AcharyaChanakya/simple-wikipedia huggingface dataset:
Edward Teach (1680 – 22 November 1718) was a pirate, often called "Blackbeard the Pirate". (It is not clear what his real name actually was; some historians think that his last name may really have been Thatch.) He attacked ships in the Caribbean and the American colonies. His flagship ship was the captured French slave ship "La Concorde" which Blackbeard renamed "Queen Anne's Revenge". About 1718 it ran aground near Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina and was abandoned.
Blackbeard often fought wearing a big feathered tricorn hat, and with lots of swords, knives, and pistols. Some pictures show him with lighted rope matches woven into his enormous black beard during battle. The matches burned slowly and gave of lots of smoke. They were designed to make him look frightening. He probably got the idea from seeing the burning rope was used to light the gunpowder in cannons and guns. (These old fashioned guns were called "matchlocks", later a flint was used to make a spark, these were called flintlock guns). No one knows how many wives Blackbeard had. The book "A General History of the Pirates" says that he had as many as fourteen wives, but he was not legally married to most of them.
Blackbeard is thought to have been born in Bristol, England. Teach went to sea when he was very young. He served on an English ship in the War of the Spanish Succession, privateering in the Spanish West Indies and along the Spanish Main. At the war's end in 1713, Teach, like many other privateers, turned to piracy. Blackbeard was born in a trade epicenter and he grew up knowing about sailing. Many merchant ships landed and traded there.
Teach began as a pirate under Benjamin Hornigold. In 1716, Hornigold retired, taking advantage of an amnesty offered to former privateers by the British government. Teach then took command of his own ship.
During the next two years Blackbeard attacked merchant ships, forcing them to allow his crew to board their ship. The pirates would seize all of the valuables, food, liquor, and weapons. Ironically, despite his ferocious reputation, there are no verified accounts of him actually killing anyone.
The Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, Alexander Spotswood sent two ships after Blackbeard. On 18 November 1718, Lt. Robert Maynard sailed from Hampton, Virginia to Ocracoke Inlet, North Carolina. On 22 November 1718, Maynard and his men defeated Blackbeard and the pirates. The most complete account of the following events comes from the "Boston News-Letter":
Teach was said to have been shot five times and stabbed more than twenty times before he died and was decapitated. Legends about his death immediately sprang up. His headless body, was thrown overboard, but swam three times around the ship before sinking. Teach's head was placed as a trophy on the bowsprit of the ship. Captain Maynard had to keep the head to claim his prize when he returned home. Later, Teach's head hung from a pike in Bath, Somerset.
Jenolan Caves
Jenolan Caves are limestone caves in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia, 175 kilometres west of Sydney. They are the most visited of several similar groups in the limestone of the country, and the oldest discovered open caves in the world. Since 2008, Jenolan Caves has won many tourism awards, including 'Best Tourist Attraction' from Tourism Australia, in 2011.
They have many Silurian marine fossils. The calcite formations are sometimes pure white and are know for being very beautiful.
The cave network is very large, with over 40 km of multi-level passages, and the complex is still undergoing active exploration.
Several kilometres of the caves have been rendered accessible to paying visitors and are well lit.
By measuring the ratio of radioactive potassium and trapped argon gas, which was produced when the potassium decayed, scientists determined the age of the clay in the caves to be approximately 340 million years old, thereby making the cave complex the world's oldest known and dated open cave system. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in association with the University of Sydney and the Australian Museum lead the efforts in scientific research into the caves.
For tens of thousands of years, the Jenolan area has been part of the culture of local indigenous peoples. This beautiful and mysterious place hold special significance to the Gundungurra people, who knew it as 'Binomil' or 'Bin-oo-mur'. Gundungurra people's knowledge of the caves goes back a long way, as there is a Dreamtime creation story about how the whole countryside came into being. The story describes an almighty struggle between two ancestral creator spirits - one a giant eel-like creature, Gurangatch, and the other, Mirrigan, a large native cat or quoll. In the early years of the 20th century, the Gundungurra people penetrated the caves as far as the subterranean water, carrying sick people to be bathed in this water, which they believed to have great curative powers.
In approximately 1835-40 the area was recorded for the first time by either James, Charles or Alf Whalan, three brothers who each claimed to have discovered the caves while searching for a bushranger, James McKeown, whom they claimed used the caves as a hide-out. One of the less-visited caverns in the area is called McKeown's Hole, however there is no actual evidence of his existence. It is more likely the brothers were searching for cattle that had strayed from their nearby farm.[citation needed]
Located 3 hours drive for day visitors from Sydney and Canberra, Jenolan Caves attracts over 250,000 visitors a year, making it one of the most popular tourist locations in rural New South Wales.
There is no public transport to Jenolan Caves. However, there are large carparks and a range of coach operators bring tourists from Sydney and Katoomba every day.
Ten of the area's "dark caves" are open for regular guided tours every day (1 to 2 hours per tour). These 'show' cave tour sizes vary; for example the delicate Pool of Cerberus Cave can have only 8 on a tour, while the Lucas Cave (with its large chambers) can have up to 65 people per tour.
Tours also vary in difficulty, for example the Imperial Cave has the fewest stairs, while the River Cave is the most strenuous. However, the average tourist can tour any of these 'show' caves.
A self-guided tour of the huge Nettle Cave/Devils Coach House is also available in a range of languages. Night tours run every night except Sundays, including the popular ghost tour, 'Legends, Mysteries & Ghosts'.
Several undeveloped caves are available for Adventure Caving (2 hours to all-day tours). These Adventure Caving tours include the Plughole Tour, which runs daily and includes basic abseiling. Other more challenging Adventure Caving tours are available.
When visiting Jenolan Caves, tourists can stay at the heritage-listed Jenolan Caves House hotel, designed in 1897 by government architect, Walter Liberty Vernon, as a resort or retreat for the wealthy. To cater for the expectations of the well-to-do, Vernon included a ballroom and grand dining room (now Chisolm's Restaurant). Chisolm's is open for dinner every day, serving modern Australian cuisine. Facilities include an hotel/motel complex, self-contained cottages, restaurant, bar and cafe.
The huge Jenolan Reserve is a National Park, located in the World Heritage Blue Mountains Area, where signposted bush trails enable tourists to glimpse Australian birds and native wildlife, including kangaroos and platypus.
Sizzler
Báb
Siyyid `Alí Muḥammad (20 October 1819 – 9 July 1850) was a merchant from Shíráz, Iran who started a version of Shia Islam called Bábism. After he started the religion, he changed his name to Báb. People who believe in the Báb are called Bábís, and they believe that the Báb was a prophet. Bábís also believe that the Báb is the Qá'im that Shi'as believe will come in the future.
The Báb wrote hundreds of letters and books teaching who he was and what the rules of his religion were. The Báb's new rules replaced the "Sharia law" or Muslim rules for his followers. Bábism became very large; over ten thousand people believed in the Báb. The Shi'a clergy, or leaders of Islam in Iran hated the Báb and tried to harm people who followed his religion. In 1850 a firing squad shot the Báb in Tabríz, Iran.
The Báb had other names, for example the ""Primal Point"" and the ""Point of the Bayán.""
The Báb told everyone that another prophet who was stronger and even more powerful was coming soon. People who follow the Bahá'í religion believe the Báb was talking about Bahá'u'lláh, who started the Bahá'í religion.
The Báb was born on October 20, 1819, in Shiraz, Iran. His father was a merchant, and many people in the town knew him. Very soon after the Báb was born, his father died. The Báb's uncle Ḥájí Mírzá Siyyid `Alí was also a merchant, and he raised the Báb.
When the Báb became an adult, he started working as a merchant with his uncle. In 1842 he married a woman named Khadíjih-Bagum. Together they had one son, who they named Aḥmad. Aḥmad was very sick and died when as a baby. Someone who lived at the same time as the Báb said he was very calm and quiet; they said the Báb only spoke who he had too, and did not even answer questions. The Báb was always thinking and praying. People said he was handsome, and had a thin beard. He always dressed in clean clothes, and wore a green scarf and a black turban, or wrap of cloth on his head.
Shaykh Ahmad-i-Ahsa'i started a Shi'a Islam religious group in Persia in the 1790s. The member of the group, who were called Shaykhis, believes that god was sending a new messenger to earth very soon. They called the new messenger the Qá'im, or theMahdi. When Shaykh Ahmad died, Siyyid Kázim, who was from Rasht, Iran, became the new leader of the Shaykhis. Shaykh Ahmad lived was born in 1753 and he died in 1862. Siyyid Kázim was born in 1793 and he died in 1843.
When the Báb went on a pilgrimage to Karbala and the places near it, he may have listened to Siyyid Kázim teach. Nobody knows for sure if he did or did not, because there are very few documents or records from that time.
When Siyyid Kázim was dying, in December, he told all his followers—people who believe what he taught—that they should travel and try to find the new prophet from god. He called that prophet "The Lord of the Age", and told them that he would be discovered very soon. One of the people who believed Siyyid Kázim prayed and fasted, or stopped eating from dawn to dusk for forty days - his name was Mullá Ḥusayn. After that he travelled to Shiraz, and he met the Báb.
Mullá Ḥusayn got to Shiraz on May 23, 1844. A young man wearing a green turban greeted him after he had not been in Shiraz for very long. In Iran at that time, only people who were related to the prophet Muḥammad wore green turbans. Men who were related to the prophet Muḥammad were called Siyyids. The young man was the Báb, and he invited Mullá Ḥusayn to his home.
The Báb asked Mullá Ḥusayn why he was in Shiraz, and Mullá Ḥusayn told him that he was searching for the new prophet, or Promised One. The Báb asked Mullá Ḥusayn how he would know who the prophet way. Mullá Ḥusayn told him that the prophet would come from a famous and good family, and would know many things without having to learn them, also that he would have no problems with his body. Then the Báb said that all of those things were true about himself. ""Behold, all these signs are manifest in me."" The Báb was saying that he was the new prophet Mullá Ḥusayn had been looking for. This shocked, or startled Mullá Ḥusayn.
Mullá Ḥusayn had one more way to know who the new prophet was, and he had not told the Báb about. Siyyid Káẓim had told Mullá Ḥusayn that the new prophet would write a book explaining the Surih of Joseph. Siyyid Káẓim had also said that the new prophet would do this without anyone asking him to. After the Báb told Mullá Ḥusayn that he was the new prophet, he wrote a book about the Surih of Joseph. The Báb called that book the Qayyúmu'l-Asmá'
After spending the night talking to the Báb Mullá Husayn said this. (The words below might be hard to read.)
Mullá Ḥusayn was the Báb's first disciple. A student of a religious leader is called a disciple. In less than five months, seventeen more students of Siyyid Káẓim became disciples of the Báb. All of the new disciples started believing the Báb was a new manifestation, or prophet of god without anyone else's help. One of these new disciples was a woman. Her name was Zarrín Táj Baragháni, and she was a poet. Later she was given a new name,Ṭáhirih (the pure). Later people started calling the first eighteen disciples and the Báb the Letters of the Living. The Báb told the Letters of the Living that it was their job to tell people that he was the new prophet.
The Báb said that the Letters of the Living were special. In Shi'a Islam there are fourteen special people, called the "Infallibles". Shi'as believe the "Infallibles" are always right. Muhammad, the twelve Imáms, and Fatimah, are the "Infallibles" in Shi'a Islam. Just like the "Infallibles", one of the letters of the Living was a woman, and one was a prophet. Nineteen was a special number in Bábism. The Letters of the Living were very much like the Twelve Apostles of Christ.
Breakfast at Tiffany's is a 1961 American romantic comedy-drama movie based on Truman Capote's novella (short book), and starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard. The movie won two Academy Awards. It was nominated for a total of five awards. It was directed by Blake Edwards, who also directed seven Pink Panther movies.
"Breakfast at Tiffany's" is about a young woman named Holly Golightly. Holly suffered an abusive childhood, along with her brother, Fred. She and Fred ran from the abuse, and were taken in by "Doc" Golightly, who married her when she was about fourteen. Soon after, the marriage was annulled, and Holly again ran in search of a happier life. She eventually landed in New York City, where she became a high society escort, trying to raise money to make a home for herself and her brother.
Paul Varjak, an aspiring writer being kept by an older woman, moves into Holly's building. Paul is amused by Holly's madcap lifestyle, and Holly sees Paul as a sort of "kindred spirit" in that they both are engaged in questionable business pursuits. They quickly form a friendship, but at some point, Paul's feelings turn romantic. The romantic attraction becomes mutual after a day of high-spirited fun; however, Holly's fear of being "caged" leads her to reject the relationship.
After some time passes and Holly suffers a series of setbacks, she is reunited with Paul, and has to decide whether she should keep running from commitment, or accept the love he offers. The movie ends with a very famous scene of Holly, her "no-name" cat, and Paul embracing in the rain.
Holly suffers from bouts of anxiety (the "mean reds"), and finds spending time at Tiffany & Co. calming. She feels "nothing very bad" can happen to a person in such elegant surroundings. Though she clearly aspires to own beautiful and expensive things, it also seems she yearns for the sense of stability and protection she associates with wealth. She sometimes gets a breakfast pastry in the morning and takes it with her to look in the store. When she spends a day with Paul, she takes him to Tiffany & Co., so they can look at all the fine jewelry, and he can experience one of her favorite places.
Juan Ignacio Molina
Juan Ignacio Molina. Born June 24 1740; Died September 12 1829; Chilean Naturalist.
He is usually referred to as Abate Molina (form of Abbott Molina). He wrote "Compendio della storia geografica, naturale e civile del regno del Cile" (1776), latter translated in English, French, German and Spanish. The journal "Moliniana" is dedicated in his honour.
"Mescaline"' (3,4,5-trimethoxyphenethylamine) is a chemical substance. It occurs naturally in some cactuses, like the Peyote cactus,the Peruvian Torch cactus or the San Pedro cactus. Small amounts of it can also be found in certain members of the Fabaceae (bean) family, like Acacia berlandieri.
The chemical can cause hallucinations. In has been used as a drug in Native American religious ceremonies. It is illegal in many countries. Some people use it as an illegal drug.
Mescaline is used primarily as a recreational drug and is also used to supplement various types of meditation and psychedelic therapy. It is classified as a schedule I drug in the U.S., making it illegal in all forms; however, it remains legal in certain religious ceremonies registered by the Native American Church Schedule I drugs have a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision.
According to the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), researchers have found that mescaline found in peyote may affect the fetus of a pregnant woman using the drug.
Psilocybin is a chemical substance. It can cause hallucinations when eaten, and has also been found to reverse psychological conditioning, grow brain cells and heal the brain. It occurs in many kinds of fungi and mushrooms, most notably Psilocybin mushrooms. Most of these are known as psychedelic mushrooms.
The substance is used as a recreational drug. It is illegal in many countries.
Ketamine
Ketamine is a dissociative anesthetic. It is a type of drug a doctor might give to put someone to sleep for an operation. Ketamine can also be used as a painkiller and a bronchodilator (which makes it easier for air to get into your lungs).
Sometimes it can lead to a special type of hallucination which makes you feel detached from yourself and the things around you which is why some people use it as a recreational drug. As it can have severe side effects, it is usually not available as an over-the-counter drug.
In medicine ketamine is normally injected into a vein or muscle.
Ketamine is not the first anaesthetic a doctor would think of using in most situations because of the hallucinations it causes. On the other hand, while most anaesthetics suppress your breathing, resulting in the need for a machine to help you breathe, ketamine does not.
This can make it a useful anaesthetic when you don't have any equipment available, for example, in a war zone.
Short term side effects happen in about 40% of people and include:
In the medical setting ketamine is only given a few times so most long term effects mentioned below are found in recreational ketamine users and animal models.
There are 110 reports of people with problems in their urinary tract due to using ketamine.
Symptoms include:
These urinary tract problems are most common in people who have abused ketamine daily for a long time.
People who abuse ketamine a lot (more than 4 times a week) have been found to have impaired memory and increased depression when compared to people who don't abuse ketamine. Those who use ketamine less frequently (1-4 times per week)and those who had stopped taking ketamine showed no difference in the aforementioned parameters. This suggests that these problems with memory and mood do not affect infrequent users and might be reversible once ketamine use is stopped.
One study has recently been done using monkeys as a model to see if ketamine is toxic to the brain.
The study found that injecting the monkeys every day for 6 months with ketamine caused more cells to die in the front of their brain and also caused a decrease in activity in the areas of the brain which control movement.
Ketamine is a NMDA antagonist in the CNS. By inhibiting NMDA receptors in inhibitiory neurons in the brain, it causes increased CNS activity and sympathomimetic effects. As a result, there is not only an anaesthetic effect, but also activation of the CNS unlike other anaesthetics. This is beneficial in surgical settings because it maintains blood pressure, airway reflexes, bronchioles remain dilated and airways patent. Making this a particularly useful drug in shock and surgery patients because of blood pressure maintained with ketamine use, unlike typical anaesthetics which cause decreased BP and respiratory suppression.
One study by Evgeny Krupitsky has found that using ketamine along with psychotherapy and group therapy was a lot more effective at treating alcohol addiction than the traditional treatment.
The same scientist found that ketamine might also be useful for treating heroin addiction. Patients who had been treated for their addiction with multiple sessions of ketamine fared much better than those who had only had one session of ketamine with abstinence rates of 50% and 22.2% respectively.
Some small studies have been done which found that a single dose of ketamine was able to improve treatment resistant depression after just a few hours with the effects lasting for one week. The rapid anti-depressant effects of ketamine may prove to be a useful alternative compared to current anti-depressants which can take several weeks to have their effects.
CRPS is a disease that causes severe pain and swelling, getting worse over time.
Some studies have been done which suggest that ketamine might be useful as a painkiller for CRPS.
Diazepam is a benzodiazepine which has a relatively long half-life. It is mostly used to treat anxiety, certain forms of epilepsy, muscle spasms (where the muscle moves on its own, causing pain), and sleeping problems. Like with other benzodiazepines, there is a risk of addiction if used for long periods of this. For this reason the drug is used to treat acute cases (2-4 weeks maximum) to avoid dependence. According to the World Health Organization diazepam is an "essential drug".
Diazepam is marketed under a number of names; its original trade name was "Valium". It has been the most prescribed medicine in the United States many times. It is sometimes used recreationally to cause a calming effect.
Fluoxetine
Fluoxetine hydrochloride is an antidepressant medication. It is used as a drug against various illnesses, like depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Panic disorder, and other illnesses. Fluoxetine is a one of a group of antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). It is commonly known as "Prozac".
There are newer drugs available to treat these conditions. Nevertheless, it remains very popular. Over 23.1 million prescriptions for fluoxetine were filled in the United States in 2006. This makes it the third most prescribed antidepressant.
Portable Document Format
The Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format for storing documents on a computer. Adobe created it in 1993 to make it easier to exchange documents. PDF is often used to make documents print-ready. PDF documents can have stylised text and images in them.
The document is stored in such a way that the content does not change the way it looks on different screens, computers and printers as can happen with other file formats.
PDF is an open standard that was officially published on July 1, 2008 by the ISO.
PDF reader software is required to read PDF documents.
Ascension Island
Ascension Island is an isolated and relatively young volcanic island in the South Atlantic Ocean, some west of the mid-Atlantic Ridge, from Liberia (Cape Palmas), and from Brazil (Recife). The nearest land is Saint Helena, to the south-east.
The Ascension Island is named after the day of its recorded discovery, Ascension Day. It is part of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, of which the main island is St Helena.
The island is the location of a Royal Air Force station with a United States Air Force presence, a European Space Agency station and the BBC World Service Atlantic Relay Station. There is in the island one antenna of the five that assist in the operation of the Global Positioning System (GPS) navigational system (others are on Kwajalein Island, Diego Garcia, Colorado Springs and Hawaii).
The Galician explorer João da Nova, working for Portugal, saw the Ascension island in the South Atlantic in 1501, when he was going to India; named it "ilha da Conceição" (Conception Island). En 1503 when the Portuguese navigator Afonso de Albuquerque saw the island on Ascension Day, in the church calendar, he named it after the feast day.
Organised settlement of Ascension Island began in 1815, when the British sent soldiers to the island as a precaution after imprisoning Napoleon I on Saint Helena to the southeast.
In 1836, Charles Darwin visited the Saint Helena and Ascension islands during his voyage in the Beagle. He described Ascension as an arid treeless island, with nothing growing near the coast. Sparse vegetation inland supported "about six hundred sheep, many goats, a few cows & horses", and large numbers of guineafowl imported from the Cape Verde islands, as well as rats, mice and land crabs.
In 1843, botanist and explorer Joseph Hooker visited the island. Four years later, Hooker advised the Royal Navy that with the help of Kew Gardens, they should develop a long-term plan of shipping trees to Ascension. So, from 1850 and continuing year on year, ships came each with different plants from botanical gardens in Argentina, Europe and South Africa. By the late 1870s Norfolk pines, eucalyptus, bamboo, and banana trees grew at the highest point of the island, Green Mountain, creating a tropical forest covered with clouds.
In 1899, the Eastern Telegraph Company (now part of Vodafone) installed the first underwater cable from the island, connecting the UK with its colonies in South Africa. In 1922, the Ascension island was made a dependency of Saint Helena. The island was managed by the head of the Eastern Telegraph Company on the island until 1964 when the British Government appointed an Administrator to represent the Governor of Saint Helena on Ascension.
In 1981, the British government changed the status of Saint Helena and the other Crown colonies to "British Dependent Territories".
The island is roughly triangular in plan, about 13 km across, with
an area of , and has about 100 km of coastline. While the west and north-west coasts have sandy beaches, the south and southeast coasts form steep cliffs.
The highest point of the island is Green Mountain, or just "The Peak" (), which is high. Other high mountains are Weather Post (680 m - 1,995 ft), White Hill (525 m - 1,722 ft) and Sisters Peak (445 m - 1,460 ft).
There are several small islands (islets) and rocks surrounding the Ascension Island; the largest is Boatswainbird Island, north of the eastern part of the island.
Ascension island has a tropical but oceanic climate, with little changes from one season to another. The island is in the path of the South-East Trade Winds, and southeast and easterly winds blow for more than half of every month.
The Köppen climate classification subtype for this climate is Am ("Tropical Monsoon Climate").
The temperature is constant throughout the year. Monthly average maximum temperatures at sea-level vary only between about 27 °C and 31 °C. At 660 m on Green Mountain maximum temperatures are typically about 13 °C lower and minimum temperatures about 7 °C lower than
at sea-level. The relative humidity at sea-level is around 70%.
The average temperature for the year in Georgetown is 25.6 °C (78.0 °F). The warmest month, on average, is March with an average temperature of 27.8 °C (82.0 °F). The coolest month on average is August, with an average temperature of 24.4 °C (76.0 °F).
The human population is about 1,000, made up of civilians
working for the RAF and USAF, and a small number of military personnel. The personnel are mainly from the UK, USA and St Helena, none of whom are permanent residents.
There are five settlements:
Two Boats School is the only school on the island and provides education to all resident children 3½–16 years old.
Ashmore and Cartier Islands
The Territory of Ashmore and Cartier Islands is the collective name for two groups of small low-lying uninhabited tropical islands.The islands are in the Indian Ocean north-west of Australia and south of the Indonesian island of Roti. The Australian mainland is about to the southwest, the island of Timor (and Roti next to it) is about to the north.
The territory includes Ashmore Reef (West, Middle, and East Islets) and Cartier Island east with, a total area of within the reefs and including the lagoons, and of dry land. They have a long coastline, over , but there are no ports or harbours, only offshore anchorage. Nearby Hibernia Reef, northeast of Ashmore Reef, is not part of the territory, because it has no permanently dry land area, although large parts of the reef become exposed during low tide.
The territory is administered from Canberra by the Australian Department of the Environment and Heritage. Therefore, it is a dependency within the commonwealth. The islands are visited by seasonal caretakers.
The Australian Antarctic Territory (AAT) is the part of Antarctica claimed by Australia and is the largest part of Antarctica claimed by any nation. The area is about 6.119.818 km². Only the staff of research stations live in the territory.
Victoria Land was first claimed for Britain on 9 January 1841 and Britain claimed Enderby Land in 1930. In 1933, a British imperial order transferred territory south of 60° S and between meridians 160 E and 45 E to Australia. On 13 February 1954 , Mawson Station was set up. It was the first Australian station on the continent proper.
Australia's claim to sovereignty over the Australian Antarctic Territory is recognised by the United Kingdom, New Zealand, France and Norway . As Australia is part of the Antarctic Treaty System, which accommodates differences of opinions over the status of Antarctic territorial claims which pre-dated the 1959 Antarctic Treaty - effectively placing claims in abeyance - Australia only exercises its sovereignty in ways that in its view are consistent with good relations under the Antarctic Treaty.
Australia issues postage stamps for the Australian Antarctic Territory. The first issues came in 1957, and sporadically thereafter, settling into a pattern of an annual issue by the 1990s. All have been Antarctic-themed, and all are valid for postage in Australia, so in practice they are just Australian stamps with a different inscription.
Assigned the country calling code +672, four Antarctic bases operated by Australia can be reached by direct calling from anywhere in the world. The area codes are 10-6 for Davis, 11-7 for Mawson, 12-8 for Casey and 13-9 for Macquarie Island, in each case followed by three additional digits.
The British Antarctic Territory is a sector of Antarctica claimed by the United Kingdom and is a British overseas territory. It is a triangle in Antarctica from the South Pole to 60° S latitude between longitudes 20° W and 80° W. The Territory was formed on March 3, 1962, although the UK first claimed this part of the Antarctic in 1908. Before 1962, the area now covered by the Territory comprised three separate dependencies of the Falkland Islands;
The Territory overlaps other claims on Antarctica by Argentina and Chile
The Territory is inhabited largely by the staff of research and support stations operated and maintained by the British Antarctic Survey and other organisations.
The United Kingdom has had a presence in the South Atlantic since 1833 when it occupied the Falkland Islands. In 1908 the UK claimed the territory that is British Antarctic Territory today, as well as South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. The territory was governed as three separate dependencies; Graham Land, the South Orkneys, and the South Shetlands, administered from Falkland Islands by the Governor.
In addition to continental Antarctica, within which the BAT claim includes the Palmer Land peninsula, and the Ronne Ice Shelf, Weddell Sea, the territory also includes the South Shetland Islands and South Orkney Islands.
It is administered by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). A Commissioner is appointed and is always the Head of the FCO's Overseas Territories Department.
The Territory has a full suite of laws, and legal and postal administrations. Given the provisions of the Antarctic Treaty System, the Territory does not enforce its laws on foreign nations who maintain scientific bases within the Territory. It is self-financing, with income from the sale of postage stamps and income tax.
The British Antarctic Survey has three permanently staffed research stations in the Territory:
British Indian Ocean Territory
The British Indian Ocean Territory is a dependency of the United Kingdom. It includes many small islands in the Indian Ocean. The territory is the seven atolls of the Chagos Archipelago with over 1,000 individual islandsmany very small. There is a total land area of . The largest island is Diego Garcia.
Both India and Mauritius claim the territories, and do not recognise the United Kingdom's authority over the Chagos Archipelago. India does not recognise Anglo sovereignty over these "Cultural Indo-Indian/Indies islands" and has disputed their status since 1947.
The natives of these islands were deported (made to leave their homes) by the British government. They were sent to Mauritius and the Seychelles. This happened in 1968 to 1973, to allow the United States to build a joint UK/US military base. In 2000, the High Court of the UK first ruled that the natives had the right to return home, but the government have been fighting hard against this court decision, and many of the natives are still said to be trying to move back to the islands.
The Territory of Christmas Island is a small island that belongs to Australia. It is in the Indian Ocean, 2600 kms northwest of Perth in Western Australia and 500 km south of Jakarta, Indonesia.
About 1,600 people live on Christmas Island, mostly in a number of "settlement areas" on the north of the island:
Christmas Island is far from other islands. That is why many of the plants and animals are only found on that Island. Much of it is undisturbed by humans.
There used to be mining on the island, but now 65% of Christmas Island is National Park.
Captain William Mynors of the British East India Company ship, the "Royal Mary", gave the island its name because they arrived on Christmas Day, 25 December 1643.
The earliest recorded visit was in March 1688 by William Dampier of the British ship "Cygnet". Dampier was blown away from the direction he wanted to go, and he got lost. After 28 days he arrived on Christmas Island. Two of his crewmen were the first recorded people to set foot on Christmas Island.
There were several visits and explorations of the island, but it was only when valuable phosphate of lime was discovered that the island was "annexed to" (claimed by) the British Crown on 6 June 1888.
Soon afterwards, a small settlement was started in Flying Fish Cove by G. Clunies Ross, the owner of the Keeling Islands (some 900 kilometres to the south west) to collect timber and supplies for the growing industry on Cocos.
Phosphate mining began in the 1890s using indentured workers from Singapore, China, and Malaysia.
The island was ruled jointly by the British Phosphate Commissioners and District Officers from the United Kingdom Colonial Office through the Straits Settlements, and later the Crown Colony of Singapore.
Japan invaded and occupied the island in 1942, as the Indian garrison mutinied, and they interned the residents (made them stay where they were) until the end of World War II in 1945.
Australia asked the United Kingdom to allow them to rule the island; in 1957, the Australian government paid the government of Singapore £2.9 million in compensation. This amount of money was decided by guessing how much the phosphate given up by Singapore was worth.
The first Australian Official Representative arrived in 1958 and was replaced by an Administrator in 1968 . Christmas Island and the Cocos (Keeling) Islands together are called the Australian Indian Ocean Territories and since 1997 share one Administrator who lives on Christmas Island.
Since the late 1980s boatloads of refugees have gone to Christmas Island, mostly from Indonesia. During 2001, Christmas Island received a large number of asylum seekers travelling by boat, most of them from the Middle East and intending to apply for asylum in Australia. The Norwegian cargo vessel MV "Tampa" rescued people from a sinking Indonesian fishing-boat "Palapa". The ship had 420 asylum seekers from Afghanistan, 13 from Sri Lanka, and five from Indonesia. The captain of the ship asked to let the refugees leave the ship at Christmas Island. The Australian SAS boarded and took control. The asylum seekers were sent to Nauru. Another boatload of asylum seekers was taken from Christmas Island to Papua New Guinea. It was said that many of the adult asylum seekers threw their children into the water in protest at being turned away. This was later proved to be untrue. Many of the refugees were accepted by New Zealand.
The Australian Parliament later passed a law to ban people who arrive on Christmas Island from being able automatically to claim refugee status. This allows the Australian navy to move them to other countries (Papua New Guinea's Manus Island, and Nauru). In 2005, the Department of Immigration began to build an "Immigration Reception and Processing Centre", completed in 2007 at the cost of $210 million. It has 800 beds.
Christmas Island is a non-self governing territory of Australia. The Queen of Australia is represented by an administrator appointed by the Governor-General. Neil Lucas was appointed administrator on 28 January 2006.
Federal government services are provided through the Department of Transport and Regional Services and the Christmas Island Administration.
The Western Australian Government and other contractors provide state government services, but because Christmas Island is a territory the Commonwealth (federal) Australian Government pay the costs.
The local government is the Shire of Christmas Island. This council has 9 members, half the members are elected every two years.
Christmas Island residents who are Australian citizens also vote in Commonwealth elections for the Northern Territory's Lingiari constituency of the House of Representatives. They are represented in the Senate by Northern Territory Senators.
In early 1986 the Christmas Island Assembly held a design competition for an island flag; the winning design was adopted as the informal flag of the territory for more than ten years, and in 2002 it was made the official flag of Christmas Island.
The annual red crab mass migration (around 100 million animals) to the sea to spawn has been called one of the wonders of the natural world and takes place each year around November; after the start of the wet season and in synchronisation with the cycle of the moon.
The Christmas Island National Park covers 63% of the island. This means that for the visitor interested in plants and animals there is a great deal to see. There is also lots of amazing marine life in the sea.
The Territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands () is a territory of Australia. There are two atolls and twenty-seven coral islands in the group. The islands are in the Indian Ocean, about one-half of the way from Australia to Sri Lanka.
Captain William Keeling was the first European to see the islands, in 1609, but they remained uninhabited until the nineteenth century, when they became a possession of the Clunies-Ross Family. Slaves were brought to work the coconut plantation from Indonesia, the Cape of Good Hope and East Asia by Alexander Hare who had taken part in Stamford Raffles' takeover of Java in 1811. A Scottish merchant seaman called Captain John Clunies-Ross, who had also served under Raffles in the takeover, set up a compound and Hare's severely mistreated slaves soon escaped to work under better conditions for Clunies-Ross.
On November 23 1955, the islands were transferred to Australian control under the "Cocos (Keeling) Islands Act 1955". In the 1970s, Australian government dissatisfaction with the Clunies-Ross feudal style of rule of the island increased. In 1978, Australia forced the family to sell the islands for the sum of AU$6,250,000, using the threat of compulsory purchase. By agreement the family retained ownership of Oceania House, their home on the island. However, in 1983 the Australian government moved to dishonour this agreement, and told the former last ruler, John Clunies-Ross, that he should leave the Cocos. The following year the High Court of Australia ruled that the government could not buy Oceania House. Instead the Australian government ordered that no government business was to be given to his shipping company, an action which contributed to his bankruptcy. John Clunies-Ross lives in exile in Perth, Australia, but his successors still live on the Cocos.
In 2004 there were 629 people living on the Cocos (Keeling) islands. There are about 120 Europeans on West Island and 500 Malays on Home Island. A Cocos dialect of Malay and English are the main languages spoken and 80% of Cocos Islanders are Sunni Muslim. India does not recognise Anglo annexation of these Cultural Indo-Indian/Indies islands as part of Australia and disputes it's status to counterbalance regional hegemonic sea power.
The capital of the Territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands is West Island while the largest settlement is the village of Bantam (Home Island). Governance of the islands is based on the "Cocos (Keeling) Islands Act 1955"
Heard Island and McDonald Islands
The Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands (abbreviated as HIMI ) is a territory of Australia. They are islands in the Indian Ocean. They are about two-thirds of the way from Madagascar to Antarctica.
The islands are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The islands were discovered in 1833 by the British sailor Peter Kemp. They have been territories of Australia since 1947.
Big Ben is an active volcano. The volcano is also known as "Mawson Peak".
The group's size is 372 km² in area.
Ross Dependency
The Ross Dependency is an area of Antarctica (and other land masses in the Southern Ocean) claimed by New Zealand. The Dependency takes its name from Sir James Clark Ross, who discovered the Ross Sea.
The Dependency includes part of Victoria Land, and most of the Ross Ice Shelf. Ross Island, Balleny Islands and the small Scott Island also form part of the Dependency, as does the ice-covered Roosevelt Island.
The scientific bases of Scott Base (New Zealand) and McMurdo Station (USA) are the only permanently occupied human settlements in the area – apart from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station at the very edge of the territory. The Dependency has a snow runway at Williams Field, and depending on conditions and time of year, two ice runways. This allows wheeled and ski equipped aircraft to come and go, year round.
The British government took possession of the territory in 1923 and entrusted it to the administration of New Zealand. Under the provisions of the Antarctic Treaty System, to which New Zealand is a signatory, no nation may make efforts to enforce sovereignty or territorial claims over the Antarctic continent proper. If one accepts the claim, the Ross Dependency comprises the bulk of the territory of New Zealand, far larger than the North Island and the South Island combined. However, the actual amount of land mass claimed is not large; most of the area defined as being in the Ross Dependency is either in the Ross Sea or the Antarctic Ocean. It is the smallest of the claims which were made prior to the implementation of the Antarctic Treaty System and the suspension of all territorial claims to Antarctica proper.
The Governor-General of New Zealand is also the Governor of Ross Dependency. Officers of the Government of the Ross Dependency are annually appointed to run the Dependency.
In the late 1980s, the British non-governmental exploratory vessel "Southern Quest" sank in the Ross Sea, United States Coast Guard helicopters rescued the crew, who were taken to McMurdo Station.
Tristan da Cunha is a group of remote volcanic islands in the south Atlantic Ocean and also the main island of that group. Tristan da Cunha is the most remote archipelago (group of islands) and the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world; it is at from the nearest land, South Africa, and from South America.
The territory consists of the main island of Tristan da Cunha itself, which measures about across and has an area of , along with the uninhabited Nightingale Islands and the wildlife reserves of Inaccessible Island and Gough Island.
Tristan da Cunha is part of the British overseas territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. This includes Saint Helena to its north and equatorial Ascension Island even further north. The island has a permanent population of 275 (2009 figures).
The islands were first seen in 1506 by Portuguese explorer Tristan da Cunha (), but he did not go to land because rough seas. He gave its name to the principal island of the group () but it was soon changed by to "Tristan da Cunha".
In 1643 the crew of the Dutch ship "Heemstede" made the first recorded landing. In 1656 Jan van Riebeeck, the governor of Cape Town, sent a ship to the archipelago to see if it was possible to establish a military station but the project was abandoned.
Tristan da Cunha also discovered in 1506 the Inaccessible Island; its present name was given by French Capt. d'Escheverry (or d'Etchevery). In that same year, the Portuguese Gonçalo Alvarez discovered the Gough Island and named the island after him. It was re-discovered by the British Capt. Charles Gough who also gave its name to the island.
The Nightingale Island was discovered by Dutch sailors in 1656 and named it "Gebroocken Eiland". The British Capt. Gamaliel Nightingale, who visited the group in 1760, gave his name to the island.
The first study of the archipelago was made by the French frigate "L'Heure du Berger" in 1767. The results of the survey were published by A. Dalrymple in 1781.
The first permanent settler was Jonathan Lambert, from Salem, Massachusetts, United States, who came to the islands in December 1810. He declared the islands his property and named them the "Islands of Refreshment". Lambert's rule was short-lived, as he died in 1812.
In 1816 the United Kingdom formally annexed the islands, ruling them from the Cape Colony in South Africa. It was a measure to ensure that the French would be unable to use the islands as a base for a rescue operation to free Napoleon Bonaparte from his prison on Saint Helena. The occupation also prevented the United States from using Tristan da Cunha as a base, as they had during the War of 1812.
In 1867, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and second son of Queen Victoria, visited the islands. The main settlement, Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, was named in honour of his visit. Lewis Carroll's youngest brother, the Rev. Edwin H. Dodgson, served as an Anglican missionary and school teacher in Tristan da Cunha in the 1880s.
On 12 January 1938, the Tristan da Cunha archipelago was made a dependency of Saint Helena. In 1981, the British government changed the status of Saint Helena and the other Crown colonies to "British Dependent Territories".
The 1961 eruption of Queen Mary's Peak forced the evacuation of the entire population via Cape Town to England. The following year a Royal Society expedition went to the islands to assess the damage, and reported that the settlement of Edinburgh of the Seven Seas had been only marginally affected. Most families returned in 1963.
The islands of Tristan da Cunha are the peaks of volcanoes associated with the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. At 200,000 years old, the main island is the youngest of the group, while Nightingale is the oldest: 12 million years. Inaccessible and Gough are 3 to 5 million years old.
Tristan da Cunha is the name of the archipelago and of the main island of the group; the archipelago consists of the following islands:
Inaccessible Island and the Nightingale Islands are located southwest of the main island, while Gough Island is located south-southeast. The main island is quite mountainous; the only flat area is the location of the capital, Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, on the northwest coast. The highest point is a volcano called Queen Mary's Peak ; it is covered by snow in winter. The other islands of the group are uninhabited, except for the weather station on Gough Island, which has been operated by South Africa since 1956 (since 1963 at its present location at Transvaal Bay on the southeast coast), with a staff of six.