title: History of cartography

text: Al-Khwārizmī, Al-Ma'mun's most famous geographer, corrected Ptolemy's gross overestimate for the length of the Mediterranean Sea (from the Canary Islands to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean); Ptolemy overestimated it at 63 degrees of longitude, while al-Khwarizmi almost correctly estimated it at nearly 50 degrees of longitude. Al-Ma'mun's geographers "also depicted the Atlantic and Indian Oceans as open bodies of water, not land-locked seas as Ptolemy had done. " Al-Khwarizmi thus set the Prime Meridian of the Old World at the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, 10–13 degrees to the east of Alexandria (the prime meridian previously set by Ptolemy) and 70 degrees to the west of Baghdad. Most medieval Muslim geographers continued to use al-Khwarizmi's prime meridian. Other prime meridians used were set by Abū Muhammad al-Hasan al-Hamdānī and Habash al-Hasib al-Marwazi at Ujjain, a centre of Indian astronomy, and by another anonymous writer at Basra.


title: History of cartography

text: Abu Rayhan al-Biruni (973–1048) gave an estimate of 6,339.6 km for the Earth radius, which is only 17.15 km less than the modern value of 6,356.7523142 km (WGS84 polar radius "b"). In contrast to his predecessors who measured the Earth's circumference by sighting the Sun simultaneously from two different locations, Al-Biruni developed a new method of using trigonometric calculations based on the angle between a plain and mountain top which yielded more accurate measurements of the Earth's circumference and made it possible for it to be measured by a single person from a single location. Al-Biruni's method's motivation was to avoid "walking across hot, dusty deserts" and the idea came to him when he was on top of a tall mountain in India (present day Pind Dadan Khan, Pakistan). From the top of the mountain, he sighted the dip angle which, along with the mountain's height (which he calculated beforehand), he applied to the law of sines formula. This was the earliest known use of dip angle and the earliest practical use of the law of sines.


title: History of cartography

text: Around 1025, Al-Biruni was the first to describe a polar equi-azimuthal equidistant projection of the celestial sphere.


title: History of cartography

text: In his "Codex Masudicus" (1037), Al-Biruni theorized the existence of a landmass along the vast ocean between Asia and Europe, or what is today known as the Americas. He deduced its existence on the basis of his accurate estimations of the Earth's circumference and Afro-Eurasia's size, which he found spanned only two-fifths of the Earth's circumference, and his discovery of the concept of specific gravity, from which he deduced that the geological processes that gave rise to Eurasia must've also given rise to lands in the vast ocean between Asia and Europe. He also theorized that the landmass must be inhabited by human beings, which he deduced from his knowledge of humans inhabiting the broad north–south band stretching from Russia to South India and Sub-Saharan Africa, theorizing that the landmass would most likely lie along the same band. He was the first to predict "the existence of land to the east and west of Eurasia, which later on was discovered to be America and Japan".


title: History of cartography

text: The Arab geographer, Muhammad al-Idrisi, produced his medieval atlas, "Tabula Rogeriana" or "The Recreation for Him Who Wishes to Travel Through the Countries", in 1154. He incorporated the knowledge of Africa, the Indian Ocean and the Far East gathered by Arab merchants and explorers with the information inherited from the classical geographers to create the most accurate map of the world in pre-modern times. With funding from Roger II of Sicily (1097–1154), al-Idrisi drew on the knowledge collected at the University of Cordoba and paid draftsmen to make journeys and map their routes. The book describes the earth as a sphere with a circumference of but maps it in 70 rectangular sections. Notable features include the correct dual sources of the Nile, the coast of Ghana and mentions of Norway. Climate zones were a chief organizational principle. A second and shortened copy from 1192 called "Garden of Joys" is known by scholars as the "Little Idrisi".


title: History of cartography

text: Al-Idrisi's atlas, originally called the "Nuzhat" in Arabic, served as a major tool for Italian, Dutch and French mapmakers from the 16th century to the 18th century.


title: History of cartography

text: The Ottoman cartographer Piri Reis published navigational maps in his "Kitab-ı Bahriye". The work includes an atlas of charts for small segments of the mediterranean, accompanied by sailing instructions covering the sea. In the second version of the work, he included a map of the Americas. The Piri Reis map drawn by the Ottoman cartographer Piri Reis in 1513, is one of the oldest surviving maps to show the Americas.


title: History of cartography

text: Medieval maps of the world in Europe were mainly symbolic in form along the lines of the much earlier Babylonian World Map. Known as Mappa Mundi (cloths or charts of the world) these maps were circular or symmetrical cosmological diagrams representing the Earth's single land mass as disk-shaped and surrounded by ocean.


title: History of cartography

text: Roger Bacon's investigations of map projections and the appearance of portolano and then portolan charts for plying the European trade routes were rare innovations of the period. The Majorcan school is contrasted with the contemporary Italian cartography school. The "Carta Pisana" portolan chart, made at the end of the 13th century (1275–1300), is the oldest surviving nautical chart (that is, not simply a map but a document showing accurate navigational directions).


title: History of cartography

text: The Majorcan cartographic school was a predominantly Jewish cooperation of cartographers, cosmographers and navigational instrument-makers in late 13th to the 14th and 15th-century Majorca. With their multicultural heritage the Majorcan cartographic school experimented and developed unique cartographic techniques most dealing with the Mediterranean, as it can be seen in the Catalan Atlas. The Majorcan school was (co-)responsible for the invention (c.1300) of the "Normal Portolan chart". It was a contemporary superior, detailed nautical model chart, gridded by compass lines.


title: History of cartography

text: The Polynesian peoples who explored and settled the Pacific islands in the first two millennia AD used maps to navigate across large distances. A surviving map from the Marshall Islands uses sticks tied in a grid with palm strips representing wave and wind patterns, with shells attached to show the location of islands. Other maps were created as needed using temporary arrangements of stones or shells.


title: History of cartography

text: In the Renaissance, with the renewed interest in classical works, maps became more like surveys once again, while European exploration of the Americas and their subsequent effort to control and divide those lands revived interest in scientific mapping methods. Peter Whitfield, the author of several books on the history of maps, credits European mapmaking as a factor in the global spread of western power: "Men in Seville, Amsterdam or London had access to knowledge of America, Brazil, or India, while the native peoples knew only their own immediate environment" (Whitfield). Jordan Branch and his advisor, Steven Weber, propose that the power of large kingdoms and nation states of later history are an inadvertent byproduct of 15th-century advances in map-making technologies.


title: History of cartography

text: During the 15th and 16th centuries, Iberian powers (Kingdom of Castile and Kingdom of Portugal) were at the vanguard of European overseas exploration and mapping the coasts of the Americas, Africa, and Asia, in what came known as the Age of Discovery (also known as the Age of Exploration). Spain and Portugal were magnets for the talent, science and technology from the Italian city-states.


title: History of cartography

text: Portugal's methodical expeditions started in 1419 along West Africa's coast under the sponsorship of Prince Henry the Navigator, with Bartolomeu Dias reaching the Cape of Good Hope and entering the Indian Ocean in 1488. Ten years later, in 1498, Vasco da Gama led the first fleet around Africa to India, arriving in Calicut and starting a maritime route from Portugal to India. Soon, after Pedro Álvares Cabral reaching Brazil (1500), explorations proceed to Southeast Asia, having sent the first direct European maritime trade and diplomatic missions to Ming China and to Japan (1542).


title: History of cartography

text: In 1492, when a Spanish expedition headed by Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus sailed west to find a new trade route to the Far East but inadvertently found the Americas. Columbus's first two voyages (1492–93) reached the Bahamas and various Caribbean islands, including Hispaniola, Puerto Rico and Cuba. The Spanish cartographer and explorer Juan de la Cosa sailed with Columbus. He created the first known cartographic representations showing both the Americas. The post-1492 era is known as the period of the Columbian Exchange, a dramatically widespread exchange of animals, plants, culture, human populations (including slaves), communicable disease, and ideas between the American and Afro-Eurasian hemispheres following the Voyages of Christopher Columbus to the Americas.


title: History of cartography

text: The Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation was the first known voyage around the world in human history. It was a Spanish expedition that sailed from Seville in 1519 under the command of Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan in search of a maritime path from the Americas to the East Asia across the Pacific Ocean. Following Magellan's death in Mactan (Philippines) in 1521, Juan Sebastián Elcano took command of the expedition, sailing to Borneo, the Spice Islands and back to Spain across the Indian Ocean, round the Cape of Good Hope and north along the west coast of Africa. They arrived in Spain three years after they left, in 1522.


title: History of cartography

text: The Spanish House of Trade, founded 1504 in Seville, had a large contingent of cartographers, as Spain's overseas empire expanded. The master map or Padrón Real was mandated by the Spanish monarch in 1508 and updated subsequently as more information became available with each ship returning to Seville.


title: History of cartography

text: Diogo Ribeiro, a Portuguese cartographer working for Spain, made what is considered the first scientific world map: the 1527 Padrón Real. The layout of the map ("Mapamundi") is strongly influenced by the information obtained during the Magellan-Elcano trip around the world. Diogo's map delineates very precisely the coasts of Central and South America. The map shows, for the first time, the real extension of the Pacific Ocean. It also shows, for the first time, the North American coast as a continuous one (probably influenced by the Esteban Gómez's exploration in 1525). It also shows the demarcation of the Treaty of Tordesillas.


title: History of cartography

text: Two prominent cosmographers (as mapmakers were then known) of the House of Trade were Alonso de Santa Cruz and Juan López de Velasco, who directed mapmaking under Philip II, without ever going to the New World. Their maps were based on information they received from returning navigators. Using repeatable principles that underpin mapmaking, their map making techniques could be employed anywhere. Philip II sought extensive information about his overseas empire, both in written textual form and in the production of maps.


title: History of cartography

text: Leuven, Antwerp, and Amsterdam were the main centres of the Netherlandish school of cartography in its golden age (the 16th and 17th centuries, approximately 1570–1670s). The Golden Age of Dutch cartography (also known as the Golden Age of Netherlandish cartography) that was inaugurated in the Southern Netherlands (current Belgium; mainly in Leuven and Antwerp) by Mercator and Ortelius found its fullest expression during the seventeenth century with the production of monumental multi-volume world atlases in the Dutch Republic (mainly in Amsterdam) by competing mapmaking firms such as Lucas Waghenaer, Joan Blaeu, Jan Janssonius, Claes Janszoon Visscher, and Frederik de Wit.


title: History of cartography

text: Notable representatives of the Netherlandish school of cartography and geography (1500s–1600s) include: Franciscus Monachus, Gemma Frisius, Gaspard van der Heyden, Gerard Mercator, Abraham Ortelius, Christophe Plantin, Lucas Waghenaer, Jacob van Deventer, Willebrord Snell, Hessel Gerritsz, Petrus Plancius, Jodocus Hondius, Henricus Hondius II, Hendrik Hondius I, Willem Blaeu, Joan Blaeu, Johannes Janssonius, Andreas Cellarius, Gerard de Jode, Cornelis de Jode, Claes Visscher, Nicolaes Visscher I, Nicolaes Visscher II, and Frederik de Wit.


title: History of cartography

text: Gerardus Mercator, the German-Netherlandish cartographer and geographer with a vast output of wall maps, bound maps, globes and scientific instruments but his greatest legacy was the mathematical projection he devised for his 1569 world map. The Mercator projection is an example of a cylindrical projection in which the meridians are straight and perpendicular to the parallels. As a result, the map has a constant width and the parallels are stretched east–west as the poles are approached. Mercator's insight was to stretch the separation of the parallels in a way which exactly compensates for their increasing length, thus preserving shapes of small regions, albeit at the expense of global distortion. Such a conformal map projection necessarily transforms rhumb lines, sailing courses of a constant bearing, into straight lines on the map thus greatly facilitating navigation. That this was Mercator's intention is clear from the title: "Nova et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio ad Usum Navigantium Emendate Accommodata" which translates as "New and more complete representation of the terrestrial globe properly adapted for use in navigation". Although the projection's adoption was slow, by the end of the seventeenth century it was in use for naval charts.


title: History of cartography

text: Mercator spent the last thirty years of his life working on a vast project, the "Cosmographia"; a description of the whole universe including the creation and a description of the topography, history and institutions of all countries. The word "atlas" makes its first appearance in the title of the final volume: "Atlas sive cosmographicae meditationes de fabrica mundi et fabricati figura". This translates as "Atlas OR cosmographical meditations upon the creation of the universe, and the universe as created," thus providing Mercator's definition of the term "atlas". These volumes devote slightly less than one half of their pages to maps: Mercator did not use the term solely to describe a bound collection of maps. His choice of title was motivated by his respect for Atlas "King of Mauretania"


title: History of cartography

text: Abraham Ortelius generally recognized as the creator of the first modern atlas, the "Theatrum Orbis Terrarum". Triangulation had first emerged as a map-making method in the mid sixteenth century when Gemma Frisius set out the idea in his "Libellus de locorum describendorum ratione" ("Booklet concerning a way of describing places"). Dutch cartographer Jacob van Deventer was among the first to make systematic use of triangulation, the technique whose theory was described by Frisius in his 1533 book.


title: History of cartography

text: The modern systematic use of triangulation networks stems from the work of the Dutch mathematician Willebrord Snell (born Willebrord Snel van Royen), who in 1615 surveyed the distance from Alkmaar to Bergen op Zoom, approximately 70 miles (110 kilometres), using a chain of quadrangles containing 33 triangles in all. The two towns were separated by one degree on the meridian, so from his measurement he was able to calculate a value for the circumference of the earth – a feat celebrated in the title of his book "Eratosthenes Batavus" ("The Dutch Eratosthenes"), published in 1617. Snell's methods were taken up by Jean Picard who in 1669–70 surveyed one degree of latitude along the Paris Meridian using a chain of thirteen triangles stretching north from Paris to the clocktower of Sourdon, near Amiens.


title: History of cartography

text: The first printed atlas of nautical charts ("De Spieghel der Zeevaerdt" or "The Mirror of Navigation" / "The Mariner's Mirror") was produced by Lucas Janszoon Waghenaer in Leiden in 1584. This atlas was the first attempt to systematically codify nautical maps. This chart-book combined an atlas of nautical charts and sailing directions with instructions for navigation on the western and north-western coastal waters of Europe. It was the first of its kind in the history of maritime cartography.


title: History of cartography

text: In 1660, German-born Dutch cartographer Andreas Cellarius' star atlas ("Harmonia Macrocosmica") was published by Johannes Janssonius in Amsterdam.


title: History of cartography

text: In the long run the competition between map-making firms Blaeu and Janssonius resulted in the publication of an 'Atlas Maior' or 'Major Atlas'. In 1662 the Latin edition of Joan Blaeu's "Atlas Maior" appeared in eleven volumes and with approximately 600 maps. In the years to come French and Dutch editions followed in twelve and nine volumes respectively. Purely judging from the number of maps in the "Atlas Maior", Blaeu had outdone his rival Johannes Janssonius. And also from a commercial point of view it was a huge success. Also due to the superior typography the "Atlas Maior" by Blaeu soon became a status symbol for rich citizens. Costing 350 guilders for a non-coloured and 450 guilders for a coloured version, the atlas was the most precious book of the 17th century. However, the "Atlas Maior" was also a turning point: after that time the role of Dutch cartography (and Netherlandish cartography in general) was finished. Janssonius died in 1664 while a great fire in 1672 destroyed one of Blaeu's print shops. In that fire a part of the copperplates went up in flames. Fairly soon afterwards Joan Blaeu died, in 1673. The almost 2,000 copperplates of Janssonius and Blaeu found their way to other publishers.


title: History of cartography

text: Historian David Buisseret has traced the roots of the flourishing of cartography in the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe. He noted five distinct reasons: 1) admiration of antiquity, especially the rediscovery of Ptolemy, considered to be the first geographer; 2) increasing reliance on measurement and quantification as a result of the scientific revolution; 3) refinements in the visual arts, such as the discovery of perspective, that allowed for better representation of spatial entities; 4) development of estate property; and 5) the importance of mapping to nation-building.


title: History of cartography

text: The reign of Louis XIV is generally considered to represent the beginning of cartography as a science in France. The evolution of cartography during the transition between the 17th and 18th centuries involved advancements on a technical level, as well as those on a representative level. According to Marco Petrella, the map developed "from a tool used to affirm the administrative borders of the reign and its features…into a tool which was necessary to intervene in territory and thus establish control of it." Because unification of the kingdom necessitated well-kept records of land and tax bases, Louis XIV and members of the royal court pushed the development and progression of the sciences, especially cartography. Louis XIV established the "Académie des Sciences" in 1666, with the expressed purpose of improving cartography and sailing charts. It was found that all the gaps of knowledge in geography and navigation could be accounted for in the further exploration and study of astronomy and geodesy. Colbert also attracted many foreign scientists to the "Académie des Sciences" to support the pursuit of scientific knowledge.


title: History of cartography

text: Under the auspices of the Sun King and Jean-Baptiste Colbert, members of the "Académie des Sciences" made many breakthrough discoveries within the realm of cartography in order to ensure accuracy of their works. Among the more prominent work done with the "Académie" was that done by Giovanni Domenico Cassini, who perfected a method of determining longitude by the observation of movement of Jupiter’s satellites. Cassini, along with the aid and support of mathematician Jean Picard, developed a system of uniting the provincial topographical information into a comprehensive map of the country, through a network of surveyed triangles. It established a practice that was eventually adopted by all nations in their project to map the areas under their domain. For their method of triangulation, Picard and Cassini used the meridian arc of Paris-Amiens as their starting point.


title: History of cartography

text: Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the secretary of home affairs and prominent member of Louis XIV's royal court, set out to develop the resource base of the nation and to develop a system of infrastructure that could restore the French economy. He wanted to generate income for the high expenses incurred by Louis XIV. What Colbert lacked in his pursuit of the development of the economy was a map of the entire country. France, like all other countries of Europe, operated on local knowledge. Within France, there were local systems of measuring weight and taxes; a uniform notion of land surveying did not exist. The advancements made by the members of the "Académie des Sciences" proved instrumental as a tool to aid reform within the nation. Cartography was an important element in two major reforms undertaken by Colbert: the reform of the royal forest, a project undertaken beginning in 1661, and naval reform, initiated in 1664.


title: History of cartography

text: In 1663–1664 Colbert tried to collect information from the provinces in order to accurately assess the income within the kingdom, necessary information for economic and tax reform. Colbert asked the provincial representatives of the king, the intendants, to gather existing maps of territory within the provinces and check them for accuracy. If they were found not to be accurate, the Royal Geographer, Nicolas Sanson, was to edit them, basing his information on the reports prepared by the intendants. The operation did not succeed because the "Académie des Sciences" did not believe it had a strong enough basis in cartographic methodology. The importance of cartography to the mechanisms of the state, however, continued to grow.


title: History of cartography

text: The seventeenth century marked the emergence of France as the center of the map trade in Europe, with much of the production and distribution of maps taking place in the capital Paris. In conjunction with the support of scientific development, the royal court encouraged the work of arts and artisans. This royal patronage attracted artists to Paris. As a result, many mapmakers, such as Nicolas Sanson and Alexis-Hubert Jaillot, moved to the national capital from the peripheries of the provinces.


title: History of cartography

text: Many of the agents of cartography, including those involved in the creation, production and distribution of maps in Paris, came to live in the same section of the capital city. Booksellers congregated on rue St-Jacques along the left bank of the Seine, while engravers and cartographers lived along the quai de l’Horloge on the (See Figure 1). Regulations enacted by the informed the location of the libraries. These regulations included that each bookseller-printer was to have one shop, which had to be located in the University quarter or on the "quai de l’Horloge". These restrictions enabled authorities to more easily inspect their businesses to enforce other regulations such as: printer need to register the number of presses they owned, and any books printed had to be registered and approved by the royal court before sales. Opticians were also located ton he . Their tools – squares, rules, compasses and dividers – were essential to the practice of cartography.


title: History of cartography

text: Many of the cartographers who worked in Paris never set foot outside the city; they did not gather firsthand knowledge for their maps. They were known as the . An example of a cartographer who relied on other sources was Jean-Baptiste Bourgignon d’Anville, who compiled his information from ancient and modern sources, verbal and pictorial, published and even unpublished sources.


title: History of cartography

text: The Dieppe maps are a series of world maps produced in Dieppe, France, in the 1540s, 1550s and 1560s. They are large hand-produced maps, commissioned for wealthy and royal patrons, including Henry II of France and Henry VIII of England. The Dieppe school of cartographers included Pierre Desceliers, Johne Rotz, Guillaume Le Testu, Guillaume Brouscon and Nicolas Desliens.


title: History of cartography

text: In the 1670s the astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini began work on the first modern topographic map in France. It was completed in 1789 or 1793 by his grandson Cassini de Thury.


title: History of cartography

text: The Vertical Perspective projection was first used by the German map publisher Matthias Seutter in 1740. He placed his observer at ~12,750 km distance. This is the type of projection used today by Google Earth.


title: History of cartography

text: The changes in the use of military maps was also part of the modern Military Revolution, which changed the need for information as the scale of conflict increases as well. This created a need for maps to help with "... consistency, regularity and uniformity in military conflict."


title: History of cartography

text: The final form of the equidistant conic projection was constructed by the French astronomer Joseph-Nicolas Delisle in 1745.


title: History of cartography

text: The Swiss mathematician Johann Lambert invented several hemispheric map projections. In 1772 he created the Lambert conformal conic and Lambert azimuthal equal-area projections.


title: History of cartography

text: The Albers equal-area conic projection features no distortion along standard parallels. It was invented by Heinrich Albers in 1805.


title: History of cartography

text: In 1715 Herman Moll published the Beaver Map, one of the most famous early maps of North America, which he copied from a 1698 work by Nicolas de Fer.


title: History of cartography

text: In 1777 Colonel Joseph Frederick Wallet DesBarres created a monumental four volume atlas of North America, "Atlantic Neptune".


title: History of cartography

text: In the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries, explorers mapped trails and army engineers surveyed government lands. Two agencies were established to provide more detailed, large-scale mapping. They were the U.S. Geological Survey and the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey (now the National Geodetic Survey under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association).


title: History of cartography

text: During his travels in Spanish America (1799–1804) Alexander von Humboldt created the most accurate map of New Spain (now Mexico) to date. Published as part of his "Essai politique sur le royaume de la Nouvelle-Espagne" (1811) ("Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain"), Humboldt's "Carte du Mexique" (1804) was based on existing maps of Mexico, but with Humboldt's careful attention to latitude and longitude. Landing at the Pacific coast port of Acapulco in 1803, Humboldt did not leave the port area for Mexico City until he produced a map of the port; when leaving he drew a map of the east coast port of Veracruz, as well as a map of the central plateau of Mexico. Given royal authorization from the Spanish crown for his trip, crown officials in Mexico were eager to aid Humboldt's research. He had access to José Antonio de Alzate y Ramírez's "Mapa del Arzobispado de México" (1768), which he deemed "very bad", as well as the seventeenth-century map of greater Mexico City by savant Don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora.


title: History of cartography

text: John Disturnell, a businessman and publisher of guidebooks and maps, published "Mapa de los Estados Unidos de Méjico", which was used in the negotiations between the U.S. and Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848), following the Mexican–American War, based on the 1822 map by U.S. cartographer Henry Schenck Tanner. This map has been described as showing U.S. Manifest Destiny; a copy of the map was offered for sale in 2016 for $65,000. Map making at that time was important for both Mexico and the United States.


title: History of cartography

text: During the 20th century, maps became more abundant due to improvements in printing and photography that made production cheaper and easier. Airplanes made it possible to photograph large areas at a time.


title: History of cartography

text: Two-point equidistant projection was first drawn up by Hans Maurer in 1919. In this projection the distance from any point on the map to either of the two regulating points is accurate.


title: History of cartography

text: The loximuthal projection was constructed by Karl Siemon in 1935 and refined by Waldo Tobler in 1966.


title: History of cartography

text: Since the mid-1990s, the use of computers in map making has helped to store, sort, and arrange data for mapping in order to create map projections.


title: History of cartography

text: Nowadays map-making heavily relies on computer software to develop and provide a variety of services, a trend that already started at the end of the previous century. For instance, self-location, browser search of places, business, products, and area, and distance calculation. At the present time, computer-based software is dominated by big companies that offer their services to a worldwide public, such as Google Maps, Apple Maps, Bing Maps, National Geographic Maps, ESRI Geographic Information System (GIS), CartoDB, Mapbox, Waze, etc. Many other state-based, regional and smaller initiatives, and companies offer their services. The list of online map services is quite long and is growing every day.


title: History of cartography

text: Recent development also include the integration of ancient maps and modern scholar research combined with modern computer software to elaborate periodical history maps. Initiatives such as Euratlas History Maps (which covers the whole of Europe from the year 1 AD to the present), Centennia Historical Atlas (which covers Europe from the year 1000AD to the present), Geacron, and many others who work in what is called historical cartography. These maps include evolution of countries, provinces and cities, wars and battles, the history of border changes, etc.


title: History of cartography

text: Today historical cartography is thriving. The specialization of map services is ever growing. New map projections are still being developed, university map collections, such as Perry–Castañeda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas, offer better and more diverse maps and map tools every day, making available for their students and the broad public ancient maps that in the past were difficult to find. David Rumsey Historical Map Collection is nowadays a worldwide known initiative.


title: History of cartography

text: Never in the past there were many "edit-yourself" map tools and software available for non-specialist. Map blogs and self-publishing are common. In 2004, Steve Coast created OpenStreetMap, a collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world. The creation and growth of OpenStreetMap has been motivated by restrictions on use or availability of map information across much of the world, and the advent of inexpensive portable satellite navigation devices.


title: History of cartography

text: In 1921, the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) was set up, and it constitutes the authority on hydrographic surveying and nautical charting. The current defining document is the Special publication S-23, "Limits of Oceans and Seas", 3rd edition, 1953. The second edition dated back to 1937, and the first to 1928. A fourth edition draft was published in 1986 but so far several naming disputes (such as the one over the Sea of Japan) have prevented its ratification.


title: History of cartography

text: In cartography, technology has continually changed in order to meet the demands of new generations of mapmakers and map users. The first maps were manually constructed with brushes and parchment and therefore varied in quality and were limited in distribution. The advent of the compass, printing press, telescope, sextant, quadrant and vernier allowed for the creation of far more accurate maps and the ability to make accurate reproductions. Professor Steven Weber of the University of California, Berkeley, has advanced the hypothesis that the concept of the "nation state" is an inadvertent byproduct of 15th-century advances in map-making technologies.


title: History of cartography

text: Advances in photochemical technology, such as the lithographic and photochemical processes, have allowed for the creation of maps that have fine details, do not distort in shape and resist moisture and wear. This also eliminated the need for engraving which further shortened the time it takes to make and reproduce maps.


title: History of cartography

text: In the mid-to-late 20th century, advances in electronic technology have led to further revolution in cartography. Specifically computer hardware devices such as computer screens, plotters, printers, scanners (remote and document) and analytic stereo plotters along with visualization, image processing, spatial analysis and database software, have democratized and greatly expanded the making of maps, particularly with their ability to produce maps that show slightly different features, without engraving a new printing plate. See also digital raster graphic and History of web mapping.


title: History of cartography

text: Aerial photography and satellite imagery have provided high-accuracy, high-throughput methods for mapping physical features over large areas, such as coastlines, roads, buildings, and topography.


title: History of cartography

text: See Maps for more links to historical maps; however, most of the largest sites are listed at the sites linked below.


title: Oviya

text: Helen Nelson, (born 29 April 1991) better known professionally by her stage name Oviya, is an Indian model and actress who works in the Tamil and Malayalam films. She made her breakthrough as an actress in Sarkunam's rural romantic comedy "Kalavani" (2010), before appearing in other films including Pandiraj's "Marina" (2012), "Moodar Koodam" (2013) and "Madha Yaanai Koottam" (2013). Oviya has also enjoyed box office success through her roles in Sundar C's "Kalakalappu" (2012) and the horror comedy "Yaamirukka Bayamey" (2014). In 2017, Oviya appeared on the reality series "Bigg Boss Tamil".


title: Oviya

text: Oviya was born as Helen Nelson in a Syrian Christian family in Thrissur, Kerala. Oviya studied at Vimala College, Thrissur.


title: Oviya

text: Oviya began her career as an actress by portraying supporting roles in Malayalam films, notably working in "Kangaroo" (2007) and "Puthiya Mukham" (2009) starring Prithviraj and as one of the lead characters in the college drama "Apoorva" (2008). Oviya then worked towards completing a BA in Functional English at Vimala College in Thrissur, before director Sargunam approached her for "Kalavani" (2010). Sarkunam cast her in the leading female role after seeing a picture of her online and was convinced that he had found the correct actress to portray the role despite reservations from the producer.


title: Oviya

text: In Kalavani, she was featured opposite Vimal, and the film subsequently gained positive reviews and became a sleeper hit at the box office. Critics praised Oviya's performance of a village-based schoolgirl, with a critic from the Hindustan Times stating "Oviya's marvellous expressions convey her gratitude, and she uses her eyes to say it all". Similarly, a reviewer from The Hindu stated "Oviya looks cute and emotes well, which is a rarity these days".


title: Oviya

text: Following the success of "Kalavani", Oviya signed several small-budget films including Jeevan's "Amara", "Vengai", "Mugam Nee Agam Naan", "Sevanu" and Rasu Madhuravan's "Muthukku Muthaaga" (2011), but only the latter had a theatrical release. While several films were stopped due to financial reasons, Oviya had to opt out of a few films after inadvertently muddling her dates. Portraying the role of a college basketballer in "Muthukku Muthaaga", Oviya worked through the pain barrier for the film after fainting on the sets following an illness. The film, however, opened to negative reviews with a critic from Behindwoods.com stating Oviya's character was "annoying". During the period, she was also seen in two further Malayalam films "Puthumukhangal" (2010) and "Manushyamrugam" (2011), despite making claims that Malayalam films were "uninteresting and boring". The Kannada remake of "Kalavani" titled "Kirataka" (2011) won Oviya more critical acclaim, with a reviewer from Rediff.com stating she "charms her way through the film", though a proposed Telugu remake later fell through. Oviya was also seen in a guest appearance in K. S. Ravikumar's romantic comedy, "Manmadhan Ambu" (2010), where she featured alongside Kamal Haasan and Madhavan. Post-release, the actress revealed that she appreciated the opportunity to work alongside big actors but was disappointed that several of her scenes were edited out of the film.


title: Oviya

text: Over the following three years, Oviya prioritised her work in Tamil films appearing in several small and mid-budget projects and alternated between performance-based and glamorous roles. In Pandiraj's critically acclaimed drama film "Marina" (2012), Oviya and her co-star debutant Sivakarthikeyan portrayed a couple who frequent Marina Beach, with a critic describing their performance as "absolutely enjoyable and hilarious". Likewise, the black comedy "Moodar Koodam" (2014) and the thriller "Madha Yaanai Koottam" (2014) also featured Oviya in performance-based roles and both won critical acclaim. She portrayed a glamorous role for the first time in Sundar C's comedy "Kalakalappu" (2012), where she worked alongside a star cast of Shiva, Vimal and Anjali. The film opened to positive reviews and performed well at the box office, becoming her most profitable film to date. Following further glamorous roles in unsuccessful films such as "Sillunu Oru Sandhippu" (2013) and "Pulivaal" (2014), Oviya scored another success with her role as a dainty, hot girl in Deekay's horror comedy "Yaamirukka Bayamey" (2014). Critics also praised her performance, with a reviewer from the Deccan Chronicle stating "as the girl-next-door-unafraid-of-her-sexuality, Oviya is perfect".


title: Oviya

text: Oviya's acting career began to decline after 2014 and she was primarily offered glamorous roles in low-profile films. She was cast opposite veteran actor Sarathkumar in the unsuccessful "Sandamarutham" (2015) which garnered negative reviews, while her subsequent Tamil films, C. V. Kumar's heist comedy "144" (2015) and Sundar C's horror comedy "Hello Naan Pei Pesuren" (2016) did not perform as well as anticipated at the box office. Another project, the female-centric "Bhogi" co-starring Trisha and Poonam Bajwa, was also stalled despite the shoot progressing. She subsequently moved on to portray a role in the low-budget Hindi film "Yeh Ishq Sarfira" (2015) and then the leading role of a city girl in the Kannada film, "Mr. Mommaga" (2016).


title: Oviya

text: In 2017, Oviya took part in the Tamil reality television show "Bigg Boss" hosted by Kamal Haasan for the Star Vijay channel. Oviya gained instant popularity on the show through her charm and honesty, in comparison to other housemates. While enjoying friendship with contestants Bindu Madhavi, Raiza Wilson, Ganesh Venkatraman, and a cordial and one-sided romantic relationship with season winner Arav, she was repeatedly targeted and bullied by other housemates including Gayathri Raghuram, Namitha, Juliana and Shakthi Vasudevan. Her clever responses and positive attitude to the bullying won over audiences. Voters repeatedly kept her in the show despite her being up for eviction at multiple instances, while she garnered a "cult following" on social media with phrases such as "Oviya Army" regularly trending. Her behaviour and positive attitude on the show also attracted other celebrities to tweet in appreciation of her, with the likes of Priya Anand, Nivetha Pethuraj, Sathish and Karunakaran amongst others praising her on social media. The popularity of Oviya reached such a high in late July 2017 that the makers of an unrelated Tamil film, "Balloon" (2017), included a song titled "Neenga Shut Up Pannunga" and dedicated it to the actress. Likewise, several other songwriters created their own "Oviya Anthems" and released them online.


title: Oviya

text: In early August 2017, Oviya quit the show on medical grounds, following a week-long spat with Arav regarding her one-sided romantic feelings for him. Prior to her exit, she deliberately jumped into the swimming pool to force her departure, prompting the police to briefly investigate a potential suicide angle to the move. Despite widespread calls on social media for her to return to the show as a "wildcard" entrant, Oviya released a video confirming that she had no interest in going back into the Bigg Boss House and would take an extended break and prioritise film opportunities. She also called for the public to forgive Shakthi and Julie for their behaviour towards her on the show.


title: Oviya

text: Her acting career also saw positive developments following her stint on the show and her subsequent popularity. A long-delayed, small-budget film titled "Seeni" was renamed to "Oviyaava Vitta Yaaru" to cash in on the actress's newfound fan following. Likewise, her Malayalam film "Manushyamrugam" from 2012, was dubbed into Tamil and prepared for release under the title "Police Rajyam". Filmmakers including Sundar C, C. S. Amudhan and Santhosh Jayakumar announced their interest in signing the actress for roles in their film "Kalakalappu 2", "Tamil Padam 2" and "Iruttu Araiyil Murattu Kuththu", but she turned down the offers. Post her "Bigg Boss"-fame, she signed on to appear in the "Muni 4: Kanchana 3" by Raghava Lawrence, with critics quoting her role “as not making any difference to the film”. She appeared in a sequel to her breakthrough film, "Kalavani", titled "Kalavani 2" and the female-orientated, controversial script, "90ML", both releasing to negative reviews and poor box office collections. After a two-year hiatus, Oviya is currently acting with Yogi Babu in an upcoming comedy entertainer titled "Contractor Nesamani".


title: Sequoyah

text: Sequoyah (Cherokee: ᏍᏏᏉᏯ, "Ssiquoya", or ᏎᏉᏯ, "Se-quo-ya"; 1770 – August 1843), also known as George Gist or George Guess, was a Native American polymath of the Cherokee Nation. In 1821, he completed his independent creation of the Cherokee syllabary, making reading and writing in Cherokee possible. His achievement was one of the few times in recorded history that an individual who was a member of a pre-literate group created an original, effective writing system. His creation of the syllabary allowed the Cherokee nation to be one of the first North American Indigenous groups to have a written language. Sequoyah was also an important representative for the Cherokee nation, by going to Washington, D.C. to sign two relocations and trading of land treaties.


title: Sequoyah

text: After seeing its worth, the people of the Cherokee Nation rapidly began to use his syllabary and officially adopted it in 1825. It unified a forcibly divided nation with new ways of communication and a sense of independence. By the 1850s, their literacy rate reached almost 100%, surpassing that of surrounding European-American settlers.


title: Sequoyah

text: The Cherokee syllabary has had international influence. As diffusion spread, it is believed to have inspired the development of 21 known scripts or writing systems, used in a total of 65 languages in North America, Africa, and Asia.


title: Sequoyah

text: Sequoyah's important status has led to several competing accounts of his life that are speculative, contradictory, or fabricated. As noted by John B. Davis, there were few primary documents describing facts of Sequoyah's life. Some anecdotes were passed down orally, but these often conflict or are vague about specific times and places.


title: Sequoyah

text: Sequoyah was born in the Cherokee town of Tuskegee, Tennessee, around 1778. James Mooney, a prominent anthropologist and historian of the Cherokee people, quoted a cousin as saying that as a little boy, Sequoyah spent his early years with his mother. In the people's matrilineal kinship system, children were considered born into their mother's family and clan, and her male relatives were most important to their upbringing. His name is believed to come from the Cherokee word "siqua" meaning 'hog'. However, Davis says the name may have been derived from "sikwa" (either a hog or an opossum) and "vi" meaning a place or an enclosure. This is a reference either to his childhood deformity or to a later injury that left Sequoyah disabled. According to a descendent of his, he was born with the name 'Gi sqwa ya' which means 'there’s a bird inside.' After repeatedly failing to complete his farm duties, his name was changed to Sequoyah which means 'there’s a pig inside.'


title: Sequoyah

text: His mother, "Wut-teh", is debated to be either the daughter, sister, or niece of a Cherokee chief. Historians believe her to be related to the chiefs who have been identified as the brothers Old Tassel and Doublehead. John Watts (also known as Young Tassel) was a nephew of the two chiefs, so it is likely that Wut-teh and John Watts were related in some fashion. Due to native customs, Sequoyah learned everything from his mother like the Cherokee language and his first job of a tradesman.


title: Sequoyah

text: Sources differ as to the true identity of Sequoyah's father. John B. Davis cites Emmet Starr's book, "Early History of the Cherokees", as the source for saying that Sequoyah's father was a Virginian fur trader from Swabia named Nathaniel Guyst, Guist, or Gist. Other sources state that his father also could have been an unlicensed German peddler named George Gist, who came into the Cherokee Nation in 1768, where he married and fathered a child. Another source identified his father as Nathaniel Gist, son of Christopher Gist, who became a commissioned officer with the Continental Army associated with George Washington during the American Revolution. Gist would have been a man of some social status and financial backing, Josiah C. Nott claimed he was the "son of a Scotchman". The "Cherokee Phoenix" reported in 1828 that Sequoyah's father was a half-blood and his grandfather a white man.


title: Sequoyah

text: The "New Georgia Encyclopedia" presents another version of Sequoyah's origins, from the history "Tell Them They Lie: The Sequoyah Myth" (1971), by Traveller Bird, who claims to be a Sequoyah descendant. Bird says that Sequoyah was a full-blood Cherokee who always opposed the submission and assimilation of his people into the white man's culture. The encyclopedia noted that Bird presented no documentary evidence of his assertions, but his account has gained some credibility in academic circles.


title: Sequoyah

text: In any case, the father was absent before Sequoyah was born. Various explanations have been proposed, but the reason is unknown. Wuh-teh did not remarry afterward (assuming she married her son's father in the first place). Sequoyah had no siblings, and his mother raised him alone. According to Davis, Sequoyah never went to school and never learned English. He and Wuh-teh spoke only Cherokee. As a youth, he spent much of his time tending cattle and working in their garden, while his mother ran a trading post.


title: Sequoyah

text: Sequoyah became lame early in life, though how, when and where are not known. Some reports indicate this may have been caused by injury in battle; others say the cause was a hunting accident. Davis wrote that an early issue of the "Cherokee Advocate" said that "...he was the victim of a hydrarthritic trouble of the knee joint, commonly called 'white swelling'." One doctor speculated that he had "anascara ["sic"]". In any case, lameness prevented him from being a successful farmer or warrior.


title: Sequoyah

text: Despite his lack of schooling, Sequoyah displayed much natural intelligence. As a child, he had devised and built milk troughs and skimmers for the dairy house that he had constructed. As he grew older and came in contact with more white men, he learned how to make jewelry. He became a noted silversmith, creating various items from the silver coins that trappers and traders carried. He never signed his pieces, so there are none that can be positively identified as his work.


title: Sequoyah

text: Sequoyah may have taken over his mother's trading post after her death, which Historian John B. Davis claimed occurred about the end of the 18th century. His store became an informal meeting place for Cherokee men to socialize and, especially, drink whiskey. Sequoyah developed a great fondness for alcohol and soon spent much of his time drunk. After a few months he was rarely seen sober, neglecting his farm and trading business, and spending his money buying liquor by the keg.


title: Sequoyah

text: Fortunately, he realized that he was not making good decisions, and took up new interests. He began to draw, then he took up blacksmithing, so he could repair the iron farm implements that had recently been introduced to the area by traders. Self-taught as usual, he made his own tools, forge and bellows. He was soon doing a good business either repairing items or selling items he had created himself. His spurs and bridle bits were in great demand because he liked to decorate them with silver. Although he maintained his store, he both stopped drinking and stopped selling alcohol.


title: Sequoyah

text: Up to this point, while Sequoyah was not formally educated, he recognized the advantage that comes with an established written language. He believed one of white people's many advantages was their written language as it allowed them to expand their knowledge, partake in many forms of media, and have a better network of communication. The Cherokee's disadvantage was having to rely solely on memory which sparked his interest in wanting to create some form of a written language for the Cherokee nation.


title: Sequoyah

text: By 1809, Sequoyah is believed to have started developing what became his Cherokee syllabary, in hopes of unifying the Cherokee nation and making them more independent (see section below). In 2008 archeologist Kenneth B. Tankersley (Cherokee Nation) of the University of Cincinnati announced having found carvings from the syllabary in a cave in southeastern Kentucky, where Sequoyah is known to have had relatives. This cave was the traditional burial site of a Cherokee chief, Red Bird. Some 15 identifiable Cherokee syllabary symbols were found carved into the limestone, accompanied by a date of 1808 or 1818. In addition, there were petroglyphs that appeared to include ancient Cherokee symbols, in addition to bears, deer and birds.


title: Sequoyah

text: It is unclear when Sequoyah initially moved to Alabama from Tennessee. Many Cherokee began migrating there even before ceding their land around Sequoyah's birthplace in 1819, as they were under continual pressure by European-American settlers. Some sources claim he went with his mother, though there is no confirmed date for her death. Others have stated that it was around 1809, when he started his work on the Cherokee syllabary. Another source claims it was in 1818. However, this date is too late, because Sequoyah was already living in Alabama when he enlisted in the army.


title: Sequoyah

text: In 1813–14, Sequoyah served as a warrior of the Cherokee Regiment (Col. Gideon Morgan, Commander) at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend against the "Red Sticks" (Creek, or Muskogee, renegades). His white comrades called him either George Guess or George Gist. The Creek War had started during the period of the War of 1812, and represented an effort by traditional Creek to assert their power within the people and expel the European Americans.


title: Sequoyah

text: During his time serving, he witnessed first hand the disadvantage of not having a written language. Unlike the white soldiers, he and his fellow Cherokee warriors could not write letters to home, read their military orders, or write down any events or thoughts that occurred during their service. This only pushed his determination to create a reading and writing system for the Cherokee language. In his early stages of developing the writing system, he faced criticism from his peers because they believed putting words to paper was witchcraft.


title: Sequoyah

text: The "Encyclopedia of Alabama" states that Sequoyah married Sally Benge in 1815. There is little information known about Sally Benge, only that she was a mixed blood Cherokee.


title: Sequoyah

text: In 1817, Sequoyah signed a treaty which traded Cherokee land in the southeast for land in Arkansas. But in 1819 he backed out of the treaty which resulted in the loss of his first Alabama home, causing him to move to Willstown (modern day Fort Payne), Alabama.


title: Sequoyah

text: Sequoyah's syllabary was completed about 1821 but it was not accepted by the Cherokee nation at first. But after the people began to see its value, the syllabary quickly spread and Sequoyah was awarded a medal from the Cherokee National Council in 1824. This same year, Sequoyah moved from Alabama to Arkansas. Four years after his move, he would reluctantly sign a treaty that exchanged the Cherokee land in Arkansas for Indian Territory (modern day Oklahoma). He was one of the "Old Settler" delegates that went to Washington, D.C. to sign the treaty.


title: Sequoyah

text: In 1829, Sequoyah settled in present day Sallisaw, Oklahoma, with his wife and daughter. In 1838, the Cherokees from the southeast were relocated to Indian Territory under Chief John Ross. After this relocation, Sequoyah set out to unite the 16 other Old Settlers with the Ross Party because they already established their own government. In 1839, Sequoyah and the 16 other Old Settlers and about 15 representatives of the Ross party signed the Act of Union, and a new Cherokee constitution was created.


title: Sequoyah

text: Soon after the signing of the new Cherokee constitution, Sequoyah went to Mexico in search for other Cherokees who migrated there. He was hoping to spread his teachings of the syllabary and convince the migrated Cherokees to relocate to Indian Territory.


title: Sequoyah

text: As a silversmith, Sequoyah dealt regularly with European Americans who had settled in the area. He was impressed by their writing, and referred to their correspondence as "talking leaves". He knew that the papers represented a way to transmit information to other people in distant places, which his fellow American soldiers were able to do but he and other indigenous people could not. A majority of the Cherokee believed that writing was either sorcery, witchcraft, a special gift, or a pretense; Sequoyah accepted none of these explanations. He said that he could invent a way for Cherokees to talk on paper, even though his friends and family thought the idea was absurd.


title: Sequoyah

text: Around 1809, Sequoyah began creating a system of writing for the Cherokee language. Over the years, his approach was to use a pictograph or logographic system, where every word in the language had a character or symbol. As he failed to plant his fields, endangering his survival, his friends and neighbors thought he had lost his mind. His wife is said to have burned his initial work, believing it to be witchcraft. He realized that his first approach was impractical because it would require too many pictures to be remembered. He tried making a symbol for every idea, but this also caused too many problems to be practical.


title: Sequoyah

text: Sequoyah's final attempt was to develop a symbol for each syllable in the language. Using the Bible as a reference along with adaptations from English, Greek, and Hebrew letters, by 1821 he created 86 symbols, later to be 85 symbols, that depict the syllables of the Cherokee language. The syllabary is not an alphabet but a chart or guide to represent each symbol that stands for a consonant-vowel sequence or a syllable. The symbols are written in a chart layout, with the columns being each vowel and the rows being each consonant.


title: Sequoyah

text: Sequoyah's six-year old daughter, Ayokeh (also spelled Ayoka), helped him in his process to create the syllabary by being the first person to learn from it. Word spread in their town that they created a new way to communicate, and they were charged and brought to trial by the town chief. Sequoyah and Ayokeh were separated but still communicated by sending letters to one another. Eventually the warriors presiding over their trial, along with the town, believed that Sequoyah did in fact create a new form of communication, and they all wanted him to teach it to them.


title: Sequoyah

text: He traveled to the Indian Reserves in the Arkansas Territory, where some Cherokee had settled west of the Mississippi River. When he tried to convince the local leaders of the syllabary's usefulness, they doubted him. Sequoyah asked each leader to say a word, which he wrote down, and then called his daughter in to read the words back. This demonstration convinced the leaders to let him teach the syllabary to a few more people. This took several months, during which it was rumored that he might be using the students for sorcery. After completing the lessons, Sequoyah wrote a dictated letter to each student, and read a dictated response. This test convinced the western Cherokee that he had created a practical writing system.


title: Sequoyah

text: When Sequoyah went to the eastern tribes, he brought a sealed envelope containing a written speech from one of the Arkansas Cherokee leaders. By reading this speech, he convinced the eastern Cherokee to also learn the system. And from there it continued to be taught across the Cherokee tribes and towns in the east.


title: Sequoyah

text: The syllabary was not hard for the Cherokee people to learn, and by 1830, 90% of Cherokees were literate in their own language. Over time, naturally, tribes began to form their own dialects depending on what region they lived in. There are two main dialects, the Eastern and Western. The Eastern Dialect, also referred to as middle or Kituwa dialect, is spoken in the Qualla boundary in western North Carolina. This land was purchased by the Cherokees in the 1870s. The Western Dialect, also known as Overhill or Otali dialect, is spoken in eastern Oklahoma and North Carolina. There was a Southern dialect, also called lower dialect, spoken in South Carolina and Georgia until around 1900. But since no more Cherokee tribes reside there, that style of dialect is no more.


title: Sequoyah

text: In 1825 the Cherokee Nation officially adopted the writing system. The Syllabary provided mass literacy for the Cherokee Nation, which was one of the first indigenous groups to have a functional written language. By the end of 1825, the Bible and hymns were translated into Cherokee. In 1826, the Cherokee National Council commissioned George Lowrey and David Brown to translate and print eight copies of the laws of the Cherokee Nation in the Cherokee language using Sequoyah's new system.


title: Sequoyah

text: In 1828, the "Cherokee Phoenix", religious pamphlets, educational materials, and legal documents were all made using the syllabary. The "Cherokee Phoenix" was the first bilingual newspaper in North America because it had both English and Cherokee languages. This newspaper helped keep unity in a dispersed Cherokee Nation by allowing them to have their own network of communication and information. The syllabary was used for over 100 years to make newspapers, books, religious texts, and almanacs (calendars).


title: Sequoyah

text: When the Cherokee Nation purchased their first printing press, some of Sequoyah’s handwritten symbols needed to be modified. To make the symbols more clear, they were replaced by adaptations from the Roman alphabet, and used in the Syllabary from that point on.


title: Sequoyah

text: After the Nation accepted his syllabary in 1825, Sequoyah traveled to the Cherokee lands in the Arkansas Territory. There he set up a blacksmith shop and a salt works. He continued to teach the syllabary to anyone who wished.


title: Sequoyah

text: In 1828, Sequoyah journeyed to Washington, D.C., as part of a delegation to negotiate a treaty for land in the planned Indian Territory. While in Washington, D.C., he sat for a formal portrait painted by Charles Bird King (see image at the top of this article). He holds a copy of the syllabary in his left hand and is smoking a long-stemmed pipe. During his trip, he met representatives of other Native American tribes. Inspired by these meetings, he decided to create a syllabary for universal use among Native American tribes. Sequoyah began to journey into areas of present-day Arizona and New Mexico, to meet with tribes there.


title: Sequoyah

text: In 1829, Sequoyah moved to a location on Big Skin Bayou, where he built Sequoyah's Cabin that became his home for the rest of his life. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965. (The present-day city of Sallisaw, Oklahoma, developed near here.) The house was operated by the Oklahoma Historical Society until it was purchased by the Cherokee Nation on 9 November 2016.


title: Sequoyah

text: In 1839, when the Cherokee were bitterly divided over the issue of removal to Indian Territory, Sequoyah joined with Jesse Bushyhead to try to reunite the Cherokee Nation. Sequoyah, representing the Western Cherokee, and Bushyhead representing the Eastern Cherokee, made a joint plea at a tribal council meeting at Takatoka on 20 June 1839. They succeeded in getting a voice vote to hold a new council of all Cherokee to resolve the reunification issues. This is when the Act of Union and a new Cherokee Constitution was created.


title: Sequoyah

text: Sequoyah dreamed of seeing reunification of the splintered Cherokee Nation. In the spring of 1842, he began a trip to locate other Cherokee bands who were believed to have fled to Mexico and attempted to persuade them to return to the Cherokee Nation, by then mostly residing in Indian Territory. He was accompanied by his son, Teesy (Chusaleta), as well as other Cherokee men identified as Co-tes-ka, Nu-wo-ta-na, Cah-ta-ta, Co-wo-si-ti, John Elijah, and The Worm:


title: Sequoyah

text: Sometime between 1843 and 1845, he died due to an estimated respiratory infection during a trip to San Fernando de Rosas in Coahuila, Mexico. A letter written in 1845 by accompanying Cherokee stated that he had died in 1843:


title: Sequoyah

text: We, the undersigned Cherokees, direct from the Spanish Dominions, do hereby certify that George Guess of the Cherokee Nation, Arkansas, departed this life in the town of San-fernando in the month of August, 1843, and his son Chusaleta is at this time on the Brasos River, Texas, about thirty miles above the falls, and he intends returning home this fall. Given under our hands the day and date written.


title: Sequoyah

text: In 1938, the Cherokee Nation Principal Chief J. B. Milam funded an expedition to find Sequoyah's grave in Mexico. A party of Cherokee and non-Cherokee scholars embarked from Eagle Pass, Texas, on January 1939. They found a grave site near a fresh water spring in Coahuila, Mexico, but could not conclusively determine the grave site was that of Sequoyah.


title: Sequoyah

text: In 2011, the "Muskogee Phoenix" published an article relating a discovery in 1903 of a gravesite in the Wichita Mountains by Hayes and Fancher, which they believed was Sequoyah's. The two men said the site was in a cave and contained a human skeleton with one leg shorter than the other, a long-stemmed pipe, two silver medals, a flintlock rifle and an ax. However, the site was far north of the Mexican border.


title: Sequoyah

text: Sequoyah's work has had international influence, encouraging the development of syllabaries for other, previously unwritten languages. The news that an illiterate Cherokee had created a syllabary spread throughout the United States and its territories. A missionary working in northern Alaska read about it and created a syllabary, what has become known as Cree syllabics. This syllabic writing inspired other indigenous groups across Canada to adapt the syllabics to create writing for their languages.


title: Sequoyah

text: A literate Cherokee emigrated to Liberia, where he discussed his people's syllabary. A Bassa language speaker of Liberia was inspired to create his own syllabary, and other indigenous groups in West Africa followed suit, creating their own syllabaries.


title: Sequoyah

text: A missionary in China read about the Cree syllabary and was inspired to follow that example in writing a local language in China. The result of the diffusion of Sequoyah's work has been the development of a total of 21 known scripts, which have been used to write more than 65 languages.


title: Sequoyah

text: Due to Sequoyah's contributions and achievements in Cherokee history, there are statues, monuments, museums, and paintings dedicated in his honor across the United States and in various genres.


title: Sequoyah

text: In 1824, the General Council of the Eastern Cherokee awarded Sequoyah a large silver medal in honor of the syllabary. According to Davis, one side of the medal bore his image surrounded by the inscription in English, "Presented to George Gist by the General Council of the Cherokee for his ingenuity in the invention of the Cherokee Alphabet." The reverse side showed two long-stemmed pipes and the same inscription written in Cherokee. Sequoyah was said to wear the medal throughout the rest of his life and it was buried with him.


title: Sequoyah

text: Cherokee is mainly spoken in Oklahoma, North Carolina, and Arkansas; between 1500 and 2100 people actively speak Cherokee in these three main areas. In a 2018 survey, it states that there are 1,200 Cherokee speakers who live in the Cherokee nation of Oklahoma, 217 speakers in the Eastern North Carolina, and 101 speakers in the United Keetoowah tribe of Cherokee in Arkansas. And that the majority of the Cherokee speakers are people over 40.


title: Sequoyah

text: Today, in the Cherokee nation (northeast Oklahoma) the syllabary is present on street signs and buildings, is the co-official language with English, and is taught in schools in Oklahoma and North Carolina. The Cherokee nation in the 21st century is trying to integrate this language into people's daily lives. Their goal in 2008 is to increase immersion programs in schools, encourage older Cherokee members to teach the younger generations, and in 50 years to have about 80% more of fluent Cherokee speakers. People of all ages are taught the language, parents and adults, children in schools, and it is offered at several universities in Oklahoma and North Carolina.


title: Sequoyah

text: During the time when white settler Indian Removal policies removed indigenous tribes from their lands, a process now known as the Trail of Tears, the use of the Cherokee language dropped dramatically. Use of any indigenous language in the government run Indian boarding schools resulted in some kind of physical punishment. In the late 20th century, there was a revitalization of the Cherokee language with programs, run by three sovereign Cherokee tribes, and online courses. The official Cherokee Nation website offers adult immersion, community, and online classes for the Cherokee language.


title: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!

text: Set mainly on the fictional planet of Shuggazoom, the series follows the adventures of five cyborg monkeys and a human boy named Chiro as they struggle to protect their planet – and the rest of the universe – from the forces of evil.


title: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!

text: The Super Robot Monkey Team is set in Shuggazoom City, a city that takes up a good portion of its planet, named Shuggazoom. The rest of the planet is divided into sparsely or entirely uninhabited zones. The largest of these making up the majority of the visible surface outside of Shuggazoom city is "The Zone of Wasted Years" which is a barren wasteland.


title: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!

text: The main character is a boy named Chiro. When he was exploring the outskirts of the city, he stumbled upon a giant abandoned robot partially overgrown with plants but still accessible. Once inside, his curiosity got the better of him and he pulls an old power switch among a series of stasis tanks. In doing so, he awakened the five robotic monkeys that form the Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce. In the process Chiro also fused himself with the mysterious supernatural energy of the Power Primate, allowing him to transform into a stronger, braver fighter and the leader of the team. With the aid of the five Robot Monkeys: Sparx, Antauri, Gibson, Otto and Nova, their mission is to save Shuggazoom City from the Skeleton King, the main villain of the series, as well as any other evil forces that may threaten it.


title: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!

text: Since Chiro was not born a superhero, or with any enhanced abilities, the five Robot Monkeys take up training him to hone his abilities which results in him leading the team. With each member possessing a different set of skills Chiro acts as a unifying force keeping them on point where they otherwise might fall to differing opinions, in addition to being familiar with the current culture of Shuggazoom. With the monkeys continuing to train Chiro he grows into the leader they need with the potential to fulfill his greater destiny as protector of the universe.


title: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!

text: When fighting with larger enemies the Hyperforce uses the Super Robot, which can operate as a single entity or split into six separate vehicles for versatility. Its main attack, when combined as the whole robot, is Lasertron Fury. This powerful energy beam that is fired from its chest is capable of destroying large objects or hostile entities while an array of smaller weaponry is used to handle other lesser threats. The Super Robot also serves as Chiro and the Monkeys' headquarters and home while parked on its landing pad in Shuggazoom City.


title: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!

text: Over the course of the series the history of both Shuggazoom and the Robot Monkeys is expanded upon revealing they were created long ago specifically to combat the evil Skeleton King by a brilliant inventor known only as the Alchemist. Having unintentionally released a great evil into the world with his experiments the Hyperforce was his attempt to prepare for an uncertain future where defenses would be needed. The Hyperforce itself also expanded as the series ran to include various allies and a rogues gallery of enemies as recurring characters.


title: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!

text: The only city on the planet, Shuggazoom, Shuggazoom city is the home of the Hyperforce. Containing an array of business along with housing, parks, and open spaces the cityscape was sufficient to hide an entire robot from view or interest until it had become overgrown with plant life. The city is also built effectively on stilts above a large reservoir that extends miles downward giving it a steady supply of clean drinking water.


title: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!

text: A rocky desert located on the outskirts of Shuggazoom City that landscapes the rest of the planet Shuggazoom. The Pit of Doom is located here, as well as the deep gorge where the Hyperforce found Captain Shuggazoom.


title: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!

text: A tropical jungle hidden within a series of caves located beneath Shuggazoom's surface. The jungle contains large deposits of the black ooze that is used to create the Formless, and thus the environment is inhabited by various Formless creatures. It is likely that the Savage Lands were once occupied by some sort of ancient civilization, as it houses a great deal of seemingly ancient temples and tombs. One of these temples was used as Valeena's base of operations, which she ruled over the area from after receiving her powers from Skeleton King. The Alchemist's laboratory is also located here.


title: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!

text: A frozen plain located on Shuggazoom's North Pole that is occupied only by Morlath and his snow monsters. The Ice Crystal of Vengeance was located here.


title: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!

text: A long forgotten realm located south of the Zone of Wasted Years. Centuries ago, a massive war struck here until everyone involved was destroyed. Unrelenting hatred rose. Since then, the Blasted Lands became a burning and unstable landscape. The Fire of Hate was located here.


title: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!

text: A small island housing a large monolith that serves as a portal to the Netherworld, the home dimension of the Dark Ones.


title: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!

text: The near uninhabited moon of Shuggazoom. This is where the supermax space prison is and where the fuzzy ball known as Thingy was found.


title: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!

text: "Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!" was created by Ciro Nieli, who previously worked on "Teen Titans" and "¡Mucha Lucha!". As is obvious from the visual appearance of the show, there is a significant anime influence present, despite being produced for American television. It was also influenced by "Star Trek", "Super Sentai" (most recognizably exemplified in the West by "Power Rangers"), "Voltron", and "Star Wars". The show also contains various references to pop culture, a notable example being the episode "Season of the Skull", which is an obvious parody of the 1970s thriller "The Wicker Man".


title: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!

text: Lynne Naylor, character designer for "Samurai Jack" and "Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi" served as the show's Art Director, and her husband Chris Reccardi, writer for "Samurai Jack" and "The Powerpuff Girls" was the show's assistant director. Naylor and Reccardi were also known for creating the failed Nickelodeon pilot in 2007, titled "the Modifyers". Chris Reccardi sadly died of a heart attack in 2019. The show's art style was made to look reminiscent of some classic anime, such as "Speed Racer", "Astro Boy", and "Cyborg 009"; drawing influence from "Astro Boy's"' creator Osamu Tezuka, as well as the works of Ken Ishikawa and Go Nagai.


title: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!

text: Chris Battle worked as the show's prop designer. He's also designed characters for shows like "Dexter's Laboratory", "the Powerpuff Girls", and "Aaahh!!! Real Monsters".


title: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!

text: In December 5, 2014, Anime Superhero interviewed with Ciro Nieli about if there will be a chance for him to continue the series, as he said "Oh yeah. There's a finale planned for that and I don't know how I'm gonna do it but I swear that I'm gonna do it someday. I can do it as one movie or I can do it as a whole season, it just depends on how much breadth I want to give it. Look at the last episode. You can either pick it up from there or you can go 'Five years later: it's the war of the undead vs the robot chimps.' It's this crazy battlefield where all forces have kinda teamed up against the ultimate evil. It'd be awesome. It's all figured out pretty much. Everyone bugs me about it all the time and I really wanna sit down and "tell" everybody what happens but I'd rather just make it someday and give it to them. Worst case scenario: before I die I'll do a perfect graphic novel of it and then Disney can sue me posthumously 'cause they now completely own it and that's how it goes [laughs]. I guess I could make a comic and change the names and hairdos…"


title: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!

text: SRMTHG premiered on ABC Family's Jetix programming block on September 18, 2004. It also aired on Toon Disney's Jetix block until the Jetix programming block was taken off of ABC Family in August 2006, and the series began to air exclusively on Toon Disney.


title: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!

text: It was also shown on "Jetix UK" from January 1, 2005, but was taken off the air on July 22, 2006, for unknown reasons. The entire series was, however, broadcast in the UK on GMTV's "Toonattik".


title: Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!

text: Disney did not renew the show for a fifth season possibly due to low merchandise sales, leaving it with a Cliffhanger ending.


title: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem

text: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem or simply the Electric Mayhem is a Muppet musical group that debuted on the pilot for "The Muppet Show" in 1975. They are the house band for "The Muppet Show", with personalities and appearances inspired by prominent real-life rock music and jazz performers. Following "The Muppet Show", they appeared in various Muppet films and television specials and have also recorded album tracks and covered numerous songs.


title: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem

text: Dr. Teeth and Animal were designed by Jim Henson, Zoot was designed by Bonnie Erickson, while the rest of the original band members were designed by Michael K. Frith. They made their debut in 1975's "", the pilot for "The Muppet Show".


title: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem

text: The band consists of Dr. Teeth on vocals and keyboards, Animal on drums, Floyd Pepper on vocals and bass, Janice on vocals and lead guitar and Zoot on saxophone. In season five of the show, Lips joined the band on trumpet. Animal, Floyd and Zoot also played in the Muppet Show pit band, performing the opening and closing themes and underscoring most of the Muppet Show performances. Lips and occasionally Janice appeared in the orchestra in later episodes. Though Lips made some appearances with the group after "The Muppet Show" ended production, the group later reverted to its original line-up. Also, the original pilot episode featured "Jim", a Muppet caricature of Jim Henson on banjo.


title: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem

text: The band's first film role was performing the song "Can You Picture That?" in "The Muppet Movie". They also performed "Night Life" and participated in "The Happiness Hotel" in "The Great Muppet Caper" and performed "Jingle Bell Rock" in "A Muppet Family Christmas". They appeared in "The Muppets Take Manhattan" (sans Lips) where Dr. Teeth sang "You Can't Take No For An Answer". Following the deaths of two of the group's puppeteers, Jim Henson (Dr. Teeth) and Richard Hunt (Janice), they were limited to brief instrumental background music for years. However, Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem backed Miss Piggy for a song in "The Muppets' Wizard of Oz" and performed alongside Miley Cyrus in the "" television special. They have been a mainstay in the Muppets' viral video efforts of the 2010s and have (with Lips) a featured role on "The Muppets" as the house band on the show-within-a-show "Up Late with Miss Piggy". In 2015, they released two music videos for "Jungle Boogie" (featuring Sam Eagle) and "Kodachrome".


title: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem

text: An Electric Mayhem "survive" tour with audio-animatronic versions of the puppets and rock band My Morning Jacket performing the characters was proposed by The Walt Disney Company but ultimately abandoned. The band performed a live five-song set at the Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival on August 6, 2016.


title: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem

text: "The Muppets Mayhem", a new series about the Electric Mayhem was ordered by Disney+ in March 2022. The series will be developed and written by Adam F. Goldberg, Bill Barretta and Jeff Yorkes and, Lilly Singh and Tahj Mowry will star.


title: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem

text: Dr. Teeth is the lead singer, keyboardist and gravelly-voiced leader of the band. He is green-skinned and red-haired with a large grinning mouth of teeth including a gold tooth supposedly fashioned by melting down his gold records. He sports a scruffy red beard with no mustache, a fur vest, a striped shirt and a floppy purple top hat. He has arms so long that additional puppeteers are required to guide them; this design enabled Henson to work the Dr. Teeth puppet while another performer acted as Dr. Teeth's hands in order to play the keyboard. His self-introduction in "The Muppet Movie" was typically grandiose: "Golden teeth and golden tones. "Welcome" to my presence." He often misuses long words and mangles verb conjugation. Jim Henson originally performed him, basing the character on New Orleans musician Dr. John. He was designed by Henson and Michael K. Frith and built by Don Sahlin. He debuted in "".


title: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem

text: Animal is the primitive wildman, drummer and the most published member of the band being the only member to appear in every feature film and the only member in the regular cast of the "Muppet Babies" spin-off cartoon. He is named for his wild behavior and drumming. Some speculate the character is based on either Keith Moon, John Bonham, Ginger Baker, or Levon Helm while others have suggested Mick Fleetwood. Several years ago, the famed Ludwig Drum Company built a specially modified version of their child-sized Ludwig Jr. kit for Animal, as noted on their website at the time.


title: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem

text: In the April 8, 2002, episode of "Inside the Actors Studio", Billy Joel claimed that Liberty DeVitto was the inspiration for the Muppets character Animal. This assertion has not been taken seriously as Animal's initial appearance in the 1974 pilot for "The Muppet Show" occurred two full years before DeVitto even made his first recording (on Joel's 1976 album "Turnstiles"). Others say there is no evidence that Animal was based on anyone specifically, and is simply an amalgam of common stereotypes about rock drummers.


title: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem

text: Frank Oz performed Animal from his first appearance until 2000; in 2002 newcomer Eric Jacobson took over. In "Muppet Babies", he was voiced by Howie Mandel (1984–1985) and by Dave Coulier (1986–1991). Animal was also played by Kevin Clash in "Muppets Tonight" and by Bill Barretta in "MuppetFest" (the first Muppet fan convention). Animal's drumming was performed by British jazz and big band drummer Ronnie Verrell. He has had numerous appearances on television in advertising and on a U.S. postage stamp.


title: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem

text: Floyd Pepper is the bassist and backup singer. A laid back hippie with a pink body and long orange hair, he usually wore a green army cap or sometimes while in the pit, a slightly fancier cap of stiffer, glittery material and a red uniform with epaulets and ornate gold braid on the buttons. He plays his bass left-handed; and although he's been seen playing a variety of bass guitars over time, he appears to have settled for playing Fender basses. The character was played and voiced by Jerry Nelson until 2003. At this time, Nelson retired from performing most of his characters, citing health reasons and John Kennedy took over the role beginning with "The Muppets' Wizard of Oz". Matt Vogel took over in "". Author Christopher Finch says that Floyd is most like Nelson and if there were a spin-off of "The Muppet Show" centering on his band, Floyd would probably emerge as the central figure. He was designed by Michael K. Frith and built by Dave Goelz. He debuted in "".


title: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem

text: Janice is a guitarist and backup singer with a flower child personality. She has blonde hair, big eyelashes and lips, and usually wears a brown hat with a turquoise gem and a feather. Though she regularly performed vocals, she actually only sang lead a couple of times on the show. She also acted in sketches periodically, most notably as wisecracking Nurse Janice in 'Veterinarian's Hospital', a recurring parody of medical dramas; in the latter role, she dispenses with much of her flower child lingo. Her name is an homage to Janis Joplin. Janice is the band's lead guitarist and backup singer and she plays left-handed. Her favourite guitar is a Gibson Les Paul with cherry sunburst colour scheme.


title: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem

text: Zoot is a teal-colored, balding saxophone player with dark glasses and a high-crowned blue felt hat and was generally a laid-back fellow of few words. His name refers to the 20th-century saxophonist Zoot Sims and per designer Bonnie Erickson is modeled after Latin jazz artist Gato Barbieri. He is performed by Dave Goelz. He was conceived as a burned-out, depressed 50-year-old musician but according to Goelz when the role was assigned to him, he did not know how to perform that type of character. He, therefore, made the character mainly communicate through his playing rather than by speaking.


title: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem

text: Lips joined the Electric Mayhem for several numbers during the final season of "The Muppet Show", playing the trumpet. His name refers to the fact that trumpet players use their lips to play. He has yellow hair, goatee and a permanent squint. His appearances on the "Muppet Show" were few and far between and when he did appear in the later episodes or movies, he rarely did anything besides play the trumpet. One of his few speaking appearances was in the Shirley Bassey episode where he sang a line of "Barnyard Boogie."


title: Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem

text: Clifford, performed by Kevin Clash, was briefly made a member of the Electric Mayhem (as a percussionist) in 1990. His only appearances with the group were in the television special "The Muppets at Walt Disney World" and minor publicity material.


The Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina took place from June 28 to July 3, 1940, as a result of an ultimatum by the Soviet Union to Romania on June 26, 1940, that threatened the use of force. Bessarabia had been part of the Kingdom of Romania since the time of the Russian Civil War and Bukovina since the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, and Hertsa was a district of the Romanian Old Kingdom. Those regions, with a total area of and a population of 3,776,309 inhabitants, were incorporated into the Soviet Union. On October 26, 1940, six Romanian islands on the Chilia branch of the Danube, with an area of , were also occupied by the Soviet Army.


title: Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina

text: The Soviet Union had planned to accomplish the annexation with a full-scale invasion, but the Romanian government, responding to the Soviet ultimatum delivered on June 26, agreed to withdraw from the territories to avoid a military conflict. The use of force had been made illegal by the Conventions for the Definition of Aggression in July 1933, but from an international legal standpoint, the new status of the annexed territories was eventually based on a formal agreement through which Romania consented to the retrocession of Bessarabia and cession of Northern Bukovina. As it was not mentioned in the ultimatum, the annexation of the Hertsa region was not consented to by Romania, and the same is true of the subsequent Soviet occupation of the Danube islands. On June 24, Nazi Germany, which had acknowledged the Soviet interest in Bessarabia in a secret protocol to the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, had been made aware prior to the planned ultimatum but did not inform the Romanian authorities and was willing to provide support. On June 22, France, a guarantor of Romanian borders, fell to Nazi advances. This is considered to be an important factor in the Soviets' decision to issue the ultimatum. The Soviet invasion of Bukovina in 1940 violated the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, since it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence that had been agreed with the Axis.


text: On August 2, 1940, the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed as a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, encompassing most of Bessarabia and part of the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, an autonomous republic of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic on the left bank of the Dniester (now the breakaway Transnistria). The Hertsa region and the regions inhabited by Slavic majorities (Northern Bukovina, Northern and Southern Bessarabia) were included in the Ukrainian SSR. A period of political persecution, including executions, deportations to labour camps and arrests, occurred during the Soviet administration.


text: In July 1941, Romanian and German troops occupied Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and Hertsa during the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union. A military administration was established, and the region's Jewish population was executed on the spot or deported to Transnistria, where large numbers were killed. In August 1944, during the Soviet Second Jassy–Kishinev Offensive, the Axis war effort on the Eastern Front collapsed. The coup of 23 August 1944 caused the Romanian army to cease resisting the Soviet advance and to join the fight against Germany. Soviet forces advanced from Bessarabia into Romania, captured much of its standing army as prisoners-of-war and occupied the country. On September 12, 1944, Romania signed the Moscow Armistice with the Allies. The Armistice and the subsequent peace treaty of 1947 confirmed the Soviet-Romanian border as it was on January 1, 1941.


text: Bessarabia, Northern Bukovina and Hertsa remained part of the Soviet Union until it collapsed in 1991, when they became part of the newly independent states of Moldova and Ukraine. The Declaration of Independence of Moldova of August 27, 1991, declared the Soviet occupation illegal.


text: As a historical region, Bessarabia was the eastern part of the Principality of Moldavia. In 1812, under the terms of the Treaty of Bucharest, the region was ceded by the Ottoman Empire, to which Moldavia was a vassal state, to the Russian Empire.


text: The Bessarabian question was both political and national in nature. According to the 1897 census, Bessarabia, then a guberniya of the Russian Empire, had a population that was 47.6% Moldovans, 19.6% Ukrainians, 8% Russians, 11.8% Jews, 5.3% Bulgarians, 3.1% Germans and 2.9% Gagauz. The figures showed a strong decrease in the proportion of Moldovans and Romanians compared to the census of 1817, which had been conducted shortly after the Russian Empire annexed Bessarabia in 1812. In that survey, Moldovans and Romanians represented 86% of the population. The decrease seen in the census of 1897 was caused by the Russian policies of settling of other nationalities and of Russification in Bessarabia.


text: During the 1917 Russian Revolution, a National Council was formed in Bessarabia to manage the province. The council, known locally as Sfatul Țării, initiated several national and social reforms, and on December 2/15 1917, it declared the Moldavian Democratic Republic an autonomous republic within the Russian Federative Democratic Republic.


text: The Rumcherod, a rival council that was loyal to the Petrograd Soviet, was also formed and by late December, it had gained control over the capital, Chișinău and proclaimed itself the sole authority over Bessarabia. With the consent of the Allies and, according to Romanian historiography, on the request of "Sfatul Țării", Romanian troops entered Bessarabia in early January 1918 and, by February, had pushed the Soviets over the Dniester. Despite later declarations by the Romanian prime minister that the military occupation had been consented to by the Bessarabian government, the intervention was met with protest by the locals, notably by Ion Inculeț, the president of "Sfatul Țării", and Pantelimon Erhan, the head of the provisional Moldavian executive. The executive even authorised the badly organised Moldavian militia to resist the Romanian advance although with little success. In the wake of the intervention, Soviet Russia broke off diplomatic relations with Romania and confiscated the Romanian Treasure, which was stored in Moscow for safekeeping. To calm the situation, Entente representatives in Iași issued a guarantee that the presence of the Romanian Army was only a temporary military measure for the stabilisation of the front, without further affecting the political life of the region. In January 1918, the Ukrainian People's Republic declared its independence from Russia, which left Bessarabia physically isolated from the Petrograd government and led to the declaration of independence of the Moldavian Republic on January 24/February 5. Some historians consider that the declaration was made under Romanian pressure. Following several Soviet protests, on February 20/March 5, the Romanian prime minister, General Alexandru Averescu, signed a treaty with the Soviet representative in Odessa, Christian Rakovsky, which provided that Romanian troops be evacuated from Bessarabia within two months in exchange for the repatriation of Romanian prisoners-of-war held by the Rumcherod. After the White Army forced the Soviets to withdraw from Odessa, and the German Empire agreed to the Romanian annexation of Bessarabia in a secret agreement (part of the Buftea Peace Treaty) on March 5/18, Romanian diplomacy repudiated the treaty by claiming that the Soviets were unable to fulfill their obligations.


text: On March 27/April 9, 1918, the "Sfatul Țării" voted for the Union of Bessarabia with Romania, conditional upon the fulfilment of an agrarian reform (despite having no quorum). There were 86 votes for union, 3 votes against, 36 deputies abstaining, and 13 deputies absent. The vote is regarded as controversial by several historians, including Romanian ones such as Cristina Petrescu and Sorin Alexandrescu. According to historian Charles King, with Romanian troops already in Chișinău, Romanian planes circling above the meeting hall and the Romanian prime minister waiting in the foyer, many minority deputies chose simply not to vote. On April 18 Georgy Chicherin, the Soviet Commissar for Foreign Affairs, sent a note of protest against the incorporation of Bessarabia into Romania.


text: In August 1916, the Entente and the neutral Romania signed a secret convention that stipulated Romania would join the war against the Central Powers in exchange for several territories of Austria-Hungary, such as Bukovina. During the end of World War I, national movements of the Romanians and the Ukrainians began to emerge in the province, but both movements had conflicting aims, each seeking to unite the province with their national state. Thus, on October 25, 1918, a Ukrainian National Committee, gaining the upper hand in Czernowitz, declared Northern Bukovina, populated by a Ukrainian majority, part of the West Ukrainian People's Republic. On October 27, the Romanians followed suit, proclaiming the whole region united with Romania, and calling in Romanian troops. The Romanian intervention quickly established the Romanian Assembly as the dominant force, and on November 28, a Congress of the Romanians, Germans, and Poles voted to unite with Romania. The representatives of the Ukrainian and Jewish populations boycotted the Congress, and the struggle between ethnic factions continued for several months.


text: During the Russian Civil War, the Soviet governments of Ukraine and Russia, prompted by the unrest in Bessarabia from the Romanian occupation, issued a joint ultimatum to Romania on May 1, 1919, for its withdrawal from Bessarabia, and the next day, Christian Rakovsky, the chairman of the Ukrainian Soviet government, issued another ultimatum for the withdrawal of Romanian troops from Bukovina as well. The Red Army pushed the Romanians over the Dniester, and a Bessarabian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed. The ultimatum also came in the context of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, with the Soviets hoping to prevent a Romanian intervention in Hungary. A massive rebellion in Ukraine prevented further Soviet advances. Soviet Russia would continue its policy of non-recognition of Romanian sovereignty over Bessarabia, which it considered Romanian-occupied territory, until 1940.


text: During the negotiations before the Treaty of Paris, the United States' representative asked for a plebiscite to be held in Bessarabia to decide its future, but the proposal was rejected by the head of the Romanian delegation, Ion I. C. Brătianu, who claimed such an undertaking would allow the distribution of Bolshevik propaganda in Bessarabia and Romania. A plebiscite was also requested at the Peace Conference by the White Russians, only to be rejected again. The Soviets would continue to press for a plebiscite during the following decade, only to be dismissed every time by the Romanian government.


text: Romanian sovereignty over Bessarabia was "de jure" recognized by the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Japan in the Bessarabian Treaty, signed on October 28, 1920. Soviet Russia and Ukraine promptly notified Romania that they did not recognize the treaty's validity and did not consider themselves bound by it. Ultimately, Japan failed to ratify the treaty and so it never came into force, leaving Romania without a valid international act to justify its possession of Bessarabia. The United States refused to discuss territorial changes in the former Russian Empire without the participation of a Russian government. Thus, it declined to recognize the incorporation of Bessarabia into Romania, and, unlike its position of recognizing the independence of the Baltic States, it insisted that Bessarabia was a territory under Romanian military occupation and incorporated the Bessarabian emigration quota into the Russian one in 1923. In 1933, the US government tacitly included the Bessarabian emigration quota into that of Romania, an act that was considered a "de facto" recognition by Romanian diplomacy. However, during World War II, the US argued it had never recognized Bessarabia's union with Romania.