General officer

A general officer is an officer of high rank in the army, and in some nations' air forces or marines.

The term "general" is used in two ways: as the generic title for all grades of general officer and as a specific rank. It originates in the 16th century, as a shortening of captain general, which rank was taken from Middle French capitaine général. The adjective general had been affixed to officer designations since the late medieval period to indicate relative superiority or an extended jurisdiction.

Today, the title of "General" is known in some countries as a four-star rank. However different countries use different systems of stars for senior ranks. It has a NATO code of OF-9 and is the highest rank currently in use in a number of armies.

General officer ranks

The various grades of general officer are at the top of the military rank structure. Lower-ranking officers in land-centric military forces are typically known as field officers or field-grade officers, and below them are company-grade officers.

Zero Hour

Zero Hour may refer to:

Literature

Film, television and radio

Command & Conquer

Command & Conquer (abbreviated as C&C or CnC) is a real-time strategy video game franchise, first developed by Westwood Studios. The first game was one of the earliest of the RTS genre, itself based on Westwood Studios' landmark strategy game Dune 2 and introducing trademarks followed in the rest of the series. This includes full motion video cutscenes with a notable ensemble cast to progress the story, as opposed to digitally in-game rendered cutscenes. Westwood Studios was taken over by Electronic Arts in 1998 and eventually closed down in 2003. The studio and some of its members were absorbed into EA Los Angeles, which continued development on the series.

History

The first installment, Command & Conquer, was released worldwide by Westwood on August 31, 1995. The plot is set sometime in the near future where the Earth becomes infected by a mysterious resource known only as Tiberium. A global war ensues between the UN-formed Global Defense Initiative to contain it and the cult quasi-state revolutionary Brotherhood of Nod, led by the enigmatic Kane, which seeks to harness it. Highly successful, it was followed by Command & Conquer: Red Alert in 1996 which is set in an alternate universe where the Soviet Union wages war with the Allied West. Developed as the prequel to the original, the Red Alert series was spun off into a separate, lighthearted and comic series, while the original game and its sequels became known as the "Tiberium" series, retaining its sci-fi and serious tone. The first game is sometimes referred to as Tiberian Dawn as a result.

Command & Conquer: Generals

Command & Conquer: Generals is a real-time strategy video game and the seventh installment in the Command & Conquer series. It was released for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS operating systems in 2003 and 2004. While the Windows version of Generals was developed by EA Pacific and published by EA Games, the Mac OS X version was developed and published by Aspyr Media. The Mac OS X version was re-released by Aspyr for the Mac App Store on March 12, 2015. In the game, the player can choose from three different factions: the United States, China and the Global Liberation Army (GLA).

Generals utilizes SAGE (Strategy Action Game Engine), an extended version of the Command & Conquer: Renegade's 3D engine. An expansion pack, entitled Command & Conquer: Generals – Zero Hour, was additionally released for PC in 2003, and for Mac OS in 2005. Both Generals and Zero Hour were met with highly positive reviews. A sequel, Command & Conquer: Generals 2, was in development, until it was repurposed to a free-to-play game known as simply Command & Conquer. The new game was part of the Generals franchise and was cancelled on October 29, 2013 by EA after negative feedback during the closed Alpha test.

Hour

The hour (common symbol: h or hr, h being the international form of the symbol) is a unit of measurement of time. In modern usage, an hour comprises 60 minutes, or 3,600 seconds. It is approximately ¹⁄₂₄ of a mean solar day.

An hour in the Universal Coordinated Time (UTC) time standard can include a negative or positive leap second, and may therefore have a duration of 3,599 or 3,601 seconds for adjustment purposes.

Although it is not a standard defined by the International System of Units, the hour is a unit accepted for use with SI, represented by the symbol h.

Etymology

The Middle English word ure first appears in the 13th century, as a loanword from Old French ure, ore, from Latin hōra.Hora, in turn, derives from Greek ὥρα ("season, time of day, hour"). In terms of the Proto-Indo-European language, ὥρα is a cognate of English year and is derived from the Proto-Indo-European word *i̯ēro- ("year, summer").

The ure of Middle English and the Anglo-French houre gradually supplanted the Old English nouns tīd (which survives in Modern English as tide) and stund. Stund is the progenitor of stound, which remains an archaic synonym for hour. Stund is related to the Old High German stunta (whence German Stunde, "hour, lesson"), from Germanic *stundō ("time, interval, while").