Asia-Pacific

Asia-Pacific or Asia Pacific (abbreviated as Asia-Pac, AsPac, APAC, APJ, JAPA or JAPAC) is the part of the world in or near the Western Pacific Ocean. The region varies in size depending on which context, but it typically includes much of East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania.

The term may also include Russia (on the North Pacific) and countries in the Americas which are on the coast of the Eastern Pacific Ocean; the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, for example, includes Canada, Chile, Russia, Mexico, Peru, and the United States.

Alternatively, the term sometimes comprises all of Asia and Australasia as well as small/medium/large Pacific island nations (Asia Pacific and Australasian Continent) - for example when dividing the world into large regions for commercial purposes (e.g. into Americas, EMEA and Asia Pacific).

On the whole there appears to be no clear cut definition of "Asia Pacific" and the regions included change as per the context.

Though imprecise, the term has become popular since the late 1980s in commerce, finance and politics. In fact, despite the heterogeneity of the regions' economies, most individual nations within the zone are emerging markets experiencing rapid growth. (Compare the concept/acronym APEJ or APeJ - Asia-Pacific excluding Japan.)

T.G.I. Friday's

TGI Friday's is an American restaurant chain focusing on casual dining.

The company is a unit of the Sentinel Capital Partners and TriArtisan Capital Partners, who purchased the company from Carlson Companies in May 2014. The name is asserted to stand for "Thank Goodness It's Friday", although as of 2010 some television commercials for the chain have also made use of the alternative phrase, "Thank God It's Friday's." The chain is known for its appearance, with red-striped canopies, brass railings, Tiffany lamps, and frequent use of antiques as decor.

History

Alan Stillman opened the first T.G.I. Friday's restaurant in 1965 in New York. He lived in a neighborhood with many airline stewardesses, fashion models, secretaries, and other young, single people on the East Side of Manhattan near the Queensboro Bridge, and hoped that opening a bar would help him meet women. At the time, Stillman's choices for socializing were non-public cocktail parties or "guys' beer-drinking hangout" bars that women usually did not visit; he recalled that "there was no public place for people between, say, twenty-three to thirty-seven years old, to meet." He sought to recreate the comfortable cocktail party atmosphere in public despite having no experience in the restaurant business.

Asia

Asia (ⁱ/ˈeɪʒə/ or /ˈeɪʃə/) is the Earth's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. Asia covers an area of 44,579,000 square kilometers, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area. It has historically been home to the world's first modern civilizations and has always hosted the bulk of the planet's human population. Asia is notable for not only overall large size and population, but unusually dense and large settlements as well as vast barely populated regions within the continent of 4.4 billion people. The boundaries of Asia are traditionally determined as that of Eurasia, as there is no significant geographical separation between Asia and Europe. The most commonly accepted boundaries place Asia to the east of the Suez Canal, the Ural River, and the Ural Mountains, and south of the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian and Black Seas. It is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean and on the north by the Arctic Ocean.

Pacific Ocean

The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean (or, depending on definition, to Antarctica) in the south and is bounded by Asia and Australia in the west and the Americas in the east.

At 165.25 million square kilometers (63.8 million square miles) in area, this largest division of the World Ocean—and, in turn, the hydrosphere—covers about 46% of the Earth's water surface and about one-third of its total surface area, making it larger than all of the Earth's land area combined.

The equator subdivides it into the North Pacific Ocean and South Pacific Ocean, with two exceptions: the Galápagos and Gilbert Islands, while straddling the equator, are deemed wholly within the South Pacific. The Mariana Trench in the western North Pacific is the deepest point in the world, reaching a depth of 10,911 metres (35,797 ft).

The eastern Pacific Ocean was first sighted by Europeans in the early 16th century when Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama in 1513 and discovered the great "southern sea" which he named Mar del Sur. The ocean's current name was coined by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan during the Spanish circumnavigation of the world in 1521, as he encountered favourable winds on reaching the ocean. He called it Mar Pacifico, which in both Portuguese and Spanish means "peaceful sea".

Sultan of Perak

The Sultan of Perak is one of the oldest hereditary seats among the Malay states.

When the Sultanate of Malacca empire fell to Portugal in 1511, Sultan Mahmud Syah I retreated to Kampar, Sumatra, and died there in 1528. He left behind two princes named Sultan Alauddin Riayat Shah II and Sultan Muzaffar Syah. The former went on to establish the Sultanate of Johor. Muzaffar Syah was invited to rule Perak: he became the first sultan of Perak.

List of Sultans of Perak

Malacca Dynasty