The Crimean War (pronounced /kraɪˈmiːən/ or /krɨˈmiːən/) (October 1853 – February 1856) was a conflict between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining Ottoman Empire. Most of the conflict took place on the Crimean Peninsula, but there were smaller campaigns in western Anatolia, Caucasus, the Baltic Sea, the Pacific Ocean and the White Sea. In Russia, this war is also known as the "Eastern War" (Russian: Восточная война, Vostochnaya Voina), and in Britain it was also called the "Russian War" at the time.

The Crimean War is known for the logistical and tactical errors during the land campaign on both sides (the naval side saw a successful Allied campaign which eliminated most of the ships of the Russian Navy in the Black Sea). Nonetheless, it is sometimes considered to be one of the first "modern" wars as it "introduced technical changes which affected the future course of warfare," including the first tactical use of railways and the electric telegraph. It is also famous for the work of Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole, who pioneered modern nursing practices while caring for wounded British soldiers.

Florence Nightingale OM, RRC ( /ˈflɒrəns ˈnaɪtɨŋɡeɪl/; 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was a celebrated English nurse, writer and statistician. She came to prominence for her pioneering work in nursing during the Crimean War, where she tended to wounded soldiers. She was dubbed "The Lady with the Lamp" after her habit of making rounds at night. An Anglican, Nightingale believed that God had called her to be a nurse.

Nightingale laid the foundation of professional nursing with the establishment, in 1860, of her nursing school at St Thomas' Hospital in London, the first secular nursing school in the world, now part of King's College London. The Nightingale Pledge taken by new nurses was named in her honour, and the annual International Nurses Day is celebrated around the world on her birthday.

Florence Nightingale was born into a rich, upper-class, well-connected British family at the Villa Colombaia, near the Porta Romana at Bellosguardo in Florence, Italy, and was named after the city of her birth. Florence's older sister Frances Parthenope had similarly been named after her place of birth, Parthenopolis, a Greek settlement now part of the city of Naples.

Gog and Magog (Hebrew: גּוֹג וּמָגוֹג‎‎ Gog u-Magog; Arabic: يَأْجُوج وَمَأْجُوج‎ Yaʾjūj wa-Maʾjūj) are names that appear primarily in various Jewish, Christian and Muslim scriptures, as well as numerous subsequent references in other works. Their context can be either genealogical (as Magog in Genesis 10:2) or eschatological and apocalyptic, as in Ezekiel and Revelation. They are sometimes individuals, sometimes peoples, and sometimes geographic regions. The passages from Ezekiel and Revelation in particular have attracted attention due to their prophetic descriptions of conflicts said to occur near the "End times".

The etymology of both the names Gog and Magog remains uncertain. The ma- at the beginning of Magog may indicate a land, or it may mean "from", so that Magog means "of the land of Gog" or "from Gog". Gog may originate as the Hebrew version of the name of Gyges of Lydia, who made his kingdom a great power in the early 7th century BC, but this explanation, although common, is not universally accepted. A different theory is that "Magog" might be a reference to Babylon, by turning BBL ("Babylon" in Hebrew script, which originally had no vowel-signs) into MGG (Magog), but this account, like the others, has problems.

Lynn McDonald, PhD (born July 15, 1940) is a university professor, anti-tobacco activist and former member of the Canadian House of Commons. She is a former president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women and was the New Democratic Party (NDP) Member of Parliament for Broadview—Greenwood from 1982 until 1988. McDonald is a professor of sociology at the University of Guelph.

McDonald's first run for public office was during the 1981 provincial election when she was the Ontario New Democratic Party's candidate in the riding of Oriole in North York.

The next year, she entered federal politics and was elected in the by-election held to fill the vacancy created by Bob Rae's departure from federal politics to take the leadership of the Ontario NDP. She defeated senior party aide Gerald Caplan on the third ballot to win the NDP nomination. In the by-election she defeated former Toronto Sun editor Peter Worthington, who was running as an independent, by almost 2,000 votes. In the 1984 federal election, she increased her margin to over 3,500 votes again defeating Worthington who, this time, was running as the official Progressive Conservative candidate.