuity of the French state.[11]
The text voted by the Congress stated:
"The National Assembly gives full powers to the government of the Republic, under the authority and the signature of Marshall Pétain, to the effect of promulgating by one or several acts a new constitution of the French state. This constitution must guarantee the rights of labor, of family and of the fatherland. It will be ratified by the nation and applied by the assemblies which it has created.[12]
The Constitutional Acts of 11 and 12 July 1940[13] granted to Pétain all powers (legislative, judicial, administrative, executive – and diplomatic) and the title of "head of the French state" (chef de l'État français), as well as the right to nominate his successor. On 12 July Pétain designated Pierre Laval as Vice-President and his designated successor, and appointed Fernand de Brinon as representative to the German High Command in Paris. Pétain remained the head of the Vichy regime until 20 August 1944. The French national motto, Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité (Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood), was replaced by Travail, Famille, Patrie (Work, Family, Fatherland); it was noted at the time that TFP also stood for the criminal punishment of "travaux forcés à perpetuité" ("forced labor in perpetuity").[14] Paul Reynaud, who had not officially resigned as Prime Minister, was arrested in September 1940 by the Vichy government and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1941 before the opening of the Riom Trial.
Pétain was authoritarian by nature, his status as a hero of the Third Republic notwithstanding. Almost as soon as he was granted full powers, he began blaming the Third Republic's democracy for France's humiliating defeat. Accordingly, his regime soon began taking on authoritarian - and in some respects, unmistakably fascist - characteristics. Democratic liberties and guarantees were immediately suspended. The crime of "felony of opinion" (délit d'opinion, i.e. repeal of freedom of thought and of expression) was re-established, and critics were frequently arrested. Elective bodies were replaced by nominated ones. The "municipalities" and the departmental commissions were thus placed under the authority of the administration and of the prefects (nominated by and dependent on the executive power). In January 1941 the National Council (Conseil National), composed of notables from the countryside and the provinces, was instituted under the same conditions.
Both the United States and the Soviet Union recognized the new regime, despite Charles de Gaulle's attempts, in London, to dissuade them. So too did Canada and Australia. Only the German occupation of all of France in November 1942 ended this diplomatic recognition.
State collaboration with Germany[link]
Historians distinguish between a state collaboration followed by the regime of Vichy, and "collaborationists", which usually refer to the French citizens eager to collaborate with Germany and who pushed towards a radicalization of the regime. "Pétainistes", on the other hand, refers to French people who supported Marshal Pétain, without being too keen on collaboration with Germany (although accepting Pétain's state collaboration). State collaboration was illustrated by the Montoire (Loir-et-Cher) interview in Hitler's train on 24 October 1940, during which Pétain and Hitler shook hands and agreed on this cooperation between the two states. Organized by Laval, a strong proponent of collaboration, the interview and the handshake were photographed, and Nazi propaganda made strong use of this photo to gain support from the civilian population. On 30 October 1940, Pétain officialized state collaboration, declaring on the radio: "I enter today on the path of collaboration...."[15] On 22 June 1942 Laval declared that he was "hoping for the victory of Germany." The sincere desire to collaborate did not stop the Vichy government from organising the arrest and even sometimes the execution of German spies entering the Vichy zone, as Simon Kitson's recent research has demonstrated.[16]
The composition of the Vichy cabinet, and its policies, were mixed. Many Vichy officials such as Pétain, though not all, were reactionaries who felt that France's unfortunate fate was a result of its republican character and the actions of its left-wing governments of the 1930s, in particular of the Popular Front (1936–1938) led by Léon Blum. Charles Maurras, a monarchist writer and founder of the Action Française movement, judged that Pétain's accession to power was, in that respect, a "divine surprise", and many people of the same political persuasion believed it preferable to have an authoritarian government similar to that of Francisco Franco's Spain, even if under Germany's yoke, than to have a republican government. Others, like Joseph Darnand, were strong anti-Semites and overt Nazi sympathizers. A number of these joined the Légion des Volontaires Français contre le Bolchévisme (Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism) units fighting on the Eastern Front, which later became the SS Charlemagne Division.[17]
On the other hand, technocrats such as Jean Bichelonne or engineers from the Groupe X-Crise used their position to push various state, administrative and economic reforms. These reforms would be one of the strongest elements arguing in favor of the thesis of a continuity of the French administration before and after the war. Many of these civil servants and the reforms they advocated were retained after the war. Just as the necessities of a war economy during the First World War had pushed forward state measures which reorganized the economy of France against the prevailing classical liberal theories - structures retained after the 1919 Treaty of Versailles - reforms adopted during World War II were kept and extended. Along with the 15 March 1944 Charter of the Conseil National de la Résistance (CNR), which gathered all Resistance movements under one unified political body, these reforms were a primary instrument in the establishment of post-war dirigisme, a kind of semi-planned economy which led to France becoming the modern social democracy it is now. Examples of such continuities include the creation of the "French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems" by Alexis Carrel, a renowned physician who also supported eugenics. This institution would be renamed National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED) after the war, and exists to this day. Another example is the creation of the national statistics institute, renamed INSEE after the Liberation. The reorganization and unification of the French police by René Bousquet, who created the groupes mobiles de réserve (GMR, Reserve Mobile Groups), is another example of Vichy policy reform and restructuring maintained by subsequent governments. A national paramilitary police force, the GMR was occasionally used in actions against the French Resistance, but its main purpose was to enforce Vichy authority through intimidation and repression of the civilian population. After Liberation, some of its units would be merged with the Free French Army to form the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité (CRS, Republican Security Companies), France's main anti-riot force.
File:DrancyConcentrationCamp.jpg
Created in 1941, the Drancy internment camp, on the outskirts of Paris, was under control of the French police until 3 July 1943. The Nazis then took day-to-day control as part of the major stepping up at all facilities for the mass exterminations. SS-Hauptsturmführer Alois Brunner directed it until August 1944. He was condemned in absentia in France in 2001 on charges of crimes against humanity, and is believed to be the world's highest-ranking Nazi fugitive still alive.[18]
Vichy's racial policies and collaboration[link]
Further information: Révolution nationale
As soon as it was established, Pétain's government took measures against the so-called "undesirables": Jews, métèques (immigrants from Mediterranean countries), Freemasons, Communists, Gypsies, homosexuals[citation needed], and left-wing activists. Inspired by Charles Maurras' conception of the "Anti-France" (which he defined as the "four confederate states of Protestants, Jews, Freemasons and foreigners"), Vichy imitated the racial policies of the Third Reich and engaged in natalist policies aimed at reviving the "French race"[citation needed]. Although these policies never went as far as the eugenics program implemented by the Nazis, the results for their victims were often much the same.
In July 1940, Vichy set up a special Commission charged with reviewing naturalizations granted since the 1927 reform of the nationality law. Between June 1940 and August 1944, 15,000 persons, mostly Jews, were denaturalized.[19] This bureaucratic decision was instrumental in their subsequent internment.
The internment camps already opened by the Third Republic were immediately put to new use, ultimately becoming transit camps for the implementation of the Holocaust and the extermination of all "undesirables", including the Roma people (who refer to the extermination of Gypsies as Porrajmos). A law of October 4, 1940 authorized internments of foreign Jews on the sole basis of a prefectoral order,[20] and the first raids took place in May 1941. Vichy imposed no restrictions on black people in the Unoccupied Zone; the regime even had a mulatto cabinet minister, the Martinique-born lawyer Henry Lemery.[21]
The Third Republic had first opened concentration camps during World War One for the internment of enemy aliens, and later used them for other purposes. Camp Gurs, for example, had been set up in southwestern France after the fall of Spanish Catalonia, in the first months of 1939, during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), to receive the Republican refugees, including Brigadists from all nations, fleeing the Francists. After Édouard Daladier's government (April 1938 – March 1940) took the decision to outlaw the French Communist Party (PCF) following the German-Soviet non-aggression pact (aka Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) signed in August 1939, these camps were also used to intern French communists. Drancy internment camp was founded in 1939 for this use; it later became the central transit camp through which all deportees passed on their way to concentration and extermination camps in the Third Reich and in Eastern Europe. When the Phoney War started with France's declaration of war against Germany on 3 September 1939, these camps were used to intern enemy aliens. These included German Jews and anti-fascists, but any German citizen (or Italian, Austrian, Polish, etc.) could also be interned in Camp Gurs and others. As the Wehrmacht advanced into Northern France, common prisoners evacuated from prisons were also interned in these camps. Camp Gurs received its first contingent of political prisoners in June 1940. It included left-wing activists (communists, anarchists, trade-unionists, anti-militarists, etc.) and pacifists, but also French fascists who supported the victory of Italy and Germany. Finally, after Pétain's proclamation of the "French state" and the beginning of the implementation of the "Révolution nationale" ("National Revolution"), the French administration opened up many concentration camps, to the point that, as historian Maurice Rajsfus wrote: "The quick opening of new camps created employment, and the Gendarmerie never ceased to hire during this period."[22]
Besides the political prisoners already detained there, Gurs was then used to intern foreign Jews, stateless persons, Gypsies, homosexuals, and prostitutes. Vichy opened its first internment camp in the northern zone on 5 October 1940, in Aincourt, in the Seine-et-Oise department, which it quickly filled with PCF members.[23] The Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans, in the Doubs, was used to intern Gypsies.[24] The Camp des Milles, near Aix-en-Provence, was the largest internment camp in the Southeast of France; 2,500 Jews were deported from there following the August 1942 raids.[25] Spaniards were then deported, and 5,000 of them died in Mauthausen concentration camp.[26] In contrast, the French colonial soldiers were interned by the Germans on French territory instead of being deported.[26]
Besides the concentration camps opened by Vichy, the Germans also opened some Ilags (Internierungslager), for the detainment enemy aliens, on French territory; in Alsace, which was under the direct administration of the Reich, they opened the Natzweiler camp, which was the only concentration camp created by the Nazis on French territory. Natzweiler included a gas chamber which was used to exterminate at least 86 detainees (mostly Jewish) with the aim obtaining a collection of undamaged skeletons (as this mode of execution did no damage to the skeletons themselves) for the use of Nazi professor August Hirt.
The Vichy government enacted a number of racial laws. In August 1940, laws against antisemitism in the media (the Marchandeau Act) were repealed, while the decree n°1775 September 5, 1943, denaturalized a number of French citizens, in particular Jews from Eastern Europe.[26] Foreigners were rounded-up in "Foreign Workers Groups" (groupements de travailleurs étrangers) and, as the colonial troops, were used by the Germans as manpower.[26] The Statute on Jews excluded them from the civil administration.
Vichy also enacted racial laws in its French territories in North Africa (Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia). "The history of the Holocaust in France's three North African colonies (Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia) is intrinsically tied to France's fate during this period."[27][28][29][30][31]
With regard to economic contribution to the German economy it is estimated that France provided 42% of the total foreign aid.[32]
Eugenics policies[link]
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In 1941 Nobel Prize winner Alexis Carrel, an early proponent of eugenics and euthanasia, and a member of Jacques Doriot's French Popular Party (PPF),[citation needed] advocated for the creation of the Fondation Française pour l'Étude des Problèmes Humains (French Foundation for the Study of Human Problems), using connections to the Pétain cabinet. Charged with the "study, in all of its aspects, of measures aimed at safeguarding, improving and developing the French population in all of its activities", the Foundation was created by decree of the collaborationist Vichy regime in 1941, and Carrel appointed as 'regent'.[33] The Foundation also had for some time as general secretary François Perroux.[citation needed]
The Foundation was behind the 16 December 1942 Act mandating the "prenuptial certificate", which required all couples seeking marriage to submit to a biological examination, to insure the "good health" of the spouses, in particular in regard to sexually transmitted diseases (STD) and "life hygiene".[citation needed] Carrel's institute also conceived the "scholar booklet" ("livret scolaire"), which could be used to record students' grades in French secondary schools, and thus classify and select them according to scholastic performance.[citation needed] Besides these eugenic activities aimed at classifying the population and improving its health, the Foundation also supported the 11 October 1946 law instituting occupational medicine, enacted by the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF) after the Liberation.[citation needed]
The Foundation initiated studies on demographics (Robert Gessain, Paul Vincent, Jean Bourgeois), nutrition (Jean Sutter), and housing (Jean Merlet), as well as the first polls (Jean Stoetzel). The foundation, which after the war became the INED demographics institute, employed 300 researchers from the summer of 1942 to the end of the autumn[when?] of 1944.[34] "The foundation was chartered as a public institution under the joint supervision of the ministries of finance and public health. It was given financial autonomy and a budget of forty million francs, roughly one franc per inhabitant: a true luxury considering the burdens imposed by the German Occupation on the nation's resources. By way of comparison, the whole Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) was given a budget of fifty million francs."[33]
Alexis Carrel had previously published in 1935 the best-selling book L'Homme, cet inconnu ("Man, This Unknown"). Since the early 1930s, Carrel had advocated the use of gas chambers to rid humanity of its "inferior stock"[citation needed], endorsing the scientific racism discourse[citation needed]. One of the founder of these pseudoscientifical theories had been Arthur de Gobineau in his 1853–1855 essay titled An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races.[citation needed] In the 1936 preface to the German edition of his book, Alexis Carrel had added a praise to the eugenics policies of the Third Reich, writing that:
(t)he German government has taken energetic measures against the propagation of the defective, the mentally diseased, and the criminal. The ideal solution would be the suppression of each of these individuals as soon as he has proven himself to be dangerous.[35]
Carrel also wrote in his book that:
(t)he conditioning of petty criminals with the whip, or some more scientific procedure, followed by a short stay in hospital, would probably suffice to insure order. Those who have murdered, robbed while armed with automatic pistol or machine gun, kidnapped children, despoiled the poor of their savings, misled the public in important matters, should be humanely and economically disposed of in small euthanasic institutions supplied with proper gasses. A similar treatment could be advantageously applied to the insane, guilty of criminal acts.[36]
Alexis Carrel had also taken an active part to a symposium in Pontigny organized by Jean Coutrot, the "Entretiens de Pontigny".[citation needed] Scholars such as Lucien Bonnafé, Patrick Tort and Max Lafont have accused Carrel of responsibility for the execution of thousands of mentally ill or impaired patients under Vichy.[citation needed]
Statute on Jews[link]
A Nazi ordinance dated 21 September 1940, forced Jews of the "occupied zone" to declare themselves as such at a police station or sub-prefectures (sous-préfectures). Under the responsibility of André Tulard, head of the Service on Foreign Persons and Jewish Questions at the Prefecture of Police of Paris, a filing system registering Jewish people was created. Tulard had previously created such a filing system under the Third Republic, registering members of the Communist Party (PCF). In the department of the Seine, encompassing Paris and its immediate suburbs, nearly 150,000 persons, unaware of the upcoming danger and assisted by the police, presented themselves at police stations in accordance with the military order. The registered information was then centralized by the French police, who constructed, under the direction of inspector Tulard, a central filing system. According to the Dannecker report, "this filing system is subdivided into files alphabetically classed, Jewish with French nationality and foreign Jewish having files of different colours, and the files were also classed, according to profession, nationality and street [of residency]" [37]). These files were then handed over to Theodor Dannecker, head of the Gestapo in France, under the orders of Adolf Eichmann, head of the RSHA IV-D. They were used by the Gestapo on various raids, among them the August 1941 raid in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, which resulted in 3,200 foreign and 1,000 French Jews being interned in various camps, including Drancy.
On 3 October 1940, the Vichy government voluntarily promulgated the first Statute on Jews, which created a special underclass of French Jewish citizens, and enforced, for the first time in France, racial segregation.[38] The October 1940 Statute excluded Jews from the administration, the armed forces, entertainment, arts, media, and certain professions, such as teaching, law, and medicine. A Commissariat-General for Jewish Affairs (CGQJ, Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives) was created on 29 March 1941. It was directed by Xavier Vallat until May 1942, and then by Darquier de Pellepoix until February 1944. Mirroring the Reich Association of Jews, the Union Générale des Israélites de France was founded.
The police oversaw the confiscation of telephones and radios from Jewish homes and enforced a curfew on Jews starting in February 1942. They also enforced requirements that Jews not appear in public places, and ride only on the last car of the Parisian metro.
Along with many French police officials, André Tulard was present on the day of the inauguration of Drancy internment camp in 1941, which was used largely by French police as the central transit camp for detainees captured in France. All Jews and others "undesirables" passed through Drancy before heading to Auschwitz and other camps.
July 1942 Vel' d'Hiv Roundup[link]
Main article: Vel' d'Hiv Roundup
In July 1942, under German orders, the French police organized the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup (Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv) under orders by René Bousquet and his second in Paris, Jean Leguay with cooperation from authorities of the SNCF, the state railway company. The police arrested 13,152 Jews, including 4,051 children—which the Gestapo had not asked for—and 5,082 women on 16 and 17 July, and imprisoned them in the Winter Velodrome in unhygienic conditions. They were led to Drancy internment camp (run by Nazi Alois Brunner, who is still wanted for crimes against humanity, and French constabulary police), then crammed into box car transports and shipped by rail to Auschwitz. Most of the victims died enroute due to lack of food or water. The remaining survivors were sent to the gas chambers. This action alone represented more than a quarter of the 42,000 French Jews sent to concentration camps in 1942, of which only 811 would return after the end of the war. Although the Nazi VT (Verfügungstruppe) had initially directed the action, French police authorities vigorously participated. On 16 July 1995, president Jacques Chirac officially apologized for the participation of French police forces in the July 1942 raid. "There was no effective police resistance until the end of Spring of 1944", wrote historians Jean-Luc Einaudi and Maurice Rajsfus[39]
August 1942 and January 1943 raids[link]
Further information: Battle of Marseilles
The French police, headed by Bousquet, arrested 7,000 Jews in the southern zone in August 1942. 2,500 of them transited through the Camp des Milles near Aix-en-Provence before joining Drancy. Then, on 22, 23 and 24 January 1943, assisted by Bousquet's police force, the Germans organized a raid in Marseilles. During the Battle of Marseilles, the French police checked the identity documents of 40,000 people, and the operation succeeded in sending 2,000 Marseillese people in the death trains, leading to the extermination camps. The operation also encompassed the expulsion of an entire neighborhood (30,000 persons) in the Old Port before its destruction. For this occasion, SS-Gruppenführer Karl Oberg, in charge of the German Police in France, made the trip from Paris, and transmitted to Bousquet orders directly received from Himmler. It is another notable case of the French police's willful collaboration with the Nazis.[40]
[edit] French collaborationnistes and collaborators
Stanley Hoffmann in 1974,[41] and after him, other historians such as Robert Paxton and Jean-Pierre Azéma have used the term collaborationnistes to refer to fascists and Nazi sympathisers who, for ideological reasons, wished a reinforced collaboration with Hitler's Germany. Examples of these are Parti Populaire Français (PPF) leader Jacques Doriot, writer Robert Brasillach or Marcel Déat. A principal motivation and ideological foundation among collaborationnistes was anticommunism and the desire to see the defeat of the Bolsheviks.[41]
A number of the French advocated fascist philosophies even before the occupation. Organizations such as La Cagoule had contributed to the destabilization of the Third Republic, particularly when the left-wing Popular Front was in power. A prime example is the founder of L'Oréal cosmetics, Eugène Schueller, and his associate Jacques Corrèze.
Collaborationists may have influenced the Vichy government's policies, but ultra-collaborationists never comprised the majority of the government before 1944.[42]
In order to enforce the régime's will, some paramilitary organizations with a fascist leaning were created. A notable example was the "Légion Française des Combattants" (LFC) (French Legion of Fighters), including at first only former combatants, but quickly adding "Amis de la Légion" and cadets of the Légion, who had never seen battle, but who supported Pétain's régime. The name was then quickly changed to "Légion Française des Combattants et des volontaires de la Révolution Nationale" (French Legion of Fighters and Volunteers of the National Revolution). Joseph Darnand created a "Service d'Ordre Légionnaire" (SOL), which consisted mostly of French supporters of the Nazis, of which Pétain fully approved.
Relationships with the Allied powers[link]
Main article: Foreign relations of Vichy France
- The United States granted Vichy full diplomatic recognition, sending Admiral William D. Leahy to France as American ambassador. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull hoped to use American influence to encourage those elements in the Vichy government opposed to military collaboration with Germany. The Americans also hoped to encourage Vichy to resist German war demands, such as for air bases in French-mandated Syria or to move war supplies through French territories in North Africa. The essential American position was that France should take no action not explicitly required by the armistice terms that could adversely affect Allied efforts in the war.
- The USSR maintained full diplomatic relations with the Vichy Regime until 30 June 1941. These were broken after Vichy supported Operation Barbarossa.
- Due to British requests and the sensitivities of its French Canadian population, Canada maintained full diplomatic relations with the Vichy Regime until the beginning of November 1942 and the Case Anton.[43]
- Australia maintained full diplomatic relations with the Vichy Regime until the end of the war, and also entered into full diplomatic relations with the Free French.[44]
- The United Kingdom, shortly after the Armistice (22 June 1940), attacked a large French naval contingent in Mers-el-Kebir, killing 1,297 French military personnel. Vichy severed diplomatic relations. Britain feared that the French naval fleet could wind up in German hands and be used against its own naval forces, which were so vital to maintaining north Atlantic shipping and communications. Under the armistice, France had been allowed to retain the French Navy, the Marine Nationale, under strict conditions. Vichy pledged that the fleet would never fall into the hands of Germany, but refused to send the fleet beyond Germany's reach by sending it to Britain or to far away territories of the French empire such as the West Indies. This did not satisfy Winston Churchill, who ordered French ships in British ports to be seized by the Royal Navy. The French squadron at Alexandria, under Admiral René-Emile Godfroy, was effectively interned until 1943 after an agreement was reached with Admiral Andrew Browne Cunningham, commander of the Mediterranean Fleet.
The US position towards Vichy France and De Gaulle was especially hesitant and inconsistent. President Roosevelt disliked Charles de Gaulle, whom he regarded as an "apprentice dictator."[45] Robert Murphy, Roosevelt's representative in North Africa, started preparing the landing in North Africa from December 1940 (i.e. a year before the US entered the war). The US first tried to support General Maxime Weygand, general delegate of Vichy for Africa until December 1941. This first choice having failed, they turned to Henri Giraud shortly before the landing in North Africa on 8 November 1942. Finally, after François Darlan's turn towards the Free Forces - Darlan had been president of Council of Vichy from February 1941 to April 1942 - they played him against de Gaulle. US General Mark W. Clark of the combined Allied command made Admiral Darlan sign on 22 November 1942 a treaty putting "North Africa at the disposition of the Americans" and making France "a vassal country."[45] Washington then imagined, between 1941 and 1942, a protectorate status for France, which would be submitted after the Liberation to an Allied Military Government of Occupied Territories (AMGOT) like Germany. After the assassination of Darlan on 24 December 1942, Washington turned again towards Henri Giraud, to whom had rallied Maurice Couve de Murville, who had financial responsibilities in Vichy, and Lemaigre-Dubreuil, a former member of La Cagoule and entrepreneur, as well as Alfred Pose, general director of the Banque nationale pour le commerce et l'industrie (National Bank for Trade and Industry).[45]
Creation of Free French Forces[link]
File:Vichy resistance.jpg
Poster of the Révolution nationale on which a Resistant has tagged the Free Republic of Vercors emblem featuring the V of Victory and the Cross of Lorraine
To counter the Vichy regime, General Charles de Gaulle created the Free French Forces (FFL) after his Appeal of 18 June 1940 radio speech. Initially, Winston Churchill was ambivalent about de Gaulle and he dropped ties with Vichy only when it became clear they would not fight. Even so, the Free France headquarters in London was riven with internal divisions and jealousies.
The additional participation of Free French forces in the Syrian operation was controversial within Allied circles. It raised the prospect of Frenchmen shooting at Frenchmen, raising fears of a civil war. Additionally, it was believed that the Free French were widely reviled within Vichy military circles, and that Vichy forces in Syria were less likely to resist the British if they were not accompanied by elements of the Free French. Nevertheless, de Gaulle convinced Churchill to allow his forces to participate, although de Gaulle was forced to agree to a joint British and Free French proclamation promising that Syria and Lebanon would become fully independent at the end of the war.
However, there were still French naval ships under Vichy French control. A large squadron was in port at Mers El Kébir harbour near Oran. Vice Admiral Somerville, with Force H under his command, was instructed to deal with the situation in July 1940. Various terms were offered to the French squadron, but all were rejected. Consequently, Force H opened fire on the French ships. Nearly 1,000 French sailors died when the Bretagne blew up in the attack. Less than two weeks after the armistice, Britain had fired upon forces of its former ally. The result was shock and resentment towards the UK within the French Navy, and to a lesser extent in the general French public.
Social and economic history[link]
Vichy authorities were strongly opposed to "modern" social trends and tried through "national regeneration" to restore behavior more in line with traditional Catholicism.
Economy[link]
Vichy rhetoric exalted the skilled laborer and small businessman. In practice, however, the needs of artisans for raw materials was neglected in favor of large businesses.[46] The General Committee for the Organization of Commerce (CGOC) was a national program to modernize and professionalize small business.[47]
In 1940 the government took direct control of all production, which was synchronized with the demands of the Germans. It replaced free trade unions with compulsory state unions that dictated labor policy without regard to the voice or needs of the workers. The centralized, bureaucratic control of the French economy was not a success, as German demands grew heavier and more unrealistic, passive resistance and inefficiencies multiplied, and Allied bombers hit the rail yards; however, Vichy made the first comprehensive long-range plans for the French economy. The government had never before attempted a comprehensive overview. De Gaulle's Provisional Government in 1944-45, quietly used the Vichy plans as a base for its own reconstruction program. The Monnet Plan of 1946 was closely based on Vichy plans.[48] Thus both teams of wartime and early postwar planners repudiated prewar laissez-faire practices and embraced the cause of drastic economic overhaul and a planned economy.[49]
Women[link]
The Révolution Nationale official ideology fostered the patriarchal family, headed by a man with a subservient wife who was devoted to her many children. It gave women a key symbolic role to carry out the national regeneration. It used propaganda, women's organizations, and legislation to promote maternity, patriotic duty, and female submission to marriage, home, and children's education.[50] The falling birthrate appeared to be a grave problem to Vichy. It introduced family allowances and opposed birth control and abortion. Conditions were very difficult for housewives, as food was short as well as most necessities.[51]
On the other side women of the Resistance, many of whom were associated with combat groups linked to the French Communist Party (PCF), broke the gender barrier by fighting side by side with men. After the war, their services were ignored, but France did give women the vote in 1944.[52]
French colonies and Vichy[link]
In Central Africa three of the four colonies in French Equatorial Africa went over to the Free French almost immediately, Chad on 26 August 1940, French Congo on 29 August 1940, and Ubangi-Shari on 30 August 1940. They were joined by the separate colony of Cameroon on 27 August 1940. The final colony in French Equatorial Africa, Gabon, had to be occupied by military force between 27 October and 12 November 1940.[53] In time, the majority of the colonies tended to switch to the Allied side peacefully in response to persuasion and to changing events. This did not, however, happen overnight: Guadeloupe and Martinique in the West Indies, as well as French Guiana on the northern coast of South America, did not join the Free French until 1943. Meanwhile, France's Arab colonies (Syria, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco) generally remained under Vichy control until captured by Allied forces. This was chiefly because their proximity to Europe made them easier to maintain without Allied interference; this same proximity also gave them strategic importance for the European theater of the war. Conversely, more remote French possessions sided with the Free French Forces early, whether upon Free French action such as in Saint Pierre and Miquelon (despite U.S. wishes to the contrary) or spontaneously such as in French Polynesia.
Conflicts with Britain in Mers-el-Kebir, Dakar, Gibraltar, Syria, and Madagascar[link]
Main articles: Attack on Mers-el-Kebir, Battle of Dakar, Military history of Gibraltar during World War II, Syria-Lebanon campaign, and Battle of Madagascar
Relations between the United Kingdom and the Vichy government were difficult. The Vichy government broke off diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom on 5 July 1940, after the Royal Navy sank the French ships in port at Mers-el-Kebir, Algeria in order to deny their use by Germany. The destruction of the fleet followed a standoff during which the British insisted that the French either scuttle their vessels, sail to a neutral port or join them in the war against Germany. These options were refused and the fleet was destroyed. This move by Britain hardened relations between the two former allies and caused more of the French population to side with Vichy against the British-supported Free French.[54]
On 23 September 1940, the British Royal Navy and Free French forces under General De Gaulle launched Operation Menace, an attempt to seize the strategic, Vichy-held port of Dakar in French West Africa (modern Senegal). After attempts to encourage them to join the aliies were rebuffed by the defenders, a sharp fight erupted between Vichy and Allied forces. HMS Resolution was heavily damaged by torpedoes, and Free French troops landing at a beach south of the port were driven off by heavy fire. Even worse from a strategic point of view, bombers of the Vichy French Air Force (Armée de l'Air de Vichy) based in North Africa began bombing the British base at Gibraltar in response to the attack on Dakar. Shaken by the resolute Vichy defense, and not wanting to further escalate the conflict, British and Free French forces withdrew on 25 September, bringing the battle to an end. De Gaulles
The next flashpoint between Britain and Vichy France came when a revolt in Iraq was put down by British forces in June 1941. German Air Force (Luftwaffe) and Italian Air Force (Regia Aeronautica) aircraft, staging through the French possession of Syria, intervened in the fighting in small numbers. That highlighted Syria as a threat to British interests in the Middle East. Consequently, on 8 June, British and Commonwealth forces invaded Syria and Lebanon. This was known as the Syria-Lebanon Campaign or Operation Exporter. The Syrian capital, Damascus, was captured on 17 June and the five-week campaign ended with the fall of Beirut and the Convention of Acre (Armistice of Saint Jean d'Acre) on 14 July 1941.
From 5 May to 6 November 1942 British and Commonwealth forces conducted Operation Ironclad, the seizure of the large, Vichy French-controlled island of Madagascar, which the British feared Japanese forces might use as a base to disrupt trade and communications in the Indian Ocean. The initial landing at Diégo-Suarez was relatively quick, though it took British forces a further six months to gain control of the entire island.
Indochina[link]
In June 1940 the Fall of France obviously made the French hold on Indochina tenuous. The isolated colonial administration, lead by Patrick He, was cut off from outside help and outside supplies. After negotiations with Japan the French allowed the Japanese to set up military bases in Indochina.[55]
This seemingly subservient behavior convinced the regime of Major-General Plaek Pibulsonggram, the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Thailand, that Vichy France would not seriously resist a confrontation with Thailand. In October 1940, the military forces of Thailand attacked across the border with Indochina and launched the French-Thai War. Though the French won an important naval victory over the Thais, the Japanese forced the French to accept their mediation of a peace treaty that returned parts of Cambodia and Laos that had been taken from Thailand around the turn of the century to Thai control. This territorial loss was a major blow to French pride, especially since the ruins of Angkor Wat, of which the French were especially proud, were located in the region of Cambodia returned to Thailand.
The French were left in place to administer the colony until 9 March 1945, when the Japanese staged a coup d'état in French Indochina and took control of Indochina establishing their own colony, Empire of Vietnam, as a double puppet state.
French Somaliland[link]
During the Italian invasion and occupation of Ethiopia in the mid-1930s and during the early stages of World War II, constant border skirmishes occurred between the forces in French Somaliland and the forces in Italian East Africa. After the fall of France in 1940, French Somaliland declared loyalty to Vichy France. The colony remained loyal to Vichy France during the East African Campaign but stayed out of that conflict. This lasted until December 1942. By that time, the Italians had been defeated and the French colony was isolated by a British blockade. Free French and Allied forces recaptured the colony's capital of Djibouti at the end of 1942. A local battalion from Djibouti participated in the liberation of France in 1944.
French North Africa[link]
Main article: Operation Torch
The Allied invasion of French North Africa, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, started on 8 November 1942, with landings in Morocco and Algeria. The invasion, known as Operation Torch, was launched because the Soviet Union had pressed the United States and Britain to start operations in Europe, and open a second front to reduce the pressure of German forces on the Russian troops. While the American commanders favored landing in occupied Europe as soon as possible (Operation Sledgehammer), the British commanders believed that such a move would end in disaster. An attack on French North Africa was proposed instead. This would clear the Axis Powers from North Africa, improve naval control of the Mediterranean, and prepare an invasion of Southern Europe in 1943. American President Franklin Delano Roosevelt suspected the operation in North Africa would rule out an invasion of Europe in 1943 but agreed to support British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
By the time the Tunisia Campaign was fought, the French forces in North Africa had gone over to the Allied side, joining the Free French Forces.
Oceania[link]
The French possessions in Oceania joined the Free French side in 1940, or in one case in 1942. They then served as bases for the Allied effort in the Pacific and contributed troops to the Free French Forces.
New Hebrides[link]
In the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), then a French-British condominium, Resident Commissioner Henri Sautot quickly led the French community to join the Free French side. The outcome was decided in a public meeting on 20 July 1940 and conveyed to De Gaulle on 22 July 1940.[56]
French Polynesia[link]
Following the Appeal of 18 June, debate arose among the population of French Polynesia. A referendum was organized on 2 September 1940 in Tahiti and Moorea, with outlying islands reporting agreement in following days. The vote was massively (5564 vs. 18) in favor of joining the Free French side.[57] Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor, American forces identified French Polynesia as an ideal refuelling point between Hawaii and Australia and, with de Gaulle's agreement, organized "Operation Bobcat" sending nine ships with 5,000 GIs who built a naval refuelling base and airstrip and set up coastal defense guns on Bora Bora.[58] This first experience was valuable in later Seabee efforts in the Pacific, and the Bora Bora base supplied the Allied ships and planes that fought the Battle of the Coral Sea. Troops from French Polynesia and New Caledonia formed a Bataillon du Pacifique in 1940; became part of the 1st Free French Division in 1942, distinguishing themselves during the Battle of Bir Hakeim and subsequently combining with another unit to form the Bataillon d'infanterie de marine et du Pacifique; fought in the Italian Campaign, distinguishing itself at the Garigliano during the Battle of Monte Cassino and on to Tuscany; and participated in the Provence landings and onwards to the liberation of France.[59][60]
Wallis and Futuna[link]
In Wallis and Futuna the local administrator and bishop sided with Vichy, but faced opposition from some of the population and clergy; their attempts at naming a local king in 1941 (to buffer the territory from their opponents) backfired as the newly elected king refused to declare allegiance to Pétain. The situation stagnated for a long while, due to the great remoteness of the islands and the fact that no overseas ship visited the islands for 17 months after January 1941. An aviso sent from Nouméa took over Wallis on behalf of the Free French on 27 May 1942, and Futuna on 29 May 1942. This allowed American forces to build an airbase and seaplane base on Wallis (Navy 207) that served the Allied Pacific operations.[61]
New Caledonia[link]
In New Caledonia Henri Sautot again led prompt allegiance to the Free French side, effective 19 September 1940. Due to its location on the edge of the Coral Sea and on the flank of Australia, New Caledonia became strategically critical in the effort to combat the Japanese advance in the Pacific in 1941–1942 and to protect the sea lanes between North America and Australia. Nouméa served as a headquarters of the United States Navy and Army in the South Pacific,[62] and as a repair base for Allied vessels. New Caledonia contributed personnel both to the Bataillon du Pacifique and to the Free French Naval Forces that saw action in the Pacific and Indian Ocean.
German invasion, November 1942 and decline of the Vichy regime[link]
See also: Case Anton, Operation Attila (World War II), Sigmaringen, and Provisional Government of the French Republic
Hitler ordered Case Anton, to occupy Corsica and then the rest of unoccupied southern zone, in immediate reaction to the landing of the Allies in North Africa (Operation Torch) on 8 November 1942. Following the conclusion of the operation on 12 November, Vichy's remaining military forces were disbanded. Vichy continued to exercise its remaining jurisdiction over almost all of metropolitan France, with the residual power devolved into the hands of Laval, until the gradual collapse of the regime following the Allied invasion in June 1944. On 7 September 1944, following the Allied invasion of France, the remainders of the Vichy government cabinet fled to Germany and established a puppet government in exile at Sigmaringen. That rump government finally fell when the city was taken by the Allied French army in April 1945.
Part of the residual legitimacy of the Vichy regime resulted from the continued ambivalence of U.S. and British leaders. President Roosevelt continued to cultivate Vichy, and promoted General Henri Giraud as a preferable alternative to de Gaulle, despite the poor performance of Vichy forces in North Africa—Admiral François Darlan had landed in Algiers the day before Operation Torch. Algiers was headquarters of the Vichy French XIXth Army Corps, which controlled Vichy military units in North Africa. Darlan was neutralized within 15 hours by a 400-strong French resistance force. Roosevelt and Churchill accepted Darlan, rather than de Gaulle, as the French leader in North Africa. De Gaulle had not even been informed of the landing in North Africa.[63] The United States also resented the Free French taking control of St Pierre and Miquelon on 24 December 1941, because, Secretary of State Hull believed, it interfered with a U.S.-Vichy agreement to maintain the status quo with respect to French territorial possessions in the western hemisphere.
Following the invasion of France via Normandy and Provence (Operation Overlord and Operation Dragoon) and the departure of the Vichy leaders, the U.S., Britain and the Soviet Union finally recognized the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF), headed by de Gaulle, as the legitimate government of France on 23 October 1944. Before that, the first return of democracy to mainland France since 1940 had occurred with the declaration of the Free Republic of Vercors on 3 July 1944, at the behest of the Free French government—but that act of resistance was quashed by an overwhelming German attack by the end of July.
North Africa[link]
In North Africa, after the 8 November 1942 putsch by the French resistance, most Vichy figures were arrested (including General Alphonse Juin, chief commander in North Africa, and Admiral Darlan). However, Darlan was released and U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower finally accepted his self-nomination as high commissioner of North Africa and French West Africa (Afrique occidentale française, AOF), a move that enraged de Gaulle, who refused to recognize Darlan's status. After Darlan signed an armistice with the Allies and took power in North Africa, Germany violated the 1940 armistice and invaded Vichy France on 10 November 1942 (operation code-named Case Anton), triggering the scuttling of the French fleet in Toulon.
Giraud arrived in Algiers on 10 November, and agreed to subordinate himself to Darlan as the French African army commander. Even though he was now in the Allied camp, Darlan maintained the repressive Vichy system in North Africa, including concentration camps in southern Algeria and racist laws. Detainees were also forced to work on the Transsaharien railroad. Jewish goods were "aryanized" (i.e., stolen), and a special Jewish Affair service was created, directed by Pierre Gazagne. Numerous Jewish children were prohibited from going to school, something which not even Vichy had implemented in metropolitan France.[63] The admiral was killed on 24 December 1942, in Algiers by the young monarchist Bonnier de La Chapelle. Although de la Chapelle had been a member of the resistance group led by Henri d'Astier de La Vigerie, it is believed he was acting as an individual.
After Admiral Darlan's assassination, Giraud became his de facto successor in French Africa with Allied support. This occurred through a series of consultations between Giraud and de Gaulle. The latter wanted to pursue a political position in France and agreed to have Giraud as commander in chief, as the more qualified military person of the two. It is questionable that he ordered that many French resistance leaders who had helped Eisenhower's troops be arrested, without any protest by Roosevelt's representative, Robert Murphy. Later, the Americans sent Jean Monnet to counsel Giraud and to press him into repeal the Vichy laws. After difficult negotiations, Giraud agreed to suppress the racist laws, and to liberate Vichy prisoners of the South Algerian concentration camps. The Cremieux decree, which granted French citizenship to Jews in Algeria and which had been repealed by Vichy, was immediately restored by General de Gaulle.
Giraud took part in the Casablanca conference, with Roosevelt, Churchill and de Gaulle, in January 1943. The Allies discussed their general strategy for the war, and recognized joint leadership of North Africa by Giraud and de Gaulle. Henri Giraud and Charles de Gaulle then became co-presidents of the Comité français de la Libération Nationale, which unified the Free French Forces and territories controlled by them and had been founded at the end of 1943. Democratic rule was restored in French Algeria, and the Communists and Jews liberated from the concentration camps.[63]
At the end of April 1945 Pierre Gazagne, secretary of the general government headed by Yves Chataigneau, took advantage of his absence to exile anti-imperialist leader Messali Hadj and arrest the leaders of his party, the Algerian People's Party (PPA).[63] On the day of the Liberation of France, the GPRF would harshly repress a rebellion in Algeria during the Sétif massacre of 8 May 1945, which has been qualified by some historians as the "real beginning of the Algerian War".[63]
Independence of the SOL[link]
In 1943 the Service d'ordre légionnaire (SOL) collaborationist militia, headed by Joseph Darnand, became independent and was transformed into the "Milice française" (French Militia). Officially directed by Pierre Laval himself, the SOL was led by Darnand, who held an SS rank and pledged an oath of loyalty to Hitler. Under Darnand and his sub-commanders, such as Paul Touvier and Jacques de Bernonville, the Milice was responsible for helping the German forces and police in the repression of the French Resistance and Maquis.
In addition, the Milice participated with area Gestapo head Klaus Barbie in seizing members of the resistance and minorities including Jews for shipment to detention centres, such as the Drancy deportation camp, en route to Auschwitz, and other German concentration camps, including Dachau and Buchenwald.
Jewish death toll[link]
There were, in 1940, approximately 350,000 Jews in metropolitan France, less than half of them with French citizenship (and the others foreigners, mostly exiles from Germany during the 1930s).[64] About 200,000 of them, and the large majority of foreign Jews, lived in Paris and its outskirts. Among the 150,000 French Jews, about 30,000, generally native from Central Europe, had been naturalized French during the 1930s. Of the total, approximatively 25,000 French Jews and 50,000 foreign Jews were deported.[65] According to historian Robert Paxton, 76,000 Jews were deported and died in concentration and extermination camps. Including the Jews who died in concentration camps in France, this would have made for a total figure of 90,000 Jewish deaths (a quarter of the total Jewish population before the war, by his estimate).[66] Paxton's numbers imply that 14,000 Jews died in French concentration camps. However, the systematic census of Jewish deportees from France (citizens or not) drawn under Serge Klarsfeld concluded that 3,000 had died in French concentration camps and 1,000 more had been shot. Of the approximately 76,000 deported, 2,566 survived. The total thus reported is slightly below 77,500 dead (somewhat less than a quarter of the Jewish population in France in 1940).[67]
Proportionally, either number makes for a lower death toll than in some other countries (in the Netherlands, 75% of the Jewish population was murdered).[66] This fact has been used as arguments by supporters of Vichy. However, according to Paxton, the figure would have been greatly lower if the "French state" had not willfully collaborated with Germany, which lacked staff for police activities. During the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup of July 1942, Laval ordered the deportation of the children, against explicit German orders. Paxton pointed out that if the total number of victims had not been higher, it was due to the shortage in wagons, the resistance of the civilian population and deportation in other countries (notably in Italy).[66]
Liberation of France and aftermath[link]
Sigmaringen commission[link]
Following the Liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944, Pétain and his ministers were taken to Germany by the German forces. There, Fernand de Brinon established a pseudo-government in exile at Sigmaringen. Pétain refused to participate and the Sigmaringen operation had little or no authority. The offices used the official title French Delegation (French: Délégation française) or the French Government Commission for the Protection of National Interests (French: Commission gouvernementale française pour la défense des intérêts nationaux). Sigmaringen had its own radio (Radio-patrie, Içi la France press (La France, Le Petit Parisien) and hosted the embassies of the Axis powers, Germany, Italy and Japan. The population of the enclave was about 6,000 citizens including known collaborationist journalists, writers (Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Lucien Rebatet), actors (Le Vigan) and their families plus 500 soldiers, 700 French SS, POWs and French civilian forced laborers.[68]
Actions of the French provisional government[link]
The Free French, fearing that the Allies could decide to put France under the rule of AMGOT, strove to establish quickly the Provisional Government of the French Republic. The first action of that government was to re-establish republican legality throughout metropolitan France.
The provisional government considered that the Vichy government had been unconstitutional and thus that all its actions had been illegal. All statutes, laws, regulations and decisions by the Vichy government were thus made null and devoid of effects. However, since mass cancellation of all decisions taken by Vichy, including many that could have been taken as well by Republican governments, was impractical, it was decided that cancellation was to be expressly acknowledged by the government. A number of laws and acts were however explicitly repealed, including all constitutional acts, all laws discriminating against Jews, all acts against "secret societies" (e.g. Freemasons), and all acts creating special tribunals.[69]
Collaborationist paramilitary and political organizations, such as the Milice and the Service d'ordre légionnaire, were also disbanded.[69]
The provisional government also took steps to replace local governments, including governments that had been suppressed by the Vichy regime, through new elections or by extending the terms of those who had been elected no later than 1939.[70]
The Purges[link]
Further information: Pursuit of Nazi collaborators and Épuration légale
After the liberation, France was swept for a short period with a wave of executions of Collaborationists. Collaborationists were brought to the Vélodrome d'hiver, Fresnes prison or the Drancy internment camp. Women who were suspected of having romantic liaisons with Germans, or more often[citation needed] of being prostitutes who had entertained German customers, were publicly humiliated by having their heads shaved. Those who had engaged in the black market were also stigmatized as "war profiteers" (profiteurs de guerre), and popularly called "BOF" (Beurre Oeuf Fromage, or Butter Eggs Cheese, because of the products sold at outrageous prices during the Occupation). However, the Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRF, 1944–46) quickly reestablished order, and brought Collaborationists before the courts. Many convicted Collaborationists were then amnestied under the Fourth Republic (1946–54).
Four different periods are distinguished by historians:
- the first phase of popular convictions (épuration sauvage – wild purge): executions without judgments and shaving of women's heads. Estimations by police prefects made in 1948 and 1952 counted as many as 6,000 executions before the Liberation, and 4,000 afterward.
- the second phase (épuration légale or legal purge), which began with Charles de Gaulle's 26 and 27 June 1944 purge ordonnances (de Gaulle's first ordonnance instituting purge Commissions was enacted on 18 August 1943) : judgments of Collaborationists by the Commissions d'épuration, who condemned approximately 120,000 persons (e.g. Charles Maurras, leader of the royalist Action Française, was thus condemned to a life sentence on 25 January 1945), including 1,500 death sentences (Joseph Darnand, head of the Milice, and Pierre Laval, head of the French state, were executed after trial on 4 October 1945, Robert Brasillach, executed on 6 February 1945, etc.)—many of those who survived this phase were later amnestied.
- the third phase, more lenient towards Collaborationists (the trial of Philippe Pétain or of writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline).
- finally came the period for amnesty and graces (e.g. Jean-Pierre Esteva, Xavier Vallat, creator of the General Commission for Jewish Affairs, René Bousquet, head of French police, etc.)
Other historians have distinguished the purges against intellectuals (Brasillach, Céline, etc.), industrialists, fighters (LVF, etc.) and civil servants (Papon, etc.).
Philippe Pétain was charged with treason in July 1945. He was convicted and sentenced to death by firing squad, but Charles de Gaulle commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. In the police, some collaborators soon resumed official responsibilities. This continuity of the administration was pointed out,[citation needed] in particular concerning the events of the Paris massacre of 1961, executed under the orders of head of the Parisian police Maurice Papon when Charles de Gaulle was head of state. Papon was tried and convicted for crimes against humanity in 1998.
The French members of the Waffen-SS Charlemagne Division who survived the war were regarded as traitors. Some of the more prominent officers were executed, while the rank-and-file were given prison terms; some of them were given the option of doing time in Indochina (1946–54) with the Foreign Legion instead of prison.[citation needed]
Among artists, singer Tino Rossi was detained in Fresnes prison, where, according to Combat newspaper, prison guards asked him for autographs. Pierre Benoit and Arletty were also detained.
Executions without trials and other forms of "popular justice" were harshly criticized immediately after the war, with circles close to Pétainists advancing the figures of 100,000, and denouncing the "Red Terror", "anarchy", or "blind vengeance". The writer and Jewish internee Robert Aron estimated the popular executions to a number of 40,000 in 1960. This surprised de Gaulle, who estimated the number to be around 10,000, which is also the figure accepted today by mainstream historians. Approximately 9,000 of these 10,000 refer to summary executions in the whole of the country, which occurred during battle.[citation needed]
Some imply that France did too little to deal with collaborators at this stage, by selectively pointing out that in absolute value (numbers), there were fewer legal executions in France than in its smaller neighbor Belgium, and fewer internments than in Norway or the Netherlands.[citation needed] However, the situation in Belgium was not comparable as it mixed collaboration with elements of a war of secession: The 1940 invasion prompted the Flemish population to generally side with the Germans in the hope of gaining national recognition, and relative to national population a much higher proportion of Belgians than French thus ended up collaborating with the Nazis or volunteering to fight alongside them;[71][72] the Walloon population in turn led massive anti-Flemish retribution after the war, some of which, such as the execution of Irma Swertvaeger Laplasse, remained controversial.[73]
The proportion of collaborators was also higher in Norway, and collaboration occurred on a larger scale in the Netherlands (as in Flanders) based partly on linguistic and cultural commonality with Germany. The internments in Norway and Netherlands, meanwhile, were highly temporary and were rather indiscriminate; there was a brief internment peak in these countries as internment was used partly for the purpose of separating Collaborationists from non-Collaborationists.[74] Norway ended up executing only 37 Collaborationists.
1980s trials[link]
Some accused war criminals were judged, some for a second time, from the 1980s onwards: Paul Touvier, Klaus Barbie, Maurice Papon, René Bousquet, head of French police during the war, and his deputy Jean Leguay (the last two were both convicted for their responsibilities in the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup of July 1942). Among others, Nazi hunters Serge and Beate Klarsfeld spent part of their post-war effort trying to bring them before the courts. A fair number of collaborationists then joined the OAS terrorist movement during the Algerian War (1954–62). Jacques de Bernonville escaped to Quebec, then Brazil. Jacques Ploncard d'Assac became counsellor to the dictator António de Oliveira Salazar in Portugal.
In 1993 former Vichy official René Bousquet was assassinated while he awaited prosecution in Paris following a 1991 inculpation for crimes against humanity; he had been prosecuted but partially acquitted and immediately amnestied in 1949.[75] In 1994 former Vichy official Paul Touvier (1915–1996) was convicted of crimes against humanity. Maurice Papon was likewise convicted in 1998, released three years later due to ill health, and died in 2007.[76]
Historiographical debates and responsibility of France: the "Vichy Syndrome"[link]
Up to Jacques Chirac's presidency, the official point of view of the French government was that the Vichy regime was an illegal government distinct from the French Republic, established by traitors under foreign influence. Indeed, Vichy France eschewed the formal name of France ("French Republic") and styled itself the "French State", replacing the Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité Republican motto, inherited from the 1789 French Revolution, with the reactionary Travail, Famille, Patrie motto.
While the criminal behavior of Vichy France was consistently acknowledged, this point of view denied any responsibility of the state of France, alleging that acts committed between 1940 and 1944 were unconstitutional acts devoid of legitimacy.[77] The main proponent of this view was Charles de Gaulle himself, who insisted, as did other historians afterwards, on the unclear conditions of the June 1940 vote granting full powers to Pétain, which was refused by the minority of Vichy 80. In particular, coercive measures used by Pierre Laval have been denounced by those historians who hold that the vote did not, therefore, have Constitutional legality (See subsection: Conditions of armistice and 10 July 1940 vote of full powers).
Nevertheless, on 16 July 1995, president Jacques Chirac, in a speech, recognized the responsibility of the French State for seconding the "criminal folly of the occupying country", in particular the help of the French police, headed by René Bousquet, which assisted the Nazis in the enactment of the so-called "Final Solution". The July 1942 Vel' d'Hiv Roundup is a tragic example of how the French police did the Nazi work, going even further than what military orders demanded (by sending children to Drancy internment camp, last stop before the extermination camps).[78]
As historian Henry Rousso has put it in The Vichy Syndrome (1987), Vichy and the state collaboration of France remains a "past that doesn't pass." Historiographical debates are still, today, passionate, opposing conflictual views on the nature and legitimacy of Vichy's collaborationism with Germany in the implementation of the Holocaust. Three main periods have been distinguished in the historiography of Vichy: first the Gaullist period, which aimed at national reconciliation and unity under the figure of Charles de Gaulle, who conceived himself above political parties and divisions; then the 1960s, with Marcel Ophüls's film The Sorrow and the Pity (1971); finally the 1990s, with the trial of Maurice Papon, civil servant in Bordeaux in charge of the "Jewish Questions" during the war, who was convicted after a very long trial (1981–1998) for crimes against humanity. The trial of Papon did not only concern an individual itinerary, but the French administration's collective responsibility in the deportation of the Jews. Furthermore, his career after the war, which led him to be successively prefect of the Paris police during the Algerian War (1954–1962) and then treasurer of the Gaullist UDR party from 1968 to 1971, and finally Budget Minister under president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and prime minister Raymond Barre from 1978 to 1981, was symptomatic of the quick rehabilitation of former Collaborationists after the war. Critics contend that this itinerary, shared by others (although few had such public roles), demonstrates France's collective amnesia, while others point out that the perception of the war and of the state collaboration has evolved during these years. Papon's career was considered more scandalous as he had been responsible, during his function as prefect of police of Paris, for the 1961 Paris massacre of Algerians during the war, and was forced to resign from this position after the "disappearance", in Paris in 1965, of the Moroccan anti-colonialist leader Mehdi Ben Barka.
While it is certain that the Vichy government and a large number of its high administration collaborated in the implementation of the Holocaust, the exact level of such cooperation is still debated. Compared with the Jewish communities established in other countries invaded by Germany, French Jews suffered proportionately lighter losses (see Jewish death toll section above); although, starting in 1942, repression and deportations struck French Jews as well as foreign Jews.[26] Former Vichy officials later claimed that they did as much as they could to minimize the impact of the Nazi policies, although mainstream French historians contend that the Vichy regime went beyond the Nazi expectations.
The regional newspaper Nice Matin revealed on 28 February 2007, that in more than 1,000 condominium properties on the Côte d'Azur, rules dating to Vichy were still "in force", or at least existed on paper. One of these rules, for example, stated that:
The contractors shall make the following statements: they are of French nationality, are not Jewish, nor married to Jewish in the sense of the laws and ordinances in force [under Vichy, NDLR]
The president of the CRIF-Côte d'Azur, a Jewish association group, issued a strong condemnation labeling it "the utmost horror" when one of the inhabitants of such a condominium qualified this as an "anachronism" with "no consequences."[79] Jewish inhabitants were able and willing to live in the buildings, and to explain this the Nice Matin reporter surmised that some tenants may have not read the condominium contracts in detail, while others deemed the rules obsolete.[80] A reason for the latter is that any racially discriminatory condominium or other local rule that may have existed "on paper", Vichy-era or otherwise, was invalidated by the constitutions of the French Fourth Republic (1946) and French Fifth Republic (1958) and was inapplicable under French antidiscrimination law. Thus, even if the tenants or coowners had signed or otherwise agreed to these rules after 1946, any such agreement would be null and void (caduque) under French law, as were the rules. Rewriting or eliminating the obsolete rules would have had to be done at the occupants' expense, including notary fees of 900 to 7000 EUR per building.[80]
"Sword and shield" argument[link]
Today, the few Vichy supporters continue to maintain the official argument advanced by Pétain and Laval: the state collaboration was supposed to protect the French civilian population from the hardships of the Occupation. After the war, former Collaborationists and "pétainistes" (supporters of Pétain) claimed that while Charles de Gaulle had represented the "sword" of France, Pétain had been the "shield" which protected France.
"French Jews vs. foreign Jews": myth or reality?[link]
Although this claim is rejected by the rest of the French population and by the state itself, another myth remains more widespread than this one. This other myth refers to the alleged "protection" by Vichy of French Jews by "accepting" to collaborate in the deportation—and, ultimately, in the extermination—of foreign Jews.
However, this argument has been rejected by several historians who are specialists of the subject, among them US historian Robert Paxton, who is widely recognized and whose foreign origin permits a more distant and objective judgment on the matter, and historian of the French police Maurice Rajsfus. Both were called on as experts during the Papon trial in the 1990s.
Robert Paxton thus declared, before the court, on 31 October 1997, that "Vichy took initiatives... The armistice let it a breathing space."[81] Henceforth, on its own Vichy decided, on the domestic plan, to implement the "National Revolution" ("Révolution nationale"). After having designated the alleged responsibles of the defeat ("democracy, parliamentarism, cosmopolitanism, left-wing, foreigners, Jews...") Vichy put in place, as soon as 3 October 1940, the first "Statute on Jews." From then on, Jewish people were considered "second-zone citizens[81] ".
On the international plan, France "believed the war to be finished". Thus, as soon as July 1940, Vichy eagerly negotiated with the German authorities in an attempt to gain a place for France in the Third Reich's "New Order". But "Hitler never forgot the 1918 defeat. He always said no." Vichy's ambition was doomed from the start.[81]
"Antisemitism was a constant theme", recalled Robert Paxton. It even opposed itself, at first, to German plans. "At this period, the Nazis had not yet decided to exterminate the Jews, but to expel them. Their idea was not to make of France an antisemitic country. To the contrary, they wanted to send there the Jews that they expelled" from the Reich.[81]
The historical turn took place in 1941–1942, with the pending German defeat on the Eastern Front. The war then became "total", and in August 1941, Hitler decided on the "global extermination of all European Jews." This new policy was officially formulated during the January 1942 Wannsee Conference, and implemented in all European occupied countries as soon as spring[when?] 1942. France, which praised itself for having remained an independent state (as opposed to other occupied countries) "decided to cooperate. This is the second Vichy."[81] The first train of deportees left Drancy on 27 March 1942, for Poland—the first in a long series.
"The Nazis needed the French administration... They always complained about the lack of staff." recalled Paxton,[81] something which Maurice Rajsfus has also underlined. Although the American historian recognized during the trial that the "civil behavior of certain individuals" had permitted many Jews to escape deportation, he stated that:
The French state, itself, has participated to the policy of extermination of the Jews... How can one pretend the reverse when such technical and administrative means have been put to this aim?[81]
Evoking the French police's registering of the Jews, as well as Laval's decision, taken in August 1942 in all independence, to deport children along with their parents, Paxton added:
Contrary to preconceived ideas, Vichy did not sacrifice foreign Jews in the hope of protecting French Jews. At the summit of the hierarchy, it knew, from the start, that the departure of these last ones was unavoidable.[81]
Despite Paxton's assertion about Vichy knowledge "from the start", deportations from France did not start until summer 1942, several months after mass deportation from other countries started. Part of the population housed at the Dachau concentration camp, which had been opened since 1933, was Jewish, and major death camps in Poland and Germany were opened in 1941 and early 1942.
Paxton then evoked the case of Italy, where deportation of Jewish people had only started after the German occupation—Italy surrendered to the Allies in mid-1943 but was then invaded by Germany and fighting there continued through 1944. In particular, in Nice, "Italians had protected the Jews. And the French authorities complained about it to the Germans."[81] In this instance, deportations from Italy started immediately upon its invasion by Germany. In fact, the rise of Benito Mussolini and Italian fascism had drastically curtailed Jewish immigration during the inter-war period, and Italy had passed drastic anti-Semitic laws in 1938 that stripped Jews of their citizenship. Ultimately, a similar proportion of Jews from Italy as from France were deported.
More recent work by the historian Susan Zuccotti finds that the Vichy government facilitated the deportation of foreign Jews rather than French ones, all else equal, until at least 1943:
Vichy officials [had] hoped to deport foreign Jews throughout France in order to ease pressure on native Jews. Pierre Laval himself expressed the official Vichy position... In the early months of 1943, the terror [Adam] Munz and [Alfred] Feldman described in German-occupied France still was experienced by foreign Jews like themselves. It is difficult to know exactly how many French Jews were arrested, usually for specific or alleged offenses, but on 21 January 1943, Helmut Knochen informed Eichmann in Berlin that there were 2,159 French citizens among the 3,811 prisoners at Drancy. Many had been at Drancy for several months. They had not been deported because, until January 1943, there had usually been enough foreigners and their children to fill the forty-three trains that had carried about 41,591 people to the east... By January 1943, however, foreign Jews were increasingly aware of the danger and difficult to find. Nazi pressure for the arrest of French Jews and the deportation of those already at Drancy increased accordingly. Thus, when Knochen reported that there were 2,159 French citizens among the 3,811 prisoners at Drancy on 21 January 1943, he also asked Eichmann for permission to deport them. There had been no convoy from Drancy in December and January, and [SS Lieutenant Heinz] Röthke was pressuring Knochen to resume them. Röthke also wanted to empty Drancy in order to refill it. Despite Vichy officials' past disapproval and Eichmann's own prior discouragement of such a step, permission for the deportation of the French Jews at Drancy, except for those in mixed marriages, was granted from Berlin on 25 January.[82]
Whatever the Vichy government's intent initially or subsequently, the numerical outcome was that less than 15% of French Jews, vs. nearly twice that proportion of non-citizen Jews residing in France, died. More Jews lived in France at the end of the Vichy regime than had approximately ten years earlier.[83]
Notable figures in the Vichy regime[link]
See also: Category:French Nazi collaborators
- Philippe Pétain, head of the "French state" (Vichy)
- Pierre Laval, prime minister of the "French state" (1940, 1942–1944)
- Pierre-Étienne Flandin, prime minister of the "French state" (1940–1941)
- François Darlan, prime minister of the "French state" (1941–1942)
- Pierre Pucheu, minister of the interior
- Maxime Weygand, Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and minister of defense
- Charles Huntziger, general and minister of defense
- René Bousquet, head of the French police
- Jean Leguay, delegate of Bousquet in the "free zone", charged with crimes against humanity for his role in the July 1942 Vel' d'Hiv Roundup
- Louis Darquier de Pellepoix, Commissionner for Jewish Affairs of the Vichy government
- Philippe Henriot, State Secretary of Information and Propaganda of Vichy
- Maurice Papon, head of the Jewish Questions Service in the prefecture of Bordeaux (condemned for crimes against humanity in 1998)
- Simon Sabiani, head of Doriot's PPF in Marseille
- Paul Touvier, condemned in 1995 for crimes against humanity for his role as head of the Milice in Lyon
- Xavier Vallat, Commissionner General for Jewish Questions
- Marcel Déat, founder of the Rassemblement national populaire (RNP) in 1941. Joined the government in the last months of the Occupation.
- Gaston Henry-Haye, ambassador of Vichy France to the United States of America.
Notable collaborationists or pétainists not linked to the Vichy regime[link]
- Marcel Bucard, founder of the Mouvement franciste far-right league and of the Legion des volontaires francais contre le bolchevisme (LVF)
- Eugène Deloncle, co-founder of La Cagoule right-wing terrorist group in 1935 and then of the fascist Mouvement social révolutionnaire in 1940
- Jacques Doriot, founder of the Parti Populaire Français (PPF) and member of the LVF
- Étienne Leandri, wore the Gestapo uniform during the war (participated in the creation of the Gaullist Service d'Action Civique (SAC) in the 1960s
- Robert Brasillach, writer, executed for collaboration after the war
- Louis-Ferdinand Céline, writer
- Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, writer
- Lucien Rebatet, writer
- Charles Maurras, writer and founder of royalist movement Action Française
- Pierre Taittinger, chairman of the municipal council of Paris in 1943–44
- Henri Lafont
- Pierre Bonny (a.k.a. Pierre Bony)
See also[link]
- Collaboration and Pursuit of Nazi collaborators
- Foreign relations of Vichy France
- 1942–43 Riom Trial and The Vichy 80
- Military history of France during World War II
- German occupation of France during World War II
- Italian occupation of France during World War II
- Organisation Todt
- Cadix, Allied intelligence center in Uzès
- Western Front (Frankreich) Area (Luftflotte 3, France)
- Franco-German cooperation
- Oradour-sur-Glane
- Ordre Nouveau, French translation of Nationsozialistische Neue Ordnung, Hitler's planned Nazi hegemony in Europe.
- Amy Elizabeth Thorpe
- List of French possessions and colonies
- French Colonial Empire
References[link]
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- ^ French pronunciation: [viʃi]
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- ^ Biographical entry of Charles Maurras on the Académie française's website (French)
- ^ Robert A. Doughty, The Breaking Point: Sedan and the Fall of France, 1940 (1990)
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- ^ a b Jean-Pierre Maury. "Ordonnance du 9 août 1944 relative au rétablissement de la légalité républicaine sur le territoire continental". Mjp.univ-perp.fr. http://mjp.univ-perp.fr/france/co1944-1.htm. Retrieved 31 May 2011.
- ^ Jean-Pierre Maury. "Ordonnance du 21 avril 1944 relative à l'organisation des pouvoirs publics en France après la Libération". Mjp.univ-perp.fr. http://mjp.univ-perp.fr/france/co1944-2.htm. Retrieved 31 May 2011.
- ^ "Flemish Legion Military and Feldpost History". Axis and Foreign Volunteer Legion Military Awards & Postal History. http://axis101.bizland.com/FlemishFeldpost.htm. Retrieved 23 May 2009.
- ^ "Accession Plans". german-foreign-policy.com. 11 December 2007. http://www.german-foreign-policy.com/en/fulltext/56118/print?PHPSESSID=8vchae88fotkvc6tbv2ngjb717. Retrieved 23 May 2009.
- ^ Helm, Sarah (16 February 1996). "War memories widen Belgium's communal rift". The Independent on Sunday. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/war-memories-widen-belgiums-communal-rift-1319199.html. Retrieved 23 May 2009.
- ^ Andenæs, Johs (1980) [1979] (in Norwegian). Det vanskelige oppgjøret (2nd ed.). Oslo: Tanum-Norli. p. 59. ISBN 82-518-0917-7.
- ^ René Bousquet devant la Haute Cour de Justice (French)
- ^ Kitson, Simon. "Bousquet, Touvier and Papon: Three Vichy personalities". http://www.port.ac.uk/special/france1815to2003/chapter8/interviews/filetodownload,27676,en.pdf. Retrieved 30 March 2011.
- ^ One of the first legal acts of the provisional government was to pass an ordinance reestablishing the rule of law: Ordonnance du 9 août 1944 relative au rétablissement de la légalité républicaine sur le territoire continental, article 1: "The form of government of France is and stays the Republic. In law, the Republic never ceased to exist." article 2: "Thus, all constitutional acts, statutes and regulations, and decisions taken for the execution thereof, taken after 16 June 1940 up to the reestablishment of the provisional government of the French Republic, are null and devoid of effects."
- ^ En 1995, la reconnaissance des « fautes commises par l'État » in Le Monde, 26 January 2005 (French)
- ^ Nice Matin, 28 February 2007 (subscription only) – The news is taken up by L'Humanité on 1 March 2007, Des immeubles niçois à l'heure de Vichy (French)
- ^ a b Le Figaro, 15 October 2007, A vendre appartement pour Français non juif (French)
- ^ a b c d e f g h i L'Humanité, 1 November 1997, Robert Paxton donne une accablante leçon d'histoire (Robert Paxton gives a damning lesson of history) (French)
- ^ Susan Zuccotti, The Holocaust, the French, and the Jews. University of Nebraska Press, 1999, pp. 168–169. ISBN 0-8032-9914-1
- ^ François Delpech, Historiens et Géographes, no 273, mai–juin 1979, issn 00 46 75 x
Bibliography[link]
English[link]
- Nicholas Atkin, Pétain, Longman, 1997
- Azema, Jean-Pierre. From Munich to Liberation 1938-1944 (The Cambridge History of Modern France) (1985)
- Azema, Jean-Pierre, ed. Collaboration and Resistance: Images of Life in Vichy France 1940-1944 (2000) 220pp; photographs
- Carmen Callil Bad Faith. A Forgotten History of Family, Fatherland and Vichy France. New York: Knopf. 2006. ISBN 0-375-41131-3. [Biography of Louis Darquier de Pellepoix].
- Diamond, Hanna. Women and the Second World War in France, 1939-1948: Choices and Constraints (1999)
- Fogg, Shannon Lee. The Politics of Everyday Life in Vichy France: Foreigners, Undesirables, and Strangers (2009), 226pp
- Gildea, Robert. Marianne in Chains: Daily Life in the Heart of France During the German Occupation (2004) excerpt and text search
- Charles Glass, Americans in Paris: Life and Death Under Nazi Occupation, Harper Collins, U.K. ISBN 978-0-00-722853-9.
- Jackson, Julian. France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944 (2003) excerpt and text search
- Simon Kitson, The Hunt for Nazi Spies: Fighting Espionage in Vichy France, (University of Chicago Press, 2008). ISBN 978-0-226-43893-1.
- Kooreman, Megan. The Expectation of Justice: France, 1944–1946. (Duke University Press. 1999)
- William Langer, Our Vichy gamble, (1947); U.S. policy 1940-42
- Larkin, Maurice. France since the Popular Front: Government and People 1936-1996 (Oxford U P 1997). ISBN 0-19-873151-5
- Levendel, Isaac. Not the Germans alone: A son's search for the truth of Vichy. (Northwestern University Press. 2001). ISBN 0-8101-1843-2
- Marrus, Michael R. and Robert Paxton. Vichy France and the Jews. (Basic Books: 1981). ISBN 0-465-09005-2
- Melton, George E. Darlan: Admiral and Statesman of France, 1881–1942. (Praeger, 1998). ISBN 0-275-95973-2.
- Nord, Philip. France's New Deal: From the Thirties to the Postwar Era (Princeton U.P., 2010) 457 pages
- Paxton, Robert O. Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944 (2nd ed. 2001) excerpt and text search
- Henry Rousso. The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944. (2nd ed. 2006). ISBN 0-674-93539-X
- Smith, Colin. England's Last War Against France: Fighting Vichy, 1940–1942, London, Weidenfeld, 2009. ISBN 978-0-297-85218-6
- John F. Sweets, Choices in Vichy France: The French Under Nazi Occupation (New York, 1986) excerpt and text seach, focus on city of Clermont-Ferrand
- Martin Thomas, The French Empire at War, 1940–45, Manchester University Press, 1998, paperback 2007.
- Vinen, Richard. The Unfree French: Life Under the Occupation (2007)
- Richard H. Weisberg. Vichy Law and the Holocaust in France. New York University Press. 1998. ISBN 0-8147-9336-3
French[link]
- Henri Amouroux, La grande histoire des Français sous l'Occupation, 8 volumes, Laffont, 1976
- Jean-Pierre Azéma & François Bedarida,Vichy et les Français, Paris, Fayard, 1996.
- Le régime de Vichy et les Français (dir. Jean-Pierre Azéma & François Bédarida, Institut d'histoire du temps présent), Fayard, 1992, ISBN 2-213-02683-1
- Michèle Cointet. L'Eglise sous Vichy. 1940–1945. La repentance en question., Perrin, Paris, 1998. ISBN 2-262-01231-8
- Eric Conan et Henry Rousso. Vichy, un passé qui ne passe pas, Fayard, Paris, 1994, ISBN 2-213-59237-3
- Yves Maxime Danan, La vie politique à Alger, de 1940 à 1944, L.G.D.J., Paris 1963.
- André Kaspi. Les Juifs pendant l'Occupation, Seuil, Paris, 1991, ISBN 2-02-013509-4
- Simon Kitson, Vichy et la chasse aux espions nazis, Autrement, Paris, 2005, ISBN 2-7467-0588-5
- Serge Klarsfeld. Vichy-Auschwitz. Le rôle de Vichy dans la solution finale de la question juive en France. 1943–1944., Fayard, Paris, 1985, ISBN 2-213-01573-2
- Herbert R. Lottman. Pétain. Seuil, 1984, ISBN 2-02-006763-3
- Jacques Sabille. "Les Juifs de Tunisie sous Vichy et l'Occupation". Paris: Edition du Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, 1954
- David Bensoussan, Il était une fois le Maroc : témoignages du passé judéo-marocain, éd. du Lys, www.editionsdulys.com, Montréal, 2010 (ISBN 2-922505-14-6); Deuxième édition : www.iuniverse.com, Bloomington, IN, ISBN 978-1-4759-2608-8,ISBN: 978-1-4759-2609-5 (électronique);
German[link]
- Eberhard Jäckel: Frankreich in Hitlers Europa: die deutsche Frankreichpolitik im 2. Weltkrieg, Stuttgart 1966.
- Martin Jungius: Der verwaltete Raub. Die „Arisierung“ der Wirtschaft in Frankreich 1940–1944. Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2008, Beiheft der Francia Nr. 67, hrsg. von Deutschen Historischen Institut Paris.
- Henry Rousso, Vichy. Frankreich unter deutscher Besatzung 1940–1944 (München, C.H.Beck, 2009) (beck'sche reihe; 1910).
- Michael Mayer Staaten als Täter. Ministerialbürokratie und 'Judenpolitik' in NS-Deutschland und Vichy-Frankreich. Ein Vergleich. Preface by Horst Möller and Georges-Henri Soutou München, Oldenbourg, 2010 (Studien zur Zeitgeschichte; 80). ISBN 978-3-486-58945-0. (Comparative study of anti-Jewish policy implemented by the government in Nazi-Germany, by German occupational forces in France and by the semi-autonomic French government in Vichy)
Films[link]
- Marcel Ophüls, 1969. The Sorrow and the Pity
- Claude Chabrol, 1993. The Eye of Vichy
External links[link]
- Vichy propaganda posters
- Simon Kitson's Vichy web-page
- Original "Establishment of the Vichy government" constitutional act
- Informational page about state collaboration of Vichy France with Nazi Germany.
- Map of the "free" and "occupied" French zones
- National Geographic coverage of the armistice (French)
- Wartime map of fascist Europe
- Obituary of a Republic Time Magazine, 22 July 1940
- Vica Nazi Propaganda Comics – Duke University Libraries Digital Collections—Pro-Nazi comics produced in Vichy France
- NAZI diplomacy: Vichy, 1940
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Coordinates: 46°10′N 3°24′E / 46.167°N 3.4°E / 46.167; 3.4
http://wn.com/Vichy_France
Related pages:
http://it.wn.com/Governo di Vichy
http://cs.wn.com/Vichystická Francie
http://es.wn.com/Francia de Vichy
http://ru.wn.com/Режим Виши
http://nl.wn.com/Vichy-Frankrijk
http://pl.wn.com/Francja Vichy
http://fr.wn.com/Régime de Vichy
http://de.wn.com/Vichy-Regime
http://pt.wn.com/França de Vichy
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vichy_France
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is about the country. For other uses, see France (disambiguation).
| French Republic
République française
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Motto: Liberté, égalité, fraternité (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity) |
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Anthem: "La Marseillaise" |
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![Location of Metropolitan France (dark green)– in Europe (green & dark grey)– in the European Union (green) — [Legend]](http://web.archive.org./web/20121221033442/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EU-France.svg) Location of Metropolitan France (dark green)
– in Europe (green & dark grey) |
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 Territory of the French Republic in the world1 |
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| Capital (and largest city) |
Paris 48°51.4′N 2°21.05′E / 48.8567°N 2.35083°E / 48.8567; 2.35083 |
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| Official language(s) | French[a] | |||||
| Demonym | French | |||||
| Government | Unitary semi-presidential constitutional republic | |||||
| - | President | François Hollande | ||||
| - | Prime Minister | Jean-Marc Ayrault | ||||
| Legislature | Parliament | |||||
| - | Upper house | Senate | ||||
| - | Lower house | National Assembly | ||||
| Formation | ||||||
| - | Francia | 486 (Unification by Clovis) | ||||
| - | West Francia | 843 (Treaty of Verdun) | ||||
| - | Current constitution | 4 October 1958 (5th Republic) | ||||
| Area | ||||||
| - | Total[b] | 674,843 km2 (41st) 260,558 sq mi |
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| - | Metropolitan France | |||||
| - IGN[c] | 551,695 km2 (47th) 213,010 sq mi |
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| - Cadastre[d] | 543,965 km2 (47th) 210,026 sq mi |
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| Population | ||||||
| (2012 estimate) | ||||||
| - | Total[b] | 65,350,000[2] (20th) | ||||
| - | Metropolitan France | 63,460,000[1] (22nd) | ||||
| - | Density[e] | 116/km2 (89th) 301/sq mi |
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| GDP (PPP) | 2011 estimate | |||||
| - | Total | $2.218 trillion[3] (9th) | ||||
| - | Per capita | $35,156[3] (24th) | ||||
| GDP (nominal) | 2011 estimate | |||||
| - | Total | $2.776 trillion[3] (5th) | ||||
| - | Per capita | $44,008[3] (20th) | ||||
| Gini (2008) | 28.9[4] | |||||
| HDI (2011) |  0.884[5] (very high) (20th) |
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| Currency | Euro,[f] CFP franc[g] ( EUR, XPF) |
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| Time zone | CET[h] (UTC+1) | |||||
| - | Summer (DST) | CEST[i] (UTC+2) | ||||
| Drives on the | right | |||||
| ISO 3166 code | FR | |||||
| Internet TLD | .fr[j] | |||||
| Calling code | 33[k] | |||||
| 1 | Excluding Adélie Land in Antarctica, where sovereignty is suspended. | |||||
France (English i/ˈfræns/ FRANSS or /ˈfrɑːns/ FRAHNSS; French: [fʁɑ̃s] ( listen)), officially the French Republic (French: République française [ʁepyblik fʁɑ̃sɛz]), is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean. It is often referred to as l’Hexagone ("The Hexagon") because of the geometric shape of its territory. It is the largest western European country and it possesses the second-largest exclusive economic zone in the world, covering 11,035,000 km2 (4,260,000 sq mi), just behind that of the United States (11,351,000 km2 / 4,383,000 sq mi).
Over the past 500 years,[6] France has been a major power with strong cultural, economic, military and political influence in Europe and around the world. During the 17th and 18th centuries, France colonised great parts of North America and Southeast Asia; during the 19th and early 20th centuries, France built the second largest colonial empire of the time, including large portions of North, West and Central Africa, Southeast Asia, and many Caribbean and Pacific Islands.
France has its main ideals expressed in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. The French Republic is defined as indivisible, secular, democratic and social by its constitution.[7] France is one of the world's most developed countries,[8] it possesses the world's fifth largest economy measured by GDP, the ninth-largest economy measured by purchasing power parity and is Europe's second largest economy by nominal GDP.[9] France is the wealthiest nation in Europe – and the fourth wealthiest in the world – in aggregate household wealth.[10] France enjoys a high standard of living as well as a high public education level, and has also one of the world's longest life expectancies.[11] France has been listed as the world's "best overall health care" provider by the World Health Organization.[12] It is the most visited country in the world, receiving 82 million foreign tourists annually.[13]
France has the world's fourth largest nominal military budget,[14] the third largest military in NATO and EU's largest army. France also possesses the third largest nuclear weapons stockpile in the world[15] – with around 300 active warheads as of 25 May 2010 (2010 -05-25)[update] – and the world's second largest diplomatic corps (second only to that of the United States).[16]
France is a founding member of the United Nations, one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, and a member of the Francophonie, the G8, G20, NATO, OECD, WTO, and the Latin Union. It is also a founding and leading member state of the European Union and the largest EU state by area.[17] In 2011, France was listed 20th on the Human Development Index and 24th on the Corruption Perceptions Index (2010).
Contents |
Etymology[link]
Main article: Name of France
The name "France" comes from the Latin Francia, which means "country of the Franks".[18] There are various theories as to the origin of the name of the Franks. One is that it is derived from the Proto-Germanic word frankon which translates as javelin or lance as the throwing axe of the Franks was known as a francisca.[19] Another proposed etymology is that in an ancient Germanic language, Frank means free as opposed to slave.
History[link]
Main article: History of France
See also: Military history of France, Economic history of France, and Territorial evolution of France
Prehistory and antiquity[link]
The oldest traces of human life in what is now France date from approximately 1,800,000 years ago.[20] Men were then confronted by a hard and variable climate, marked by several glacial eras which modified their framework of life and led them to a nomadic life of hunters-gatherers.[20] France counts a large number of decorated caves from the upper Paleolithic era, including one of the most famous and best preserved: Lascaux[20] (Dordogne, approximately 18,000 BC).
At the end of the Last glacial period (10,000 BC), the climate softened[20] and from approximately 7,000 BC, this part of Western Europe entered the Neolithic era and its inhabitants became sedentary. After a strong demographic and agricultural development between the 4th and 3rd millennia, metallurgy appeared at the end of the 3rd millennium, initially with the work of gold, copper and bronze, and later with iron.[21] France counts numerous megalithic sites from the Neolithic period, including the exceptionally dense Carnac stones site (Morbihan, approximately 3,300 BC).
In 600 BC, Ionian Greeks, originating from Phocaea, founded the colony of Massalia (present-day Marseille), on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, making it the oldest city of France.[22][23] At the same time, some Gallic Celtic tribes penetrated some parts of the current territory of France, but this occupation spread in the rest of France only between the 5th and 3rd century BC.[24]
The concept of Gaul emerged at that time; it corresponds to the territories of Celtic settlement ranging between the Rhine, the Atlantic Ocean, the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean Sea. The borders of modern France are approximately the same as those of ancient Gaul, which was inhabited by Celtic Gauls. Gaul was then a prosperous country, of which the southernmost part was heavily subject to Greek and Roman influences. However, around 390 BC, the Gallic chieftain Brennus and his troops made their way to Italy through the Alps, defeated the Romans in the Battle of the Allia, and besieged and ransomed Rome.
The Gallic invasion left Rome weakened and encouraged several subdued Italian tribes to rebel. One by one, over the course of the next 50 years, these tribes were defeated and brought back under Roman dominion. The Gauls continued to harass the region until 345 BC, when they entered into a formal peace treaty with Rome. But the Romans and the Gauls would maintain an adversarial relationship for the next several centuries and the Gauls would remain a threat in Italia.
Around 125 BC, the south of Gaul was conquered by the Romans, who called this region Provincia Romana ("Roman Province"), which over time evolved into the name Provence in French.[25] Brennus' siege of Rome was still remembered by Romans, when Julius Caesar conquered the remainder of Gaul and overcame a revolt carried out by the Gallic chieftain Vercingetorix in 52 BC.[26]
Gaul was divided by Augustus into Roman provinces, the principal ones being Gallia Narbonensis in the south, Gallia Aquitania in the south-west, Gallia Lugdunensis in the center and Gallia Belgica in the north.[27] Many cities were founded during the Gallo-Roman period, including Lugdunum (present-day Lyon), which is considered to be the capital of the Gauls.[27] These cities were built in the traditional Roman style, with a forum, a theatre, a circus, an amphitheatre and thermal baths. The Gauls mixed with Roman settlers and eventually adopted Roman speech (Latin, from which the French language evolved) and Roman culture. The Roman polytheism merged with the Gallic paganism into the same syncretism.
Around the 3rd century AD, Roman Gaul underwent a serious crisis with its "limes" (fortified borders protecting the Empire) crossed on several occasions by Barbarians.[28] The weakness of the central imperial power, at this time, led Gallo-Roman leaders to proclaim the independence of the short-lived Gallic Empire,[28] which ended with the Battle of Châlons in 274, which saw Gaul reincorporated in the Roman Empire.
Nevertheless, the situation improved in the first half of the 4th century, which was a period of revival and prosperity for Roman Gaul.[29] In 312, the emperor Constantin I converted to Christianity. Christians, persecuted until then, multiplied across the entire Roman Empire.[30] But, from the second half of the 4th century, the Barbarian Invasions started again,[31] and Germanic tribes, such as the Vandals, Suebi and Alans crossed the Rhine and settled in Gaul, Spain and other parts of the collapsing Roman Empire.[32]
At the end of the Antiquity period, ancient Gaul was divided into several Germanic kingdoms (Early Francia (North), Alamannia (North-East), Burgundia (East), Septimania (South), Visigothic Aquitania (South East)) and a remaining Gallo-Roman territory, known as the Kingdom of Syagrius (West). Simultaneously, Celtic Britons, fleeing the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britannia, settled the western part of Armorica (far West of Gaul). As a result, the Armorican peninsula was renamed Brittany, Celtic culture was revived and independent petty kingdoms arose in this region.
Middle Ages to revolution[link]
Main articles: Francia, France in the Middle Ages, Absolute monarchy in France, Ancien Régime in France, Early modern France, and List of French monarchs
The pagan Franks, from whom the ancient name of “Francie” was derived, originally settled the northern part of Gaul, but under Clovis I conquered most of the other kingdoms in northern and central Gaul. In 498, Clovis I was the first Germanic conqueror after the fall of the Roman Empire to convert to Catholic Christianity, rather than Arianism; thus France was given the title “Eldest daughter of the Church” (French: La fille aînée de l’Église) by the papacy,[33] and the French kings would be called “the Most Christian Kings of France” (Rex Christianissimus).
The Franks embraced the Christian Gallo-Roman heritage and ancient Gaul was eventually renamed Francia ("Land of the Franks"). The Germanic Franks adopted Romanic languages, except in northern Gaul where Roman settlements were less dense and where Germanic languages emerged. Clovis made Paris his capital and established the Merovingian dynasty, but his kingdom would not survive his death. The Franks treated land purely as a private possession and divided it among their heirs, so four kingdoms emerged from Clovis's: Paris, Orléans, Soissons, and Rheims. The last Merovingian kings, sometimes referred as Rois fainéants ("lazy kings"), effectively lost power to their mayors of the palace. One mayor of the palace, Charles Martel, defeated a Muslim invasion force from Hispania at the Battle of Tours (732) and earned respect and power within the Frankish kingdoms. His son, Pepin the Short, eventually seized the crown of Francia from the weakened Merovingians and founded the Carolingian dynasty. Pippin's son, Charlemagne, reunited the Frankish kingdoms and built a vast empire across Western and Central Europe.
Proclaimed Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Leo III and thus establishing in earnest the French government's longtime historical association with the Roman Catholic Church,[34] Charlemagne tried to revive the Western Roman Empire and its cultural grandeur, from his Palace of Aachen. The efficient administration of this immense empire was ensured by high-level civil servants, carrying the, then non-hereditary, titles of counts (in charge of a County), marquis (in charge of a March), dukes (military commanders), etc.
Charlemagne's son, Louis I (emperor 814–840), kept the empire united; however, this Carolingian Empire would not survive his death. In 843, under the Treaty of Verdun, the empire was divided between Louis' three sons, with East Francia going to Louis the German, Middle Francia to Lothair I, and West Francia to Charles the Bald. Western Francia approximated the area occupied by, and was the precursor, to modern France.[35]
During the course of the 9th and 10th centuries, continually threatened by Viking invasions, France became a very decentralised state: the nobility's titles and lands became hereditary, and the authority of the king became more religious than secular and thus was less effective and constantly challenged by powerful noblemen. Thus was established feudalism in France. Over time, some of the king's vassals would grow so powerful that they often posed a threat to the king. For example, after the Battle of Hastings in 1066, the Duke of Normandy added "King of England" to his titles, becoming both the vassal to (as Duke of Normandy) and the equal of (as king of England) to the king of France.
The Carolingian dynasty ruled France until 987, when Hugh Capet, Duke of France and Count of Paris, was crowned King of France.[36] His descendants, the Direct Capetians, the House of Valois and the House of Bourbon, progressively unified the country through a series of wars, such as the Saintonge War, and dynastic inheritance into the Kingdom of France. French knights took an active part in many of the Crusades that were fought between 1095 and 1291 to restore Christian control over the Holy Land. Crusaders were so predominately French that the word "crusader" in the Arabic language is simply known as Al-Franj or "The Franks"[37] and Old French became the lingua franca of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.[38]
The Albigensian Crusade was launched in 1209 to eliminate the heretical Cathars in the south-western area of modern-day France. In the end, the Cathars were exterminated and the autonomous County of Toulouse was annexed into the kingdom of France.[39] Later Kings expanded their territory to cover over half of modern continental France, including most of the North, Centre and West of France. Meanwhile, the royal authority became more and more assertive, centred around a hierarchically conceived society distinguishing nobility, clergy, and commoners.
Charles IV (The Fair) died without an heir in 1328.[40] Under the rules of the Salic law adopted in 1316, the crown of France could not pass to a woman nor could the line of kinship pass through the female line.[40] Accordingly, the crown passed to Philip of Valois, a cousin of Charles, rather than through the female line to Charles' nephew, Edward, who would soon become Edward III of England. During the reign of Philip of Valois, the French monarchy reached the height of its medieval power.[40]
However, Philip's seat on the throne was contested by Edward III of England and in 1337, on the eve of the first wave of the Black Death,[41] England and France went to war in what would become known as the Hundred Years' War.[42] The exact boundaries changed greatly with time, but French landholdings of the English Kings remained extensive for decades.
With charismatic leaders, such as Joan of Arc and La Hire, strong French counterattacks won back all English continental territories, except Calais, which was captured in 1558 by the French. Like the rest of Europe, France was struck by the Black Death. Around 1340, France had a population of approximately 17 million,[43] which by the end of the pandemic had declined by about one-half.[44]
The French Renaissance saw a long set of wars, known as the Great Italian Wars, between the Kingdom of France and the powerful Holy Roman Empire. It also saw the first standardization of the French language, which would become the official language of France and the language of Europe's aristocracy. French explorers, such as Jacques Cartier or Samuel de Champlain, claimed lands in the Americas for France, paving the way for the expansion of the First French colonial empire.
The rise of Protestantism in Europe led France to a civil war known as the French Wars of Religion, where, in the most notorious incident, thousands of Huguenots were murdered in the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572.[45] The Wars of Religion were ended by Henry IV's Edict of Nantes, which granted some freedom of religion to the Huguenots. Henry IV was later murdered by a Catholic fanatic and Huguenot rebellions persisted until the 18th century.
Under Louis XIII, the energetic actions of Cardinal Richelieu reinforced the centralization of the state, the royal power and French dominance in Europe, foreshadowing the reign of Louis XIV. During Louis XIV's minority and the regency of Queen Anne and Cardinal Mazarin, a period of trouble known as the Fronde occurred in France, which was at that time at war with Spain. This rebellion was driven by the great feudal lords and sovereign courts as a reaction to the rise of royal power in France.
The monarchy reached its peak during the 17th century and the reign of Louis XIV. By turning powerful feudal lords into courtiers at the Palace of Versailles, Louis XIV's personal power became unchallenged. Remembered for his numerous wars, he made France the leading European power of the time. At this time, France possessed the largest population in Europe (see Demographics of France) and had tremendous influence over European politics, economy, and culture. French became the most-used language in diplomacy, science, literature and international affairs, and remained so until the 20th century.[46] In addition, France obtained many overseas possessions in the Americas, Africa and Asia. Louis XIV also revoked the Edict of Nantes, forcing thousands of Huguenots to exile.
Under Louis XV, France lost New France and most of its Indian possessions after its defeat in the Seven Years' War, which ended in 1763. Its continental territory kept growing, however, with notable acquisitions such as Lorraine (1766) and Corsica (1770). An unpopular king, Louis XV's weak rule, his ill-advised financial, political and military decisions, and his debauchery discredited the monarchy and arguably led to the French Revolution 15 years after his death.[47][48]
Louis XVI, Louis XV's grandson, actively supported the Americans, who were seeking their independence from Great Britain (realized in the 1783 Treaty of Paris). The example of the American Revolution and the financial crisis which followed France's involvement in the war were two of the many contributing factors to the French Revolution.
Much of the Enlightenment occurred in French intellectual circles, and major scientific breakthroughs and inventions, such as the discovery of oxygen (1778) and the first hot air balloon carrying passengers (1783), were achieved by French scientists in the 18th century. Famous French explorers, such as Bougainville and Lapérouse, took part in the voyages of scientific exploration through maritime expeditions around the globe. The Enlightenment philosophy, in which reason is advocated as the primary source for legitimacy and authority, undermined the power of and support for the monarchy and helped pave the way for the French Revolution.
Monarchy to republic[link]
Main articles: France in the long nineteenth century and France in the twentieth century
After the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, the absolute monarchy was abolished and France became a constitutional monarchy. Through the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, France established fundamental rights for French citizens and all men without exception. The Declaration affirms "the natural and imprescriptible rights of man" to "liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression". It called for the destruction of aristocratic privileges by proclaiming an end to exemptions from taxation, freedom and equal rights for all men, and access to public office based on talent rather than birth. The monarchy was restricted, and all citizens were to have the right to take part in the legislative process. Freedom of speech and press were declared, and arbitrary arrests outlawed. The Declaration also asserted the principles of popular sovereignty, in contrast to the divine right of kings that characterized the French monarchy, and social equality among citizens, eliminating the privileges of the nobility and clergy.
While Louis XVI, as a constitutional king, enjoyed broad popularity among the population, his disastrous flight to Varennes seemed to justify the rumors that the king tied his hopes of political salvation to the dubious prospects of foreign invasion. The credibility of the king was deeply undermined and the abolition of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic became an ever increasing possibility.
As European monarchies gathered against the new régime, to restore the French absolute monarchy, the Duke of Brunswick, commanding general of the Austro–Prussian Army, issued a Manifesto, in which he threatened the destruction of Paris if any harm should come to the king or his family. The foreign threat exacerbated France's political turmoil and deepened the passion and sense of urgency among the various factions and war was declared against Austria the 20 April 1792. Mob violences occurred during the insurrection of the 10 August 1792[49] and the following month.[50] As a result of the spike in public violence and the political instability of the constitutional monarchy, the Republic was proclaimed on 22 September 1792.
Louis XVI (and later his wife Marie Antoinette) was convicted of treason and guillotined in 1793. Facing increasing pressures from European monarchies, internal guerrilla wars and counterrevolutions (like the War in the Vendée or the Chouannerie), the young Republic fell into the Reign of Terror. Between 1793 and 1794, 16,000 to 40,000 persons were executed. In Western France, the civil war between the Bleus (the "Blues", supporters of the Revolution) and the Blancs (the "Whites", supporters of the Monarchy) last from 1793 to 1796 and cost around 450,000 lives (200,000 Patriotes and 250,000 Vendéens).[51] Both foreign armies and French counterrevolutionnaries were crushed and the French Republic survived. Furthermore, the French Republic extended greatly its boundaries and established "Sister Republics" in the surrounding countries. As the threat of a foreign invasion receded and that France became mostly pacified, the Thermidorian Reaction put an end to the Terror and to Robespierre's dictature. The abolition of slavery and the male universal suffrage, enacted during this radical phase of the revolution, were cancelled by subsequent governments.
After a short-lived governmental scheme, Napoleon Bonaparte seized control of the Republic in 1799 and was appointed First Consul and later Emperor of the French Empire (1804–1814/1815). As a continuation of the wars sparked by the European monarchies against the French Republic, changing sets of European Coalitions declared wars to Napoleon's French Empire. His armies conquered most of continental Europe, while members of the Bonaparte family were appointed as monarchs in some of the newly established kingdoms. These victories led to the worldwide expansion of French revolutionary ideals and reforms, such as the Metric system, the Napoleonic Code or the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. After the catastrophic Russian campaign, Napoleon was finally defeated and the Bourbon monarchy restored. About a million Frenchmen died during the Napoleonic Wars.[52]
After his brief return from exile, Napoleon was finally defeated in 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo, the monarchy was re-established (1815–1830), with new constitutional limitations. The discredited Bourbon dynasty was overthrown by the civil uprising of 1830, which established the constitutional July Monarchy, which lasted until 1848, when the French Second Republic was proclaimed, in the wake of the 1848 European revolutions. The abolition of slavery and the male universal suffrage, both briefly enacted during the French Revolution were finally re-enacted in 1848. In 1852, the president of the French Republic Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, Napoleon I’s nephew, was proclaimed emperor of the second Empire, as Napoleon III. He multiplied French interventions abroad, especially in Crimea, in Mexico and Italy, which resulted in the annexation of Savoy and Nice. Napoleon III was eventually unseated following defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 and his regime was replaced by the Third Republic.
France had colonial possessions, in various forms, since the beginning of the 17th century to the 18th century. But in the 19th and 20th centuries, its global overseas colonial empire extended greatly and culminated as the second largest in the world behind the British Empire. At its peak, between 1919 and 1939, the second French colonial empire extended over 12,347,000 square kilometres (4,767,000 sq mi) of land. Including metropolitan France, the total area of land under French sovereignty reached 12,898,000 square kilometres (4,980,000 sq mi) in the 1920s and 1930s, which is 8.6% of the world's land area.
France was a member of the Triple Entente when World War I broke out. A small part of Northern France was occupied, but France and its allies eventually emerged victorious against the Central Powers, at a tremendous human and material cost: the First World War left 1.4 million French soldiers dead, 4.29% of its population[53] The interbellum phase was marked by intense international tensions an a variety of social reforms introduced by the Popular Front government (Annual leave, working time reduction, women in Government...). Following the German Blitzkrieg campaign in World War II, metropolitan France was divided in an occupation zone in the north and Vichy France, a newly established authoritarian regime collaborating with Germany, in the south.[54] The Allies and the French Resistance eventually emerged victorious from the Axis powers and French sovereignty was restored.
The Fourth Republic was established after World War II and saw spectacular economic growth (les Trente Glorieuses). The universal suffrage was extended to women in 1944. France was one of the founding members of the NATO (1949), which was the Western counterpart of the Warsaw Pact system of collective defence. France attempted to regain control of French Indochina but was defeated by the Viet Minh at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Only months later, France faced a new conflict in Algeria. The debate over whether or not to keep control of Algeria, then home to over one million European settlers,[55] wracked the country and nearly led to civil war. In 1958, the weak and unstable Fourth Republic gave way to the Fifth Republic, which contained a strengthened Presidency.[56] In the latter role, Charles de Gaulle managed to keep the country together while taking steps to end the war. The Algerian War was concluded with peace negotiations in 1962 that led to Algerian independence. France granted independence progressively to its colonies, the last one being Vanuatu in 1980. A vestige of the colonial empire are the French overseas departments and territories.
In the wake of a worldwide series of protests, the May 1968 revolt, although a political failure for the protesters, had an enormous social impact. In France, it is considered to be the watershed moment when a conservative moral ideal (religion, patriotism, respect for authority) shifted towards a more liberal moral ideal.
France has been at the forefront of the European Union member states seeking to exploit the momentum of monetary union to create a more unified and capable European Union political, defence, and security apparatus.[57]
Geography[link]
Main article: Geography of France
Metropolitan France is situated mostly between latitudes 41° and 51° N (Dunkirk is just north of 51°), and longitudes 6° W and 10° E, on the western edge of Europe, and thus lies within the northern temperate zone
While Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe, the French Republic also has a number of territories in North America, the Caribbean, South America, the southern Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, and Antarctica.[58] These territories have varying forms of government ranging from overseas department to overseas collectivity. France's overseas departments and collectivities share land borders with Brazil, and Suriname (bordering French Guiana), and Sint Maarten (bordering Saint-Martin).
The European territory of France covers 547,030 square kilometres (211,209 sq mi),[59] having the largest area among European Union members.[17] France possesses a wide variety of landscapes, from coastal plains in the north and west to mountain ranges of the Alps in the south-east, the Massif Central in the south-central and Pyrenees in the south-west.
At 4,810.45 metres (15,782 ft)[60] above sea level, the highest point in Western Europe, Mont Blanc, is situated in the Alps on the border between France and Italy. France also has extensive river systems such as the Seine, the Loire, the Garonne, and the Rhone, which divides the Massif Central from the Alps and flows into the Mediterranean Sea at the Camargue. Corsica lies off the Mediterranean coast.
France's total land area, with its overseas departments and territories (excluding Adélie Land), is 674,843 km2 (260,558 sq mi), 0.45% of the total land area on Earth. However, France possesses the second-largest Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the world,[62] covering 11,035,000 km2 (4,260,637 sq mi), approximately 8% of the total surface of all the EEZs of the world, just behind the United States (11,351,000 km2/4,382,646 sq mi) and ahead of Australia (8,232,000 km2/3,178,393 sq mi).{{According to a different calculation cited by the Pew Research Center, the EEZ of France would be 10,084,201 km2 (3,893,532 sq mi), still behind the United States (12,174,629 km2/4,700,651 sq mi), and still ahead of Australia (8,980,568 km2/3,467,417 sq mi) and Russia (7,566,673 km2/2,921,509 sq mi). The north and northwest have a temperate climate, while a combination of maritime influences, latitude and altitude produce a varied climate in the rest of Metropolitan France.[63]
In the south-east a Mediterranean climate prevails. In the west, the climate is predominantly oceanic with a high level of rainfall, mild winters and cool to warm summers. Inland the climate becomes more continental with hot, stormy summers, colder winters and less rain. The climate of the Alps and other mountainous regions is mainly alpine, with the number of days with temperatures below freezing over 150 per year and snow cover lasting for up to six months.
| Landscapes and climates of France | ||||||||||||||
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Environment[link]
See also: Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development, Transport and Housing, National parks of France, and Regional natural parks of France
France was one of the first countries to create a Ministry of the Environment, in 1971.[64] Although France is one of the most industrialised and developed countries, it is ranked only seventeenth by carbon dioxide emissions, behind such less populous nations as Canada, Saudi Arabia or Australia. This situation results from the French government's decision to invest in nuclear power in 1974 (after the 1973 oil crisis[65]), which now accounts for 78% of France's electricity production[66] and explains why France pollutes less than comparable countries.[67][68]
Like all European Union members, France agreed to cut carbon emissions by at least 20% of 1990 levels by the year 2020,[69] in comparison the USA agreed to a cut of 4% of its emissions[70] whereas China stated it wanted to "reduce its carbon intensity by 40–45% by the year 2020" (compared with 2005 levels),[71] which means with a GDP growth of 8% yearly an augmentation of 80%[70] to 250%[72] of the Chinese carbon emissions by 2020.
In 2009, the French carbon dioxide emissions per capita level is lower than the Chinese one.[73]
France was even set to impose a carbon tax in 2009 at 17 Euros per tonne of carbon dioxide emitted.[74] The carbon tax would have brought in 4.3 billion Euros of revenue per year.[75] However, 6 months later, the plan for a carbon tax was abandoned for various reasons, one being that French companies would have a more difficult time competing with companies in neighboring countries who would not have to pay such steep taxes on carbon dioxide emissions. Instituting a carbon tax was also an unpopular political move for President Sarkozy.[76]
In 2010, a study at Yale and Columbia universities ranked France the most environmentally conscious nation of the G20.[77][78]
Forests account for 28,27% of the land area of France.[79][80] France is the second most wooded country of the EU.[81] French forests are also some of the most diversified of Europe, with more than 140 differents varieties of trees.[82] There are 9 national parks[83] and 46 natural parks in France.[84] France wants to convert 20% of its Exclusive Economic Zone in a Marine Protected Area by 2020.[85]
Administrative divisions[link]
See also: Metropolitan Area (France) and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants (2006 census)
France is divided into 27 administrative regions.[59] 22 are in metropolitan France (21 are on the continental part of metropolitan France; one is the territorial collectivity of Corsica), and five are overseas regions. The regions are further subdivided into 101 departments[86] which are numbered (mainly alphabetically). This number is used in postal codes and vehicle number plates amongst others.
The 101 departments are subdivided into 341 arrondissements which are, in turn, subdivided into 4,051 cantons. These cantons are then divided into 36,697 communes, which are municipalities with an elected municipal council. There also exist 2,588 intercommunal entities grouping 33,414 of the 36,697 communes (i.e. 91.1% of all the communes). Three communes, Paris, Lyon and Marseille are also subdivided into 45 municipal arrondissements.
The regions, departments and communes are all known as territorial collectivities, meaning they possess local assemblies as well as an executive. Arrondissements and cantons are merely administrative divisions. However, this was not always the case. Until 1940, the arrondissements were also territorial collectivities with an elected assembly, but these were suspended by the Vichy regime and definitely abolished by the Fourth Republic in 1946. Historically,[when?] the cantons were also territorial collectivities with their elected assemblies.
| Region | Departments | Capital |
|---|---|---|
 Alsace |
Bas-Rhin, Haut-Rhin | Strasbourg |
 Aquitaine |
Dordogne, Gironde, Landes, Lot-et-Garonne, Pyrénées-Atlantiques | Bordeaux |
 Auvergne |
Allier, Cantal, Haute-Loire, Puy-de-Dôme | Clermont-Ferrand |
.svg){kind=small} Basse-Normandie |
Calvados, Manche, Orne | Caen |
 Bourgogne |
Côte-d'Or, Nièvre, Saône-et-Loire, Yonne | Dijon |
 Brittany |
Côtes-d'Armor, Finistère, Ille-et-Vilaine, Morbihan | Rennes |
 Centre |
Cher, Eure-et-Loir, Indre, Indre-et-Loire, Loiret, Loir-et-Cher | Orléans |
 Champagne-Ardenne |
Ardennes, Aube, Haute-Marne, Marne | Châlons-en-Champagne |
 Corsica (Corse) |
Corse-du-Sud, Haute-Corse | Ajaccio |
 Franche-Comté |
Doubs, Haute-Saône, Jura, Territoire de Belfort | Besançon |
 Haute-Normandie |
Eure, Seine-Maritime | Rouen |
 Île-de-France |
Essonne, Hauts-de-Seine, Paris, Seine-et-Marne, Seine-Saint-Denis, Val-de-Marne, Val-d'Oise, Yvelines | Paris |
 Languedoc-Roussillon |
Aude, Gard, Hérault, Lozère, Pyrénées-Orientales | Montpellier |
 Limousin |
Corrèze, Creuse, Haute-Vienne | Limoges |
 Lorraine |
Meurthe-et-Moselle, Meuse, Moselle, Vosges | Metz |
 Midi-Pyrénées |
Ariège, Aveyron, Gers, Haute-Garonne, Hautes-Pyrénées, Lot, Tarn, Tarn-et-Garonne | Toulouse |
 Nord-Pas-de-Calais |
Nord, Pas-de-Calais | Lille |
 Pays de la Loire |
Loire-Atlantique, Maine-et-Loire, Mayenne, Sarthe, Vendée | Nantes |
 Picardie |
Aisne, Oise, Somme | Amiens |
 Poitou-Charentes |
Charente, Charente-Maritime, Deux-Sèvres, Vienne | Poitiers |
 Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur |
Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, Alpes-Maritimes, Bouches-du-Rhône, Hautes-Alpes, Var, Vaucluse | Marseille |
 Rhône-Alpes |
Ain, Ardèche, Drôme, Haute-Savoie, Isère, Loire, Rhône, Savoie | Lyon |
Overseas regions and territories[link]
Main article: Overseas departments and territories of France
Among the 101 departments of France, five (French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, and Réunion) are in overseas regions (ROMs) that are also simultaneously overseas departments (DOMs) and are an integral part of France (and the European Union) and thus enjoy a status similar to metropolitan departments.
In addition to the 27 regions and 101 departments, the French Republic also has five overseas collectivities (French Polynesia, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Martin, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and Wallis and Futuna), one sui generis collectivity (New Caledonia), one overseas territory (French Southern and Antarctic Lands), and one island possession in the Pacific Ocean (Clipperton Island).
| Name | Constitutional status | Capital |
|---|---|---|
 Clipperton Island |
State private property under the direct authority of the French government | Uninhabited |
 French Guiana |
Overseas region (régions d'outre-mer) and simultaneously overseas department (département d'outre-mer or DOM) | Cayenne |
 French Polynesia |
Designated as an overseas land (pays d'outre-mer or POM), the status is the same as an overseas collectivity. | Papeete |
 French Southern and Antarctic Lands |
overseas territory (territoire d'outre-mer or TOM) | Port-aux-Français |
 Guadeloupe |
Overseas region and department (DOM) | Basse-Terre |
 Martinique |
Overseas region and department (DOM) | Fort-de-France |
 Mayotte |
Overseas region and department (DOM) | Mamoudzou |
 New Caledonia |
Sui generis collectivity | Nouméa |
| Réunion |
Overseas region and department (DOM) | Saint-Denis |
 Saint Barthélemy |
Overseas collectivity (collectivité d'outre-mer or COM) | Gustavia |
| Saint Martin |
Overseas collectivity (collectivité d'outre-mer or COM) | Marigot |
 Saint Pierre and Miquelon |
Overseas collectivity (collectivité d'outre-mer or COM). Still referred to as a collectivité territoriale. | Saint-Pierre |
 Wallis and Futuna |
Overseas collectivity (collectivité d'outre-mer or COM). Still referred to as a territoire. | Mata-Utu |
Overseas collectivities and territories form part of the French Republic, but do not form part of the European Union or its fiscal area (with the exception of St. Bartelemy, which seceded from Guadeloupe in 2007). The Pacific Collectivities (COMs) of French Polynesia, Wallis and Fortuna, and New Caledonia continue to use the CFP franc[87] whose value is linked to that of the euro. In contrast, the five overseas regions used the French franc and now use the euro.[88]
Politics[link]
Main article: Politics of France
Government[link]
Main articles: Government of France and Constitution of France
The French Republic is a unitary semi-presidential republic with strong democratic traditions.[89] The constitution of the Fifth Republic was approved by referendum on 28 September 1958.[90] It greatly strengthened the authority of the executive in relation to parliament. The executive branch itself has two leaders: the President of the Republic, currently François Hollande, who is head of state and is elected directly by universal adult suffrage for a 5-year term (formerly 7 years),[91] and the Government, led by the president-appointed Prime Minister, currently Jean-Marc Ayrault.
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The French parliament is a bicameral legislature comprising a National Assembly (Assemblée Nationale) and a Senate.[92] The National Assembly deputies represent local constituencies and are directly elected for 5-year terms.[93] The Assembly has the power to dismiss the cabinet, and thus the majority in the Assembly determines the choice of government. Senators are chosen by an electoral college for 6-year terms (originally 9-year terms), and one half of the seats are submitted to election every 3 years starting in September 2008.[94]
The Senate's legislative powers are limited; in the event of disagreement between the two chambers, the National Assembly has the final say.[95] The government has a strong influence in shaping the agenda of Parliament.
French politics are characterised by two politically opposed groupings: one left-wing, centred around the French Socialist Party, and the other right-wing, centred previously around the Rassemblement pour la République (RPR) and now its successor the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).[96] The executive branch is currently composed mostly of the UMP. However the 2012 election changed this with position of president won by PS.
Law[link]
Main article: Law of France
France uses a civil legal system;[59] that is, law arises primarily from written statutes; judges are not to make law, but merely to interpret it (though the amount of judicial interpretation in certain areas makes it equivalent to case law). Basic principles of the rule of law were laid in the Napoleonic Code (which was, in turn, largely based on the royal law codified under Louis XIV). In agreement with the principles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen law should only prohibit actions detrimental to society. As Guy Canivet, first president of the Court of Cassation, wrote about the management of prisons: :Freedom is the rule, and its restriction is the exception; any restriction of Freedom must be provided for by Law and must follow the principles of necessity and proportionality. That is, Law should lay out prohibitions only if they are needed, and if the inconveniences caused by this restriction do not exceed the inconveniences that the prohibition is supposed to remedy.
French law is divided into two principal areas: private law and public law. Private law includes, in particular, civil law and criminal law. Public law includes, in particular, administrative law and constitutional law. However, in practical terms, French law comprises three principal areas of law: civil law, criminal law and administrative law.
France does not recognize religious law, nor does it recognize religious beliefs or morality as a motivation for the enactment of prohibitions. As a consequence, France has long had neither blasphemy laws nor sodomy laws (the latter being abolished in 1791). However, "offenses against public decency" (contraires aux bonnes mœurs) or disturbing public order (trouble à l'ordre public) have been used to repress public expressions of homosexuality or street prostitution.
Criminal laws can only address the future and not the past (criminal ex post facto laws are prohibited) ; and to be applicable, laws must be officially published in the Journal Officiel de la République Française.
France is tolerant of the LGBT community. Since 1999, civil unions for homosexual couples are permitted, although same-sex marriage is illegal in France. Laws sentencing racism, sexism or antisemitism are old and important, for instance, laws prohibiting discriminatory speech in the press are as old as 1881.[97]
In 2010, France passed a law banning face veils in public, including those worn by Muslim women. Amnesty International has condemned the law as a violation of freedom of expression.[98] In September two Muslim women were fined for wearing the niqab (an Islamic face-covering veil), though they appealed the fines.[99]
Foreign relations[link]
Main article: Foreign relations of France
See also: European Union, Latin Union, Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, United Nations Security Council, and NATO
France is a member of the United Nations and serves as one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council with veto rights.[100] It is also a member of the G8, World Trade Organization (WTO),[101] the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC)[102] and the Indian Ocean Commission (COI).[103] It is an associate member of the Association of Caribbean States (ACS)[104] and a leading member of the International Francophone Organisation (OIF) of fifty-one fully or partly French-speaking countries.[105] It hosts the headquarters of the OECD,[106] UNESCO,[107] Interpol,[108] Alliance Base[109] and the International Bureau for Weights and Measures.[110] In 1953, France received a request from the United Nations to pick a coat of arms that would represent it internationally. Thus the French emblem was adopted and is currently used on passports.[111]
Postwar French foreign policy has been largely shaped by membership of the European Union, of which it was a founding member. In the 1960s, France sought to exclude the British from the organisation,[112] seeking to build its own standing in continental Europe. Since the 1960s, France has developed close ties with reunified Germany to become the most influential driving force of the EU.[113]
Since 1904, France has maintained an "Entente cordiale" with the United Kingdom, and there has been a strengthening of links between the countries, especially on a military level.
France is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, but under President de Gaulle, it excluded itself from the joint military command to avoid American domination of its foreign and security policies.[114] However, as a result of Nicolas Sarkozy's (much criticised in France by the leftists and by a part of the right)[115][116] pro-American politics, France rejoined the NATO joint military command on 4 April 2009. In the early 1990s, the country drew considerable criticism from other nations for its underground nuclear tests in French Polynesia.[117] France vigorously opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq,[118][119] straining bilateral relations with the US[120][121] and the UK.[122] France retains strong political and economic influence in its former African colonies (Françafrique)[123] and has supplied economic aid and troops for peace-keeping missions in the Ivory Coast and Chad.[124]
France has the second largest network of diplomatic missions in the world, second only to the USA.[125]
Development aid[link]
In 2009, France is the second largest (in absolute numbers) donor of development aid in the world, behind the US, and ahead of Germany, Japan and the UK.[126] This represents 0.5 % of its GDP, in this regard rating as more generous than most other developed countries ; however, it does not meet the International Aid Target of 0.7 %.[127] The organism managing the French help is the French Development Agency, which finances primarily humanitarian projects in sub-Saharan Africa.[128] The main goals of this help are "developing infrastructure, access to health care and education, the implementation of appropriate economic policies and the consolidation of the rule of law and democracy."[128]
Military[link]
Main article: French Armed Forces
See also: Military history of France and Deployments of the French military
File:French military images.jpg
Examples of France's military. Clockwise from top left: Nuclear aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle; A pair of Rafale fighter aircraft; French Chasseurs Alpins patrolling the valleys of Kapisa province in Afghanistan; a Leclerc tank in Paris for the 14 July Bastille Day Military Parade.
France's armed forces (Armées françaises), comprising the French Army (Armée de Terre), French Navy (Marine Nationale), and the French Air Force (Armée de l'Air), and the auxiliary paramilitary force, the National Gendarmerie (Gendarmerie nationale) is the thirteenth largest in the world.[129] Individually, the Navy employs 42,550 professional sailors and 15,000 part-time reservists[130] and has a displacement 307,000 tons making it the world's sixth biggest navy.[131] The Army employs 123,100 regulars and 118,350 part-time reservists[132] making it the fourth largest in NATO. The Air Force is the oldest and first professional air force in the world[133] and employs 57,400 regulars making it also the fourth largest in NATO. While administratively a part of the French armed forces, and therefore under the purview of the Ministry of Defence, the Gendarmerie is operationally attached to the Ministry of the Interior. The gendarmerie is a military police force which serves for the most part as a rural and general purpose police force. It encompasses the counter terrorist units of the Parachute Intervention Squadron of the National Gendarmerie (Escadron Parachutiste d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale) and the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale). One of the French intelligence units, the Directorate-General for External Security (Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure) reports to the Ministry of Defence. The other, the Central Directorate of Interior Intelligence (Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur), reports directly to the Ministry of the Interior. There has been no national conscription since 1997.[134] The president is the supreme commander of the French Armed Forces. France is a permanent member of the Security Council of the UN, and a recognised nuclear state since 1960. France has signed and ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT)[135] and acceeded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. France's annual military expenditure in 2010 was US$61.3 billion, or 2.5% of its GDP,[136] making it the third biggest military spender in the world after China and the United States of America.[136]
The French deterrence, (formerly known as “Force de Frappe”), relies on complete independence. The current French nuclear force consists of four Triomphant class submarines equipped with submarine-launched ballistic missiles. In addition to the submarine fleet, it is estimated that France has about 60 ASMP medium-range air-to-ground missiles with nuclear warheads,[137] of which ~50 are carried by the Mirage 2000N long-range multirole fighter and arm the Air Force and ~10 can be carried by the French Navy's Super Étendard Modernisé (SEM) attack planes which use the only non-American nuclear powered aircraft carrier in the world, the Charles de Gaulle when at sea. The new Rafale F3 aircraft will gradually replace all Mirage 2000N and SEM in the nuclear strike role with the improved ASMP-A missile with a nuclear warhead.
France has major military industries that have produced the Rafale fighter, the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier, the Exocet missile and the Leclerc tank amongst others. Some weaponry, like the E-2 Hawkeye or the E-3 Sentry was bought from the United States. Despite withdrawing from the Eurofighter project, France is actively investing in European joint projects such as the Eurocopter Tiger, multipurpose frigates, the UCAV demonstrator nEUROn and the Airbus A400M. France has the largest aerospace industry in Europe.[138][139] France is a major arms seller,[140][141] with most of its arsenal's designs available for the export market with the notable exception of nuclear-powered devices. The military parade held in Paris each 14 July for France's national day is the oldest and largest regular military parade in Europe.[142]
Economy[link]
Main articles: Economy of France and Energy in France
Further information: List of French companies and Economic history of France
A member of the G8 group of leading industrialised countries, it is ranked as the world's fifth largest and Europe's second largest economy by nominal GDP;[143] with 39 of the 500 biggest companies of the world in 2010, France ranks world's 4th and Europe's 1st in the Fortune Global 500 ahead of Germany and the UK. France joined 11 other EU members to launch the euro on 1 January 1999, with euro coins and banknotes completely replacing the French franc (₣) in early 2002.[144]
France has a mixed economy which combines extensive private enterprise (nearly 2.5 million companies registered)[146][147] with substantial (though declining[148]) state enterprise and government intervention (see dirigisme). The government retains considerable influence over key segments of infrastructure sectors, with majority ownership of railway, electricity, aircraft, nuclear power and telecommunications.[148] It has been gradually relaxing its control over these sectors since the early 1990s.[148]
The government is slowly corporatising the state sector and selling off holdings in France Télécom, Air France, as well as the insurance, banking, and defence industries.[148] France has an important aerospace industry led by the European consortium Airbus, and has its own national spaceport, the Centre Spatial Guyanais.
According to the World Trade Organization (WTO), in 2009 France was the world's sixth-largest exporter and the fourth-largest importer of manufactured goods.[149] In 2008, France was the third-largest recipient of foreign direct investment among OECD countries at $117.9 billion, ranking behind Luxembourg (where foreign direct investment was essentially monetary transfers to banks located in that country) and the United States ($316.1 billion), but above the United Kingdom ($96.9 billion), Germany ($24.9 billion), or Japan ($24.4 billion).[150][151] In the same year, French companies invested $220 billion outside of France, ranking France as the second most important outward direct investor in the OECD, behind the United States ($311.8 billion), and ahead of the United Kingdom ($111.4 billion), Japan ($128 billion) and Germany ($156.5 billion).[150][151] With 39 of the 500 biggest companies of the world in 2010, France ranks 4th in the Fortune Global 500, behind the USA, Japan and China, but ahead of Germany and the UK.[152]
Financial services, banking and the insurance sector are an important part of France's economy.The Paris stock exchange market (French: La Bourse de Paris) is an ancient institution, as it was created by Louis XV in 1724.[153] In 2000, the stock exchanges of Paris, Amsterdam and Bruxelles merged into Euronext.[154] In 2007, Euronext merged with the New York stock exchange to form NYSE Euronext, the world's largest stock exchange.[154] Euronext Paris, the French branch of the NYSE Euronext group is Europe's second largest stock exchange market, behind the London Stock Exchange.
French companies have maintained key positions in the Insurance and Banking industries: AXA is the world's largest insurance company, and is ranked by Fortune the ninth richest corporation by revenues. The leading French banks are BNP Paribas and the Crédit Agricole, ranking as the world's 1st and 6th largest banks in 2010[155] (determined by the amount of assets), while the Société Générale group was ranked the world's eight largest in 2008–2009.
France is the smallest emitter of carbon dioxide among the seven most industrialized countries in the world, due to its heavy investment in nuclear power.[156] As a result of large investments in nuclear technology, most of the electricity produced in the country is generated by 59 nuclear power plants (78% in 2006,[157] up from only 8% in 1973, 24% in 1980, and 75% in 1990). In this context, renewable energies (see the power cooperative Enercoop) are having difficulties taking off the ground.
Agriculture[link]
France has historically been an important producer of agricultural products.[158] Large tracts of fertile land, the application of modern technology, and EU subsidies have combined to make France the leading agricultural producer and exporter in Europe[159] (representing alone 20% of the EU's agricultural production[160]) and the world's third biggest exporter of agricultural products.[161]
Wheat, poultry, dairy, beef, and pork, as well as an internationally recognized processed foods are the primary French agricultural exports. Rosé wines are primarily consumed within the country, but champagne and Bordeaux wines are major exports, being known worldwide. EU agriculture subsidies to France have decreased for the last years, but still amounted to $8 billion in 2007.[162] This same year, France sold 33.4 billion euros of transformed agricultural products.[163]
Agriculture is thus an important sector of France's economy : 3.5% of the active population is employed in agriculture,[160] whereas the total agri-food industry made up 4.2% of French GDP in 2005.[160]
Labour market[link]
The French GDP per capita is similar to the GDP per capita of other comparable European countries such as Germany and the United Kingdom.[164] GDP per capita is determined by (i) productivity per hour worked, which in France is the highest of the G8 countries in 2005, according to the OECD,[165] (ii) the number of hours worked, which is one the lowest of developed countries,[166] and (iii) the employment rate. France has one of the lowest 15–64 years employment rates of the OECD countries: in 2004, only 69% of the French population aged 15–64 years were in employment, compared to 80% in Japan, 79% in the UK, 77% in the US, and 71% in Germany.[167]
This gap is due to the very low employment rates at both age extremes: the employment rate of people aged 55–64 was 38.3% in 2007, compared to 46.6% in the EU15;[169] for the 15–24 years old, the employment rate was 31.5% in 2007, compared to 37.2% in EU25.[170] These low employment rates are explained by the high minimum wages which prevent low productivity workers – such as young people – from easily entering the labour market,[171] ineffective university curricula that fail to prepare students adequately for the labour market,[172] and, concerning the older workers, restrictive legislation on work and incentives for premature retirement.[173][174]
The unemployment rate decreased from 9% in 2006 to 7% in 2008 but remains one of the highest in Europe.[175][176] In June 2009, the unemployment rate for France was 9.4%.[177] Shorter working hours and the reluctance to reform the labour market are mentioned as weak spots of the French economy in the view of the right, when the left mentions the lack of government policies fostering social justice. Liberal economists have stressed repeatedly over the years that the main issue of the French economy is an issue of structural reforms, in order to increase the size of the working population in the overall population, reduce the taxes' level and the administrative burden.
Keynesian economists have different answers to the unemployment issue, and their theories led to the 35-hour workweek law in the 2000s (decade), which turned out to be a failure in reducing unemployment. Afterwards, between 2004 and 2008, the Government made some supply-oriented reforms to combat unemployment but met with fierce resistance,[178] especially with the contrat nouvelle embauche and the contrat première embauche which both were eventually repealed.[179] The current Government is experiencing the revenu de solidarité active to redress the negative effect of the revenu minimum d'insertion on work incentive.[180]
Tourism[link]
Main article: Tourism in France
With 81.9 million foreign tourists in 2007,[13] France is ranked as the first tourist destination in the world, ahead of Spain (58.5 million in 2006) and the United States (51.1 million in 2006). This 81.9 million figure excludes people staying less than 24 hours in France, such as Northern Europeans crossing France on their way to Spain or Italy during the summer.
France has 37 sites inscribed in UNESCO's World Heritage List and features cities of high cultural interest (Paris being the foremost, but also Toulouse, Strasbourg, Bordeaux, Lyon, and others), beaches and seaside resorts, ski resorts, and rural regions that many enjoy for their beauty and tranquillity (green tourism). Small and picturesque French villages of quality heritage (such as Collonges-la-Rouge or Locronan) are promoted through the association Les Plus Beaux Villages de France (litt. "The Most Beautiful Villages of France"). The "Remarkable Gardens" label is a list of the over two hundred gardens classified by the French Ministry of Culture. This label is intended to protect and promote remarkable gardens and parks. France also attracts many religious pilgrims on their way to St. James, or to Lourdes, a town in the Hautes-Pyrénées that hosts a few million visitors a year.
France, and especially Paris, have some of the world's largest and renowned museums, including the Louvre, which is the most visited art museum in the world, but also the Musée d'Orsay, mostly devoted to impressionism, and Beaubourg, dedicated to Contemporary art.
Disneyland Paris is France's and indeed Europe's most popular theme park, with 15,405,000 combined visitors to the resort's Disneyland Park and Walt Disney Studios Park in 2009.[181] The historical theme park Puy du Fou in Vendée is the second most visited park of France.[182] Other popular theme parks are the Futuroscope of Poitiers and the Parc Astérix.
With more than 10 millions tourists a year, the French Riviera (or Côte d'Azur), in south-eastern France, is the second leading tourist destination in the country, after the Parisian region.[183] According to the Côte d'Azur Economic Development Agency, it benefits from 300 days of sunshine per year, 115 kilometres (71 mi) of coastline and beaches, 18 golf courses, 14 ski resorts and 3,000 restaurants.[184] Each year the Côte d'Azur hosts 50% of the world's superyacht fleet, with 90% of all superyachts visiting the region's coast at least once in their lifetime.[185]
An other major destination are the Châteaux of the Loire Valley, this World Heritage Site is noteworthy for the quality of its architectural heritage, in its historic towns such as Amboise, Angers, Blois, Chinon, Nantes, Orléans, Saumur, and Tours, but in particular for its castles (châteaux), such as the Châteaux d'Amboise, de Chambord, d'Ussé, de Villandry and Chenonceau, which illustrate to an exceptional degree the ideals of the French Renaissance.
The most popular tourist sites include: (according to a 2003 ranking[186] visitors per year): Eiffel Tower (6.2 million), Louvre Museum (5.7 million), Palace of Versailles (2.8 million), Musée d'Orsay (2.1 million), Arc de Triomphe (1.2 million), Centre Pompidou (1.2 million), Mont Saint-Michel (1 million), Château de Chambord (711,000), Sainte-Chapelle (683,000), Château du Haut-Kœnigsbourg (549,000), Puy de Dôme (500,000), Musée Picasso (441,000), Carcassonne (362,000).
Transport[link]
Main articles: Transport in France and Rail transport in France
The railway network of France, which as of 2008[update] stretches 29,473 kilometres (18,314 mi)[187] is the second most extensive in Western Europe after the German one.[188] It is operated by the SNCF, and high-speed trains include the Thalys, the Eurostar and TGV, which travels at 320 km/h (199 mph) in commercial use.[189][190] The Eurostar, along with the Eurotunnel Shuttle, connects with the United Kingdom through the Channel Tunnel. Rail connections exist to all other neighbouring countries in Europe, except Andorra. Intra-urban connections are also well developed with both underground services and tramway services complementing bus services.
There are approximately 1,027,183 kilometres (638,262 mi) of serviceable roadway in France, ranking it the most extensive network of the European continent.[191] The Paris region is enveloped with the most dense network of roads and highways that connect it with virtually all parts of the country. French roads also handle substantial international traffic, connecting with cities in neighboring Belgium, Spain, Andorra, Monaco, Switzerland, Germany and Italy. There is no annual registration fee or road tax; however, motorway usage is through tolls except in the vicinity of large communes. The new car market is dominated by domestic brands such as Renault (27% of cars sold in France in 2003), Peugeot (20.1%) and Citroën (13.5%).[192] Over 70% of new cars sold in 2004 had diesel engines, far more than contained petrol or LPG engines.[193] France possesses the Millau Viaduct, the world's tallest bridge,[194] and has built many important bridges such as the Pont de Normandie.
There are 475 airports in France.[59] Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport located in the vicinity of Paris is the largest and busiest airport in the country, handling the vast majority of popular and commercial traffic and connecting Paris with virtually all major cities across the world. Air France is the national carrier airline, although numerous private airline companies provide domestic and international travel services. There are ten major ports in France, the largest of which is in Marseille,[195] which also is the largest bordering the Mediterranean Sea.[196][197] 12,261 kilometres (7,619 mi) of waterways traverse France including the Canal du Midi which connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean through the Garonne river.[59]
Demographics[link]
Main articles: Demographics of France and French people
With an estimated population of 65.8 million people (as of 1 Jan. 2011),[2] France is the 20th most populous country in the world. In 2003, France's natural population growth (excluding immigration) was responsible for almost all natural population growth in the European Union. The natural growth (excess of births over deaths) rose to 302,432 in 2006,[198] its highest since the end of the baby boom in 1973. The total fertility rate rose to 2.01 in 2010,[2] from a nadir of 1.68 in 1994.[199] In the five years between Jan. 2006 and Jan. 2011, population growth was on average +0.58% per year.[198] In 2010, 27.3% of newborn in metropolitan France had at least one foreign-born parent and 23.9% had at least one parent born outside of Europe (parents born in overseas territories are considered as born in France).[200]
As of 2008, the French national institute of statistics INSEE estimated that 11.8 million foreign-born immigrants and their direct descendants (born in France) lived in France representing 19% of the country's population. More than 5 million are of European origin and about 4 million of Maghrebi origin. Immigrants aged 18–50 count for 2.7 millions (10% of population aged 18–50) and 5 millions for all ages (8% of population). 2nd Generation aged 18–50 make up 3.1 millions (12% of 18–50) and 6.5 millions for all ages (11% of population)[201][202][203]
In 2004, a total of 140,033 people immigrated to France. Of them, 90,250 were from Africa and 13,710 from Europe.[204] In 2008, France granted citizenship to 137,000 persons, mostly to people from Morocco, Algeria and Turkey.[205]
Although it is illegal for the French state to collect data on ethnicity and race, a law with its origins in the 1789 revolution and reaffirmed in the constitution of 1958, some surveys, like the TeO ("Trajectories and origins") survey conducted jointly by INED and INSEE in 2008, are allowed to do it.[206][207] Before this survey, it was estimated that between three million[208] and six million[209] people are of North African ancestry while an estimated 2.5 million people are of Black African ancestry.[210][211] It is currently estimated that 40% of the French population is descended at least partially from the different waves of immigration the country has received.[212] Between 1921 and 1935 about 1.1 million net immigrants came to France.[213] An estimated 1.6 million European pieds noirs returned to France as the country's North African possessions gained independence.[214][215]
France accepts about 200,000 legal immigrants each year.[216] France is the leading asylum destination in Western Europe with an estimated 50,000 applications in 2005 (a 15% decrease from 2004).[217] The European Union allows free movement between the member states. While UK and Ireland did not impose restrictions, France put in place controls to curb Eastern European migration.
The largest cities in France, in terms of metropolitan area population, are Paris (11,836,970), Lyon (1,757,180), Marseille (1,618,369), Lille (1,163,934), Toulouse (1,118,472), Bordeaux (1,009,313), Nice (999,678), Nantes (768,305) and Strasbourg (641,853).
A perennial political issue concerns rural depopulation. Over the period 1960–1999 fifteen rural départements experienced a decline in population. In the most extreme case, the population of Creuse fell by 24%.
Language[link]
Main article: French Language
native language
administrative language
secondary or non-official language
francophone minorities
According to Article 2 of the Constitution, the official language of France is French,[218] a Romance language derived from Latin. Since 1635, the Académie française is France's official authority on the usage, vocabulary, and grammar of the French language, although its recommendations carry no legal power.
The French government does not regulate the choice of language in publications by individuals but the use of French is required by law in commercial and workplace communications. In addition to mandating the use of French in the territory of the Republic, the French government tries to promote French in the European Union and globally through institutions such as La Francophonie. The perceived threat from anglicisation has prompted efforts to safeguard the position of the French language in France. Besides French, there exist 77 vernacular minority languages of France, 8 in the French metropolitan territory of continental Europe and 69 in the French overseas territories.
From the 17th century to the mid-20th century, French served as the pre-eminent international language of diplomacy and international affairs as well as a lingua franca among the educated classes of Europe.[219] The dominant position of French language in international affairs has only been challenged recently by English, since the emergence of the USA as a major power.[46][220][221]
As a result of France's extensive colonial ambitions between the 17th and 20th centuries, French was introduced to America, Africa, Polynesia, South-East Asia, and the Caribbean. French is the second most studied foreign language in the world after English,[222] and is a lingua franca in some regions, notably in Africa. The legacy of French as a living language outside Europe is mixed: it is nearly extinct in some former French colonies (Southeast Asia), while creoles, and pidgins based on French have emerged in the French departments in the West Indies and the South Pacific (French Polynesia). On the other hand, many former French colonies have adopted French as an official language, and the total number of French speakers is increasing, especially in Africa.
It is estimated that between 300 million[223] and 500 million[224] people worldwide can speak French, either as a mother tongue or a second language.
Religion[link]
Main article: Religion in France
France is a secular country, and freedom of religion is a constitutional right. French religious policy is based on the concept of laïcité, a strict separation of Church and State under which public life is kept completely secular. France was historically regarded as the “eldest daughter” of the Roman Catholic Church. The French Revolution saw a radical shift in the status of the Church with the launch of a brutal de-Christianization campaign. After the back and forth of Catholic royal and secular republican governments over the 19th century, laïcité was established with the Jules Ferry laws of the 1880s and the 1905 law on the Separation of the Churches and the State.[226] The French government does not keep statistics on religious adherence, nor on ethnicity or on political affiliation. However, some unofficial survey estimates exist.
Roman Catholicism has been the predominant religion in France for more than a millennium, though it is not as actively practiced today as it once was. A survey by the Catholic newspaper La Croix found that whilst in 1965, 81% of the French declared themselves to be Catholics, in 2009 this proportion was 64%. Moreover, whilst 27% of the French went to Mass once a week or more in 1952, only 4.5% did so in 2006; 15.2% attended Mass at least once a month.[227] The same survey found that Protestants accounted for 3% of the population, an increase from previous surveys, and 5% adhered to other religions, with the remaining 28% stating that they had no religion.[227]
According to a January 2007 poll by the Catholic World News,[228] only 5% of the French population attended church regularly (or 10% attend church services regularly among the respondents who did identify themselves as Catholics). The poll showed[229] 51% identified as being Catholics, 31% identified as being agnostics or atheists (another poll[230] sets the proportion of atheists equal to 27%), 10% identified as being from other religions or being without opinion, 4% identified as Muslim, 3% identified as Protestant, 1% identified as Buddhist, 1% identified as Jewish. Meanwhile, an independent estimate by the politologist Pierre Bréchon in 2009 concluded that the proportion of Catholics had fallen to 42% while the number of atheists and agnostics had risen to 50%.[231] According to the Pewforum "In France, proponents of a 2004 law banning the wearing of religious symbols in schools say it protects Muslim girls from being forced to wear a headscarf, but the law also restricts those who want to wear headscarves – or any other “conspicuous” religious symbol, including large Christian crosses and Sikh turbans – as an expression of their faith"[232]
According to the most recent but in 2010 somewhat outdated Eurobarometer Poll 2005,[233] 34% of French citizens responded that “they believe there is a god”, whereas 27% answered that “they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force” and 33% that “they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, god, or life force”. One other study shows 32% of people in France declaring themselves to be atheists, and another 32% declaring themselves “sceptical about the existence of God but not an atheist”.[234]
Estimates of the number of Muslims in France vary widely. According to the more than one decade old 1999 French census returns, there were 3.7 million people of “possible Muslim faith” in France (6.3% of the total population). In 2003, the French Ministry of the Interior estimated the total number of Muslims to be between five and six million (8–10%).[235][236] The current Jewish community in France numbers around 600,000 according to the World Jewish Congress and is the largest in Europe. However, both the North American Jewish Data bank and the Vitual Jew Library put the estimates closer to 480,000 as of 2010[update].
Since 1905 the French government has followed the principle of laïcité, in which it is prohibited from recognising any specific right to a religious community (except for legacy statutes like that of military chaplains and the local law in Alsace-Moselle). Instead, it merely recognises religious organisations, according to formal legal criteria that do not address religious doctrine. Conversely, religious organizations should refrain from intervening in policy-making.
Certain bodies of beliefs such as Scientology, Children of God, the Unification Church, or the Order of the Solar Temple are considered cults ("sectes" in French),[237] and therefore do not have the same status as religions in France. Secte is considered a pejorative term in France.[238]
Health[link]
Main article: Health in France
The French healthcare system was ranked first worldwide by the World Health Organization in 1997[240] and then again in 2000.[241] Care is generally free for people affected by chronic diseases (affections de longues durées) such as cancer, AIDS or Cystic Fibrosis. Average life expectancy at birth is 78 years for men and 85 years for women, one of the highest of the European Union.[242] There are 3.22 physicians for every 1000 inhabitants in France,[243] and average health care spending per capita was US$4,719 in 2008.[244] As of 2007, approximately 140,000 inhabitants (0.4%) of France are living with HIV/AIDS.[148]
Even if the French have the reputation of being one of the thinnest peoples in developed countries, [245][246][247][248][249][250] France—like other rich countries—faces an increasing and recent epidemic of obesity, due mostly to the replacement of traditional healthy French cuisine by junk food in French eating habits.[245][246][251] Nevertheless, the French obesity rate is far below that of the USA (for instance, obesity rate in France is the same that the American once was in the 1970s[246]), and is still the lowest of Europe,[248][251] but it is now regarded by the authorities as one of the main public health issues[252] and is fiercely fought; rates of childhood obesity are slowing in France, while continuing to grow in other countries.[253]
Education[link]
Main article: Education in France
See also: History of education in France and Baccalauréat
In 1802, Napoleon created the lycée.[254] Nevertheless it is Jules Ferry who is considered to be the father of the French modern school, which is free, secular, and compulsory until the age of 13 since 1882[255] (school attendance in France is now compulsory until the age of 16[256]).
Nowadays, the schooling system in France is centralized, and is composed of three stages, primary education, secondary education, and higher education. The Programme for International Student Assessment, coordinated by the OECD, currently ranks France's education as the 25th best in the world, being neither significantly higher nor lower than the OECD average.[257] Primary and secondary education are predominantly public, run by the Ministry of National Education.
Higher education in France is divided between public universities and the prestigious and selective Grandes écoles, such as Science Po Paris for Political studies, HEC Paris for Economics, Polytechnique and the École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris that produces high-profile engineers, or the École nationale d'administration for careers in the great corps of the State. The Grandes écoles have been criticised for alleged elitism,[258] nevertheless they have produced many if not most of France's high-ranking civil servants, CEO, or politicians.
Culture[link]
Main article: Culture of France
France has been a center of cultural creation for centuries. Many French artists have been among the most renowned of their time, and France is still recognized in the world for its rich cultural tradition.
The successive political regimes have always promoted artistic creation, and the creation of the Ministry of Culture in 1959 helped preserve the cultural heritage of the country and make it available to the public. The Ministry of Culture has been very active since its creation, granting subsidies to artists, promoting French culture in the world, supporting festivals and cultural events, protecting historical monuments. The French government also succeeded in maintaining a cultural exception to defend audiovisual products made in the country.
France receives the highest number of tourists per year, largely thanks to the numerous cultural establishments and historical buildings implanted all over the territory. It counts 1,200 museums welcoming more than 50 million people annually.[259] The most important cultural sites are run by the government, for instance through the public agency Centre des monuments nationaux, which have around a hundred national historical monuments at charge.[clarification needed]
The 43,180 buildings protected as historical monuments include mainly residences (many castles, or châteaux in French) and religious buildings (cathedrals, basilicas, churches, etc.), but also statutes, memorials and gardens. The UNESCO inscribed 37 sites in France on the World Heritage List.[260]
Painting[link]
Main article: French painting
The origins of French painting were very much influenced by Flemish art and by Italian art at the time of the Renaissance. Jean Fouquet, the most famous medieval French painter, is said to have been the first to travel to Italy and experience the Early Renaissance at first hand. The Renaissance painting School of Fontainebleau was directly inspired by Italian painters such as Primaticcio and Rosso Fiorentino, who both worked in France. Two of the most famous French artists of the time of Baroque era, Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain, lived in Italy. The 17th century was the period where French painting became proeminent and individualized itself through classicism. Louis XIV's prime minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert founded in 1648 the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture to protect these artists, and in 1666 he created the still-in-activity French Academy in Rome to have direct relations with Italian artists.
French painters developed the rococo style in the 18th century, as a more intimate imitation of old baroque style, the works of court-endorsed artists Antoine Watteau, François Boucher and Jean-Honoré Fragonard being the most representative in the country. The French Revolution brought great changes, as Napoleon favoured painters of neoclassic style as Jacques-Louis David and the highly influential Académie des Beaux-Arts defined the style known as Academism. At this time France had become a center of artistic creation, the first half of the 19th century being dominated by two successive movements, at first Romanticism with Théodore Géricault and Eugène Delacroix, and Realism with Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet and Jean-François Millet, a style that eventually evolved into Naturalism.
In the second part of the 19th century, France's influence over painting became even more important, with the development of new styles of painting like Impressionism and Symbolism. The most famous impressionist painters of the period were Camille Pissarro, Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir.[261] Second generation of impressionist-style painters Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec and Georges Seurat were also at the avant-guarde of artistic evolutions,[262] as well as fauvist artists Henri Matisse, André Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck.[263][264] At the beginning of 20th century, Cubism was developed by Georges Braque and Spanish painter Pablo Picasso, living in Paris. Other foreign artists also settled and worked in or near Paris, like Vincent van Gogh, Marc Chagall, Amedeo Modigliani and Wassily Kandinsky.
Many museums in France are entirely or partly devoted to painting works. A huge collection of old masterpieces created before or during the 18th century are displayed in the state-owned Musée du Louvre, such as Mona Lisa, also known as La Joconde. While the Louvre Palace has been for a long time a museum, the Musée d'Orsay was inaugurated in 1986 in the old railway station Gare d'Orsay, in a major reorganization of national art collections, to gather French paintings from the second part of the 19th century (mainly Impressionism and Fauvism movements).[265][266]
Modern works are presented in the Musée National d'Art Moderne, which moved in 1976 to the Centre Georges Pompidou. These three state-owned museums welcome close to 17 million people a year.[267] Other national museums hosting paintings include the Grand Palais (1,3 million visitors in 2008), but there are also many museums owned by cities, the most visited being the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (0,8 million entries in 2008), which hosts contemporary works.[267]
Outside Paris, all the large cities have a Museum of Fine Arts with a section dedicated to European and French painting. Some of the finest collections are in Lyon, Lille, Rouen, Dijon, Rennes and Grenoble.
Architecture[link]
Main article: French architecture
Technically speaking, there is no standard type of "French" architecture, although that has not always been true. Gothic architecture's old name was French architecture (or Opus Francigenum).[268] The term “Gothic” appeared later as a stylistic insult and was widely adopted. The Gothic architecture was the first French style of architecture to be copied in all Europe.[269] Northern France is the home of some of the most important Gothic cathedrals and basilicas, the first of these being the Saint Denis Basilica (used as the royal necropolis); other important French Gothic cathedrals are Notre-Dame de Chartres and Notre-Dame d'Amiens. The kings were crowned in another important Gothic church: Notre-Dame de Reims.[270] Aside from churches, Gothic Architecture had been used for many religious palaces, the most important one being the Palais des Papes in Avignon.
During the Middle Ages, fortified castles were built by feudal nobles to mark their powers against their rivals. When King Philip II took Rouen from King John, for example, he demolished the ducal castle to build a bigger one. Fortified cities were also common; most French castles did not survive the passage of time. This is why Richard the Lionheart's Château Gaillard was demolished, as well as the Château de Lusignan. Some French castles that survived are Chinon, Château d'Angers, the massive Château de Vincennes and the so called Cathar castles.
Before the appearance of this architecture, France had been using Romanesque architecture like most of Western Europe (with the exception of the Iberian Peninsula, which now consists of Spain and Portugal, which used Mooresque architecture). Some of the greatest examples of Romanesque churches in France are the Saint Sernin Basilica in Toulouse (largest romanesque church in Europe[271]) and the remains of the Cluniac Abbey (largely destroyed during the Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars).
The end of the Hundred Years' War marked an important stage in the evolution of French architecture. It was the time of the French Renaissance and several artists from Italy and Spain were invited to the French court; many residential palaces, inspired by the Italians, were built, but mainly in the Loire Valley. Such residential castles were the Château de Chambord, the Château de Chenonceau, or the Château d'Amboise. Following the renaissance and the end of the Middle Ages, Baroque Architecture replaced the traditional Gothic style. However, in France, baroque architecture found a greater success in the secular domain than in a religious one.[273]
In the secular domain, the Palace of Versailles has many baroque features. Jules Hardouin Mansart was said[by whom?] to be the most influential French architect of the baroque era, with his famous dome, Les Invalides. Some of the most impressive provincial baroque architecture is found in places that were not yet French such as the Place Stanislas in Nancy. On the military architectural side, Vauban designed some of the most efficient fortresses in Europe and became an influential military architect; as a result, imitations of his works can be found all over Europe, the Americas, Russia and Turkey.[274][275]
After the Revolution, the Republicans favoured Neoclassicism although neoclassicism was introduced in France prior to the revolution with such building as the Parisian Pantheon or the Capitole de Toulouse. Built during the French Empire the Arc de Triomphe and Sainte Marie-Madeleine represent this trend the best.[276]
Under Napoleon III, a new wave of urbanism and architecture was given birth. If extravagant buildings such as the neo-baroque Palais Garnier were built, the urban planning of the time was very organised and rigorous.[citation needed] For example, Baron Haussmann rebuilt Paris. The architecture associated to this era is named Second Empire in English, the term being taken from the Second French Empire. At this time there was a strong Gothic resurgence across Europe and in France; the associated architect was Eugène Viollet-le-Duc. In the late 19th century, Gustave Eiffel designed many bridges, such as Garabit viaduct, and remains one of the most influential bridge designers of his time, although he is best remembered for the iconic Eiffel Tower.
In the 20th century, Swiss Architect Le Corbusier designed several buildings in France. More recently, French architects have combined both modern and old architectural styles. The Louvre Pyramid is an example of modern architecture added to an older building. The most difficult buildings to integrate within French cities are skyscrapers, as they are visible from afar. For instance, in Paris, since 1977, new buildings had to be under 37 meters, or 121 feet.[277] France's largest financial district is La Defense, where a significant number of skyscrapers are located.[278] Other massive buildings that are a challenge to integrate into their environment are large bridges; an example of the way this has been done is the Millau Viaduct. Some famous modern French architects include Jean Nouvel or Paul Andreu.
Literature[link]
Main article: French literature
File:French literary figures.jpg
French literary figures. Clockwise from top left: Molière is the most played author in the Comédie-Française;[279] Victor Hugo is one of the most important French novelists and poets, and is sometimes seen as the greatest French writer of all time.[280] 19th century poet, writer, and translator Charles Baudelaire; 20th century philosopher and novelist Jean-Paul Sartre.
The earliest French literature dates from the Middle Ages, when what is now known as modern France did not have a single, uniform language. There were several languages and dialects and each writer used his own spelling and grammar.[citation needed] Some authors of French mediaeval texts are unknown, such as Tristan and Iseult and Lancelot and the Holy Grail. Other authors are known, for example Chrétien de Troyes and Duke William IX of Aquitaine, who wrote in Occitan.
Much mediaeval French poetry and literature were inspired by the legends of the Matter of France, such as The Song of Roland and the various chansons de geste. The Roman de Renart, written in 1175 by Perrout de Saint Cloude, tells the story of the mediaeval character Reynard ('the Fox') and is another example of early French writing.
An important 16th century writer was François Rabelais, whose novel Gargantua and Pantagruel has remained famous and appreciated until now. Michel de Montaigne was the other major figure of the French literature during that century. His most famous work, Essais, created the literary genre of the essay.[281] French poetry during that century was embodied by Pierre de Ronsard and Joachim du Bellay. Both writers founded the La Pléiade literary movement.
During the 17th century, Madame de La Fayette published anonymously La Princesse de Clèves, a novel that is considered to be one of the very first psychological novels of all times.[282] Jean de La Fontaine is one of the most famous fabulist of that time, as he wrote hundreds of fables, some being far more famous than others, such as The Ant and the Grasshopper. Generations of French pupils had to learn his fables, that were seen as helping teaching wisdom and common sense to the young people. Some of his verses have entered the popular language to become proverbs.[283]
Jean Racine, whose incredible mastery of the alexandrine and of the French language has been praised for centuries, created plays such as Phèdre or Britannicus. He is, along with Pierre Corneille (Le Cid) and Molière, considered as one of the three great dramatists of the France's golden age. Molière, who is deemed to be one of the greatest masters of comedy of the Western literature,[284] wrote dozens of plays, including Le Misanthrope, L'Avare, Le Malade imaginaire, and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. His plays have been so popular around the world that French language is sometimes dubbed as "the language of Molière" (la langue de Molière),[285] just like English is considered as "the language of Shakespeare".
French literature and poetry flourished even more in the 18th and 19th centuries. Denis Diderot's best-known works are Jacques the Fatalist and Rameau's Nephew. He is however best known for being the main redactor of the Encyclopédie, whose aim was to sum up all the knowledge of his century (in fields such as arts, sciences, languages, philosophy) and to present them to the people, in order to fight ignorance and obscurantism. During that same century, Charles Perrault was a prolific writer of famous children's fairy tales including Puss in Boots, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Bluebeard. At the turn of the 19th century symbolist poetry was an important movement in French literature, with poets such as Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine and Stéphane Mallarmé.[286]
The 19th century saw the writings of many renowned French authors. Victor Hugo is sometimes seen as "the greatest French writer of all times"[280] for excelling in all literary genres. The preface of his play Cromwell is considered to be the manifesto of the Romantic movement. Les Contemplations and La Légende des siècles are considered as "poetic masterpieces",[287] Hugo's verse having been compared to that of Shakespeare, Dante and Homer.[287] His novel Les Misérables is widely seen as one of the greatest novel ever written[288] and The Hunchback of Notre Dame has remained immensely popular.
Other major authors of that century include Alexandre Dumas (The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte-Cristo), Jules Verne (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea), Émile Zola (Les Rougon-Macquart), Honoré de Balzac (La Comédie humaine), Guy de Maupassant, Théophile Gautier and Stendhal (The Red and the Black, The Charterhouse of Parma), whose works are amongst the most well known in France and the world.
The Prix Goncourt is a French literary prize first awarded in 1903.[289] Important writers of the 20th century include Marcel Proust, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Albert Camus, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Antoine de Saint Exupéry wrote Little Prince which has remained popular for decades with children and adults around the world.[290] As of 2010, French authors had more Literature Nobel Prizes than those of any other nation.[291]
Philosophy[link]
Main article: French philosophy
Modern philosophy began in France in the 16th century with the philosophy of René Descartes, Blaise Pascal, and Nicolas Malebranche. Descartes revitalised Western philosophy that had been on the decline after the Greek and Roman eras.[292] His Meditations on First Philosophy changed the primary object of philosophical thought and raised some of the most fundamental problems for foreigners such as Spinoza, Leibniz, Hume, Berkeley, and Kant.
During the 18th century, French philosophers produced one of the most important works of the Age of Enlightenment. In The Spirit of the Laws, Baron de Montesquieu theorized the principle of separation of powers, that has been implemented in all liberal democracies since it was first applied in the United States. In The Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau openly criticized the European divine right monarchies and strongly affirmed the principle of the sovereignty of the people. Voltaire came to embody the Enlightenment with his criticisms of Church dogma and French institutions and his defence of civil liberties such as the right to a free trial and freedom of religion.
In the early 20th century, French spiritualist thinkers such as Maine de Biran, Henri Bergson and Louis Lavelle, influenced Anglo-Saxon thought, including the Americans Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, and the Englishman Alfred North Whitehead. In the late 20th century, postmodern philosophy began in France, with notable post-structuralist thinkers including Jean-François Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze. Postmodern philosophy can also be seen as a critique of traditional western thought and incredulity toward metanarratives, influenced heavily by structuralism, phenomenology and existentialism.
Music[link]
Main article: Music of France
Although the musical creation in France dates back to the Middle Ages, it knew its golden age in the 17th century thanks to Louis XIV, who employed several musicians and composers in the royal court. The most renowned composers of this period include Marc-Antoine Charpentier, François Couperin, Michel-Richard Delalande, Jean-Baptiste Lully and Marin Marais, all of them composers at the court. After the death of the "Roi Soleil", French musical creation lost dynamism, but in the next century the music of Jean-Philippe Rameau reached some prestige, and today he is still one of the most renowned French composers.
French classical music knew a revival in the 19th and 20th century, at the end of the romantic movement, at first with opera composers Hector Berlioz, Georges Bizet, Gabriel Fauré, Charles Gounod, Jacques Offenbach, Édouard Lalo, Jules Massenet and Camille Saint-Saëns. This period was a golden age for operas, being popular in the country the opéra bouffon, the opera-ballet and the opéra comique genres. Later came precursors of modern classical music Érik Satie, Francis Poulenc, and above all Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy, who invented new musical forms.[293][294][295][296] More recently, at the middle of the 20th century, Maurice Ohana, Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Boulez contributed to the evolutions of contemporary classical music.[297]
French music then followed the rapid emergence of pop and rock music at the middle of the 20th century. Although English-speaking creations achieved popularity in the country, French pop music, known as chanson française, has also remained very popular. Among the most important French artists of the century are Édith Piaf, Georges Brassens, Léo Ferré, Charles Aznavour and Serge Gainsbourg. Although there are very few rock bands in France compared to English-speaking countries,[298] bands such as Noir Désir, Mano Negra, Niagara, Rita Mitsouko and more recently Superbus, Phoenix and Gojira[299] have reached worldwide popularity.
Other French artists with international careers have been popular in several countries, for example female singers Mireille Mathieu and Mylène Farmer,[299] electronic music pioneers Jean-Michel Jarre, Laurent Garnier and Bob Sinclar, and later Martin Solveig and David Guetta. In the 1990s and 2000s (decade), electronic duos Daft Punk, Justice and Air also reached worldwide popularity and contributed to the reputation of modern electronic music in the world.[299][300][301]
Among current musical events and institutions in France, many are dedicated to classical music and operas. The most prestigious institutions are the state-owned Paris National Opera (with its two sites Palais Garnier and Opéra Bastille), the Opéra National de Lyon, the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse and the Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux. As for music festivals, there are several events organized, the most popular being the Eurockéennes and Rock en Seine. The Fête de la Musique, imitated by many foreign cities, was first launched by the French government in 1982.[302][303] Major music halls and venues in France include Le Zénith sites present in many cities and other places in Paris (Paris Olympia, Théâtre Mogador, Élysée Montmartre, etc.).
Cinema[link]
Main article: Cinema of France
France has historical and strong links with cinema. It is two Frenchmen, Auguste and Louis Lumière (known as the Lumière Brothers) who created the cinema in 1895.[307] More recently, in 2006, France produced more films than any other European country.[308] Cannes Festival is one of the most important and famous film festivals in the world.[309][310]
Although the French film market is dominated by Hollywood, it is however the Western country (out of the United States) where the share of the American films in the total film revenues is the smallest, at 50.1%, to compare with 77.3% of Germany and 69.4% of Japan.[311] Thus, French films account for 34.8% of the total film revenues of France, which is the highest percentage of national films revenues in developed countries (the U.S. not included), to compare with 13.7% in Spain and 8.3% in the UK.[311]
France was for centuries, and not so long ago, the cultural center of the world.[219] But France's dominant position has been overthrown by American culture, and thus France tries to protect its culture. France has been a strong advocate of the cultural exception.[312] France therefore succeeded in convincing all the EU members to refuse to include culture and audiovisuals in the list of liberalized sectors of the WTO in 1993.[313]
Moreover, this decision was confirmed in a voting in the UNESCO in 2005, and the principle of "cultural exception" won an overwhelming victory: 198 countries voted for it, only 2 countries, the U.S and Israel, voted against it.[314]
Fashion[link]
Main article: French fashion
Fashion has been an important industry and cultural export of France since the 17th century, and modern "haute couture" originated in Paris in the 1860s. Today, Paris, along with London, Milan, and New York City, is considered one of the world's fashion capitals, and the city is home or headquarters to many of the premier fashion houses. The expression Haute couture is, in France, a legally protected name, guaranteeing certain quality standards.
The association of France with fashion and style (French: la mode) dates largely to the reign of Louis XIV[315] when the luxury goods industries in France came increasingly under royal control and the French royal court became, arguably, the arbiter of taste and style in Europe. But France renewed its dominance of the high fashion (French: couture or haute couture) industry in the years 1860–1960 through the establishing of the great couturier houses such as Chanel, Dior, and Givenchy.
In the 1960s, the elitist "Haute couture" came under criticism from France's youth culture. In 1966, the designer Yves Saint Laurent broke with established Haute Couture norms by launching a prêt-à-porter ("ready to wear") line and expanding French fashion into mass manufacturing. With a greater focus on marketing and manufacturing, new trends were established by Sonia Rykiel, Thierry Mugler, Claude Montana, Jean-Paul Gaultier and Christian Lacroix in the 1970s and 1980s. The 1990s saw a conglomeration of many French couture houses under luxury giants and multinationals such as LVMH.
Media[link]
Main article: Telecommunications in France
Compared to other developed countries, the French do not spend much time reading newspapers, due to the popularity of broadcast media. Best-selling daily national newspapers in France are Le Monde and right-wing Le Figaro, with around 300.000 copies sold daily, but also L'Équipe, dedicated to sports coverage.[316] In the past years, free dailies made a breakthrough, with Metro, 20 Minutes and Direct Plus distributed at more than 650.000 copies respectively.[317] However, the widest circulations are reached by regional daily Ouest France with more than 750.000 copies sold, and the 50 other regional papers have also high sales.[318][319] The sector of weekly magazines is stronger and diversified with more than 400 specialized weekly magazines published in the country.[320]
The most influential news magazine are left-wing Le Nouvel Observateur, centrist L'Express and right-wing Le Point (more than 400.000 copies),[321] but the highest circulation for weeklies is reached by TV magazines and by women’s magazines, among them Marie Claire and ELLE, which have foreign versions. Influential weeklies also include investigative and satirical papers Le Canard Enchaîné and Charlie Hebdo, as well as Paris Match. Like in most industrialized nations, the print media have been affected by a severe crisis in the past decade. In 2008, the government have launched a major initiative to help the sector reform to be financially independent,[322][323] but in 2009 it had to give 600.000 euros to help the print media cope with the economic crisis, in addition to existing subsidies.[324]
In 1974, after years of centralized monopoly on radio and television, the governmental agency ORTF was split into several national institutions, but the three already-existing TV channels and four national radio stations[325][326] remained under state-control. It was only in 1981 when the government allowed free broadcasting in the territory, ending state monopoly on radio.[326] French television was partly liberalized in the next two decade with the creation of several commercial channels, mainly thanks to cable and satellite television. In 2005 the national service Télévision Numérique Terrestre introduced digital television all over the territory, allowing the creation of other channels.
The four existing national channels are now owned by state-owned consortium France Télévisions, while public broadcasting group Radio France run five national radio stations. Among these public media are Radio France Internationale, which broadcasts programs in French all over the world, and Franco-German TV channel TV5 Monde. In 2006, the government created global news channel France 24. Long-established TV channels TF1 (privatized in 1987), France 2 and France 3 have the highest shares, while radio stations RTL, Europe 1 and state-owned France Inter are the least listened to.
Society[link]
According to a 2010 BBC poll based on 29,977 responses in 28 countries, France is globally seen as a positive influence in the world's affairs: 49 % have a positive view of the country's influence, whereas 19 % have a negative view.[327][328] The Nation Brand Index of 2008 suggested that France has the second best international reputation, only behind Germany.[329]
According to two Pew Research Center polls in 2006 and 2011 based on around 14 000 responses in 15 countries, French were found to have the highest level of religious tolerance (when asked about their opinion about Muslims, Christians and Jews) and to be the country where the highest proportion of the population defines its identity primarily in term of nationality and not of religion.[330]
In January 2010, the International Living ranked France as "best country to live in", ahead of 193 other countries surveyed, for the fifth year running, according to a survey taking in account 9 criteria of quality of life: Cost of Living, Culture and Leisure, Economy, Environment, Freedom, Health, Infrastructure, Safety and Risk and Climate.[331][332]
France has historical strong ties with Human Rights.[333] Since the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789, France is often nicknamed as "the country of Human Rights".[334] Furthermore, in 1948, a Frenchman, René Cassin, was one of the main redactors of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted by the UN members in Paris.[333]
National symbols strongly reflect the heritage of the Revolution. The four official symbols of the Republic, as stated by the Constitution,[335] all commemorate events from the period. Bastille Day, the national holiday, commemorate the Fête de la Fédération, held on 14 July 1790 to celebrate the storming of the Bastille.[336] The origins of Tricolored flag also date back to the Revolution, as the cockade was the symbols adopted by the revolutionaries in 1789.[337]
As for the national anthem La Marseillaise, it was written in 1792 as a war song for the French Army.[338][339] The official motto of the French Republic, "Liberté, égalité, fraternité" (Liberty, equality, brotherhood) also appeared during the French Revolution.[340] Marianne, unofficial symbol, is an allegorical figure of liberty and of the Republic and also appeared at the time of the Revolution.[341]
A common and traditional symbol of the French people is the Gallic rooster. Its origins date back to Antiquity, since the Latin word Gallus meant both "rooster" and "inhabitant of Gaul". Then this figure gradually became the most widely shared representation of the French, used by French monarchs, then by the Revolution and under the successive republican regimes as representation of the national identity, used for some stamps and coins.[342] Although it is not an official symbol of the Republic, it is the most common image to symbolize France in the collective imagination and abroad.
Gastronomy[link]
Main article: French cuisine
French cuisine is renowned for being one of the finest in the world.[344][345][346][347][348][349] French cuisine is extremely diverse and has exerted a major influence on other western cuisines.[350] According to the regions, traditional recipes are different, the North of the country prefers to use butter as the preferred fat for cooking, whereas olive oil is more commonly used in the South.[351]
Moreover, each region of France has iconic traditional specialities : Cassoulet in the Southwest, Choucroute in Alsace, Quiche in the Lorraine region, Beef bourguignon in the Bourgogne, provençal Tapenade, etc. France's most renowned products are wines,[352] including Champagne, Bordeaux, Bourgogne, and Beaujolais as well as a large variety of different cheeses, such as Camembert, Roquefort and Brie. There are more than 400 different varieties.[353][354]
French cuisine is also regarded as a key element of the quality of life and the attractiveness of France.[332] A French publication, the Michelin guide, had by 2006 awarded 620 stars to French restaurants, at that time more than any other country, although the guide also inspects more restaurants in France than in any other country (by 2010, Japan was awarded as many Michelin stars as France, despite having half the number of Michelin inspectors working there).[355][356]
Sports[link]
Main article: Sport in France
Popular sports played in France include football, judo, tennis[359] and basketball.[360] France has hosted events such as the 1938 and 1998 FIFA World Cups,[361] and hosted the 2007 Rugby Union World Cup.[362] Stade de France in Paris is the largest stadium in France and was the venue for the 1998 FIFA World Cup final, and hosted the 2007 Rugby World Cup final in October 2007. France also hosts the annual Tour de France, the most famous road bicycle race in the world.[363][364] France is also famous for its 24 Hours of Le Mans sports car endurance race held in the Sarthe department.[365] Several major tennis tournaments take place in France, including the Paris Masters and the French Open, one of the four Grand Slam tournaments.
France has a close association with the Modern Olympic Games; it was a French aristocrat, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who suggested the Games' revival, at the end of the 19th century.[366][367] After Athens was awarded the first Games, in reference to the Greek origins of the ancient Olympics, Paris hosted the second Games in 1900.[368] Paris was also the first home of the International Olympic Committee, before it moved to Lausanne.[369] Since that 1900 Games, France has hosted the Olympics on four further occasions: the 1924 Summer Olympics, again in Paris[367] and three Winter Games (1924 in Chamonix, 1968 in Grenoble and 1992 in Albertville).[367]
Both the national football team and the national rugby union team are nicknamed “Les Bleus” in reference to the team’s shirt color as well as the national French tricolor flag. The football team is among the most successful in the world, particularly at the turn of the 21st century, with one FIFA World Cup victory in 1998,[370] one FIFA World Cup second place in 2006,[371] and two European Championships in 1984[372] and 2000.[373] The top national football club competition is the Ligue 1. Rugby is also very popular, particularly in Paris and the southwest of France.[374] The national rugby team has competed at every Rugby World Cup, and takes part in the annual Six Nations Championship. Following from a strong domestic tournament the French rugby team has won sixteen Six Nations Championships, including eight grand slams; and have reached the semi-finals and final of the Rugby World Cup.
Rugby league in France is a sport that is most popular in the south with cities such as Perpignan and Toulouse having a strong presence in the game. The Catalans Dragons currently play in Super League which is the top tier rugby league competition in Europe. Toulouse Olympique play in the Co-operative Championship which is the 2nd tier of European rugby league. The Elite One Championship is the top tier of French rugby league.
In the last decades, France has produced a high number of world-elite basketball players, most notably Tony Parker. The France national basketball team has won silver at the EuroBasket 2011, its best performance in over 60 years. The national team further won two Olympic Silver Medals, one in 2000 and one in 1948.
See also[link]
Footnotes[link]
- ^ French is an official language throughout the French Republic. For information about the official and unofficial regional languages also spoken see Languages of France
- ^ a b Whole territory of the French Republic, including all the overseas departments and territories, but excluding the French territory of Terre Adélie in Antarctica where sovereignty is suspended since the signing of the Antarctic Treaty in 1959.
- ^ French National Geographic Institute data, which includes bodies of water.
- ^ French Land Register data, which exclude lakes, ponds and glaciers larger than 1 km² (0.386 sq mi or 247 acres) as well as the estuaries of rivers.
- ^ Metropolitan France only. The population density for the whole territory of the French Republic (including overseas departments and territories) is 96.837/km2 (250.808/sq mi).
- ^ Whole of the French Republic except the overseas territories in the Pacific Ocean.
- ^ French overseas territories in the Pacific Ocean only.
- ^ CET applies to Metropolitan France only. Time Zones across the French Republic span from UTC-10 (PF) to UTC+12 (WF).
- ^ CEST applies to Metropolitan France only. Not all overseas territories observe Daylight Saving Time.
- ^ In addition to .fr, several other Internet TLDs are used in French overseas départements and territories: .re, .mq, .gp, .tf, .nc, .pf, .wf, .pm, .gf and .yt. France also uses .eu, shared with other members of the European Union. The .cat domain is used in Catalan-speaking territories.
- ^ The overseas regions and collectivities form part of the French telephone numbering plan, but have their own country calling codes: Guadeloupe +590; Martinique +596; French Guiana +594, Réunion and Mayotte +262; Saint Pierre and Miquelon +508. The overseas territories are not part of the French telephone numbering plan; their country calling codes are: New Caledonia +687, French Polynesia +689; Wallis and Futuna +681
References[link]
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- ^ a b c (French) INSEE, Government of France. "Bilan démographique 2010". http://www.insee.fr/fr/themes/document.asp?ref_id=ip1332. Retrieved 20 January 2011.
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- ^ a b Carpentier et al 2000, pp. 53–55
- ^ a b Carpentier et al 2000, pp. 76–77
- ^ Carpentier et al 2000, pp. 79–82
- ^ Carpentier et al 2000, p. 81
- ^ Carpentier et al 2000, p. 84
- ^ Carpentier et al 2000, pp. 84–88
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- ^ "Marseille – A French Pearl in the Mediterranean Sea". Blog.hotelclub.com. 22 February 2010. http://blog.hotelclub.com/marseille/. Retrieved 21 July 2011.
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- ^ Être né en France d’un parent immigré, Insee Première, n°1287, mars 2010, Catherine Borrel et Bertrand Lhommeau, Insee
- ^ Répartition des immigrés par pays de naissance 2008, Insee, October 2011
- ^ (French) INSEE (25 January 2005). "Enquêtes annuelles de recensement 2004 et 2005". Archived from the original on 12 December 2006. http://web.archive.org/web/20061212212050/http%3A//www.insee.fr/fr/ffc/ipweb/ip1098/ip1098.html#encadre1. Retrieved 14 December 2006.
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- ^ "TRAJECTORIES AND ORIGINS" Survey on population diversity in France, Insee 2008
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- ^ "Language and Diplomacy – Translation and Interpretation". Diplomacy.edu. Archived from the original on 2011-07-19. http://web.archive.org/web/20110719183516/http://www.diplomacy.edu/language/Translation/default.htm. Retrieved 10 September 2010.
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- ^ (French) Qu'est-ce que la Francophonie ? – Organisation internationale de la Francophonie
- ^ The last sacre was that of Charles X, 29 May 1825.
- ^ "France". Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs. http://berkleycenter.georgetown.edu/resources/countries/france. Retrieved 2011-12-14.
- ^ a b (French) La France reste catholique mais moins pratiquante – La Croix. 29 December 2009
- ^ Catholic World News (2003). "France is no longer Catholic, survey shows". http://www.catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=48547. Retrieved 19 December 2009.
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- ^ "" Sur la religion, les Français restent dubitatifs " – A la Une". La Croix. France. 14 August 2009. http://www.la-croix.com.prd-jsp.bayardweb.com/documents/doc.jsp?docId=2389007&rubId=786. Retrieved 30 October 2010.
- ^ Global Restrictions on Religion. Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Washington. 2009
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- ^ Religious Views and Beliefs Vary Greatly by Country, Financial Times/Harris Poll, December 2006
- ^ France to train imams in 'French Islam', The Guardian
- ^ "France – International Religious Freedom Report 2005". State.gov. http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2005/51552.htm. Retrieved 30 October 2010.
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- ^ How to conduct European clinical trials from the Paris Region ? Clinical Trials. Paris. February 2003
- ^ The ranking, see spreadsheet details for a whole analysis photius.com
- ^ "Measuring Overall Health System Performance for 191 Countries" (PDF). http://www.who.int/healthinfo/paper30.pdf. Retrieved 21 July 2011.
- ^ (French) Espérance de vie, taux de mortalité et taux de mortalité infantile dans le monde, Evolution de l'espérance de vie à divers âges – INSEE
- ^ (French) Nombre de médecins pour 1000 habitants – Statistiques mondiales
- ^ (French) Dépenses de santé par habitants – Statistiques mondiales
- ^ a b Even the French are fighting obesity – The NY Times
- ^ a b c Wahlgren, Eric (14 November 2009). "France's obesity crisis: All those croissants really do add up, after all". Dailyfinance.com. http://www.dailyfinance.com/2009/11/14/frances-obesity-crisis-all-those-croissants-really-do-add-up/. Retrieved 21 July 2011.
- ^ Lambert, Victoria (8 March 2008). "The French children learning to fight obesity". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/dietandfitness/3353715/The-French-children-learning-to-fight-obesity.html. Retrieved 9 August 2010.
- ^ a b Why So Few French Are Fat – Bloomberg Businessweek
- ^ Mimi Spencer (7 November 2004). "Let them eat cake". The Guardian (London). http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2004/nov/07/foodanddrink.features11. Retrieved 21 July 2011.
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- ^ a b France heading for US obesity levels says study – Food Navigator
- ^ "New French food guidelines aimes at tabkling obesity". Nutraingredients.com. 14 September 2006. http://www.nutraingredients.com/Regulation/New-French-food-guidelines-aimed-at-tackling-obesity. Retrieved 9 August 2010.
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- ^ (French) 1881–1882 : Lois Ferry Ecole publique gratuite, laïque et obligatoire. Assemblé Nationale
- ^ (French) II. L'évolution du contenu de l'obligation scolaire. Sénat.fr
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- ^ (French)Les grandes écoles dans la tourmente – Le Figaro
- ^ Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, "Cultura statistics", Key figures
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- ^ National Gallery of Art (United States), The Fauves (dossier)
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- ^ Musée d'Orsay (official website), History of the museum – From station to museum
- ^ "History of the painting collection". Musee-orsay.fr. 31 July 2007. http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/history-of-the-collections/painting.html. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
- ^ a b (French) Ministry of Tourism, Sites touristiques en France page 2 "Palmarès des 30 premiers sites culturels (entrées comptabilisées)" [Ranking of 30 most visited cultural sites in France]
- ^ "Opus Francigenum". Answers.com. http://www.answers.com/topic/opus-francigenum-art. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
- ^ "The Gothic Period". Justfrance.org. http://www.justfrance.org/france/architecture/001.asp. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
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- ^ "Toulouse’s Saint Sernin, Largest Romanesque Church in Europe". Europeupclose.com. 22 February 1999. http://www.europeupclose.com/article/toulouses-saint-sernin-largest-romanesque-church-in-europe/. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
- ^ (French) Tour Eiffel et souvenirs de Paris
- ^ (French) Claude Lébedel – Les Splendeurs du Baroque en France: Histoire et splendeurs du baroque en France page 9: “Si en allant plus loin, on prononce les mots ‘art baroque en France’, on provoque alors le plus souvent une moue interrogative, parfois seulement étonnée, parfois franchement réprobatrice: Mais voyons, l'art baroque n'existe pas en France!”
- ^ "Fortifications of Vauban". Whc.unesco.org. 8 July 2008. http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1283. Retrieved 9 August 2010.
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- ^ Paris: City Guide. Lonely Planet. 2008. p. 48. ISBN 1-74059-850-4. http://books.google.com/?id=OtabdzMdbboC&pg=PA48.
- ^ Des gratte-ciel à Paris : qu'en pensez-vous ? – LCI
- ^ In the heart of the main European Business area – NCI Business Center
- ^ (French) Auteurs et répertoires – Official site of the Comédie Française
- ^ a b (French) Victor Hugo est le plus grand écrivain françaisPDF (19.0 KB)
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- ^ "Author of some of the finest comedies in the history of the theater." Hartnoll, Phyllis (ed.). The Oxford Companion to the Theatre, 1983, Oxford University Press, p. 554
- ^ Randall, Colin (25 October 2004). "France looks to the law to save the language of Molière". The Daily Telegraph (London). http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/1475046/France-looks-to-the-law-to-save-the-language-of-Moliere.html. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
- ^ (French) Le symbolisme français
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- ^ "The Little Prince". Completelynovel.com. http://www.completelynovel.com/books/50599. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
- ^ National Literature Nobel Prize shares 1901–2009 by citizenship at the time of the award and by country of birth. From J. Schmidhuber (2010), Evolution of National Nobel Prize Shares in the 20th century at arXiv:1009.2634v1
- ^ "The Beginning of Modern Sciences". Friesian.com. http://www.friesian.com/hist-2.htm. Retrieved 16 July 2011.
- ^ Huizenga, Tom (14 October 2005). "Debussy's 'La Mer' Marks 100th Birthday". Npr.org. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4957580. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
- ^ "Debussy's Musical Game of Deception". Npr.org. 12 July 2008. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92338564. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
- ^ "Biography of Claude Debussy". Classicfm.co.uk. http://www.classicfm.co.uk/music/composers/c-g/claude-debussy/. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
- ^ "Biography of Maurice Ravel". Classicfm.co.uk. http://www.classicfm.co.uk/music/composers/n-r/maurice-ravel/. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
- ^ Boulez, Pierre. "Composer-Conductor Pierre Boulez At 85". Npr.org. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126668117. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
- ^ RFI Musique, Biography of Noir Désir, March 2009 : “Rock music doesn't come naturally to the French. A Latin country, with more affinity to poetry and melody, France has very rarely produced talented rock musicians. Rock music has other, more Anglo-Saxon ingredients”
- ^ a b c France Diplomatie, French music has the whole planet singing, June 2009
- ^ The Telegraph, Daft Punk: Behind the robot masks, 17 November 2007 : "Daft Punk were in many ways responsible for turning the spotlight on a new, cool underground of French music in the late 1990s, including bestselling acts such as Air, and have been a huge influence on the current generation of international star DJs"
- ^ "The return of French pop music". BBC News. 20 December 2001. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1721450.stm. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
- ^ Ministry of Culture of France, About « Fête de la Musique »
- ^ France Diplomatie, June 2007_9392.html Fête de la Musique, 21 June 2007
- ^ Dargis, Manohla. "Cannes International Film Festival". New York Times. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/cannes_international_film_festival/index.html.
- ^ Lim, Dennis. "They'll Always Have Cannes". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/16/arts/16iht-lim16.html?_r=1&ref=movies.
- ^ Woolsey, Matt. "In Pictures: Chic Cannes Hideaways". Forbes. http://www.forbes.com/2008/05/14/cannes-properties-luxury-forbeslife-cx_mw_0514realestate_slide.html?thisSpeed=15000.
- ^ (French) Les frères Lumière
- ^ "Cinema: production of feature films". Stats.uis.unesco.org. http://stats.uis.unesco.org/unesco/TableViewer/tableView.aspx. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
- ^ "Cannes – a festival virgin's guide". Cannesguide.com. 15 Februatype_item=ART_ARCH_30Jry 2007. http://www.cannesguide.com/basics/. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
- ^ Cannes Film Festival | Palais des Festivals, Cannes, France. Whatsonwhen. Retrieved on 2011-12-26.
- ^ a b (French) Damien Rousselière Cinéma et diversité culturelle: le cinéma indépendant face à la mondialisation des industries culturelles. Horizons philosophiques Vol. 15 No. 2 2005
- ^ Joëlle Farchy (1999) La Fin de l'exception culturelle ? CNRS ISBN 978-2-271-05633-7
- ^ The cultural exception is not negotiable by Catherine Trautmann – Ministry of Culture
- ^ (French) La Convention UNESCO pour la diversité culturelle : vers un droit international culturel contraignant ? – www.fnsac-cgt.com
- ^ Kelly, 181. DeJean, chapters 2–4.
- ^ (French) OJD, "Observatoire de la Presse", Presse Quotidienne Nationale
- ^ (French) OJD, Presse Gratuite d'Information. November 2011
- ^ (French) Observatoire de la Presse, Presse Quotidienne Régionale et Départementale
- ^ (French) OJD, "Bureau Presse Payante Grand Public", Presse Quotidienne Régionale et Départementale
- ^ (French) Observatoire de la Presse, Presse Magazine – Synthèse
- ^ (French) Observatoire de la Presse, Presse News
- ^ The Telegraph, Nicolas Sarkozy: French media faces 'death' without reform 2 October 2008
- ^ French government portal, Lancement des états généraux de la presse 2 October 2008 [Launching of General State of written media]
- ^ Angelique Chrisafis, The Guardian, Sarkozy pledges €600m to newspapers, 23 January 2009.
- ^ Radio France, "L'entreprise", Repères. Landmarks of Radio France company
- ^ a b (French) Vie Publique, Chronologie de la politique de l’audiovisuel 20 August 2004 [Chronology of policy for audiovisual]
- ^ "World warming to US under Obama, BBC poll suggests". BBC News. 19 April 2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8626041.stm. Retrieved 21 July 2011.
- ^ "Global Views of United States Improve While Other Countries Decline" (PDF). BBC News. 18 April 2010. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/160410bbcwspoll.pdf. Retrieved 2011-12-26.
- ^ "Germany on Top, U.S. Seventh in Nation Brands IndexSM". Gfk.com. http://www.gfk.com/group/press_information/press_releases/003055/index.en.html. Retrieved 9 August 2010.
- ^ "Muslim-Western tensions persist" (PDF). Pew Research Center. http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2011/07/Pew-Global-Attitudes-Muslim-Western-Relations-FINAL-FOR-PRINT-July-21-2011.pdf. Retrieved 17 November 2011.
- ^ Britain falls to 25th best place to live in the world... behind Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Mail Online. 7 January 2010
- ^ a b Why France is best place to live in world. CNN. 11 February 2010
- ^ a b France’s human rights policy – France Diplomatie
- ^ France, the country of Human Rights – 1906 : Dreyfus rehabilitated
- ^ Conseil Constitutionnel, Constitution of 4 October 1958 (page 4) "Title I – Of Sovereignty"
- ^ Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France, "The symbols of the Republic", The 14th of July : The Bastille day
- ^ Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France, "The symbols of the Republic", The French Flag
- ^ Assemblée Nationale, "History and heritage : La Marseillaise, Rouget de Lisle (1760–1836) and La Marseillaise
- ^ Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France, "The symbols of the Republic", The national anthem : The Marseillaise
- ^ Ministry of Foreign Affairs of France, "The symbols of the Republic", Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
- ^ The Symbols of the Republic : Marianne on the Official Site of the Foreign Affairs Ministry of France
- ^ (French) French Presidency, "Les symboles de la République française", Le coq
- ^ French rural code L654-27-1
- ^ (French) Cuisine : sommes-nous les meilleurs du monde ?. La Dépêche. 24 February 2008
- ^ French Cuisine – Discover France
- ^ Top 10 Most Tasty Cuisines in the World – Hotel Club Travel Blog
- ^ (French) Ateliers de cuisine française – Art de vivre à Paris
- ^ (French) La Gastronomie Française – Chinese Lovers of France
- ^ About our vacations in France -Cooking Vacations to France
- ^ (French) "Recettes françaises". http://www.delices-du-monde.fr/recettes-francaise.html. – Delices du Monde
- ^ (French) La France du beurre et celle de l'huile d'olive maintiennent leurs positions – Agence France Presse
- ^ "Wines of France". Userweb.cs.utexas.edu. Archived from the original on 2010-02-11. http://web.archive.org/web/20100211145428/http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/walter/wine/france.html. Retrieved 9 August 2010.
- ^ "French Cheese". Goodcooking.com. http://www.goodcooking.com/frcheese.htm. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
- ^ French Cheese on Traditional French Food
- ^ "Michelin 3 Star Restaurants around the world". 3starrestaurants.com. 14 December 2006. http://www.3starrestaurants.com/michelin-restaurants-star-guide.asp. Retrieved 30 October 2010.
- ^ Japan overtakes France with more Michelin-starred restaurants, Gilles Campion | Agence France-Presse | Thu 25 Nov 2010
- ^ http://www.uciprotour.com/Modules/BUILTIN/getObject.asp?MenuId=MTcxNw&ObjTypeCode=FILE&type=FILE&id=34028&LangId=1
- ^ "Weekly auto agenda: Le Mans". The Independent. June 11, 2010. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/motoring/weekly-auto-agenda-le-mans-1997970.html. Retrieved 22 April 2011.
- ^ (French) Les licences sportives en France – Insee
- ^ "All you need to know about sport in France". http://www.france-pub.com/esport.htm. Retrieved 11 February 2012.
- ^ "History of the World Cup Final Draw" (PDF). http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/fifafacts/mcwc/ip-201_10e_fwcdraw-history_8842.pdf. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
- ^ France wins right to host the 2007 rugby world cup. Associated Press. 11 April 2003
- ^ 3 January 2010 (3 January 2010). "The Tour De France: The Most Famous Bicycle Race In The World". Weightlossdietinformation.com. http://www.weightlossdietinformation.com/the-tour-de-france-the-most-famous-bicycle-race-in-the-world.html. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
- ^ "Cycling: Tour de France". Faqs.org. http://www.faqs.org/sports-science/Ce-Do/Cycling-Tour-de-France.html. Retrieved 9 August 2010.
- ^ (French) Une course légendaire – Site officiel du 24 heures du Mans
- ^ Hill, Christopher R. (1996). Olympic Politics. Manchester University Press ND. p. 5. ISBN 0-7190-4451-0. http://books.google.com/?id=0o-9AAAAIAAJ. Retrieved 5 July 2011.
- ^ a b c Olympic History – World Atlas of Travel
- ^ Paris 1900 Summer Olympics. Official Site of the Olympic Movement
- ^ Lausanne, olympic capital – Tourism in Lausanne
- ^ "CNN/SI – World Cup". Sports Illustrated. 1 December 1998. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/soccer/world/events/1998/worldcup/. Retrieved 22 July 2011.
- ^ Stevenson, Jonathan (9 July 2006). "BBC SPORT | Football | World Cup 2006 | Zidane off as Italy win World Cup". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/world_cup_2006/4991652.stm. Retrieved 21 July 2011.
- ^ 1984: Platini shines for flamboyant France. UEFA
- ^ 2000: Trezeguet strikes gold for France. UEFA
- ^ Rugby. 123 Voyage
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- France, from the BBC
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Geographic data related to France at OpenStreetMap- Key Development Forecasts for France from International Futures
- Economy
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- (French) Élysée.fr – Official site of the French Presidency
- (French) Official Site of the Government
- Official site of the French public service – Links to various administrations and institutions
- Chief of State and Cabinet Members on The World Factbook
- Official site of the National Assembly
- Culture
- Cocorico! French culture
- Contemporary French Civilization, journal, University of Illinois.
- Tourism
- FranceGuide – Official website of the French Government Tourist Office
- France travel guide from Wikitravel
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For later revolutions in France, see July Revolution and French Revolution of 1848.
For other uses, see French Revolution (disambiguation).
| The French Revolution | |
|---|---|
 The storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789 |
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| Participants | French society |
| Location | France |
| Date | 1789–1799 |
| Result |
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The French Revolution (French: Révolution française; 1789–1799), was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France that had a major impact on France and indeed all of Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years. French society underwent an epic transformation, as feudal, aristocratic and religious privileges evaporated under a sustained assault from radical left-wing political groups, masses on the streets, and peasants in the countryside.[1] Old ideas about tradition and hierarchy – of monarchy, aristocracy and religious authority – were abruptly overthrown by new Enlightenment principles of equality, citizenship and inalienable rights.
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France Portal |
The French Revolution began in 1789 with the convocation of the Estates-General in May. The first year of the Revolution saw members of the Third Estate proclaiming the Tennis Court Oath in June, the assault on the Bastille in July, the passage of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in August, and an epic march on Versailles that forced the royal court back to Paris in October. The next few years were dominated by tensions between various liberal assemblies and a right-wing monarchy intent on thwarting major reforms.
A republic was proclaimed in September 1792 and King Louis XVI was executed the next year. External threats also played a dominant role in the development of the Revolution. The French Revolutionary Wars started in 1792 and ultimately featured spectacular French victories that facilitated the conquest of the Italian Peninsula, the Low Countries and most territories west of the Rhine – achievements that had defied previous French governments for centuries.
Internally, popular sentiments radicalized the Revolution significantly, culminating in the rise of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins and virtual dictatorship by the Committee of Public Safety during the Reign of Terror from 1793 until 1794 during which between 16,000 and 40,000 people were killed.[2] After the fall of the Jacobins and the execution of Robespierre, the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795 and held power until 1799, when it was replaced by the Consulate under Napoleon Bonaparte.
After the Napoleonic Wars and ensuing rise and fall of Napoleon's First French Empire, a restoration of absolutist monarchy was followed by two further successful smaller revolutions (1830 and 1848). This meant the 19th century and process of modern France taking shape saw France again successively governed by a similar cycle of constitutional monarchy (1830–48), fragile republic (Second Republic) (1848–1852), and empire (Second Empire) (1852–1870). The modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution. The growth of republics and liberal democracies, the spread of secularism, the development of modern ideologies and the invention of total war[3] all mark their birth during the Revolution.
Contents
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Causes[link]
Main article: Causes of the French Revolution
Adherents of most historical models identify many of the same features of the Ancien Régime as being among the causes of the Revolution. Economic factors included hunger and malnutrition in the most destitute segments of the population, due to rising bread prices (from a normal 8 sous for a four-pound loaf to 12 sous by the end of 1789),[4] after several years of poor grain harvests. Bad harvests (caused in part by extreme weather from El Niño along with volcanic activity at Laki and Grímsvötn in 1783–1784), rising food prices, and an inadequate transportation system that hindered the shipment of bulk foods from rural areas to large population centers contributed greatly to the destabilization of French society in the years leading up to the Revolution.
Another cause was the state's effective bankruptcy due to the enormous cost of previous wars, particularly the financial strain caused by French participation in the American Revolutionary War. The national debt amounted to some 1,000–2,000 million[citation needed] livres. The social burdens caused by war included the huge war debt, made worse by the loss of France's colonial possessions in North America and the growing commercial dominance of Great Britain. France's inefficient and antiquated financial system was unable to manage the national debt, something which was both partially caused and exacerbated by the burden of an inadequate system of taxation. To obtain new money to head off default on the government's loans, the king called an Assembly of Notables in 1787.
Meanwhile, the royal court at Versailles was seen as being isolated from, and indifferent to, the hardships of the lower classes. While in theory King Louis XVI was an absolute monarch, in practice he was often indecisive and known to back down when faced with strong opposition. While he did reduce government expenditures, opponents in the parlements successfully thwarted his attempts at enacting much needed reforms. Those who were opposed to Louis' policies further undermined royal authority by distributing pamphlets (often reporting false or exaggerated information) that criticized the government and its officials, stirring up public opinion against the monarchy.[5]
Many other factors involved resentments and aspirations given focus by the rise of Enlightenment ideals. These included resentment of royal absolutism; resentment by peasants, laborers and the bourgeoisie toward the traditional seigneurial privileges possessed by the nobility; resentment of the Church's influence over public policy and institutions; aspirations for freedom of religion; resentment of aristocratic bishops by the poorer rural clergy; aspirations for social, political and economic equality, and (especially as the Revolution progressed) republicanism; hatred of Queen Marie-Antoinette, who was falsely accused of being a spendthrift and an Austrian spy; and anger toward the King for firing finance minister Jacques Necker, among others, who were popularly seen as representatives of the people.[6]
Pre-revolution[link]
Financial crisis[link]
Louis XVI ascended to the throne amidst a financial crisis; the state was nearing bankruptcy and outlays outpaced income.[7] This was because of France’s financial obligations stemming from involvement in the Seven Years War and its participation in the American Revolutionary War.[8] In May 1776, finance minister Turgot was dismissed, after he failed to enact reforms. The next year, Jacques Necker, a foreigner, was appointed Comptroller-General of Finance. He could not be made an official minister because he was a Protestant.[9]
Necker realized that the country's extremely regressive tax system subjected the lower classes to a heavy burden,[9] while numerous exemptions existed for the nobility and clergy.[10] He argued that the country could not be taxed higher; that tax exemptions for the nobility and clergy must be reduced; and proposed that borrowing more money would solve the country's fiscal shortages. Necker published a report to support this claim that underestimated the deficit by roughly 36 million livres, and proposed restricting the power of the parlements.[9]
This was not received well by the King's ministers, and Necker, hoping to bolster his position, argued to be made a minister. The King refused, Necker was fired, and Charles Alexandre de Calonne was appointed to the Comptrollership.[9] Calonne initially spent liberally, but he quickly realized the critical financial situation and proposed a new tax code.[11]
The proposal included a consistent land tax, which would include taxation of the nobility and clergy. Faced with opposition from the parlements, Calonne organised the summoning of the Assembly of Notables. But the Assembly failed to endorse Calonne's proposals and instead weakened his position through its criticism. In response, the King announced the calling of the Estates-General for May 1789, the first time the body had been summoned since 1614. This was a signal that the Bourbon monarchy was in a weakened state and subject to the demands of its people.[12]
Estates-General of 1789[link]
Main article: Estates-General of 1789
The Estates-General was organized into three estates: the clergy, the nobility, and the rest of France.[13] On the last occasion that the Estates-General had met, in 1614, each estate held one vote, and any two could override the third. The Parlement of Paris feared the government would attempt to gerrymander an assembly to rig the results. Thus, they required that the Estates be arranged as in 1614.[14] The 1614 rules differed from practices of local assemblies, where each member had one vote and third estate membership was doubled. For example, in the Dauphiné the provincial assembly agreed to double the number of members of the third estate, hold membership elections, and allow one vote per member, rather than one vote per estate.[15]
The "Committee of Thirty," a body of liberal Parisians, began to agitate against voting by estate. This group, largely composed of the wealthy, argued for the Estates-General to assume the voting mechanisms of Dauphiné. They argued that ancient precedent was not sufficient, because "the people were sovereign."[16] Necker convened a Second Assembly of Notables, which rejected the notion of double representation by a vote of 111 to 333.[16] The King, however, agreed to the proposition on 27 December; but he left discussion of the weight of each vote to the Estates-General itself.[17]
Elections were held in the spring of 1789; suffrage requirements for the Third Estate were for French-born or naturalised males only, at least 25 years of age, who resided where the vote was to take place and who paid taxes.
Pour être électeur du tiers état, il faut avoir 25 ans, être français ou naturalisé, être domicilié au lieu de vote et compris au rôle des impositions.[18]
Strong turnout produced 1,201 delegates, including: "291 nobles, 300 clergy, and 610 members of the Third Estate."[17] To lead delegates, "Books of grievances" (cahiers de doléances) were compiled to list problems.[13] The books articulated ideas which would have seemed radical only months before; however, most supported the monarchical system in general. Many assumed the Estates-General would approve future taxes, and Enlightenment ideals were relatively rare.[14][19]
Pamphlets by liberal nobles and clergy became widespread after the lifting of press censorship.[16] The Abbé Sieyès, a theorist and Catholic clergyman, argued the paramount importance of the Third Estate in the pamphlet Qu'est-ce que le tiers état? ("What is the Third Estate?"), published in January 1789. He asserted: "What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been until now in the political order? Nothing. What does it want to be? Something."[14][20]
The Estates-General convened in the Grands Salles des Menus-Plaisirs in Versailles on 5 May 1789 and opened with a three-hour speech by Necker. The Third Estate demanded that the verification of deputies' credentials should be undertaken in common by all deputies, rather than each estate verifying the credentials of its own members internally; negotiations with the other estates failed to achieve this.[19] The commoners appealed to the clergy who replied they required more time. Necker asserted that each estate verify credentials and "the king was to act as arbitrator."[21] Negotiations with the other two estates to achieve this, however, were unsuccessful.[22]
National Assembly (1789)[link]
Main article: National Assembly (French Revolution)
On 10 June 1789, Abbé Sieyès moved that the Third Estate, now meeting as the Communes (English: "Commons"), proceed with verification of its own powers and invite the other two estates to take part, but not to wait for them. They proceeded to do so two days later, completing the process on 17 June.[23] Then they voted a measure far more radical, declaring themselves the National Assembly, an assembly not of the Estates but of "the People." They invited the other orders to join them, but made it clear they intended to conduct the nation's affairs with or without them.[24]
In an attempt to keep control of the process and prevent the Assembly from convening, Louis XVI ordered the closure of the Salle des États where the Assembly met, making an excuse that the carpenters needed to prepare the hall for a royal speech in two days. Weather did not allow an outdoor meeting, so the Assembly moved their deliberations to a nearby indoor real tennis court, where they proceeded to swear the Tennis Court Oath (20 June 1789), under which they agreed not to separate until they had given France a constitution.[25]
A majority of the representatives of the clergy soon joined them, as did 47 members of the nobility. By 27 June, the royal party had overtly given in, although the military began to arrive in large numbers around Paris and Versailles. Messages of support for the Assembly poured in from Paris and other French cities.[25]
National Constituent Assembly (1789–1791)[link]
Main article: National Constituent Assembly
Storming of the Bastille[link]
Main article: Storming of the Bastille
By this time, Necker had earned the enmity of many members of the French court for his overt manipulation of public opinion. Marie Antoinette, the King's younger brother the Comte d'Artois, and other conservative members of the King's privy council urged him to dismiss Necker as financial advisor. On 11 July 1789, after Necker published an inaccurate account of the government's debts and made it available to the public, the King fired him, and completely restructured the finance ministry at the same time.[26]
Many Parisians presumed Louis's actions to be aimed against the Assembly and began open rebellion when they heard the news the next day. They were also afraid that arriving soldiers – mostly foreign mercenaries – had been summoned to shut down the National Constituent Assembly. The Assembly, meeting at Versailles, went into nonstop session to prevent another eviction from their meeting place. Paris was soon consumed by riots, chaos, and widespread looting. The mobs soon had the support of some of the French Guard, who were armed and trained soldiers.[27]
On 14 July, the insurgents set their eyes on the large weapons and ammunition cache inside the Bastille fortress, which was also perceived to be a symbol of royal power. After several hours of combat, the prison fell that afternoon. Despite ordering a cease fire, which prevented a mutual massacre, Governor Marquis Bernard de Launay was beaten, stabbed and decapitated; his head was placed on a pike and paraded about the city. Although the fortress had held only seven prisoners (four forgers, two noblemen kept for immoral behavior, and a murder suspect), the Bastille served as a potent symbol of everything hated under the Ancien Régime. Returning to the Hôtel de Ville (city hall), the mob accused the prévôt des marchands (roughly, mayor) Jacques de Flesselles of treachery and butchered him.[28]
The King, alarmed by the violence, backed down, at least for the time being. The Marquis de la Fayette took up command of the National Guard at Paris. Jean-Sylvain Bailly, president of the Assembly at the time of the Tennis Court Oath, became the city's mayor under a new governmental structure known as the commune. The King visited Paris, where, on 17 July he accepted a tricolore cockade, to cries of Vive la Nation ("Long live the Nation") and Vive le Roi ("Long live the King").[29]
Necker was recalled to power, but his triumph was short-lived. An astute financier but a less astute politician, Necker overplayed his hand by demanding and obtaining a general amnesty, losing much of the people's favour.
As civil authority rapidly deteriorated, with random acts of violence and theft breaking out across the country, members of the nobility, fearing for their safety, fled to neighboring countries; many of these émigrés, as they were called, funded counter-revolutionary causes within France and urged foreign monarchs to offer military support to a counter-revolution.[30]
By late July, the spirit of popular sovereignty had spread throughout France. In rural areas, many commoners began to form militias and arm themselves against a foreign invasion: some attacked the châteaux of the nobility as part of a general agrarian insurrection known as "la Grande Peur" ("the Great Fear"). In addition, wild rumours and paranoia caused widespread unrest and civil disturbances that contributed to the collapse of law and order.[31]
Working toward a constitution[link]
Main article: French Revolution from the abolition of feudalism to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy
On 4 August 1789, the National Constituent Assembly abolished feudalism (although at that point there had been sufficient peasant revolts to almost end feudalism already), in what is known as the August Decrees, sweeping away both the seigneurial rights of the Second Estate and the tithes gathered by the First Estate. In the course of a few hours, nobles, clergy, towns, provinces, companies and cities lost their special privileges.
On 26 August 1789, the Assembly published the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which comprised a statement of principles rather than a constitution with legal effect. The National Constituent Assembly functioned not only as a legislature, but also as a body to draft a new constitution.
Necker, Mounier, Lally-Tollendal and others argued unsuccessfully for a senate, with members appointed by the crown on the nomination of the people. The bulk of the nobles argued for an aristocratic upper house elected by the nobles. The popular party carried the day: France would have a single, unicameral assembly. The King retained only a "suspensive veto"; he could delay the implementation of a law, but not block it absolutely. The Assembly eventually replaced the historic provinces with 83 départements, uniformly administered and roughly equal in area and population.
Amid the Assembly's preoccupation with constitutional affairs, the financial crisis had continued largely unaddressed, and the deficit had only increased. Honoré Mirabeau now led the move to address this matter, and the Assembly gave Necker complete financial dictatorship.
Women's March on Versailles[link]
Main article: The Women's March on Versailles
Fueled by rumors of a reception for the King's bodyguards on 1 October 1789 at which the national cockade had been trampled upon, on 5 October 1789 crowds of women began to assemble at Parisian markets. The women first marched to the Hôtel de Ville, demanding that city officials address their concerns.[32] The women were responding to the harsh economic situations they faced, especially bread shortages. They also demanded an end to royal efforts to block the National Assembly, and for the King and his administration to move to Paris as a sign of good faith in addressing the widespread poverty.
Getting unsatisfactory responses from city officials, as many as 7,000 women joined the march to Versailles, bringing with them cannons and a variety of smaller weapons. Twenty thousand National Guardsmen under the command of La Fayette responded to keep order, and members of the mob stormed the palace, killing several guards.[33] La Fayette ultimately persuaded the king to accede to the demand of the crowd that the monarchy relocate to Paris.
On 6 October 1789, the King and the royal family moved from Versailles to Paris under the "protection" of the National Guards, thus legitimizing the National Assembly.
Revolution and the Church[link]
Main articles: Dechristianisation of France during the French Revolution and Civil Constitution of the Clergy
The Revolution caused a massive shift of power from the Roman Catholic Church to the state. Under the Ancien Régime, the Church had been the largest single landowner in the country, owning about 10% of the land in the kingdom.[34] The Church was exempt from paying taxes to the government, while it levied a tithe—a 10% tax on income, often collected in the form of crops—on the general population, which it then redistributed to the poor.[34] The power and wealth of the Church was highly resented by some groups. A small minority of Protestants living in France, such as the Huguenots, wanted an anti-Catholic regime and revenge against the clergy who discriminated against them. Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire helped fuel this resentment by denigrating the Catholic Church and destabilizing the French monarchy.[35] As historian John McManners argues, "In eighteenth-century France throne and altar were commonly spoken of as in close alliance; their simultaneous collapse ... would one day provide the final proof of their interdependence."[36]
This resentment toward the Church weakened its power during the opening of the Estates General in May 1789. The Church composed the First Estate with 130,000 members of the clergy. When the National Assembly was later created in June 1789 by the Third Estate, the clergy voted to join them, which perpetuated the destruction of the Estates General as a governing body.[37] The National Assembly began to enact social and economic reform. Legislation sanctioned on 4 August 1789 abolished the Church's authority to impose the tithe. In an attempt to address the financial crisis, the Assembly declared, on 2 November 1789, that the property of the Church was "at the disposal of the nation."[38] They used this property to back a new currency, the assignats. Thus, the nation had now also taken on the responsibility of the Church, which included paying the clergy and caring for the poor, the sick and the orphaned.[39] In December, the Assembly began to sell the lands to the highest bidder to raise revenue, effectively decreasing the value of the assignats by 25% in two years.[40] In autumn 1789, legislation abolished monastic vows and on 13 February 1790 all religious orders were dissolved.[41] Monks and nuns were encouraged to return to private life and a small percentage did eventually marry.[42]
The Civil Constitution of the Clergy, passed on 12 July 1790, turned the remaining clergy into employees of the state. This established an election system for parish priests and bishops and set a pay rate for the clergy. Many Catholics objected to the election system because it effectively denied the authority of the Pope in Rome over the French Church. Eventually, in November 1790, the National Assembly began to require an oath of loyalty to the Civil Constitution from all the members of the clergy.[42] This led to a schism between those clergy who swore the required oath and accepted the new arrangement and those who remained loyal to the Pope. Overall, 24% of the clergy nationwide took the oath.[43] Widespread refusal led to legislation against the clergy, "forcing them into exile, deporting them forcibly, or executing them as traitors."[40] Pope Pius VI never accepted the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, further isolating the Church in France. During the Reign of Terror, extreme efforts of de-Christianization ensued, including the imprisonment and massacre of priests and destruction of churches and religious images throughout France. An effort was made to replace the Catholic Church altogether, with civic festivals replacing religious ones. The establishment of the Cult of Reason was the final step of radical de-Christianization. These events led to a widespread disillusionment with the Revolution and to counter-rebellions across France. Locals often resisted de-Christianization by attacking revolutionary agents and hiding members of the clergy who were being hunted. Eventually, Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety were forced to denounce the campaign,[44] replacing the Cult of Reason with the deist but still non-Christian Cult of the Supreme Being. The Concordat of 1801 between Napoleon and the Church ended the de-Christianization period and established the rules for a relationship between the Catholic Church and the French State that lasted until it was abrogated by the Third Republic via the separation of church and state on 11 December 1905. The persecution of the Church led to a counter-revolution known as the Revolt in the Vendée, whose suppression is considered by some to be the first modern genocide[citation needed].
Intrigues and radicalism[link]
Factions within the Assembly began to clarify. The aristocrat Jacques Antoine Marie de Cazalès and the abbé Jean-Sifrein Maury led what would become known as the right wing, the opposition to revolution (this party sat on the right-hand side of the Assembly). The "Royalist democrats" or monarchiens, allied with Necker, inclined toward organising France along lines similar to the British constitutional model; they included Jean Joseph Mounier, the Comte de Lally-Tollendal, the comte de Clermont-Tonnerre, and Pierre Victor Malouet, comte de Virieu.
The "National Party", representing the centre or centre-left of the assembly, included Honoré Mirabeau, La Fayette, and Bailly; while Adrien Duport, Barnave and Alexandre Lameth represented somewhat more extreme views. Almost alone in his radicalism on the left was the Arras lawyer Maximilien Robespierre. Abbé Sieyès led in proposing legislation in this period and successfully forged consensus for some time between the political centre and the left. In Paris, various committees, the mayor, the assembly of representatives, and the individual districts each claimed authority independent of the others. The increasingly middle-class National Guard under La Fayette also slowly emerged as a power in its own right, as did other self-generated assemblies.
The Assembly abolished the symbolic paraphernalia of the Ancien Régime— armorial bearings, liveries, etc. – which further alienated the more conservative nobles, and added to the ranks of the émigrés. On 14 July 1790, and for several days following, crowds in the Champ de Mars celebrated the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille with the Fête de la Fédération; Talleyrand performed a mass; participants swore an oath of "fidelity to the nation, the law, and the king"; the King and the royal family actively participated.[45]
The electors had originally chosen the members of the Estates-General to serve for a single year. However, by the terms of the Tennis Court Oath, the communes had bound themselves to meet continuously until France had a constitution. Right-wing elements now argued for a new election, but Mirabeau prevailed, asserting that the status of the assembly had fundamentally changed, and that no new election should take place before completing the constitution.[citation needed]
In late 1790, the French army was in considerable disarray. The military officer corps was largely composed of noblemen, who found it increasingly difficult to maintain order within the ranks. In some cases, soldiers (drawn from the lower classes) had turned against their aristocratic commanders and attacked them. At Nancy, General Bouillé successfully put down one such rebellion, only to be accused of being anti-revolutionary for doing so. This and other such incidents spurred a mass desertion as more and more officers defected to other countries, leaving a dearth of experienced leadership within the army.[46]
This period also saw the rise of the political "clubs" in French politics. Foremost among these was the Jacobin Club; 152 members had affiliated with the Jacobins by 10 August 1790. The Jacobin Society began as a broad, general organization for political debate, but as it grew in members, various factions developed with widely differing views. Several of these fractions broke off to form their own clubs, such as the Club of '89.[47]
Meanwhile, the Assembly continued to work on developing a constitution. A new judicial organisation made all magistracies temporary and independent of the throne. The legislators abolished hereditary offices, except for the monarchy itself. Jury trials started for criminal cases. The King would have the unique power to propose war, with the legislature then deciding whether to declare war. The Assembly abolished all internal trade barriers and suppressed guilds, masterships, and workers' organisations: any individual gained the right to practice a trade through the purchase of a license; strikes became illegal.[48]
In the winter of 1791, the Assembly considered, for the first time, legislation against the émigrés. The debate pitted the safety of the Revolution against the liberty of individuals to leave. Mirabeau prevailed against the measure, which he referred to as "worthy of being placed in the code of Draco".[46] But Mirabeau died on 2 April 1791 and, before the end of the year, the new Legislative Assembly adopted this draconian measure.[49]
Royal flight to Varennes[link]
Main article: Flight to Varennes
Louis XVI, egged on by Marie Antoinette and other members of his family, opposed the course of the Revolution, but rejected the potentially treacherous aid of the other monarchs of Europe. He cast his lot with General Bouillé, who condemned both the emigration and the Assembly, and promised him refuge and support in his camp at Montmédy. On the night of 20 June 1791, the royal family fled the Tuileries Palace dressed as servants, while their servants dressed as nobles.
However, late the next day, the King was recognised and arrested at Varennes (in the Meuse département). He and his family were brought back to Paris under guard, still dressed as servants. Pétion, Latour-Maubourg, and Antoine Pierre Joseph Marie Barnave, representing the Assembly, met the royal family at Épernay and returned with them. From this time, Barnave became a counselor and supporter of the royal family. When they returned to Paris, the crowd greeted them in silence. The Assembly provisionally suspended the King. He and Queen Marie Antoinette remained held under guard.[50][51][52][53][54]
Completing the constitution[link]
Main article: The Last Days of the National Constituent Assembly
As most of the Assembly still favoured a constitutional monarchy rather than a republic, the various groups reached a compromise which left Louis XVI as little more than a figurehead: he was forced to swear an oath to the constitution, and a decree declared that retracting the oath, heading an army for the purpose of making war upon the nation, or permitting anyone to do so in his name would amount to abdication.[55]
However, Jacques Pierre Brissot drafted a petition, insisting that in the eyes of the nation Louis XVI was deposed since his flight. An immense crowd gathered in the Champ de Mars to sign the petition. Georges Danton and Camille Desmoulins gave fiery speeches. The Assembly called for the municipal authorities to "preserve public order". The National Guard under La Fayette's command confronted the crowd. The soldiers responded to a barrage of stones by firing into the crowd, killing between 13 and 50 people.[56]
In the wake of this massacre the authorities closed many of the patriotic clubs, as well as radical newspapers such as Jean-Paul Marat's L'Ami du Peuple. Danton fled to England; Desmoulins and Marat went into hiding.[citation needed]
Meanwhile, a new threat arose from abroad: Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, Frederick William II of Prussia, and the King's brother Charles-Philippe, comte d'Artois, issued the Declaration of Pillnitz, which considered the cause of Louis XVI as their own, demanded his absolute liberty and implied an invasion of France on his behalf if the revolutionary authorities refused its conditions.[57] The French people expressed no respect for the dictates of foreign monarchs, and the threat of force merely hastened their militarisation.[58]
Even before the "Flight to Varennes", the Assembly members had determined to debar themselves from the legislature that would succeed them, the Legislative Assembly. They now gathered the various constitutional laws they had passed into a single constitution, showed remarkable strength in choosing not to use this as an occasion for major revisions, and submitted it to the recently restored Louis XVI, who accepted it, writing "I engage to maintain it at home, to defend it from all attacks from abroad, and to cause its execution by all the means it places at my disposal". The King addressed the Assembly and received enthusiastic applause from members and spectators. With this capstone, the National Constituent Assembly adjourned in a final session on 30 September 1791.[59]
Mignet argued that the "constitution of 1791... was the work of the middle class, then the strongest; for, as is well known, the predominant force ever takes possession of institutions... In this constitution the people was the source of all powers, but it exercised none."[55]
Legislative Assembly (1791–1792)[link]
Failure of the constitutional monarchy[link]
Under the Constitution of 1791, France would function as a constitutional monarchy. The King had to share power with the elected Legislative Assembly, but he still retained his royal veto and the ability to select ministers. The Legislative Assembly first met on 1 October 1791, and degenerated into chaos less than a year later. In the words of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica: "In the attempt to govern, the Assembly failed altogether. It left behind an empty treasury, an undisciplined army and navy, and a people debauched by safe and successful riot."[60] The Legislative Assembly consisted of about 165 Feuillants (constitutional monarchists) on the right, about 330 Girondists (liberal republicans) and Jacobins (radical revolutionaries) on the left, and about 250 deputies unaffiliated with either faction.[citation needed] Early on, the King vetoed legislation that threatened the émigrés with death and that decreed that every non-juring clergyman must take within eight days the civic oath mandated by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Over the course of a year, such disagreements would lead to a constitutional crisis.[citation needed]
Constitutional crisis[link]
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Main articles: 10 August (French Revolution), September Massacres, and Proclamation of the abolition of the monarchy
On the night of 10 August 1792, insurgents and popular militias, supported by the revolutionary Paris Commune, assailed the Tuileries Palace and massacred the Swiss Guards who were assigned for the protection of the king. The royal family ended up prisoners and a rump session of the Legislative Assembly suspended the monarchy; little more than a third of the deputies were present, almost all of them Jacobins.[61]
What remained of a national government depended on the support of the insurrectionary Commune. The Commune sent gangs into the prisons to try arbitrarily and butcher 1400 victims, and addressed a circular letter to the other cities of France inviting them to follow this example. The Assembly could offer only feeble resistance. This situation persisted until the Convention, elected by universal male suffrage and charged with writing a new constitution, met on 20 September 1792 and became the new de facto government of France. The next day it abolished the monarchy and declared a republic. This date was later retroactively adopted as the beginning of Year One of the French Republican Calendar.
War and Counter-Revolution (1792–1797)[link]
Main articles: French Revolutionary Wars and French Counter-Revolution
The politics of the period inevitably drove France towards war with Austria and its allies. The King, many of the Feuillants, and the Girondins specifically wanted to wage war. The King (and many Feuillants with him) expected war would increase his personal popularity; he also foresaw an opportunity to exploit any defeat: either result would make him stronger. The Girondins wanted to export the Revolution throughout Europe and, by extension, to defend the Revolution within France. The forces opposing war were much weaker. Barnave and his supporters among the Feuillants feared a war they thought France had little chance to win and which they feared might lead to greater radicalization of the revolution. On the other end of the political spectrum Robespierre opposed a war on two grounds, fearing that it would strengthen the monarchy and military at the expense of the revolution, and that it would incur the anger of ordinary people in Austria and elsewhere. The Austrian emperor Leopold II, brother of Marie Antoinette, may have wished to avoid war, but he died on 1 March 1792.[62] France preemptively declared war on Austria (20 April 1792) and Prussia joined on the Austrian side a few weeks later. The invading Prussian army faced little resistance until checked at the Battle of Valmy (20 September 1792), and forced to withdraw.
The new-born Republic followed up on this success with a series of victories in Belgium and the Rhineland in the fall of 1792. The French armies defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Jemappes on 6 November, and had soon taken over most of the Austrian Netherlands. This brought them into conflict with Britain and the Dutch Republic, which wished to preserve the independence of the southern Netherlands from France. After the king's execution in January 1793, these powers, along with Spain and most other European states, joined the war against France. Almost immediately, French forces faced defeat on many fronts, and were driven out of their newly conquered territories in the spring of 1793. At the same time, the republican regime was forced to deal with rebellions against its authority in much of western and southern France. But the allies failed to take advantage of French disunity, and by the autumn of 1793 the republican regime had defeated most of the internal rebellions and halted the allied advance into France itself.
The stalemate was broken in the summer of 1794 with dramatic French victories. They defeated the allied army at the Battle of Fleurus, leading to a full Allied withdrawal from the Austrian Netherlands. They followed up by a campaign which swept the allies to the east bank of the Rhine and left the French, by the beginning of 1795, conquering Holland itself. The House of Orange was expelled and replaced by the Batavian Republic, a French satellite state. These victories led to the collapse of the coalition against France. Prussia, having effectively abandoned the coalition in the fall of 1794, made peace with revolutionary France at Basel in April 1795, and soon thereafter Spain, too, made peace with France. Of the major powers, only Britain and Austria remained at war with France.
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The French national anthem La Marseillaise was written during the revolution in 1792.
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It was during this time that La Marseillaise was first sung. Originally titled Chant de guerre pour l'Armée du Rhin ("War Song for the Army of the Rhine"), the song was written and composed by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle in 1792. It was adopted in 1795 as the nation's first anthem.
National Convention (1792–1795)[link]
Main article: National Convention
Execution of Louis XVI[link]
Main article: Execution of Louis XVI
In the Brunswick Manifesto, the Imperial and Prussian armies threatened retaliation on the French population if it were to resist their advance or the reinstatement of the monarchy. This among other things made Louis appear to be conspiring with the enemies of France. On 17 January 1793 Louis was condemned to death for "conspiracy against the public liberty and the general safety" by a close majority in Convention: 361 voted to execute the king, 288 voted against, and another 72 voted to execute him subject to a variety of delaying conditions. The former Louis XVI, now simply named Citoyen Louis Capet (Citizen Louis Capet), was executed by guillotine on 21 January 1793 on the Place de la Révolution, former Place Louis XV, now called the Place de la Concorde.[63] Royalty across Europe was horrified and many heretofore neutral countries soon joined the war against revolutionary France.
Economy[link]
When war went badly, prices rose and the sans-culottes — poor labourers and radical Jacobins – rioted; counter-revolutionary activities began in some regions. This encouraged the Jacobins to seize power through a parliamentary coup, backed up by force effected by mobilising public support against the Girondist faction, and by utilising the mob power of the Parisian sans-culottes. An alliance of Jacobin and sans-culottes elements thus became the effective centre of the new government. Policy became considerably more radical, as "The Law of the Maximum" set food prices and led to executions of offenders.[64] This policy of price control was coeval with the Committee of Public Safety's rise to power and the Reign of Terror. The Committee first attempted to set the price for only a limited number of grain products but, by September 1793, it expanded the "maximum" to cover all foodstuffs and a long list of other goods.[65] Widespread shortages and famine ensued. The Committee reacted by sending dragoons into the countryside to arrest farmers and seize crops. This temporarily solved the problem in Paris, but the rest of the country suffered. By the spring of 1794, forced collection of food was not sufficient to feed even Paris and the days of the Committee were numbered. When Robespierre went to the guillotine in July of that year the crowd jeered, "There goes the dirty maximum!"[66]
Reign of Terror[link]
Main article: Reign of Terror
The Committee of Public Safety came under the control of Maximilien Robespierre, a lawyer, and the Jacobins unleashed the Reign of Terror (1793–1794). According to archival records, at least 16,594 people died under the guillotine or otherwise after accusations of counter-revolutionary activities.[67] A number of historians note that as many as 40,000 accused prisoners may have been summarily executed without trial or died awaiting trial.[67][68]
On 2 June 1793, Paris sections — encouraged by the enragés ("enraged ones") Jacques Roux and Jacques Hébert – took over the Convention, calling for administrative and political purges, a low fixed price for bread, and a limitation of the electoral franchise to sans-culottes alone.[69] With the backing of the National Guard, they managed to persuade the Convention to arrest 31 Girondin leaders, including Jacques Pierre Brissot. Following these arrests, the Jacobins gained control of the Committee of Public Safety on 10 June, installing the revolutionary dictatorship. On 13 July, the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat — a Jacobin leader and journalist known for his bloodthirsty rhetoric — by Charlotte Corday, a Girondin, resulted in further increase of Jacobin political influence. Georges Danton, the leader of the August 1792 uprising against the King, undermined by several political reversals, was removed from the Committee and Robespierre, "the Incorruptible", became its most influential member as it moved to take radical measures against the Revolution's domestic and foreign enemies.[70]
Meanwhile, on 24 June, the Convention adopted the first republican constitution of France, variously referred to as the French Constitution of 1793 or Constitution of the Year I. It was progressive and radical in several respects, in particular by establishing universal male suffrage. It was ratified by public referendum, but normal legal processes were suspended before it could take effect.[71]
War in the Vendée[link]
Main article: War in the Vendée
In Vendée, peasants revolted against the French Revolutionary government in 1793. They resented the changes imposed on the Roman Catholic Church by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790) and broke into open revolt in defiance of the Revolutionary government's military conscription.[72] This became a guerrilla war, known as the War in the Vendée.[73] North of the Loire, similar revolts were started by the so-called Chouans (royalist rebels).[74]
After the defeat at Savenay, when regular warfare in the Vendée was at an end, the French general Francois Joseph Westermann is argued by some historians to have penned a letter (its veracity is disputed)[75][76] to the Committee of Public Safety, stating:
"There is no more Vendée. It died with its wives and its children by our free sabres. I have just buried it in the woods and the swamps of Savenay. According to the orders that you gave me, I crushed the children under the feet of the horses, massacred the women who, at least for these, will not give birth to any more brigands. I do not have a prisoner to reproach me. I have exterminated all. The roads are sown with corpses. At Savenay, brigands are arriving all the time claiming to surrender, and we are shooting them non-stop... Mercy is not a revolutionary sentiment."[77][78]
Other historians doubt the authenticity of this document and point out that the claims in it were patently false — there were in fact thousands of living Vendean prisoners, the revolt had been far from crushed, and the Convention had explicitly decreed that women, children and unarmed men were to be treated humanely.[79] It has been hypothesized that if the letter is authentic, Westermann may have been attempting to exaggerate the intensity of his actions and his success, because he was eager to avoid being purged for his opposition to sans-culotte generals (he was later guillotined together with Danton's group).[80]
The revolt and its suppression, including both combat casualties and massacres and executions on both sides, are thought to have taken between 117,000 and 250,000 lives (170,000 according to the latest estimates).[81] Because of the extremely brutal forms that the Republican repression took in many places, certain historians such as Reynald Secher have called the event a "genocide". This description has become popular in the mass media,[82] but has largely been rejected by mainstream scholars.[83]
Facing local revolts and foreign invasions in both the East and West of the country, the most urgent government business was the war. On 17 August, the Convention voted for general conscription, the levée en masse, which mobilized all citizens to serve as soldiers or suppliers in the war effort.
The National Convention subsequently enacted more legislation, voting on 9 September to establish sans-culottes paramilitary forces, revolutionary armies, and to force farmers to surrender grain demanded by the government. On 17 September, the Law of Suspects was passed, which authorized the charging of counter-revolutionaries with "crimes against liberty." On 29 September, the Convention extended price limits from grain and bread to other household goods and established the Law of the Maximum, intended to prevent price gouging and supply food to the cities.[84]
The guillotine as a symbol[link]
The guillotine became the symbol of a string of executions. Louis XVI had already been guillotined before the start of the terror; Queen Marie Antoinette, Barnave, Bailly, Brissot and other leading Girondins, Philippe Égalité (despite his vote for the death of the King), Madame Roland and many others were executed by guillotine. The Revolutionary Tribunal summarily condemned thousands of people to death by the guillotine, while mobs beat other victims to death.
At the peak of the terror, the slightest hint of counter-revolutionary thoughts or activities (or, as in the case of Jacques Hébert, revolutionary zeal exceeding that of those in power) could place one under suspicion, and trials did not always proceed according to contemporary standards of due process. Sometimes people died for their political opinions or actions, but many for little reason beyond mere suspicion, or because some others had a stake in getting rid of them. Most of the victims received an unceremonious trip to the guillotine in an open wooden cart (the tumbrel). In the rebellious provinces, the government representatives had unlimited authority and some engaged in extreme repressions and abuses. For example, Jean-Baptiste Carrier became notorious for the Noyades ("drownings") he organized in Nantes;[85] his conduct was judged unacceptable even by the Jacobin government and he was recalled.[86]
Another anti-clerical uprising was made possible by the installment of the Republican Calendar on 24 October 1793. Against Robespierre's concepts of Deism and Virtue, Hébert's (and Chaumette's) atheist movement initiated a religious campaign to dechristianize society. The climax was reached with the celebration of the flame of Reason in Notre Dame Cathedral on 10 November.[87]
The Reign of Terror ultimately weakened the revolutionary government, while temporarily ending internal opposition. The Jacobins expanded the size of the army, and Carnot replaced many aristocratic officers with soldiers who had demonstrated their patriotism, if not their ability. The Republican army was able to throw back the Austrians, Prussians, British, and Spanish. At the end of 1793, the army began to prevail and revolts were defeated with ease. The Ventôse Decrees (February–March 1794) proposed the confiscation of the goods of exiles and opponents of the Revolution, and their redistribution to the needy. However this policy was never fully implemented.[88]
In the spring of 1794, both extremist enragés such as Hébert and moderate Montagnard indulgents such as Danton were charged with counter-revolutionary activities, tried and guillotined. On 7 June Robespierre, who had previously condemned the Cult of Reason, advocated a new state religion and recommended the Convention acknowledge the existence of the "Supreme Being".[89]
Thermidorian Reaction[link]
Main article: Thermidorian Reaction
On 27 July 1794, the Thermidorian Reaction led to the arrest and execution of Robespierre, Louis de Saint-Just, and other leading Jacobins. The new government was predominantly made up of Girondists who had survived the Terror, and after taking power, they took revenge as well by persecuting even those Jacobins who had helped to overthrow Robespierre, banning the Jacobin Club, and executing many of its former members in what was known as the White Terror.[90][91]
In the wake of excesses of the Terror, the Convention approved the new "Constitution of the Year III" on 22 August 1795. A French plebiscite ratified the document, with about 1,057,000 votes for the constitution and 49,000 against.[92] The results of the voting were announced on 23 September 1795, and the new constitution took effect on 27 September 1795.[92]
The Constitutional Republic: The Directory (1795–1799)[link]
Main article: French Directory
The new constitution created the Directoire (English: Directory) and the first bicameral legislature in French history.[93] The parliament consisted of two houses: the Conseil des Cinq-Cents (Council of the Five Hundred), with 500 representatives, and the Conseil des Anciens (Council of Elders), with 250 senators. Executive power went to five "directors," named annually by the Conseil des Anciens from a list submitted by the Conseil des Cinq-Cents. Furthermore, the universal male suffrage of 1793 was replaced by limited suffrage based on property.[94]
With the establishment of the Directory, contemporary observers might have assumed that the Revolution was finished. Citizens of the war-weary nation wanted stability, peace, and an end to conditions that at times bordered on chaos. Those who wished to restore the monarchy and the Ancien Régime by putting Louis XVIII on the throne, and those who would have renewed the Reign of Terror were insignificant in number. The possibility of foreign interference had vanished with the failure of the First Coalition. The earlier atrocities had made confidence or goodwill between parties impossible. The same instinct of self-preservation which had led the members of the Convention to claim so large a part in the new legislature and the whole of the Directory impelled them to keep their predominance. However, many French citizens distrusted the Directory,[95] and the directors could achieve their purposes only by extraordinary means. They habitually disregarded the terms of the constitution, and, even when the elections that they rigged went against them, the directors routinely used draconian police measures to quell dissent. Moreover, to prolong their power the directors were driven to rely on the military, which desired war and grew less and less civic-minded.[96]
Other reasons influenced them in the direction of war. State finances during the earlier phases of the Revolution had been so thoroughly ruined that the government could not have met its expenses without the plunder and the tribute of foreign countries. If peace were made, the armies would return home and the directors would have to face the exasperation of the rank-and-file who had lost their livelihood, as well as the ambition of generals who could, in a moment, brush them aside. Barras and Rewbell were notoriously corrupt themselves and screened corruption in others. The patronage of the directors was ill-bestowed, and the general maladministration heightened their unpopularity.[97]
The constitutional party in the legislature desired toleration of the nonjuring clergy, the repeal of the laws against the relatives of the émigrés, and some merciful discrimination toward the émigrés themselves. The directors baffled all such endeavours. On the other hand, the socialist conspiracy of Babeuf was easily quelled. Little was done to improve the finances, and the assignats continued to fall in value.[citation needed]
The new régime met opposition from remaining Jacobins and the royalists. The army suppressed riots and counter-revolutionary activities. In this way the army and its successful general, Napoleon Bonaparte eventually gained total power.
On 9 November 1799 (18 Brumaire of the Year VIII) Napoleon Bonaparte staged the coup of 18 Brumaire which installed the Consulate. This effectively led to Bonaparte's dictatorship and eventually (in 1804) to his proclamation as Empereur (emperor), which brought to a close the specifically republican phase of the French Revolution.[98]
Symbolism in the French Revolution[link]
The French Revolution was a time of upheaval, especially towards traditional ideology, in almost every sense: the current monarch, King Louis XVI, was executed; the Catholic Church was all but abolished; a new calendar was created; and a new Republican government was established. In order to effectively illustrate the differences between the new Republic and the old regime, the leaders needed to implement a new set of symbols to be celebrated instead of the old religious and monarchical symbolism. To this end, symbols were borrowed from historic cultures and redefined, while those of the old regime were either destroyed or reattributed acceptable characteristics. These revised symbols were used to instill in the public a new sense of tradition and reverence for the Enlightenment and the Republic.[99]
Fasces[link]
Fasces, likes many other symbols of the French Revolution, are Roman in origin. Fasces are a bundle of birch rods containing an axe. In Roman times, the fasces symbolized the power of magistrates who could order the beating of a criminal, representing union and accord with the Roman Republic.[99] The French Republic continued this Roman symbol to represent state power, justice, and unity. During the French Revolution the fasces image is seen in conjunction with many other symbols. This is seen with many emblems of the French Revolution. Though seen throughout the French Revolution, perhaps the most well known French reincarnation of the fasces is the Fasces surmounted by a Phrygian cap. This image has no display of an axe or a strong central state; rather, it symbolizes the power of the liberated people by placing the Liberty Cap on top of the classical symbol of power.[99]
Liberty cap[link]
The Liberty cap, also known as the Phrygian cap, or pileus, is a brimless, felt cap that is conical in shape with the tip pulled forward. The cap was originally worn by ancient Romans and Greeks.[100] The cap implies ennobling effects, as seen in its association with Homer’s Ulysses and the mythical twins, Castor and Pollux. The emblem’s popularity during the French Revolution is due in part to its importance in ancient Rome: its use alludes to the Roman ritual of manumission of slaves, in which a freed slave receives the bonnet as a symbol of his newfound liberty. The Roman tribune Lucius Appuleius Saturninus incited the slaves to insurrection by displaying a pileus as if it were a standard.[101] The pileus cap is often red in color. This type of cap was worn by revolutionaries at the fall of the Bastille. According to the Revolutions de Paris, it became "the symbol of the liberation from all servitudes, the sign for unification of all the enemies of despotism."[99] The pileus competed with the Phrygian cap, a similar cap that covered the ears and the nape of the neck, for popularity. The Phrygian cap eventually supplanted the pileus and usurped its symbolism, becoming synonymous with republican liberty.[99]
Liberty Tree[link]
The Liberty Tree, officially adopted in 1792, is a symbol of the everlasting Republic, national freedom, and political revolution.[99] It has historic roots in revolutionary France as well as America, as a symbol that was shared by the two nascent republics.[102] The tree was chosen as a symbol of the French Revolution because it is a symbol of fertility in French folklore,[103] which provided a simple transition from revering it for one reason to another. The American colonies also used the idea of a Liberty Tree to celebrate their own acts of insurrection against the British, starting with the Stamp Act riot in 1765.[104] The riot culminated in the hanging in effigy of two Stamp Act politicians on a large elm tree. The elm tree began to be celebrated as a symbol of Liberty in the American colonies.[104] It was adopted as a symbol that needed to be living and growing, along with the Republic. To that end, the tree is portrayed as a sapling, usually of an oak tree in French interpretation.[105] The Liberty Tree serves as a constant celebration of the spirit of political freedom.
Hercules[link]
The symbol of Hercules was first adopted by the Old Regime to represent the monarchy.[106] Hercules was an ancient Greek hero who symbolized strength and power. The symbol was used to represent the sovereign authority of the King over France during the reign of the Bourbon monarchs.[107] However, the monarchy was not the only ruling power in French history to use the symbol of Hercules to declare its power.
During the Revolution, the symbol of Hercules was revived to represent nascent revolutionary ideals. The first use of Hercules as a revolutionary symbol was during a festival celebrating the National Assembly’s victory over federalism on 10 August 1793.[108] This Festival of Unity consisted of four stations around Paris which featured symbols representing major events of the Revolution which embodied revolutionary ideals of liberty, unity, and power.[109] The statue of Hercules, placed at the station commemorating the fall of Louis XVI, symbolized the power of the French people over their former oppressors. The statue’s foot was placed on the throat of the Hydra, which represented the tyranny of federalism which the new Republic had vanquished.[108] In one hand, the statue grasped a club, a symbol of power, while in the other grasping the fasces which symbolized the unity of the French people.[110] The image of Hercules assisted the new Republic in establishing its new Republican moral system.[109] Hercules thus evolved from a symbol of the sovereignty of the monarch into a symbol of the new sovereign authority in France: the French people.[111] This transition was made easily for two reasons. First, because Hercules was a famous mythological figure, and had previously been used by the monarchy, he was easily recognized by educated French observers.[107] It was not necessary for the revolutionary government to educate the French people on the background of the symbol. Additionally, Hercules recalled the classical age of the Greeks and the Romans, a period which the revolutionaries identified with republican and democratic ideals. These connotations made Hercules an easy choice to represent the powerful new sovereign people of France.
During the more radical phase of the Revolution from 1793 to 1794, the usage and depiction of Hercules changed. These changes to the symbol were due to revolutionary leaders believing the symbol was inciting violence among the common citizens.[112] The triumphant battles of Hercules and the overcoming of enemies of the Republic became less prominent. In discussions over what symbol to use for the Seal of the Republic, the image of Hercules was considered but eventually ruled out in favor of Marianne.[112] Hercules was on the coin of the Republic.[112] However, this Hercules was not the same image as that of the pre-Terror phases of the Revolution. The new image of Hercules was more domesticated. He appeared more paternal, older, and wiser, rather than the warrior-like images in the early stages of the French Revolution.[112] Unlike his 24 foot statue in the Festival of the Supreme Being, he was now the same size as Liberty and Equality.[112] Also the language on the coin with Hercules was far different than the rhetoric of pre-revolutionary depictions. On the coins the words, "uniting Liberty and Equality" were used.[112] This is opposed to the forceful language of early Revolutionary rhetoric and rhetoric of the Bourbon monarchy. By 1798, the Council of Ancients had discussed the "inevitable" change from the problematic image of Hercules, and Hercules was eventually phased out in favor of an even more docile image.[112]
Role of women[link]
Women had no political rights in pre-Revolutionary France; they could not vote or hold any political office. They were considered "passive" citizens; forced to rely on men to determine what was best for them in the government. It was the men who defined these categories, and women were forced to accept male domination in the political sphere.[113] The Encyclopédie, published by a group of philosophers over the years 1751–1777, summarized French male beliefs of women. A woman was a "failed man," the fetus not fully developed in the womb. "Women’s testimony is in general light and subject to variation; this is why it is taken more seriously than that of men" as opposed to men, upon whom "Nature seems to have conferred… the right to govern." In general, "men are more capable than women of ably governing particular matters".[114] Instead, women were taught to be committed to their husbands and "all his interests… [to show] attention and care… [and] sincere and discreet zeal for his salvation." A woman’s education often consisted of learning to be a good wife and mother; as a result women were not supposed to be involved in the political sphere, as the limit of their influence was the raising of future citizens.[115]
When the Revolution opened, some women struck forcefully, using the volatile political climate to assert their active natures. In the time of the Revolution, women could not be kept out of the political sphere; they swore oaths of loyalty, "solemn declarations of patriotic allegiance, [and] affirmations of the political responsibilities of citizenship." Throughout the Revolution, women such as Pauline Léon and her Society of Revolutionary Republican Women fought for the right to bear arms, used armed force and rioted.[116]
Even before Léon, some liberals had advocated equal rights for women including women's suffrage. Nicolas de Condorcet was especially noted for his advocacy, in his articles published in the Journal de la Société de 1789, and by publishing De l'admission des femmes au droit de cité ("For the Admission to the Rights of Citizenship For Women") in 1790.
Feminist agitation[link]
Main article: Militant Feminism in the French Revolution
The March to Versailles is but one example of feminist militant activism during the French Revolution. While largely left out of the thrust for increasing rights of citizens, as the question was left indeterminate in the Declaration of the Rights of Man,[117] activists such as Pauline Léon and Théroigne de Méricourt agitated for full citizenship for women.[118] Women were, nonetheless, "denied political rights of ‘active citizenship’ (1791) and democratic citizenship (1793)."[117]
Pauline Léon, on 6 March 1792, submitted a petition signed by 319 women to the National Assembly requesting permission to form a garde national in order to defend Paris in case of military invasion.[118] Léon requested permission be granted to women to arm themselves with pikes, pistols, sabers and rifles, as well as the privilege of drilling under the French Guards. Her request was denied.[119] Later in 1792, Théroigne de Méricourt made a call for the creation of "legions of amazons" in order to protect the revolution. As part of her call, she claimed that the right to bear arm would transform women into citizens.[120]
On 20 June 1792 a number of armed women took part in a procession that "passed through the halls of the Legislative Assembly, into the Tuilleries Gardens, and then through the King’s residence."[121] Militant women also assumed a special role in the funeral of Marat, following his murder on 13 July 1793. As part of the funeral procession, they carried the bathtub in which Marat had been murdered as well as a shirt stained with Marat’s blood.[122]
The most radical militant feminist activism was practiced by the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, which was founded by Léon and her colleague, Claire Lacombe on 10 May 1793.[123] The goal of the club was "to deliberate on the means of frustrating the projects of the enemies of the Republic." Up to 180 women attended the meetings of the Society.[124] Of special interest to the Society was "combating hoarding [of grain and other staples] and inflation."[125]
Later, on 20 May 1793, women were at the fore of a crowd that demanded "bread and the Constitution of 1793."[126] When their cries went unnoticed, the women went on a rampage, "sacking shops, seizing grain and kidnapping officials."[127]
Most of these outwardly activist women were punished for their actions. The kind of punishment received during the Revolution included public denouncement, arrest, execution, or exile. Théroigne de Méricourt was arrested, publicly flogged and then spent the rest of her life sentenced to an insane asylum. Pauline Léon and Claire Lacombe were arrested, later released, and continued to receive ridicule and abuse for their activism. Many of the women of the Revolution were even publicly executed for "conspiring against the unity and the indivisibility of the Republic".[128]
These are but a few examples of the militant feminism that was prevalent during the French Revolution. While little progress was made toward gender equality during the Revolution, the activism of French feminists was bold and particularly significant in Paris.[citation needed]
Women writers[link]
While some women chose a militant, and often violent, path, others chose to influence events through writing, publications, and meetings. Olympe de Gouges wrote a number of plays, short stories, and novels. Her publications emphasized that women and men are different, but this shouldn’t stop them from equality under the law. In her "Declaration on the Rights of Woman" she insisted that women deserved rights, especially in areas concerning them directly, such as divorce and recognition of illegitimate children. De Gouges also expressed non-gender political views; even before the start of the terror, Olympe de Gouges addressed Robespierre using the pseudonym "Polyme" calling him the Revolution’s "infamy and shame." She warned of the Revolution’s building extremism saying that leaders were "preparing new shackles if [the French people’s liberty were to] waver." Stating that she was willing to sacrifice herself by jumping into the Seine if Robespierre were to join her, de Gouges desperately attempted to grab the attention of the French citizenry and alert them to the dangers that Robespierre embodied.[129] In addition to these bold writings, her defense of the king was one of the factors leading to her execution. An influential figure, one of her suggestions early in the Revolution, to have a voluntary, patriotic tax, was adopted by the National Convention in 1789.[130]
Madame Roland (aka Manon or Marie Roland) was another important female activist. Her political focus was not specifically on women or their liberation. She focused on other aspects of the government, but was a feminist by virtue of the fact that she was a woman working to influence the world. Her personal letters to leaders of the Revolution influenced policy; in addition, she often hosted political gatherings of the Brissotins, a political group which allowed women to join. While limited by her gender, Madame Roland took it upon herself to spread Revolutionary ideology and spread word of events, as well as to assist in formulating the policies of her political allies. Though unable to directly write policies or carry them through to the government, Roland was able to influence her political allies and thus promote her political agenda. Roland attributed women’s lack of education to the public view that women were too weak or vain to be involved in the serious business of politics. She believed that it was this inferior education that turned them into foolish people, but women "could easily be concentrated and solidified upon objects of great significance" if given the chance.[131] As she was led to the scaffold, Madame Roland shouted "O liberty! What crimes are committed in thy name!" Witnesses of her life and death, editors, and readers helped to finish her writings and several editions were published posthumously. While she did not focus on gender politics in her writings, by taking an active role in the tumultuous time of the Revolution, Roland took a stand for women of the time and proved they could take an intelligent active role in politics.[132]
Though women did not gain the right to vote as a result of the Revolution, they still greatly expanded their political participation and involvement in governing. They set precedents for generations of feminists to come.
Counter-revolutionary women[link]
A major aspect of the French Revolution was the dechristianisation movement, a movement that many common people did not agree with. Especially for women living in rural areas of France, the demise of the Catholic Church meant a loss of normalcy. For instance, the ringing of Church bells resonating through the town called people to confession and was a symbol of unity for the community.[133] With the onset of the dechristianisation campaign the Republic silenced these bells and sought simultaneously to silence the religious fervor of the majority Catholic population.[133] When these revolutionary changes to the Church were implemented, it spawned a counter-revolutionary movement, particularly amongst women. Although some of these women embraced the political and social amendments of the Revolution, they opposed the dissolution of the Catholic Church and the formation of revolutionary cults like the Cult of the Supreme Being advocated by Robespierre.[134] As Olwen Hufton argues, these women began to see themselves as the “defenders of faith”.[135] They took it upon themselves to protect the Church from what they saw as a heretical change to their faith, enforced by revolutionaries.
Counter-revolutionary women resisted what they saw as the intrusion of the state into their lives.[136] Economically, many peasant women refused to sell their goods for assignats because this form of currency was unstable and was backed by the sale of confiscated Church property.[135] By far the most important issue to counter-revolutionary women was the passage and the enforcement of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1790. In response to this measure, women in many areas began circulating anti-oath pamphlets and refused to attend masses held by priests who had sworn oaths of loyalty to the Republic.[136] This diminished the social and political influence of the juring priests because they presided over smaller congregations and counter-revolutionary women did not seek them for baptisms, marriages or confession.[137] Instead, they secretly hid nonjuring priests and attended clandestine traditional masses.[138] These women continued to adhere to traditional practices such as Christian burials and naming their children after saints in spite of revolutionary decrees to the contrary.[139]
It was this determined resistance to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy and the dechristianisation campaigns that played a major role in the re-emergence of the Catholic Church as a prominent social institution. In fact, Olwen Hufton notes about the Counter-Revolutionary women: “for it is her commitment to her religion which determines in the post-Thermidorean period the re-emergence of the Catholic Church…”.[140] Although they struggled, these women were eventually vindicated in their bid to reestablish the Church and thereby also to reestablish traditional family life and social stability.[141] This was seen in the Concordat of 1801, which formally reinstated the Catholic Church in France.[142] This act came after years of failed attempts at dechristianisation or state-controlled religion, which were thwarted in part due to the resistance of devout counter-revolutionary women. After the upheaval of the revolutionary period, the reestablishment of the Church was seen by many people as a welcome return to normalcy.
Legacy[link]
Main article: Historiography of the French Revolution
The French Revolution has received enormous amounts of historical attention, both from the general public and from scholars and academics. The views of historians, in particular, have been characterized as falling along ideological lines, with disagreement over the significance and the major developments of the Revolution.[143] Alexis de Tocqueville argued that the Revolution was a manifestation of a more prosperous middle class becoming conscious of its social importance.[144] Other thinkers, like the conservative Edmund Burke, maintained that the Revolution was the product of a few conspiratorial individuals who brainwashed the masses into subverting the old order—a claim rooted in the belief that the revolutionaries had no legitimate complaints.[145] Other historians, influenced by Marxist thinking, have emphasized the importance of the peasants and the urban workers in presenting the Revolution as a gigantic class struggle.[146] In general, scholarship on the French Revolution initially studied the political ideas and developments of the era, but it has gradually shifted towards social history that analyzes the impact of the Revolution on individual lives.[147]
Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human history, and the end of the early modern period, which started around 1500, is traditionally attributed to the onset of the French Revolution in 1789.[148] The Revolution is, in fact, often seen as marking the "dawn of the modern era".[149] Within France itself, the Revolution permanently crippled the power of the aristocracy and drained the wealth of the Church, although the two institutions survived despite the damage they sustained. After the collapse of the First Empire in 1815, the French public lost the rights and privileges earned since the Revolution, but they remembered the participatory politics that characterized the period, with one historian commenting: "Thousands of men and even many women gained firsthand experience in the political arena: they talked, read, and listened in new ways; they voted; they joined new organizations; and they marched for their political goals. Revolution became a tradition, and republicanism an enduring option."[150] Some historians argue that the French people underwent a fundamental transformation in self-identity, evidenced by the elimination of privileges and their replacement by rights as well as the growing decline in social deference that highlighted the principle of equality throughout the Revolution.[151] The Revolution represented the most significant and dramatic challenge to political absolutism up to that point in history and, despite its failures, spread democratic ideals throughout Europe and ultimately the world.[152] It had a profound impact on the Russian Revolution and its ideas inspired Mao Zedong in his efforts at constructing a communist state in China.[153]
See also[link]
- Biens nationaux
- Dual revolution
- History of democracy
- La Révolution française (film)
- List of people granted honorary French citizenship during the French Revolution
- List of revolutions and rebellions
- Military career of Napoleon Bonaparte
- Napoleonic code
- Jean-Nicolas Pache
- Dechristianisation of France during the French Revolution
- Rise of nationalism in Europe
Audio files[link]
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Porticodoro / SmartCGArt Media Productions — Classical Orchestra.
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Porticodoro / SmartCGArt Media Productions — Classical Orchestra.
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Other revolutions or rebellions in French history[link]
- Camisard Rebellion, French Huguenots (1710–1715)
- Haitian Revolution, Haiti colony (1791–1804)
- July Revolution (1830)
- Canut revolts of the July Monarchy
- French Revolution of 1848
- Resistance to the coup of 1851
- Paris Commune of 1871
- French Army Mutinies (1917)
- French Resistance during World War II
- May 1968 in France, a noteworthy rebellion, though not quite a revolution
Notes[link]
- ^ "French Revolution". http://faculty.ucc.edu/egh-damerow/french_revolution.htm.
- ^ Donald Greer, The Incidence of the Terror during the French Revolution: A Statistical Interpretation (1935).
- ^ Bell, David Avrom (2007). The First Total War: Napoleon's Europe and the birth of warfare as we know it. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 51. ISBN 0-618-34965-0. "The French Revolution, which began in 1789 and led to the total war of 1792–1815...."
- ^ Hibbert. Pg 96.
- ^ "Encyclopædia Britannica — Traite". http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/602094/traite. Retrieved 16 October 2008.
- ^ William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution (2nd ed. 2003), pp.73–74
- ^ Frey, p. 3
- ^ "France's Financial Crisis: 1783–1788". http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/frenchrev/section1.html. Retrieved 26 October 2008.
- ^ a b c d Hibbert, p. 35, 36
- ^ Frey, p. 2
- ^ Doyle, The French Revolution: A very short introduction, p. 34
- ^ Doyle 2003, p. 93
- ^ a b Frey, pp. 4, 5
- ^ a b c Doyle 2001, p. 38
- ^ Doyle 1989, p.89
- ^ a b c Neely, p. 56
- ^ a b Hibbert, pp.42–45
- ^ Assemblée Nationale (French)
- ^ a b Neely, pp. 63, 65
- ^ Furet, p. 45
- ^ Hibbert, p. 54
- ^ Schama 2004, p.300–301
- ^ John Hall Stewart. A Documentary Survey of the French Revolution. New York: Macmillan, 1951, p. 86.
- ^ Schama 2004, p.303
- ^ a b Schama 2004, p.312
- ^ Schama 2004, p.317
- ^ Schama 2004, p.331
- ^ Schama 2004, p.344
- ^ Schama 2004, p.357
- ^ Lefebvre, pp.187–188.
- ^ Hibbert, 93
- ^ Doyle 1989, p.121
- ^ Doyle 1989, p.122
- ^ a b Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, 4.
- ^ Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, 16.
- ^ John McManners, The French Revolution and the Church, 5.
- ^ John McManners, The French Revolution and the Church, 50, 4.
- ^ National Assembly legislation cited in John McManners, The French Revolution and the Church, 27.
- ^ John McManners, The French Revolution and the Church, 27.
- ^ a b Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, 61.
- ^ Emmet Kennedy, A Cultural History of the French Revolution, 148.
- ^ a b Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, 92.
- ^ Emmet Kennedy, A Cultural History of the French Revolution, 151.
- ^ Censer and Hunt, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, 92–94.
- ^ Schama 2004, p.433–434
- ^ a b Mignet, François (1824). Histoire de la Révolution française. Chapter III.
- ^ Schama 2004, p.449
- ^ Schama 2004, p.442
- ^ Schama 2004, p.496
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition
- ^ Lindqvist, Herman (1991). Axel von Fersen. Stockholm: Fischer & Co
- ^ Loomis, Stanley (1972). The Fatal Friendship. Avon Books — ISBN 0-931933-33-1
- ^ Timothy Tackett, When the King Took Flight (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003)
- ^ The Flight to Varennes • Memoir by the Duchesse d'Angoulême
- ^ a b Mignet, François (1824). Histoire de la Révolution française. Chapter IV.
- ^ Schama 2004, p.481
- ^ Schama 2004, p.500
- ^ Soboul (1975), pp. 226–227.
- ^ Lefebvre, p. 212.
- ^ "French Revolution". About LoveToKnow 1911. http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/French_Revolution. Retrieved 10 April 2009.
- ^ Pfeiffer, L. B., "The Uprising of June 20, 1792," p.221. New Era Printing Company, Lincoln: 1913."
- ^ Schama 2004, p.505
- ^ Doyle 2002, p. 196
- ^ White, E. "The French Revolution and the Politics of Government Finance, 1770–1815." The Journal of Economic History 1995, p 244
- ^ Schuettinger, Robert. "Forty Centuries of Wage and Price Controls." Heritage Foundation, 2009. p. 45
- ^ Bourne, Henry. "Maximum Prices in France." American Historical Review, October 1917, p. 112.
- ^ a b Gough, Hugh (1998). The Terror in the French Revolution. p. 77.
- ^ Doyle 1989, p. 258
- ^ Schama 2004, p.616
- ^ Schama 2004, p.641
- ^ Schama 2004, p.637
- ^ In a Corner of France, Long Live the Old Regime, New York Times
- ^ McPhee, Peter Review of Reynald Secher, A French Genocide: The Vendée H-France Review Vol. 4 (March 2004), No. 26
- ^ Hibbert, p. 321.
- ^ Frédéric Augris, Henri Forestier, général à 18 ans, Éditions du Choletais, 1996
- ^ Jean-Clément Martin, Contre-Révolution, Révolution et Nation en France, 1789–1799, éditions du Seuil, collection Points, 1998, p. 219
- ^ Davies, Norman. Europe: A history Pimlico, (1997). p. 705
- ^ Schama 2004, p.666
- ^ Jean-Clément Martin, Guerre de Vendée, dans l'Encyclopédie Bordas, Histoire de la France et des Français, Paris, Éditions Bordas, 1999, p 2084, et Contre-Révolution, Révolution et Nation en France, 1789–1799, p.218.
- ^ Jean-Clément Martin, Violence et Révolution. Essai sur la naissance d'un mythe national, éditions du Seuil, 2006, p. 181
- ^ 117,000 according to Reynald Secher, La Vendée-Vengé, le Génocide franco-français (1986); 200,000–250,000 according to Jean-Clément Martin, La Vendée et la France, Éditions du Seuil, collection Points, 1987; 200,000 according to Louis-Marie Clénet, La Contre-révolution, Paris, PUF, collection Que sais-je?, 1992; 170,000 according to Jacques Hussenet (dir.), « Détruisez la Vendée ! » Regards croisés sur les victimes et destructions de la guerre de Vendée, La Roche-sur-Yon, Centre vendéen de recherches historiques, 2007, p.148.
- ^ In a Corner of France, Long Live the Old Regime. The New York Times. 17 June 1989
- ^ Michel Vovelle, « L'historiographie de la Révolution Française à la veille du bicentenaire », Estudos avançados, octobre-décembre 1987, volume 1, n° 1, p. 61–72. [1] ou [2]
- ^ Schama 2004, p.646
- ^ Jean-Baptiste Carrier, Encyclopædia Britannica
- ^ Soboul (1975), p. 384.
- ^ Schama 2004, p.658
- ^ Schama 2004, p.689
- ^ Schama 2004, p.706
- ^ Soboul (1975), pp. 425–428.
- ^ Schama, p.852.
- ^ a b Doyle 1989, p.320
- ^ Cole et al 1989, p.39
- ^ Doyle, Oxford History (2003) pp 318–40
- ^ Doyle, Oxford History p.331
- ^ Doyle, Oxford History, p.332
- ^ Doyle, Oxford History, pp. 322–23
- ^ David Nicholls, Napoleon: a biographical companion (1999) p.
- ^ a b c d e f Censer and Hunt, "How to Read Images" LEF CD-ROM
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica entry
- ^ Harden, "Liberty Caps and Liberty Trees" 90
- ^ Harden, "Liberty Bells and Liberty Trees" 75–77
- ^ Ozouf, "Festivals and the French Revolution" 123
- ^ a b Harden, "Liberty Bells and Liberty Trees" 75
- ^ Harden, "Liberty Bells and Liberty Trees" 88
- ^ Hunt 1984, 89.
- ^ a b Hunt 1984, 101–102
- ^ a b Hunt 1984, 96
- ^ a b Censer and Hunt 2001, 92
- ^ Hunt 1984, 97
- ^ Hunt 1984, 103
- ^ a b c d e f g Hunt 1984, 113
- ^ Scott "Only Paradoxes to Offer" 34–35
- ^ Encyclopedia "Woman"
- ^ Marquise de Maintenon, "Writings" 321
- ^ Dalton "Madame Roland" 262
- ^ a b Rebel Daughters: Women and the French Revolution Edited by Sara E Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine pg. 79
- ^ a b Women and the Limits of Citizenship in the French Revolution by Olwen W. Hufton pg. 23–24
- ^ Rebel Daughters by Sara E Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine pg. 89
- ^ Women and the Limits of Citizenship by Olwen W. Hufton pg. 23–24
- ^ Rebel Daughters by Sara E Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine pg. 91
- ^ Women and the Limits of Citizenship by Olwen W. Hufton pg. 31
- ^ Rebel Daughters by Sara E Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine pg. 92
- ^ Deviant Women of the French Revolution and the Rise of Feminism by Lisa Beckstrand pg. 17
- ^ Women and the Limits of Citizenship by Olwen W. Hufton pg. 25
- ^ Gender, Society and Politics: France and Women 1789–1914 by James H. McMillan pg. 24
- ^ Gender, Society and Politics by McMillan pg. 24
- ^ Deviant Women by Beckstrand pg. 20
- ^ De Gouges "Writings" 564–568
- ^ Mousset "Women’s Rights" 49
- ^ Dalton "Madame Roland" 262–267
- ^ Walker "Virtue" 413–416
- ^ a b Hufton, Olwen. Women and the Limits of Citizenship 1992 pg. 106–107
- ^ Desan pg. 452
- ^ a b Hufton, Olwen. “In Search of Counter-Revolutionary Women.” 1998 pg. 303
- ^ a b Hufton, Olwen. Women and the Limits of Citizenship 1992 pg. 104
- ^ Hufton, Olwen. “In Search of Counter-Revolutionary Women.” 1998 pg. 311
- ^ Hufton, Olwen. Women and the Limits of Citizenship 1992 pg. 105
- ^ Hufton, Olwen. “In Search of Counter-Revolutionary Women.” 1998 pg. 304
- ^ Hufton, Olwen. “In Search of Counter-Revolutionary Women.” 1998 pg. 305
- ^ Hufton, Olwen. Women and the Limits of Citizenship 1992 pg. 130
- ^ Hufton, Olwen. “In Search of Counter-Revolutionary Women.” 1998 pg. 326
- ^ Rude p. 12-4
- ^ Rude, p. 15
- ^ Rude, p. 12
- ^ Rude, p. 17
- ^ Rude, p. 12-20
- ^ Frey, Foreword
- ^ Frey, Preface
- ^ Hanson, p. 189
- ^ Hanson, 191
- ^ Riemer, Neal; Simon, Douglas (28 January 1997). The New World of Politics: An Introduction to Political Science. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 106. ISBN 978-0-939693-41-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=gKa3FTpH49oC&pg=PA106. Retrieved 18 October 2011.
- ^ Hanson, 193
References[link]
- Carlyle, Thomas (2002) [1837]. The French Revolution: A History. The Modern Library. ISBN 0-375-76022-9. http://books.google.com/?id=nmRdAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=French+Revolution+carlyle.
- Censer, Jack; Lynn Hunt (2001). Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press.
- Cole, Alistair; Peter Campbell (1989). French electoral systems and elections since 1789. Gower. http://books.google.com/?id=msOIAAAAMAAJ&q=%22first+bicameral+legislature%22+directory+french&dq=%22first+bicameral+legislature%22+directory+french.
- Dalton, Susan (2001). "Gender and the Shifting Ground of Revolutionary Politics: The Case of Madame Roland" Canadian Journal of History. ISSN 00084107.
- Desan, S. “The Role of Women in Religious Riots during the French Revolution.” Eighteenth-Century Studies. Vol. 22, No. 3, Special Issue: The French Revolution in Culture (Spring, 1989), pp. 451–468.
- Doyle, William (1990). The Oxford history of the French Revolution (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-285221-3. http://books.google.com/?id=N7chHQAACAAJ&dq=Oxford+history+of+the+French+Revolution.
- Doyle, William (2001). The French Revolution: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-285396-1. http://books.google.com/?id=B-Zf4topzfQC&dq=0192853961.
- Doyle, William (2002). The Oxford history of the French Revolution (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-925298-X. http://books.google.com/?id=oMYWKlevAV4C.
- Frey, Linda; Marsha Frey (2004). The French Revolution. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-32193-0. http://books.google.com/?id=RFgXl1EG5soC&dq=Short+History+of+the+French+Revolution+Doyle.
- Furet, Francois (1995). Revolutionary France, 1770–1880. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0-631-19808-3. http://books.google.com/?id=EPsEJIdFz3AC&dq=Revolutionary+France+Furet.
- Hanson, Paul (2009). Contesting the French Revolution. Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4051-6083-4. http://books.google.com/?id=dsCf8Q0xqO4C&pg=PA186&dq=legacy+french+revolution&cd=17#v=onepage&q=legacy%20french%20revolution.
- Hibbert, Christopher (1980). The Days of the French Revolution. New York: Quill, William Morrow. ISBN 0-688-03704-6. http://books.google.com/?id=yr1z38HCkdAC&dq=Hibbert+French+Revolution.
- Hufton, Olwen (1992). Women and the Limits of Citizenship in the French Revolution. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.
- Hufton, Olwen. “In Search of Counter-Revolutionary Women.” The French Revolution: Recent debates and New Controversies. Ed. Gary Kates. New York, NY. Routledge (1998).
- Hunt, Lynn (1984). Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution. Berkley: University of California Press.
- Levy, Darline Gay and Harriet B. Applewhite. "Women and Militant Citizenship in Revolutionary Paris," in Rebel Daughters, ed. Sara e. Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine (New York: Oxford University Press 1992).
- Kennedy, Emmet (1989). A Cultural History of the French Revolution. New Haven: Yale University Press.
- Lefebvre, Georges (1971). The French Revolution: From Its Origins to 1793. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-08598-2. http://books.google.com/?id=I2oA5MtB0ZkC&dq=Lefebvre+estates+general.
- Marquise de Maintenon "Instruction to the Nuns of St. Louis," in Writings by Pre-Revolutionary French Women. ed. Anne R. Larsen and Colette H Winn. (New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 2000), 321.
- McManners, John (1969). The French Revolution and the Church. New York: Harper and Row.
- Mousset, Sophie (2007). Women’s Rights and the French Revolution. Joy Poirel. Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0-7658-0345-3.
- Neely, Sylvia (2008). A Concise History of the French Revolution. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-7425-3411-1. http://books.google.com/?id=fccjTyOQiYwC&dq=The+Estates-General.
- Rude, George (1991). The French Revolution: Its Causes, Its History and Its Legacy After 200 Years. Grove Press. ISBN 0-8021-3272-3. http://books.google.com/?id=f1pMIbvzKckC&dq=causes+of+the+French+Revolution.
- Schama, Simon (2004) [1989]. Citizens. Penguin. ISBN 0-14-101727-9.
- Scott, Joan Wallach. "A Woman Who Has Only Paradoxes to Offer," in Rebel Daughters, ed. Sara e. Melzer and Leslie W. Rabine (New York: Oxford University Press 1992).
- Soboul, Albert (1975). The French Revolution 1787–1799. New York: Vintage. ISBN 0-394-71220-X.
- Soboul, Albert (1977). A short history of the French Revolution: 1789–1799. Geoffrey Symcox. University of California Press, Ltd. ISBN 0-520-03419-8. http://books.google.com/?id=GSdw2oC60cwC&dq=Soboul+French+Revolution.
- Walker, Leslie H. "Sweet and Consoling Virtue: The Memoirs of Madame Roland" Eighteenth-Century Studies, French Revolutionary Culture (2001): 403–419.
- "Women." The Encyclopedia of Diderot and d’Alembert. University of Michigan Library, n.d. Web. 10/29/09. < http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/>.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. - This article incorporates text from the public domain History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814, by François Mignet (1824), as made available by Project Gutenberg.
Further reading[link]
- Baker, Keith M. ed. The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture (Oxford, 1987–94) vol 1: The Political Culture of the Old Regime, ed. K.M. Baker (1987); vol. 2: The Political Culture of the French Revolution, ed. C. Lucas (1988); vol. 3: The Transformation of Political Culture, 1789–1848, eds. F. Furet & M. Ozouf (1989); vol. 4: The Terror, ed. K.M. Baker (1994). excerpt and text search vol 4
- Blanning, T.C.W. The French Revolutionary Wars 1787–1802 (1996).
- Censer, Jack R. "Amalgamating the Social in the French Revolution." Journal of Social History 2003 37(1): 145–150. Issn: 0022-4529 Fulltext: in Project Muse and Ebsco
- Davies, Peter. The French Revolution: A Beginner's Guide (2009), 192pp
- Doyle, William. The Oxford History of the French Revolution (1989). online complete edition; also excerpt and online search from Amazon.com
- Doyle, William. The French Revolution: A Very Short Introduction. (2001), 120pp; online edition
- Doyle, William. Origins of the French Revolution (3rd ed. 1999) online edition
- Dunne, John. "Fifty Years of Rewriting the French Revolution: Signposts Main Landmarks and Current Directions in the Historiographical Debate," History Review. (1998) pp 8+ online edition
- Englund, Steven. Napoleon: A Political Life. (2004). 575 pages; the best political biography excerpt and text search
- Fremont-Barnes, Gregory. ed. The Encyclopedia of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars: A Political, Social, and Military History (ABC-CLIO: 3 vol 2006)
- Frey, Linda S. and Marsha L. Frey. The French Revolution. (2004) 190pp online edition
- Furet, François. The French Revolution, 1770–1814 (1996) excerpt and text search
- Furet, François and Mona Ozouf, eds. A Critical Dictionary of the French Revolution (1989), 1120pp; long essays by scholars; conservative perspective; stress on history of ideas excerpt and online search from Amazon.com
- Hufton, Olwen. Women and the Limits of Citizenship in the French Revolution University of Toronto Press (1992).
- Hunt, Lynn. The Family Romance of the French Revolution. (1992)
- Hunt, Lynn. "Politics, Culture, and Class in the French Revolution." (1984)
- Germani, Ian and Robin Swayles. Symbols, myths and images of the French Revolution. University of Regina Publications. 1998. ISBN 978-0-88977-108-6
- Griffith, Paddy. The Art of War of Revolutionary France 1789–1802, (1998); 304 pp; excerpt and text search
- Jones, Colin. The Longman Companion to the French Revolution (1989)
- Jones, Colin. The Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon (2002) excerpt and text search
- Kaiser, Thomas, and Dale Van Kley. From Deficit to Deluge: The Origins of the French Revolution (2010)
- Kates, Gary. The French Revolution (2nd ed. 2005), 308pp; essays by scholars; excerpts and online search from Amazon.com
- Lefebvre, Georges. The French Revolution (2 vol 1957) classic Marxist synthesis. complete online edition vol 1; also excerpt and online search from Amazon.com
- Neely, Sylvia. A Concise History of the French Revolution (2008)
- Palmer, Robert R. The Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America, 1760–1800. (2 vol 1959), highly influential comparative history; vol 1 online
- Paxton, John. Companion to the French Revolution (1987), hundreds of short entries.
- Rothenberg, Gunther E. "The Origins, Causes, and Extension of the Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon," Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 18, No. 4, (Spring, 1988), pp. 771–793 in JSTOR
- Rude, George F. and Harvey J. Kaye. Revolutionary Europe, 1783–1815 (2000), scholarly survey excerpt and text search
- Schroeder, Paul. The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848. 1996; Thorough coverage of diplomatic history; hostile to Napoleon; online edition
- Schwab, Gail M., and John R. Jeanneney, eds. The French Revolution of 1789 and Its Impact (1995) online edition
- Scott, Samuel F. and Barry Rothaus. Historical Dictionary of the French Revolution, 1789–1799 (2 vol 1984), short essays by scholars
- Schama, Simon. Citizens. A Chronicle of the French Revolution (1989), highly readable narrative by scholar excerpt and text search
- Sutherland, D.M.G. France 1789–1815. Revolution and Counter-Revolution (2nd ed. 2003, 430pp excerpts and online search from Amazon.com
- Woshinsky, Barbara R. Imaging Women’s Conventual Spaces in France, 1600–1800: The Cloister Disclosed. Burlington, Vermont. Ashgate (2010).
External links[link]
 |
Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article French Revolution, The. |
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: French Revolution |
- "French Revolution" in the Catholic Encyclopedia
- Open University course
- Entry on Encyclopedia.com from the Columbia Encyclopedia
- Primary source documents from The Internet Modern History Sourcebook
- Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution, a collaborative site by the Center for History and New Media (George Mason University) and the American Social History Project (City University of New York)
- The Origins of the French Revolution, The French Revolution: The Moderate Stage, 1789–1792, and The French Revolution: The Radical Stage, 1792–1794, three essays from The History Guide: Lectures on Modern European Intellectual History
- Vancea, S. The Cahiers de Doleances of 1789, Clio History Journal, 2008.
- english.republique.de A large collection of links
| Preceded by The Old Regime |
French Revolution 1789–1792 |
Succeeded by French First Republic |
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| Ann Coulter | |
|---|---|
 Coulter at the 2012 Time 100 |
|
| Born | Ann Hart Coulter (1961-12-08) December 8, 1961 (age 50) New York City, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Cornell University (B.A.) University of Michigan Law School (J.D.) |
| Occupation | Author, columnist, political commentator |
| Years active | 1996–present |
| Website | |
| anncoulter.com | |
Ann Hart Coulter (born December 8, 1961) is an American lawyer,[1] conservative social and political commentator, author, and syndicated columnist. She frequently appears on television, radio, and as a speaker at public events and private events. Well-known for her conservative political opinions and the controversial ways in which she presents and defends them, Coulter has described herself as a polemicist who likes to "stir up the pot" and does not "pretend to be impartial or balanced, as broadcasters do."[2]
Contents |
Early life[link]
Ann Hart Coulter was born in New York City on December 8, 1961, to Nell Husbands (née Martin; a native of Paducah, Kentucky) and John Vincent Coulter (a native of Albany, New York). The family later moved to New Canaan, Connecticut, where Coulter and her two older brothers, James and John, were raised.[3] She graduated from New Canaan High School in 1980. Coulter's age was disputed in 2002 while she was arguing that she was not yet 40, yet Washington Post columnist Lloyd Grove cited that she provided a birthdate of December 8, 1961, when registering to vote in New Canaan, Connecticut prior to the 1980 Presidential election. Meanwhile, a driver's license issued several years later allegedly listed her birthdate as December 8, 1963. Coulter will not confirm either date, citing privacy concerns.[4]
While attending Cornell University, Coulter helped found The Cornell Review,[5] and was a member of the Delta Gamma national women's fraternity.[6] She graduated cum laude from Cornell in 1984 with a B.A. in history, and received her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 1988, where she achieved membership in the Order of the Coif and was an editor of the Michigan Law Review.[7] At Michigan, Coulter was president of the local chapter of the Federalist Society and was trained at the National Journalism Center.[8]
Career[link]
After law school, Coulter served as a law clerk, in Kansas City, for Pasco Bowman II of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.[9] After a short time working in New York City in private practice, where she specialized in corporate law, Coulter left to work for the United States Senate Judiciary Committee after the Republican Party took control of Congress in 1994. She handled crime and immigration issues for Senator Spencer Abraham of Michigan and helped craft legislation designed to expedite the deportation of aliens convicted of felonies.[10] She later became a litigator with the Center for Individual Rights.[11]
In 1999 and 2000, Coulter considered running for Congress in Connecticut on the Libertarian Party ticket to serve as a spoiler in order to throw the seat to the Democratic candidate and see that Republican Congressman Christopher Shays failed to gain re-election, as a punishment for Shays' vote against Clinton's impeachment. The leadership of the Libertarian Party of Connecticut, after meeting with Coulter, declined to endorse her. As a result, her self-described "total sham, media-intensive, third-party Jesse Ventura campaign" did not take place.[12][13]
Coulter's career is highlighted by the publication of eight books, as well as the weekly syndicated newspaper column that she publishes. She is particularly known for her polemical style,[14] who likes to "stir up the pot" and, unlike "broadcasters," does not "pretend to be impartial or balanced."[15] She has been compared to Clare Boothe Luce, one of her idols, for her satirical style.[16] She also makes numerous public appearances, speaking on television and radio talk shows, as well as on college campuses, receiving both praise and protest. In 2010, she made an estimated $500,000 on the speaking circuit, giving speeches on topics of modern conservatism, gay marriage, and what she perceives as liberal hypocrisy to adoring right-leaning audiences.[17] During one appearance at the University of Arizona, a pie was thrown at her.[18][19][20] Coulter has, on occasion, responded with insulting remarks towards hecklers and protestors who attend her speeches.[21][22]
Books[link]
Coulter is the author of eight books, all of which have appeared on New York Times Best Seller list, with a combined 3 million copies sold, as of May 2009.[23]
Coulter's first book, High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton, was published by Regnery Publishing in 1998. The book details Coulter's case for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.
Her second book, Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right, published by Crown Forum in 2002, became number one on The New York Times non-fiction best seller list.[24] In Slander, Coulter argues that President George W. Bush was given unfair negative media coverage. The factual accuracy of Slander was called into question by then-comedian and author, and now Democratic U.S. Senator from Minnesota, Al Franken; he also accused her of citing passages out of context.[25] Others investigated these charges, and also raised questions about the book's accuracy and presentation of facts.[26][27][28] Coulter responded to criticisms in a column called "Answering My Critics."[29]
In her third book, Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism, also published by Crown Forum, she reexamines the 60-year history of the Cold War—including the career of Senator Joseph McCarthy, the Whittaker Chambers–Alger Hiss affair, and Ronald Reagan’s challenge to Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this wall"—and argues that liberals were wrong in their Cold War political analyses and policy decisions, and that McCarthy was correct about Soviet agents working for the U.S. government. She also argues that the correct identification of Annie Lee Moss, among others, as communists was misreported by the liberal media. Treason was published in 2003, and spent 13 weeks on the Best Seller list.[30]
Crown Forum published a collection of Coulter's columns in 2004 as her fourth book, How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter.
Coulter's fifth book, published by Crown Forum in 2006, is Godless: The Church of Liberalism. In it, she argues, first, that liberalism rejects the idea of God and reviles people of faith, and second, that it bears all the attributes of a religion itself. Godless debuted at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list.[31]
Coulter published If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans, in October 2007, and another, Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America, on January 6, 2009.
Her most recent book, Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America, argues that liberals have mob-like characteristics. The book was released on June 7, 2011.
Columns[link]
In the late 1990s, Coulter's weekly (biweekly from 1999–2000) syndicated column for Universal Press Syndicate began appearing. Her column is featured on six conservative websites: Human Events Online, WorldNetDaily, Townhall.com, FrontPageMag, Jewish World Review and her own website. Her syndicator says, "Ann's client newspapers stick with her because she has a loyal fan base of conservative readers who look forward to reading her columns in their local newspapers."[32]
In 1999, Coulter worked as a regular columnist for George magazine.[12][33] Coulter also wrote exclusive weekly columns between 1998 and 2003 and with occasional columns thereafter for the conservative magazine Human Events. In her columns for the magazine, she discusses judicial rulings, Constitutional issues, and legal matters affecting Congress and the executive branch.
In 2001, as a contributing editor and syndicated columnist for National Review Online (NRO), Coulter was asked by editors to make changes to a piece written after the September 11 attacks. On the national television show Politically Incorrect, Coulter accused NRO of censorship and said that she was paid $5 per article. NRO dropped her column and terminated her editorship. Jonah Goldberg, editor-at-large of NRO, said, "We did not 'fire' Ann for what she wrote... we ended the relationship because she behaved with a total lack of professionalism, friendship, and loyalty [concerning the editing disagreement]."[34]
Coulter contracted with USA Today to cover the 2004 Democratic National Convention. She wrote one article that began, "Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston..." and referred to some unspecified female attendees as "corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant hippie chick pie wagons." The newspaper declined to print the article citing an editing dispute over "basic weaknesses in clarity and readability that we found unacceptable." An explanatory article by the paper went on to say "Coulter told the online edition of Editor & Publisher magazine that 'USA Today doesn't like my "tone", humor, sarcasm, etc., which raises the intriguing question of why they hired me to write for them.'" USA Today replaced Coulter with Jonah Goldberg, and Coulter published it instead on her website.[35][36][37]
In August 2005, the Arizona Daily Star dropped Coulter's syndicated column citing reader complaints that "Many readers find her shrill, bombastic and mean-spirited. And those are the words used by readers who identified themselves as conservatives."[38]
In July 2006, some newspapers replaced Coulter's column with those of other conservative columnists following the publication of her fourth book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism.[39] After the Augusta Chronicle dropped her column, newspaper editor Michael Ryan explained that "it came to the point where she was the issue rather than what she was writing about."[40] Ryan also stated that "Pulling Ann Coulter's column hurts; she's one of the clearest thinkers around."
She has criticized former president George W. Bush's immigration proposals, saying they led to "amnesty". In one column, she claims that the current immigration system is set up to purposely reduce the percentage of whites in the population. In it, she said:[41]
In 1960, whites were 90 percent of the country. The Census Bureau recently estimated that whites already account for less than two-thirds of the population and will be a minority by 2050. Other estimates put that day much sooner. One may assume the new majority will not be such compassionate overlords as the white majority has been. If this sort of drastic change were legally imposed on any group other than white Americans, it would be called genocide. Yet whites are called racists merely for mentioning the fact that current immigration law is intentionally designed to reduce their percentage in the population.
Overall, Coulter's columns are highly critical of liberals and Democrats. In one, she wrote:[42]
This year's Democratic plan for the future is another inane sound bite designed to trick American voters into trusting them with national security.
To wit, they're claiming there is no connection between the war on terror and the war in Iraq, and while they're all for the war against terror—absolutely in favor of that war—they are adamantly opposed to the Iraq war. You know, the war where the U.S. military is killing thousands upon thousands of terrorists (described in the media as "Iraqi civilians", even if they are from Jordan, like the now-dead leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi). That war.
Television and radio[link]
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Coulter made her first national media appearance in 1996 after she was hired by the then-fledgling network MSNBC as a legal correspondent. She was dismissed from the network at least twice. First, in February 1997, after she insulted the late Pamela Harriman (U.S. Ambassador to France), as the network was covering her memorial service. They missed her jousting and quickly rehired her, only to fire her eight months later after she tangled with a disabled Vietnam veteran on the air. Robert Muller, co-founder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, asserted that, "in 90% of the cases that U.S. soldiers got blown up [in Vietnam]—Ann, are you listening—they were our own mines." (Muller was misquoting a 1969 Pentagon report that found that 90% of the components used in enemy mines came from U.S. duds and refuse). Coulter, who found Muller's statement laughable, averted her eyes and responded sarcastically, "No wonder you guys lost." It became an infamous—and oft-misreported—Coulter moment. The Washington Post and others turned the line into a more personal attack: "People like you caused us to lose that war." But her troubles with MSNBC only freed her to appear on CNN and Fox News, whose producers were often calling.[43]
Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post made a point to respond to the Time article to explain that his widely quoted reporting of Coulter's reply to the veteran in an article he wrote had its origin in Coulter's own later recollection of the incident. Describing his previous story, Kurtz added, "I did note that, according to Coulter, the vet was appearing by satellite, and she didn't know he was disabled."[44]
In an interview with Bob McKeown on the January 26, 2005, edition of The Fifth Estate, Coulter came under criticism for her statement: "Canada used to be ... one of our most ... most loyal friends, and vice versa. I mean, Canada sent troops to Vietnam. Was Vietnam less containable and more of a threat than Saddam Hussein?" McKeown contradicted her with, "No, actually Canada did not send troops to Vietnam."[45] On the February 18, 2005, edition of Washington Journal, Coulter justified her statement by referring to the thousands of Canadians who served in the American armed forces during the Vietnam era, either because they volunteered or because they were living in the USA during the war years and got drafted. She said, "The Canadian Government didn't send troops ... but ... they came and fought with the Americans. So I was wrong. It turns out there were 10,000 Americans who happened to be born in Canada." (Between 5,000 and 20,000 Canadians fought in Vietnam itself, including approximately 80 who were killed.).[46] John Cloud of Time, writing about the incident a few months later, said "Canada [sent] noncombat troops to Indochina in the 1950s and again to Vietnam in 1972".[43]
In 2005, Coulter appeared as one of a three-person judging panel in The Greatest American, a four-part interactive television program for the Discovery Channel hosted by Matt Lauer. Starting with 100 nominees, each week, interactive viewer voting eliminated candidates. She voted for George Washington for the title of Greatest American ever.
Coulter has also made frequent guest appearances on many television and radio talk shows, including American Morning, The Fifth Estate, Glenn Beck Program, The Mike Gallagher Show, The O'Reilly Factor, Real Time with Bill Maher, Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld, The Rush Limbaugh Show, The Sean Hannity Show, The Today Show, Lou Dobbs Tonight, Fox and Friends, The Laura Ingraham Show, The View and HARDtalk.
Films[link]
In 2004, Coulter appeared in three films. The first was Feeding the Beast, a made-for-television documentary on the "24-Hour News Revolution".[47] The other two films were FahrenHYPE 9/11, a direct to video documentary intended to rebut Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911, and Is It True What They Say About Ann?, a documentary on Coulter containing clips of interviews and speeches.[48]
Personal life[link]
Coulter has been engaged several times, but never married.[21] She has dated Spin founder and publisher Bob Guccione, Jr.,[12] and conservative writer Dinesh D'Souza.[49] In October 2007, she began dating Andrew Stein, the former president of the New York City Council, a liberal Democrat. When asked about the relationship, Stein told the paper, "She's attacked a lot of my friends, but what can I say, opposites attract!"[50] On January 7, 2008, however, Stein told the New York Post that the relationship was over, citing irreconcilable differences.[51]
Coulter owns a condominium in Manhattan and a house, bought in 2005, in Palm Beach, Florida. She votes in Palm Beach and is not registered to do so in New York.[52] She is a fan of several jam bands, such as the Grateful Dead, the Dave Matthews Band, and Phish.[53][54] Some of her favorite books include The Bible, Wuthering Heights, Anna Karenina, true crime stories about serial killers, and anything by Dave Barry.[55]
Religious views[link]
Coulter says that she holds Christian beliefs, but has not declared her membership in any particular denomination – she has mentioned that her father was Catholic while her mother was not.[56] At one public lecture she said, "I don't care about anything else: Christ died for my sins and nothing else matters."[57] She summarized her view of Christianity in a 2004 column, saying: "Jesus' distinctive message was: People are sinful and need to be redeemed, and this is your lucky day, because I'm here to redeem you even though you don't deserve it, and I have to get the crap kicked out of me to do it." She then mocked "the message of Jesus ... according to liberals," summarizing it as "...something along the lines of 'be nice to people'," which, in turn, she said "is, in fact, one of the incidental tenets of Christianity".[58]
Confronting some critics' views that her content and style of writing is un-Christian,[59][60] Coulter stated that, "I'm a Christian first and a mean-spirited, bigoted conservative second, and don't you ever forget it."[61] She also said, "Christianity fuels everything I write. Being a Christian means that I am called upon to do battle against lies, injustice, cruelty, hypocrisy—you know, all the virtues in the church of liberalism."[62] In Godless: The Church of Liberalism, Coulter characterized the theory of evolution as bogus science, and contrasted her beliefs to what she called the left's "obsession with Darwinism and the Darwinian view of the world, which replaces sanctification of life with sanctification of sex and death."[63]
Coulter was accused of anti-semitism in an October 8, 2007, interview with Donny Deutsch on The Big Idea. During the interview, Coulter stated that the United States is a Christian nation and said that she wants, "Jews to be perfected, as they say", implying that she believes Christians to be perfected Jews.[64] Deutsch, a practicing Jew, implied that this was an anti-semitic remark, but Coulter said she didn't consider it to be a hateful comment.[65] Three days after the interview, Deutsch noted that when he challenged her comments, Coulter appeared "to back off" and "seemed a little upset", adding, "I think she got frightened that maybe she had crossed a line, that this was maybe a faux pas of great proportions."[66] In response to Coulter's comments on the show, the Anti-Defamation League and American Jewish Committee condemned her comments on the show, and the National Jewish Democratic Council asked media outlets to stop inviting Coulter as a guest commentator.[67] Talk show host Dennis Prager, while disagreeing with her comments, said that they were not "anti-semitic", noting, "There is nothing in what Ann Coulter said to a Jewish interviewer on CNBC that indicates she hates Jews or wishes them ill, or does damage to the Jewish people or the Jewish state. And if none of those criteria is present, how can someone be labeled anti-Semitic?"[68] Conservative activist David Horowitz responded, "If you don't accompany this belief by burning Jews who refuse to become perfected at the stake why would any Jew have a problem? Why do some Jews think that Christians should not really believe what they believe while it's okay for Jews to really believe they are God's Chosen People? I don't get it."[69]
Political activities and commentary[link]
Ann Coulter has described herself as a "polemicist" who likes to "stir up the pot" and doesn't "pretend to be impartial or balanced, as broadcasters do".[2] While her political activities in the past have included advising a plaintiff suing President Bill Clinton as well as considering a run for Congress, she mostly serves as a political pundit, sometimes starting controversy, ranging from rowdy uprisings at some of the colleges where she speaks to protracted discussions in the media. Time magazine's John Cloud once observed that Coulter, "likes to shock reporters by wondering aloud whether America might be better off if women lost the right to vote."[43] This was in reference to a statement that she made: "It would be a much better country if women did not vote. That is simply a fact. In fact, in every presidential election since 1950—except Goldwater in '64—the Republican would have won, if only the men had voted."[70] Similarly, in an October 2007 interview with the New York Observer, Coulter said:[71]
| “ | If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.
It also makes the point, it is kind of embarrassing, the Democratic Party ought to be hanging its head in shame, that it has so much difficulty getting men to vote for it. I mean, you do see it's the party of women and 'We'll pay for health care and tuition and day care—and here, what else can we give you, soccer moms?' |
” |
Paula Jones – Bill Clinton case[link]
Coulter first became a public figure shortly before becoming an unpaid legal adviser for the attorneys representing Paula Jones in her sexual harassment suit against President Bill Clinton. Coulter's friend George Conway had been asked to assist Jones' attorneys, and shortly afterward Coulter, who wrote a column about the Paula Jones case for Human Events, was also asked to help; she began writing legal briefs for the case.
Coulter later stated that she would come to mistrust the motives of Jones' head lawyer, Joseph Cammaratta, who by August or September 1997 was advising Jones that her case was weak and to settle, if a favorable settlement could be negotiated.[10][72] From the onset, Jones had sought an apology from Clinton at least as eagerly as she sought a settlement.[73] However, in a later interview Coulter recounted that she herself had believed that the case was strong, that Jones was telling the truth, that Clinton should be held publicly accountable for his misconduct, and that a settlement would give the impression that Jones was merely interested in extorting money from the President.[10]
David Daley, who wrote the interview piece for the Hartford Courant recounted what followed:
Coulter played one particularly key role in keeping the Jones case alive. In Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff's new book Uncovering Clinton: A Reporter's Story, Coulter is unmasked as the one who leaked word of Clinton's "distinguishing characteristic"—his reportedly bent penis that Jones said she could recognize and describe—to the news media. Her hope was to foster mistrust between the Clinton and Jones camps and forestall a settlement...
- I thought if I leaked the distinguishing characteristic it would show bad faith in negotiations. [Clinton lawyer] Bob Bennett would think Jones had leaked it. Cammaratta would know he himself hadn't leaked it and would get mad at Bennett. It might stall negotiations enough for me to get through to [Jones adviser] Susan Carpenter-McMillan to tell her that I thought settling would hurt Paula, that this would ruin her reputation, and that there were other lawyers working for her. Then 36 hours later, she returned my phone call.
- I just wanted to help Paula. I really think Paula Jones is a hero. I don't think I could have taken the abuse she came under. She's this poor little country girl and she has the most powerful man she's ever met hitting on her sexually, then denying it and smearing her as president. And she never did anything tacky. It's not like she was going on TV or trying to make a buck out of it."[10]
In his book, Isikoff also reported Coulter as saying: "We were terrified that Jones would settle. It was contrary to our purpose of bringing down the President."[72] After the book came out, Coulter clarified her stated motives, saying:
The only motive for leaking the distinguishing characteristic item that [Isikoff] gives in his book is my self-parodying remark that "it would humiliate the president" and that a settlement would foil our efforts to bring down the president.... I suppose you could take the position, as [Isikoff] does, that we were working for Jones because we thought Clinton was a lecherous, lying scumbag, but this argument gets a bit circular. You could also say that Juanita Broaddrick's secret motive in accusing Clinton of rape is that she hates Clinton because he raped her. The whole reason we didn't much like Clinton was that we could see he was the sort of man who would haul a low-level government employee like Paula to his hotel room, drop his pants, and say, "Kiss it." You know: Everything his defense said about him at the impeachment trial. It's not like we secretly disliked Clinton because of his administration's position on California's citrus cartels or something, and then set to work on some crazy scheme to destroy him using a pathological intern as our Mata Hari.[74]
The case went to court after Jones broke with Coulter and her original legal team, and it was dismissed via summary judgment. The judge ruled that even if her allegations proved true, Jones did not show that she had suffered any damages, stating "...plaintiff has not demonstrated any tangible job detriment or adverse employment action for her refusal to submit to the governor's alleged advances. The president is therefore entitled to summary judgment on plaintiff's claim of quid pro quo sexual harassment". The ruling was appealed by Jones' lawyers. During the pendency of the appeal, Clinton settled with Jones for $850,000 ($151,000 after legal fees) in November 1998, in exchange for Jones' dismissal of the appeal. By then, the Jones lawsuit had led to the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal.
In October 2000, Jones revealed that she would pose for nude pictures in an adult magazine, saying she wanted to use the money to pay taxes and support her grade-school-aged children, in particular saying, "I'm wanting to put them through college and maybe set up a college fund."[75] Coulter publicly denounced Jones, calling her "the trailer-park trash they said she was," (Coulter had earlier chastened Clinton supporters for calling Jones this name)[76] after Clinton's former campaign strategist James Carville had made the widely reported remark, "Drag a $100 bill through a trailer park, and you'll never know what you'll find", and called Jones a "fraud, at least to the extent of pretending to be an honorable and moral person."[75]
Coulter wrote:
Paula surely was given more than a million dollars in free legal assistance from an array of legal talent she will never again encounter in her life, much less have busily working on her behalf. Some of those lawyers never asked for or received a dime for hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal work performed at great professional, financial and personal cost to themselves. Others got partial payments out of the settlement. But at least they got her reputation back. And now she's thrown it away.[77]
Jones claimed not to have been offered any help with a book deal of her own or any other additional financial help after the lawsuit.[75]
2008 presidential election[link]
As the 2008 presidential campaign was getting under way, Coulter drew criticism for statements she made at the 2007 Conservative Political Action Conference about presidential candidate John Edwards:[78][79]
| “ | I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I'm – so, kind of at an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards, so I think I'll just conclude here and take your questions. | ” |
The comment was in reference to Grey's Anatomy star Isaiah Washington's use of the epithet and his subsequent mandatory "psychological assessment" imposed by ABC executives.[80] It was widely interpreted as meaning that Coulter had called Edwards a "faggot", but Coulter argued that she didn't actually do so, while simultaneously indicating she would not have been wrong to say it.[81] Edwards responded on his website by characterizing Coulter's words as "un-American and indefensible" and asking readers to help him "raise $100,000 in 'Coulter Cash' this week to keep this campaign charging ahead and fight back against the politics of bigotry."[82] He also called her a "she-devil", adding, "I should not have name-called. But the truth is – forget the names – people like Ann Coulter, they engage in hateful language."[83] Coulter's words also drew condemnation from many prominent Republicans and Democrats, as well as groups such as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).[82][84][85] Three advertisers (Verizon, Sallie Mae and Netbank) also pulled their advertisements from Coulter's website,[86] and several newspapers dropped her column.[87][88] Coulter responded in an e-mail to the New York Times, "C’mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean."[85] On March 5, 2007, she appeared on Hannity and Colmes and said, "[f]aggot isn't offensive to gays; it has nothing to do with gays. It's a schoolyard taunt meaning 'wuss'".[89] Gay rights advocates were not convinced. "Ann Coulter's use of this anti-gay slur is vile and unacceptable," said Neil G. Giuliano, president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, "and the applause from her audience is an important reminder that Coulter's ugly brand of bigotry is at the root of the discriminatory policies being promoted at this gathering."[79] A spokesman for Sen. John McCain, a Republican presidential candidate, called Coulter's comments "wildly inappropriate."[79]
As the campaign waged on, she continued to insert her commentary regarding the candidates, both Democrats and Republicans. In a June 2007 interview, Coulter named Duncan Hunter as her choice for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination, saying "my favorite candidate is [Rep.] Duncan Hunter [R-CA], and he is magnificent. The problem is most people say, "Who's Duncan Hunter?" He's a genuine war hero. He has one son, I think, in Iraq, one in Afghanistan. He is good on every single issue. He has been out front on building a wall. He did build a wall at San Diego. He's very good on—on the life issue. He's good on everything."[90] On January 16, 2008, Coulter began endorsing Governor Mitt Romney as her choice for the 2008 Republican nomination, saying he is "manifestly the best candidate" (contrasting Romney only with Republican candidates John McCain, Mike Huckabee, and Rudy Giuliani).[91] By contrast, Coulter was critical of eventual Republican nominee John McCain. On the January 31, 2008 broadcast of Hannity and Colmes, Coulter claimed that, if McCain won the Republican nomination for president, she would support and campaign for Hillary Clinton, stating, "[Clinton] is more conservative than McCain."[92]
Regarding then presidential candidate, Barack Obama, in an April 2, 2008 column, she characterized his book, Dreams From My Father, as a "Dimestore Mein Kampf." Coulter writes, "He says the reason black people keep to themselves is that it's 'easier than spending all your time mad or trying to guess whatever it was that white folks were thinking about you.' Here's a little inside scoop about white people: We're not thinking about you. Especially WASPs. We think everybody is inferior, and we are perfectly charming about it."[93]
2010 Canadian university tour[link]
In March 2010, Coulter announced that she would be performing a speaking tour of three Canadian universities: The University of Western Ontario, the University of Ottawa and the University of Calgary. The tour was organized by the International Free Press Society.[94]
On the eve of Coulter's first speech at the University of Western Ontario, an e-mail to Coulter from Francois Houle, provost of the University of Ottawa, was leaked to the media. The e-mail warned that "promoting hatred against any identifiable group would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges." Coulter released a public statement pointing out that by sending her the e-mail, Houle was promoting hatred against conservatives.[95] During Coulter's speech at the University of Western Ontario she told a Muslim student to "take a camel", in response to the student's question about previous comments by Coulter that Muslims should not be allowed on airplanes.[96]
On March 22, the University of Ottawa made international news when liberal protesters conspired to stop Coulter's speech. The event was canceled in spite of a massive security presence: Alain Boucher of the Ottawa Police Service said there were 10 officers visible at the scene "plus other resources" nearby.[97] Boucher alleged that Coulter's security team decided to call off the event: "We gave her options" – including, he said, to "find a bigger venue" – but "they opted to cancel ... It's not up to the Ottawa police to make that decision."[98] Boucher claimed there were no arrests.[99] CTV News reported "It was a disaster in terms of just organization, which is probably one of the reasons why it was cancelled", citing the small number of students tasked with confirming who had signed up to attend Coulter's talk.[100]
Event organizer and conservative activist Ezra Levant blamed the protest on the letter sent to Coulter by Houle.[101] After the cancellation, Coulter called the University of Ottawa a "bush league", stating:[102]
| “ | I go to the best schools, Harvard, the Ivy League and those kids are too intellectually proud to threaten speakers. ... I would like to know when this sort of violence, this sort of protest, has been inflicted upon a Muslim—who appear to be, from what I’ve read of the human rights complaints, the only protected group in Canada, I think I’ll give my speech tomorrow night in a burka. That will protect me. | ” |
Canadian troops in Vietnam[link]
Coulter has been criticized for a statement she made on The Fifth Estate, an investigative journalism program produced by CBC television. During an interview by host Bob McKeown, Coulter said, "Canada used to be...one of our most...most loyal friends, and vice versa. I mean, Canada sent troops to Vietnam. Was Vietnam less containable and more of a threat than Saddam Hussein?" McKeown contradicted her with, "No, actually Canada did not send troops to Vietnam."[45] On the February 18, 2005 edition of Washington Journal, Coulter justified her statement by referring to the thousands of Canadians who served in the American armed forces during the Vietnam era, either because they volunteered or because they were living in the USA during the war years and got drafted. (Between 5,000 and 20,000 Canadians fought in Vietnam, including approximately 80 who were killed.).[46] John Cloud of Time, writing a few months later, suggested that Coulter may have been right, on the basis that "Canada [sent] noncombat troops to Indochina in the 1950s and again to Vietnam in 1972".[103] However, Coulter's initial assertion was that Canada sent troops into Vietnam in support of the American position; in this connection, FAIR countered that Cloud made "quite a stretch to prove that Coulter was correct."[104]
Comments on Islam, Arabs and terrorism[link]
On September 14, 2001, three days after the 9-11 attacks (in which her friend Barbara Olson had been killed), Coulter wrote in her column:
Airports scrupulously apply the same laughably ineffective airport harassment to Suzy Chapstick as to Muslim hijackers. It is preposterous to assume every passenger is a potential crazed homicidal maniac. We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now.
We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war.[105]
Responding to this comment, Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations remarked in the Chicago Sun Times that before September 11, Coulter "would have faced swift repudiation from her colleagues", but "now it's accepted as legitimate commentary."[106]
David Horowitz, however, saw Coulter's words as irony:
I began running Coulter columns on Frontpagemag.com shortly after she came up with her most infamous line, which urged America to put jihadists to the sword and convert them to Christianity. Liberals were horrified; I was not. I thought to myself, this is a perfect send-up of what our Islamo-fascist enemies believe – that as infidels we should be put to the sword and converted to Islam. I regarded Coulter’s phillipic (sic) as a Swiftian commentary on liberal illusions of multi-cultural outreach to people who want to rip out our hearts.[107]
One day after the attacks (before the culprits had been identified and when death toll estimates were higher than they later became), Coulter asserted that only Muslims could have been behind the attacks:
Not all Muslims may be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims – at least all terrorists capable of assembling a murderous plot against America that leaves 7,000 people dead in under two hours.[108]
Coulter has been highly critical of the U.S. Department of Transportation and especially its then-secretary Norman Mineta. Her many criticisms include their refusal to use racial profiling as a component of airport screening.[109] After a group of Muslims were expelled from a US Airways flight when other passengers expressed worries, sparking a call for Muslims to boycott the airline because of the ejection from a flight of six imams, Coulter wrote:
If only we could get Muslims to boycott all airlines, we could dispense with airport security altogether.[110]
Coulter also cited the 2002 Senate testimony of FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley, who was acclaimed for condemning her superiors for refusing to authorize a search warrant for 9-11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui when he refused to consent to a search of his computer. They knew that he was a Muslim in flight school who had overstayed his visa, and the French Intelligence Service had confirmed his affiliations with radical fundamentalist Islamic groups. Coulter said she agreed that probable cause existed in the case, but that refusing consent, being in flight school and overstaying a visa shouldn't constitute grounds for a search. Citing a poll which found that 98 percent of Muslims between the ages of 20 to 45 said they would not fight for Britain in the war in Afghanistan, and that 48 percent said they would fight for Osama bin Laden,[111] she asserted "any Muslim who has attended a mosque in Europe – certainly in England, where Moussaoui lived – has had 'affiliations with radical fundamentalist Islamic groups'", so that she parsed Rowley's position as meaning that "'probable cause' existed to search Moussaoui's computer because he was a Muslim who had lived in England." Because "FBI headquarters...refused to engage in racial profiling" they failed to uncover the 9-11 plot, Coulter asserted. "The FBI allowed thousands of Americans to be slaughtered on the altar of political correctness. What more do liberals want?"[112]
Coulter wrote in another column that she had reviewed the civil rights lawsuits against certain airlines to determine which airlines had subjected Arabs to the most "egregious discrimination" so that she could fly only that airline. She also said that the airline should be bragging instead of denying any of the charges of discrimination brought against them.[113] In an interview with the The Guardian she quipped, "I think airlines ought to start advertising: 'We have the most civil rights lawsuits brought against us by Arabs.'" When the interviewer replied by asking what Muslims would do for travel, she responded, "They could use flying carpets."[70]
One comment that drew criticism from the blogosphere, as well as fellow conservatives,[114] was made during a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February 2006, where she said, referring to the prospect of a nuclear-equipped Iran, "What if they start having one of these bipolar episodes with nuclear weapons? I think our motto should be, post-9-11: raghead talks tough, raghead faces consequences."[115] Coulter had previously written a nearly identical passage in her syndicated column: "...I believe our motto should be after 9/11: Jihad monkey talks tough; jihad monkey takes the consequences. Sorry, I realize that's offensive. How about 'camel jockey'? What? Now what'd I say? Boy, you tent merchants sure are touchy. Grow up, would you?"[116]
In October 2007, Coulter made more controversial remarks about Arabs, in this case Iraqis, when she stated, in an interview with the New York Observer
We’ve killed about 20,000 of them, of terrorists, of militants, of Al Qaeda members, and they’ve gotten a little over 3,000 of ours. That is where the war is being fought, in Iraq, that is where we are fighting Al Qaeda. Sorry we have to use your country, Iraqis, but you let Saddam come to power, ha-ha, and we are going to instill democracy in your country.[117]
In a May 2007 article looking back at the life of the recently deceased evangelical Reverend Jerry Falwell, Coulter commented on Falwell's statement after the 9/11 attacks that "pagans", abortionists, feminists, and gays and lesbians, among others, helped make the attacks happen. In her article, Coulter stated that she disagreed with Falwell's statement, "because Falwell neglected to specifically include Teddy Kennedy and 'the Reverend' Barry Lynn."[118]
In October 2007, Coulter participated in David Horowitz' "Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week", remarking in a speech at the University of Southern California, "The fact of Islamo-Fascism is indisputable," she said. "I find it tedious to detail the savagery of the enemy . . . I want to kill them. Why don't Democrats?"[119]
Ionizing radiation as "cancer vaccine"[link]
On March 16, 2011, discussing the Fukushima I nuclear accidents, Coulter, citing research into radiation hormesis, wrote that there was "burgeoning evidence that excess radiation operates as a sort of cancer vaccine."[120] Her comments were criticized by figures across the political spectrum, from Fox News's Bill O'Reilly, who told Coulter "You have to be responsible . . . [In] something like this, you gotta get the folks out of there, and you have to report worst-case scenarios" [121] to MSNBC's Ed Schulz, who stated that "You would laugh at her if she wasn't making light of a terrible tragedy."[122]
Bibliography[link]
- Coulter, Ann H. (1998). High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton. Washington, DC; Lanham, MD: Regnery Pub.. ISBN 0-89526-360-2. OCLC 39380711.
- Coulter, Ann H. (2002). Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right. New York, NY: Crown. ISBN 1-4000-4661-0. OCLC 49673076.
- Coulter, Ann H. (2003). Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism. New York, NY: Crown Forum. ISBN 1-4000-5030-8. OCLC 52133318.
- Coulter, Ann H. (2004). How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter. New York, NY: Crown Forum. ISBN 1-4000-5418-4. OCLC 55746549.
- Coulter, Ann H. (2006). Godless: The Church of Liberalism. New York, NY: Crown Forum. ISBN 1-4000-5420-6. OCLC 69594152.
- Coulter, Ann H. (2007). If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans. New York, NY: Crown Forum. ISBN 978-0-307-35345-0. OCLC 156784826.
- Coulter, Ann H. (2009). Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America. New York, NY: Crown Forum. ISBN 978-0-307-35346-7. OCLC 230728938.
- Coulter, Ann H. (2011). Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America. New York, NY: Crown Forum. ISBN 0-307-35348-6.
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- ^ Lopez, Kathryn Jean (March 3, 2007). "Breaking News: Ann Coulter Was Ann Coulter at CPAC". National Review. http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/138547/breaking-news-ann-coulter-was-ann-coulter-cpac/kathryn-jean-lopez. Retrieved September 27, 2011.
- ^ Mercurio, John (September 27, 2007). "John Edwards' better half?". MSNBC. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21016080/. Retrieved September 27, 2011.
- ^ a b "Coulter under fire for anti-gay slur". CNN. March 4, 2007. http://edition.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/04/coulter.edwards/. Retrieved September 27, 2011.
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- ^ a b Nagourney, Adam (March 4, 2007). "G.O.P. Candidates Criticize Slur by Conservative Author". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/us/politics/04coulter.html. Retrieved September 27, 2011.
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- ^ Astor, Dave (March 8, 2007). "Two More Newspapers Drop Ann Coulter's Column". Editor & Publisher. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/Headlines/Article/Two-More-Newspapers-Drop-Ann-Coulter-s-Column. Retrieved September 27, 2011.
- ^ "Statement by Shreveport Editor Today on Dropping Ann Coulter". Editor & Publisher. March 8, 2007. http://www.editorandpublisher.com/Headlines/Article/Statement-by-Shreveport-Editor-Today-on-Dropping-Ann-Coulter. Retrieved September 27, 2007.
- ^ "Ann Coulter Fires Back at Critics Over John Edwards 'Faggot' Barb". Fox News. March 6, 2007. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,256860,00.html. Retrieved September 27, 2011.
- ^ "Good Morning America's Chris Cuomo interviews Coulter, promotes Godless". Good Morning America (transcript provided by Media Matters for America). June 25, 2007. http://mediamatters.org/mobile/research/200706260001. Retrieved September 27, 2011.
- ^ Coulter, Ann (January 16, 2008). "The Elephant in the Room". AnnCoulter.com. http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/article.cgi?article=230. Retrieved September 27, 2011.
- ^ Parker, Jennifer (February 1, 2008). "Coulter: I Will Vote for Hillary Over McCain". ABC News. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2008/02/coulter-i-will/. Retrieved September 27, 2011.
- ^ Coulter, Ann (April 2, 2008). "Printer Friendly Article: Obama's dimestore 'Mein Kampf'". AnnCoulter.com. http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/printer_friendly.cgi?article=243. Retrieved September 27, 2011.
- ^ Cheadle, Bruce (March 22, 2010). "Watch your mouth, Ann Coulter warned for Canadian tour". The Star (Toronto). http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/783585--watch-your-mouth-ann-coulter-warned-for-canadian-tour?bn=1.
- ^ "Coulter: Canadian U Provost Guilty of Hate Crimes". Newsmax.com. 2010-03-23. http://newsmax.com/InsideCover/coulter-canada-provost-hate/2010/03/23/id/353652. Retrieved 2010-12-02.
- ^ "Students divided over Coulter's cancelled speech". Ottawa.ctv.ca. http://ottawa.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20100324/OTT_Coulter_Rxn_100324/20100324/?hub=OttawaHome. Retrieved 2010-12-02.
- ^ Ottawa police say they didn't shut Coulter down; March 26, 2010
- ^ O'Malley, Kady (March 24, 2010). happened-last-night.html "Updated – Ann Coulter's Adventures in Ottawa: So, what happened last night?". CBC.ca. http://www.cbc.ca/politics/insidepolitics/2010/03/ann-coulters-adventures-in-ottawa-so-what-really happened-last-night.html. Retrieved July 2, 2010.
- ^ Wightman, Ken (March 26, 2010). "Ottawa police say they didn't shut Coulter down". Digital Journal. http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/289589. Retrieved July 2, 2010.
- ^ "Coulter protesters attack free speech: Levant – CTV News". www.ctv.ca. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20100324/coulter_cancellation_100324/20100324?hub=TopStoriesV2. Retrieved 2010-03-27.
- ^ "Protest Cancels Coulter Speech in Ottawa". Fox News. March 24, 2010. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/24/protest-cancels-coulter-speech-ottawa/?test=latestnews. Retrieved July 2, 2010.
- ^ Wightman, Ken (March 24, 2010). "Ann Coulter cancels Ottawa talk over security concerns". Digital Journal. http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/289495. Retrieved July 2, 2010.
- ^ See Cloud, John. "Ms. Right p. 10". Time Magazine. April 25, 2005. Retrieved 2001-02-11. Cloud refers the soldiers Canada contributed to the ICC and the ICCS, the international commissions which oversaw, respectively, the cease-fire at the end of the First Indochina War, in 1954, and the cease-fire which interrupted the Vietnam War in 1973. For further information on Canada's involvement in the Vietnam War, see Canada and the Vietnam War.
- ^ Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (2005-04-21). "Time Covers Coulter: Action Alert". http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2496. Retrieved 2007-02-11.
- ^ "This Is War". Web.archive.org. 2001-09-14. Archived from the original on 2001-09-14. http://web.archive.org/web/20010914225811/http://www.nationalreview.com/coulter/coulter091301.shtml. Retrieved 2011-12-10.
- ^ Jim Ritter, "Muslims see a growing media bias", Chicago Sun Times, September 4, 2006
- ^ The Trouble with "Treason", by David Horowitz, FrontPage Magazine, July 08, 2003
- ^ Coulter, Ann (2001-09-28). "Future widows of America: Write your congressman". Jewish World Review. http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/coulter092801.asp. Retrieved 2007-04-16.
- ^ Coulter, Ann. "Mineta's Bataan death march", Jewish World Review. February 28, 2002. Retrieved on July 11, 2006.
- ^ Coulter, Ann (2006-11-22). "What can I do to make your flight more uncomfortable?". AnnCoulter.com. http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/printer_friendly.cgi?article=158. Retrieved 2007-04-17.
- ^ Coulter says the poll was "by the "Daily Telegraph", actually it was by Sunrise, an "Asian"(i.e., Indian subcontinent-oriented) radio station, canvassing the opinions of 500 Muslims in Greater London (not Britain as a whole), mainly of Pakistani origin and aged between 20 and 45. Smith, Michael; Amit Roy (2001-10-30). "Britons who join Taliban to face trial". London: Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/10/30/nmus30.xml. Retrieved 2007-11-30.
- ^ Coulter, Ann. "This whistle-blower they like", Jewish World Review June 13, 2002. Retrieved on October 1, 2006.
- ^ Coulter, Ann. "Arab hijackers now eligible for pre-boarding" Jewish World Review April 29, 2004. Retrieved on July 11, 2006.
- ^ Gossett, Sherrie. "Ann Coulter 'Raghead' comments spark blogger blacklash" Cybercast News Service February 13, 2006. Retrieved on July 11, 2006.
- ^ Kurtz, Howard. "Monumental misfire" Washington Post February 14, 2006. Retrieved on July 11, 2006.
- ^ Coulter, Ann. Muslim bites dog. February 15, 2006
- ^ Gurley, George. "Tea With Miss Coulter". Observer.com. http://www.observer.com/2007/tea-miss-coulter. Retrieved 2011-12-10.
- ^ Coulter, Ann. "Jerry Falwell – Say Hello to Ronald Reagan" AnnCoulter.com May 16, 2007. Retrieved on May 23, 2007.
- ^ Trounson, Rebecca (2007-10-25). "Coulter's appearance at USC prompts ovations, protests". Los Angeles Times. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/religion/la-me-islamo25oct25,0,7812911.story. Retrieved 2007-12-04.
- ^ "A Glowing Report on Radiation". Human Events. 2002-04-28. http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=42347. Retrieved 2012-01-16.
- ^ Shahid, Aliyah (2011-03-18). "Ann Coulter talks Japan earthquake, tsunami with Bill O'Reilly: 'Radiation is good for you'". New York: Nydailynews.com. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/03/18/2011-03-18_ann_coulter_talks_japan_earthquake_tsunami_with_bill_oreilly_radiation_is_good_f.html#ixzz1HLoSa9cP. Retrieved 2011-12-10.
- ^ Mirkinson, Jack (March 20, 2011). "Ed Schultz: Ann Coulter Is 'Toxic,' Spreading Misinformation On Radiation". Huffingtonpost.com. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/20/ed-schultz-ann-coulter-toxic-radiation_n_838157.html. Retrieved 2011-12-10.
External links[link]
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- Official Web Site
- Biography at Notable Names Database
- Ann Coulter at the Internet Movie Database
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- Works by or about Ann Coulter in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
Column archives[link]
- Ann Coulter column archive for Human Events articles at BNet Find Articles with advanced search (1998–2007)
- Ann Coulter column archive at Human Events (2002–present)
- Ann Coulter column archive at National Review (2000–2001)
- Ann Coulter column archive at uExpress.com (1999–present) [select headline archive]
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||||||||||||||||||||
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Coulter, Ann Hart |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | author, political commentator |
| Date of birth | December 8, 1961 |
| Place of birth | New York City, New York |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
http://wn.com/Ann_Coulter
Related pages:
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This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
For other people named Chris Matthews, see Chris Matthews (disambiguation).
 |
This article may be unbalanced towards certain viewpoints. Please improve the article by adding information on neglected viewpoints, or discuss the issue on the talk page. (December 2011) |
| Chris Matthews | |
|---|---|
 Matthews at the 2011 Time 100 Gala. |
|
| Born | Christopher John Matthews (1945-12-17) December 17, 1945 (age 66) Somerton, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Ethnicity | Irish |
| Education | College of the Holy Cross |
| Occupation | News anchor and political commentator |
| Notable credit(s) | Hardball with Chris Matthews The Chris Matthews Show |
| Religion | Roman Catholic |
| Spouse | Kathleen Matthews |
| Relatives | Montgomery County, PA County Commissioner Jim Matthews (brother) |
Christopher John "Chris" Matthews (born December 17, 1945) is an American news anchor and political commentator known for his nightly hour-long talk show, Hardball with Chris Matthews, which is televised on the American cable television channel MSNBC. On weekends he hosts the syndicated NBC News–produced panel discussion program The Chris Matthews Show. Matthews makes frequent appearances on many other NBC and MSNBC programs. On March 22, 2009, Matthews renewed the contract for Hardball with Chris Matthews through 2012.[1]
Contents |
Early life and education[link]
Matthews was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Irish American parents and is a Roman Catholic.[2] He attended La Salle College High School. He is a 1967 graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and did graduate work in economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.[3][4]
Matthews served in the United States Peace Corps in Swaziland from 1968 to 1970[5] as a trade development adviser.
Career[link]
Political career and views[link]
When Matthews first arrived in Washington, D.C., he worked as a police officer with the United States Capitol Police.[6] Subsequently, he served on the staffs of four Democratic members of Congress, including Senators Frank Moss and Edmund Muskie. In 1974, he mounted an unsuccessful campaign for Pennsylvania's 4th congressional district seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in which he received about 24% of the vote in the primary.[7] Matthews was a presidential speechwriter during the Carter administration and later worked for six years as a top aide to longtime Speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O'Neill, playing a direct role in many key political battles with the Reagan administration.
Despite having worked for Democrats, Matthews has said, "I'm more conservative than people think I am.... I voted for George W. in 2000."[8] Salon.com has called him the "most conservative voice" on MSNBC's primetime lineup.[9] Matthews has been accused by media watchdogs[10] of having panels of guests that skew to the right and of supporting Republicans in his own questions and comments.[11][12] Conversely, he is also often criticized by conservatives for his opposition to the Iraq War among other stances he took against the Bush administration.
On the April 14, 2008, edition of The Colbert Report, Matthews alluded to a possible run for the United States Senate from Pennsylvania. When directly questioned by Stephen Colbert about his intentions, he stated that there is a difference between celebrities and those who work for the people, and it's a greater thing to work for the people. He also said that his boyhood dream was to be a senator. Four days later, on April 18, 2008, Matthews told Bill Maher that he has "made a commitment to covering politics in a liberal way, starting in 1987, and [he is] honoring that commitment, not getting involved in it."[13] The seat in question was the one held by Sen. Arlen Specter, whose term in the Senate ended in January 2011. On November 28, 2008, Fivethirtyeight.com and The Politico reported that Matthews had been in contact with senior staffers of Barack Obama's campaign about a possible run.[14][15] On January 7, 2009, The New York Times reported that Matthews told his staffers that he would not run for the Senate.[16] On May 25, 2009 Chris Matthews appeared on Charlie Rose where he stated that he was intending to run for Specter's Senate seat in 2010, stating, "I could see myself winning the Democratic primary and I could see myself going on to face Arlen in the general [election]," but that he felt he had to decide between being a journalist and being a politician once Specter became a national figure by supporting the stimulus.
While discussing proposed healthcare reform on the December 17, 2009, edition of Hardball, Matthews stated, "The Republicans will know they have lost.... Let them keep score and it's easy. It's complicated when liberals get to keep score. We're always arguing. Well, I'm a liberal, too."[17][18]
Author and talk show host[link]
Matthews worked in print media for 15 years, spending 13 years as Washington, D.C. bureau chief for the San Francisco Examiner (1987–2000) and two years as a nationally syndicated columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. Matthews covered the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first all-races election in South Africa, and the Good Friday Peace Talks in Northern Ireland. In 1997 and 1998, his research in the National Archives produced a series of exclusives on the Nixon presidential tapes. Matthews has covered American presidential election campaigns since 1988.
In 1997, Matthews began his own talk show, Hardball with Chris Matthews, which originally aired on CNBC but is currently on MSNBC. Hardball features pundits and elected officials as guests.
In 2002, The Chris Matthews Show began airing in syndication. The show is formatted as a political roundtable consisting of four journalists and Matthews, who serves as the moderator. He is estimated to earn more than $5 million a year. He also wrote a book called Hardball.[19]
Personal life[link]
Matthews has been married since 1980 to Kathleen Matthews, who anchored News 7 on WJLA-TV, the ABC affiliate in Washington, D.C., before accepting a position as an executive vice president with J.W. Marriott. The couple have three children: Michael, Thomas, and Caroline. His brother Jim Matthews, a Republican, is a county commissioner in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.
In 2002, Matthews was hospitalized with malaria, which he evidently contracted on one of his visits that year to Africa.[citation needed] He has also had other health problems, including diabetes (which he acknowledged having on the Hardball broadcast of December 7, 2009) and pneumonia.[20]
Criticisms and controversy[link]
Liberal blogger Glenn Greenwald has called Matthews "the most vivid example of all that is wrong with political coverage," saying "[H]e’s endlessly obsessed with personality-based politics and likes to promote the strong, masculine tough guy who you can have a beer with, versus the nerdy loser. And he has a cast of characters who go on his show, like Newsweek’s Howard Fineman, who gush over the maleness of the Republican candidates and warn Democrats about how that has real appeal to American voters. Most political reporters judge candidates on the basis of the likeability factor—Matthews is just more explicit about it."[21]
Others have criticized Matthews for talking too much on air, not letting his guests talk, and often talking over and interrupting them. One who also worked in the Carter Administration has written: "Generally in those days Chris was a relatively quiet person around the White House, and in meetings or briefings would frequently say very little, or nothing at all. I guess he's making up for lost time—or 'lost talk'—now. Nevertheless, I'm a big fan of his show, always fascinating without fail—at least if you're a political junkie."[22]
The progressive media watchdog group Media Matters for America named Matthews its 2005 "Misinformer of the Year," citing statements he made in support of President George W. Bush.[23]
On January 9, 2008, the morning after Hillary Clinton's surprise victory in the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary, Matthews appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe program and said of Clinton,
| “ | I'll be brutal, the reason she's a U.S. senator, the reason she's a candidate for president, the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around. That's how she got to be senator from New York. We keep forgetting it. She didn't win there on her merit. | ” |
The comments were criticized by such media figures as Bill O'Reilly, Joy Behar, and Gloria Steinem.[24][26][27] They also resulted in protests outside NBC's Washington, D.C., studios as well as a joint letter of complaint to NBC from the National Organization for Women, Feminist Majority, and the National Women's Political Caucus. Matthews apologized for the comments on the January 17, 2008, edition of Hardball.[27]
After Matthews and Keith Olbermann made controversial on-air comments during the 2008 Republican National Convention, NBC News correspondent David Gregory replaced them, but Matthews and Olbermann continued working as analysts.[28] On November 4–5, he teamed with Rachel Maddow, Eugene Robinson, David Gregory, and Keith Olbermann to cover the presidential election.
On February 12, 2008, during MSNBC's coverage of the Potomac primary, Matthews had this to say about then presidential candidate Barack Obama:
| “ | I have to tell you, you know, it's part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama's speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too often.[29] | ” |
This led some on the political right to assert that both he and MSNBC were biased toward Obama.[30]
On November 6, 2008, he was a guest on the MSNBC television program Morning Joe, wherein he stated, "I want to do everything I can to make this thing work, this new presidency work." Host Joe Scarborough asked if that was his job as a journalist. "Yeah, that’s my job. My job is to help this country," Matthews replied.[31]
On December 1, 2009, preceding Obama's speech announcing a troop increase in Afghanistan, Matthews criticized the president for choosing the United States Military Academy as his venue, referring to it as "the enemy camp."[32] Soon after, Matthews apologized for his remarks, saying, "[To] the cadets, their parents, former cadets, and everyone who cares about this country and those who defend it: I used the wrong words and worse than that I said something that is just not right and for that I deeply apologize."[33]
In January 2010, in Matthews's comments after President Obama's first State of the Union Address, he said, "You know, I forgot he was black tonight for an hour."[34][35][36][37][38] The next day, on the Rachel Maddow show, Matthews clarified his remarks, saying, "I think he’s taken us beyond black and white in our politics, wonderfully so, in just a year."[39]
Bibliography[link]
- Matthews, Christopher (2011). Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4516-3508-9.
- Matthews, Christopher (2007). Life’s a Campaign: What Politics Has Taught Me About Friendship, Rivalry, Reputation, and Success (1st ed. ed.). New York: Random House. ISBN 978-1-4000-6528-8.
- Matthews, Christopher (2002). American: Beyond Our Grandest Notions. New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-7432-4086-3.
- Matthews, Christopher (2001). Now, Let Me Tell You What I Really Think (1st ed. ed.). New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-684-86236-0.
- Matthews, Christopher (1999). Hardball: How Politics Is Played, Told By One Who Knows the Game (1st Touchstone ed. ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-84559-8.
- Matthews, Christopher (1996). Kennedy & Nixon: The Rivalry that Shaped Postwar America. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-684-81030-1.
References[link]
- ^ Carter, Bill (2009-03-23). "Senate Notions gone, Matthews Extends Contract at MSNBC". MSNBC. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/23/business/media/23matthews.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss/. Retrieved 2009-03-22.
- ^ White, Deborah. "Profile of Chris Matthews, Host of MSNBC's Hardball". About.com. http://usliberals.about.com/od/thepressandjournalist1/p/CMatthews.htm. Retrieved 2010-06-22.
- ^ "Chris Matthews - Meet the faces of MSNBC- msnbc.com". MSNBC. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3080432/ns/msnbc_tv-meet_the_faces_of_msnbc/. Retrieved 2010-02-23.
- ^ "Chris Matthews (American)". Encyclopædia Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1574257/Chris-Matthews. Retrieved 2012-04-11.
- ^ http://www.parade.com/news/slideshows/editors-pick/famous-peace-corps-volunteers.html 9 Famous Peace Corps Volunteers, Parade magazine, accessed August 22, 2011
- ^ Matthews, Chris. "American attitude – Hardball with Chris Matthews". MSNBC. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3080601/. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
- ^ "PA District 04 – D Primary". OurCampaigns.com. 1974-03-21. http://www.ourcampaigns.com/RaceDetail.html?RaceID=284778. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
- ^ October 3, 2003, and February 23, 2004, editions of Hardball
- ^ Kornacki, Steve (2011-01-21) Is Olbermann the victim of his own success?, Salon.com
- ^ S, A (2005-05-31). "Matthews's statements defy conservatives' claims that he is a "liberal Democrat"". Media Matters for America. http://mediamatters.org/items/200505310005. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
- ^ Gitlen, Todd (2006-03-23). "The Harder He Blows". The American Prospect. http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=11345. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
- ^ B, J (2006-01-06). "Matthews trumpeted comparatively small Abramoff client donations to Sen. Clinton, virtually ignoring larger donations given to Bush, Hastert". Media Matters for America. http://mediamatters.org/items/200601070003. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
- ^ [ Bill Maher ] » Realtime ~ 18/04/08
- ^ Quinn, Sean (2008-11-28). "Chris Matthews Staffing Up for Probable Senate Run in 2010". Fivethirtyeight.com. http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/chris-matthews-running-for-pennsylvania.html. Retrieved 2008-12-19.
- ^ Kraushaar, Josh; Michael Calderone (2008-12-04). "Chris Matthews Inches Toward Senate Run". The Politico (CBS News). http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/04/politics/politico/main4647022.shtml. Retrieved 2008-12-19.
- ^ Carter, Bill (2009-01-07). "Host of ‘Hardball’ Decides Against Senate Race". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/08/business/media/08mathews.html?ref=media. Retrieved 2009-01-08.
- ^ No Kidding: Chris Matthews Admits, 'I'm a Liberal' http://www.thefoxnation.com/chris-matthews/2009/12/18/chris-matthews-im-liberal
- ^ "'Hardball with Chris Matthews' for Thursday, December 17th, 2009". MSNBC. 2009-12-18. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34483277/ns/msnbc_tv-hardball_with_chris_matthews/. Retrieved 2009-12-19.
- ^ Kurtz, Howard (2008-02-14). "HardBrawl". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/13/AR2008021303418_5.html?tid=informbox. Retrieved 2008-04-23.
- ^ Hardball with Chris Matthews, MSNBC, August 19, 2008.
- ^ Silverstein, Ken (02-21-2008) Six Questions for Glenn Greenwald, Harper's
- ^ John Gingles, "A Personal Memoir", Washington, D.C., 2007.
- ^ "Chris Matthews: 2005's Misinformer of the Year". Media Matters for America. 2005-12-23. http://mediamatters.org/research/200512230005. Retrieved 2010-01-26.
- ^ a b By SteveK on Jan 10, 2008 12:30 PM (2008-01-10). "Matthews Credits Hillary's Success to Fact That Bill "Messed Around" - mediabistro.com: TVNewser". mediabistro.com. http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/msnbc/matthews_credits_hillarys_success_to_fact_that_bill_messed_around_74705.asp. Retrieved 2010-02-23.
- ^ "Chris Matthews sorry for 'sexist' comments - Michael Calderone". Politico.Com. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0108/7961.html. Retrieved 2010-02-23.
- ^ McCarthy, Justin. "Joy Behar Call Chris Matthews' Comments 'Inappropriate'". NewsBusters.org. http://newsbusters.org/blogs/justin-mccarthy/2008/01/10/joy-behar-call-chris-matthews-comments-inappropriate. Retrieved 2010-02-23.
- ^ a b Kurtz, Howard (2008-01-18). "Chris Matthews Backs Off 'Nasty' Remark on Clinton". washingtonpost.com. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/17/AR2008011702828.html. Retrieved 2010-02-23.
- ^ "Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann". Chicago Tribune. September 8, 2008. http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-chris-matthews-keith-olbermann-080908-ht,0,302527.story. Retrieved 2008-09-08.
- ^ "Chris Matthews: "I Felt This Thrill Going Up My Leg" As Obama Spoke". huffingtonpost.com. 2008-02-13. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/13/chris-matthews-i-felt-thi_n_86449.html. Retrieved 2009-10-29.
- ^ "Bernie Goldberg on 'Love Affair' Between Obama and Media - Hannity". FOXNews.com. 2009-01-27. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,483568,00.html. Retrieved 2010-02-23.
- ^ "I want to do everything I can to make this thing work, this new presidency work."
- ^ Matthews: Obama Made Speech At 'Enemy Camp,' Cheney Is A 'Troll'
- ^ Matthews: Obama Made Speech At 'Enemy Camp,' Cheney Is A 'Troll' (VIDEO) UPDATED
- ^ Think Progress (2010-01-27). "Chris Matthews on Obama during SOTU: ‘You know, I forgot he was black tonight for an hour.’". Think Progress. http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/27/matthews-obama-black/. Retrieved 2010-02-23.
- ^ State of the Union coverage. MSNBC. January 27, 2010. Event occurs at 0:10. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmVGeEvXyoU. Retrieved May 12, 2010. ""I was trying to think about who he was tonight. It's interesting: he is postracial, by all appearances. You know I forgot he was black tonight for an hour.""
- ^ Calderone, Michael (January 27, 2010). "Matthews: 'I forgot he was black tonight for an hour'". Politico.com. http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/0110/Matthews_I_forgot_he_was_black_tonight_for_an_hour.html. Retrieved May 10, 2010.
- ^ Washington, Jesse (January 28, 2010). "Analysis: Do Blacks Truly Want to Transcend Race?". The Associated Press. http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=9691134. Retrieved May 10, 2010.
- ^ Netter, Sarah (January 28, 2010). "State of the Union Not Immune From Racial Innuendo". ABC News. http://abcnews.go.com/story?id=9687089. Retrieved May 10, 2010.
- ^ Calderone, Michael (January 28, 2010). "Matthews clarifies: Obama's 'taken us beyond black and white'". Politico.com. http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/0110/Matthews_clarifies_Obamas_taken_us_beyond_black_and_white.html. Retrieved May 10, 2010.
External links[link]
|
Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Chris Matthews |
- Hardball with Chris Matthews
- The Chris Matthews Show
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- Chris Matthews on Charlie Rose
- Chris Matthews at the Internet Movie Database
- Chris Matthews collected news and commentary at The New York Times
- Works by or about Chris Matthews in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Chris Matthews at the Notable Names Database
|
||||||||||||||||||||
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Matthews, Chris |
| Alternative names | |
| Short description | American journalist |
| Date of birth | 1945-12-17 |
| Place of birth | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Date of death | |
| Place of death | |
http://wn.com/Chris_Matthews
Related pages:
http://fr.wn.com/Chris Matthews
http://de.wn.com/Chris Matthews
http://es.wn.com/Chris Matthews
This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Matthews
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which means that you can copy and modify it as long as the entire work (including additions) remains under this license.
