- published: 13 Apr 2012
- views: 70177
- author: smokeybarz
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![SB.TV F64 - Pound Sterling - F64 [S3.EP33]](http://web.archive.org./web/20130113104332im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/k778MyffdBc/default.jpg "Pound Sterling has been quiet for a little while but he's back with a bang on this F64! www.facebook.com www.sbtv.co.uk http www.twitter.com")
![POUND STERLING - DAILY DUPPY - EP.16 [GRM DAILY]](http://web.archive.org./web/20130113104332im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/FuLAaZRuebE/default.jpg "www.Grmdaily.com - This episode features")
![SB.TV Warm Up Sessions - Pound Sterling - [S4.EP32]](http://web.archive.org./web/20130113104332im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/19vQp0qXLWE/default.jpg "Pounds only just released his F64 the other weel. I told him to come back again but this time for a Warm Up Session, in the first part he gets it a little warmed up then sets it on fire by telling you a story.")
![SB.TV F64 - Pound Sterling - F64 [S1.EP52]](http://web.archive.org./web/20130113104332im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/MEBXb4HvAk4/default.jpg "www.sbtv.co.uk")
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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 -
Americas
The Americas, or America, are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World.
In the English language, the Americas refers to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, whereas America, in current usage, usually refers to the United States of America.
The Americas cover 8.3% of the Earth's total surface area (28.4% of its land area) and contain about 13.5% of the human population (about 900 million people).
The specifics of Paleo-Indian migration to and throughout the Americas, including the exact dates and routes traveled, are subject to ongoing research and discussion. The traditional theory has been that these early migrants moved into the Beringia land bridge between eastern Siberia and present-day Alaska around 40,000–17,000 years ago, when sea levels were significantly lowered due to the Quaternary glaciation. These people are believed to have followed herds of now-extinct pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets. Another route proposed is that, either on foot or using primitive boats, they migrated down the Pacific Northwest coast to South America. Evidence of the latter would since have been covered by a sea level rise of hundreds of meters following the last ice age.
wn.com/Americas -
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.
wn.com/Anguilla -
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.
wn.com/Antigua_and_Barbuda -
Ascension Island
Ascension Island is an isolated volcanic island in the equatorial waters of the South Atlantic Ocean, around 1,600 kilometres (1,000 mi) from the coast of Africa and 2,250 kilometres (1,400 mi) from the coast of South America, which is roughly midway between the horn of South America and Africa. It is governed as part of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, of which the main island, Saint Helena, is around 1,300 kilometres (800 mi) to the southeast, and the territory also includes the "remotest populated archipelago" on earth, the sparsely populated Tristan da Cunha archipelago some thirty degrees farther south–about half the way to the Antarctic Circle.
The Island is named after the day of its recorded discovery, Ascension Day, and is located at 7°56′S 14°22′W / 7.933°S 14.367°W / -7.933; -14.367Coordinates: 7°56′S 14°22′W / 7.933°S 14.367°W / -7.933; -14.367, about as far south of the equator as tropical Venezuela is to its north. Historically, it has played a role as an important safe haven and coaling station to mariners and for commercial airliners during the days of international air travel by flying boats and during World War II was an important naval and air station, especially providing antisubmarine warfare bases in the Battle of the Atlantic and throughout the war. Ascension Island was garrisoned by the British Admiralty from 22 October 1815 to 1922.
wn.com/Ascension_Island -
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.
wn.com/Australia -
Baltic Exchange
The Baltic Exchange is the world's only independent source of maritime market information for the trading and settlement of physical and derivative contracts. Its international community of over 550 members encompasses the majority of world shipping interests and commits to a code of business conduct overseen by the Baltic.
Baltic Exchange members are responsible for a large proportion of all dry cargo and tanker fixtures as well as the sale and purchase of merchant vessels.
The company was founded in the mid-18th century. The first use of the name was at the Virginia and Baltick Coffee House in Threadneedle Street in 1744, and was registered as a private limited company with shares in 1900. Today the exchange is owned by its member companies and is not publicly traded on a stock exchange. It is operated by a member-elected Board of Directors. It has 20 employees and is located at 38 St Mary Axe in central London.
The exchange provides daily freight market prices and maritime shipping cost indices which are used to settle freight futures (known as Forward Freight Agreements or FFAs). Originally operating a trading floor, the exchange's members' transactions are today done solely over the telephone.
wn.com/Baltic_Exchange -
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.
wn.com/Barbados -
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.
wn.com/Benin -
Bhutan
Coordinates: 27°25′01″N 90°26′06″E / 27.417°N 90.435°E / 27.417; 90.435
Bhutan (Dzongkha: འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, tr ʼbrug-yul, "Druk Yul"; Devanagari भूटान, Bhūṭān), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked state in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalayas and bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by the People's Republic of China. Bhutan is separated from the nearby country of Nepal to the west by the Indian state of Sikkim, and from Bangladesh to the south by the Indian states of Assam and West Bengal.
Bhutan existed as a patchwork of minor warring fiefdoms until the early 17th century, when the area was unified by Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, who fled religious persecution in Tibet and cultivated a separate Bhutanese identity. In the early 20th century, Bhutan came into contact with the British Empire, after which Bhutan continued strong bilateral relations with India upon its independence. In 2006, Business Week rated Bhutan the happiest country in Asia and the eighth-happiest in the world, based on a global survey.
wn.com/Bhutan -
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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Bretton Woods system
The Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial and financial relations among the world's major industrial states in the mid-20th century. The Bretton Woods system was the first example of a fully negotiated monetary order intended to govern monetary relations among independent nation-states.
Preparing to rebuild the international economic system as World War II was still raging, 730 delegates from all 44 Allied nations gathered at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, for the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference. The delegates deliberated upon and signed the Bretton Woods Agreements during the first three weeks of July 1944.
Setting up a system of rules, institutions, and procedures to regulate the international monetary system, the planners at Bretton Woods established the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), which today is part of the World Bank Group. These organizations became operational in 1945 after a sufficient number of countries had ratified the agreement.
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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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Brunei
Bruneii/bruːˈnaɪ/, officially the Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace (Malay: Negara Brunei Darussalam, Jawi: نڬارا بروني دارالسلام), is a sovereign state located on the north coast of the island of Borneo, in Southeast Asia. Apart from its coastline with the South China Sea, it is completely surrounded by the state of Sarawak, Malaysia, and it is separated into two parts by the Sarawak district of Limbang. It is the only sovereign state completely on the island of Borneo, with the remainder of the island belonging to Malaysia and Indonesia. Brunei's population was 401,890 in July 2011.
The official national history claims that Brunei can trace its beginnings to the 7th century, when it was a subject state of the Srivijayan empire under the name P'o-li. It later became a vassal state of Majapahit empire before converting to Islam in the 15th century. At the peak of its empire, the sultanate had control that extended over the coastal regions of modern-day Sarawak and Sabah, the Sulu archipelago, and the islands off the northwest tip of Borneo. The thalassocracy was visited by Ferdinand Magellan in 1521 and fought the Castille War in 1578 against Spain. Its empire began to decline with the forced ceding of Sarawak to James Brooke and the ceding of Sabah to the British North Borneo Chartered Company. After the loss of Limbang, Brunei finally became a British protectorate in 1888, receiving a resident in 1906. In the years after the Japanese wartime occupation during World War II, it formalised a constitution and fought an armed rebellion. Brunei regained its independence from the United Kingdom on 1 January 1984. Economic growth during the 1970s and 1990s, averaging 56% from 1999 to 2008, has transformed Brunei Darussalam into a newly industrialised country.
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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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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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Canary Wharf
Coordinates: 51°30′13″N 0°01′06″W / 51.503611°N 0.018333°W / 51.503611; -0.018333
Canary Wharf is a major business district located in London, United Kingdom. It is one of London's two main financial centres – alongside the traditional City of London – and contains many of the UK's tallest buildings, including the second-tallest (and tallest completed), One Canada Square.
Canary Wharf contains around 14,000,000 square feet (1,300,000 m2) of office and retail space, of which around 7,900,000 square feet (730,000 m2) is owned by Canary Wharf Group. Around 90,000 people work in Canary Wharf and it is home to the world or European headquarters of numerous major banks, professional services firms and media organisations including Barclays, Citigroup, Clifford Chance, Credit Suisse, HSBC, J.P. Morgan, KPMG, MetLife, Morgan Stanley, Skadden, State Street and Thomson Reuters.
Canary Wharf is located in the West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs in the Borough of Tower Hamlets in East London. The West India Docks once formed part of the busiest port in the world. After the docks were closed in 1980 the British Government adopted various policies to stimulate the redevelopment of the area, including through the creation of the London Docklands Development Corporation in 1981 and granting the Isle of Dogs Enterprise Zone status in 1982. In 1987 the Canadian company Olympia and York agreed to construct a major office development on the Isle of Dogs, with construction commencing in 1988.
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Cardiff Bay
Coordinates: 51°27′47″N 3°09′50″W / 51.463°N 3.164°W / 51.463; -3.164
Cardiff Bay (Welsh: Bae Caerdydd) is the area created by the Cardiff Barrage in South Cardiff, the capital of Wales. The regeneration of Cardiff Bay is now widely regarded as one of the most successful regeneration projects in the United Kingdom. The Bay is supplied by two rivers (Taff and Ely) to form a 500-acre (2.0 km2) freshwater lake round the former dockland area south of the city centre. The Bay was formerly tidal, with access to the sea limited to a couple of hours each side of high water but now provides 24 hour access through three locks.
Cardiff Bay played a major part in Cardiff’s development by being the means of exporting coal from the South Wales Valleys to the rest of the world, helping to power the industrial age. The coal mining industry helped fund the building of Cardiff into the Capital city of Wales and helped the Third Marquis of Bute, who owned the docks, become the richest man in the world at the time.
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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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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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City of London
The City of London is an area in central London, England. In the medieval period it constituted most of London, but the conurbation has grown far beyond it. As the City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, it is now only a tiny part of the metropolis, though it remains a notable part of central London, holds city status in its own right, and is a separate ceremonial county.
It is often referred to as the City (often written on maps as "City") or the Square Mile, as it is just over one square mile (1.12 sq mi/2.90 km2) in area. These terms are also often used as metonyms for the United Kingdom's financial services industry, which continues a notable history of being based in the City.
The term London now refers to a much larger conurbation roughly corresponding to Greater London, a local government area which includes 32 London boroughs including the City of Westminster as well as the City of London. The local authority for the City, the City of London Corporation, is unique in the United Kingdom, and has some unusual responsibilities for a local authority in Britain, such as being the police authority for the City. It also has responsibilities and ownerships beyond the City's boundaries. The Corporation is headed by the Lord Mayor of the City of London, an office separate from (and much older than) the Mayor of London.
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Crown Dependencies
The Crown Dependencies are self-governing possessions of the British Crown, as opposed to overseas territories of the United Kingdom. They comprise the Channel Island Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey in the English Channel, and the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea.
Being independently administered jurisdictions, none forms part of the United Kingdom nor of the European Union.
"The Crown" is defined differently in each Crown Dependency. In Jersey, statements in the 21st century of the constitutional position by the Law Officers of the Crown define it as the "Crown in right of Jersey", with all Crown land in the Bailiwick of Jersey belonging to the Crown in right of Jersey and not to the Crown Estate of the United Kingdom. Legislation of the Isle of Man defines the "Crown in right of the Isle of Man" as being separate from the "Crown in right of the United Kingdom". In Guernsey, legislation refers to the "Crown in right of the Bailiwick", and the Law Officers of the Crown of Guernsey submitted that "The Crown in this context ordinarily means the Crown in right of the république of the Bailiwick of Guernsey" and that this comprises "the collective governmental and civic institutions, established by and under the authority of the Monarch, for the governance of these Islands, including the States of Guernsey and legislatures in the other Islands, the Royal Court and other courts, the Lieutenant Governor, Parish authorities, and the Crown acting in and through the Privy Council." This constitutional concept is also worded as the "Crown in right of the Bailiwick of Guernsey".
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Croydon Vision 2020
Croydon Vision 2020 is a regeneration programme by the London Borough of Croydon for the centre of Croydon in South London. The original study was carried out in 1999 by EDAW and is being taken forward through the Local Development Framework process. The programme seeks to affect the urban planning of Croydon extensively and promote Croydon as hub of living, retailing, culture and business in South London and South East England. It was also highlighted by architect Will Alsop's 'Third City' work. Private developers have responded to this initiative and currently £3.5 billion has been committed to consented and proposed development projects with more in the pipeline. The Council is now working with the Mayor of London on the Croydon Opportunity Area. An Opportunity Area Planning Framework (OAPF) has been proposed for the town centre to coordinate this investment. Work is underway on six masterplans underpinning the preparation of this framework. These are: East Croydon, West Croydon, Mid Croydon, College Green, Wellesley Road, and Old Town. More information can be found at the Council's 'Third City' website [1]. The website also includes information on the regeneration of Wandle Park (one of central Croydon's three key greenspaces).
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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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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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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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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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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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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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England
Englandi/ˈɪŋɡlənd/ is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, while the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separate it from continental Europe. Most of England comprises the central and southern part of the island of Great Britain in the North Atlantic. The country also includes over 100 smaller islands such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.
The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Palaeolithic period, but it takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in AD 927, and since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century, has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world. The English language, the Anglican Church, and English law—the basis for the common law legal systems of many other countries around the world—developed in England, and the country's parliamentary system of government has been widely adopted by other nations. The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the world's first industrialised nation. England's Royal Society laid the foundations of modern experimental science.
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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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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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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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French Guiana
French Guiana (French: Guyane française; French pronunciation: [ɡɥijan fʁɑ̃sɛz]; officially just Guyane) is an overseas region of France, consisting of a single overseas department located on the northern Atlantic coast of South America. It has borders with two nations: Brazil to the east and south, and Suriname to the west. Its 83,534 km2 (32,253 sq mi) have a very low population density of less than 3 /km2 (7.8 /sq mi), with almost half of its 229,000 people in 2009 living in the urban area of Cayenne, its capital.
The addition of the adjective "French" in English comes from colonial times when five such colonies existed (The Guianas), namely from west to east: Spanish Guiana (now Guayana Region in Venezuela), British Guiana (now Guyana), Dutch Guiana (now Suriname), French Guiana, and Portuguese Guiana (now Amapá, a state in far northern Brazil). French Guiana and the two larger countries to the north and west, Guyana and Suriname, are still often collectively referred to as the Guianas and comprise one large shield landmass.
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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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Gaza Strip
The Gaza Strip (Arabic: قطاع غزة Qiṭāʿ Ġazzah, IPA: [qitˤaːʕ ɣazza]) lies on the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, within the Middle East (at 31 25 N, 34 20 E). The Strip borders Egypt on the southwest, 11km long, and Israel on the east and north, 51km long. It is about 41 kilometres (25 mi) long, and between 6 and 12 kilometres (4–7.5 mi) wide, with a total area of 360 square kilometres (140 sq mi). It has a 40 km coastline onto the Mediterranean Sea, but has no maritime claims due to Israeli administration. The territory takes its name from Gaza-city, its main city and administrative center.
The Gaza Strip has a temperate climate, with mild winters, and dry and hot summers, subject to drought. The terrain is flat or rolling, with dunes near the coast. The highest point is Abu 'Awdah (Joz Abu 'Auda), at 105 metres above sea level. Main resources are arable land (about a third of the strip is irrigated), and recently discovered natural gas. Environmental issues include desertification; salination of fresh water; sewage treatment; water-borne disease; soil degradation; and depletion and contamination of underground water resources.
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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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Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain (Welsh: Prydain Fawr, Scottish Gaelic: Breatainn Mhòr, Cornish: Breten Veur) is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, the largest European island, and the largest of the British Isles. With a population of about 60.0 million people in mid-2009, it is the third most populous island in the world, after Java and Honshū. Great Britain is surrounded by over 1,000 smaller islands and islets. The island of Ireland lies to its west. Politically, Great Britain may also refer to the island itself together with a number of surrounding islands which comprise the territory of England, Scotland and Wales.
All of the island is territory of the sovereign state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and most of the United Kingdom's territory is in Great Britain. Most of England, Scotland, and Wales are on the island of Great Britain, as are their respective capital cities: London, Edinburgh, and Cardiff.
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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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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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HM Treasury
Her Majesty's Treasury, or HM Treasury or informally The Treasury, is the United Kingdom government department responsible for developing and executing the British government's public finance policy and economic policy. The Treasury maintains the Combined Online Information System (COINS) containing a detailed analysis of departmental spending under thousands of category headings.
The Treasury of the United Kingdom traces its origins to the Treasury of the Kingdom of England, which had come into existence by 1126, in the reign of Henry I. The Treasury emerged out of the Royal Household, and served as the location where the king kept his treasures. The head of the Treasury was called the Lord Treasurer. Starting in Tudor times, the Lord Treasurer became one of the chief officers of state, and competed with the Lord Chancellor for the principal place. In 1667 Charles II of England was responsible for appointing George Downing, the builder of Downing Street, to radically reform the Treasury and the collection of taxes.
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Hong Kong
Coordinates: 22°16′42″N 114°09′32″E / 22.27833°N 114.15889°E / 22.27833; 114.15889
Hong Kong (Chinese: 香港) is one of two special administrative regions (SARs) of the People's Republic of China (PRC), the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is known for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour. With a land mass of 1,104 km2 (426 sq mi) and a population of seven million people, Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Hong Kong's population is 95 percent ethnic Chinese and 5 percent from other groups. Hong Kong's Han Chinese majority originate mainly from the cities of Guangzhou and Taishan in the neighbouring Guangdong province.
Hong Kong became a colony of the British Empire after the First Opium War (1839–42). Originally confined to Hong Kong Island, the colony's boundaries were extended in stages to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 and then the New Territories in 1898. It was occupied by Japan during the Pacific War, after which the British resumed control until 1997, when China resumed sovereignty. The region espoused minimum government intervention under the ethos of positive non-interventionism during the colonial era. The time period greatly influenced the current culture of Hong Kong, often described as "East meets West", and the educational system, which used to loosely follow the system in England until reforms implemented in 2009.
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House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster.
The House of Lords is independent from, and complements the work of, the House of Commons – they share responsibility for making laws and checking government action. Bills can be introduced into either the House of Lords or the House of Commons and members of the Lords may also take on roles as Government Ministers.
Unlike the House of Commons, most new members of the House of Lords are appointed. Membership of the House of Lords is made up of Lords Spiritual and Lords Temporal. There are currently 26 Lords Spiritual, who sit in the Lords by virtue of their ecclesiastical role in the established Church of England. The Lords Temporal make up the rest of the membership; of these, the majority are life peers who are appointed by the Monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister, or on the advice of the House of Lords Appointments Commission.
Membership was once a right of birth to hereditary peers but, following a series of reforms, only 92 members (as of 1 July 2011 (2011 -07-01)[update]) sitting by virtue of a hereditary peerage remain. The number of members is not fixed; as of 1 April 2012 (2012 -04-01)[update] the House of Lords has 786 members (plus 21 who are on leave of absence or otherwise disqualified from sitting), as against the fixed 650-seat membership of the House of Commons.
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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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Irish Free State
The Irish Free State (Irish: Saorstát Éireann) (6 December 1922–1937) was the state established as a dominion under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand. On the day the Irish Free State was established, it comprised the entire island of Ireland, but Northern Ireland almost immediately exercised its right under the treaty to remove itself from the new state. The Irish Free State effectively replaced both the self-proclaimed Irish Republic (founded 21 January 1919) and the Provisional Government of Southern Ireland. W. T. Cosgrave, the first President of the Irish Free State had led both of these "governments" since August 1922.
The Irish Free State came to an end in 1937, when the citizens voted by referendum to replace the 1922 constitution. It was succeeded by the sovereign, modern state of the Republic of Ireland.
The Easter Rising of 1916, and in particular the decision of the British military authorities to execute many of its leaders after courts martial, generated sympathy for the republican cause in Ireland. Republicans and some independent Nationalists who led opposition to the idea of compulsory military service for Irish men in the conscription crisis of early 1918. The Irish Parliamentary Party, who supported the Allied cause in World War I in response to the passing of the Third Home Rule Bill in 1914 was discredited by the crisis. In the December 1918 general election, a large majority of Irish seats in the Westminster parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland were won by Sinn Féin, with 73 of 105 constituencies returning Sinn Féin members. Sinn Féin was a previously non-violent separatist party founded by Arthur Griffith in 1905. Under Éamon de Valera's leadership from 1917, it had campaigned aggressively for an Irish republic.
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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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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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Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain (including both modern-day England and Wales) and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England and Wales. It had a land border with the Kingdom of Scotland to the north. At the start of the period its capital and chief royal residence was Winchester, but Westminster and Gloucester were accorded almost equal status, with Westminster gradually gaining preference.
England as a state began on 12 July 927 after a gathering of kings from throughout Britain at Eamont Bridge, Cumbria, but broadly traces its origins to the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain and the Heptarchy of petty states that followed and ultimately united. The Norman invasion of Wales from 1067–1283 (formalised with the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284) put Wales in England's control, and Wales came under English law with the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542. On 1 May 1707, England was united with Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain under the terms of the Acts of Union 1707. Though no longer a sovereign state, modern England continues as one of the countries of the United Kingdom.
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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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M11 Corridor
Coordinates: 51°54′25″N 0°14′42″E / 51.907°N 0.245°E / 51.907; 0.245
The M11 Corridor is an area along the M11 motorway in the United Kingdom which begins in East London and runs from Essex to Cambridgeshire, which has been identified by the British government as a key location for economic and population growth. London Stansted Airport is situated within the area, and is one of the main reasons the government has earmarked this region for house building and infrastructure improvements.
There is also a housing shortage in the South East, East, and London regions of the country and new homes are required for this purpose also. A similar scheme is already underway to the south of Essex and North of Kent, known as the Thames Gateway project.
Major towns covered in this corridor include Harlow, Great Dunmow, Epping and Braintree in Essex, Bishop's Stortford in Hertfordshire and parts of South Cambridgeshire.
"Stansted M11 Corridor Study". Colin Buchanan Partners. December 2003. pp. 137. http://www.eera.gov.uk/publications-and-resources/studies/geographical-studies/london-stanstead-cambridgeshire/stansted-m11-corridor-study--december-2003-/. Retrieved 2 March 2010.
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M4 corridor
The M4 corridor is the area in the United Kingdom adjacent to the M4 motorway, which runs from London to South Wales. The area is a major hub for high-technology companies. Technology companies with major operations located in the area include Citrix Systems, Dell, Huawei, Lexmark, LG, Novell, Nvidia, Panasonic, SAP and Symantec.
Important cities and towns in the area include Bath, Bracknell, Bristol, Cardiff, Maidenhead, Reading, Newbury, Newport, Slough, Swansea and Swindon. The area is served by the M4 Motorway, the Great Western Main Line, including the South Wales Main Line, and London Heathrow Airport.
The eastern end of the English M4 corridor is home to a large number of technology companies, particularly in Berkshire, Swindon and the Thames Valley. For this reason this part of the M4 Corridor is sometimes described as England's "Silicon Valley".Slough, Windsor, Maidenhead, Reading, Bracknell and Newbury are the main towns in the Berkshire stretch of the M4.
Reading is home to many information technology and financial services businesses, including Cisco, Microsoft, ING Direct, Oracle, Prudential, Yell Group and Ericsson. Vodafone is located in Newbury, O2 plc is in Slough and the headquarters of Hutchison 3G UK are in Maidenhead.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland (Irish: Tuaisceart Éireann pronounced [ˈt̪ˠuəʃcəɾˠt̪ˠ ˈeːɾʲən̪ˠ] ( listen), Ulster Scots: Norlin Airlann or Norlin Airlan) is a part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west. As of 2001, its population was 1,685,000, constituting about 30% of the island's total population and about 3% of the population of the United Kingdom. Since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, Northern Ireland is largely self-governing. According to the agreement, Northern Ireland co-operates with the rest of Ireland – from which it was partitioned in 1921 — on some policy areas, while other areas are reserved for the Government of the United Kingdom, though the Republic of Ireland "may put forward views and proposals".
Northern Ireland was for many years the site of a violent and bitter inter-communal conflict — the Troubles — which was caused by divisions between nationalists, who are predominantly Roman Catholic, and unionists, who are predominantly Protestant. Unionists want Northern Ireland to remain as a part of the United Kingdom, and generally see themselves as British, while nationalists wish for it to be politically reunited with the rest of Ireland, independent of British rule, and generally see themselves as Irish. Additionally, people from both sides of the community may describe themselves as Northern Irish. Since 1998, most of the paramilitary groups involved in the Troubles have ceased their armed campaigns.
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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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Opium Wars
The Opium Wars, also known as the Anglo-Chinese Wars, divided into the First Opium War from 1839 to 1842 and the Second Opium War from 1856 to 1860, were the climax of disputes over trade and diplomatic relations between China under the Qing Dynasty and the British Empire. After the inauguration of the Canton System in 1756, which restricted trade to one port and did not allow foreign entrance to China, the British East India Company faced a trade imbalance in favour of China and invested heavily in opium production to redress the balance. British and United States merchants brought opium from the British East India Company's factories in Patna and Benares, in the Bengal Presidency of British India, to the coast of China, where they sold it to Chinese smugglers who distributed the drug in defiance of Chinese laws. Aware both of the drain of silver and the growing numbers of addicts, the Daoguang Emperor demanded action. Officials at the court, who advocated legalization of the trade in order to tax it were defeated by those who advocated suppression. In 1838, the Emperor sent Lin Zexu to Guangzhou where he quickly arrested Chinese opium dealers and summarily demanded that foreign firms turn over their stocks. When they refused, Lin stopped trade altogether and placed the foreign residents under virtual siege, eventually forcing the merchants to surrender their opium to be destroyed. In response, the British government sent expeditionary forces from India which ravaged the Chinese coast and dictated the terms of settlement. The Treaty of Nanking not only opened the way for further opium trade, but ceded territory including Hong Kong, unilaterally fixed Chinese tariffs at a low rate, granted extraterritorial rights to foreigners in China which were not offered to Chinese abroad, a most favored nation clause, as well as diplomatic representation. When the court still refused to accept foreign ambassadors and obstructed the trade clauses of the treaties, disputes over the treatment of British merchants in Chinese ports and on the seas led to the Second Opium War and the Treaty of Tientsin.
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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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Paris
Coordinates: 48°51′24″N 2°21′03″E / 48.8567°N 2.3508°E / 48.8567; 2.3508
Paris (i/ˈpærɨs/; French: [paʁi] ( listen)) is the capital and largest city of France. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region (or Paris Region, French: Région parisienne). As of January 2008 the city of Paris, within its administrative limits (the 20 arrondissements) largely unchanged since 1860, has an estimated population of 2,211,297 and a metropolitan population of 12,089,098, and is one of the most populated metropolitan areas in Europe. Paris was the largest city in the Western world for about 1,000 years, prior to the 19th century, and the largest in the entire world between the 16th and 19th centuries.
Paris is today one of the world's leading business and cultural centres, and its influences in politics, education, entertainment, media, fashion, science, and the arts all contribute to its status as one of the world's major global cities. It hosts the headquarters of many international organizations such as UNESCO, the OECD, the International Chamber of Commerce or the European Space Agency. Paris is considered one of the greenest and most liveable cities in Europe. It is also one of the most expensive.
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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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Royal Mint
The Royal Mint is the body permitted to manufacture, or mint, coins in the United Kingdom. The Mint originated over 1,100 years ago, but since 2009 it operates as Royal Mint Ltd, a company which has an exclusive contract with HM Treasury to supply all coinage for the UK. Royal Mint Ltd is 100% owned by HM Treasury, though the latter delegates shareholder responsibilities to the Shareholder Executive.
As well as minting coins for the UK, it also mints and exports coins to many other countries, and produces military medals, commemorative medals and other such items for governments, schools and businesses, being known as the world's leading exporting Mint. Responsibility for the security of the site falls to the Ministry of Defence Police, who provide an armed contingent.
The Royal Mint began to move its operations from Tower Hill, London to Llantrisant, South Wales in 1968 and has operated on a single site in Llantrisant since 1980. At Llantrisant it holds an extensive collection of coins dating from the 16th century onwards, housed in eighty cabinets made by Elizabeth II's cabinet maker, Hugh Swann. The site occupies 38 acres (15 ha) and employs 765 people.
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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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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 Helena
Saint Helena ( /ˌseɪnt həˈliːnə/ SAYNT-hə-LEE-nə), named after Saint Helena of Constantinople, is an island of volcanic origin in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is part of the British overseas territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha which also includes Ascension Island and the islands of Tristan da Cunha. Saint Helena measures about 16 by 8 kilometres (10 by 5 mi) and has a population of 4,255 (2008 census).
The island was uninhabited when discovered by the Portuguese in 1502. It is one of the most isolated islands in the world. For centuries, it was an important stopover for ships sailing to Europe from Asia and South Africa. The British also used the island as a place of exile, most notably for Napoleon I, Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo and more than 5,000 Boer prisoners. Saint Helena is Britain's second oldest remaining colony (now termed overseas territory), after Bermuda.
Most historical accounts state that the island was discovered on 21 May 1502 by the Galician navigator João da Nova sailing at the service of the Portuguese Crown, and that he named it "Santa Helena" after Helena of Constantinople. Another theory holds that the island found by De Nova was actually Tristan da Cunha 2,430 kilometres (1,510 mi) to its south, and that Saint Helena was discovered by some of the ships attached to the squadron of Estêvão da Gama expedition on 30 July 1503 (as reported in the account of clerk Thomé Lopes).
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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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Scotland
Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: Alba ([ˈalˠ̪apə] listen (help·info))) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the southwest. In addition to the mainland, Scotland constitutes over 790 islands including the Northern Isles and the Hebrides.
Edinburgh, the country's capital and second largest city, is one of Europe's largest financial centres. Edinburgh was the hub of the Scottish Enlightenment of the 18th century, which transformed Scotland into one of the commercial, intellectual and industrial powerhouses of Europe. Glasgow, Scotland's largest city, was once one of the world's leading industrial cities and now lies at the centre of the Greater Glasgow conurbation. Scottish waters consist of a large sector of the North Atlantic and the North Sea, containing the largest oil reserves in the European Union. This has given Aberdeen, the third largest city in Scotland, the title of Europe's oil capital.
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Scottish Parliament
The Scottish Parliament (Scottish Gaelic: Pàrlamaid na h-Alba; Scots: The Scots Pairliament) is the devolved national, unicameral legislature of Scotland, located in the Holyrood area of the capital, Edinburgh. The Parliament, informally referred to as "Holyrood", is a democratically elected body comprising 129 members known as Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs). Members are elected for four-year terms under the mixed member proportional representation system. As a result, 73 MSPs represent individual geographical constituencies elected by the plurality ("first past the post") system, with a further 56 returned from eight additional member regions, each electing seven MSPs. The most recent general election to the Parliament was held on 5 May 2011.
The original Parliament of Scotland (or "Estates of Scotland") was the national legislature of the independent Kingdom of Scotland, and existed from the early 13th century until the Kingdom of Scotland merged with the Kingdom of England under the Acts of Union 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. As a consequence, the Parliament of Scotland merged with the Parliament of England to form the Parliament of Great Britain, which sat at Westminster in London.
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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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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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Singapore
Singapore (i/ˈsɪŋəpɔər/ SI-ngə-pohr), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, 137 kilometres (85 mi) north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the Singapore Strait to its south. Singapore is highly urbanised but almost half of the country is covered by greenery. More land is being created for development through land reclamation.
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Sint Maarten
Sint Maarten (Dutch pronunciation: [sɪnt ˈmaːrtə(n)]) is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It encompasses the southern half of the Caribbean island of Saint Martin, while the northern half of the island constitutes the French overseas collectivity of Saint-Martin. Its capital is Philipsburg.
Before 10 October 2010, Sint Maarten was known as the Island Territory of Sint Maarten (Dutch: Eilandgebied Sint Maarten), and was one of five island territories (Eilandgebieden) that constituted the Netherlands Antilles.
In 1493, during Christopher Columbus' second voyages to the West Indies, upon first sighting the island he named it Isla de San Martín after Saint Martin of Tours because it was 11 November, St. Martin Day. However, though he claimed it as a Spanish territory, Columbus never landed there, and Spain made the settlement of the island a low priority.
The French and Dutch, on the other hand, both coveted the island. While the French wanted to colonize the islands between Trinidad and Bermuda, the Dutch found San Martín a convenient halfway point between their colonies in New Amsterdam (present day New York) and Brazil. With few people inhabiting the island, the Dutch easily founded a settlement there in 1631, erecting Fort Amsterdam as protection from invaders. Jan Claeszen Van Campen became its first governor, and soon thereafter the Dutch East India Company began their salt mining operations. French and British settlements sprang up on the island as well. Taking note of these successful colonies and wanting to maintain their control of the salt trade, the Spanish now found St. Martin much more appealing. The Eighty Years' War which had been raging between Spain and the Netherlands provided further incentive to attack.
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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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Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesia was the name of the British colony situated north of the Limpopo River and the Union of South Africa. From its independence in 1965 until its extinction in 1980, it was known as Rhodesia. Since 1980 and the institution of a majority African government, the area has been renamed Zimbabwe and all traces of former British, Rhodesian, and white rule, laws, property, and nomenclature have been removed as part of President Robert Mugabe's policy of Africanization.
The territory was originally referred to as 'South Zambezia' but the name 'Rhodesia' came into use in 1895. The designation 'Southern' was adopted in 1901 and dropped from normal usage in 1964 on the break-up of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and Rhodesia became the name of the country until the creation of Zimbabwe Rhodesia in 1979. Legally, from the British perspective, the name Southern Rhodesia continued to be used until April 18, 1980, when the name Republic of Zimbabwe was formally proclaimed.
Rhodesia was named after Cecil Rhodes, the British empire-builder who was one of the most important figures in British expansion into southern Africa, and who obtained mineral rights in 1888 from the most powerful local traditional leaders through treaties such as the Rudd Concession and the Moffat Treaty signed by King Lobengula of the Ndebele.
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States of Jersey
The States of Jersey (French: États de Jersey) is the parliament and government of Jersey.
The origins of the legislature of Jersey lie in the system of self-government according to Norman law guaranteed to the Channel Islands by King John following the division of Normandy in 1204. The Assembly of the States of Jersey has exercised uncontested legislative powers since 1771, when the concurrent law-making power of the Royal Court of Jersey was abolished.
The Assembly passes and amends laws and regulations; approves the annual budget and taxation; appoints and removes the Chief Minister, Ministers, presidents and members of committees; debates matters proposed by the Council of Ministers, by Ministers or by individual members. Members are also able to ask questions to find out information and to hold Ministers to account.Executive powers are exercised by a Chief Minister and nine ministers, elected from among the members of the States of Jersey and known collectively as the Council of Ministers. Ministers are accountable to the Assembly for the conduct of their departments.
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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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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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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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Thames Gateway
Coordinates: 51°29′13″N 0°19′05″E / 51.487°N 0.318°E / 51.487; 0.318 The Thames Gateway is an area of land stretching 70 kilometres (43 mi) east from inner east London on both sides of the River Thames and the Thames Estuary. The area, which includes much brownfield land, has been designated a national priority for urban regeneration, taking advantage of the development opportunities realised by the completion of the High Speed 1 (officially known as the Channel Tunnel Rail Link) rail line. It stretches from Westferry in Tower Hamlets to the Isle of Sheppey and extends across three of the regions of England. The development is delivered through regional development agencies, special purpose development corporations and local partnerships.
The Thames Gateway comprises sections of 16 different local government districts in three regions:
The area accommodates around 1.6 million people and contains some of the most deprived wards in the country, characterised by lack of access to public transport, services, employment and affordable quality housing. Its boundary was drawn to capture the riverside strip that formerly hosted many land extensive industries, serving London and the South East, whose decline has left a legacy of large scale dereliction and contaminated land, such as around Tilbury.[citation needed]
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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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Tristan da Cunha
Tristan da Cunha ( /ˈtrɪstən də ˈkuːnə/) is part of the British overseas territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha which also includes Saint Helena 2,430 kilometres (1,510 mi) to its north, and equatorial Ascension Island even farther removed.
Tristan da Cunha is a remote volcanic group of islands in the south Atlantic Ocean and the main island of that group. It is the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world, lying 2,816 kilometres (1,750 mi) from the nearest land, South Africa, and 3,360 kilometres (2,088 mi) from South America. The territory consists of the main island of Tristan da Cunha itself, which measures about 11.27 kilometres (7.0 mi) across and has an area of 98 square kilometres (37.8 sq mi), along with the uninhabited Nightingale Islands and the wildlife reserves of Inaccessible Island and Gough Island. It has a permanent population of 275 (2009 figures).
The islands were first sighted in 1506 by Portuguese explorer Tristão da Cunha, although rough seas prevented a landing. He named the main island after himself, Ilha de Tristão da Cunha, which was later anglicised to Tristan da Cunha Island.
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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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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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Wales
Walesi/ˈweɪlz/ (Welsh: Cymru;Welsh pronunciation: [ˈkəm.rɨ] ( listen)) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain,bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km2 (8,023 sq mi). Wales has over 1,200 km (750 mi) of coastline, including its offshore islands; the largest, Anglesey (Ynys Môn), is also the largest island in the Irish Sea. Wales is largely mountainous, with its highest peaks in the north and central areas, especially in Snowdonia (Eryri), which contains Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa), its highest summit.
During the Iron Age and early medieval period, Wales was inhabited by the Celtic Britons. A distinct Welsh national identity emerged in the centuries after the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century, and Wales is regarded as one of the modern Celtic nations today. Gruffydd ap Llywelyn was recognised as King of Wales in 1057. Llywelyn ap Gruffydd's death in 1282 marked the completion of Edward I of England's conquest of Wales. The castles and town walls erected to ensure its permanence are now UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Owain Glyndŵr briefly restored independence to what was to become modern Wales, in the early 15th century. Wales was subsequently annexed by England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542 since when, excluding those matters now devolved to Wales, English law has been the legal system of Wales and England. Distinctive Welsh politics developed in the 19th century. Welsh Liberalism, exemplified in the early 20th century by Lloyd George, was displaced by the growth of socialism and the Labour Party. Welsh national feeling grew over the century; Plaid Cymru was formed in 1925 and The Welsh Language Society in 1962. The National Assembly for Wales, created in 1999 following a referendum, holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters.
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West Bank
The West Bank (Arabic: الضفة الغربية aḍ-Ḍaffah l-Ġarbiyyah, Hebrew: הגדה המערבית, HaGadah HaMa'aravit also known as Hebrew: יהודה והשומרון Yehuda ve-Ha'Shomron (Judea and Samaria)) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The West Bank also contains a significant coastline along the western bank of the Dead Sea. Since 1967, most of the West Bank has been under Israeli military occupation and is referred to as Judea and Samaria Area by Israel. A smaller part of the West Bank is administered by the Israeli civilian authorities as part of Jerusalem District.
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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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Alistair Darling
Alistair Maclean Darling (born 28 November 1953) is a British Labour Party politician who has been a Member of Parliament (MP) since 1987, currently for Edinburgh South West. He served as the Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2007 to 2010. Darling was one of only three people to have served in the Cabinet continuously from Labour's victory in 1997 until its defeat in 2010 (the others being Gordon Brown and Jack Straw).
Darling was initially appointed as Chief Secretary to the Treasury in 1997, moving to become Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in 1998. Spending four years at the department, he spent another four years as Secretary of State for Transport, also becoming Secretary of State for Scotland in 2003. Prime Minister Tony Blair moved Darling for a final time, to Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in 2006, before Gordon Brown promoted Darling to Chancellor in 2007.
Alistair Darling was born in London the son of a civil engineer, Thomas, and his wife, Anna. He is the great-nephew of Sir William Darling, who was Conservative MP for Edinburgh South (1945–1957). He was educated in Kirkcaldy, and the private Loretto School,Musselburgh, East Lothian, then attended the University of Aberdeen where he was awarded a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B). He became the President of Aberdeen University Students' Representative Council.
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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 I of England
Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles believed was divinely ordained. Many of his English subjects opposed his actions, in particular his interference in the English and Scottish churches and the levying of taxes without parliamentary consent, because they saw them as those of a tyrannical absolute monarch.
Charles's reign was also characterised by religious conflicts. His failure to successfully aid Protestant forces during the Thirty Years' War, coupled with the fact that he married a Roman Catholic princess, generated deep mistrust concerning the king's dogma. Charles further allied himself with controversial ecclesiastic figures, such as Richard Montagu and William Laud, whom Charles appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. Many of Charles's subjects felt this brought the Church of England too close to the Roman Catholic Church. Charles's later attempts to force religious reforms upon Scotland led to the Bishops' Wars, strengthened the position of the English and Scottish parliaments and helped precipitate his own downfall.
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Edward Heath
Sir Edward Richard George "Ted" Heath, KG, MBE, PC (9 July 1916 – 17 July 2005) was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1970–74) and as Leader of the Conservative Party (1965–75).
Born in Broadstairs, Kent, Heath studied at Oxford and served in the Second World War. He was first elected in the 1950 general election, for Bexley and was government Chief Whip during the 1950s. Entering the Cabinet as Minister of Labour in 1959, he was then Lord Privy Seal responsible for Macmillan's unsuccessful EEC entry negotiations, then President of the Board of Trade. In 1965 Heath won the leadership of the Conservative Party against Reginald Maudling and Enoch Powell. The general election of 1966 saw the Labour government of Harold Wilson achieve a large increase in seats, however Heath remained Conservative leader.
Heath became Prime Minister after winning the 1970 general election. In 1971, Heath oversaw the decimalisation of British coinage and in 1972, he implemented major reform to the UK's system of local government. In foreign policy, Heath took the UK into the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1973. Heath's premiership oversaw the height of The Troubles in Northern Ireland, with the suspension of the Stormont parliament and the imposition of direct British rule. Unofficial talks with IRA delegates were unsuccessful, as was the Sunningdale Agreement of 1973, which caused Ulster Unionists to withdraw from the Conservative whip.
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Elizabeth II
Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; born 21 April 1926) is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms, and head of the 54-member Commonwealth of Nations. She is also head of state of the Crown Dependencies.
Elizabeth was born in London, and educated privately at home. Her father acceded to the throne as George VI in 1936 on the abdication of his brother Edward VIII. She began to undertake public duties during the Second World War, in which she served in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. On the death of her father in 1952, she became Head of the Commonwealth and queen regnant of seven independent Commonwealth countries: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon. Her coronation service in 1953 was the first to be televised. Between 1956 and 1992, the number of her realms varied as territories gained independence and some realms became republics. Today, in addition to the first four aforementioned countries, Elizabeth is Queen of Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Kitts and Nevis.
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Fernand Braudel
Fernand Braudel (24 August 1902 – 27 November 1985) was a French historian and a leader of the Annales School. His scholarship focused on three main projects, each representing several decades of intense study: The Mediterranean (1923–49, then 1949–66), Civilization and Capitalism (1955–79), and the unfinished Identity of France (1970–85). His reputation stems in part from his writings, but even more from his success in making the Annales School the most important engine of historical research in France and much of the world after 1950. As the dominant leader of the Annales School of historiography in the 1950s and 1960s, he exerted enormous influence on historical writing in France and other countries.
Braudel has been considered one of the greatest of the modern historians who have emphasized the role of large-scale socioeconomic factors in the making and writing of history. He can also be considered as one of the precursors of World Systems Theory.
Braudel was born in Luméville-en-Ornois (as of 1943, merged with and part of Gondrecourt-le-Château), in the département of the Meuse, France, where he also lived with his paternal grandmother for a long time. His father, who was a natural mathematician, aided him in his studies. Braudel also studied a good deal of Latin and a little Greek. He loved history and wrote poetry. Braudel wanted to be a doctor, but his father opposed this idea. At the age of 20, he became an agrégé in history. While learning at a secondary school in Algeria, 1923–32, he became fascinated by the Mediterranean Sea and everything about it. From 1932 to 1935 he taught in the Paris lycées of Pasteur, Condorcet, and Henri-IV. He met Lucien Febvre, the co-founder of the influential Annales journal, who was to have a great influence on his work.
wn.com/Fernand_Braudel -
George Soros
George Soros ( /ˈsɔroʊs/ or /ˈsɔrəs/;Hungarian: Soros György; Hungarian: [ˈʃoroʃ]; born August 12, 1930, as Schwartz György) is a Hungarian-American business magnate,investor, and philanthropist. He is the chairman of Soros Fund Management. Soros supports progressive-liberal causes. He is known as "The Man Who Broke the Bank of England" because of his US$1 billion in investment profits during the 1992 Black Wednesday UK currency crisis.
Between 1979 and 2011, Soros gave away over $8 billion to human rights, public health, and education causes. He played a significant role in the peaceful transition from communism to capitalism in Hungary (1984–89), and provided Europe's largest higher education endowment to Central European University in Budapest. Soros is also the chairman of the Open Society Institute.
Soros was born in Budapest, Hungary to a well-to-do, nonobservant Jewish family. His mother Elizabeth (also known as Erzebet), whom Tivadar married in 1924, came from a family that owned a thriving silk shop. His father Tivadar (also known as Teodoro) was a lawyer and had been a prisoner of war during and after World War I until he escaped from Russia and rejoined his family in Budapest. Tivadar was an Esperantist writer and taught George to speak Esperanto from birth. Soros later said that he grew up in a Jewish home and that his parents were cautious with their religious roots. Soros was thirteen years old in March 1944 when Nazi Germany occupied Hungary. Soros took a job with the Jewish Council, which had been established during the Nazi occupation of Hungary. Soros later described this time to writer Michael Lewis:
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Gordon Brown
James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British Labour Party politician who was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 until 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government from 1997 to 2007, becoming the longest-serving holder of that office in modern history. Brown has been a Member of Parliament (MP) since 1983, for Dunfermline East until 2005, and currently for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath.
Brown became Prime Minister on 27 June 2007, after the resignation of Tony Blair and three days after becoming Leader of the governing Labour Party. His tenure ended on 11 May 2010, when he resigned as Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party. Brown was one of only three people to serve in the Cabinet continuously from Labour's victory in 1997 until its defeat in 2010, the others being Jack Straw and Alistair Darling.
Brown has a PhD in history from the University of Edinburgh and spent his early career working as a lecturer at a further education college and a television journalist. He has been a Member of Parliament since 1983; first for Dunfermline East and since 2005 for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. As Prime Minister, he also held the offices of First Lord of the Treasury and the Minister for the Civil Service.
wn.com/Gordon_Brown -
Harold Wilson
James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC (11 March 1916 – 24 May 1995) was a British Labour politician and Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the February 1974 general election resulted in a hung parliament. He is the most recent British Prime Minister to have served non-consecutive terms.
wn.com/Harold_Wilson -
Henry II of England
Henry II (5 March 1133 – 6 July 1189), also known as Henry Curtmantle, Henry FitzEmpress or Henry Plantagenet, ruled as King of England (1154–89), Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Count of Nantes, and Lord of Ireland; at various times, he also controlled Wales, Scotland and Brittany. Henry was the son of Geoffrey of Anjou and Matilda, who was the daughter of King Henry I and took the title of Empress from her first marriage. He became actively involved by the age of 14 in his mother's efforts to claim the throne of England, and was made the Duke of Normandy at 17. He inherited Anjou in 1151 and shortly afterwards married Eleanor of Aquitaine, whose marriage to the French king Louis VII had recently been annulled. King Stephen agreed to a peace treaty after Henry's military expedition to England in 1153, and he inherited the kingdom on Stephen's death a year later. Still quite young, he now controlled what would later be called the Angevin empire, stretching across much of western Europe.
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Henry IV of England
Henry IV (possibly 3 April 1366 – 20 March 1413) was King of England and Lord of Ireland (1399–1413). He was the ninth King of England of the House of Plantagenet and also asserted his grandfather's claim to the title King of France. He was born at Bolingbroke Castle in Lincolnshire, hence his other name, Henry (of) Bolingbroke ( /ˈbɒlɪŋbrʊk/). His father, John of Gaunt, was the third son of Edward III, and enjoyed a position of considerable influence during much of the reign of Henry's cousin Richard II, whom Henry eventually deposed. Henry's mother was Blanche, heiress to the considerable Lancaster estates, thus he became the first King of England from the Lancaster branch of the Plantagenets, one of the two family branches that were belligerents in the War of the Roses. The other one was the York branch, initiated by his uncle Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York (see section "Seniority in line from Edward III" below).
One of Henry's elder sisters, Philippa of Lancaster, married John I of Portugal, and his younger sister Elizabeth was the mother of John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter. His younger half-sister Catherine, the daughter of his father's second wife, Constance of Castile, was queen consort of Castile. He also had four half-siblings by Katherine Swynford, originally his sisters' governess, then his father's longstanding mistress, and later his third wife. These four children were given the surname Beaufort after a castle their father held in Champagne, France.
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Henry VII of England
Henry VII (Welsh: Harri Tudur; 28 January 1457 – 21 April 1509) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizing the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death on 21 April 1509, as the first monarch of the House of Tudor.
Henry won the throne when he defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was the last king of England to win his throne on the field of battle. He was successful in restoring the power and stability of the English monarchy after the political upheavals of the Wars of the Roses. He founded a long-lasting dynasty and, after a reign of nearly 24 years, was peacefully succeeded by his son, Henry VIII.
Although Henry can be credited with the restoration of political stability in England, and a number of commendable administrative, economic and diplomatic initiatives, the latter part of his reign was characterised by a financial rapacity which stretched the bounds of legality. According to the contemporary historian Polydore Vergil, simple "greed" in large part underscored the means by which royal control was over-asserted in Henry's final years.
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Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton PRS MP (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1727 [NS: 4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727]) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived." His monograph Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, published in 1687, lays the foundations for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries. Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws, by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the Scientific Revolution.
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James Callaghan
Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, KG, PC (27 March 1912 – 26 March 2005), was a British Labour politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980. Commonly known as Jim Callaghan (and nicknamed "Sunny Jim", "Gentleman Jim", "Lucky Jim" or "Big Jim"), Callaghan is the only person to have served in all four of the Great Offices of State: Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary.
Callaghan was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1964 to 1967 during a turbulent period in the British economy in which he had to wrestle with a balance of payments deficit and speculative attacks on the pound sterling. In November 1967, the Government was forced to devalue the pound sterling despite having already denied this would be done, both publicly and to the House of Commons. Callaghan offered to resign, but was persuaded to swap his ministerial post with Roy Jenkins, becoming Home Secretary from 1967 to 1970. In that capacity, Callaghan took the decision to use the Army to support the police in Northern Ireland, after a request from the Northern Ireland Government.
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Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, LG, OM, PC, FRS, née Roberts (born 13 October 1925) is a British politician and the longest-serving (1979–1990) British prime minister of the 20th century, and the only woman ever to have held the post. A Soviet journalist nicknamed her the "Iron Lady", which later became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style. As prime minister, she implemented conservative policies that have come to be known as Thatcherism.
Originally a research chemist before becoming a barrister, Thatcher was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Finchley in 1959. Edward Heath appointed her Secretary of State for Education and Science in his 1970 government. In 1975 Thatcher defeated Heath in the Conservative Party leadership election and became Leader of the Opposition, as well as the first woman to lead a major political party in the United Kingdom. She became prime minister after winning the 1979 general election.
After entering 10 Downing Street, Thatcher introduced a series of political and economic initiatives to reverse what she perceived as Britain's precipitous national decline. Her political philosophy and economic policies emphasised deregulation (particularly of the financial sector), flexible labour markets, the privatisation of state-owned companies, and reducing the power and influence of trade unions. Thatcher's popularity during her first years in office waned amid recession and high unemployment, until economic recovery and the 1982 Falklands War brought a resurgence of support, resulting in her re-election in 1983. Thatcher was re-elected for a third term in 1987, but her Community Charge (popularly referred to as "poll tax") was widely unpopular and her views on the European Community were not shared by others in her Cabinet. She resigned as Prime Minister and party leader in November 1990, after Michael Heseltine launched a challenge to her leadership.
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Nigel Lawson
Nigel Lawson, Baron Lawson of Blaby, PC (born 11 March 1932), is a British Conservative politician and journalist. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) representing the constituency of Blaby from 1974–92, and served as the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the government of Margaret Thatcher from June 1983 to October 1989. He was made a life peer in 1992.
Lawson is the father of food writer and celebrity cook Nigella Lawson, and journalist Dominic Lawson.
Lawson was born to a wealthy family in Hampstead in 1932. His father, Ralph Lawson (1904–1982), was the owner of a commodity-trading firm in the City of London, while his mother, Joan Elisa Davis, was from a wealthy family of stockbrokers. His family was Jewish. His paternal-grandfather Gustav Leibson, a merchant from Mitau (now Jelgava in Latvia) changed his name from Leibson to Lawson after becoming a British Citizen in 1911. Nigel was educated at Westminster School (following in the footsteps of his father, who had also been sent there) and Christ Church, Oxford, where he gained a first class honours degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, he carried out his military service in the Royal Navy – during which time he commanded a small torpedo boat. Lawson began his career as a financial journalist and progressed to the positions of city editor of The Sunday Telegraph in 1961 and editor of The Spectator (1966–1970).
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Offa of Mercia
Offa was the King of Mercia from 757 until his death in July 796. The son of Thingfrith and a descendant of Eowa, Offa came to the throne after a period of civil war following the assassination of Æthelbald after defeating the other claimant Beornred. In the early years of Offa's reign it is likely that he consolidated his control of midland peoples such as the Hwicce and the Magonsæte. Taking advantage of instability in the kingdom of Kent to establish himself as overlord, Offa was also in control of Sussex by 771, though his authority did not remain unchallenged in either territory. In the 780s he extended Mercian supremacy over most of southern England, allying with Beorhtric of Wessex, who married Offa's daughter Eadburh, and regained complete control of the southeast. He also became the overlord of East Anglia, and had King Æthelberht II of East Anglia beheaded in 794, perhaps for rebelling against him.
Offa was a Christian king who came into conflict with the Church, particularly with Jaenberht, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Offa managed to persuade Pope Adrian I to divide the archdiocese of Canterbury in two, creating a new archdiocese of Lichfield. This reduction in the power of Canterbury may have been motivated by Offa's desire to have an archbishop consecrate his son Ecgfrith of Mercia as king, since it is possible Jaenberht refused to perform the ceremony, which took place in 787. Offa had a dispute with the Bishop of Worcester which was settled in the Council of Brentford in 781.
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Public expenditure
Public expenditure can be defined as,
It is basically spending made by the government of a country on citizens' needs on items such as pension, provision, infrastructure etc. Public expenditure was restricted only to a small extent till 19th century due to laissez faire followed by the government, as classical then believed money left in private hands could bring better returns. It was only in 20th century when John Maynard Keynes pointed out the important role of public expenditure in determining the level of income and distribution in the economy. Since then government’s expenditure has shown an increasing trend.
Even though public expenditure came into picture in 20th century, accelerating growth of government expenditure began in late 70s.
There are several factors that have led to enormous increase in public expenditure through the years
Taxation (government revenue) and government expenditure are the two tools. Neither of excess is good for the society, it has to be balanced to achieve maximum social benefit. Dalton called this principle as “Maximum Social Advantage” and Pigou termed it as “Maximum Aggregate Welfare”.
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Queen Victoria
Queen Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India.
Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of King George III. Both the Duke of Kent and the King died in 1820, and Victoria was raised under close supervision by her German-born mother Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. She inherited the throne at the age of 18, after her father's three elder brothers had all died without surviving legitimate issue. The United Kingdom was already an established constitutional monarchy, in which the Sovereign held relatively few direct political powers. Privately, she attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments. Publicly, she became a national icon, and was identified with strict standards of personal morality.
She married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their nine children and 26 of their 34 grandchildren who survived childhood married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together and earning her the nickname "the grandmother of Europe". After Albert's death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign, her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration.
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Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He resigned from all of these positions in June 2007.
Blair was elected Leader of the Labour Party in the leadership election of July 1994, following the sudden death of his predecessor, John Smith. Under his leadership, the party used the phrases "New Labour" and "New Socialism" to define its policy, and moved away from its support of state socialism since the 1960s and created a new version of the ethical socialism that was last pursued by Clement Attlee. Critics of Blair claim that "New Labour" did not adhere to socialism as claimed, and that it effectively advocated capitalism. Blair subsequently led Labour to a landslide victory in the 1997 general election. At 43 years old, he became the youngest Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool in 1812. In the first years of the New Labour government, Blair's government implemented a number of 1997 manifesto pledges, introducing the minimum wage, Human Rights Act and Freedom of Information Act, and carrying out devolution, establishing the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, and the Northern Ireland Assembly.
wn.com/Tony_Blair -
World War I
World War I (WWI), which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939 (World War II), and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918. It involved all the world's great powers, which were assembled in two opposing alliances: the Allies (based on the Triple Entente of the United Kingdom, France and Russia) and the Central Powers (originally centred around the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy; but, as Austria–Hungary had taken the offensive against the agreement, Italy did not enter into the war). These alliances both reorganised (Italy fought for the Allies), and expanded as more nations entered the war. Ultimately more than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history. More than 9 million combatants were killed, largely because of enormous increases in lethality of weapons, thanks to new technology, without corresponding improvements in protection or mobility. It was the sixth-deadliest conflict in world history, subsequently paving the way for various political changes such as revolutions in the nations involved.
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SB.TV F64 - Pound Sterling - F64 [S3.EP33]
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:41
- Updated: 07 Jan 2013
Pound Sterling has been quiet for a little while but he's back with a bang on this F64! www.facebook.com www.sbtv.co.uk http www.twitter.com
http://wn.com/SBTV_F64_Pound_Sterling_F64_S3EP33_
Pound Sterling has been quiet for a little while but he's back with a bang on this F64! www.facebook.com www.sbtv.co.uk http www.twitter.com
POUND STERLING - DAILY DUPPY - EP.16 [GRM DAILY]
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:14
- Updated: 12 Jan 2013
www.Grmdaily.com - This episode features "the Hustla" Pound Sterling SUBSCRIBE www.youtube.com TWITTER : www.twitter.com FACEBOOK : www.facebook.com MORE SHOWS : grmdaily.com ARTISTS : grmdaily.com
http://wn.com/POUND_STERLING_DAILY_DUPPY_EP16_GRM_DAILY_
www.Grmdaily.com - This episode features "the Hustla" Pound Sterling SUBSCRIBE www.youtube.com TWITTER : www.twitter.com FACEBOOK : www.facebook.com MORE SHOWS : grmdaily.com ARTISTS : grmdaily.com
- published: 03 Jan 2013
- views: 9249
- author: GRM Daily
Urban Flash - Pound Sterling Interview Talks His New Cd And More (www.UrbanFlash.net)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 12:18
- Updated: 30 Nov 2012
www.UrbanFlash.net
http://wn.com/Urban_Flash_Pound_Sterling_Interview_Talks_His_New_Cd_And_More_wwwUrbanFlashnet
SB.TV Warm Up Sessions - Pound Sterling - [S4.EP32]
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:16
- Updated: 10 Jan 2013
Pounds only just released his F64 the other weel. I told him to come back again but this time for a Warm Up Session, in the first part he gets it a little warmed up then sets it on fire by telling you a story.
http://wn.com/SBTV_Warm_Up_Sessions_Pound_Sterling_S4EP32_
Pounds only just released his F64 the other weel. I told him to come back again but this time for a Warm Up Session, in the first part he gets it a little warmed up then sets it on fire by telling you a story.
- published: 26 Apr 2012
- views: 27348
- author: smokeybarz
Change - Harder (feat. Pound Sterling)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:26
- Updated: 10 Jan 2013
Pound Sterling's big new video "Harder" Taken from the English Gangster Mixtape facebook.com/poundsterlingmusic facebook.com/poundsterling2 twitter.com/poundsterling1 This Video was Promoted on Fireviews.com: www.fireviews.com
http://wn.com/Change_Harder_feat_Pound_Sterling
Pound Sterling's big new video "Harder" Taken from the English Gangster Mixtape facebook.com/poundsterlingmusic facebook.com/poundsterling2 twitter.com/poundsterling1 This Video was Promoted on Fireviews.com: www.fireviews.com
- published: 17 Jul 2011
- views: 91786
- author: Pound Sterling
Pound Sterling-Hardbody
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:46
- Updated: 09 Nov 2012
http://wn.com/Pound_Sterling-Hardbody
!Westwood Pound Sterling freestyle 1Xtra!
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:03
- Updated: 07 Jan 2013
freestlye uk hip hop gc blings cronic tune
http://wn.com/!Westwood_Pound_Sterling_freestyle_1Xtra!
Pound Sterling - Hit The Club
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:58
- Updated: 03 Jan 2013
Pound Sterling - Hit The Club!! Taken from The Warm Up 2 mixtape.. myspace.com/poundsterlingthehustler facebook.com/poundsterling2 twitter.com/realpounds
http://wn.com/Pound_Sterling_Hit_The_Club
Pound Sterling - Hit The Club!! Taken from The Warm Up 2 mixtape.. myspace.com/poundsterlingthehustler facebook.com/poundsterling2 twitter.com/realpounds
- published: 14 Jul 2010
- views: 159549
- author: Pound Sterling
Pound Sterling - Back Against The Wall
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:29
- Updated: 07 Jan 2013
Pound Sterling Back Against The Wall English Gangster Out Now on iTunes @poundsterling1 facebook.com/poundsterling2
http://wn.com/Pound_Sterling_Back_Against_The_Wall
Pound Sterling Back Against The Wall English Gangster Out Now on iTunes @poundsterling1 facebook.com/poundsterling2
- published: 15 Nov 2011
- views: 27564
- author: Pound Sterling
UK Currency Pound Sterling
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:51
- Updated: 12 Jan 2013
The pound sterling commonly known simply as the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, the British Crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, the British Antarctic Territory and Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (in Tristan da Cunha only). It is subdivided into 100 pence (singular: penny). A number of nations that do not use sterling also have currencies called the "pound". The British Crown dependencies of Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man produce their own local issues of sterling: 'Guernsey pound', 'Jersey pound' and 'Manx pound'. The pound sterling is also used in Gibraltar (alongside the Gibraltar pound), the Falkland Islands (alongside the Falkland Islands pound), and Saint Helena and Ascension Island in Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (alongside the Saint Helena poun Gibraltar, Falkland Islands and Saint Helena pounds are separate currencies, pegged at parity to the pound sterling. Within the UK, some banks operating in Scotland and Northern Ireland produce private sterling denominated banknotes.
http://wn.com/UK_Currency_Pound_Sterling
The pound sterling commonly known simply as the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, the British Crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man, and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, the British Antarctic Territory and Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (in Tristan da Cunha only). It is subdivided into 100 pence (singular: penny). A number of nations that do not use sterling also have currencies called the "pound". The British Crown dependencies of Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man produce their own local issues of sterling: 'Guernsey pound', 'Jersey pound' and 'Manx pound'. The pound sterling is also used in Gibraltar (alongside the Gibraltar pound), the Falkland Islands (alongside the Falkland Islands pound), and Saint Helena and Ascension Island in Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha (alongside the Saint Helena poun Gibraltar, Falkland Islands and Saint Helena pounds are separate currencies, pegged at parity to the pound sterling. Within the UK, some banks operating in Scotland and Northern Ireland produce private sterling denominated banknotes.
- published: 12 Jan 2013
- author: owainmeurig
Pound Sterling - For My Dogs (High Quality)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 4:10
- Updated: 09 Jan 2013
Pound Sterling's first video For My Dogs taken from the Money Before Music Mixtape!!
http://wn.com/Pound_Sterling_For_My_Dogs_High_Quality
Pound Sterling's first video For My Dogs taken from the Money Before Music Mixtape!!
- published: 27 May 2010
- views: 36285
- author: Pound Sterling
SB.TV F64 - Pound Sterling - F64 [S1.EP52]
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:27
- Updated: 27 Dec 2012
www.sbtv.co.uk
http://wn.com/SBTV_F64_Pound_Sterling_F64_S1EP52_
Pound Sterling - Gangnam Style Freestyle -
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:42
- Updated: 12 Jan 2013
Pound Sterling Gangnam Style Freestyle Last Man Standing Mixtape Coming Soon English Gangster Out Now Oni iTunes @poundsterling1 facebook.com/poundsterling2
http://wn.com/Pound_Sterling_Gangnam_Style_Freestyle_-
Pound Sterling Gangnam Style Freestyle Last Man Standing Mixtape Coming Soon English Gangster Out Now Oni iTunes @poundsterling1 facebook.com/poundsterling2
- published: 20 Dec 2012
- views: 2652
- author: Pound Sterling
Pound Sterling - Paparazzi Freestyle (2011 Finale)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:56
- Updated: 21 Dec 2012
Pound Sterling - Paparazzi Freestyle. Last freestyle for 2011 English Gangster out now on iTunes @poundterling1 or facebook.com/poundsterling2
http://wn.com/Pound_Sterling_Paparazzi_Freestyle_2011_Finale
Pound Sterling - Paparazzi Freestyle. Last freestyle for 2011 English Gangster out now on iTunes @poundterling1 or facebook.com/poundsterling2
- published: 26 Dec 2011
- views: 20749
- author: Pound Sterling
Pound Sterling - Fresh
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:31
- Updated: 09 Jan 2013
Guess whos back!! Pound Sterlings new video Fresh Myspace.com/poundsterlingthehustler, facebook, whatever We get it in.. Say nothin.
http://wn.com/Pound_Sterling_Fresh
Guess whos back!! Pound Sterlings new video Fresh Myspace.com/poundsterlingthehustler, facebook, whatever We get it in.. Say nothin.
- published: 18 Sep 2009
- views: 231120
- author: Pound Sterling
Pound Sterling - Malcolm X (Feat. Change)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:49
- Updated: 28 Dec 2012
Pound Sterling Malcolm X (featuring Change) RIP Change!! "English Gangster" out now on iTunes Twitter.com/poundsterling1 Facebook.com/poundsterling2
http://wn.com/Pound_Sterling_Malcolm_X_Feat_Change
Pound Sterling Malcolm X (featuring Change) RIP Change!! "English Gangster" out now on iTunes Twitter.com/poundsterling1 Facebook.com/poundsterling2
- published: 07 Mar 2012
- views: 100025
- author: Pound Sterling
Pound Sterling - Best Thing
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:51
- Updated: 18 Oct 2012
Pound Sterling - Best Thing From Te Warm Up 2 Mixtape facebook.com/poundsterling2 @poundsterling1
http://wn.com/Pound_Sterling_Best_Thing
Pound Sterling - Best Thing From Te Warm Up 2 Mixtape facebook.com/poundsterling2 @poundsterling1
- published: 14 Jun 2012
- views: 3757
- author: Pound Sterling
Pound Sterling - Speaking In Tongues Freestyle
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:41
- Updated: 01 Jan 2013
Pound Sterling Speaking In Tongues Freestyle taken from the "English Gangster" mixtape!!
http://wn.com/Pound_Sterling_Speaking_In_Tongues_Freestyle
Pound Sterling Speaking In Tongues Freestyle taken from the "English Gangster" mixtape!!
- published: 28 Feb 2011
- views: 21996
- author: Pound Sterling
Pound Sterling - Unfaithful
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:50
- Updated: 10 Jan 2013
Pound Sterling - Unfaithful taken from the.. "ENGLISH GANGSTER" mixtape OUT ON iTUNES NOW!!facebook.com/poundsterling2 & @poundsterling1
http://wn.com/Pound_Sterling_Unfaithful
Pound Sterling - Unfaithful taken from the.. "ENGLISH GANGSTER" mixtape OUT ON iTUNES NOW!!facebook.com/poundsterling2 & @poundsterling1
- published: 29 Sep 2011
- views: 14960
- author: Pound Sterling
Pound Sterling - Rack City Freestyle
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:39
- Updated: 07 Jan 2013
Rack City Freestyle. Follow Pound Sterling on twitter @poundsterling1 Add Pound Steling on facebook for all the latest videos and free downloads "English Gangster" mixtape out now on iTunes
http://wn.com/Pound_Sterling_Rack_City_Freestyle
Rack City Freestyle. Follow Pound Sterling on twitter @poundsterling1 Add Pound Steling on facebook for all the latest videos and free downloads "English Gangster" mixtape out now on iTunes
- published: 12 Jan 2012
- views: 35411
- author: Pound Sterling
Urban Flash.Pound Sterling Talks Cars, Girls ,Tattoos & Keeping It Real (www.UrbanFlash.net)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 10:18
- Updated: 19 Nov 2012
Urban Flash Caught Up With Pounds Sterling Were He Spoke About Breaking The Usa ,Cars And Girls and many more.
http://wn.com/Urban_FlashPound_Sterling_Talks_Cars,_Girls_,Tattoos_Keeping_It_Real_wwwUrbanFlashnet
Urban Flash Caught Up With Pounds Sterling Were He Spoke About Breaking The Usa ,Cars And Girls and many more.
- published: 01 Sep 2011
- views: 7144
- author: urbanflashonline
Pound Sterling - Move Like An Animal (Feat. Big Lex)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:03
- Updated: 03 Jan 2013
Pound Sterling Move Like An Animal Taken from The English Gangster Mixtape twitter.com/poundsterling1 facebook.com/poundsterling2
http://wn.com/Pound_Sterling_Move_Like_An_Animal_Feat_Big_Lex
Pound Sterling Move Like An Animal Taken from The English Gangster Mixtape twitter.com/poundsterling1 facebook.com/poundsterling2
- published: 11 Aug 2011
- views: 11351
- author: Pound Sterling
Pound Sterling - Beast/Hardbody
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 3:46
- Updated: 01 Jan 2013
Pound Sterling Beast/Hardbody taken from the.. "ENGLISH GANGSTER" mixtape OUT ON iTUNES NOW!!facebook.com/poundsterling2 & @poundsterling1
http://wn.com/Pound_Sterling_Beast_Hardbody
Pound Sterling Beast/Hardbody taken from the.. "ENGLISH GANGSTER" mixtape OUT ON iTUNES NOW!!facebook.com/poundsterling2 & @poundsterling1
- published: 01 Sep 2011
- views: 25830
- author: Pound Sterling
photo: AP / Mohamed Sheikh Nor
12 Jan 2013
Helicopter raid fails to rescue agent 'Denis Allex' from Islamist group al-Shabaab, as French combat pilot killed in Mali. French secret service hostage 'Denis Allex' pictured in Somalia in October 2012. Photograph. SITE Monitoring Service/AFP/Getty Images. A French hostage and two French soldiers have been killed during a failed secret service rescue mission in Somalia ... The group said it had also captured a wounded French commando ... ....(size: 4.7Kb)
photo: AP / Alexandre Meneghini
10 Jan 2013
Mexican has enacted a law that will ensure that the victims and relatives of crime are compensated with payments and social services from the state. The law, enacted by President Enrique Pena Nieto on Wednesday, comprises the creation of a fund to pay relatives up to $70,000 in compensation for an innocent victim killed in attacks by drug gangs ... “There are thousands of people who have suffered the ravages of violence ... Share ... ....(size: 18.3Kb)
photo: AP / Jacques Brinon
10 Jan 2013
PARIS. Three Kurdish women, including one of the founders of a militant group battling Turkish troops since 1984, were "executed" at a Kurdish center in Paris, the interior minister said on Thursday. Turkey's Anadolu news agency identified one of the victims as Sakine Cansiz, a founding member of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK ... He called it a "totally intolerable act." ... ....(size: 1.7Kb)
photo: AP / Arshad Butt
11 Jan 2013
QUETTA, Pakistan -- A series of bombings killed 115 people in Pakistan yesterday, including 81 who died in a sectarian attack on a billiard hall in the southwest city of Quetta, officials said. The blasts punctuated one of the deadliest days in recent years in Pakistan, where the government faces a bloody insurgency by militants in the northwest and Baluch militants in the southwest ... No group claimed responsibility for the attack.. . .....(size: 7.7Kb)
photo: AP / Remy de la Mauviniere
11 Jan 2013
The executions of three Kurdish women in Paris have sparked questions over the motives for the high-level assassinations. FRANCE 24 asks Kendal Nezan, president of the Kurdish Institute in Paris, for his views on the mysterious murders. By Ségolène ALLEMANDOU (text). ... Sakine Cansiz, Fidan Dogan and Leyla Soylemez were found shot dead inside the Kurdish Institute of Paris. Screen grab of Firatnews ... France 24 ... Kendel Nezan ... FRANCE 24 ... ....(size: 9.7Kb)
The Times of India
13 Jan 2013
For centuries, demure Japanese brides with their white face make-up and painted red lips were happy with obi, a kimono sash, as a gift ... It was 2004 ... a new urgency when the media makes the point that bills of all hues — the greenback and the pound sterling — are steadily losing their value as bankrupt governments and their central banks flood the world with more and more currency notes to wriggle out of the mess they find themselves in....(size: 3.5Kb)
Deccan Herald
12 Jan 2013
The Daily Tribune
12 Jan 2013
These last few remaining days leading up to Jan ... Oca Moreno who is now running for mayor, to have him unseated and defanged ... A son-in-law of mine who now resides in London sent me via e-mail the story about the British government’s recent inking of a 9-million pounds sterling contract for the supply of 25,000 units of the Austrian-made 9mm Glock 17 Generation 4 handguns for the use of its armed forces personnel ... ....(size: 5.9Kb)
Reuters
11 Jan 2013
JAPAN YEN (Contracts of 12,500,000 yen) 1/08/13 week 12/31/12 week Long 32,129 30,432 Short 106,225 110,949 Net -74,096 -80,517 EURO (Contracts of 125,000 euros) 1/08/13 week 12/31/12 week Long 66,329 81,932 Short 74,364 76,806 Net -8,035 5,126 POUND STERLING (Contracts of 62,500 pounds sterling) 1/08/13 week 12/31/12 week Long 60,523 69,146 Short ......(size: 3.1Kb)
San Francisco Chronicle
11 Jan 2013
Leading online tour booking site, Reserve123.com, reviews 2012 accomplishments and shares plans for future business expansion for the coming year. Atlanta, Georgia (PRWEB) January 10, 2013 ... Five new currency options were added to Reserve123’s extensive network of websites in 2012, allowing customers to choose between US Dollars, British Pounds Sterling, Euros, Canadian Dollars, and Australian Dollars ... About Reserve123. ... ###....(size: 3.2Kb)
Seeking Alpha
11 Jan 2013
By Hamlin Lovell, CFA ... But near-zero interest rates may be a double-edged sword for income seekers ... Single-Digit Yields, Absent Borrowing ... dollar, pound sterling, euro, Swiss franc and Japanese yen, with rates somewhere between 0% and 0.5% ... dollar, Canadian dollar, Japanese yen, Australian dollar, New Zealand dollar, British pound, euro, Swiss franc, Swedish krona, and Norwegian krone), believed to be the world’s most liquid....(size: 7.4Kb)
noodls
11 Jan 2013
(Source. The Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc) Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC. ... 11 JANUARY 2013. THE ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND PLC CASH TENDER OFFERS FOR CERTAIN EURO, POUNDS STERLING, SWISS FRANC AND SINGAPORE DOLLAR SECURITIES. ANNOUNCEMENT OF PRICING INFORMATION AND FINAL RESULTS ... Capitalised terms not otherwise defined in this announcement have the same meaning as assigned to them in the Tender Offer Memorandum ... Title of Series. ISIN....(size: 18.0Kb)
noodls
10 Jan 2013
Veolia Environnement announces the success of the issuance of subordinated perpetual hybrid debt in Euros and Pound Sterling. After meeting approximately 150 investors, primarily in continental Europe and the United Kingdom, Veolia Environnement launched the issuance of deeply subordinated perpetual hybrid debt in euros and pound sterling, callable beginning April 2018....(size: 3.8Kb)
Toronto Sun
10 Jan 2013
The ability to pound the ball, a decent short game and, according to reports, Wayne Gretzky’s daughter Paulina on his arm ... I rang my mother, I rang home and said, ‘Mum, I’ve just finished 49th, and I won, 1,480 pounds ... They are just giving it away.’ I won 1,480 pounds; it was a fortune! Obviously as an amateur, the most I had ever won was 300 Euro. 1480 Pounds Sterling, it was a fortune at the time.” ... ....(size: 7.4Kb)
noodls
10 Jan 2013
(Source. Polymetal International plc). Polymetal International Plc (LSE. POLY) (together with its subsidiaries, including JSC "Polymetal" - "Polymetal", the "Company", or the "Group") announces that for the payment of the special dividend of US$0.50 per ordinary share for the year ending 31 December 2012 £/US$ exchange rate of £1.00=US$1.6050 will be used. The dividend is payable on 21 January 2013 in US dollars or pounds sterling ... Media....(size: 5.0Kb)
Peace FM Online
10 Jan 2013
The Bank of Ghana (BoG) will sell GH¢1.2 billion worth of three-year bonds in the first half of the year, according to its debt-issuance calendar for the period ... Finance Minister Dr ... It will depend on the demand ... The cedi, which strengthened by 0.05% against the US dollar in December, slipped by 0.24% between January 2-7 while gaining against the pound sterling, euro and CFA in the same period ... Inflation pressure in 2013....(size: 3.9Kb)
The Times of India
09 Jan 2013
With the rupee continuing to remain volatile, the Foreign Currency Non Resident (FCNR) account can be a good option for Non Resident Indians (NRIs) looking to invest in India without worrying about currency risks. Let us look at the key aspects of the FCNR account. What is an FCNR account? ... US dollar, Pound Sterling (GBP), Euro, Japanese Yen, Australian dollar and Canadian dollar ... How can one transfer funds to FCNR accounts? ... ....(size: 3.0Kb)
Deccan Herald
09 Jan 2013
The Indian rupee today appreciated by 23 paise to close at 54.75 against the US dollar following sustained selling of the American currency by exporters and some banks amid persistent capital inflows ... Yesterday, it had surged by 25 paise or 0.45 per cent ... The rupee improved further against the pound sterling to 87.84 from the previous close of 88.46, while bounced back to 71.48 per euro from 72.11 ... ....(size: 2.7Kb)
"GBP" redirects here. For other uses, see GBP (disambiguation).
The pound sterling (symbol: £; ISO code: GBP), commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies (the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands) and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands,[4] British Antarctic Territory[5] and Tristan da Cunha.[6] It is subdivided into 100 pence (singular: penny). A number of nations that do not use sterling also have currencies called the "pound".
The Channel Islands (the Bailiwick of Guernsey and the Bailiwick of Jersey) and the Isle of Man produce their own local issues of sterling; see Guernsey pound, Jersey pound and Manx pound. The pound sterling is also used in Gibraltar (alongside the Gibraltar pound), the Falkland Islands (alongside the Falkland Islands pound) and Saint Helena[7] and Ascension[8] (alongside the Saint Helena pound). Gibraltar, Falkland Islands and Saint Helena pounds are separate currencies, pegged at parity to the pound sterling. Within the UK, some banks operating in Scotland and Northern Ireland produce private sterling denominated banknotes.
Sterling is the fourth most traded currency in the foreign exchange market, after the US dollar, the euro and the Japanese yen. Together with those three currencies it forms the basket of currencies which calculate the value of IMF special drawing rights, with an 11.3% weighting as of 2011[update] (USD 41.9 %, Euro 37.4 %, Yen 9.4 %). Sterling is also the third most held reserve currency in global reserves (about 4 %).[9]
Contents
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Names[link]
The full, official name, pound sterling, (plural: pounds sterling) is used mainly in formal contexts and also when it is necessary to distinguish the United Kingdom currency from other currencies with the same name. Otherwise the term pound is normally used. The currency name is sometimes abbreviated to just sterling, particularly in the wholesale financial markets, but not when referring to specific amounts; for example, "Payment is accepted in sterling" but never "These cost five sterling".[citation needed] The abbreviations "ster." or "stg." are sometimes used. The term British pound is commonly used in less formal contexts, although it is not an official name of the currency.
A common slang term is quid, which is singular and plural, except in the common phrase "Quids in!" The etymology of the term is unknown, although it might derive from the Latin 'quid' and widely speculated to come from the Latin phrase quid pro quo, literally "something for something."[10]
There is some uncertainty as to the origin of the term "pound sterling". One source suggests it dates back to Anglo-Saxon times, when coins called sterlings were minted from silver; 240 of these sterlings weighed one pound, and large payments came to be made in "pounds of sterlings".[11] Other references[who?], including the Oxford English Dictionary,[citation needed] say a sterling was a silver penny used in England by the Normans and date the term to around 1300. For more discussion of the etymology of "sterling", see Sterling silver.
The currency sign is the pound sign (£), which is usually written with a single cross-bar, as on sterling bank notes, though a version with a double cross-bar (₤) is also sometimes seen. The pound sign derives from the black-letter "L", an abbreviation of Librae in Roman £sd units (librae, solidi, denarii) used for pounds, shillings and pence in the British pre-decimal duodecimal currency system. Libra was the basic Roman unit of weight, derived from the Latin word for scales or balance.
The ISO 4217 currency code is GBP. Occasionally, the abbreviation UKP is used but this is incorrect because the ISO 3166 country code for (the United Kingdom of) Great Britain and Northern Ireland is GB (see Terminology of the British Isles#Terminology in detail). The Crown dependencies use their own (non-ISO) codes: GGP (Guernsey pound), JEP (Jersey pound) and IMP (Isle of Man pound). Stocks are often traded in pence, so traders may refer to pence sterling, GBX (sometimes GBp), when listing stock prices.
Subdivisions and other units[link]
Decimal coinage[link]
Since decimalisation in 1971 (see Decimal Day), the pound has been divided into 100 pence (until 1981 described on the coinage as "new pence"). The symbol for the penny is "p"; hence an amount such as 50p (£0.50) properly pronounced "fifty pence" is more colloquially, quite often, pronounced "fifty pee". This also helped to distinguish between new and old pence amounts during the changeover to the decimal system. A decimal halfpenny was issued until 1984.
Pre-decimal[link]
Prior to decimalisation, the pound was divided into 20 shillings and each shilling into 12 pence, making 240 pence to the pound. The symbol for the shilling was "s."—not from the first letter of the word, but from the Latin solidus. The symbol for the penny was "d.", from the French denier, from the Latin denarius (the solidus and denarius were Roman coins). A mixed sum of shillings and pence, such as 3 shillings and 6 pence, was written as "3/6" or "3s. 6d." and spoken as "three and six" (except for "1/1," "2/1" etc., which were spoken as "one and a penny," "two and a penny," etc.). 5 shillings was written as "5s." or, more commonly, "5/-". The stroke (/) indicating shillings is also known as a solidus and was originally an adaptation of the long s which represented that word.
Various coin denominations had, and in some cases continue to have, special names—such as crown, farthing, sovereign and guinea. See Coins of the pound sterling and List of British coins and banknotes for details.
By the 1950s, coins of George III, George IV and William IV had disappeared from circulation, but coins (at least the penny) bearing the head of any British king or queen from Queen Victoria onwards could be found in circulation. Silver coins were replaced by those in cupro-nickel in 1947 and by the 1960s the silver coins were rarely seen. Silver/cupro-nickel shillings (from any period after 1816) and florins (2 shillings) remained as legal tender after decimalisation (as 5p and 10p respectively); the sixpences of 1816 and after remained legal tender until 1980 (as two and a half new pence).
History[link]
The pound sterling is the world's oldest currency still in use.[12]
Anglo-Saxon[link]
Main article: Anglo-Saxon pound
The pound was a unit of account in Anglo-Saxon England, equal to 240 silver pennies and equivalent to one pound weight of silver. It evolved into the modern British currency, the pound sterling.
The accounting system of 4 farthings = 1 penny, 12 pence = 1 shilling, 20 shillings = 1 pound was adopted from that introduced by Charlemagne to the Frankish Empire (see French livre).
The origins of sterling lie in the reign of King Offa of Mercia, (757–96) who introduced the silver penny. It copied the denarius of the new currency system of Charlemagne's Frankish Empire. As in the Carolingian system, 240 pennies weighed 1 pound (corresponding to Charlemagne's libra), with the shilling corresponding to Charlemagne's solidus and equal to 12d. At the time of the penny's introduction, it weighed 22.5 troy grains of fine silver (32 tower grains; about 1.5 g), indicating that the Mercian pound weighed 5,400 troy grains (the Mercian pound became the basis of the tower pound, which weighed 5,400 troy grains, equivalent to 7,680 tower grains). At this time, the name sterling had yet to be acquired. The penny swiftly spread throughout the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and became the standard coin of what was to become England.
Medieval[link]
The early pennies were struck from fine silver (as pure as was available). However, in 1158, a new coinage was introduced by King Henry II (known as the Tealby penny) which was struck from .925 (92.5%) silver. This became the standard until the 20th century and is today known as sterling silver, named after its association with the currency. Sterling silver is harder than the .999 (99.9%) fine silver that was traditionally used and so sterling silver coins did not wear down as rapidly as fine silver coins. The English currency was almost exclusively silver until 1344, when the gold noble was successfully introduced into circulation. However, silver remained the legal basis for sterling until 1816. In the reign of Henry IV (1399–1413), the penny was reduced in weight to 15 grains (0.97 g) of silver, with a further reduction to 12 grains (0.78 g) in 1464.
Tudor[link]
During the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, the silver coinage was drastically debased, although the pound was redefined to the troy pound of 5,760 grains (373 g) in 1526. In 1544, a silver coinage was issued containing just one third silver and two thirds copper—equating to .333 silver, or 33.3% pure. The result was a coin copper in appearance, but relatively pale in colour. In 1552, a new silver coinage was introduced, struck in sterling silver. However, the penny's weight was reduced to 8 grains (0.52 g), meaning that 1 troy pound of sterling silver produced 60 shillings of coins. This silver standard was known as the "60-shilling standard" and lasted until 1601 when a "62-shilling standard" was introduced, reducing the penny's weight to 7 23⁄31 grains (0.50 g).
Throughout this period, the size and value of the gold coinage fluctuated considerably.
Unofficial gold standard[link]
In 1663, a new gold coinage was introduced based on the 22 carat fine guinea. Fixed in weight at 44½ to the troy pound from 1670, this coin's value varied considerably until 1717, when it was fixed at 21 shillings (21/-, 1.05 pounds).[13] However, despite the efforts of Sir Isaac Newton, Master of the Mint, to reduce the guinea's value, this valuation overvalued gold relative to silver when compared to the valuations in other European countries. British merchants sent silver abroad in payments whilst goods for export were paid for with gold. As a consequence, silver flowed out of the country and gold flowed in, leading to a situation where Great Britain was effectively on a gold standard. In addition, a chronic shortage of silver coins developed.[citation needed] This shortage was aggravated by the fact that silver was the only commodity accepted by China for exporting goods during this period. From the mid-17th century, around 28 million kilograms (62 million pounds) of silver was received by China, principally from European powers, in exchange for Chinese goods. (See British trade and the Canton System, in Opium Wars article.)
Establishment of modern currency[link]
The Bank of England was formed in 1694, followed by the Bank of Scotland a year later. Both began to issue paper money.
Currency of the United Kingdom[link]
The pound scots had begun equal to sterling but had suffered far higher devaluation until being pegged to sterling at a value of 12 pounds scots = 1 pound sterling. In 1707, the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland merged to form the Kingdom of Great Britain. In accordance with the Treaty of Union, the currency of the 'united kingdom' was sterling with the pound scots being replaced by sterling at the pegged value.
The Irish pound was replaced by sterling in January 1826 at the value 13 Irish pounds = 12 pound sterling.
Gold standard[link]
During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, Bank of England notes were legal tender and their value floated relative to gold. The Bank also issued silver tokens to alleviate the shortage of silver coins. In 1816, the gold standard was adopted officially, with the silver standard reduced to 66 shillings (66/-, £3 6s), rendering silver coins a "token" issue (i.e., not containing their value in precious metal). In 1817, the sovereign was introduced, valued at 20 shillings. Struck in 22‑carat gold, it contained 113 grains (7.3 g) of gold and replaced the guinea as the standard British gold coin without changing the gold standard. In 1825, the Irish pound, which had been pegged to sterling since 1801 at a rate of 13 Irish pounds = 12 pounds sterling, was replaced, at the same rate, with sterling.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many other countries adopted the gold standard. As a consequence, conversion rates between different currencies could be determined simply from the respective gold standards. The pound sterling was equal to 4.85 U.S. dollars, 5.25 Canadian dollars, 12.10 Dutch guilders, 26.28 French francs (or equivalent currencies in the Latin Monetary Union), 20.43 German Marks or 24.02 Austro-Hungarian Krones. Discussions took place following the International Monetary Conference of 1867 in Paris concerning the possibility of the UK joining the Latin Monetary Union, and a Royal Commission on International Coinage examined the issues,[14] resulting in a decision against joining monetary union.
The gold standard was suspended at the outbreak of the war in 1914, with Bank of England and Treasury notes becoming legal tender. Prior to World War I, the United Kingdom had one of the world's strongest economies, holding 40% of the world's overseas investments. However, by the end of the war the country owed £850 million (£30.7 billion as of 2012),[15] mostly to the United States, with interest costing the country some 40% of all government spending. In an attempt to resume stability, a variation on the gold standard was reintroduced in 1925, under which the currency was fixed to gold at its pre-war peg, although people were only able to exchange their currency for gold bullion, rather than for coins. This was abandoned on 21 September 1931, during the Great Depression, and sterling suffered an initial devaluation of some 25%.[16]
Use in the Empire[link]
Main article: Sterling Area
Sterling circulated in much of the British Empire. In some parts, it was used alongside local currencies. For example, the gold sovereign was legal tender in Canada despite the use of the Canadian dollar. Several colonies and dominions adopted the pound as their own currency. These included Australia, Barbados,[17] British West Africa, Cyprus, Fiji, the Irish Free State, Jamaica, New Zealand, South Africa and Southern Rhodesia. Some of these retained parity with sterling throughout their existence (e.g. the South African pound), whilst others deviated from parity after the end of the gold standard (e.g. the Australian pound). These currencies and others tied to sterling constituted the Sterling Area.
Bretton Woods[link]
See also: Economic history of the UK, 1945–59
In 1940, an agreement with the U.S.A. pegged the pound to the U.S. dollar at a rate of £1 = $4.03. (Only the year before, it had been $4.86.)[18] This rate was maintained through the Second World War and became part of the Bretton Woods system which governed post-war exchange rates. Under continuing economic pressure, and despite months of denials that it would do so, on 19 September 1949 the government devalued the pound by 30.5% to $2.80. The move prompted several other currencies to be devalued against the dollar.
In 1961, 1964 and 1966, the pound came under renewed pressure since the exchange rate against the dollar was considered too high. In the summer of 1966, with the value of the pound falling in the currency markets, exchange controls were tightened by the Wilson government. Among the measures, tourists were banned from taking more than £50 out of the country, until the restriction was lifted in 1979. The pound was eventually devalued by 14.3% to $2.40 on 18 November 1967.
Decimalisation[link]
Main article: Decimal Day
On 15 February 1971, the UK decimalised, replacing the shilling and penny with a single subdivision, the new penny. The word "new" was omitted from coins after 1981.
Free-floating pound[link]
With the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system, the pound floated from August 1971 onwards. It at first appreciated a little, rising to almost $2.65 in March 1972, from 2.42 when it had been fixed. The Sterling Area effectively ended at this time when the majority of its members also chose to float freely against the pound and the dollar.
1976 sterling crisis[link]
James Callaghan came to power in 1976. He was immediately told the economy was facing huge problems, according to documents released in 2006 by the National Archives.[19] The effects of the 1973 oil crisis were still being felt, with inflation rising to over 27% in 1975.[20] Financial markets were beginning to believe the pound was overvalued and in April of that year The Wall Street Journal advised the sale of sterling investments in a story titled "Good-bye Great Britain". At the time the UK government was running a budget deficit and Labour's strategy emphasised high public spending. Callaghan was told there were three possible outcomes: a disastrous free fall in Sterling, an internationally unacceptable siege economy or a deal with key allies to prop up the pound while painful economic reforms were put in place. The US government feared the crisis could endanger NATO and the EEC and in light of this the US Treasury set out to force domestic policy changes. In November 1976 the IMF announced the conditions for a loan, including deep cuts in public expenditure.[21]
1979–1989[link]
The Conservatives arrived in power in 1979, on a programme of fiscal austerity. Initially, the pound rocketed, moving above the $2.40 level, as interest rates rose in response to the monetarist policy of targeting money supply. The high exchange rate was widely blamed for the deep recession of 1981. Sterling fell sharply after 1980; at its lowest, the pound stood at just $1.03 in March 1985, before returning to the US$1.70 level in December 1989.
Following the Deutsche Mark[link]
In 1988, Margaret Thatcher's Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson decided that the pound should "shadow" the West German Deutsche Mark, with the unintended result of a rapid rise in inflation as the economy boomed due to inappropriately low interest rates. (For ideological reasons, the Conservative Government declined to use alternative mechanisms to control the explosion of credit. For this reason, former Prime Minister Edward Heath referred to Lawson as a "one club golfer").[22]
Following German re-unification in 1990, the reverse held true, as high borrowing costs to fund Eastern reconstruction, a need exacerbated by the political choice to make the Ostmark equivalent to the Deutsche Mark (DM), meant rates in other countries shadowing the DM, especially the UK, were far too high relative to domestic circumstances, leading to a housing decline and recession.
Following the European Currency Unit[link]
On 8 October 1990 the Conservative government decided to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), with the pound set at DM2.95. However, the country was forced to withdraw from the system on “Black Wednesday” (16 September 1992) as Britain’s economic performance made the exchange rate unsustainable. Speculator George Soros famously made approximately US$1 billion from shorting the pound.
'Black Wednesday' saw interest rates jump from 10% to 15% in an unsuccessful attempt to stop the pound from falling below the ERM limits. The exchange rate fell to DM2.20. Proponents[who?] of a lower GBP/DM exchange rate were vindicated as the cheaper pound encouraged exports and contributed to the economic prosperity of the 1990s.[citation needed]
Following inflation targets[link]
In 1997, the newly elected Labour government handed over day-to-day control of interest rates to the Bank of England (a policy that had originally been advocated by the Liberal Democrats).[23] The Bank is now responsible for setting its base rate of interest so as to keep inflation in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) very close to 2%. Should CPI inflation be more than one percentage point above or below the target, the governor of the Bank of England is required to write an open letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer explaining the reasons for this and the measures which will be taken to bring this measure of inflation back in line with the 2% target. On 17 April 2007, CPI inflation was reported at 3.1% (inflation of the Retail Prices Index was 4.8%). Accordingly, and for the first time, the Governor had to write publicly to the government explaining why inflation was more than one percentage point higher than its target.[24]
Euro[link]
Main article: United Kingdom and the euro
As a member of the European Union, the United Kingdom could adopt the Euro as its currency. However, the subject remains politically controversial. Gordon Brown, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, ruled out membership for the foreseeable future, saying that the decision not to join had been right for Britain and for Europe.[25]
The government of former Prime Minister Tony Blair had pledged to hold a public referendum to decide on membership should "five economic tests" be met, to ensure that adoption of the euro would be in the national interest. In addition to these internal (national) criteria, the UK would have to meet the EU's economic convergence criteria (Maastricht criteria), before being allowed to adopt the euro. The Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition ruled out joining the euro for the parliamentary term. Currently, the UK's annual government deficit, as a percentage of the GDP, is above the defined threshold. In February 2005, 55% of British citizens were against adopting the currency, with 30% in favour.[26] The idea of replacing the pound with the euro has been controversial with the British public, partly because of the pound's identity as a symbol of British sovereignty[27] and because it would, according to critics, lead to suboptimal interest rates, harming the British economy. In December 2008 the results of a BBC poll of 1000 people suggested that 71% would vote no, 23% would vote yes to joining the European single currency, while 6% said they were unsure.[28] The pound did not join the Second European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM II) after the Euro was created. Denmark and the UK have opt-outs from entry to the Euro. Technically, every other EU nation must eventually sign up.
The Scottish Conservative Party claims that there is an issue for Scotland in that the adoption of the Euro would mean the end of regionally distinctive banknotes, as the Euro banknotes do not have national designs.[29] The Scottish National Party have not yet confirmed what the national currency of Scotland would be should Independence be realised.
On 1 January 2008 the British sovereign bases on Cyprus (Akrotiri and Dhekelia) began using the Euro (along with the rest of the Republic of Cyprus).[30]
Current exchange value[link]
Main article: Economy of the United Kingdom#Exchange rates
| Rank | Currency | ISO 4217 code (Symbol) |
% daily share (April 2010) |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1
|
 United States dollar |
USD ($)
|
84.9% |
|
2
|
 Euro |
EUR (€)
|
39.1% |
|
3
|
 Japanese yen |
JPY (¥)
|
19.0% |
|
4
|
 Pound sterling |
GBP (£)
|
12.9% |
|
5
|
 Australian dollar |
AUD ($)
|
7.6% |
|
6
|
 Swiss franc |
CHF (Fr)
|
6.4% |
|
7
|
 Canadian dollar |
CAD ($)
|
5.3% |
|
8
|
 Hong Kong dollar |
HKD ($)
|
2.4% |
|
9
|
 Swedish krona |
SEK (kr)
|
2.2% |
|
10
|
 New Zealand dollar |
NZD ($)
|
1.6% |
|
11
|
 South Korean won |
KRW (₩)
|
1.5% |
|
12
|
 Singapore dollar |
SGD ($)
|
1.4% |
|
13
|
 Norwegian krone |
NOK (kr)
|
1.3% |
|
14
|
 Mexican peso |
MXN ($)
|
1.3% |
|
15
|
 Indian rupee |
INR (
 ) |
0.9% |
| Other | 12.2% | ||
| Total[32] | 200% | ||
The pound and the Euro fluctuate in value against one another, although there may be correlation between movements in their respective exchange rates with other currencies such as the US dollar. Inflation concerns in the UK led the Bank of England to raise interest rates in late 2006 and 2007. This caused the pound to appreciate against other major currencies and, with the US dollar depreciating at the same time, the pound hit a 15-year high against the US dollar on 18 April 2007, reaching US$2 the day before, for the first time since 1992.[33] The pound and many other currencies continued to appreciate against the dollar; sterling hit a 26-year high of US$2.1161 on 7 November 2007 as the dollar fell worldwide. From mid-2003 to mid 2007, the Pound/Euro rate remained rangebound (within ± 5%) of €1.45.[34] Following the global financial crisis in late 2008, however, the pound has since depreciated at one of the fastest rates in history, reaching a 24-year low of $1.35 per £1 on 23 January 2009[35] and falling below €1.25 against the Euro in April 2008.[36] A further decline was seen during the remainder of 2008; most dramatically in December when its Euro rate hit an all-time low at €1.0219 (29th),[37] while its US dollar rate depreciated to $1.37 on 24 January 2009.[38] The Pound appreciated in early 2009 reaching a peak against the Euro in mid-July of €1.17. The following months the pound remained broadly steady against the Euro, with the Pound's current (27 May 2011) value at €1.15 and US$1.65.
On 5 March 2009, the Bank of England had announced that they would pump £75 billion of new capital into the British economy, through a process known as quantitative easing. This was the first time in the United Kingdom's history that this measure has been used, although the Bank's Governor Mervyn King suggested it was not an experiment.[39]
The process had seen the Bank of England creating new money for itself, which it then had used to purchase assets such as government bonds, bank loans, or mortgages.[40] The initial amount stated to be created through this method had been £75 billion, although Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling had given permission for up to £150 billion to be created if necessary.[41] It had been expected the process likely to occur over a period of three months with results only likely in the long term.[39] By 5 November 2009, some £175 billion had been injected using quantitative easing and the effectiveness of the process remained less successful in the long term.
Annual inflation rate[link]
The Bank of England had stated (2009) that the decision had been taken to prevent the rate of inflation falling below the two percent target rate[40] Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, also had suggested there were no other monetary options left as interest rates have already been cut to their lowest level ever (0.5%) and it was unlikely that they would be cut further.[41]
The 2009 moves are history, the current inflation rate per annum is estimated roughly 5% for October 2011 after 5.2% in September 2011.
Coins[link]
Main article: Coins of the pound sterling
Pre-decimal coins[link]
The silver penny (plural: pence; abbreviation: d) was the principal and often sole coin in circulation from the 8th century until 13th century. Although some fractions of the penny were struck (see farthing and halfpenny), it was more common to find pennies cut into halves and quarters to provide smaller change. Very few gold coins were struck, with the gold penny (worth 20 silver pence) a rare example. However, in 1279, the groat, worth 4d was introduced, with the half groat following in 1344. 1344 also saw the establishment of a gold coinage with the introduction (after the failed gold florin) of the noble worth six shillings and eight pence ('6/8') (i.e. 3 to the pound), together with the half and quarter noble. Reforms in 1464 saw a reduction in value of the coinage in both silver and gold, with the noble renamed the ryal and worth 10/- (i.e. 2 to the pound) and the angel introduced at the noble's old value of 6/8..
The reign of Henry VII saw the introduction of two important coins, the shilling (abbr.: s; known as the testoon) in 1487 and the pound (known as the sovereign, abbr.: £ or L) in 1489. In 1526, several new denominations of gold coins were added, including the crown and half crown worth five shillings (5/-), and two shillings and six pence (2/6, two and six) respectively. Henry VIII's reign (1509–1547) saw a high level of debasement which continued into the reign of Edward VI (1547–1553). However, this debasement was halted in 1552 and a new silver coinage was introduced, including coins for 1d, 2d, 3d, 4d and 6d, 1/-, 2/6 and 5/-. The reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603) saw the addition of silver ¾d and 1½d coins, although these denominations did not last. Gold coins included the half crown, crown, angel, half sovereign and sovereign. Elizabeth's reign also saw the introduction of the horse-drawn screw press to produce the first "milled" coins.
Following the succession of the Scottish King James VI to the English throne, a new gold coinage was introduced, including the spur ryal (15/-), the unite (20/-) and the rose ryal (30/-). The laurel, worth 20/-, followed in 1619. The first base metal coins were also introduced, tin and copper farthings. Copper halfpenny coins followed in the reign of Charles I. During the English Civil War, a number of siege coinages were produced, often in unusual denominations.
Following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, the coinage was reformed, with the ending of production of hammered coins in 1662. The guinea was introduced in 1663, soon followed by the ½, 2 and 5 guinea coins. The silver coinage consisted of denominations of 1d, 2d, 3d, 4d and 6d, 1/-, 2/6 and 5/-. Due to the widespread export of silver in the 18th century, the production of silver coins gradually came to a halt, with the half crown and crown not issued after the 1750s, the 6d pence and 1/- stopping production in the 1780s. One response was the introduction of the copper 1d and 2d coins and the gold ⅓ guinea (7/-) in 1797. The copper penny was the only one of these coins to survive long.
To alleviate the shortage of silver coins, between 1797 and 1804, the Bank of England counterstamped Spanish dollars (8 reales) and other Spanish and Spanish colonial coins for circulation. A small counterstamp of the King's head was used. Until 1800, these circulated at a rate of 4/9 for 8 reales. After 1800, a rate of 5/- for 8 reales was used. The Bank then issued silver tokens for 5/- (struck over Spanish dollars) in 1804, followed by tokens for 1/6 and 3/- between 1811 and 1816.
In 1816, a new silver coinage was introduced in denominations of 6d, 1/-, 2/6 (half-crown) and 5/- (crown). The crown was only issued intermittently until 1900. It was followed by a new gold coinage in 1817 consisting of 10/- and £1 coins, known as the half sovereign and sovereign. The silver 4d coin was reintroduced in 1836, followed by the 3d ("thruppence") in 1838, with the 4d coin issued only for colonial use after 1855. In 1848, the 2/- florin was introduced, followed by the short-lived double florin in 1887. In 1860, copper was replaced by bronze in the farthing (quarter penny, ¼d), halfpenny and penny.
During the First World War, production of the half sovereign and sovereign was suspended and, although the gold standard was restored, the coins saw little circulation thereafter. In 1920, the silver standard, maintained at .925 since 1552, was reduced to .500. In 1937, a nickel-brass 3d coin was introduced; the last silver 3d coins were issued seven years later. In 1947, the remaining silver coins were replaced with cupro-nickel. Inflation caused the farthing to cease production in 1956 and be demonetised in 1960. In the run-up to decimalisation, the halfpenny and half-crown were demonetised in 1969.
Decimal coins[link]
| £1 coin (Welsh design, 2000) | |
|---|---|
| 110px110px | |
| Elizabeth II | Welsh dragon |
British coinage timeline:
- 1968: The first decimal coins were introduced. These were cupro-nickel 5p and 10p coins which were equivalent to and circulated alongside the 1/- and 2/- coins.
- 1969: The curved equilateral heptagonal cupro-nickel 50p coin replaced the 10/- note.
- 1971: The decimal coinage was completed when decimalisation came into effect in 1971 with the introduction of the bronze ½p, 1p and 2p coins and the withdrawal of the 1d and 3d coins.
- 1980: Withdrawal of 6d coins, which had circulated at a value of 2½p.
- 1982: The word "new" was dropped from the coinage and a 20p coin was introduced.
- 1983: A £1 coin was introduced.
- 1983: The ½p coin was last produced.
- 1984: The ½p coin was demonetised
- 1990s: The 5p, 10p and 50p coins became smaller.
- 1991: The old 1/- coins, which had continued to circulate with a value of 5p, were demonetised in 1991 after the 5p coin became smaller.
- 1992: Bronze was replaced with copper-plated steel
- 1993: The 2/- coins were similarly demonetised.
- 1998: The bi-metallic £2 coin was introduced.
- 2007: By now the value of copper in the pre-1992 1p/2p coins (which are 97% copper) exceeded the value to such an extent that melting down the coins by entrepreneurs was becoming worthwhile (with a premium of up to 11%, with smelting costs reducing this to around 4%)—although this is illegal, and the market value of copper has subsequently fallen dramatically from these earlier peaks.
At present, the oldest circulating coins in the U.K. are the 1p and 2p copper coins introduced in 1971. Before decimalisation, change could contain coins aged one hundred years or more, with any of five monarchs' heads on the obverse.
In April 2008 an extensive redesign of the coinage was unveiled. The new designs were issued gradually into circulation, starting in summer 2008. The new reverses of the 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p and 50p coins feature parts of the Royal Shield, and the new pound coin depicts the whole shield. The coins are of the same specifications as those with the old designs (which will continue to circulate).
Banknotes[link]
Main article: Banknotes of the pound sterling
File:Bank Of England10.png
£10 Series E Bank of England note
The first sterling notes were issued by the Bank of England shortly after its foundation in 1694. Denominations were initially written on the notes at the time of issue. From 1745, the notes were printed in denominations between £20 and £1000, with any odd shillings added in hand. £10 notes were added in 1759, followed by £5 in 1793 and £1 and £2 in 1797. The lowest two denominations were withdrawn following the end of the Napoleonic wars. In 1855, the notes were converted to being entirely printed, with denominations of £5, £10, £20, £50, £100, £200, £300, £500 and £1000 issued.
File:Bank of Scotland 20 pound note 2007.jpg
A £20 note of the 2007 issue from the Bank of Scotland.
The Bank of Scotland began issuing notes in 1695. Although the pound scots was still the currency of Scotland, these notes were denominated in sterling in values up to £100. From 1727, the Royal Bank of Scotland also issued notes. Both banks issued some notes denominated in guineas as well as pounds. In the 19th century, regulations limited the smallest note issued by Scottish banks to be the £1 denomination, a note not permitted in England.
With the extension of sterling to Ireland in 1825, the Bank of Ireland began issuing sterling notes, later followed by other Irish banks. These notes included the unusual denominations of 30/- and £3. The highest denomination issued by the Irish banks was £100.
In 1826, banks at least 65 miles (105 km) from London were given permission to issue their own paper money. From 1844, new banks were excluded from issuing notes in England and Wales but not in Scotland and Ireland. Consequently, the number of private banknotes dwindled in England and Wales but proliferated in Scotland and Ireland. The last English private banknotes were issued in 1921.
In 1914, the Treasury introduced notes for 10/- and £1 to replace gold coins. These circulated until 1928, when they were replaced by Bank of England notes. Irish independence reduced the number of Irish banks issuing sterling notes to five operating in Northern Ireland. The Second World War had a drastic effect on the note production of the Bank of England. Fearful of mass forgery by the Nazis (see Operation Bernhard), all notes for £10 and above ceased production, leaving the bank to issue only 10/-, £1 and £5 notes. Scottish and Northern Irish issues were unaffected, with issues in denominations of £1, £5, £10, £20, £50 and £100.
The Bank of England reintroduced £10 notes in 1964. In 1969, the 10/- note was replaced by the 50p coin as part of the preparation for decimalisation. £20 Bank of England notes were reintroduced in 1970, followed by £50 in 1982. Following the introduction of the £1 coin in 1983, Bank of England £1 notes were withdrawn in 1988. Scottish and Northern Irish banks followed, with only the Royal Bank of Scotland continuing to issue this denomination.
The £5 polymer banknote, issued by Northern Bank in 2000, is the only polymer note currently in circulation, although Northern Bank also produces paper-based £10, £20 and £50 notes and, interestingly, notes named "Titan". A Titan is a £100,000,000 (one hundred million pound) bank note,[42] of which there are only 40 in existence. Titans are only used within the banking system and are unobtainable by the general public.
Legal tender and regional issues[link]
Legal tender in the UK means (according to the Royal Mint) "that a debtor cannot successfully be sued for non-payment if he pays into court in legal tender." It does not mean that any ordinary transaction has to take place in legal tender or only within the amount denominated by the legislation. Both parties are free to agree to accept any form of payment whether legal tender or otherwise according to their wishes. In order to comply with the very strict rules governing an actual legal tender it is necessary, for example, actually to offer the exact amount due because no change can be demanded.
Throughout the UK, £1 and £2 coins are legal tender for any amount, with the other coins being legal tender only for limited amounts. In England and Wales, Bank of England notes are also legal tender for any amount.[1] In Scotland and Northern Ireland, no banknotes are currently legal tender, although Bank of England 10/- and £1 notes were legal tender, as were Scottish banknotes, during World War II (Currency (Defence) Act 1939; this status was withdrawn on 1 January 1946). However, the banks made deposits with the Bank of England to cover the bulk of their note issues. In the Channel Islands and Isle of Man, the local variations on the banknotes are legal tender in their respective jurisdictions.
Scottish, Northern Irish, Channel Islands and Manx notes can be used anywhere in the UK as a means of payment. Guernsey, Jersey, the Isle of Man are in currency union with the United Kingdom and these currencies are not a separate currency from the British pound but are just a local issue of banknotes and coins denominated in pound sterling.
It is legal for shopkeepers to choose to reject any payment, even if it would be legal tender in that jurisdiction, but not in their interest because no debt exists when the offer of payment is made at the same time as the offer of goods or services. When settling a restaurant bill after consuming the meal, or settling another debt, the laws of legal tender do apply and the payment can not be rejected. But usually any reasonable method of settling the debt (such as by credit card) will be accepted.
Commemorative £5 and 25p (crown) coins, rarely seen in circulation, are legal tender, as are the bullion coins issued by the Mint.
| Coin | Maximum usable as legal tender[43] |
|---|---|
| £5 (post-1990 crown) | unlimited |
| £2 | unlimited |
| £1 | unlimited |
| 50p | £10 |
| 25p (pre-1990 crown) | £10 |
| 20p | £10 |
| 10p | £5 |
| 5p | £5 |
| 2p | 20p |
| 1p | 20p |
Further, any coin or bank note ceases to be legal tender if it is 100× the amount of the debt (for example, offering a £20 note to settle a 20p debt).
Value[link]
In 2006, the House of Commons Library published a document[44] which included an index of prices in pounds for each year between 1750 and 2005, where 1974 was indexed at 100. (This was an update of earlier documents published in 1998 and 2003.)
Regarding the period 1750–1914 the document states: "Although there was considerable year on year fluctuation in price levels prior to 1914 (reflecting the quality of the harvest, wars, etc.) there was not the long-term steady increase in prices associated with the period since 1945". It goes on to say that "Since 1945 prices have risen in every year with an aggregate rise of over 27 times."
The value of the index in 1751 was 5.1, increasing to a peak of 16.3 in 1813 before declining very soon after the end of the Napoleonic Wars to around 10.0 and remaining in the range 8.5–10.0 at the end of the nineteenth century. The index was 9.8 in 1914 and peaked at 25.3 in 1920, before declining to 15.8 in 1933 and 1934—prices were only about three times as high as they had been 180 years earlier.[45]
Inflation had a dramatic effect during and after World War II—the index was 20.2 in 1940, 33.0 in 1950, 49.1 in 1960, 73.1 in 1970, 263.7 in 1980, 497.5 in 1990, 671.8 in 2000 and 757.3 in 2005.
The following table shows the equivalent amount of goods that, in a particular year, could be purchased with £1.[46] The table shows that from 1971 through 2009 the British Pound has lost about 90% of its buying power.
| Year | Equivalent buying power | Year | Equivalent buying power | Year | Equivalent buying power | Year | Equivalent buying power |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1971 | £1.00 | 1981 | £0.271 | 1991 | £0.152 | 2001 | £0.117 |
| 1972 | £0.935 | 1982 | £0.250 | 1992 | £0.146 | 2002 | £0.115 |
| 1973 | £0.855 | 1983 | £0.239 | 1993 | £0.144 | 2003 | £0.112 |
| 1974 | £0.735 | 1984 | £0.227 | 1994 | £0.141 | 2004 | £0.109 |
| 1975 | £0.592 | 1985 | £0.214 | 1995 | £0.136 | 2005 | £0.106 |
| 1976 | £0.510 | 1986 | £0.207 | 1996 | £0.133 | 2006 | £0.102 |
| 1977 | £0.439 | 1987 | £0.199 | 1997 | £0.123 | 2007 | £0.0980 |
| 1978 | £0.407 | 1988 | £0.190 | 1998 | £0.125 | 2008 | £0.0943 |
| 1979 | £0.358 | 1989 | £0.176 | 1999 | £0.123 | 2009 | £0.0952 |
| 1980 | £0.303 | 1990 | £0.161 | 2000 | £0.119 | 2010 | £0.0910 |
Exchange rate[link]
The pound is freely bought and sold on the foreign exchange markets around the world, and its value relative to other currencies therefore fluctuates. It has been among the highest-valued currency units in the world. As of 2 November 2011 (2011 -11-02)[update], £1 was worth US$1.60, €1.16, ¥125, CHF 1.41, A$1.55, C$1.63 or INR 85.32.
| Current GBP exchange rates | |
|---|---|
| From Google Finance: | AUD CAD CHF EUR HKD JPY USD INR |
| From Yahoo! Finance: | AUD CAD CHF EUR HKD JPY USD INR |
| From XE.com: | AUD CAD CHF EUR HKD JPY USD INR |
| From OANDA.com: | AUD CAD CHF EUR HKD JPY USD INR |
| From fxtop.com: | AUD CAD CHF EUR HKD JPY USD INR |
Reserve[link]
Sterling is used as a reserve currency around the world and is currently ranked third in value held as reserves.
| 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| US dollar | 59.0% | 62.1% | 65.2% | 69.3% | 71.0% | 70.5% | 70.7% | 66.5% | 65.8% | 66.0% | 66.4% | 65.7% | 64.1% | 64.1% | 62.1% | 61.8% | 62.1% |
| Euro | 17.9% | 18.8% | 19.8% | 24.2% | 25.3% | 24.9% | 24.3% | 25.2% | 26.3% | 26.4% | 27.6% | 26.0% | 25.0% | ||||
| German mark | 15.8% | 14.7% | 14.5% | 13.8% | |||||||||||||
| French franc | 2.4% | 1.8% | 1.4% | 1.6% | |||||||||||||
| Pound sterling | 2.1% | 2.7% | 2.6% | 2.7% | 2.9% | 2.8% | 2.7% | 2.9% | 2.6% | 3.2% | 3.6% | 4.2% | 4.7% | 4.0% | 4.3% | 3.9% | 3.9% |
| Japanese yen | 6.8% | 6.7% | 5.8% | 6.2% | 6.4% | 6.3% | 5.2% | 4.5% | 4.1% | 3.8% | 3.7% | 3.2% | 2.9% | 3.1% | 2.9% | 3.7% | 3.7% |
| Swiss franc | 0.3% | 0.2% | 0.4% | 0.3% | 0.2% | 0.3% | 0.3% | 0.4% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.1% | 0.2% | 0.2% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% | 0.1% |
| Other | 13.6% | 11.7% | 10.2% | 6.1% | 1.6% | 1.4% | 1.2% | 1.4% | 1.9% | 1.9% | 1.9% | 1.5% | 1.8% | 2.2% | 3.1% | 4.4% | 5.1% |
| Sources: 1995-1999, 2006-2011 IMF: Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves Sources: 1999-2005 ECB: The Accumulation of Foreign Reserves |
|||||||||||||||||
See also[link]
- Angevin pound
- Coins of the pound sterling
- Economic history of the United Kingdom
- Economy of the United Kingdom
- Green pound
- Pound (currency)
Notes[link]
- ^ Alongside Zimbabwean dollar (suspended indefinitely from 12 April 2009), Euro, US Dollar, South African rand and Botswana pula. The U.S. Dollar has been adopted as the official currency for all government transactions.
- ^ "Inside Pakistan's 'Little Britain' as overseas nationals get vote". BBC News. 2012-03-04. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-17249424.
- ^ http://www.itv.com/news/update/2012-06-01/1-000-gold-kilo-coin-marks-queens-diamond-jubilee/
- ^ "Foreign and Commonwealth Office country profiles: South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands". British Foreign & Commonwealth Office. 2007-09-06. http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/about-the-fco/country-profiles/south-america/south-georgia-south-sandwich. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
- ^ "Foreign and Commonwealth Office country profiles: British Antarctic Territory". British Foreign & Commonwealth Office. 2010-03-25. http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/about-the-fco/country-profiles/south-america/british-antarctic-territory. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
- ^ "Foreign and Commonwealth Office country profiles: Tristan da Cunha". British Foreign & Commonwealth Office. 2010-02-12. http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/travel-advice-by-country/country-profile/south-america/tristan-da-cunha. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
- ^ Fast Facts on St Helena, St Helena Tourism
- ^ www.ascension-island.gov.ac, Ascension Island Currency
- ^ faz.net
- ^ "Why is Quid Slang For Pound?". Straight Dope Message Board. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-552692.html. Retrieved 2011-11-06.
- ^ Pound sterling, Encyclopaedia Britannica
- ^ news.bbc.co.uk 'Economic terms explained' BBC News
- ^ Bloy, Marjie (2006-06-20). "British Currency before 1971". The Victorian Web. http://www.victorianweb.org/economics/currency.html. Retrieved 2010-12-28.
- ^ "Investment > World Gold Council". Gold.org. 2011-07-26. http://www.gold.org/value/reserve_asset/history/monetary_history/vol2/1868feb18.html. Retrieved 2011-12-22.
- ^ UK CPI inflation numbers based on data available from Lawrence H. Officer (2010) "What Were the UK Earnings and Prices Then?" MeasuringWorth.
- ^ The Board of Trade Journal, 7 January 1932
- ^ "The Central Bank of Barbados: Students' Centre – Money: Bits and Pieces". Centralbank.org.bb. http://centralbank.org.bb/WEBCBB.nsf/webpage/580B8A7909CC2876042573650078A7A3?OpenDocument. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
- ^ A History of the Canadian Dollar, p. 51.
- ^ Casciani, Dominic (2006-12-29). "BBC". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6212557.stm. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
- ^ "The Cabinet Papers - Global oil shortage". http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/themes/global-oil-shortage.htm. Retrieved 2010-12-22.
- ^ "Good-bye Great Britain": 1976 IMF Crisis, K Burk, ISBN 0-300-05728-8
- ^ Sometimes it can pay to break the rules Victor Keegan (Economics Editor) The Observer
- ^ "WINDFALL TAX (Hansard, 2 July 1997)". Hansard.millbanksystems.com. http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1997/jul/02/windfall-tax. Retrieved 2011-11-06.
- ^ "Business | Rate hike fear as inflation jumps". BBC News. 2007-04-17. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6562723.stm. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
- ^ Puritanism comes too naturally for 'Huck' Brown—Times Online
- ^ "EMU Entry And EU Constitution". MORI. 2005-02-28. http://www.mori.com/polls/2005/citigroup-feb.shtml.
- ^ Should Britain join the euro? – Telegraph[dead link]
- ^ "Most Britons 'still oppose euro'". BBC News. 2009-01-01. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7806936.stm. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
- ^ "SCOTLAND | Protesters pursue Hague". BBC News. 2000-05-19. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/755013.stm. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
- ^ Euro reaches field that is for ever England – The Times[dead link]
- ^ "Report on global foreign exchange market activity in 2010" (PDF). Triennial Central Bank Survey. Basel, Switzerland: Bank for International Settlements. December 2010. p. 12. http://bis.org/publ/rpfxf10t.pdf. Retrieved 2 May 2011.
- ^ The total sum is 200% because each currency trade always involves a currency pair.
- ^ "Business | Pound reaches 26-year dollar high". BBC News. 2007-04-18. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6566715.stm. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
- ^ FXGraph: Graphical Display of Currency Rates OANDA.COM
- ^ "GBPUSD=X: Basic Chart for GBP/USD - Yahoo! Finance". Finance.yahoo.com. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=GBPUSD=X&t=3m&l=on&z=m&q=l&c=. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
- ^ "ECB ratings: Pound sterling in Euros". Ecb.int. http://www.ecb.int/stats/exchange/eurofxref/html/eurofxref-graph-gbp.en.html. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
- ^ "Business | Pound hits new low against Euro". BBC News. 2008-12-29. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7802981.stm. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
- ^ "Historical rates". Oanda.com. 2011-04-16. http://www.oanda.com/currency/historical-rates. Retrieved 2011-11-06.
- ^ a b "Bank to pump £75bn into economy". BBC News. 2009-03-05. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7927100.stm. Retrieved 2009-03-05.
- ^ a b "ECB, Bank of England cut rates to record lows". CNN. 2009-03-05. http://edition.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/03/05/uk.interest.rate/index.html. Retrieved 2009-03-05.
- ^ a b Duncan, Gary (2009-03-05). "Bank ‘prints’ £75bn and cuts interest rates in half". London: The Times. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article5854896.ece. Retrieved 2009-03-05.
- ^ "Security by Design - A closer look at Bank of England notes" (PDF). http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/education/museum/exhibitions/securitybydesign.pdf. Retrieved 2011-11-06.
- ^ "British Royal Mint – Frequently Asked Questions". http://www.royalmint.gov.uk/home/frequentlyaskedquestions.aspx. Retrieved 2009-02-24.
- ^ "New Research Paper 2005 template" (PDF). http://www.parliament.uk/commons/lib/research/rp2006/rp06-009.pdf. Retrieved 2010-04-17.
- ^ 2003 article on price inflation and see this
- ^ "Measuring Worth - Purchasing Power of Money in the United Kingdom from 1971 to 2009". http://www.measuringworth.com/ukcompare/index.php. Retrieved 2010-04-22.
References[link]
- "Bank of England Banknotes FAQ". http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/banknotes/about/faqs.htm. Retrieved 2006-05-07.
- The Perspective of the World, Vol III of Civilisation and Capitalism, Fernand Braudel, 1984 ISBN 1-84212-289-4 (in French 1979).
- A Retrospective on the Bretton Woods System : Lessons for International Monetary Reform (National Bureau of Economic Research Project Report) By Barry Eichengreen (Editor), Michael D. Bordo (Editor) Published by University of Chicago Press (1993) ISBN 0-226-06587-1
- The political pound: British investment overseas and exchange controls past—and future? By John Brennan Published By Henderson Administration (1983) ISBN 0-9508735-0-0
- Monetary History of the United States, 1867–1960 by Milton Friedman, Anna Jacobson Schwartz Published by Princeton University Press (1971) ISBN 0-691-00354-8
- The international role of the pound sterling: Its benefits and costs to the United Kingdom By John Kevin Green
- The Financial System in Nineteenth-Century Britain (The Victorian Archives Series), By Mary Poovey Published by Oxford University Press (2002) ISBN 0-19-515057-0
- Rethinking our Centralised Monetary System: The Case for a System of Local Currencies By Lewis D. Solomon Published by Praeger Publishers (1996) ISBN 0-275-95376-9
- Politics and the Pound: The Conservatives' Struggle With Sterling by Philip Stephens Trans-Atlantic Publications (1995) ISBN 0-333-63296-6
- The European Monetary System: Developments and Perspectives (Occasional Paper, No. 73) by Horst Ungerer, Jouko J. Hauvonen Published by International Monetary Fund (1990) ISBN 1-55775-172-2
- The floating pound sterling of the nineteen-thirties: An exploratory study By J. K Whitaker Dept. of the Treasury (1986)
- World Currency Monitor Annual, 1976–1989: Pound Sterling : The Value of the British Pound Sterling in Foreign Terms Published by Mecklermedia (1990) ISBN 0-88736-543-4
- Krause, Chester L., and Clifford Mishler (1991). Standard Catalog of World Coins: 1801–1991 (18th ed. ed.). Krause Publications. ISBN 0873411501.
- Pick, Albert (1994). Standard Catalog of World Paper Money: General Issues. Colin R. Bruce II and Neil Shafer (editors) (7th ed.). Krause Publications. ISBN 0-87341-207-9.
- Pick, Albert (1990). Standard Catalog of World Paper Money: Specialized Issues. Colin R. Bruce II and Neil Shafer (editors) (6th ed.). Krause Publications. ISBN 0-87341-149-8.
External links[link]
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- Current wholesale exchange rates between currencies
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This article is about the person. For other uses, see Malcolm X (disambiguation).
"Malik Shabazz" redirects here. For other people of that name, see Malik Shabazz (disambiguation).
| Malcolm X | |
|---|---|
 Malcolm X in March 1964 |
|
| Born | Malcolm Little (1925-05-19)May 19, 1925 Omaha, Nebraska, United States |
| Died | February 21, 1965(1965-02-21) (aged 39) New York City, New York, United States |
| Cause of death | Assassination (gunshot) |
| Resting place | Ferncliff Cemetery |
| Other names | El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz |
| Organization | Nation of Islam, Muslim Mosque, Inc., Organization of Afro-American Unity |
| Influenced by | Elijah Muhammad, Marcus Garvey |
| Political movement | Black nationalism, Pan-Africanism |
| Religion | Nation of Islam, (later) Sunni Islam |
| Spouse | Betty Shabazz (m. 1958) |
| Children | Attallah Shabazz Qubilah Shabazz Ilyasah Shabazz Gamilah Lumumba Shabazz Malikah Shabazz Malaak Shabazz |
| Parents | Earl Little, Louise Norton Little |
| Signature |  |
Malcolm X ( /ˈmælkəm ˈɛks/; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965), born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz[1] (Arabic: الحاجّ مالك الشباز), was an African-American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers, he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its crimes against black Americans. Detractors accused him of preaching racism, black supremacy, antisemitism, and violence. He has been called one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history.
Malcolm X's father died—killed by white supremacists, it was rumored—when he was young, and at least one of his uncles was lynched. When he was thirteen, his mother was placed in a mental hospital, and he was placed in a series of foster homes. In 1946, at age 20, he went to prison for breaking and entering.
In prison, Malcolm X became a member of the Nation of Islam and after his parole in 1952 he quickly rose to become one of its leaders. For a dozen years Malcolm X was the public face of the controversial group, but disillusionment with Nation of Islam head Elijah Muhammad led him to leave the Nation in March 1964. After a period of travel in Africa and the Middle East, he returned to the United States, where he founded Muslim Mosque, Inc. and the Organization of Afro-American Unity. In February 1965, less than a year after leaving the Nation of Islam, he was assassinated by three members of the group.
Malcolm X's expressed beliefs changed substantially over time. As a spokesman for the Nation of Islam he taught black supremacy and advocated separation of black and white Americans—in contrast to the civil rights movement's emphasis on integration. After breaking with the Nation of Islam in 1964—saying of his association with it, "I was a zombie then ... pointed in a certain direction and told to march"—and becoming a Sunni Muslim, he disavowed racism and expressed willingness to work with civil rights leaders, though still emphasizing black self-determination and self defense.
Contents |
Early years[link]
Malcolm Little was born on May 19, 1925, in Omaha, Nebraska, the fourth of seven children to Earl Little and Louise Norton.[2] His father was an outspoken Baptist lay speaker. He supported Pan-African activist Marcus Garvey and was a local leader of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).[3] Malcolm never forgot the values of black pride and self-reliance that his father and other UNIA leaders preached.[4] Malcolm X later said that three of Earl Little's brothers, one of whom was lynched, died violently at the hands of white men.[5] Because of Ku Klux Klan threats, the family relocated in 1926 to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and shortly thereafter to Lansing, Michigan.[6]
Earl Little, who was dark-skinned, was born in Reynolds, Georgia.[7] He had three children from his first marriage: Ella, Mary, and Earl Jr.—and seven with his second wife, Louise: Wilfred, Hilda, Philbert, Malcolm, Reginald, Yvonne, and Wesley.[8] Louise Norton Little was born in Grenada. Because her father was Scottish, she was so light-skinned that she could have passed for white. Malcolm inherited his light complexion from his mother and maternal grandfather.[9] Initially he felt his light skin was a status symbol, but he later said he "hated every drop of that white rapist's blood that is in me."[10] Malcolm X later remembered feeling that his father favored him because he was the lightest-skinned child in the family; however, he thought his mother treated him harshly for the same reason.[11] One of Malcolm's nicknames, "Red", derived from the tinge of his hair. According to one biographer, at birth he had "ash-blonde hair ... tinged with cinnamon", and at age four, "reddish-blonde hair".[12] His hair darkened as he aged, yet he also resembled his paternal grandmother, whose hair "turned reddish in the summer sun."[2] The issue of skin and hair color took on very significant implications later in Malcolm's life.[7]
In December 1924, Louise Little was threatened by Klansmen while she was pregnant with Malcolm. She recalled that the Klansmen warned the family to leave Omaha, because Earl Little's activities with UNIA were "spreading trouble".[13] After they moved to Lansing, their house was burned in 1929; however, the family escaped without physical injury. On September 8, 1931, Earl Little was fatally struck by a streetcar in Lansing. Authorities ruled his death an accident. The police reported that Earl Little was conscious when they arrived on the scene, and he told them he had slipped and fallen under the streetcar's wheels.[14] The black community in Lansing disputed the cause of death, believing there was circumstantial evidence of assault. His family had frequently been harassed by the Black Legion, a white supremacist group that his father accused of burning down their home in 1929. Some blacks believed the Black Legion was responsible for Earl Little's death. One of the adults at the funeral told eight-year-old Philbert Little that his father had been hit from behind and shoved under the streetcar.[15]
Though Earl Little had two life insurance policies, his family received death benefits solely from the smaller policy. The insurance company of the larger policy claimed that his father had committed suicide and refused to issue the benefit.[16] The payout from the insurance policy was $1,000 (comparable to about $15,000 in 2010 dollars), and the probate court awarded Louise Little a monthly "widow's allowance" of $18. She rented space in the garden to raise more money, and her sons would hunt game for supper.[17]
In 1935 or 1936, Louise Little began dating an African-American man. A marriage proposal seemed a possibility, but the man disappeared from their lives when Louise became pregnant with his child in late 1937.[18] In December 1938, Louise Little had a nervous breakdown and was declared legally insane. The Little siblings were split up and sent to different foster homes. The state formally committed Louise Little to the state mental hospital at Kalamazoo, Michigan, where she remained until Malcolm and his siblings secured her release 24 years later.[19][20]
Malcolm Little was one of the best students in his junior high school, but he dropped out after a white eighth-grade teacher told him that his aspirations of being a lawyer were "no realistic goal for a nigger."[21] Years later, Malcolm X would laugh about the incident, but at the time it was humiliating. It made him feel that there was no place in the white world for a career-oriented black man, no matter how smart he was.[21] After living with a series of foster parents, Malcolm moved to Boston in February 1941 to live with his older half-sister, Ella Little Collins.[22][23]
Young adult years[link]
Collins lived in Roxbury, a predominantly African-American middle-class neighborhood of Boston. It was the first time Little had seen so many black people. He was drawn to the cultural and social life of the neighborhood.[24] In Boston, Little held a variety of jobs and found intermittent employment with the New Haven Railroad. Between 1943 and 1946, he drifted from city to city and job to job. He left Boston to live for a short time in Flint, Michigan. He moved to New York City in 1943. Living in Harlem, he became involved in drug dealing, gambling, racketeering, robbery, and pimping.[25] During this period, Little became known as "Detroit Red" because he came from Michigan and because of the reddish color of his hair.[26] According to recent biographies, Little occasionally engaged in sex with other men, usually for money.[27][28]
In 1943, the U.S. draft board ordered Little to register for military service.[29] He later recalled that he put on a display to avoid the draft by telling the examining officer that he could not wait to "steal us some guns, and kill us [some] crackers."[30] Military physicians classified him as "mentally disqualified for military service". He was issued a 4-F card, relieving him of his service obligations.[29] In late 1945, Little returned to Boston. With a group of associates, he began a series of elaborate burglaries targeting the residences of wealthy white families.[31] On January 12, 1946, Little was arrested for burglary while trying to pick up a stolen watch he had left for repairs at a jewelry shop.[32] The shop owner called the police because the watch was very expensive, and the police had alerted all Boston jewelers that it had been stolen. Little told the police that he had a gun on his person and surrendered so the police would treat him more leniently.[33] Three days later, Little was indicted for carrying firearms. On January 16, he was charged with larceny and breaking and entering, and eventually sentenced to eight to ten years in prison.[34]
On February 27, Little began serving his sentence at the Charlestown State Prison in Charlestown, Boston. While in prison, Little earned the nickname of "Satan" for his hostility toward religion.[35] Little met a self-educated man in prison named John Elton Bembry (referred to as "Bimbi" in The Autobiography of Malcolm X).[36] Bembry was a well-regarded prisoner at Charlestown, and Malcolm X would later describe him as "the first man I had ever seen command total respect ... with words."[37] Gradually, the two men became friends and Bembry convinced Little to educate himself.[38] Little developed a voracious appetite for reading, and he frequently read after the prison lights had been turned off.[39] In 1948, Little's brother Philbert wrote, telling him about the Nation of Islam. Like the UNIA, the Nation preached black self-reliance and, ultimately, the unification of members of the African diaspora, free from white American and European domination.[40] Little was not interested in joining until his brother Reginald wrote, saying, "Malcolm, don't eat any more pork and don't smoke any more cigarettes. I'll show you how to get out of prison."[41] Little quit smoking, and the next time pork was served in the prison dining hall, he refused to eat it.[42]
When Reginald came to visit Little, he described the group's teachings, including the belief that white people are devils. Afterward, Little thought about all the white people he had known, and he realized that he'd never had a relationship with a white person or social institution that wasn't based on dishonesty, injustice, greed, and hatred. Little began to reconsider his dismissal of all religion and he became receptive to the message of the Nation of Islam. Other family members who had joined the Nation wrote or visited and encouraged Little to join.[43] In February 1948, mostly through his sister's efforts, Little was transferred to the Norfolk Prison Colony, an experimental prison in Norfolk, Massachusetts, that had a much larger library.[44] In late 1948, he wrote a letter to Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam. Muhammad advised him to atone for his crimes by renouncing his past and by humbly bowing in prayer to Allah and promising never to engage in destructive behavior again. Little, who always had been rebellious and deeply skeptical, found it very difficult to bow in prayer. It took him a week to bend his knees. Finally he prayed, and he became a member of the Nation of Islam.[45] For the remainder of his incarceration, Little maintained regular correspondence with Muhammad.[46] On August 7, 1952, Little was paroled and was released from prison.[47] He later reflected on the time he spent in prison after his conversion: "Between Mr. Muhammad's teachings, my correspondence, my visitors—usually Ella and Reginald—and my reading of books, months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I had never been so truly free in my life."[48]
Nation of Islam[link]
| Part of a series on the |
| Nation of Islam |
|---|
 |
| Leaders |
| Wallace Fard Muhammad Elijah Muhammad · Malcolm X Warith Deen Mohammed Louis Farrakhan Tynetta Muhammad Mustapha Farrakhan Ishmael Muhammad Ava Muhammad |
| History and beliefs |
| Saviours' Day Nation of Islam and antisemitism Tribe of Shabazz · Yakub Million Man March |
| Publications |
| A Torchlight for America The Final Call How to Eat to Live Muhammad Speaks |
| Subsidiaries and offshoots |
| American Society of Muslims Fruit of Islam The Nation of Gods and Earths New Black Panther Party United Nation of Islam Your Black Muslim Bakery |
Further information: Nation of Islam
When Little was released from prison in 1952, he had more than a new religion. He also had a new name. In a December 1950 letter to his brother Philbert, Little signed his name as Malcolm X for the first time.[49] In his autobiography, he explained why: "The Muslim's 'X' symbolized the true African family name that he never could know. For me, my 'X' replaced the white slavemaster name of 'Little' which some blue-eyed devil named Little had imposed upon my paternal forebears."[50]
Shortly after his release from prison, Malcolm X visited Elijah Muhammad in Chicago, Illinois.[51] In June 1953, Malcolm X was named assistant minister of the Nation of Islam's Temple Number One in Detroit.[52][53] Soon, he became a full-time minister.[54] By late 1953, Malcolm X established Boston's Temple Number 11.[55] In March 1954, he expanded Temple Number 12 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.[56] Two months later Malcolm X was selected to lead Temple Number Seven in Harlem,[57] and he rapidly expanded its membership.[58]
The FBI had opened a file on Malcolm X in 1950 after he wrote a letter to President Truman stating his opposition to the Korean War and declaring himself to be a communist.[59] It began surveillance of him in 1953, and soon the FBI turned its attention from concerns about possible Communist Party association to Malcolm X's rapid ascent in the Nation of Islam.[60]
During 1955, Malcolm X continued his successful recruitment efforts on behalf of the organization. He established temples in Springfield, Massachusetts (Number 13); Hartford, Connecticut (Number 14); and Atlanta, Georgia (Number 15). Hundreds of African Americans were joining the Nation of Islam every month.[61] Beside his skill as a speaker, Malcolm X had an impressive physical presence. He stood 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) tall and weighed about 180 pounds (82 kg).[62] One writer described him as "powerfully built",[63] and another as "mesmerizingly handsome ... and always spotlessly well-groomed".[62]
Johnson Hinton incident[link]
Malcolm X first came to the attention of the general public after the police beating of a Nation of Islam member named Johnson Hinton.[64][65] On April 26, 1957, two police officers were beating an African-American man with their nightsticks when three passersby who belonged to the Nation of Islam tried to intervene.[64] They shouted: "You're not in Alabama or Georgia. This is New York!"[65] One of the officers began to beat one of the passersby, Johnson Hinton. The blows were so severe, a surgeon later determined, that they caused brain contusions, subdural hemorrhaging, and scalp lacerations. All four men were arrested and taken to the police station.[64]
A woman who had seen the assault ran to the Nation of Islam's restaurant.[64] Within a few hours, Malcolm X and a small group of Muslims went to the police station and demanded to see Hinton. The police captain initially said no Muslims were being held there, but as the crowd grew to about 500, he allowed Malcolm X to speak with Hinton.[66] After a short talk, Malcolm X demanded that Hinton be taken to the hospital, so an ambulance was called and Hinton was taken to Harlem Hospital.[67]
Hinton was treated and released into the custody of the police, who returned him to the police station.[66] By this point, about 4,000 people had gathered; the police realized there was the potential for a riot and called for backup. Malcolm X went back into the police station with an attorney and made bail arrangements for the other two Muslims. The police said Hinton could not go back to the hospital until he was arraigned the following day.[67] Malcolm X realized things were at a stalemate. He stepped outside the station house and gave a hand signal.[67] The Nation of Islam members in the crowd silently walked away. The rest of the crowd dispersed minutes later. One police officer told the editor of the New York Amsterdam News: "No one man should have that much power."[67][68]
The following month, the Bureau of Special Services and Investigation of the New York Police Department (NYPD) began its surveillance of Malcolm X. The NYPD's Chief Inspector asked for information from the police department in every city where Malcolm X had lived, and from the prisons where he had served his sentence.[69] In October, when a grand jury declined to indict the officers who had beaten Hinton, Malcolm X wrote an angry telegram to the police commissioner. In response, undercover NYPD officers were placed inside the Nation of Islam.[70]
Marriage and family[link]
Malcolm X met Betty Sanders in 1955. She had been invited to listen to his lecture, and she was very impressed by him. They met again at a dinner party. Soon Sanders was attending all of Malcolm X's lectures at Temple Number Seven. In mid 1956, she joined the Nation of Islam and changed her name to Betty X.[71]
Malcolm X and Betty X did not have a conventional courtship. One-on-one dates were contrary to the teachings of the Nation of Islam. Instead, the couple shared their "dates" with dozens, or even hundreds of other members. Malcolm X frequently took groups to visit New York's museums and libraries, and he always invited Betty X.[72]
Although they had never discussed the subject, Betty X suspected that Malcolm X was interested in marriage. On January 12, 1958, he called from Detroit and asked her to marry him, and they were married two days later in Lansing, Michigan.[73][74]
The couple had six daughters. Their names were Attallah, born in 1958 and named after Attila the Hun;[75][76] Qubilah, born in 1960 and named after Kublai Khan;[77] Ilyasah, born in 1962 and named after Elijah Muhammad;[78] Gamilah Lumumba, born in 1964 and named after Patrice Lumumba;[79] and twins, Malikah and Malaak, born in 1965 after their father's assassination and named for him.[80]
[edit] The Hate That Hate Produced
After a 1959 television broadcast in New York City about the Nation of Islam, The Hate That Hate Produced, Malcolm X became known to white Americans. Representatives of the print media, radio, and television frequently asked him for comments on issues.[81] By the late 1950s, Malcolm X had acquired a new name, Malcolm Shabazz or Malik el-Shabazz, although he was still widely referred to as Malcolm X.[82]
In September 1960, Fidel Castro arrived in New York to attend the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. He and his entourage stayed at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem. Malcolm X was a prominent member of a Harlem-based welcoming committee made up of community leaders who met with Castro.[83] Castro was so impressed by Malcolm X that he requested a private meeting with him. At the end of their two-hour meeting, Castro invited Malcolm X to visit him in Cuba.[84] During the General Assembly meeting, Malcolm X was also invited to many official embassy functions sponsored by African nations, where he met heads of state and other leaders, including Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, Ahmed Sékou Touré of Guinea, and Kenneth Kaunda of the Zambian African National Congress.[85]
From his adoption of the Nation of Islam in 1952 until he broke with it in 1964, Malcolm X promoted the Nation's teachings, including that black people are the original people of the world,[86] that white people are "devils",[87] that blacks are superior to whites, and that the demise of the white race is imminent.[88] While the civil rights movement fought against racial segregation, Malcolm X advocated the complete separation of African Americans from white people. He proposed the establishment of a separate country for black people in America[89] as an interim measure until African Americans could return to Africa.[90] Malcolm X also rejected the civil rights movement's strategy of nonviolence, and instead advocated that black people use any necessary means of self-defense to protect themselves.[91] Malcolm X's speeches had a powerful effect on his audiences, generally African Americans who lived in the Northern and Western cities, who were tired of being told to wait for freedom, justice, equality and respect.[92] Many blacks felt that he articulated their complaints better than the civil rights movement did.[93][94]
Malcolm X has been widely considered the second most influential leader of the Nation of Islam after Elijah Muhammad.[95] He was largely credited with the group's dramatic increase in membership between the early 1950s and early 1960s (from 500 to 25,000 by one author's estimate,[96] or from 1,200 to 50,000 or 75,000 by another's).[97][98] He inspired the boxer Cassius Clay (later known as Muhammad Ali) to join the Nation of Islam.[99] (though like Malcolm X himself, Ali later left the group to become a Sunni Muslim).[100]
Many white people, and even some blacks, were alarmed by Malcolm X and the things he said. He and the Nation of Islam were described as hatemongers, black supremacists, racists, violence-seekers, segregationists, and a threat to improved race relations. Civil rights organizations denounced Malcolm X and the Nation as irresponsible extremists whose views were not representative of African Americans.[101][102][103] Malcolm X was accused of being antisemitic.[104]
Malcolm X was equally critical of the civil rights movement.[105] He described its leaders as "stooges" for the white establishment, and he once described Martin Luther King, Jr. as a "chump".[106][107] He criticized the 1963 March on Washington, which he called "the farce on Washington".[108] He said he did not know why so many black people were excited about a demonstration "run by whites in front of a statue of a president who has been dead for a hundred years and who didn't like us when he was alive".[109]
Leaving the Nation[link]
On December 1, 1963, when he was asked for a comment about the assassination of President Kennedy, Malcolm X said that it was a case of "chickens coming home to roost". He added that "chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they've always made me glad."[110] The New York Times wrote, "in further criticism of Mr. Kennedy, the Muslim leader cited the murders of Patrice Lumumba, Congo leader, of Medgar Evers, civil rights leader, and of the Negro girls bombed earlier this year in a Birmingham church. These, he said, were instances of other 'chickens coming home to roost'."[110] The remarks prompted a widespread public outcry. The Nation of Islam, which had issued a message of condolence to the Kennedy family and ordered its ministers not to comment on the assassination, publicly censured their former shining star.[111] Although Malcolm X retained his post and rank as minister, he was prohibited from public speaking for 90 days.[112]
On March 8, 1964, Malcolm X publicly announced his break from the Nation of Islam. He said that he was still a Muslim, but he felt the Nation of Islam had "gone as far as it can" because of its rigid religious teachings.[113] Malcolm X said he was going to organize a black nationalist organization that would try to "heighten the political consciousness" of African Americans.[113] He also expressed his desire to work with other civil rights leaders and said that Elijah Muhammad had prevented him from doing so in the past.[113]
One reason for the separation was growing tension between Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad because of Malcolm X's dismay about rumors of Muhammad's extramarital affairs with young secretaries, actions that were against the teachings of the Nation. Although at first Malcolm X had ignored the rumors, after speaking with Muhammad's son Wallace and the women making the accusations, he came to believe that they were true. Muhammad confirmed the rumors in 1963 but tried to justify his actions by reference to precedents set by Biblical prophets.[114] Another reason for the separation was growing resentment by people within the Nation. As Malcolm X had become a favorite of the media, many in the Nation's Chicago headquarters felt that he was over-shadowing Muhammad. Louis Lomax's 1963 book about the Nation of Islam, When the Word Is Given, featured a picture of Malcolm X on its cover and included five of his speeches, but only one of Muhammad's, which greatly upset Muhammad. Muhammad was also envious that a publisher was interested in Malcolm X's autobiography.[115] After leaving the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X founded Muslim Mosque, Inc., a religious organization,[116][117] and the Organization of Afro-American Unity, a secular group that advocated Pan-Africanism.[118][119] On March 26, 1964, he met Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington, D.C., after a press conference held when both men attended the Senate to hear the debate on the Civil Rights bill. This was the only time the two men ever met and their meeting lasted only one minute—just long enough for photographers to take a picture.[120][121] In April, Malcolm X made a speech titled "The Ballot or the Bullet" in which he advised African Americans to exercise their right to vote wisely.[122][123] Several Sunni Muslims encouraged Malcolm X to learn about Islam. Soon he converted to Sunni Islam, and decided to make his pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj).[124]
International travel[link]
Pilgrimage to Mecca[link]
On April 13, 1964, Malcolm X departed JFK Airport in New York for Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. His status as an authentic Muslim was questioned by Saudi authorities because of his United States passport and his inability to speak Arabic. Since only confessing Muslims are allowed into Mecca, he was separated from his group for about 20 hours.[125][126]
According to his autobiography, Malcolm X saw a telephone and remembered the book The Eternal Message of Muhammad by Abdul Rahman Hassan Azzam, which had been presented to him with his visa approval. He called Azzam's son, who arranged for his release. At the younger Azzam's home, he met Azzam Pasha, who gave Malcolm his suite at the Jeddah Palace Hotel. The next morning, Muhammad Faisal, the son of Prince Faisal, visited and informed Malcolm X that he was to be a state guest. The deputy chief of protocol accompanied Malcolm X to the Hajj Court, where he was allowed to make his pilgrimage.[127]
On April 19, Malcolm X completed the Hajj, making the seven circuits around the Kaaba, drinking from the Zamzam Well, and running between the hills of Safah and Marwah seven times.[128] After completing the Hajj, he was granted an audience with Prince Faisal.[129] Malcolm X said the trip allowed him to see Muslims of different races interacting as equals. He came to believe that Islam could be the means by which racial problems could be overcome.[130]
Africa[link]
Malcolm X visited Africa on three separate occasions, once in 1959 and twice in 1964. During his visits, he met officials, gave interviews to newspapers, and spoke on television and radio in Egypt, Ethiopia, Tanganyika (now Tanzania), Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, Sudan, Senegal, Liberia, Algeria, and Morocco.[131] Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, and Ahmed Ben Bella of Algeria invited Malcolm X to serve in their governments.[132]
In 1959, Malcolm X traveled to Egypt (then known as the United Arab Republic), Sudan, Nigeria, and Ghana to arrange a tour for Elijah Muhammad.[133] The first of the two trips Malcolm X made to Africa in 1964 lasted from April 13 until May 21, before and after his Hajj.[134] On May 8, following his speech at the University of Ibadan, Malcolm X was made an honorary member of the Nigerian Muslim Students' Association. During this reception the students bestowed upon him the name "Omowale", which means "the son who has come home" in the Yoruba language.[135] Malcolm X wrote in his autobiography that he "had never received a more treasured honor."[136]
On July 9, 1964, Malcolm X returned to Africa.[137] On July 17, he was welcomed to the second meeting of the Organization of African Unity in Cairo as a representative of the Organization of Afro-American Unity. By the time he returned to the United States on November 24, 1964, Malcolm had met with every prominent African leader and established an international connection between Africans on the continent and those in the diaspora.[132]
France and the United Kingdom[link]
On November 23, 1964, on his way home from Africa, Malcolm X stopped in Paris, where he spoke at the Salle de la Mutualité.[138][139] A week later, on November 30, Malcolm X flew to the United Kingdom, and on December 3 participated in a debate at the Oxford Union. The topic of the debate was "Extremism in the Defense of Liberty is No Vice; Moderation in the Pursuit of Justice is No Virtue", and Malcolm X argued the affirmative. Interest in the debate was so high that it was televised nationally by the BBC.[140][141]
On February 5, 1965, Malcolm X went to Europe again.[142] On February 8, he spoke in London, before the first meeting of the Council of African Organizations.[143] The next day, Malcolm X tried to go to France, but he was refused entry.[144] On February 12, he visited Smethwick, near Birmingham, which had become a byword for racial division after the 1964 general election, when the Conservative Party won the parliamentary seat after rumors that their candidate's supporters had used the slogan "If you want a nigger for your neighbour, vote Labour."[145]
Return to United States[link]
After leaving the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X spoke before a wide variety of audiences in the United States. He spoke at regular meetings of Muslim Mosque, Inc., and the Organization of Afro-American Unity. He was one of the most sought-after speakers on college campuses,[146] and one of his top aides later wrote that he "welcomed every opportunity to speak to college students."[147] Malcolm X also spoke before political groups such as the Militant Labor Forum.[148]
Tensions increased between Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam. As early as February 1964, a leader of Temple Number Seven ordered a member of the Fruit of Islam to wire explosives to Malcolm X's car.[149] In September 1964, Ebony published a photograph of Malcolm X holding an M1 Carbine and peering out a window. The photo was intended to illustrate his determination to defend himself and his family against the death threats he was receiving.[150][151]
The Nation of Islam and its leaders began making both public and private threats against Malcolm X. On March 23, 1964, Elijah Muhammad told Boston minister Louis X (later known as Louis Farrakhan) that "hypocrites like Malcolm should have their heads cut off."[152] The April 10 edition of Muhammad Speaks featured a cartoon in which his severed head was shown bouncing.[153] On July 9, John Ali, a top aide to Muhammad, answered a question about Malcolm X by saying that "anyone who opposes the Honorable Elijah Muhammad puts their life in jeopardy."[154] The December 4 issue of Muhammad Speaks included an article by Louis X that railed against Malcolm X, saying "such a man as Malcolm is worthy of death."[155]
Some threats were made anonymously. During the month of June 1964, FBI surveillance recorded two such threats. On June 8, a man called Malcolm X's home and told Betty Shabazz to "tell him he's as good as dead."[156] On June 12, an FBI informant reported getting an anonymous telephone call from somebody who said "Malcolm X is going to be bumped off."[157]
In June 1964, the Nation of Islam sued to reclaim Malcolm X's residence in Queens, New York, which they claimed to own. The suit was successful, and Malcolm X was ordered to vacate.[158] On February 14, 1965, the night before a scheduled hearing to postpone the eviction date, the house burned to the ground. Malcolm X and his family survived. No one was charged with any crime.[159]
Assassination[link]
On February 21, 1965, as Malcolm X prepared to address the Organization of Afro-American Unity in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom, a disturbance broke out in the 400-person audience[160]—a man yelled, "Nigger! Get your hand outta my pocket!"[161][162] As Malcolm X and his bodyguards moved to quiet the disturbance,[163] a man seated in the front row rushed forward and shot him once in the chest with a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun.[164] Two other men charged the stage and fired semi-automatic handguns, hitting Malcolm X several times.[162] He was pronounced dead at 3:30 pm, shortly after he arrived at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.[160] According to the autopsy report, Malcolm X's body had 21 gunshot wounds to his chest, left shoulder, and both arms and legs, many of them fatal; ten of the wounds were buckshot to his left chest and shoulder from the initial shotgun blast.[165]
One gunman, Nation of Islam member Talmadge Hayer (also known as Thomas Hagan) was seized and beaten by the crowd before the police arrived minutes later;[166][167] witnesses identified the others as Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson, also Nation members.[168] Hayer confessed at trial to have been one of the handgun shooters, but refused to identify the other assailants except to assert that they were not Butler and Johnson.[169] All three were convicted.[170]
Butler, now known as Muhammad Abdul Aziz, was paroled in 1985 and became the head of the Nation's Harlem mosque in 1998. He continues to maintain his innocence.[171] Johnson, who changed his name to Khalil Islam, rejected the Nation's teachings while in prison and converted to Sunni Islam. Released in 1987, he maintained his innocence until his death in August 2009.[172][173] Hayer, now known as Mujahid Halim,[174] was paroled in 2010.[175]
Funeral[link]
A public viewing was held at Harlem's Unity Funeral Home from February 23 through February 26, and it was estimated that between 14,000 and 30,000 mourners attended.[176] The funeral was held on February 27 at the Faith Temple Church of God in Christ in Harlem. The church was filled to capacity with more than 1,000 people.[177] Loudspeakers were set up outside the Temple so the overflowing crowd could listen[178] and a local television station broadcast the funeral live.[179]
Among the civil rights leaders attending were John Lewis, Bayard Rustin, James Forman, James Farmer, Jesse Gray, and Andrew Young.[177][180] Actor and activist Ossie Davis delivered the eulogy, describing Malcolm X as "our shining black prince".
There are those who will consider it their duty, as friends of the Negro people, to tell us to revile him, to flee, even from the presence of his memory, to save ourselves by writing him out of the history of our turbulent times. Many will ask what Harlem finds to honor in this stormy, controversial and bold young captain—and we will smile. Many will say turn away—away from this man, for he is not a man but a demon, a monster, a subverter and an enemy of the black man—and we will smile. They will say that he is of hate—a fanatic, a racist—who can only bring evil to the cause for which you struggle! And we will answer and say to them: Did you ever talk to Brother Malcolm? Did you ever touch him, or have him smile at you? Did you ever really listen to him? Did he ever do a mean thing? Was he ever himself associated with violence or any public disturbance? For if you did you would know him. And if you knew him you would know why we must honor him.[181]
Malcolm X was buried at Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.[179] At the gravesite after the ceremony, friends took the shovels from the waiting gravediggers and completed the burial themselves.[182] Actor and activist Ruby Dee (wife of Ossie Davis) and Juanita Poitier (wife of Sidney Poitier) established the Committee of Concerned Mothers to raise funds to buy a house and pay educational expenses for Malcolm X's family.[183]
Responses to assassination[link]
Reactions to Malcolm X's assassination were varied. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. sent a telegram to Betty Shabazz, expressing his sadness over "the shocking and tragic assassination of your husband."
While we did not always see eye to eye on methods to solve the race problem, I always had a deep affection for Malcolm and felt that he had a great ability to put his finger on the existence and root of the problem. He was an eloquent spokesman for his point of view and no one can honestly doubt that Malcolm had a great concern for the problems that we face as a race.[184]
Elijah Muhammad told the annual Savior's Day convention on February 26, "Malcolm X got just what he preached," while denying any involvement with the murder.[185] "We didn't want to kill Malcolm and didn't try to kill him," Muhammad said. "We know such ignorant, foolish teachings would bring him to his own end."[186]
The New York Times wrote that Malcolm X was "an extraordinary and twisted man" who "turn[ed] many true gifts to evil purpose" and that his life was "strangely and pitifully wasted".[187] The New York Post wrote that "even his sharpest critics recognized his brilliance—often wild, unpredictable and eccentric, but nevertheless possessing promise that must now remain unrealized."[188]
The international press, particularly that of Africa, was sympathetic. The Daily Times of Nigeria wrote that Malcolm X "will have a place in the palace of martyrs."[189] The Ghanaian Times likened him to John Brown and Patrice Lumumba among "a host of Africans and Americans who were martyred in freedom's cause".[190] Guangming Daily, published in Beijing, stated that "Malcolm was murdered because he fought for freedom and equal rights",[191] while in Cuba, El Mundo described the assassination as "another racist crime to eradicate by violence the struggle against discrimination".[192]
Allegations of conspiracy[link]
Within days of the assassination, questions were raised about who bore ultimate responsibility. On February 23, James Farmer, the leader of the Congress of Racial Equality, announced at a news conference that local drug dealers, and not the Nation of Islam, were to blame.[193] Others accused the NYPD, the FBI, or the CIA, citing the lack of police protection, the ease with which the assassins entered the Audubon Ballroom, and the failure of the police to preserve the crime scene.[194][195]
In the 1970s, the public learned about COINTELPRO and other secret FBI programs directed towards infiltrating and disrupting civil rights organizations during the 1950s and 1960s.[196] John Ali, national secretary of the Nation of Islam, was identified as an FBI undercover agent.[197] Malcolm X had confided in a reporter that Ali exacerbated tensions between him and Elijah Muhammad. He considered Ali his "archenemy" within the Nation of Islam leadership.[197] On February 20, 1965, the night before the assassination, Ali met with Talmadge Hayer, one of the men convicted of killing Malcolm X.[198]
In 1977 and 1978, Talmadge Hayer submitted two sworn affidavits re-asserting his claim that Butler and Johnson were not involved in the assassination. In his affidavits Hayer named four men, all members of the Nation of Islam's Newark Temple Number 25, as having participated with him in the crime. Hayer asserted that a man, later identified as Wilbur McKinley, was the one who shouted and threw a smoke bomb to create a diversion. Hayer said that another man, later identified as William Bradley, had a shotgun and was the first to fire on Malcolm X after the diversion. Hayer asserted that he and a man later identified as Leon Davis, both armed with pistols, fired on Malcolm X immediately after the shotgun blast. Hayer also said that a fifth man, later identified as Benjamin Thomas, was involved in the conspiracy.[199][200] Hayer's statements failed to convince authorities to reopen their investigation of the murder.[201]
Some, including the Shabazz family, have accused Louis Farrakhan of being involved in the plot to assassinate Malcolm X.[202][203][204][205] In a 1993 speech, Farrakhan seemed to acknowledge the possibility that the Nation of Islam was responsible for the assassination:
Was Malcolm your traitor or ours? And if we dealt with him like a nation deals with a traitor, what the hell business is it of yours? A nation has to be able to deal with traitors and cutthroats and turncoats.[206][207]
In a 60 Minutes interview that aired during May 2000, Farrakhan stated that some of the things he said may have led to the assassination of Malcolm X. "I may have been complicit in words that I spoke", he said. "I acknowledge that and regret that any word that I have said caused the loss of life of a human being."[208] A few days later Farrakhan denied that he "ordered the assassination" of Malcolm X, although he again acknowledged that he "created the atmosphere that ultimately led to Malcolm X's assassination."[209] No consensus on who was responsible has been reached.[210]
Philosophy[link]
Except for his autobiography, Malcolm X left no published writings. His philosophy is known almost entirely from the myriad speeches and interviews he gave from 1952 until his death in 1965.[211] Many of those speeches, especially from the last year of his life, were recorded and have been published.[212]
Beliefs of the Nation of Islam[link]
Further information: Beliefs and theology of the Nation of Islam
Before he left the Nation of Islam in 1964, Malcolm X taught its beliefs in his speeches. His speeches were peppered with the phrase "The Honorable Elijah Muhammad teaches us that...".[213] It is virtually impossible to discern whether Malcolm X's beliefs diverged from the teachings of the Nation of Islam.[214][215] Malcolm X once compared himself to a ventriloquist's dummy who could only say what Elijah Muhammad told him.[213]
Malcolm X taught that black people were the original people of the world,[86] and that white people were a race of devils who were created by an evil scientist named Yakub.[87] The Nation of Islam believed that black people were superior to white people, and that the demise of the white race was imminent.[88] When he was questioned concerning his statements that white people were devils, Malcolm X said that "history proves the white man is a devil."[216] He enumerated some of the historical reasons that, he felt, supported his argument: "Anybody who rapes, and plunders, and enslaves, and steals, and drops hell bombs on people... anybody who does these things is nothing but a devil."[217]
Malcolm X said that Islam was the "true religion of black mankind" and that Christianity was "the white man's religion" that had been imposed upon African Americans by their slave-masters.[218] He said that the Nation of Islam followed Islam as it was practiced around the world, but the Nation's teachings varied from those of other Muslims because they were adapted to the "uniquely pitiful" condition of black people in America.[219] He taught that Wallace Fard Muhammad, the founder of the Nation, was Allah incarnate,[220] and that Elijah Muhammad was his Messenger, or prophet.[221]
While the civil rights movement fought against racial segregation, Malcolm X advocated the complete separation of African Americans from white people. The Nation of Islam proposed the establishment of a separate country for black people in the Southern[89] or Southwestern United States[222] as an interim measure until African Americans could return to Africa.[90] Malcolm X suggested the United States government owed reparations to black people for the unpaid labor of their enslaved ancestors.[223] He also rejected the civil rights movement's strategy of nonviolence and instead advocated that black people should protect themselves by any necessary means.[91]
Independent views[link]
After leaving the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X announced his willingness to work with leaders of the civil rights movement,[113] though he felt that it should change its focus to human rights. So long as the movement remained a fight for civil rights, its struggle would remain a domestic issue, but by framing the struggle as a fight for human rights, it would become an international issue, and the movement could bring its complaint before the United Nations. Malcolm X said the emerging nations of the world would add their support to the cause of African Americans.[224]
Malcolm X declared that he and the other members of the Organization of Afro-American Unity were determined to defend themselves from aggressors, and to secure freedom, justice and equality "by whatever means necessary", arguing that if the government was unwilling or unable to protect black people, they should protect themselves.[225]
Malcolm X stressed the global perspective he gained from his international travels. He emphasized the "direct connection" between the domestic struggle of African Americans for equal rights with the liberation struggles of Third World nations.[226] He said that African Americans were wrong when they thought of themselves as a minority; in a global context, black people were a majority, not a minority.[227]
In his speeches at the Militant Labor Forum, which was sponsored by the Socialist Workers Party, Malcolm X criticized capitalism.[148] After one such speech, when he was asked what political and economic system he wanted, he said he didn't know, but that it was no coincidence the newly liberated countries in the Third World were turning toward socialism.[228] Malcolm X still was concerned primarily with the freedom struggle of African Americans. When a reporter asked him what he thought about socialism, Malcolm X asked whether it was good for black people. When the reporter told him it seemed to be, Malcolm X told him, "Then I'm for it."[228][229]
Although he no longer called for the separation of black people from white people, Malcolm X continued to advocate black nationalism, which he defined as self-determination for the African-American community.[230] In the last months of his life, however, Malcolm X began to reconsider his support of black nationalism after meeting northern African revolutionaries who, to all appearances, were white.[231]
After his Hajj, Malcolm X articulated a view of white people and racism that represented a deep change from the philosophy he had supported as a minister of the Nation of Islam. In a famous letter from Mecca, he wrote that his experiences with white people during his pilgrimage convinced him to "rearrange" his thinking about race and "toss aside some of [his] previous conclusions".[232] In a 1965 conversation with Gordon Parks, two days before his assassination, Malcolm said:
[L]istening to leaders like Nasser, Ben Bella, and Nkrumah awakened me to the dangers of racism. I realized racism isn't just a black and white problem. It's brought bloodbaths to about every nation on earth at one time or another.
Brother, remember the time that white college girl came into the restaurant—the one who wanted to help the [Black] Muslims and the whites get together—and I told her there wasn't a ghost of a chance and she went away crying? Well, I've lived to regret that incident. In many parts of the African continent I saw white students helping black people. Something like this kills a lot of argument. I did many things as a [Black] Muslim that I'm sorry for now. I was a zombie then—like all [Black] Muslims—I was hypnotized, pointed in a certain direction and told to march. Well, I guess a man's entitled to make a fool of himself if he's ready to pay the cost. It cost me 12 years.
That was a bad scene, brother. The sickness and madness of those days—I'm glad to be free of them.[233]
Legacy[link]
Malcolm X has been described as one of the greatest and most influential African Americans in history.[234][235][236] He is credited with raising the self-esteem of black Americans and reconnecting them with their African heritage.[237] He is largely responsible for the spread of Islam in the black community in the United States.[238][239][240] Many African Americans, especially those who lived in cities in the Northern and Western United States, felt that Malcolm X articulated their complaints concerning inequality better than the mainstream civil rights movement did.[93][94] One biographer says that by giving expression to their frustration, Malcolm X "made clear the price that white America would have to pay if it did not accede to black America's legitimate demands."[241]
In the late 1960s, as black activists became more radical, Malcolm X and his teachings were part of the foundation on which they built their movements. The Black Power movement,[62][242] the Black Arts Movement,[62][243] and the widespread adoption of the slogan "Black is beautiful"[244] can all trace their roots to Malcolm X.
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was a resurgence of interest in Malcolm X among young people, fueled in part by use of him as an icon by hip hop groups such as Public Enemy.[245][246] His image was on display in hundreds of thousands of homes, offices, and schools,[247] as well as on T-shirts and jackets.[248]
This wave peaked in 1992 with the release of the film Malcolm X,[249] an adaptation of the The Autobiography of Malcolm X which Malcolm X began in 1963 in collaboration with Alex Haley on The Autobiography of Malcolm X.[115] (Malcolm X had told Haley, "If I'm alive when this book comes out, it will be a miracle";[250] indeed Haley completed and published it some months after the assassination).[251] In 1998 Time named The Autobiography of Malcolm X one of the ten most influential nonfiction books of the 20th century.[252]
Portrayals in film and on stage[link]
Denzel Washington played the title role in Malcolm X[253]—named one of the ten best films of the 1990s by both critic Roger Ebert and director Martin Scorsese.[254] Washington had previously played the part of Malcolm X in the 1981 off-Broadway play When the Chickens Came Home to Roost.[255] Other portrayals include:
- James Earl Jones, in the 1977 film The Greatest.[256]
- Dick Anthony Williams, in the 1978 television miniseries King[257] and the 1989 American Playhouse production of the Jeff Stetson play The Meeting.[258]
- Al Freeman, Jr., in the 1979 television miniseries Roots: The Next Generations.[259]
- Morgan Freeman, in the 1981 television movie Death of a Prophet.[260]
- Ben Holt, in the 1986 opera X, The Life and Times of Malcolm X at the New York City Opera.[261]
- Gary Dourdan, in the 2000 television movie King of the World.[262]
- Joe Morton, in the 2000 television movie Ali: An American Hero.[263]
- Mario Van Peebles, in the 2001 film Ali.[264]
Memorials and tributes[link]
The Malcolm X House Site, at 3448 Pinkney Street in North Omaha, Nebraska, marks the place where Malcolm Little first lived with his family. The house where the Little family lived was torn down in 1965 by owners who did not know of its connection with Malcolm X.[265] The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 and a historic marker identifies the site because of the importance of Malcolm X to American history and national culture.[266][267] In 1987 the site was added to the Nebraska register of historic sites and marked with a state plaque.[268]
Lansing, Michigan, where Malcolm Little spent his early, formative years, is home to a Michigan Historical Marker erected in 1975 marking his homesite.[269] The city is also home to El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz Academy, a public charter school with an Afrocentric focus. The Academy is located in the building where Little attended elementary school.[270]
In cities around the world, Malcolm X's birthday (May 19) is commemorated as Malcolm X Day. The first known celebration of Malcolm X Day took place in Washington, D.C., in 1971.[271] The city of Berkeley, California, has recognized Malcolm X's birthday as a citywide holiday since 1979.[272]
Many cities have renamed streets after Malcolm X; in 1987, New York mayor Ed Koch proclaimed Lenox Avenue in Harlem to be Malcolm X Boulevard.[273] The name of Reid Avenue in Brooklyn, New York, was changed to Malcolm X Boulevard in 1985.[274][275] In 1997, Oakland Avenue in Dallas, Texas, was renamed Malcolm X Boulevard.[276] Main Street in Lansing, Michigan, was renamed Malcolm X Street in 2010.[277]
There have been dozens of schools named after Malcolm X, including Malcolm X Shabazz High School in Newark, New Jersey,[278] Malcolm Shabazz City High School in Madison, Wisconsin,[279] and Malcolm X College in Chicago, Illinois.[280] Meanwhile, the Malcolm X Library and Performing Arts Center of the San Diego Public Library system opened in 1996. It is the first library named after Malcolm X.[281]
The U.S. Postal Service issued a Malcolm X postage stamp in 1999.[282] In 2005, Columbia University announced the opening of the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center. The memorial is located in the Audubon Ballroom, where Malcolm X was assassinated.[283] Collections of Malcolm X's papers are deposited at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the Robert W. Woodruff Library.[284][285][286]
Published works[link]
- The Autobiography of Malcolm X. With the assistance of Alex Haley. New York: Grove Press, 1965. OCLC 219493184.
- Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements. George Breitman, ed. New York: Merit Publishers, 1965. OCLC 256095445.
- Malcolm X Talks to Young People. New York: Young Socialist Alliance, 1965. OCLC 81990227.
- Two Speeches by Malcolm X. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1965. OCLC 19464959.
- Malcolm X on Afro-American History. New York: Merit Publishers, 1967. OCLC 78155009.
- The Speeches of Malcolm X at Harvard. Archie Epps, ed. New York: Morrow, 1968. OCLC 185901618.
- By Any Means Necessary: Speeches, Interviews, and a Letter by Malcolm X. George Breitman, ed. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1970. OCLC 249307.
- The End of White World Supremacy: Four Speeches by Malcolm X. Benjamin Karim, ed. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971. OCLC 149849.
- The Last Speeches. Bruce Perry, ed. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1989. ISBN 978-0-87348-543-2.
- Malcolm X Talks to Young People: Speeches in the United States, Britain, and Africa. Steve Clark, ed. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1991. ISBN 978-0-87348-962-1.
- February 1965: The Final Speeches. Steve Clark, ed. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1992. ISBN 978-0-87348-749-8.
See also[link]
References[link]
Footnotes[link]
- ^ This name includes the honorific El-Hajj, given on completion of the Hajj to Mecca. Malise Ruthven (1997). Islam: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. p. 147. ISBN 978-0-19-285389-9.
- ^ a b Perry, p. 2.
- ^ Perry, p. 3.
- ^ Natambu, p. 7.
- ^ Malcolm X, Autobiography, pp. 3–4. There have been many editions of The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Page numbers cited in the notes refer to the One World trade paperback edition (1992).
- ^ Natambu, p. 3.
- ^ a b Natambu, p. 6.
- ^ Perry, pp. 3–4.
- ^ Perry, pp. 2–3.
- ^ Malcolm X, Autobiography, p. 5.
- ^ Malcolm X, Autobiography, pp. 7, 10–11.
- ^ Perry, pp. 2, 4.
- ^ DeCaro, pp. 43–44.
- ^ Perry, p. 12.
- ^ Marable, Malcolm X, p. 29.
- ^ Natambu, p. 10.
- ^ Marable, Malcolm X, p. 32. Inflation information in source.
- ^ Marable, Malcolm X, p. 35.
- ^ Marable, Malcolm X, pp. 35–36, 265.
- ^ Perry, pp. 33–34, 331.
- ^ a b Perry, p. 42.
- ^ Natambu, pp. 21–29.
- ^ Perry, pp. 32–48.
- ^ Natambu, pp. 30–31.
- ^ Perry, pp. 58–81.
- ^ Marable, pp. 37, 51–52.
- ^ Marable, Malcolm X, pp. 65–66.
- ^ Perry, pp. 77, 82–83.
- ^ a b Carson, p. 108.
- ^ Malcolm X, Autobiography, p. 124.
- ^ Natambu, pp. 106–109.
- ^ Perry, p. 99.
- ^ Natambu, pp. 110–111.
- ^ Marable, Malcolm X, pp. 67–68.
- ^ Perry, pp. 104–106.
- ^ Natambu, p. 121.
- ^ Malcolm X, Autobiography, p. 178; ellipsis in original.
- ^ Perry, pp. 108–110.
- ^ Perry, p. 118.
- ^ Natambu, pp. 127–128.
- ^ Natambu, p. 128.
- ^ Perry, p. 113.
- ^ Natambu, pp. 132–138.
- ^ Perry, pp. 113–114.
- ^ Natambu, pp. 138–139.
- ^ Perry, p. 116.
- ^ Marable, Malcolm X, p. 98.
- ^ Malcolm X, Autobiography, p. 199.
- ^ Marable, Malcolm X, p. 96.
- ^ Malcolm X, Autobiography, p. 229.
- ^ Perry, pp. 142, 144–145.
- ^ Natambu, p. 168.
- ^ The Nation of Islam numbered its Temples according to the order in which they were established. Perry, pp. 141–142.
- ^ Marable, Malcolm X, p. 104.
- ^ Perry, p. 147.
- ^ Perry, p. 152.
- ^ Perry, p. 153.
- ^ Perry, pp. 161–164.
- ^ Marable, Malcolm X, p. 95.
- ^ Carson, p. 95.
- ^ Marable, Malcolm X, pp. 122–123.
- ^ a b c d Marable, "Rediscovering Malcolm's Life", p. 301.
- ^ Lincoln, p. 189.
- ^ a b c d Marable, Malcolm X, p. 127.
- ^ a b Perry, p. 164.
- ^ a b Perry, p. 165.
- ^ a b c d Marable, Malcolm X, p. 128.
- ^ Perry, p. 166.
- ^ Marable, Malcolm X, p. 132.
- ^ Marable, Malcolm X, pp. 134–135.
- ^ Rickford, pp. 36–45, 50–51.
- ^ Rickford, pp. 61–63.
- ^ Shabazz, Betty, "Malcolm X as a Husband and Father", Clarke, pp. 132–134.
- ^ Rickford, pp. 73–74.
- ^ Rickford, pp. 109–110.
- ^ In a 1992 interview, Attallah Shabazz said she was not named for Attila, rather her name was Arabic for "the gift of God". Miller, Russell (November 23, 1992). "X Patriot". New York. http://books.google.com/books?id=3-QCAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA30. Retrieved November 17, 2011.
- ^ Rickford, p. 122.
- ^ Rickford, p. 123.
- ^ Rickford, p. 197.
- ^ Rickford, p. 286.
- ^ Perry, pp. 174–179.
- ^ Manning, Malcolm X, pp. 135, 193.
- ^ Marable, Malcolm X, p. 172.
- ^ Lincoln, p. 18.
- ^ Natambu, pp. 231–233.
- ^ a b Lomax, When the Word Is Given, p. 55.
- ^ a b Perry, p. 115.
- ^ a b Lomax, When the Word Is Given, p. 57.
- ^ a b Lomax, When the Word Is Given, pp. 149–152.
- ^ a b Malcolm X, End of White World Supremacy, p. 78.
- ^ a b Lomax, When the Word Is Given, pp. 173–174.
- ^ Natambu, p. 182.
- ^ a b Cone, pp. 99–100.
- ^ a b West, Cornel (1984). "The Paradox of the Afro-American Rebellion". In Sayres, Sohnya; Stephanson, Anders; Aronowitz, Stanley et al.. The 60s Without Apology. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. p. 51. ISBN 978-0-8166-1336-6.
- ^ Cone, p. 91.
- ^ Lomax. When the Word Is Given. pp. 15–16. "Estimates of the Black Muslim membership vary from a quarter of a million down to fifty thousand. Available evidence indicates that about one hundred thousand Negroes have joined the movement at one time or another, but few objective observers believe that the Black Muslims can muster more than twenty or twenty-five thousand active temple people."
- ^ Marable, Malcolm X, p. 123.
- ^ Clegg. p. 115. "The common response of Malcolm X to questions about numbers—'Those who know aren't saying, and those who say don't know'—was typical of the attitude of the leadership."
- ^ Natambu, pp. 296–297
- ^ Ali, Muhammad (2004). The Soul of a Butterfly: Reflections on Life's Journey. with Hana Yasmeen Ali. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 61. ISBN 978-0-7432-5569-1.
- ^ Marable, Malcolm X, p. 162.
- ^ Natambu, pp. 215–216.
- ^ "The Black Supremacists". TIME. August 10, 1959. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,811191-1,00.html. Retrieved July 28, 2009. (Subscription required)
- ^ Lomax, When the Word Is Given, p. 172.
- ^ Lomax, When the Word Is Given, pp. 79–80.
- ^ Perry, p. 203.
- ^ King expressed mixed feelings toward Malcolm X. "He is very articulate... but I totally disagree with many of his political and philosophical views... I don't want to seem to sound self-righteous, ... or that I think I have the only truth, the only way. Maybe he does have some of the answer... I have often wished that he would talk less of violence, because violence is not going to solve our problem. And in his litany of articulating the despair of the Negro without offering any positive, creative alternative, I feel that Malcolm has done himself and our people a great disservice... [U]rging Negroes to arm themselves and prepare to engage in violence, as he has done, can reap nothing but grief." Haley, Alex (January 1965). "The Playboy Interview: Martin Luther King". Playboy. http://www.playboy.com/playground/interviews/playboy-interview-martin-luther-king. Retrieved May 30, 2012.
- ^ Cone, p. 113.
- ^ "Timeline". Malcolm X: Make It Plain, American Experience. PBS. May 19, 2005. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/malcolmx/timeline/timeline2.html. Retrieved July 27, 2008.
- ^ a b "Malcolm X Scores U.S. and Kennedy". The New York Times. December 2, 1963. p. 21. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0812FE35541A7B93C0A91789D95F478685F9. Retrieved July 28, 2008. (Subscription required)
- ^ Natambu, pp. 288–290.
- ^ Perry, p. 242.
- ^ a b c d Handler, M. S. (March 9, 1964). "Malcolm X Splits with Muhammad". The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F00D17FB395415738DDDA00894DB405B848AF1D3. Retrieved August 1, 2008. (Subscription required)
- ^ Perry, pp. 230–234
- ^ a b Perry, p. 214.
- ^ Perry, pp. 251–252.
- ^ Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks, pp. 18–22.
- ^ Perry, pp. 294–296.
- ^ Malcolm X, By Any Means Necessary, pp. 33–67.
- ^ Cone. p. 2. "There was no time for substantive discussions between the two. They were photographed greeting each other warmly, smiling and shaking hands."
- ^ Perry. p. 255. "Camera shutters clicked. The next day, the Chicago Sun-Times, the New York World Telegram and Sun, and other dailies carried a picture of Malcolm and Martin shaking hands."
- ^ Perry, pp. 257–259.
- ^ Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks, pp. 23–44.
- ^ Perry, p. 261.
- ^ Perry, pp. 262–263.
- ^ DeCaro, p. 204.
- ^ Perry, pp. 263–265.
- ^ Perry, pp. 265–266.
- ^ Perry, p. 267.
- ^ Malcolm X, Autobiography, pp. 388–393.
- ^ Natambu, pp. 304–305.
- ^ a b Natambu, p. 308.
- ^ Lomax, When the Word Is Given, p. 62.
- ^ Natambu, p. 303.
- ^ Perry, p. 269.
- ^ Malcolm X, Autobiography, p. 403.
- ^ Carson, p. 305.
- ^ Bethune, Lebert, "Malcolm X in Europe", Clarke, pp. 226–231.
- ^ Malcolm X, By Any Means Necessary, pp. 113–126.
- ^ Bethune, "Malcolm X in Europe", Clarke, pp. 231–233.
- ^ Malcolm X (December 3, 1964). "Malcolm X Oxford Debate". Malcolm X: A Research Site. http://www.brothermalcolm.net/2003/mx_oxford/index.html. Retrieved July 30, 2008.
- ^ Carson, p. 349.
- ^ Perry, p. 351.
- ^ Natambu, p. 312.
- ^ Kundnani, Arun (February 10, 2005). "Black British History: Remembering Malcolm's Visit to Smethwick". Independent Race and Refugee News Network. Institute of Race Relations. http://www.irr.org.uk/news/black-british-history-remembering-malcolms-visit-to-smethwick/. Retrieved May 30, 2012.
- ^ Terrill, p. 9.
- ^ Karim, p. 128.
- ^ a b Perry, pp. 277–278.
- ^ Karim, pp. 159–160.
- ^ Massaquoi, Hans J. (September 1964). "Mystery of Malcolm X". Ebony.
- ^ Lord, Lewis; Thornton, Jeannye; Bodipo-Memba, Alejandro (November 15, 1992). "The Legacy of Malcolm X". U.S. News & World Report. p. 3. http://www.usnews.com/usnews/culture/articles/921123/archive_018698.htm. Retrieved June 2, 2010.
- ^ Kondo, p. 170.
- ^ Majied, Eugene (April 10, 1964). "On My Own". Muhammad Speaks. [[|Nation of Islam]]. http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ccbh/mxp/images/sourcebook_img_111.jpg. Retrieved August 1, 2008.
- ^ Evanzz, p. 248.
- ^ Evanzz, p. 264.
- ^ Carson, p. 473.
- ^ Carson, p. 324.
- ^ Perry, pp. 290–292.
- ^ Perry, pp. 352–356.
- ^ a b Kihss, Peter (February 22, 1965). "Malcolm X Shot to Death at Rally Here". The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0A15F63F5812738DDDAB0A94DA405B858AF1D3. Retrieved August 1, 2008. (Subscription required)
- ^ Karim, p. 191.
- ^ a b Evanzz, p. 295.
- ^ In his Epilogue to The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Alex Haley wrote that Malcolm said, "Hold it! Hold it! Don't get excited. Let's cool it brothers." (p. 499.) According to a transcription of a recording of the shooting, Malcolm's only words were, "Hold it!", which he repeated 10 times. (DeCaro, p. 274.)
- ^ Perry, p. 366.
- ^ Marable, Malcolm X, p. 450.
- ^ Perry, pp. 366–367.
- ^ Talese, Gay (February 22, 1965). "Police Save Suspect From the Crowd". The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20E12F63F5812738DDDAB0A94DA405B858AF1D3. Retrieved August 1, 2008. (Subscription required)
- ^ Kondo, p. 97.
- ^ Kondo, p. 110.
- ^ Rickford, p. 289.
- ^ "Malcolm X Killer Heads Mosque". BBC News. March 31, 1998. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/71838.stm. Retrieved August 1, 2008.
- ^ Jacobson, Mark (October 1, 2007). "The Man Who Didn't Shoot Malcolm X". New York. http://nymag.com/news/features/38358/. Retrieved August 1, 2008.
- ^ Marable, Malcolm X, p. 474.
- ^ Rickford, p. 489
- ^ Marable, Malcolm X, pp. 474–475.
- ^ Perry, p. 374. Alex Haley, in his Epilogue to The Autobiography of Malcolm X, says 22,000 (p. 519).
- ^ a b Rickford, p. 252.
- ^ DeCaro, p. 291
- ^ a b Arnold, Martin (February 28, 1965). "Harlem Is Quiet as Crowds Watch Malcolm X Rites". The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60615FD38591B7A93CAAB1789D85F418685F9. Retrieved August 2, 2008. (Subscription required)
- ^ DeCaro, p. 290.
- ^ Davis, Ossie (February 27, 1965). "Malcolm X's Eulogy". The Official Website of Malcolm X. http://www.malcolmx.com/about/eulogy.html. Retrieved September 6, 2009.
- ^ Rickford, p. 255
- ^ Rickford, pp. 261–262.
- ^ King, Jr., Martin Luther (February 26, 1965). "Telegram from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Betty al-Shabazz". The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/documentsentry/telegram_from_martin_luther_king_jr_to_betty_al_shabazz/. Retrieved March 21, 2010.
- ^ Evanzz, p. 301.
- ^ Clegg, p. 232.
- ^ "Malcolm X". The New York Times. February 22, 1965. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20E13F63F5812738DDDAB0A94DA405B858AF1D3. Retrieved August 2, 2008. (Subscription required)
- ^ Rickford, p. 247.
- ^ Evanzz, p. 305.
- ^ Kenworthy, E. W. (February 26, 1965). "Malcolm Called a Martyr Abroad". The New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20D15F73F5812738DDDAF0A94DA405B858AF1D3. Retrieved August 2, 2008. (Subscription required)
- ^ Evanzz, p. 306.
- ^ Rickford, p. 248.
- ^ Perry, p. 371.
- ^ Marable, "Rediscovering Malcolm's Life", pp. 305–306.
- ^ Perry, p. 372.
- ^ Kondo, pp. 7–39.
- ^ a b Lomax, To Kill a Black Man, p. 198.
- ^ Evanzz, p. 294.
- ^ Bush, Roderick (1999). We Are Not What We Seem: Black Nationalism and Class Struggle in the American Century. New York: New York University Press. p. 179. ISBN 978-0-8147-1317-4.
- ^ Friedly, Michael (1992). Malcolm X: The Assassination. New York: Carroll & Graf. ISBN 978-0-88184-922-6.
- ^ Gardell, Mattias (1996). In the Name of Elijah Muhammad: Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press. p. 81. ISBN 978-0-8223-1845-3.
- ^ Rickford, pp. 437, 492–495.
- ^ Evanzz, pp. 298–299.
- ^ Kondo, pp. 182–183, 193–194.
- ^ Marable, "Rediscovering Malcolm's Life", p. 305.
- ^ Rickford, p. 492.
- ^ Wartofsky, Alona (February 17, 1995). "'Brother Minister: The Martyrdom of Malcolm X'". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/brotherministerthemartyrdomofmalcolmx_c0098f.htm. Retrieved August 1, 2008.
- ^ "Farrakhan Admission on Malcolm X". 60 Minutes. CBS News. May 14, 2000. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/05/10/60minutes/main194051.shtml. Retrieved August 2, 2008.
- ^ "Farrakhan Responds to Media Attacks". The Final Call. May 15, 2000. http://www.finalcall.com/columns/mlf/2000/mlf-60minutes05-15-2000.html. Retrieved August 2, 2008.
- ^ Natambu, pp. 315–316.
- ^ Kelley, Robin D. G. (1999). "Malcolm X". Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience. New York: Basic Civitas Books. p. 1233.
- ^ Terrill, pp. 15–16.
- ^ a b Lomax, When the Word Is Given, pp. 80–81.
- ^ Terrill, p. 184.
- ^ Lomax. When the Word Is Given. p. 91. "'I'll be honest with you,' Malcolm X said to me. 'Everybody is talking about differences between the Messenger and me. It is absolutely impossible for us to differ.'"
- ^ Lomax, When the Word Is Given, p. 67.
- ^ Lomax, When the Word Is Given, p. 171.
- ^ Lomax, When the Word Is Given, pp. 24, 137–138.
- ^ Malcolm X, Speeches at Harvard, p. 119.
- ^ DeCaro, pp. 166–167.
- ^ Malcolm X told Lewis Lomax that "The Messenger is the Prophet of Allah" (Lomax, When the Word Is Given, p. 80). On another occasion, he said "We never refer to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad as a prophet" (Malcolm X, Last Speeches, p. 46).
- ^ Lincoln, p. 95.
- ^ Lincoln, p. 96.
- ^ Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks, pp. 33–35.
- ^ Malcolm X, By Any Means Necessary, pp. 43, 47.
- ^ Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks, p. 90.
- ^ Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks, p. 117.
- ^ a b Cone, p. 284.
- ^ Perry, p. 277.
- ^ Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks, pp. 38–41.
- ^ Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks, pp. 212–213.
- ^ Malcolm X, Autobiography, p. 391.
- ^ Parks, Gordon, "Malcolm X: The Minutes of Our Last Meeting", Clarke, p. 122.
- ^ Asante, Molefi Kete (2002). 100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Amhert, N.Y.: Prometheus Books. p. 333. ISBN 978-1-57392-963-9.
- ^ Marable, Manning; Nishani Frazier, John Campbell McMillian (2003). Freedom on My Mind: The Columbia Documentary History of the African American Experience. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 251. ISBN 978-0-231-10890-4.
- ^ Salley, Columbus (1999). The Black 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential African-Americans, Past and Present. New York: Citadel Press. p. 88. ISBN 978-0-8065-2048-3.
- ^ Cone, pp. 291–292.
- ^ Nasr, Seyyed Hossein (2002). The Heart of Islam: Enduring Values for Humanity. New York: HarperCollins. p. 97. ISBN 978-0-06-073064-2.
- ^ Perry, p. 379.
- ^ Turner, Richard Brent (2004). "Islam in the African-American Experience". In Bobo, Jacqueline; Hudley, Cynthia; Michel, Claudine. The Black Studies Reader. New York: Routledge. p. 445. ISBN 978-0-415-94554-7.
- ^ Perry, p. 380.
- ^ Sales, p. 187
- ^ Woodard, Komozi (1999). A Nation Within a Nation: Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones) & Black Power Politics. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press. p. 62. ISBN 978-0-8078-4761-9.
- ^ Cone, p. 291.
- ^ Marable, "Rediscovering Malcolm's Life", pp. 301–302.
- ^ Sales, p. 5.
- ^ Marable, "Rediscovering Malcolm's Life", p. 302.
- ^ Sales, p. 3.
- ^ Sales, p. 4
- ^ Haley, "Epilogue", Autobiography, p. 471.
- ^ Perry, p. 375.
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- ^ Henahan, Donal (September 29, 1986). "Opera: Anthony Davis's 'X (The Life and Times of Malcolm X)'". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/1986/09/29/arts/opera-anthony-davis-s-x-the-life-and-times-of-malcolm-x.html. Retrieved August 9, 2008.
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- ^ Rickford, p. 443.
- ^ Rickford, p. 419.
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Works cited[link]
- Carson, Clayborne (1991). Malcolm X: The FBI File. New York: Carroll & Graf. ISBN 978-0-88184-758-1.
- Clarke, John Henrik, ed. (1990) [1969]. Malcolm X: The Man and His Times. Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press. ISBN 978-0-86543-201-7.
- Clegg III, Claude Andrew (1997). An Original Man: The Life and Times of Elijah Muhammad. New York: St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 978-0-312-18153-6.
- Cone, James H. (1991). Martin & Malcolm & America: A Dream or a Nightmare. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books. ISBN 978-0-88344-721-5.
- DeCaro, Jr., Louis A. (1996). On the Side of My People: A Religious Life of Malcolm X. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-1864-3.
- Dyson, Michael Eric (1995). Making Malcolm: The Myth and Meaning of Malcolm X. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-509235-6.
- Evanzz, Karl (1992). The Judas Factor: The Plot to Kill Malcolm X. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press. ISBN 978-1-56025-049-4.
- Karim, Benjamin; with Peter Skutches and David Gallen (1992). Remembering Malcolm. New York: Carroll & Graf. ISBN 978-0-88184-881-6.
- Kondo, Zak A. (1993). Conspiracys: Unravelling the Assassination of Malcolm X. Washington, D.C.: Nubia Press. OCLC 28837295.
- Lincoln, C. Eric (1961). The Black Muslims in America. Boston: Beacon Press. OCLC 422580.
- Lomax, Louis E. (1987) [1968]. To Kill a Black Man: The Shocking Parallel in the Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Los Angeles: Holloway House. ISBN 978-0-87067-731-1.
- Lomax, Louis E. (1963). When the Word Is Given: A Report on Elijah Muhammad, Malcolm X, and the Black Muslim World. Cleveland: World Publishing. OCLC 1071204.
- Malcolm X; with the assistance of Alex Haley (1992) [1965]. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: One World. ISBN 978-0-345-37671-8.
- Malcolm X (1989) [1970]. By Any Means Necessary: Speeches, Interviews, and a Letter by Malcolm X. George Breitman, ed. New York: Pathfinder Press. ISBN 978-0-87348-150-2.
- Malcolm X (1989) [1971]. The End of White World Supremacy: Four Speeches by Malcolm X. Benjamin Karim, ed. New York: Arcade. ISBN 978-1-55970-006-1.
- Malcolm X (1990) [1965]. Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements. George Breitman, ed. New York: Grove Weidenfeld. ISBN 978-0-8021-3213-0.
- Malcolm X (1991) [1968]. The Speeches of Malcolm X at Harvard. Archie Epps, ed. New York: Paragon House. ISBN 978-1-55778-479-7.
- Marable, Manning (2011). Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. New York: Viking. ISBN 978-0-670-02220-5.
- Marable, Manning (2009). "Rediscovering Malcolm's Life: A Historian's Adventures in Living History". In Marable, Manning; Aidi, Hishaam D. Black Routes to Islam. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-8400-5.
- Natambu, Kofi (2002). The Life and Work of Malcolm X. Indianapolis: Alpha Books. ISBN 978-0-02-864218-5.
- Perry, Bruce (1991). Malcolm: The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America. Barrytown, N.Y.: Station Hill. ISBN 978-0-88268-103-0.
- Rickford, Russell J. (2003). Betty Shabazz: A Remarkable Story of Survival and Faith Before and After Malcolm X. Naperville, Ill.: Sourcebooks. ISBN 978-1-4022-0171-4.
- Sales, Jr., William W. (1994). From Civil Rights to Black Liberation: Malcolm X and the Organization of Afro-American Unity. Boston: South End Press. ISBN 978-0-89608-480-3.
- Terrill, Robert (2004). Malcolm X: Inventing Radical Judgment. Lansing, Mich.: Michigan State University Press. ISBN 978-0-87013-730-3.
- Wood, Joe, ed. (1992). Malcolm X: In Our Image. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-06609-3.
Further reading[link]
- Baldwin, James (2007) [1973]. One Day, When I Was Lost: A Scenario Based on Alex Haley's "The Autobiography of Malcolm X". New York: Vintage. ISBN 978-0-307-27594-3.
- Boyd, Herb; Daniels, Ron; Karenga, Maulana et al., eds. (2012). By Any Means Necessary: Malcolm X: Real, Not Reinvented. Chicago: Third World Press. ISBN 978-0-88378-336-8.
- Breitman, George (1967). The Last Year of Malcolm X: The Evolution of a Revolutionary. New York: Pathfinder Press. ISBN 978-0-87348-004-8.
- Breitman, George; Porter, Herman; Smith, Baxter (1991) [1976]. The Assassination of Malcolm X. New York: Pathfinder Press. ISBN 978-0-87348-632-3.
- Cleage, Albert B.; Breitman, George (1968). Myths About Malcolm X: Two Views. New York: Merit. OCLC 615819.
- Collins, Rodnell P. (1998). Seventh Child: A Family Memoir of Malcolm X. Secaucus, N.J.: Birch Lane Press. ISBN 978-1-55972-491-3.
- Conyers, Jr., James L.; Smallwood, Andrew P., eds. (2008). Malcolm X: A Historical Reader. Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-89089-228-2.
- DeCaro, Louis A. (1998). Malcolm and the Cross: The Nation of Islam, Malcolm X, and Christianity. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-1932-9.
- Friedly, Michael (1995). Malcolm X: The Assassination. New York: One World. ISBN 978-0-345-40010-9.
- Gallen, David, ed. (1992). Malcolm X: As They Knew Him. New York: Carroll & Graf. ISBN 978-0-88184-850-2.
- Goldman, Peter (1979) [1973]. The Death and Life of Malcolm X. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-00774-3.
- Jamal, Hakim A. (1972). From The Dead Level: Malcolm X and Me. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-0-394-46234-9.
- Jenkins, Robert L. (2002). The Malcolm X Encyclopedia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-29264-4.
- Kly, Yussuf Naim, ed. (1986). The Black Book: The True Political Philosophy of Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik El Shabazz). Atlanta: Clarity Press. ISBN 978-0-932863-03-4.
- Leader, Edward Roland (1993). Understanding Malcolm X: The Controversial Changes in His Political Philosophy. New York: Vantage Press. ISBN 978-0-533-09520-9.
- Lee, Spike; with Ralph Wiley (1992). By Any Means Necessary: The Trials and Tribulations of the Making of Malcolm X. New York: Hyperion. ISBN 978-1-56282-913-1.
- Shabazz, Ilyasah; with Kim McLarin (2002). Growing Up X: A Memoir by the Daughter of Malcolm X. New York: One World. ISBN 978-0-345-44495-0.
- Strickland, William; et al. (1994). Malcolm X: Make It Plain. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-017713-8.
- Terrill, Robert, ed. (2010). The Cambridge Companion to Malcolm X. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-73157-7.
- T'Shaka, Oba (1983). The Political Legacy of Malcolm X. Richmond, Calif.: Pan Afrikan Publications. ISBN 978-1-878557-01-8.
- Wolfenstein, Eugene Victor (1989). The Victims of Democracy: Malcolm X and the Black Revolution. London: Free Association Books. ISBN 978-1-85343-111-1.
External links[link]
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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Malcolm X |
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Malcolm X |
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Wikisource has original works written by or about: |
- The Official Web Site of Malcolm X
- Malcolm X: Make It Plain
- malcolm-x.org
- Malcolm X: A Profile
- The Malcolm X Project at Columbia University
- Malcolm X Reference Archive
- Malcolm X: A Research Site
- Works by or about Malcolm X in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Interviews
- Interview with Dr. Kenneth Clark, Spring 1963
- Video interview with Herman Blake, October 1963
- Interview with Louis Lomax, from When the Word Is Given (December 1963)
- Interview with A.B. Spellman, May 1964
- CBC television interview, January 1965
- The short film OPEN MIND Special: Race Relations in Crisis 6/12/63 - 11/13/92 (1963/1992) is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
- Speeches
- Other links
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| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| Name | Malcolm X |
| Alternative names | Little, Malcolm; El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz |
| Short description | Nation of Islam leader |
| Date of birth | May 19, 1925 |
| Place of birth | North Omaha, Nebraska, United States |
| Date of death | February 21, 1965 |
| Place of death | New York City, New York, United States |
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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.
