North Atlantic Treaty

North Atlantic Treaty authentication page
Type	Military Alliance
Signed	4 April 1949
Location	Washington, D.C.
Effective	24 August 1949
Condition	Ratification by Belgium, Canada, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States and by a majority of the other signatory states.
Signatories	28  Albania  Belgium  Bulgaria Canada  Croatia  Czech Republic  Denmark  Estonia  France  Germany  Greece  Hungary  Iceland  Italy  Latvia  Lithuania  Luxembourg  Netherlands  Norway  Poland  Portugal  Romania  Slovakia  Slovenia  Spain  Turkey  United Kingdom  United States
Depository	Government of the United States of America
Languages	French, English
North Atlantic Treaty at Wikisource
v t e

The North Atlantic Treaty, signed in Washington, D.C. on 4 April 1949, is the treaty establishing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

Background[link]

The treaty was created with an armed attack by the Soviet Union against Western Europe in mind, but the mutual self-defense clause was never invoked during the Cold War. Rather, it was invoked for the first time in 2001 in response to the 11 September 2001 attacks against the World Trade Center and The Pentagon in Operation Eagle Assist.

Original Members[link]

The original twelve nations that signed it and thus became the founding members of NATO were:

Map of NATO countries chronological membership.

Signing[link]

The leaders of the countries who in Washington D.C. signed the agreement as plenipotentiaries were:

• Canada – Lester B Pearson and H. H. Wrong
•  Denmark – Gustav Rasmussen and Henrik de Kauffmann
•  Iceland – Bjarni Benediktsson and Ólafur Thors
•  Italy – Carlo Sforza
•  United Kingdom – Ernest Bevin and Oliver Franks, Baron Franks
•  United States – Dean Acheson

Later Members[link]

The following nations joined the treaty shortly after the original countries:

When German reunification occurred in 1990, the country as a whole became a member of NATO.

During the April 2008 summit, Croatia and Albania were officially invited to join NATO. They both signed the treaty and officially joined NATO on April 1,2009.

Article Five[link]

The key section of the treaty was Article V. This committed each member state to consider an armed attack against one state to be an armed attack against all states.

U.S. Ratification[link]

In the United States, the treaty was ratified by the US Senate in a vote of 82 to 13 on July 21,1949.

See also[link]

• NATO
• Warsaw Pact

External links[link]

• Official text

v t e Treaties of Hungary 9th-10th century (age of Magyars) Legend of the white horse (894) Magyar-East Frankish Treaty (899) First Magyar-Italian Treaty (900) Treaty of Bergamo (904) Third Magyar-Italian Treaty (924) Magyar-Holy Roman Treaty (927) First Magyar-Byzantine Treaty (934) Second Magyar-Byzantine Treaty (943) Third Magyar-Byzantine Treaty (948) 1000-1301 (Árpád dynasty) Treaty of Strigonium (1031) First Hungarian-Holy Roman Treaty (1043) Second Hungarian-Holy Roman Treaty (1058) Second Hungarian-Holy Roman Treaty (1058) Treaty of Serdica (1058) Hungarian-Byzantine Treaty (1971) Hungarian-Byzantine Treaty (1971) Hungarian-Kievan Rus' Treaty (1092) Hungarian-Venetian Treaty (1097) Personal union of Hungary and Croatia (1102) Third Hungarian-Holy Roman Treaty (1108) Hungarian-Czech Treaty (1126) Hungarian-Bavarian Treaty (1127) Treaty of Branitshevo (1129) Hungarian-Byzantine Treaties (1153-1167) First Hungarian-Venetian Truce (1187) Second Hungarian-Venetian Truce (1190) Hungarian-Polish Treaty (1193) Hungarian-Novgorodian Treaty (1219-1221) Treaty of Graz (1225) Hungarian-Austrian Treaty (1235) Treaty of Galas (1244) Treaty of Buda (1254) Treaty of Vienna (1261) Treaty of Pressburg (1271) Treaty of Hainburg (1291) 1302-1526 (Middle ages to Tripartition) Treaty of Bruck (1328) Treaty of Enns (1336) Hungarian-Lithuanian Treaty (1351) Hungarian-Neapolitan Treaty (1352) Treaty of Zara (1358) Treaty of Brunn (1364) Treaty of Torino (1381) Treaty of Iglo (1397) Treaty of Lubowla (1412) Truce of Eger (1437) Peace of Szeged (1444) Truce of Radkersburg (1447) Hunyadi-Frederick pact (1450) Peace Treaty of Wiener Neustadt (1463) Treaty of Ófalu (1474) Treaty of Korneoburg-Gmunden (1477) Treaty of Brno (1478) Treaty of Piotrków (1479) Treaty of Olomouc (1479) Treaty of Pressburg (1491) First Congress of Vienna (1515) Dual reign, Ottoman vassalship, reconquest and Napoleonic Wars (1526-1848) Franco-Hungarian alliance (1526) Treaty of Grosswardein (1538) Treaty of Gyula (1541) Confessio Pentapolitana (1549) Treaty of Speyer (1570) Treaty of Szatmár (1711) 1526-1848 (Royal Hungary to Independence) Truce of Adrianople (1547) Treaty of Adrianople (1568) Treaty of Vienna (1606) Peace of Zsitvatorok (1606) Peace of Szőny (1627) Peace of Vasvár (1664) Holy League (1684) Diploma Leopoldium (1690) Treaty of Karlowitz (1699) Treaty of Passarowitz (1718) Pragmatic Sanction (1723) Treaty of Belgrade (1739) Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748) First Partition of Poland (1772) Treaty of Sistova (1791) Treaty of Campo Formio (1797) Treaty of Schönbrunn (1809) Congress of Vienna (1815) (1571–1711) (Principality of Transylvania) Alliance of Alba Iulia (1595) Peace of Nikolsburg (1621) Treaty of Vienna (1624) Treaty of Pressburg (1626) Treaty of Linz (1645) Treaty of Nymwegen (1679) Diet of Ónod (1707) Austria-Hungary to the end of World War I (1848-1922) Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 Croatian–Hungarian Settlement (1868) League of the Three Emperors (1873) Treaty of Bern (1874) Reichstadt Agreement (1876) Treaty of Berlin (1878) Dual Alliance, 1879 Triple Alliance (1882) Boxer Protocol (1901) Treaty of London (1913) Armistice of Focşani (1917) Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Ukraine (1918) Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (1918) Treaty of Bucharest (1918) Armistice of Villa Giusti (1918) Belgrade Convention (1919) Treaty of Trianon (1920) Armistice with Romania (1920) Bill of dethronement (1921) US–Hungarian Peace Treaty (1921) Covenant of the League of Nations (1922) Modern age (1922-) Treaties of the Kingdom of Hungary (1922–1946) Hungarian-Soviet Reparations Agreement (1946) Hungarian-Czechoslovak population exchange agreement (1946) Hungarian-Czechoslovak Reparations Agreement (1946) Hungarian-Yugoslav Reparations Agreement (1946) Hungarian-Yugoslav economic and cooperation treaty (1947) Hungarian-Yugoslav Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance (1947) Paris Peace Treaties, 1947 Hungarian-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance (1948) Soviet weaponry supply agreement (1948) Agreement of Štrbské Pleso (1949) Treaties of the People's Republic of Hungary (1949–1989) Treaties of the Third Republic of Hungary (1989–)

The Atlantic Ocean, not including Arctic and Antarctic regions

Earth's oceans (World Ocean)
Arctic Ocean Atlantic Ocean Indian Ocean Pacific Ocean Southern Ocean

This video was taken by the crew of Expedition 29 on board the ISS. The pass starts from just north-east of the Island of Newfoundland over the North Atlantic Ocean to central Africa, over South Sudan.

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about 106,400,000 square kilometres (41,100,000 sq mi),^[1] it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area. The first part of its name refers to Atlas of Greek mythology, making the Atlantic the "Sea of Atlas".

The oldest known mention of "Atlantic" is in The Histories of Herodotus around 450 BC (Hdt. 1.202.4): Atlantis thalassa (Greek: Ἀτλαντὶς θάλασσα; English: Sea of Atlas); see also: Atlas Mountains. The term Ethiopic Ocean, derived from Ethiopia, was applied to the southern Atlantic ocean as late as the mid-19th century.^[2] Before Europeans discovered other oceans, the term "ocean" itself was synonymous with the waters beyond the Strait of Gibraltar that we now know as the Atlantic. The early Greeks believed this ocean to be a gigantic river encircling the world.

The Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Europe and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. As one component of the interconnected global ocean, it is connected in the north to the Arctic Ocean (which is sometimes considered a sea of the Atlantic), to the Pacific Ocean in the southwest, the Indian Ocean in the southeast, and the Southern Ocean in the south. (Other definitions describe the Atlantic as extending southward to Antarctica.) The equator subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean and South Atlantic Ocean.

Geography[link]

The Atlantic Ocean as seen from the western coast of Portugal

The Atlantic Ocean is bounded on the west by North and South America. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea and Barents Sea. To the east, the boundaries of the ocean proper are Europe; the Strait of Gibraltar (where it connects with the Mediterranean Sea –one of its marginal seas– and, in turn, the Black Sea) and Africa.

In the southeast, the Atlantic merges into the Indian Ocean. The 20° East meridian, running south from Cape Agulhas to Antarctica defines its border. Some authorities show it extending south to Antarctica, while others show it bounded at the 60° parallel by the Southern Ocean.^[3]

In the southwest, the Drake Passage connects it to the Pacific Ocean. The man-made Panama Canal links the Atlantic and Pacific. Besides those mentioned, other large bodies of water adjacent to the Atlantic are the Caribbean Sea; the Gulf of Mexico; Hudson Bay; the Arctic Ocean; the Mediterranean Sea; the North Sea; the Baltic Sea and the Celtic Sea.

Covering approximately 22% of Earth's surface, the Atlantic is second in size to the Pacific. With its adjacent seas, it occupies an area of about 106,400,000 square kilometres (41,100,000 sq mi);^[1] without them, it has an area of 82,400,000 square kilometres (31,800,000 sq mi). The land that drains into the Atlantic covers four times that of either the Pacific or Indian oceans. The volume of the Atlantic with its adjacent seas is 354,700,000 cubic kilometers (85,100,000 cu mi) and without them 323,600,000 cubic kilometres (77,640,000 cu mi).

The average depth of the Atlantic, with its adjacent seas, is 3,339 metres (1,826 fathoms; 10,950 ft); without them it is 3,926 metres (2,147 fathoms; 12,880 ft). The greatest depth, Milwaukee Deep with 8,380 metres (4,580 fathoms; 27,500 ft), is in the Puerto Rico Trench. The Atlantic's width varies from 1,538 nautical miles (2,848 km; 1,770 mi) between Brazil and Sierra Leone to over 3,450 nautical miles (6,400 km; 4,000 mi) in the south.^{[citation needed]}

Cultural significance[link]

This section requires expansion.

Transatlantic travel played a major role in the expansion of Western civilization into the Americas. It is the Atlantic that separates the "Old World" from the "New World". In modern times, some idioms refer to the ocean in a humorously diminutive way as the Pond, describing both the geographical and cultural divide between North America and Europe, in particular between the English-speaking nations of both continents. Many British people refer to the United States and Canada as "across the pond", and vice versa.^[4]

Ocean bottom[link]

Map that uses color to show ocean depth

The principal feature of the bathymetry (bottom topography) is a submarine mountain range called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.^[5] It extends from Iceland in the north to approximately 58° South latitude, reaching a maximum width of about 860 nautical miles (1,590 km; 990 mi). A great rift valley also extends along the ridge over most of its length. The depth of water at the apex of the ridge is less than 2,700 metres (1,500 fathoms; 8,900 ft) in most places, while the bottom of the ridge is three times as deep. Several peaks rise above the water and form islands.^[6] The South Atlantic Ocean has an additional submarine ridge, the Walvis Ridge.^[7]

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge separates the Atlantic Ocean into two large troughs with depths from 3,700–5,500 metres (2,000–3,000 fathoms; 12,000–18,000 ft). Transverse ridges running between the continents and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge divide the ocean floor into numerous basins. Some of the larger basins are the Blake, Guiana, North American, Cape Verde, and Canaries basins in the North Atlantic. The largest South Atlantic basins are the Angola, Cape, Argentina, and Brazil basins.

The deep ocean floor is thought to be fairly flat with occasional deeps, abyssal plains, trenches, seamounts, basins, plateaus, canyons, and some guyots. Various shelves along the margins of the continents constitute about 11% of the bottom topography with few deep channels cut across the continental rise.

Ocean floor trenches and seamounts:

• Puerto Rico Trench, in the North Atlantic, is the deepest trench at 8,605 metres (4,705 fathoms; 28,230 ft)^[8]
• Laurentian Abyss is found off the eastern coast of Canada
• South Sandwich Trench reaches a depth of 8,428 metres (4,608 fathoms; 27,650 ft)
• Romanche Trench is located near the equator and reaches a depth of about 7,454 metres (4,076 fathoms; 24,460 ft).

Ocean sediments are composed of:

• Terrigenous deposits with land origins, consisting of sand, mud, and rock particles formed by erosion, weathering, and volcanic activity on land washed to sea. These materials are found mostly on the continental shelves and are thickest near large river mouths or off desert coasts.
• Pelagic deposits, which contain the remains of organisms that sink to the ocean floor, include red clays and Globigerina, pteropod, and siliceous oozes. Covering most of the ocean floor and ranging in thickness from 60–3,300 metres (33–1,800 fathoms; 200–11,000 ft) they are thickest in the convergence belts, notably at the Hamilton Ridge and in upwelling zones.
• Authigenic deposits consist of such materials as manganese nodules. They occur where sedimentation proceeds slowly or where currents sort the deposits, such as in the Hewett Curve.

Water characteristics[link]

Path of the thermohaline circulation. Purple paths represent deep-water currents, while blue paths represent surface currents.

Map of the five major ocean gyres

On average, the Atlantic is the saltiest major ocean; surface water salinity in the open ocean ranges from 33 to 37 parts per thousand (3.3 – 3.7%) by mass and varies with latitude and season. Evaporation, precipitation, river inflow and sea ice melting influence surface salinity values. Although the lowest salinity values are just north of the equator (because of heavy tropical rainfall), in general the lowest values are in the high latitudes and along coasts where large rivers enter. Maximum salinity values occur at about 25° north and south, in subtropical regions with low rainfall and high evaporation.

Surface water temperatures, which vary with latitude, current systems, and season and reflect the latitudinal distribution of solar energy, range from below −2 °C (28 °F). Maximum temperatures occur north of the equator, and minimum values are found in the polar regions. In the middle latitudes, the area of maximum temperature variations, values may vary by 7–8 °C (12–15 °F).

The Atlantic Ocean consists of four major water masses. The North and South Atlantic central waters make up the surface. The sub-Antarctic intermediate water extends to depths of 1,000 metres (550 fathoms; 3,300 ft). The North Atlantic Deep Water reaches depths of as much as 4,000 metres (2,200 fathoms; 13,000 ft). The Antarctic Bottom Water occupies ocean basins at depths greater than 4,000 metres.

Within the North Atlantic, ocean currents isolate the Sargasso Sea, a large elongated body of water, with above average salinity. The Sargasso Sea contains large amounts of seaweed and is also the spawning ground for both the European eel and the American eel.

The Coriolis effect circulates North Atlantic water in a clockwise direction, whereas South Atlantic water circulates counter-clockwise. The south tides in the Atlantic Ocean are semi-diurnal; that is, two high tides occur during each 24 lunar hours. In latitudes above 40° North some east-west oscillation occurs.

Climate[link]

Waves in the trade winds in the Atlantic Ocean—areas of converging winds that move along the same track as the prevailing wind—create instabilities in the atmosphere that may lead to the formation of hurricanes.

Climate is influenced by the temperatures of the surface waters and water currents as well as winds. Because of the ocean's great capacity to store and release heat, maritime climates are more moderate and have less extreme seasonal variations than inland climates. Precipitation can be approximated from coastal weather data and air temperature from water temperatures.

The oceans are the major source of the atmospheric moisture that is obtained through evaporation. Climatic zones vary with latitude; the warmest zones stretch across the Atlantic north of the equator. The coldest zones are in high latitudes, with the coldest regions corresponding to the areas covered by sea ice. Ocean currents influence climate by transporting warm and cold waters to other regions. The winds that are cooled or warmed when blowing over these currents influence adjacent land areas.

The Gulf Stream and its northern extension towards Europe, the North Atlantic Drift, for example, warms the atmosphere of the British Isles and north-western Europe and influences weather and climate as far south as the northern Mediterranean. The cold water currents contribute to heavy fog off the coast of eastern Canada (the Grand Banks of Newfoundland area) and Africa's north-western coast. In general, winds transport moisture and air over land areas. Hurricanes develop in the southern part of the North Atlantic Ocean. More local particular weather examples could be found in examples such as the; Azores High , Benguela Current, Nor'easter.

History[link]

Animation of showing the separation of Pangaea, which formed the Atlantic Ocean known today

The Atlantic Ocean appears to be the second youngest of the five oceans. It did not exist prior to 130 million years ago, when the continents that formed from the breakup of the ancestral super continent Pangaea were drifting apart from seafloor spreading. The Atlantic has been extensively explored since the earliest settlements along its shores.

The Vikings, the Portuguese, and the Spaniards were the most famous among early explorers. After Columbus, European exploration rapidly accelerated, and many new trade routes were established.

As a result, the Atlantic became and remains the major artery between Europe and the Americas (known as transatlantic trade). Scientific explorations include the Challenger expedition, the German Meteor expedition, Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the United States Navy Hydrographic Office.

Notable crossings[link]

Ra II, a ship built from papyrus, was successfully sailed across the Atlantic by Thor Heyerdahl proving that it was possible to cross the Atlantic from Africa using such boats in early epochs of history.

• Around 980 – 982, Eric the Red discovered Greenland, geographically and geologically a part of the Americas.
• In 985 or 986, Bjarni Herjólfsson was the first European to sight the Americas. He did not go ashore, though.
• In the year 1000, the Icelander Leif Ericson was the first European to set foot on North American soil, corresponding to today's Eastern coast of Canada, i. e. the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, including the area of land named "Vinland" by Ericson. The Norse discovery was documented in the 13th century Icelandic Sagas and was corroborated by recent L'Anse aux Meadows archeological evidence.
• Around 1010, Thorfinnr Karlsefni led an attempted Viking settlement in North America with 160 settlers, but was later driven off by the natives. His son Snorri Thorfinnsson was the first American born (somewhere between 1010 and 1013) to European (Icelandic) immigrant parents.
• In 1419 and 1427, Portuguese navigators reached Madeira and Azores, respectively.
• From 1415 to 1488, Portuguese navigators sailed along the Western African coast, reaching the Cape of Good Hope.
• In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed on the island of San Salvador in The Bahamas.
• In 1497, John Cabot landed at Bonavista Newfoundland and Labrador.
• In 1500, Pedro Álvares Cabral reached Brazil.
• In 1524, Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano discovered the United States of America's east coast.
• In 1534, Jacques Cartier entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence and reached the mouth of the St. Lawrence River.
• In 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed Newfoundland for the English Crown.
• In 1764 William Harrison (the son of John Harrison) sailed aboard the HMS Tartar, with the H-4 time piece. The voyage became the basis for the invention of the global system of Longitude.
• In 1858, Cyrus West Field laid the first transatlantic telegraph cable (it quickly failed).
• In 1865 Brunel's ship the SS Great Eastern laid the first successful transatlantic telegraph cable .
• In 1870 the small City of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) became the first small Lifeboat to cross the Atlantic from Cork to Boston with two men crew, John Charles Buckley and Nikola Primorac (di Costa), only.^[9]
• In 1896 Frank Samuelsen and George Harbo from Norway became the first people to ever row across the Atlantic Ocean.
• On April 15, 1912 the RMS Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg with a loss of more than 1,500 lives.^[10]
• 1914–1918, the First Battle of the Atlantic took place.
• In 1919, the American NC-4 became the first seaplane to cross the Atlantic (though it made a couple of landings on islands and the sea along the way, and taxied several hundred miles).
• Later in 1919, a British aeroplane piloted by Alcock and Brown made the first non-stop transatlantic flight, from Newfoundland to Ireland.
• In 1921, the British were the first to cross the North Atlantic in an airship.
• In 1922, Sacadura Cabral and Gago Coutinho were the first to cross the South Atlantic in an airship.
• In 1927, Charles Lindbergh made the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight in an aircraft (between New York City and Paris).
• In 1931, Bert Hinkler made the first solo non-stop transatlantic flight across the South Atlantic in an aircraft.
• In 1932, Amelia Earhart became the first female to make a solo flight across the Atlantic
• 1939–1945, the Second Battle of the Atlantic. Nearly 3,700 Allied ships were sunk at a cost of 783 German U-boats.^[11]
• In 1952, Ann Davison was the first woman to single-handedly sail the Atlantic Ocean.
• In 1965, Robert Manry crossed the Atlantic from the U.S. to England non-stop in a 13.5 foot (4.05 meters) sailboat named "Tinkerbell".^[12] Several others also crossed the Atlantic in very small sailboats in the 1960s, none of them non-stop, though.
• In 1969 and 1970 Thor Heyerdahl launched expeditions to cross the Atlantic in boats built from papyrus. He succeeded in crossing the Atlantic from Morocco to Barbados after a two-month voyage of 6,100 km with Ra II in 1970, thus conclusively proving that boats such as the Ra could have sailed with the Canary Current across the Atlantic in prehistoric times.^[13]
• In 1975, Fons Oerlemans crossed the Atlantic in 82 days, starting from Safi (Morocco) to Trinidad and Tobago, on a selfmade raft.
• In 1980, Gérard d'Aboville was the first man to cross the Atlantic Ocean rowing.
• In 1984, Five Argentines sail in a 10-meter-long raft made from tree trunks named Atlantis from Canary Islands and after 52 days 3,000 miles (4,800 km) journey arrived to Venezuela in an attempt to prove travelers from Africa may have crossed the Atlantic before Christopher Columbus.^[14][15]
• In 1994, Guy Delage was the first man to allegedly swim across the Atlantic Ocean (with the help of a kick board, from Cape Verde to Barbados).
• In 1998, Benoît Lecomte was the first man to swim across the northern Atlantic Ocean without a kick board, stopping for only one week in the Azores.
• In 1999, after rowing for 81 days and 4,767 kilometres (2,962 mi), Tori Murden became the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean by rowboat alone when she reached Guadeloupe from the Canary Islands.

Ethiopic Ocean[link]

The Aethiopian Sea, Ethiopic Ocean or Ethiopian Ocean (Okeanos Aithiopos), is an old name for what is now called the South Atlantic Ocean, which is separated from the North Atlantic Ocean by a narrow region between Natal, Brazil and Monrovia, Liberia. The use of this term illustrates a past trend towards referring to the whole continent of Africa by the name Aethiopia. The modern nation of Ethiopia, in northeast Africa, is nowhere near the Ethiopic Ocean, which would be said to lie off the west coast of Africa. The term Ethiopian Ocean sometimes appeared until the mid-19th century.^{[citation needed]}

Economy[link]

The Atlantic has contributed significantly to the development and economy of surrounding countries. Besides major transatlantic transportation and communication routes, the Atlantic offers abundant petroleum deposits in the sedimentary rocks of the continental shelves. The Atlantic hosts the world's richest fishing resources, especially in the waters covering the shelves. The major fish are cod, haddock, hake, herring, and mackerel.

The most productive areas include Newfoundland's Grand Banks, the Nova Scotia shelf, Georges Bank off Cape Cod, the Bahama Banks, the waters around Iceland, the Irish Sea, the Dogger Bank of the North Sea, and the Falkland Banks. Eel, lobster, and whales appear in great quantities. Various international treaties attempt to reduce pollution caused by environmental threats such as oil spills, marine debris, and the incineration of toxic wastes at sea.

Terrain[link]

From October to June the surface is usually covered with sea ice in the Labrador Sea, Denmark Strait, and Baltic Sea. A clockwise warm-water gyre occupies the northern Atlantic, and a counter-clockwise warm-water gyre appears in the southern Atlantic. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a rugged north-south centerline for the entire Atlantic basin, first discovered by the Challenger Expedition dominates the ocean floor. This was formed by the vulcanism that also formed the ocean floor and the islands rising from it.

The Atlantic has irregular coasts indented by numerous bays, gulfs, and seas. These include the Norwegian Sea, Baltic Sea, North Sea, Labrador Sea, Black Sea, Gulf of Saint Lawrence, Bay of Fundy, Gulf of Maine, Mediterranean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Caribbean Sea.

Islands include Newfoundland (including hundreds of surrounding islands), Greenland, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Great Britain (including numerous surrounding islands), Ireland, Rockall, Sable Island, Azores, St. Pierre and Miquelon, Madeira, Bermuda, Canary Islands, Caribbean, Cape Verde, São Tomé and Príncipe, Annobón Province, Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Ascension Island, Saint Helena, Trindade and Martim Vaz, Tristan da Cunha, Gough Island (Also known as Diego Alvarez), Falkland Islands, Tierra del Fuego, South Georgia Island, South Sandwich Islands, and Bouvet Island.

Natural resources[link]

The Atlantic harbors petroleum and gas fields, fish, marine mammals (seals and whales), sand and gravel aggregates, placer deposits, polymetallic nodules, and precious stones.

Natural hazards[link]

Iceberg A22A in the South Atlantic Ocean

Icebergs are common from February to August in the Davis Strait, Denmark Strait, and the northwestern Atlantic and have been spotted as far south as Bermuda and Madeira. Ships are subject to superstructure icing in the extreme north from October to May. Persistent fog can be a maritime hazard from May to September, as can hurricanes north of the equator (May to December).

The United States' southeast coast has a long history of shipwrecks due to its many shoals and reefs. The Virginia and North Carolina coasts were particularly dangerous.

The Bermuda Triangle is popularly believed to be the site of numerous aviation and shipping incidents because of unexplained and supposedly mysterious causes, but Coast Guard records do not support this belief.

Hurricanes are also a natural hazard in the Atlantic, but mainly in the northern part of the ocean, rarely tropical cyclones form in the southern parts. Hurricanes usually form between June 1 and November 30 of every year. The most notable hurricane in the Atlantic would be Hurricane Katrina in the 2005 season.

Current environmental issues[link]

Endangered marine species include the manatee, seals, sea lions, turtles, and whales. Drift net fishing can kill dolphins, albatrosses and other seabirds (petrels, auks), hastening the fish stock decline and contributing to international disputes.^[16] Municipal pollution comes from the eastern United States, southern Brazil, and eastern Argentina; oil pollution in the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Lake Maracaibo, Mediterranean Sea, and North Sea; and industrial waste and municipal sewage pollution in the Baltic Sea, North Sea, and Mediterranean Sea.

In 2005, there was some concern that warm northern European currents were slowing down, but no scientific consensus formed from that evidence.^[17]

On June 7, 2006, Florida's wildlife commission voted to take the manatee off the state's endangered species list. Some environmentalists worry that this could erode safeguards for the popular sea creature.

Marine pollution[link]

Marine pollution is a generic term for the entry into the ocean of potentially hazardous chemicals or particles. The biggest culprits are rivers and with them many agriculture fertilizer chemicals as well as livestock and human waste. The excess of oxygen-depleting chemicals leads to hypoxia and the creation of a dead zone.^[18]

Marine debris, which is also known as marine litter, describes human-created waste floating in a body of water. Oceanic debris tends to accumulate at the center of gyres and coastlines, frequently washing aground where it is known as beach litter.

Bordering countries and territories[link]

The states (territories in italics) with a coastline on the Atlantic Ocean (excluding the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas) are:

Europe[link]

Africa[link]

South America[link]

Caribbean[link]

Central and North America[link]

Major ports and harbours[link]

See also[link]

	Environment portal
	Ecology portal
	Geography portal
	Weather portal

• List of islands in the Atlantic Ocean
• Ocean Highway
• Seven Seas
• Aethiopian Sea
• Transatlantic crossing
  • Age of Discovery
  • Middle Passage
    • Atlantic slave trade
  • Transatlantic flight
• Atlantic U-boat Campaign (World War I)
• Battle of the Atlantic (1939–1945)
• Borders of the oceans#Atlantic Ocean
• Gulf Stream shutdown
• History of the Atlantic Ocean articles
• Shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean
• Atlantic hurricanes

References[link]

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (November 2010)

Bibliography[link]

• Simon Winchester. Atlantic: A Vast Ocean of a Million Stories. HarperCollins, 2010. ISBN 978-0-00-734137-5 [Alternative title: Atlantic: The Biography of an Ocean]
• Much of this article originated from the public domain site http://oceanographer.navy.mil/atlantic.html (dead link)

External links[link]

Find more about Atlantic Ocean on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Definitions and translations from Wiktionary
	Images and media from Commons
	Source texts from Wikisource

• LA Times special Altered Oceans
• Oceanography Image of the Day, from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
• National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• NOAA In-situ Ocean Data Viewer Plot and download ocean observations
• Atlantic Ocean entry at The World Factbook
• Oceans at the Open Directory Project
• www.cartage.org.lb
• www.mnsu.edu

Coordinates: 0°N 30°W / 0°N 30°W / 0; -30

v t e Regions of the World Africa Northern Middle East Sub-Saharan Central Southern Western Eastern Oceania Australasia Australia Zealandia Melanesia Micronesia Polynesia America North Northern Middle Central Caribbean South Southern Northern Western Guianan States Anglo Latin (Hispanic) Polar regions Arctic Antarctic Asia Central Eastern Northeastern Northern Southeastern Mainland Maritime Southern Indian subcontinent Western Middle East Oceans World Arctic Atlantic Indian Pacific Southern Europe Central Eastern Northern Southeastern Middle East Southern Western Seas List of seas Related Continents of the world List of seas Physical Earth

vep:Atlantine valdmeri

Barack Obama
44th President of the United States
Incumbent
Assumed office January 20, 2009
Vice President	Joe Biden
Preceded by	George W. Bush
United States Senator from Illinois
In office January 3, 2005 – November 16, 2008
Preceded by	Peter Fitzgerald
Succeeded by	Roland Burris
Member of the Illinois Senate from the 13th District
In office January 8, 1997 – November 4, 2004
Preceded by	Alice Palmer
Succeeded by	Kwame Raoul
Personal details
Born	Barack Hussein Obama II (1961-08-04) August 4, 1961 (age 50)[1] Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.[2]
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Michelle Robinson (1992–present)
Children	Malia (born 1998) Sasha (born 2001)
Residence	White House (Official) Chicago, Illinois (Private)
Alma mater	Occidental College Columbia University (B.A.) Harvard Law School (J.D.)
Profession	Community organizer Lawyer Constitutional law professor Author
Religion	Christianity[3]
Awards	Nobel Peace Prize
Signature
Website	barackobama.com

	This article is part of a series on Barack Obama
Background Illinois Senate US Senate Political positions Public image Family 2008 primaries Obama–Biden campaign Transition Inauguration Electoral history Presidency Timeline '09 '10 '11 '12 First 100 days Nobel Peace Prize Re-election campaign

Barack Hussein Obama II (ⁱ/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. In January 2005, Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator in the state of Illinois. He would hold this office until November 2008, when he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.

Following an unsuccessful bid against the Democratic incumbent for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for the United States Senate in 2004. Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, including his victory in the March 2004 Illinois Democratic primary for the Senate election and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in Illinois in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In April 2011, he announced that he would be running for re-election in 2012.

As president, Obama signed economic stimulus legislation in the form of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010. Other domestic policy initiatives include the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010, and the Budget Control Act of 2011. In May 2012, he became the first sitting U.S. president to openly support legalizing same-sex marriage. In foreign policy, he ended the war in Iraq, increased troop levels in Afghanistan, signed the New START arms control treaty with Russia, ordered U.S. involvement in the 2011 Libya military intervention, and ordered the military operation that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden.

Early life and career[link]

Obama was born on August 4, 1961, at Kapiʻolani Maternity & Gynecological Hospital (now Kapiʻolani Medical Center for Women and Children) in Honolulu, Hawaii,^[2][4][5] and is the first President to have been born in Hawaii.^[6] His mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was born in Wichita, Kansas, and was of mostly English ancestry,^[7] along with Scottish, Irish, German, and Swiss.^{[8][9][10][11][12]} His father, Barack Obama, Sr., was a Luo from Nyang’oma Kogelo, Nyanza Province, Kenya. Obama's parents met in 1960 in a Russian class at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where his father was a foreign student on scholarship.^[13][14] The couple married on February 2, 1961,^[15] separated when Obama Sr. went to Harvard University on scholarship, and divorced in 1964.^[13] Obama Sr. remarried and returned to Kenya, visiting Barack in Hawaii only once, in 1971. He died in an automobile accident in 1982.^[16]

After her divorce, Dunham married Indonesian Lolo Soetoro, who was attending college in Hawaii. When Suharto, a military leader in Soetoro's home country, came to power in 1967, all Indonesian students studying abroad were recalled, and the family moved to the Menteng neighborhood of Jakarta.^[4][17] From ages six to ten, Obama attended local schools in Jakarta, including Besuki Public School and St. Francis of Assisi School.^[18]

In 1971, Obama returned to Honolulu to live with his maternal grandparents, Madelyn and Stanley Armour Dunham, and with the aid of a scholarship attended Punahou School, a private college preparatory school, from fifth grade until his graduation from high school in 1979.^[19] Obama's mother returned to Hawaii in 1972, remaining there until 1977 when she went back to Indonesia to work as an anthropological field worker. She finally returned to Hawaii in 1994 and lived there for one year before dying of ovarian cancer.^[15][20]

Of his early childhood, Obama recalled, "That my father looked nothing like the people around me—that he was black as pitch, my mother white as milk—barely registered in my mind."^[14] He described his struggles as a young adult to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage.^[21] Reflecting later on his years in Honolulu, Obama wrote: "The opportunity that Hawaii offered—to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect—became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear."^[22] Obama has also written and talked about using alcohol, marijuana, and cocaine during his teenage years to "push questions of who I was out of my mind."^[23] At the 2008 Civil Forum on the Presidency, Obama described his high-school drug use as a great moral failure.^[24]

Following high school, Obama moved to Los Angeles in 1979 to attend Occidental College. In February 1981, he made his first public speech, calling for Occidental to divest from South Africa in response to its policy of apartheid.^[25] In mid-1981, Obama traveled to Indonesia to visit his mother and sister Maya, and visited the families of college friends in Pakistan and India for three weeks.^[25] Later in 1981, he transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he majored in political science with a specialty in international relations^[26] and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1983. He worked for a year at the Business International Corporation,^[27] then at the New York Public Interest Research Group.^[28][29]

Chicago community organizer and Harvard Law School[link]

Two years after graduating, Obama was hired in Chicago as director of the Developing Communities Project (DCP), a church-based community organization originally comprising eight Catholic parishes in Roseland, West Pullman, and Riverdale on Chicago's South Side. He worked there as a community organizer from June 1985 to May 1988.^[29][30] He helped set up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization in Altgeld Gardens.^[31] Obama also worked as a consultant and instructor for the Gamaliel Foundation, a community organizing institute.^[32] In mid-1988, he traveled for the first time in Europe for three weeks and then for five weeks in Kenya, where he met many of his paternal relatives for the first time.^[33] He returned to Kenya in August 2006 for a visit to his father's birthplace, a village near Kisumu in rural western Kenya.^[34]

In late 1988, Obama entered Harvard Law School. He was selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review at the end of his first year,^[35] and president of the journal in his second year.^[31][36] During his summers, he returned to Chicago, where he worked as an associate at the law firms of Sidley Austin in 1989 and Hopkins & Sutter in 1990.^[37] After graduating with a J.D. magna cum laude^[38] from Harvard in 1991, he returned to Chicago.^[35] Obama's election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review gained national media attention^[31][36] and led to a publishing contract and advance for a book about race relations,^[39] which evolved into a personal memoir. The manuscript was published in mid-1995 as Dreams from My Father.^[39]

University of Chicago Law School and civil rights attorney[link]