Libya's second largest city Benghazi, has a history which extends from when the city was
first inhabited in the 6th century BCE to the present day. Modern Benghazi lies in the province of Cyrenaica,
an area which was heavily colonised by the Greeks in
antiquity. After the war of Othomi in
464-460 B.C., the Messenians settled in Naupaktos. In 399 B.C., expelled once more by the
Spartians, they took final refuge in Euesperides. The Greek city that existed within the modern
day boundaries of Benghazi was founded around 525 BC. It was called Euesperides and was one of five
important cities in Cyrenaica known as the Pentapolis—the other four were the
chief city Cyrene, its
port Apollonia, Taucheira,
and Barca. Euesperides
was probably founded by people from Cyrene or Barca on the edge of a lagoon
which opened from the sea. Cyrenaica
became a Roman province when it was bequeathed to Rome by Ptolemy
Apion on his death in 96 BC. By 431, the whole of Libya was conquered by
the Vandals. Heavily bombed
in World War II,
Benghazi was later rebuilt with the country's newly found oil wealth as a
gleaming showpiece of modern Libya. On 15 April
1986 US Airforce and Navy planes bombed Benghazi
and Tripoli. President
Ronald Reagan justified the attacks by claiming Libya was responsible for
terrorism directed at the USA, including the bombing
of La Belle discotheque in West Berlin ten days before.
Read much more and see graphics at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Benghazi
The Central
Treaty Organization (CENTO), originally known as
the Baghdad
Pact or
the Middle
East Treaty Organization (METO) was formed in 1955 by Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. It was dissolved in 1979. U.S. pressure and promises of military and
economic aid were key in the negotiations leading to the agreement, although
the United States could
not initially participate. John Foster Dulles,
who was involved in the negotiations, ascribed this to "the pro-Israel lobby and the difficulty of obtaining
Congressional Approval." Others said the reason was "for
purely technical reasons of budgeting procedures." In
1958, the United States joined the military committee of the alliance. It is generally viewed as one of the least
successful of the Cold War alliances. The
organization's headquarters were located in Baghdad (Iraq)
in 1955–1958 and in Ankara (Turkey) in 1958–1979. Cyprus was also an important location for
CENTO due to its positioning within the Middle East and the British
Sovereign Base Areas situated on the island.
The Southeast
Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was an international
organization for collective defense in Southeast Asia created
by the Southeast
Asia Collective Defense Treaty, or Manila Pact, signed in
September 1954 in Manila, Philippines. The formal institution of SEATO was
established on 19 February 1955 at a meeting of treaty partners in Bangkok, Thailand. The
organization's headquarters were also in Bangkok. Eight members joined the organization. Primarily created to block further communist gains in Southeast Asia, SEATO is
generally considered a failure because internal conflict and dispute hindered
general use of the SEATO military; however, SEATO-funded cultural and
educational programs left long-standing effects in Southeast Asia. SEATO was dissolved on 30 June 1977 after many
members lost interest and withdrew. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Asia_Treaty_Organization
The North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO French: Organisation du traité de
l'Atlantique Nord; OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based
on the North Atlantic Treaty which
was signed on 4 April 1949. The
organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby
its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any
external party. NATO's
headquarters are located in Haren, Brussels, Belgium, where the Supreme
Allied Commander also resides. Belgium is one of the 28 member states across
North America and Europe, the newest of which, Albania and Croatia, joined in April 2009. An additional 22 countries participate
in NATO's Partnership for Peace program,
with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue
programmes. The combined military
spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70 percent of the
global total. Members' defense spending is supposed
to amount to 2 percent of GDP. NATO was little more than a political
association until the Korean War galvanized the organization's member
states, and an integrated military structure was built up under the direction
of two US supreme commanders. The course
of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, which formed in 1955. Doubts over the strength of the relationship
between the European states and the United States ebbed and flowed, along with
doubts over the credibility of the NATO defence against a prospective Soviet invasion—doubts that led to the
development of the independent French
nuclear deterrent and the withdrawal of France from NATO's military structure in
1966 for 30 years. After the fall of the Berlin
Wall in
1989, the organization was drawn into the breakup of Yugoslavia,
and conducted its first military interventions in Bosnia
from 1992 to 1995 and later Yugoslavia
in 1999. Politically, the
organization sought better relations with former Warsaw Pact countries, several
of which joined the alliance in 1999 and 2004.
Article 5 of
the North Atlantic treaty, requiring member states to come to the
aid of any member state subject to an armed attack, was invoked for the first
and only time after the 11 September 2001
attacks, after
which troops were deployed to Afghanistan under the NATO-led ISAF. The organization has operated a range of
additional roles since then, including sending trainers to
Iraq, assisting in counter-piracy
operations and
in 2011 enforcing a no-fly zone over
Libya in
accordance with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1973. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO
10 Geographical Facts About The World To Blow Your
Mind
"The
72-Year Rule" An Act of
October 5, 1978 (P.L. 95-416)
Provides for the transfer
of census returns to the National Archives.
Mandates that those returns are kept confidential until 72 years after
the census to which they pertain. Link to legislation pertaining to the U.S. Census
Bureau from 1789 forward at https://www.census.gov/history/www/reference/legislation/legislation_1974_-_1983.html
Portmeirion Village stands on a rugged clifftop on its
own private peninsula overlooking Cardigan Bay.
It is surrounded by 145 acres of sub-tropical woodlands and miles of
sandy beaches. Portmeirion was built by
visionary Welsh architect, Sir Clough Williams-Ellis, who wanted to prove that
development did not have to mean destruction of the natural environment. He started work in 1925 and completed the
village during the early 1970's. He died
in 1978, aged 95. Portmeirion is now
acknowledged as a unique architectural work of art. Many know Portmeirion for its role as
"The Village" in Patrick McGoohan's television series "The
Prisoner". It is also known for the
Portmeirion Pottery, designed by Clough's daughter Susan Williams-Ellis
(1918-1997). http://www.attractionsofsnowdonia.com/attractions/gardens-and-grounds/portmeirion-village
Writers to Watch Spring 2016: Anticipated Debut Fiction by Daniel Lefferts Brazil,
Bulgaria, Ghana, Sri Lanka: These are
just some of the places that readers are taken by authors of the year’s
standout debut fiction. Authors and books
discussed are Stephanie Danier, Guillermo Erades, Kaitlyn Greenidge, Garth Greenwell, Amy Gustine, Yaa Gyasi, Idra Novey, Martin Seay, and Hannah Tennant-Moore. http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/authors/profiles/article/69279-writers-to-watch-2016-new-debut-fiction.html
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 1452
April 5, 2016 On this date in
1722, Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen discovered Easter Island. On this date in 1792, George Washington exercised his authority to veto a bill, the first time this power was
used in the United States.
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