Monroe was president from 1817 to 1825. With his Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, Monroe got Spain to give the United States Florida. Monroe and Adams also created the Monroe Doctrine, which was a policy that said that the United States did not want Europe to be involved in the Western Hemisphere anymore.
Monroe signed the Missouri Compromise. The compromise was to delay the slavery issue in the United States. Monroe was the last president to have fought in the American Revolutionary War and the last one to be a founding father of the United States.
Monroe retired to Virginia. After his wife's death he moved to New York where he died on July 4, 1831 of tuberculosis.
Martin Van Buren
Martin Van Buren (December 5, 1782 – July 24, 1862) was the eighth President of the United States. He was the first president born after the United States Declaration of Independence, making him the first president who was born as a U.S. citizen.
Van Buren was born in Kinderhook, New York, in 1782. Van Buren studied law by working for Francis Sylvester and later became a lawyer in 1803. In 1821 he was elected as a member of the United States Senate, representing New York. President Andrew Jackson selected him as the Secretary of State in 1827. In 1832, he became Vice-President for Jackson, and in 1836, he became the 8th President of the United States. During most of the time he was president, the economy was in very bad shape, and he was blamed for it. He was the first president to have been born a United States citizen, since all of his predecessors were born British subjects before the American Revolution.
Van Buren lost the next presidential election in 1840 to William Henry Harrison. In 1848, he ran again to be president as a part of the Free Soil Party, but he did not win. Van Buren died on July 24, 1862, of heart failure after suffering from an asthma attack, on his Lindenwald estate.
Martin Van Buren was born on December 5, 1782 in Kinderhook, New York, south of Albany. Van Buren was the third born of five children. His father, Abraham Van Buren, was a farmer and a tavern owner. His mother was Maria Hoes Van Buren, the granddaughter of a Dutch immigrant. Martin Van Buren went to school at the Kinderhook Academy in the village where he lived. At Kinderhook Academy, he excelled in English and Latin. Van Buren left the school when he was 14 years old.
In 1796, Van Buren started working in the law office of Francis Sylvester, an attorney that worked in Kinderhook. He kept the office clean, copied documents and did other jobs. While he was working there, he learned about law. After six years under Sylvester, he spent a final year of apprenticeship in the New York City office of William P. Van Ness. Van Buren passed the New York State Bar Exam in 1803, and became a lawyer.
After becoming a lawyer, Van Buren moved back to Kinderhook to work as an attorney with his half-brother, James J. Van Alen, in 1803.
Five years later, Van Buren became the surrogate (legal officer) of Columbia County. There was no fixed term of office. That is, Van Buren would be there until the opposition party was able to elect someone else in his place. Van Buren held the office about five years until he was removed on March 19, 1813.
Van Buren represented New York in the United States Senate from 1821 to 1828. He left the Senate to become the governor of New York in 1829. On March 5, 1829 after he became the governor, President Andrew Jackson made Van Buren the Secretary of State, so Van Buren was only the governor for two months.
From 1833 to 1837, he was the Vice President. (Jackson was still President at this time.) Also was leading member of and gained much voting support by Free Soil Party.
Just a few months after Van Buren became president, there was a financial crisis called the Panic of 1837. Van Buren believed in limited government, and did not respond in a way that many people wanted. Many people blamed him for the economy becoming worse, and this made him less popular. He earned the nicknames "Little Magician" and the "Red Fox" for his cunning politics.
Van Buren married Hannah Hoes, a cousin, on February 21, 1807. They had five children together: Abraham, John, Martin Jr., Smith, and Winfield Scott.
Martin Van Buren developed pneumonia in the fall of 1861. Due to this, he was bedridden. In July, 1862, Van Buren had a serious asthma attack and began to weaken. Van Buren died on July 24, 1862, at his home in Kinderhook, New York, of heart failure. He was 79 years old.
South Holland
South Holland is a province in the west of the Netherlands. It is called "Zuid-Holland" in Dutch. It is surrounded by the North Sea and the provinces North Holland, Utrecht, Gelderland, North Brabant, and Zeeland.
3.45 million people live there. The biggest cities are Rotterdam and The Hague. The Hague is the capital of the province. The Hague is also the administrative capital of the Netherlands. That means that the parliament is there.
Rotterdam has the largest port of Europe. Leiden, Gouda, and Delft have town centers with many old buildings. Zoetermeer is a quite new city. Most of it was built in the 1970s. Another important city is Dordrecht.
In South Holland there are some typical Dutch landscapes. Near Leiden there is a region that is known as the "Bollenstreek" ("bulb district"). In springtime many large fields with flowers can be found here. These fields are called "bulb fields". Near Rotterdam there is a small village called Kinderdijk with 19 windmills near each other.
The area south of The Hague is called Westland. Here are many greenhouses.
The south of the province has many islands. The largest of them are Voorne-Putten, Goeree-Overflakkee, IJsselmonde, the Hoeksche Waard and the island of Dordrecht. These big islands are connected by bridges and/or tunnels.
The most important rivers and other bodies of waters are Nieuwe Maas, Nieuwe Waterweg, Oude Maas, Haringvliet, and Hollands Diep.
Grand Theft Auto
Grand Theft Auto is a series of video games published by Rockstar Games. The first was released in the late 90s. This game was played from a bird's-eye view, meaning that it was like seeing the main character from a helicopter. The second was called "GTA 2" and also an add-on pack was added for the first game called "GTA: London" which was set in the 60s.
Then came the next games which were made in 3D which changed the way Grand Theft Auto was played. The first in the 3D series was called "Grand Theft Auto III" which was set in Liberty City which is like New York. Then there was "" which was set in the middle 80s. It was very much like Miami in Florida. The next game in the 3D series is called "" which is based on Los Angeles, San Francisco and Las Vegas. This game was a very big improvement from the older game because the map was so much bigger.
"Grand Theft Auto IV" ("GTA IV") was officially announced at the Microsoft 2006 E3 Press Conference on May 10, 2006. Grand Theft Auto IV is now being sold inside stores. Grand Theft Auto IV now has 2 episodes, and a complete collection.
The latest game released in the "Grand Theft Auto" is "Grand Theft Auto V". It was released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 on September 17, 2013.
"Grand Theft Auto V" broke the industry sales records by earning US $800 million in the first 24 hours of its release. The game became extremely popular in the gamers community attracting programmers to create many mods to it. With New Additional Features and Quality Graphics it became popular multiplayer game. It also earned $1 billion within its first three days which made it the fastest selling entertainment product in history and broke 7 records by Guinness World Records.
There has been a lot of arguing, or "controversy," about these games. Many people do not like how the player can murder random people, and sleep with prostitutes. Because of this, all 3-D GTA games have been rated Mature so far.
The Black Eyed Peas