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May 8

May 8

May 8 is the 128th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (129th in leap years). There are 237 days remaining.

Events


- 1450 - Jack Cade's Rebellion: Kentishmen revolt against King Henry VI.
- 1541 - Hernando de Soto reaches the Mississippi River and names it Río de Espíritu Santo.
- 1794 - Branded a traitor during the Reign of Terror by revolutionists, French chemist Antoine Lavoisier, who was also a tax collector with the Ferme Générale, was tried, convicted, and guillotined all on one day in Paris.
- 1846 - Mexican-American War: The Battle of Palo Alto – Zachary Taylor defeats a Mexican force north of the Rio Grande in the first major battle of the war.
- 1861 - American Civil War: Richmond, Virginia, is named the capital of the Confederate States of America.
- 1877 - At Gilmore's Gardens in New York City, the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show opens (ends May 11).
- 1886 - Pharmacist Dr. John Styth Pemberton invents a carbonated beverage that would later be named "Coca-Cola".
- 1896 - Against Warwickshire, Yorkshire sets a still-standing County Championship record when they accumulate an innings total of 887.
- 1898 - The first games of the Italian Football League are played.
- 1899 - The Irish Literary Theatre in Dublin opens.
- 1902 - In Martinique, Mount Pelée erupts, destroying the town of St. Pierre and killing over 30,000 people. Only a handful of residents survive the blast.
- 1914 - Paramount Pictures is formed.
- 1919 - Edward George Honey first proposed the idea of a moment of silence to commemorate The Armistice of World War I, which later resulted in the creation of Remembrance Day.
- 1933 - Mohandas Gandhi begins a 21-day fast in protest of British oppression in India.
- 1942 - World War II: The Battle of the Coral Sea comes to an end. This is the first time in the naval history where two enemy fleets fight without visual contact between warring ships.
- 1942 - Second World War: On the night of 8/9 May 1942, gunners of the Ceylon Garrison Artillery on Horsburgh Island in the Cocos Islands rebelled. Their mutiny was crushed and three of them were executed, the only British Commonwealth soldiers to be executed for mutiny during the Second World War.
- 1945 - World War II: VE Day. German forces agree to an unconditional surrender.
- 1945 - Thousands of Algerian civilians are killed by French Army soldiers in the Setif massacre.
- 1967 - The Philippine province of Davao is split into three: Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur, and Davao Oriental.
- 1972 - Vietnam War – U.S. President Richard M. Nixon announces his order to place mines in major North Vietnamese ports in order to stem the flow of weapons and other goods to that nation.
- 1973 - A 71-day standoff, between federal authorities and the American Indian Movement members occupying the Pine Ridge Reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, ends with the surrender of the militants.
- 1974 - The Canadian Government of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau is defeated in the House of Commons.
- 1984 - The Soviet Union announces that it will boycott the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California.
- 1984 - Cpl. Denis Lortie enters the Quebec National Assembly and opens fire, killing three and wounding 13. René Jalbert, sergeant-at-arms of the assembly, succeeds in calming him, for which he will later receive the Cross of Valour.
- 1987 - The SAS ambushes and kills the Loughall Martyrs.
- 1997 - A China Southern Airlines Boeing 737 crashes on approach into Shenzhen's Huangtian Airport, killing 35
- 1999 - Nancy Mace becomes the first female cadet to graduate from The Citadel military college.
- 2002 - Feyenoord win the UEFA Cup
- 2004 - The Texas Rangers defeat the Detroit Tigers, 16-15, in a 10-inning game featuring a wild hour-long 5th inning (after having given up eight runs in the top half of the inning, Texas scores 10 runs in the bottom half to tie). The ten-run deficit is the largest ever overcome by the Rangers and the 18 runs in one inning by both teams ties a MLB record). Alfonso Soriano also sets a Ranger record with six hits in one game.
- 2005 - The new Canadian War Museum opens, in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of V-E Day.

Births


- 1460 - Frederick I, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach (d. 1536)
- 1521 - Petrus Canisius, Dutch Jesuit (d. 1597)
- 1587 - Victor Amadeus I, Duke of Savoy (d. 1637)
- 1622 - Claes Rålamb, Swedish statesman (d. 1698)
- 1629 - Niels Juel, Danish admiral (d. 1697)
- 1632 - Heino Heinrich Graf von Flemming, German field marshal and Governor of Berlin (d. 1706)
- 1653 - Claude-Louis-Hector de Villars, Marshall of France (d. 1734)
- 1668 - Alain-René Lesage, French writer (d. 1747)
- 1670 - Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St Albans, English soldier (d. 1726)
- 1735 - Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland, English painter (d. 1811)
- 1737 - Edward Gibbon, English historian (d. 1794)
- 1825 - George Bruce Malleson, Indian officer and author (d. 1898)
- 1828 - Jean Henri Dunant, Swiss founder of the Red Cross, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1910)
- 1829 - Louis Moreau Gottschalk, American composer and pianist (d. 1869)
- 1842 - Emil Christian Hansen, Danish fermentation physiologist (d. 1909)
- 1850 - Ross Barnes, baseball player (d. 1915)
- 1884 - Harry S. Truman, President of the United States (d. 1972)
- 1895 - Fulton J. Sheen, American bishop and television personality (d. 1979)
- 1899 - Friedrich Hayek, Austrian economist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1992)
- 1902 - Andre Michael Lwoff, French microbiologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1994)
- 1903 - Fernandel, French actor (d. 1971)
- 1905 - Red Nichols, American jazz cornettist (d. 1965)
- 1906 - Roberto Rossellini, Italian director (d. 1977)
- 1911 - Robert Johnson, American singer and guitarist (d. 1938)
- 1914 - Romain Gary, Polish writer (d. 1980)
- 1916 - João Havelange, Brazilian industrialist and football league president
- 1919 - Lex Barker, American actor (d. 1973)
- 1925 - Ali Hassan Mwinyi, President of Tanzania
- 1926 - Sir David Attenborough, British television presenter and producer
- 1926 - Don Rickles, American comedian
- 1928 - Theodore Sorenson, American political operative and writer
- 1930 - Heather Harper, Irish soprano
- 1930 - Gary Snyder, American poet
- 1932 - Phyllida Law, Scottish actress
- 1932 - Sonny Liston, American boxer (d. 1970)
- 1935 - Jack Charlton, English footballer
- 1937 - Thomas Pynchon, American novelist
- 1940 - Ricky Nelson, American singer (d. 1985)
- 1943 - Toni Tennille, American singer
- 1944 - Gary Glitter, English singer
- 1945 - Keith Jarrett, American musician
- 1947 - H. Robert Horvitz, American biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- 1948 - Felicity Lott, English soprano
- 1951 - Chris Frantz, American drummer (Talking Heads)
- 1953 - Alex Van Halen, Dutch-born drummer
- 1954 - David Keith, American actor
- 1957 - Marie Myriam, French singer
- 1964 - Melissa Gilbert, American actress and president of the Screen Actors Guild
- 1964 - Bobby Labonte, American race car driver
- 1964 - Dave Rowntree, British drummer (Blur)
- 1966 - Claudio Taffarel, Brazilian footballer
- 1968 - Jamie Summers, American porn star
- 1972 - Darren Hayes, Australian singer
- 1973 - Hiromu Arakawa, Japanese artist
- 1974 - Korey Stringer, American football player (d. 2001)
- 1975 - Enrique Iglesias, Spanish-born singer
- 1976 - Martha Wainwright, Canadian musician and songwriter
- 1978 - Lúcio, Brazilian footballer
- 1980 - Michelle McManus, Scottish singer
- 1983 - Matt Jay, Busted

Deaths


- 1278 - Emperor Duanzong of China (b. 1268)
- 1319 - King Haakon V of Norway (b. 1270)
- 1473 - John Stafford, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, English politician (b. 1420)
- 1538 - Edward Fox, English bishop
- 1766 - Samuel Chandler, English non-conformist minister (b. 1693)
- 1773 - Ali Bey Al-Kabir, Mamluk Sultan of Egypt (b. 1728)
- 1781 - Richard Jago, English poet (b. 1715)
- 1785 - Étienne François, duc de Choiseul, French statesman (b. 1719)
- 1788 - Giovanni Antonio Scopoli, Italian-born physician and naturalist (b. 1723)
- 1794 - Antoine Lavoisier, French chemist (executed) (b. 1743)
- 1828 - Mauro Giuliani, Italian composer (b. 1781)
- 1842 - Jules Dumont d'Urville, French explorer (b. 1790)
- 1873 - John Stuart Mill, English philosopher (b. 1806)
- 1880 - Gustave Flaubert, French novelist (b. 1821)
- 1891 - Helena Blavatsky, Russian-born author (b. 1831)
- 1936 - Oswald Spengler, German historian and philosopher (b. 1880)
- 1947 - Harry Gordon Selfridge, American-born department store founder (b. 1858)
- 1950 - Vital Brazil, Brazilian physician (b. 1865)
- 1952 - William Fox, Austrian-born film producer (b. 1879)
- 1960 - J. H. C. Whitehead, British mathematician (b. 1904)
- 1975 - Avery Brundage, President of the International Olympic Committee (b. 1887)
- 1982 - Gilles Villeneuve, Canadian race car driver (b. 1950)
- 1985 - Theodore Sturgeon, American science fiction writer (b. 1918)
- 1988 - Robert A. Heinlein, American science fiction writer (b. 1907)
- 1990 - Luigi Nono, Italian composer (b. 1924)
- 1991 - Jean Langlais, French composer and pianist (b. 1907)
- 1991 - Rudolf Serkin, Austrian pianist (b. 1903)
- 1993 - Avram Davidson, writer (b. 1923)
- 1994 - George Peppard, American actor (b. 1928)
- 1996 - Beryl Burton, English cyclist (b. 1937)
- 1999 - Dirk Bogarde, American actor (b. 1921)
- 1999 - Dana Plato, American actress (b. 1964)
- 2000 - Guadalupe "Pita" Amor, Mexican poet (b. 1918)

Holidays and observances


- Roman Empire - festival in honour of Mens
- Mother's Day - 1977, 1988, 1994, 2005, 2011
- World Red Cross Day
- VE Day

Recorded this day


- 1906 - "It Takes The Irish To Beat The Dutch" by Billy Murray
- 1941 - "Let Me Off Uptown" by Anita O'Day & Roy Eldridge with Gene Krupa & his Orchestra

External links


- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/may/8 BBC: On This Day]
- [http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/20050508.html The New York Times: On This Day] ---- May 7 - May 9 - April 8 - June 8 – listing of all days ko:5월 8일 ms:8 Mei ja:5月8日 simple:May 8 th:8 พฤษภาคม



Leap year

A leap year (or intercalary year) is a year containing an extra day or month in order to keep the calendar year in sync with an astronomical or seasonal year. Seasons and astronomical events do not repeat at an exact number of days, so a calendar which had the same number of days in each year would over time drift with respect to the event it was supposed to track. By occasionally inserting (or intercalating) an additional day or month into the year, the drift can be corrected. Leap years (which keep the calendar in sync with the year) should not be confused with leap seconds (which keep clock time in sync with the day).

Gregorian calendar

The Gregorian calendar, the current standard calendar in most of the world, adds a 29th day to February in all years evenly divisible by 4, except for century years (those ending in -00), which receive the extra day only if they are evenly divisible by 400. Thus 1996 was a leap year whereas 1999 was not, and 1600, 2000 and 2400 are leap years but 1700, 1800, 1900 and 2100 are not. The reasoning behind this rule is as follows:
- The Gregorian calendar is designed to keep the vernal equinox on or close to March 21, so that the date of Easter (celebrated on the Sunday after the 14th day of the Moon that falls on or after 21 March) remains correct with respect to the vernal equinox.
- The vernal equinox year is currently about 365.242375 days long.
- The Gregorian leap year rule gives an average year length of 365.2425 days. This difference of a little over 0.0001 days means that in around 8,000 years, the calendar will be about one day behind where it should be. But in 8,000 years' time the length of the vernal equinox year will have changed by an amount we can't accurately predict (see below). So the Gregorian leap year rule does a good enough job. Image:Gregoriancalendarleap.png

Which day is the leap day?

The Gregorian calendar is a modification of the Julian calendar first used by the Romans. The Roman calendar originated as a lunar calendar (though from the 5th century BC it no longer followed the real moon) and named its days after three of the phases of the moon: the new moon (calends, hence "calendar"), the first quarter (nones) and the full moon (ides). Days were counted down (inclusively) to the next named day, so 24 February was ante diem sextum calendas martii ("the sixth day before the calends of March"). Since 45 BC, February in a leap year had two days called "the sixth day before the calends of March". The extra day was originally the second of these, but since the third century it was the first. Hence the term bissextile day for 24 February in a bissextile year. Where this custom is followed, anniversaries after the inserted day are moved in leap years. For example, the former feast day of Saint Matthias, 24 February in ordinary years, would be 25 February in leap years. This historical nicety is, however, in the process of being discarded: The European Union declared that, starting in 2000, 29 February rather than 24 February would be leap day, and the Roman Catholic Church also now uses 29 February as leap day. The only tangible difference is felt in countries that celebrate feast days.

Julian calendar

The Julian calendar adds an extra day to February in years divisible by 4. This rule gives an average year length of 365.25 days. The excess of about 0.0076 days with respect to the vernal equinox year means that the vernal equinox moves a day earlier in the calendar every 130 years or so.

Revised Julian Calendar

The Revised Julian calendar adds an extra day to February in years divisible by 4, except for years divisible by 100 that do not leave a remainder of 200 or 600 when divided by 900. This rule agrees with the rule for the Gregorian calendar until 2799. The first year that dates in the Revised Julian calendar will not agree with the those in the Gregorian calendar will be 2800, because it will be a leap year in the Gregorian calendar but not in the Revised Julian calendar. This rule gives an average year length of 365.242222… days. This is a very good approximation to the mean tropical year, but because the vernal equinox tropical year is slightly longer, the Revised Julian calendar does not do as good a job as the Gregorian calendar of keeping the vernal equinox on or close to 21 March.

Chinese calendar

The Chinese calendar is lunisolar, so a leap year has an extra month, often called an embolismic month after the Greek word for it. In the Chinese calendar the leap month is added according to a complicated rule, which ensures that month 11 is always the month that contains the northern winter solstice. The intercalary month takes the same number as the preceding month; for example, if it follows the second month then it is simply called "leap second month".

Hebrew calendar

The Hebrew calendar is also lunisolar with an embolistic month. In the Hebrew calendar the extra month is called Adar Alef (first Adar) and is added before Adar, which then becomes Adar Sheni (second Adar). According to the Metonic cycle, this is done seven times every nineteen years, specifically, in years, 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19. In addition, the Hebrew calendar has postponement rules that postpone the start of the year by one or two days. The year before the postponement gets one or two extra days, and the year whose start is postponed loses one or two days. These postponement rules reduce the number of different combinations of year length and starting day of the week from 28 to 14, and regulate the location of certain religious holidays in relation to the Sabbath.

Hindu Calendar

In the Hindu calendar, which is a lunisolar calendar, the embolismic month is called adhika maas (extra month). It is the month in which the sun is in the same sign of the stellar zodiac on two consecutive dark moons.

Iranian calendar

The Iranian calendar also has a single intercalated day once in every four years, but every 33 years or so the leap years will be five years apart instead of four years apart. The system used is more accurate and more complicated, and is based on the time of the March equinox as observed from Teheran. The 33-year period is not completely regular; every so often the 33-year cycle will be broken by a cycle of 29 or 37 years.

Long term leap year rules

The accumulated difference between the Gregorian calendar and the vernal equinoctial year amounts to 1 day in about 8,000 years. This suggests that the calendar needs to be improved by another refinement to the leap year rule: perhaps by avoiding leap years in years divisible by 8,000. (The most common such proposal is to avoid leap years in years divisible by 4,000 [http://www.google.com/search?q=%22gregorian+calendar%22+error+%22leap+year%22+4000]. This is based on the difference between the Gregorian calendar and the mean tropical year. Others claim, erroneously, that the Gregorian calendar itself already contains a refinement of this kind [http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mleapyr.html].) However, there is little point in planning a calendar so far ahead because over a timescale of tens of thousands of years the number of days in a year will change for a number of reasons, most notably: #Precession of the equinoxes moves the position of the vernal equinox with respect to perihelion and so changes the length of the vernal equinoctial year. #Tidal acceleration from the sun and moon slows the rotation of the earth, making the day longer. In particular, the second component of change depends on such things as post-glacial rebound and sea level rise due to climate change. We can't predict these changes accurately enough to be able to make a calendar that will be accurate to a day in tens of thousands of years.

Marriage proposal

There is a tradition, said to go back to Saint Patrick and Saint Bridget in 5th century Ireland, whereby women may only make marriage proposals in leap years.

Saint Patrick and the leap year

:Saint Patrick, having driven the frogs out of the bogs was walking along the shores of Lough Neagh, when he was accosted by Saint Bridget in tears, and was told that a mutiny had broken out in the nunnery over which she presided, the ladies claiming the right of popping the question. :Saint Patrick said he would concede them the right every seventh year, when Saint Bridget threw her arms round his neck, and exclaimed, "Arrah, Pathrick, jewel, I daurn't go back to the girls wid such a proposal. Make it one year in four." Saint Patrick replied, "Bridget, acushla, squeeze me that way again, an' I'll give ye leap-year, the longest of the lot." Saint Bridget, upon this, popped the question to St Patrick himself, who, of course, could not marry: so he patched up the difficulty as best he could with a kiss and a silk gown. (Source: Evans, Ivor H, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Cassell, London, 1988) According to a 1288 law in Scotland, fines were levied if the proposal was refused by the man; compensation ranged from a kiss to a silk gown to soften the blow. Because men felt that put them at too great a risk, the tradition was in some places tightened to restricting female proposals to 29 February.

Birthdays

A person who was born on 29 February may be called a "leapling". In non-leap years they usually celebrate their birthday on 28 February or 1 March. There are many instances in children's literature where a person's claim to be only a quarter of their actual age turns out be based on counting their leap-year birthdays. A similar device is used in the plot of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta The Pirates of Penzance. Category:Calendars Category:Units of time als:Schaltjahr ko:윤년 ja:閏年 simple:Leap year th:ปีอธิกสุรทิน

Jack Cade's Rebellion

Jack Cade (possibly named John Mortimer) was the leader of a popular revolt in late medieval Europe in the 1450 Kent rebellion which took place in the time of King Henry VI in England. Some sources suggest Cade was of Irish origin but raised in Sussex where he is alleged to have murdered a woman in 1449. He escaped to France but returned to live in Kent under an assumed name. In the spring of 1450, Kent peasants protested against what they saw as the weak leadership of King Henry, unfair taxes, corruption and the damaging effect of the loss of France, and in a clever move issued The Complaint of the Poor Commons of Kent, a manifesto listing grievances against the government. Grievances not only of the people, but of several PMs, lords and magnates. In early June, around 20,000 rebels - mostly peasants but their numbers were swelled by shopkeepers, craftsmen and unfortunately for Henry a fair amount of soldiers and sailors returning from the French wars via Kent, and a few landowners(the list of pardoned shows the presence of one knight, two MPs and eighteen squires as well) - gathered at Blackheath, south-east of London. While the King sought refuge in Warwickshire, the rebels advanced to Southwark. They set up headquarters in The White Hart before crossing London Bridge on 3 July. The Lord Treasurer was captured and beheaded, along with a few other favourites of the King. Many of the rebels, including Cade himself, then proceeded to loot London, although Cade had made frequent promises not to do so during the march to the capital. When the army returned to Southwark for the night the London officials made preparations to stop Cade reentering the city. The next day, at about ten in the evening a battle broke out on London bridge, lasting until eight next morning, when the rebels retreated having suffered heavy casualties. After the battle, Archbishop John Kemp, the Lord Chancellor persuaded Cade to call off his followers by issuing official pardons and promises to fufil the demands written in Cade's manifesto. However, after the peasant forces disbanded, a week later, Cade learned that the government regarded him as a traitor and had issued a reward for him dead or alive. He was subsequently killed in a skirmish on the Kent/Sussex border, after which his body was taken to London and quartered for display in different cities, his head ending up on a pike on London Bridge (along with other leaders of the rebellion). Despite all the rebels being pardoned, thirty four were executed after Cade's death. Cade appears as a character William Shakespeare's play Henry VI, Part 2. It is one of Cade's followers, in discussion with Cade himself, who has the well-known line, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."

References


- I.M.W. Harvey, Jack Cade's Rebellion of 1450, Oxford UP, 1991. ISBN 0198201605
  - Reviewed by Joel T. Rosenthal, Speculum, Vol. 69, No. 1. (Jan., 1994), pp. 161-163. [http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0038-7134%28199401%2969%3A1%3C161%3AJCRO1%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A Available online] at JSTOR. Category:Medieval popular revolt Category:Middle Ages Category:1450

Kent

:This article is about the English county of Kent. See also Kent (disambiguation). Kent is a county in England, south-east of London. The county town is Maidstone. Kent has land borders with East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London, and a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames estuary. Kent also has a nominal border with France halfway along the Channel Tunnel. The two cities in Kent are Canterbury, the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Rochester, the seat of the Bishop of Rochester. However, since 1998 when local government was reorganised, Rochester lost its official city status through an administrative oversight; attempts are now being made to regain it. For other towns, see the list below. Kent, because of its soubriquet "the Garden of England", might be regarded as a picturesque rural county, but farming is still an industry. Over the centuries many other industries have been of importance; some still are. Woollen cloth-making, iron-making; paper; cement; engineering: all have been part of the industrial scene. Fishing and tourism occupy many people, especially the coastal resorts. The East Kent coalfield was mined in the 20th century: and there is a nuclear power station located at Dungeness. Nevertheless, the district of Thanet has been regarded as one of the most disadvantaged areas in the south-east of England. Ferry ports, the Channel Tunnel and two motorways provide links with the European continent. There are airports at Manston and Rochester and smaller airfields at Headcorn and Lydd. Famous residents of Kent have included Charles Dickens and Charles Darwin. Sir Winston Churchill's home Chartwell is also in Kent. Although the Victoria County History for Kent is limited, an extensive survey of the county was undertaken over a 50-year period by Edward Hasted between 1755-1805. William Lambarde was an even earlier writer, in the 16th century.

History

:Main article: History of Kent The area has been occupied since the Lower Palaeolithic as finds from the quarries at Swanscombe attest. During the Neolithic the Medway megaliths were built and there is a rich sequence of Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman occupation indicated by finds and features such as the Ringlemere gold cup and the Roman villas of the Darent valley. The modern name Kent is derived from the Brythonic word Cantus meaning a rim or border, being applied as a name to the eastern part of the modern county, and meaning border land or coastal district. Julius Caesar described it as Cantium, home of the Cantiaci in 51BC. The extreme west of the modern county was occupied by other Iron Age tribes; the Regnenses and possibly another ethnic group occupying The Weald. East Kent became one of the kingdoms of the Jutes during the fifth century AD (see Kingdom of Kent) and the area was later known as Cantia in about AD730 and Cent in AD835. The early Mediaeval inhabitants of the county were known as the Cantwara or Kent people, whose capital was Canterbury. Canterbury is the religious centre of the Anglican faith, and see of St Augustine of Canterbury. Augustine is traditionally credited with bring Christianity to the county and thus to England in 597. Following the invasion of Britain by William of Normandy the people of Kent adopted the motto Invicta meaning undefeated and claiming (quite wrongly) that they had frightened the Normans away, presumably in an attempt to defame the people of Hastings in neighbouring Sussex. During the medieval period, Kent produced several rebellions including the Peasants' Revolt led by Wat Tyler and later, Jack Cade's rebellion of 1450. Thomas Wyatt led an army into London from Kent in 1553, against Mary I. Canterbury became a great pilgrimage site following the martyrdom of Thomas Becket. Canterbury's religious role also gave rise to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, a key development in the rise of the written English language and ostensibly set in the countryside of Kent. By the 17th century, tensions between Britain and the continental powers of the Netherlands and France led to increasing military build-up in the county. Forts were built all along the coast following a daring raid by the Dutch navy on the shipyards of the Medway towns in 1667. During the Second World War, airfields in Kent became played a vital part in the Battle of Britain while civilian settlements were often bombed.

Geography

Physical geography

Kent is the southeasternmost county in England. It is bounded on the north by the River Thames and the North Sea, and on the south by the Straits of Dover and the English Channel. The continent of Europe is a mere 21 miles across the Strait. The major geographical features of the county are determined by a series of ridges running from west to east across the county. These ridges are the remains of the Wealden dome, which was the result of uplifting caused by the Alpine movements between 10-20 million years ago. Erosion has resulted in these ridges and the valleys between. From the north they are: the marshlands along the Thames/Medway estuaries and along the North Kent coast; the chalk North Downs reaching heights of around 600ft; the sandstone and clay valley containing the River Medway and its tributaries; the Greensand ridge; the Wealden clay valley and finally the sandstone High Weald. The highest point of the county is Betsom's Hill, GR TQ435563, at 251m/823ft. Probably the most significant geographical feature of Kent is the White Cliffs. It is here that the North Downs reaches the sea. From there to Westerham is now the Kent Downs Area of Oustanding Natural Beauty AONB. The Weald derives its ancient name from the Germanic word wald meaning simply woodland. Much of the area remains today densely wooded; where there are also heavy clays the tracks through are nearly impassable for much of the year. Kent's principal river, the River Medway, rises near Edenbridge and flows some 25 miles (40km) eastwards to a point near Maidstone when it turns north. Here it breaks through the North Downs at Rochester before joining the River Thames as its final tributary near Sheerness. The river is tidal as far as Allington lock, but in earlier times cargo-carrying vessels reached as far upstream as Tonbridge. There are other rivers in Kent.

Industries

In medieval times the Weald was of national importance for two industries: the iron industry and cloth-making. Kent is sometimes known as the Garden of England because of its agricultural influence, extensive orchards and hop-gardens. Distinctive hop-drying buildings called oast houses are common in the countryside, although many have been converted into dwellings. Nearer London, market gardens also flourish. In more recent times, three industries have been of some importance: paper-making, cement-making and coal-mining:
- Paper needs a supply of the right kind of water: in Kent the original mills stood on streams like the River Darent, tributaries of the River Medway, and on the Great Stour. Two 18th century mills were on the River Len and at Tovil on the River Loose. In the late 19th century huge modern mills were built at Dartford and Northfleet on the River Thames; and at Kemsley on The Swale.
- Cement came to the fore in the 19th century when massive building projects were being undertaken. The ready supply of chalk available, and huge pits between Stone and Gravesend bear testament to that industry. There were also other workings around Burham on the tidal Medway.
- Coal was mined in East Kent: from about 1900 several pits were operating, and Snowdown Colliery was opened in 1908. The coalfield is now closed.

Political divisions

Man of Kent or Kentish Man?

Kent is traditionally divided into West Kent and East Kent by the River Medway. This division into east and west is also reflected in the term Men of Kent for residents east of the Medway; those from west are known as Kentish Men. However, further investigation shows that the division is not the Medway, but further east in Gillingham. Edward Hasted, in his 1798 description of Rainham, writes: "The whole of this parish is in the division of East Kent which begins here, the adjoining parish of Gillingham, westward, being wholly in that of West Kent." The division, according to one historian, Freddie Cooper, a former Mayor of Gillingham, remained until April 1, 1929 when Rainham was transferred, despite protest, from the administration of Milton Rural District Council to that of Gillingham. In religious matters, Kent was divided between the two episcopal areas of Canterbury and Rochester.

Lathes

A lathe was an ancient administration division of Kent, and may well have originated during a Jutish colonisation of the county. These ancient divisions still exist, but have no administrative significance. There are seven Lathes in Kent; Aylesford, Milton, Sutton, Borough, Eastry, Lympne and Wye. these units are recorded as intermediate between the county and hundred. The Domesday Book reveals that in 1086 Kent was divided into the seven lathes or "lest(um)" for administrative, judicial and taxation purposes and these units remained important for another 600 years. Each of the seven lathes were divided into smaller areas called hundreds, although the difference between the functions of lathes and hundreds remains unclear.
- Taken from Frank W Jessup's History of Kent 1958

Feudalism

A Manorial court was an early form of dispensing justice which came into being after the Domesday Book. Among other things it dealt with land tenure. After the 17th century most of the court's functions were taken over by a Justice of the Peace, who had first been appointed from the 14th century. From 1361 until 1971 the justices met four times a year in Quarter Sessions. In Kent there were separate courts of Quarter Sessions (at Maidstone and Canterbury) until 1814.

The Poor Law

Under the Poor Law every parish had had the responsibility of looking after its own poor, and seeing that they had the bare minimum of shelter, food, clothing and medical attention. In most parishes the burden of poor relief mounted rapidly in the early part of the 19th century. Huge population increase, and the lack of work on the land, made it imperative that the Poor Law was amended. It was, in 1834, when the institutions known as workhouses came into being. These were often run by a group of parishes — hence the title Union Workhouse. Boards of Guardians were set up to oversee them.

Boards of Health

Boards of Health, in much the same way as the Boards of Guardians for the poor, were set up in 1875, because of the huge rise in epidemics, notably of cholera. The area of the sanitary districts, as they were known, coincided with the union boundaries. Larger parishes (<5000 people) became urban sanitary districts — or, as they became known, urban districts — while the smaller ones evolved into rural districts.

Highway boards

Highway boards also came into being, and the old turnpike trusts gradually expired.

Municipal boroughs

The final sub-division of Kent was into towns which had been granted a charter by the Crown giving them special privileges, including that of having a mayor. The boroughs at the beginning of the 19th century are those marked (MB) on the list of Cities & Towns below. In addition the village of Fordwich also counted as a borough: it was deprived of that status in 1882.

Kent County Council

In 1888 an Act of Parliament set up, inter alia, Kent County Council which, with its members coming from all parts of the county (except Canterbury, which became a County Borough with similar powers), first met in 1889. Its duties at first were few, but gradually it absorbed School Boards, the rural Highway Boards and the Boards of Guardians.

Parish councils

In 1894, parish councils were set up. These were civil parishes, and unconnected with an ecclesiastical parish. Although since 1979 there have been many changes in local government, parish councils now are in a strong position, particularly in unitary authorities, where they act as a second tier. In other districts, some functions are held by the county council, relegating parish councils to a less influential third-tier status. Parish rates are today collected by the district or unitary tier and then disbursed to parish clerks. Those parish councils serving areas of denser settlement are normally known as town councils although their rank and influence is much the same. These traditionally elect a mayor from the town councillors with the greatest experience.
- All the preceding notes in this section taken from Kent History Illustrated Frank W Jessup (Kent County Council 1966)

Local Government Act 1972

In 1974 the old division between county and borough came to an end, with England being divided below county level into districts. Canterbury, hitherto separately administered as a county borough, became one of the boroughs into which Kent was divided.

Medway unitary authority

In 1998 the districts of Gillingham and Rochester were removed from county council government to become the unitary authority entitled the Borough of Medway.

Kent and London

When the County of London and London County Council were created in 1888, the new county incorporated a considerable part of north west Kent including Deptford, Greenwich, Woolwich and Lewisham. Further change came in 1965, when the London County Council was abolished and the Greater London Council took its place. The places that had been removed in 1888 were amalgamated to form the London Borough of Lewisham and the London Borough of Greenwich and two further boroughs were created. These were the London Borough of Bromley — an amalgamation of Bromley, Beckenham, Chislehurst, Orpington and Penge and the London Borough of Bexley comprising Bexley, Sidcup, Erith and Crayford. Much of the north-west of the county is part of the London commuter belt. The Thames Gateway regeneration area includes riverside areas of north Kent as far east as Sittingbourne and largely to the north of the A2 road.

Ceremonial county

The ceremonial county of Kent corresponds to the administrative county plus the district of Medway (or Medway Towns).

Cities, towns and villages

See the list of places in Kent, list of civil parishes in Kent

Places of interest


- Bayham Abbey Lamberhurst [2]
- Bedgebury Pinetum
- Bewl Water
- Bough Beech Reservoir, Ide Hill
- Bluewater Shopping Centre
- Canterbury Cathedral
- Chartwell, Winston Churchill's home [1]
- Chatham_Dockyard It has been suggested Chatham originated the word chav.
- Chiddingstone Castle
- Cinque Ports
- Deal Castle [2]
- Dolphin Yard Sailing Barge Museum, Sittingbourne
- Dover Castle [2]
- Dungeness Power Station
- East Kent Railway, a heritage railway
- Emmett's Garden, Ide Hill [1]
- Faversham
- Hever Castle
- Hoo Peninsula
- Ightham Mote 14th century house [1]
- Isle of Grain
- Isle of Sheppey
- Isle of Thanet
- Kent & East Sussex Railway, a heritage railway
- Kent Battle of Britain Museum
- Kent International Airport (formerly known as London Manston Airport) with two aviation museums
- Knole, Sevenoaks [1]
- Leeds Castle
- North Downs Way, a long distance footpath
- Penshurst Place
- Reculver Roman Fort & Reculver Tower
- Richborough Castle & Roman Fort, near Sandwich [2]
- Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway, a heritage railway
- Romney Marsh
- Royal Engineers Museum of Military Engineering, Gillingham
- St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury [2]
- Scotney Castle [1]
- Sissinghurst Castle Garden, Sissinghurst [1]
- Sittingbourne & Kemsley Light Railway, a heritage railway
- Smallhythe Place, Tenterden [1]
- Squerryes Court & Garden, Westerham
- Turner Gallery to open in Margate
- Upnor Castle [2]
- Walmer Castle & Gardens [2]
- The Wantsum Channel
  - [1] Properties under the care of the National Trust
  - [2] Properties under the care of English Heritage

External links


- [http://www.kent.gov.uk/ Kent County Council] - Local Government website
- [http://www.kentonline.co.uk/ Kent Online] - A Kent Messenger Group website
- [http://www.camelotintl.com/heritage/counties/england/kent.html Kent heritage]
- [http://www.digiserve.com/peter/village.htm Kent resources website]
- [http://www.kentdowns.org.uk Kent Downs AONB website]
- [http://www.villagenet.co.uk/ Village Net web site has photographs and historic details of over 240 Villages in Kent and East Sussex]
- [http://www.historic-kent.co.uk/ provides further information on villages throughout Kent. It makes the point that there thought to be over 300, although the term 'village' covers settlements of a great variation in size. There is a 'Select a destination' box for the alphabetical list]
- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/kent/places/names/index.shtml#a Spelling of placenames in the county from BBC website]

References


- Glover, J., Place names of Kent.
- Freddie Cooper, personal research
- Men of Kent: Sorry ... but we’re joining a new tribe, by Stephen Rayner, Memories page, Medway News, October 2004
ko:켄트 주 simple:Kent

1541

Events


- The first official translation of the entire Bible in Swedish
- February 12 - Pedro de Valdivia founds Santiago de Chile.
- May 8 - Hernando de Soto reaches the Mississippi River naming it Rio de Espiritu Santo.
- May 23 - Jacques Cartier departs Saint-Malo France on his third voyage.
- July 9 - Estevão da Gama departs Massawa, leaving behind 400 matchlockmen and 150 slaves under his brother Christovão da Gama, with orders to assist the Emperor of Ethiopia defeat Ahmad ibn Ibrihim al-Ghazi who has invaded his Empire.
- August 29 - The Janissaries of Suleiman the Magnificent take Buda by ruse, hiding themselves as tourists.
- Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent seals off The Golden Gate in Jerusalem.
- Irish Parliament declares Ireland to be a kingdom
- October - The unsuccessful Algerian campaign of Charles V of Spain Gabsurg

Births


- January 26 - Florent Chrestien, French writer (d. 1596)
- March 25 - Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (died 1587)
- April 8 - Michele Mercati, Italian physician and gardener (died 1593)
- Pierre Charron, French philosopher (died 1603)
- Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex, English nobleman (died 1576)
- El Greco, Greek-born artist (died 1614)
- Hatano Hideharu, Japanese samurai (died 1579)
- Mizuno Tadashige, Japanese nobleman (died 1600)
- Guðbrandur Þorláksson, mathematician See also :Category: 1541 births.

Deaths


- May 27 - Margaret Pole, 8th Countess of Salisbury (executed) (born 1473)
- June 26 - Francisco Pizarro, Spanish conquistador
- July 4 - Pedro de Alvarado, Spanish conquistador (born 1495)
- August 1 - Simon Grynaeus, German scholar and theologian (born 1493)
- September 24 - Paracelsus, Swiss alchemist (b. 1493)
- November 24 - Margaret Tudor, queen of James IV of Scotland (born 1489)
- Francisco Alvarez, Portuguese missionary and explorer (born 1465)
- Wolfgang Fabricius Capito, German reformer
- Jean Clouet, French miniature painter
- Thomas Culpeper, English courtier
- Giovanni Guidiccioni, Italian poet (born 1480)
- Andreas Karlstadt, Christian theologian and reformer
- Gendun Gyatso, 2nd Dalai Lama
- Jerzy Radziwill, Polish nobleman (born 1480)
- Amago Tsunehisa, Japanese warlord
- Juan de Valdés, Spanish religious writer (born 1500) See also :Category: 1541 deaths. Category:1541 ko:1541년

Mississippi River

This page is about the river in the United States; there is also a Canadian Mississippi River (Ontario). The Mississippi River, derived from the old Ojibwe word misi-ziibi meaning 'big river' (gichi-ziibi in the modern language), is the second-longest river in the United States; the longest is the Missouri River, which flows into the Mississippi. Taken together, they form the largest river system in North America. If measured from the head of the Missouri, the length of the Missouri/Mississippi combination is approximately 6,270 km (3,900 miles) long.

Geography

North America With its source Lake Itasca at 1475 feet (450 m) above sea level in Itasca State Park in northern Minnesota, the river falls to 725 feet (220 m) just below Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis. The Mississippi is joined by the Illinois River and the Missouri River near Saint Louis, and by the Ohio at Cairo, Illinois. The Arkansas River joins the Mississippi in the state of Arkansas. The Atchafalaya River in Louisiana is a major distributary of the Mississippi. The Mississippi drains most of the area between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachian Mountains, except for the area drained by the Great Lakes. It runs through, or borders, ten states in the United States -- Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana -- before emptying into the Gulf of Mexico about 100 miles (160 km) downstream from New Orleans. Measurements of the length of the Mississippi from Lake Itasca to the Gulf of Mexico vary, but the EPA's number is 2,320 miles (3733 km). A raindrop falling in Lake Itasca would arrive at the Gulf of Mexico in about 90 days. [http://www.nps.gov/miss/features/factoids/] New Orleans The river is divided into the upper Mississippi, from its source south to the Ohio River, and the lower Mississippi, from the Ohio to its mouth near New Orleans. The upper Mississippi is further divided into three sections: the headwaters, from the source to Saint Anthony Falls; a series of man-made lakes between Minneapolis and St. Louis; and the middle Mississippi, a relatively free-flowing river downstream of the confluence with the Missouri River at St. Louis. A series of 27 locks and dams on the upper Mississippi, most of which were built in the 1930s, is designed primarily to maintain a 9 foot (2.7 m) channel for commercial barge traffic. The lakes formed are also used for recreational boating and fishing. The dams make the river deeper and wider but do not stop it. No flood control is intended. During periods of high flow, the gates, some of which are submersible, are completely opened and the dams simply cease to function. Below St. Louis the Mississippi is relatively free-flowing, although it is constrained by numerous levees and directed by numerous wing dams. Through a natural process known as deltaic switching the lower Mississippi River has shifted its final course to the ocean every thousand years or so. This occurs because the deposits of silt and sediment raise the river's level causing it to eventually find a steeper route to the Gulf of Mexico. The abandoned distributary diminishes in volume and forms what are known as bayous. This process has, over the past 5,000 years, caused the coastline of south Louisiana to advance gulfward from 15 to 50 miles. (See: Mississippi River Delta) Other changes in the course of the river have occurred because of earthquakes along the New Madrid Fault Zone, which lies near the cities of Memphis and St. Louis. Three earthquakes in 1811 and 1812, estimated at approximately 8 on the Richter Scale, were said to have temporarily reversed the course of the Mississippi. These earthquakes also created Reelfoot Lake in Tennessee from the altered landscape near the river. The faulting is related to an aulacogen (geologic term for a failed rift) that formed at the same time as the Gulf of Mexico. Davenport, Iowa is the only city over 20,000 people bordering the Upper Mississippi that has no permanent floodwall or levee.

Watershed

levee The Mississippi River has the third largest drainage basin in the world, exceeded in size only by the watersheds of the Amazon River and Congo River. It drains 41 percent of the 48 contiguous states of the United States. The basin covers more than 1,245,000 square miles (3,225,000 km²), including all or parts of 31 states and two Canadian provinces.
- [http://earthtrends.wri.org/maps_spatial/maps_detail_static.cfm?map_select=390&theme=2 Information and a map of the Mississippi's watershed]

History

The word Mississippi comes from the Ojibwe name for the river, "Messipi" (or Misi-ziibi), which means great river, or from the Algonquin Missi Sepe, "great river," literally, "father of waters." The Ojibwe called Lake Itasca, the source lake of the Mississippi River, Omashkoozo-zaaga'igan (Elk Lake) and the river flowing out of it as Omashkoozo-ziibi (Elk River). After flowing into Lake Bemidji, the Ojibwe called the river Bemijigamaa-ziibi (River from the Traversing Lake). After flowing into Cass Lake, the river again changes its name to Miskwaawaakokaa-ziibi (Red Cedar River), only to change its name again after flowing into Lake Winnibigoshish as Gichi-ziibi (Big River). The Ojibwe name Misi-ziibi applied only to the portion below the Crow Wing River, but the ever-changing names of the river seemed illogical to the English speakers, so after the expedition by Henry Schoolcraft, the longest stream above the juncture of the Crow Wing River and Gichi-ziibi was named "Mississippi River". On May 8, 1541 Hernando de Soto became the first recorded European to reach the Mississippi River, which he called "Rio de Espiritu Santo" (River of the Holy Spirit). French explorers Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette began exploring the Mississippi, which they knew by the Sioux name "Ne Tongo" (which, like the Ojibwe name, means big river), on May 17, 1673. In 1682, René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and Henri de Tonty claimed the entire Mississippi River Valley for France, calling it Louisiana, for King Louis XIV. In 1718, New Orleans was established by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville. France lost all its territories on the North American mainland as a result of the French and Indian War. The Treaty of Paris (1763) gave Great Britain rights to all land in the valley east of the Mississippi and Spain rights to land west of the Mississippi. Spain also ceded Florida to England to regain Cuba, which the English occupied during the war. Britain then divided the territory into East Florida and West Florida. In the second Treaty of Paris (1783), which ended the American Revolution, Britain ceded West Florida back to Spain to regain The Bahamas, which Spain had occupied during the war. Spain then had control over the river south of 32°30' north latitude, and, in what is known as the Spanish Conspiracy, hoped to gain greater control of Louisiana and all of the west. These hopes ended when Spain was pressured into signing Pinckney's Treaty in 1795. France reacquired 'Louisiana' from Spain in the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800. The United States bought the territory from France in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The river was noted for the number of bandits which called its islands and shores home, including John Murrell who was a well-known murderer, horse stealer and slave "re-trader". His notoriety was such that author Mark Twain devoted an entire chapter to him in his book Life on the Mississippi, and Murrell was rumored to have an island headquarters on the river at Island 37. Twain's book also extensively covered the thrilling steamboat races which took place from 1830 to 1870 on the river before more modern boating methods replaced the steamer. It was published first in serial form in Harper's Weekly in seven parts in 1875 and was intended to chronicle the rapidly disappearing steamboat culture. The full version, including a passage from the unfinished Huckleberry Finn and works from other authors, was published by James R. Osgood & Co. in 1885. The first steamboat to travel the full length of the Mississippi from the Ohio River to the city of New Orleans, Louisiana was the New Orleans in December 1811. Its maiden voyage occurred during the series of New Madrid earthquakes in 1811–1812. In 1815, America retained control over the Mississippi by scoring a decisive victory over the British at the Battle of New Orleans, part of the War of 1812. The River was also a decisive part of the American Civil War. The Union's Vicksburg Campaign called for Union control of the lower Mississippi River. The Union victory at the Battle of Vicksburg in 1863 was pivotal to the Union's final victory of the Civil War. In 1900, Chicago built the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to link the Great Lakes to the Mississippi. The canal allowed Chicago to flush its waste down the Mississippi rather than having it pollute its own Lake Michigan waterfront. The canal also provided a shipping route between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi. The sport of water skiing was invented on the river in a wide region between Minnesota and Wisconsin known as Lake Pepin. Ralph Samuelson of Lake City, Minnesota created and refined his skiing technique in late June and early July of 1922. He later performed the first water ski jump in 1925 and was pulled along at 80 miles per hour (128 km/h) by a Curtiss flying boat later that year. In the spring of 1927 the river broke out of its banks in 145 places during the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and inundated 27,000 square miles (70,000 km²) to a depth of up to 30 feet (10 m). The Great Flood of 1993 is considered the most devastating flood to occur in the U.S. in modern history. In 2002 Martin Strel swam the entire length of the river.

Maintaining a navigation channel

The task of maintaining a navigation channel on the Mississippi is the responsibility of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which began as early as 1829 removing snags, closing off secondary channels and excavating rocks and sandbars. In 1829 the Corps surveyed the two major obstacles on the upper Mississippi, the Des Moines Rapids and the Rock Island Rapids, where the river was shallow and the riverbed was rock. The Des Moines Rapids were about 11 miles (18 km) long and just above the mouth of the Des Moines River at Keokuk. The Rock Island Rapids were between Rock Island and Moline. Both rapids were considered virtually impassable. Moline The Corps recommended excavation of a 5 foot (1.5 m) channel at the Des Moines Rapids, but work didn't begin until after Lieutenant Robert E. Lee endorsed the project in 1837. The Corps later also began excavating the Rock Island Rapids. By 1866 it had become evident that excavation was impractical, and it was decided to build a canal around the Des Moines Rapids. The canal opened in 1877, but the Rock Island Rapids remained an obstacle. In 1878, Congress authorized the Corps to establish a 4½ foot (1.4 m) channel, to be obtained by building wing dams which direct the river to a narrow channel causing it to cut a deeper channel, closing secondary channels, and by dredging. The 4½ (1.4 m) foot channel project was complete when the Moline Lock, which bypassed the Rock Island Rapids, opened in 1907. To improve navigation between St. Paul and Prairie du Chien, the Corps constructed several dams on lakes in the headwaters area, including Lake Winnibigoshish and Lake Pokegama. The dams, which were built beginning in the 1880s, stored spring run-off, which was released during low water to help maintain channel depth. The Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal connecting the Illinois River with Lake Michigan, was completed in 1900. This provided a link between the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes and replaced the smaller Illinois and Michigan Canal (1848). In 1907, Congress authorized a 6 foot (1.8 m) channel project on the Mississippi, which wasn't complete when it was abandoned in the late 1920s in favor of the 9 foot (2.7 m) channel project. In 1913, construction was complete on a dam at Keokuk, Iowa, the first dam below St. Anthony Falls. Built by a private power company to generate electricity, the Keokuk dam was one of the largest hydro-electric plants in the world at the time. The dam also eliminated the Des Moines Rapids. Keokuk, Iowa Lock and Dam No. 1 was completed in Minneapolis in 1917 and Lock and Dam No. 2 at Hastings, Minnesota, was completed in 1930. Prior to the 1927 flood, the Corps' primary strategy was to close off as many side channels as possible to increase the flow in the main river. It was thought that the river's velocity would scour off bottom sediments, deepening the river, and decreasing the possibility of flooding. The 1927 flood proved this so wrong that communities threatened by the flood began to make their own levee breaks to relieve the tension of the rising river. The Corps now actively creates floodways to divert periodic water surges into backwater channels and lakes. The main floodways are the Birds Point-New Madrid Floodway; the Morganza Floodway, which directs floodwaters down the Atchafalaya River; and the Bonnet Carré Spillway which directs water to Lake Pontchartrain. The Old River Control structure also serve as a major floodgates that can be opened to prevent flooding. Some of the pre-1927 strategy is still in use today; the Corps actively cuts the necks of horseshoe bends, allowing the water to move faster, and thus lower flood heights. The Rivers and Harbors Act of 1930 authorized the 9-foot (2.7 m) channel project, which called for a navigation channel 9 feet (2.7 m) deep and 400 feet (120 m) wide to accommodate multiple-barge tows. This was achieved by a series of locks and dams, and by dredging. Twenty-three new locks and dams were built on the upper Mississippi in the 1930s in addition to the three already in existence. Two new locks were built north of Lock and Dam No. 1 at Saint Anthony Falls in the 1960s, extending the head of navigation for commercial traffic several miles, but few barges go past the city of Saint Paul today. head of navigation Until the 1950s, there was no dam below Lock and Dam 26 at Alton, Illinois. Lock and Dam 27, which consists of a low-water dam and an 8.4 mile (14 km) long canal, was added in 1953 just below the confluence with the Missouri River, primarily to bypass a series of rock ledges at St. Louis, but also to protect the St. Louis city water intakes during times of low water. Dam 26 at Alton, Illinois, which had structural problems, was replaced by the Mel Price Lock and Dam in 1990. The original Lock and Dam 26 was demolished.

Major cities along the river


- Minneapolis, Minnesota
- St. Paul, Minnesota
- Davenport, Iowa
- St. Louis, Missouri
- Memphis, Tennessee
- Baton Rouge, Louisiana
- New Orleans, Louisiana

Notable bridges


- Stone Arch Bridge - a former Great Northern Railroad (now pedestrian) bridge in Minneapolis and National Historic Engineering Landmark.
- Washington Avenue Bridge - connects the East Bank and West Bank portions of the University of Minnesota's Minneapolis campus.
- Black Hawk Bridge, connecting Lansing, Allamakee County, Iowa to rural Crawford County, Wisconsin, locally referred to as the Lansing Bridge.
- Julien Dubuque Bridge - A bridge connecting Dubuque, Iowa and East Dubuque, Illinois that is a National Historic Landmark.
- Interstate 74 Bridge connecting Moline, Illinois to Bettendorf, Iowa is a twin suspension bridge, also known historically as the Iowa-Illinois Memorial Bridge.
- Rock Island Centennial Bridge connecting Rock Island, Illinois to Davenport, Iowa.
- Santa Fe Bridge - in Fort Madison, Iowa, the largest double-deck swing-span bridge in the world; also listed as a National Historic Landmark.
- Chain of Rocks Bridge - A bridge on the northern edge of St. Louis, Missouri; famous for a 22-degree bend halfway across and the most famous alignment of Historic US 66 across the Mississippi.
- Eads Bridge - A bridge connecting St. Louis, Missouri and East St. Louis, Illinois; the first major steel bridge in the world, and also a National Historic Landmark.
- Poplar Street Bridge - A bridge connecting downtown St. Louis, Missouri with East St. Louis, Illinois that carries three interstates and a U.S. highway; the bridge is one of the busiest on the river.
- U.S. Highway 82 Bridge connecting Greenville, Mississippi with Arkansas.
- Interstate 20 Bridge connecting Vicksburg, Mississippi, with Tallulah, Louisiana.
- U.S. Highway 84 Bridge connecting Natchez, Mississippi, with Vidalia, Louisiana.
- Mississippi River Bridge in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
- Hale Boggs Memorial Bridge near New Orleans, a cable-stayed bridge carrying Interstate 310 across the Mississippi, connecting the towns of Luling and Destrehan, Louisiana.
- Huey P. Long Bridge in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana.
- Crescent City Connection in New Orleans, LA.

Popular culture

Nicknames

Due to its size and historical significance, the Mississippi probably has more nicknames than any other river. Among these are:
- The Father of Waters
- The Gathering of Waters
- The Big Muddy (more commonly associated with the Missouri River)
- Big River
- Old Man River
- The Great River
- Body of a Nation
- The Mighty Mississippi
- El Grande (de Soto)
- The Muddy Mississippi

Literature & Music

Many of the works of Mark Twain deal with or take place near the Mississippi River. One of his first major works, Life on the Mississippi, is in part a history of the river, in part a memoir of Twain's experiences on the river, and a collection of tales that either take place on or are associated with the river. Twain's most famous work, Huckleberry Finn, is largely a journey down the river. The novel works as an episodic meditation on American culture with the river as the central metaphor. Herman Melville's novel The Confidence-Man portrayed a Canterbury Tales-style group of steamboat passengers whose interlocking stories are told as they travel up the Mississppi River. The novel is written both as cultural satire and a metaphysical treatise. Like Huckleberry Finn, it uses the Mississippi River as a metaphor for the larger aspects of American and human identity that unify the otherwise disparate characters. The river's fluidity is reflected by the often shifting personalities and identities of Melville's "confidence man." The stage and movie musical Show Boat's central musical piece is the Blues-influenced ballad Ol' Man River. Ferde Grofe composed a set of movements based on the lands the river travels through in his Mississippi Suite. The song 'When the Levee Breaks', made famous in the version performed by Led Zeppelin on the album Led Zep IV, was composed by Memphis Minnie McCoy in 1929 after the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.

Slang

The Mississippi is probably the river meant in the phrase sold down the river, as a reference to slavery. Down the Mississippi was farther into the Deep South and plantation country.

Notes

¹ Median of the 7,305 daliy mean streamflows recorded by the USGS for the period 1978-1998. ² Median of the 7,305 daily mean streamflows recorded by the USGS for the period 1978-1998 at Vicksburg. The discharge is probably even higher further downstream at Natchez, but data for Natchez were not recorded. Further downstream from Natchez, approximately 25 percent of the water discharge of the Mississippi is diverted into the Atchafalaya River, and further discharge is lost as the river becomes a delta in Louisiana. ³ Median of the 1,826 daily mean streamflows recorded by the USGS for the period 1978-1983 at Baton Rouge.

Sources


-
-

See also


- Mississippi River Delta
- Mississippi embayment
- Mississippi River (Ontario).

External links


- [http://www.nps.gov/miss/features/factoids/ General Information about the Mississippi River]
- [http://www.davidestrada.com/river/ Life on the River with David Estrada] - a view of the river from a modern day towboater's perspective
- [http://biology.usgs.gov/s+t/SNT/noframe/ms137.htm Geography and biology of the Mississippi River]
- [http://www.archive.org/details/mississippi_flood_1927 National Archives footage of the 1927 flood] ko:미시시피 강 ja:ミシシッピ川 simple:Mississippi River

Traitor

In law, treason is the crime of disloyalty to one's nation. A person who betrays the nation of their citizenship and/or reneges on an oath of loyalty and in some way willfully cooperates with an enemy, is considered to be a traitor. Oran's Dictionary of the Law (1983) defines treason as: "...[a]...citizen's actions to help a foreign government overthrow, make war against, or seriously injure the [parent nation]." It is also generally considered treason to attempt or conspire to overthrow the government. Traitor may also mean a person who betrays their own party, group, family, and friends. One person's traitor is another's patriot. In a civil war or insurrection, the winners may deem the losers as traitors. Likewise the term "traitor" is used in heated political discussion — typically as a slur against political dissidents. In certain cases, as with the Nazi Dolchstosslegende, the accusation of treason towards a large group of people can be a unifying political message.

United Kingdom

The British law of treason is entirely statutory and has been so since the Treason Act 1351 (25 Edw. 3 St. 5) c. 2, which is unusual in English Criminal Law. The Act is written in Norman French, but is more commonly cited in its English translation. The Treason Act 1351 has since been amended several times, and currently provides for four categories of treasonable offences, namely:

- "when a man doth compass or imagine the death of our lord the King, or of our lady his Queen or of their eldest son and heir";
- "if a man do violate the King’s companion, or the King’s eldest daughter unmarried, or the wife of the King’s eldest son and heir";
- "if a man do levy war against our lord the King in his realm, or be adherent to the King’s enemies in his realm, giving to them aid and comfort in the realm, or elsewhere, and thereof be probably attainted of open deed by the people of their condition"; and
- "if a man slea the chancellor, treasurer, or the King’s justices of the one bench or the other, justices in eyre, or justices of assise, and all other justices assigned to hear and determine, being in their places, doing their offices".
In addition to the crime of treason, the Treason Felony Act 1848 created various offences known as treason felony. Under the traditional categorisation of offences into treason, felonies and misdemeanours, treason felony was merely another form of felony. While the common law offences of misprision and compounding were abolished in respect of felonies (including treason felony) by the Criminal Law Act 1967, which abolished the distinction between misdemeanour and felony, misprision of treason and compounding of treason are still offences under the common law. During the Second World War, the crime of treachery, with a mandatory death penalty, was created under the Treachery Act 1940 [http://www.stephen-stratford.co.uk/treachery.htm]. Anyone who spied for Germany, committed sabotage or otherwise aided the enemy was liable to be prosecuted for treachery, which was easier to prove than high treason because allegiance to the Crown did not have to be proven. 17 people were hanged for treachery during the war. The Treachery Act 1940 was repealed in England and Wales by the Criminal Law Act 1967. By virtue of the Treason Act 1708, the law of treason in Scotland is the same as the law in England, save that in Scotland counterfeiting the Great Seal of Scotland (the Forgery Act 1830 does not apply to Scotland) and the slaying of the Lords of Session and Lords of Justiciary are adjudged treason. The penalty for treason was changed to a maximum of imprisonment for life in 1998 under the Crime And Disorder Act. Before 1998 the mandatory penalty was death, subject to the Royal Prerogative of Mercy. Lord Haw Haw was the last person to be prosecuted and hanged for treason. As to who can commit treason, it depends on the ancient notion of allegiance. As such, British citizens (and British subjects who were Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies) wherever they may be owe allegiance to The Queen as do aliens present in the United Kingdom at the time of the treasonable act (except diplomats and foreign invading forces), those who hold a British passport however obtained, and by aliens who - having lived in Britain and gone abroad again - have left behind family and belongings.

History

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