In 1262, Iceland became part of Norway. This lasted for 400 years. In 1662, it became part of Denmark. In the 19th century, many Icelandic's wanted to be independent from Denmark. In 1918, Iceland got many powers of its own, but the king of Denmark was still king of Iceland.
When Germany took over Denmark on April 9 1940, the Althing decided that Icelandic’s should rule the country themselves, but they did not declare independence yet. British and later American soldiers occupied Iceland to prevent it from being attacked by the Germans. In 1944, Iceland finally became fully independent.
After World War II, Iceland became a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but not of the European Union. Between 1958 and 1976, there were three debates between Iceland and the United Kingdom about the rights to catch codfish. They were called the Cod Wars.
In 1980, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir was elected president of Iceland. She was the first woman ever to be elected president of a country.
In 2016, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson become president of Iceland.
Iceland has a multi-party system. Since the 2013 election, the center-right Independence Party and Progressive Party are the biggest political parties in Iceland. Other powerful parties in Iceland include the center-left Social Democratic Alliance and Left-Green Movement. See also: List of political parties in Iceland.
Iceland is a representative democracy and a parliamentary republic. Iceland has a president (Guðni Th. Jóhannesson) and a prime minister (Katrín Jakobsdóttir). The parliament, Althing, has 63 members and each member can only be in there for four years. The president is elected by Icelanders, and is in government for four years. The president can be elected an unlimited amount of times.
Iceland has no standing army. The United States Air Force had a base near Reykjanesbær, but they left in 2006. Since 2008, NATO nations have occasionally had their air force patrol Iceland. This was requested by the Icelandic government.
Iceland is divided into 8 regions, 6 constituencies and 74 municipalities (since 2013). The regions are mainly used for statistics. The constituencies are used for selecting politicians who will represent them in parliament. Lastly, the municipalities give services to the people that live there. These services include education, waste management, public transportation, and so on.
Before 2003, the constituencies were the same as regions, but this was changed because it meant that a vote in Reykjavik meant less than one in a rural area. Even though this was addressed, the problem still exists.
Fishing and fish processing is the main economic activity in Iceland. Despite effort to diversify, particularly into the travel industry, seafood exports continue to account for nearly three-quarters of merchandise exports and approximately half of all foreign exchange earnings.
Geothermal Energy produces the vast majority of Electrical Power consumed on Iceland, due chiefly to the island's position atop the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and exhibits plentiful hot water reservoirs and geysers. This has the effect of drastically reducing the price of electricity in Iceland, and has attracted several energy-intensive industries.
Aluminum Smelting (The reduction of Aluminum ores to Aluminum metal) is the largest energy-intensive manufacturing sector in Iceland, and the country produced over 800,000 Metric Tonnes per Year in 2013, making it the 10th largest producer of Aluminum metal worldwide.
Iceland is very geologically active and combined with large amounts of rain and snow caused by the warm waters of the gulf stream current which flow toward it, many interesting and unusual geographic features have developed which make it different from any other island so close to the Arctic Circle.
Some of these features are Iceland's numerous mountains, volcanoes, hot springs, rivers, small lakes, waterfalls, glaciers, and geysers. The word geyser is, in fact, derived from Geysir, the name of a particularly famous geyser on the southern side of the island. Glaciers cover approximately 11% of the island and the largest, Vatnajökull, is up to 1 km thick and, by far, the largest glacier in Europe.
Iceland, though considered to be a European country, sits partly in North America since it straddles the Mid-Atlantic Ridge which marks the boundary between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates. The ridge runs directly through the populated Reykjavik and Thingvellir historic areas, and the tectonic activity of these plates separating is the source of the abundant geothermal energy in the region.
Reykjavík is the capital city of Iceland. Reykjavík is also the most important port in Iceland. Other important towns in Iceland are Akureyri, Kópavogur, Hafnarfjörður, Keflavík, Seyðisfjörður and Vestmannaeyjar.
The people in Iceland are mostly of Scandinavian origin. The language they speak is Icelandic. The language has not changed much in 1,000 years, so Icelanders are still able to read the sagas about the Vikings without many problems. Most people in Iceland are Christian. Most of them are Lutheran.
Icelandic people are considered to be the happiest people on Earth. Iceland has the highest birth rate in Europe, highest divorce rate and the highest percentage of women working outside their home.
There are no real surnames on Iceland. Children get the first name of their father (sometimes mother) with -s+son if it's a boy, and -s+dóttir if it's a girl.
For example, a man named Jón Stefánsson has a son named Fjalar. Fjalar's last name will not be Stefánsson like his father's, it will become Fjalar Jónsson.
The same goes for women. Jón Stefánsson's daughter Kata would not have the last name Stefánsson, she would have the name Jónsdóttir.
In most countries people use to call other people by their surname, but in Iceland people call other people by their first name. So when people talk about Halldór Ásgrímsson they do not call him Ásgrímsson, but Halldór.
1965
1965 (MCMLXV) was .
1969
1969 (MCMLXIX) was .
Saarbrücken
Saarbrücken (; ; Rhine Franconian: "Saarbrigge" ]; ) is a German city and a district in the state of Saarland.
The city is also the capital of the Saarland. Saarbrücken has 180,000 inhabitants and is on the river Saar.
Saarlouis
Saarlouis is a town in the Saarland, Germany. It has 38,400 inhabitants and is on the Saar. From 1936 to 1945 it was called Saarlautern. Ford Motor Company has a plant here; it produces the Focus, C-Max and Kuga.
Brandenburg
Brandenburg (Low Sorbian: "Bramborska", Low German: "Brannenborg") is a state ("Bundesland") in Germany. It has been a state since 1990. It is 29,056 km² in area. It has about 2.6 million inhabitants.
Until 1945 it was the biggest province in Prussia, with 38,278 km² and 3 million inhabitants. From 1949 to 1952 it was a state in the German Democratic Republic. In 1952 it became divided into three "Bezirke" (Potsdam, Frankfurt and Cottbus). The capital of Brandenburg is Potsdam.
Berlin is in the middle of Brandenburg. But it is not part of Brandenburg. It is a city state.
Brandenburg is divided into fourteen "Kreise" (districts):
Also Brandenburg has four "Kreisfreie Städte" (district-free city):
Brandenburg is divided into fourteen (rural) counties ("Landkreise"),
and four urban districts ("kreisfreie Städte"),
Russian
Russian might mean:
Russian language
Russian (Russian: , transliteration: "russkiy yaz'ik") is a Slavic language. It is the main language spoken in Russia. It is also spoken in by many people in other parts of the former Soviet Union, such as in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania, Turkmenistan and Estonia.
Russian, like other Slavic languages, are Indo-European languages. Russian is one of the three main East Slavic languages; the others are Ukrainian and Belarusian. More people speak Russian than any other Slavic language.