When Britain gave Hong Kong back to China on 1 July 1997, it marked the effective end of the British Empire. Britain still has some overseas territories.
When the Thirteen Colonies became independent in the American War of Independence, the British Empire lost some of its oldest and most important colonies. But it kept colonies in what are now Canada and Florida, as well as the Caribbean. It still had colonies and businesses in Asia, Africa, and the Pacific too. After defeating Napoleonic France in 1815, Britain became the world's only superpower for more than a century. The empire became even larger.
The empire continued to expand during the 19th century. The empire would force the Chinese to give them the island of Hong Kong following the Opium Wars during the middle of the 19th century. During the Scramble for Africa, Britain gained much of Africa, especially in the south.
By the start of the 20th century, the economies of Germany and the United States had begun catching up to Britain, especially in their industrialisation. Britain allowed Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa to be "self-governing dominions" by the time of the First World War. They could create their own laws in most matters, and became independent countries in 1931.
The First World War weakened Europe. Though the British Empire had been the most powerful economy before the war, it was quickly surpassed by the United States as the greatest industrial power after the war. In the Second World War, Japan took the colonies of Britain and other European countries in South-East Asia. The allies eventually defeated Japan and took back their colonies, but Britain's prestige in Asia was damaged. This caused the empire to decline more quickly.
The British Raj included the whole of the Indian subcontinent. The independence of the two states of India and Pakistan in 1947 was the first and most important step in decolonisation. In the following decade, Britain also gave independence to most of the territories of the British Empire. While doing this, the colonial government hid and destroyed many documents about the empire that they thought might get them in trouble. After the UK transferred Hong Kong back to China in 1997, the British Empire was essentially over. However, Britain still controls some overseas territories. After they were given independence, many countries which used to be British colonies joined the Commonwealth of Nations. have the same head of state, Queen Elizabeth II, and are Commonwealth realms.
The Slavery Abolition Act abolished slavery in the British Empire on 1 August 1834. In the territories administered by the East India Company and Ceylon, slavery was ended in 1844.
Parliamentary reform in 1832 saw the influence of the East India Company decline. Under the 1833 Act, slaves were granted full emancipation after a period of four to six years of "apprenticeship". Facing further opposition from abolitionists, the apprenticeship system was abolished in 1838.
The British government compensated slave-owners.
Chimbote
Chimbote is the largest city in the Ancash Region of Peru. The city has over 400,000 residents.
It is on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Most of the people of Chimbote catch fish, or work with seafood in some way. The city catches more fish than any other place in Peru.
Chimbote is known for its good version of the national dish of Peru, ceviche. Chimbote is also the hometown of the former president of Peru, Alejandro Toledo.
Tram
A tram (tramcar, trolley, or streetcar) is a passenger vehicle that is like a light train. It carries people to places within a city. Because a single tram can carry many people at the same time, riding on a tram instead of driving a car is a good way to help prevent pollution and stop the roads getting too busy.
The word "tram" is used mainly outside North America, while within North America these vehicles are called "streetcars" or "trolleys" as they run mainly on streets.
More modern and larger trams manufactured since the 1970s, such as the one in the second picture from Warsaw, are called light rail vehicles. These vehicles are bigger because they are very often made of two or more parts, with a bendy section in the middle which works like a human joint. In railway jargon, these types of vehicles are called "articulated". These may sometimes have their own right-of-way instead of traveling on the street and their stops are usually farther apart than the stops of trams so that they can travel faster.
On Market Street in San Francisco, vintage streetcars from the 1910s through the 1940s, called "historic streetcars" (the "F Market" line), that travel on the street are a popular tourist attraction. Another city whose trams are highly used by tourists is Hong Kong, because here the trams have two floors which is very rare in the world.
The largest tram networks in the world are in: Melbourne, St. Petersburg, Amsterdam, Berlin, Moscow and Vienna.
Trams first came into use in the 1890s, when they replaced horsecars--streetcars drawn by horses.
In the 1910s to 1930s, in many metropolitan areas in North America, there were special bigger and longer streetcars that traveled long distances to distant suburbs on what were called "interurban" lines. These streetcar lines sometimes had "dedicated tracks" with their own right-of-way (land surrounding the tracks) and made fewer local stops.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, in the United States, there was a conspiracy by Standard Oil, General Motors, and Firestone Rubber. They formed a company called National City Lines to buy streetcar systems, tear up the tracks, and replace them with buses in almost all the cities in North America. They did this so they could make bigger profits by selling more oil, buses, cars and rubber tires. Because of this, it was necessary to spend hundreds of millions of dollars of public funds in the 1980s and 1990s to reconstruct the streetcar systems as light rail systems using light rail vehicles. This conspiracy is somewhat referred to in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
Fast food
Fast food is the term for a kind of food that people eat from a restaurant, cafe or take-out where food is prepared and served quickly.
It is mass-produced food. It is often pre-prepared and delivered to the shop ready for frying or boiling. There is a strong priority on "speed of service".
The restaurants that sell fast food are called "fast food shops" or "fast food restaurants". Some of the more common fast food restaurants are McDonald's, Wendy's, Burger King, Taco Bell, and KFC. All these chains have a limited short menu, and serve the same kind of food in all their outlets. The shops are subcontracted by the supplying company, and tied absolutely by contract to that single supplier. However, the same kind of criticism could be (and is) directed at some other kinds of restaurants. The problem is seen by many critics as being one of over-eating, rather than one of the specific food types.
When a lot of fast food is eaten, it may cause health problems and complications, such as high cholesterol, clogged arteries, diabetes, obesity, and death.
Ford (disambiguation)
Ford can mean more than one thing:
Scott Joplin
Scott Joplin was an American ragtime musician and composer. He is widely considered the greatest ragtime composer of all time.
Joplin was born in the U.S. state of Texas sometime between June 1867 and January 1868 and grew up in Texarkana, Texas. His relatives were railroad workers. His father wanted him to find work that would pay. His mother said he should learn music. Even though he was from Texas, most of his pieces were written when he was in Missouri and New York City.