The first study of the archipelago was made by the French frigate "L'Heure du Berger" in 1767. The results of the survey were published by A. Dalrymple in 1781.
The first permanent settler was Jonathan Lambert, from Salem, Massachusetts, United States, who came to the islands in December 1810. He declared the islands his property and named them the "Islands of Refreshment". Lambert's rule was short-lived, as he died in 1812.
In 1816 the United Kingdom formally annexed the islands, ruling them from the Cape Colony in South Africa. It was a measure to ensure that the French would be unable to use the islands as a base for a rescue operation to free Napoleon Bonaparte from his prison on Saint Helena. The occupation also prevented the United States from using Tristan da Cunha as a base, as they had during the War of 1812.
In 1867, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and second son of Queen Victoria, visited the islands. The main settlement, Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, was named in honour of his visit. Lewis Carroll's youngest brother, the Rev. Edwin H. Dodgson, served as an Anglican missionary and school teacher in Tristan da Cunha in the 1880s.
On 12 January 1938, the Tristan da Cunha archipelago was made a dependency of Saint Helena. In 1981, the British government changed the status of Saint Helena and the other Crown colonies to "British Dependent Territories".
The 1961 eruption of Queen Mary's Peak forced the evacuation of the entire population via Cape Town to England. The following year a Royal Society expedition went to the islands to assess the damage, and reported that the settlement of Edinburgh of the Seven Seas had been only marginally affected. Most families returned in 1963.
In 2009, Saint Helena and its two territories received equal status under a new constitution, and the British Overseas Territory was renamed Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha.
The islands of Tristan da Cunha are the peaks of volcanoes associated with the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. At 200,000 years old, the main island is the youngest of the group, while Nightingale is the oldest: 12 million years. Inaccessible and Gough are 3 to 5 million years old.
Tristan da Cunha is the name of the archipelago and of the main island of the group; the archipelago consists of the following islands:
Inaccessible Island and the Nightingale Islands are located southwest of the main island, while Gough Island is located south-southeast. The main island is quite mountainous; the only flat area is the location of the capital, Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, on the northwest coast. The highest point is a volcano called Queen Mary's Peak ; it is covered by snow in winter. The other islands of the group are uninhabited, except for the weather station on Gough Island, which has been operated by South Africa since 1956 (since 1963 at its present location at Transvaal Bay on the southeast coast), with a staff of six.
The climate of the islands is temperate and oceanic, with a mean air temperature at sea level at Tristan of 15 °C (59 °F), with relatively small daily and seasonal variation. On Gough it is a few degrees colder. Rainfall is high: 1700 mm annually at the Tristan Settlement, and 3300 mm at Gough. Strong winds are common. Mean wind speed is about 40 km/h. Wind speed increases strongly with altitude, while temperature decreases. Thus, while the lowlands experience quite pleasant weather, the uplands may be covered in snow or battered by very strong winds.
The Köppen climate classification subtype for the climate in Edinburgh of the Seven Seas is Cfb (Marine West Coast Climate).
The average temperature for the year in Edinburgh of the Seven Seas, with an elevation of 23 m, is 13.9 °C (57.0 °F). The warmest month, on average, is February with an average temperature of 17.8 °C (64.0 °F). The coolest month on average is August, with an average temperature of 10.6 °C (51.0 °F).
The average amount of precipitation for the year in Edinburgh of the Seven Seas is 1612.9 mm. The month with the most precipitation on average is August with 160 mm of precipitation. The month with the least precipitation on average is February with an average of 91.4 mm.
The islands have a population of about 275. The only settlement is Edinburgh of the Seven Seas (known locally as "The Settlement of Edinburgh" or, more common, just "The Settlement"). The only religion is Christianity, with denominations of Anglican and Roman Catholic. The current population is thought to have descended from 15 ancestors, eight males and seven females, who arrived on the island at various times between 1816 and 1908. The male founders originated from Scotland, England, The Netherlands, the United States and Italy and share just eight surnames: Glass (Scottish), Green (Dutch), Hagan (Irish), Lavarello (Italian, a typical Ligurian surname), Patterson (Scottish), Repetto (Italian, another typical Ligurian surname), Rogers (English) and Swain (English).
Frozen dinner
A frozen dinner is a kind of ready-to-prepare meal, or convenience food. Frozen dinners are prepared in bulk, cooked until ready to serve, divided into single servings for freezing, to be reheated later. An entrée of meat or other protein is included, along with vegetables, a carbohydrate food (such as potatoes or rice), and a sweet dessert.
Frozen dinners are helpful for people who do not have time to cook, or who lack meal-planning or cooking skills. They are also known as "TV dinners", because they were long advertised as suitable to warm up and eat while watching television. Both inventions became popular at around the same time (during the 1950s), and each one sold more of the other.
For many years, frozen dinners came packaged with a shaped aluminium foil cooking tray. This made them easy to reheat in a normal gas or electric stove's oven. The trays were sometimes reused or recycled by users. When microwave ovens became common, frozen dinners could not be cooked in them because the metal tray would damage the oven. Early packaged foods for the microwave often could not be cooked in a regular oven, because the heat would make the package catch fire or fall apart. New packaging had to be developed, so the same frozen dinner could be heated in both kinds of ovens. This succeeded during the 1980s. Some new trays can be reused, while others are made of paper and meant to be thrown away.
The quality of food in frozen dinners has also improved steadily through the years. Early potato dishes would sometimes have a chalk-like quality to them, and vegetables poor texture. Newer dinners taste much more like they are freshly cooked. Vegetarian meals have also been introduced. Linda McCartney started a popular line of frozen vegetarian dishes during the 1990s.
Věž
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Southern Lapwing
The southern lapwing ("Vanellus chilensis") is a large long-legged bird. Lapwings are shorebirds. It is a common in Central and South America, except in the jungles of the Amazon and the Andes. It is the national bird of Uruguay.
Reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete is concrete with long bars inside to make it stronger. The reinforcing material has greater tensile strength than concrete has. Usually the bars are steel. Galvanizing saves the steel from rusting and corrosion. In rich countries, almost all concrete in buildings and roads is reinforced. Reinforced concrete is stronger, and can be even stronger if the steel is stretched to make prestressed concrete.
Courthouse
A courthouse is a building that holds a court. Some courthouses also have offices for the prosecutor and prosecutor's assistants. In small cities, some courthouses have other offices for local government officials.
State (disambiguation)
Prosecutor