User:Wiki User 68/My Portal
Wiki User 68/My Portal
 |
 |
| |
.gif)
Wiki User 68 hails from the Great British Isles specifically England ⓘ which is a country that is part of the United Kingdom.[1][2][3] Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population,[4] whilst its mainland territory occupies most of the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain. England shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west and elsewhere is bordered by the North Sea, Irish Sea, Celtic Sea, Bristol Channel and English Channel. The capital is London, the largest urban area in Great Britain, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most, but not all, measures.[5]
England became a unified state in the year 927 and takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled there during the 5th and 6th centuries. It has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world[6] being the place of origin of the English language, the Church of England, and English law, which forms the basis of the common law legal systems of countries around the world. In addition, England was the birth place of the Industrial Revolution and the first country in the world to industrialise.[7] It is home to the Royal Society, which laid the foundations of modern experimental science.[8] England is the world's oldest parliamentary system[9] and consequently constitutional, governmental and legal innovations that had their origin in England have been widely adopted by other nations.
Selected Panorama
Selected Article
Featherstone Castle, a Grade I listed building, is a large Gothic style country mansion situated on the bank of the River South Tyne approximately three miles southwest of the town of Haltwhistle in Northumberland (grid reference NY674610).
In the 11th century AD the manor house on this site belonged to the Featherstonehaugh family. It has played an important role in the battles between the English and the Scots. Originally a 13th century hall house, a square three storey pele tower was added in 1330 by Thomas de Featherstonehaugh. A survey from the year 1541 reported the property to be a tower in good repair occupied by Thomas Featherstonehaugh.
The earliest recorded history of this area derives from the Roman occupation period; in 122 AD, the Romans erected Hadrian's Wall, the course of which lies several kilometres to the north of Featherstone Castle.
Selected Picture
Selected Natural History
Desertification is the degradation of land in arid and dry sub-humid areas, resulting primarily from natural activities and influenced by climatic variations. It is also a failure of the ecological succession process. A major impact of desertification is biodiversity loss and loss of productive capacity, for example, by transition from land dominated by shrublands to non-native grasslands. In the semi-arid regions of southern California, many coastal sage scrub and chaparral ecosystems have been replaced by non-native, invasive grasses due to the shortening of fire return intervals. This can create a monoculture of annual grass that cannot support the wide range of animals once found in the original ecosystem. In Madagascar's central highland plateau, 10% of the entire country has been lost to desertification due to slash and burn agriculture by indigenous peoples. In Africa, if current trends of soil degradation continue, the continent will be able to feed only 25% of its population by 2025, according to UNU's Ghana-based Institute for Natural Resources in Africa.[10] Globally, desertification claims a Nebraska-sized area of productive capacity each year.[11]
Selected Technology
.svg)
Bio Fuel Systems is a wholly Spanish owned firm that has developed a method of breeding plankton and turning the marine plants into oil, providing a potentially inexhaustible source of clean fuel. It was formed in 2006 in eastern Spain after three years of research by scientists and engineers connected with the University of Alicante.
The process it has developed converts energy, based on three elements: solar energy, photosynthesis and an electromagnetic field. Its new fuel is said to reduce CO2, is free of other contaminants like sulphur dioxide and would be cheaper than standard fossil fuel that is available now. Their system of bioconversion is about 400 times more productive than any other plant-based system producing oil or ethanol.[citation needed]
In the news
- 19 July 2025 –
- In boxing, Ukrainian Oleksandr Usyk defeats British challenger Daniel Dubois at Wembley Stadium in London, England, via a fifth-round knockout to become a two-time undisputed heavyweight champion. (BBC Sport)
- 17 July 2025 –
- A child is killed and 21 people are injured when a coach bus crashes in Somerset, England. (BBC News)
- 13 July 2025 – Zeusch Aviation Flight 1
- A Beechcraft King Air B200 aircraft crashes and catches fire shortly after taking off from London Southend Airport in Southend-on-Sea, England, killing all four people onboard. (NOS) (The Independent)
- 26 June 2025 –
- A double-decker bus carrying students from Barton Peveril Sixth Form College plunges into a river in Eastleigh, Hampshire, England, injuring all 19 passengers, including five who are hospitalized. (AP)
Selected Biography
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle, DL (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was an author most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger. He was a prolific writer whose other works include science fiction stories, historical novels, plays and romances, poetry, and non-fiction.
Arthur Conan Doyle was born on 22 May 1859, in Edinburgh, Scotland, to an English father of Irish descent, Charles Altamont Doyle, and an Irish mother, née Mary Foley, who had married in 1855.[12] Although he is now referred to as "Conan Doyle", the origin of this compound surname is uncertain.[13] Conan Doyle's father was a chronic alcoholic, and was the only member of his family who, apart from fathering a brilliant son, never accomplished anything of note.
Selected Geography
The Arctic Ocean, located in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Arctic north polar region, is the smallest, and shallowest of the world's five major oceanic divisions.[14] The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, although some oceanographers call it the Arctic Mediterranean Sea or simply the Arctic Sea, classifying it as one of the mediterranean seas of the Atlantic Ocean.
Almost completely surrounded by Eurasia and North America, the Arctic Ocean is largely covered by sea ice throughout the year. The Arctic Ocean's temperature and salinity vary seasonally as the ice cover melts and freezes;[15] its salinity is the lowest on average of the five major oceans, due to low evaporation, heavy freshwater inflow from rivers and streams, and limited connection and outflow to surrounding oceanic waters with higher salinities. The summer shrinking of the ice has been quoted at 50%.[14] The National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) use satellite data to provide a daily record of Arctic sea ice cover and the rate of melting compared to an average period and specific past years.
Categories
Selected quote
A language is a dialect that has an army and a navy.
- Max Weinreich
- linguist and author (1894-1969)
Did you know?
- ...that optimistic estimations of peak oil production forecast the global decline will begin by 2020 or later, and assume major investments in alternatives will occur before a crisis, without requiring major changes in the lifestyle of heavily oil-consuming nations. These models show the price of oil at first escalating and then retreating as other types of fuel and energy sources are used?[16]
- ...that if the Greenland ice-sheet melted through global warming, it would raise the global sea level by 7 meters, or 22 feet?
Topics
Related portals
WikiProjects
 |
 |
 |
| WikiProject Africa | WikiProject Cape Verde | WikiProject Council |
Things to do
- Keep finishing off the various Portals that need creating/completing and start writing content on the relevant interested issues.
- Be bold. Wikipedia is for the people, by the people and needs YOU as a contributor to spread global knowledge.
Wikimedia
- ^ The Countries of the UK statistics.gov.uk, accessed 10 October, 2008
- ^ "Countries within a country". 10 Downing Street. Retrieved 2007-09-10.
The United Kingdom is made up of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
- ^ "ISO 3166-2 Newsletter Date: 2007-11-28 No I-9. "Changes in the list of subdivision names and code elements" (Page 11)" (PDF). International Organisation for Standardisation codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions -- Part 2: Country subdivision codes. Retrieved 2008-05-31.
ENG England country
- ^ National Statistics Online - Population Estimates. Retrieved 6 June 2007.
- ^ The official definition of LUZ (Larger Urban Zone) is used by the European Statistical Agency (Eurostat) when describing conurbations and areas of high population. This definition ranks London highest, above Paris (see Larger Urban Zones (LUZ) in the European Union); and a ranking of population within municipal boundaries also puts London on top (see Largest cities of the European Union by population within city limits). However, research by the University of Avignon in France ranks Paris first and London second when including the whole urban area and hinterland, that is the outlying cities as well (see Largest urban areas of the European Union).
- ^ England - Culture. Britain USA. Retrieved 12 September 2006.
- ^ "Industrial Revolution". Retrieved 2008-04-27.
- ^ "History of the Royal Society". The Royal Society. Retrieved 2008-09-03.
- ^ "Country profile: United Kingdom". BBC News. Retrieved 2009-04-27.
- ^ Africa may be able to feed only 25% of its population by 2025
- ^ Environmental failure: a case for a new green politics
- ^ Lellenberg, Jon; Daniel Stashower; Charles Foley (2007). Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters. HarperPress. pp. 8–9. ISBN 978-0-00-724759-2. Stashower, Daniel (2000). Teller of Tales: The Life of Arthur Conan Doyle. Penguin Books. pp. 20–21. ISBN 0-8050-5074-4.
- ^ Stashower says that the name originated from his great-uncle Michael Conan, a distinguished journalist, from whom Arthur and his elder sister, Annette, received the compound surname of "Conan Doyle" (Stashower 20 – 21). The same source points out that in 1885 he was describing himself on the brass nameplate outside his house, and on his doctoral thesis, as "A. Conan Doyle". However, other sources (such as the 1901 census) indicate that Conan Doyle's surname was "Doyle", and that the form "Conan Doyle" was only used as a surname in his later years.[citation needed]
- ^ a b Michael Pidwirny (2006). "Introduction to the Oceans". www.physicalgeography.net. Retrieved 2006-12-07.
- ^ Some Thoughts on the Freezing and Melting of Sea Ice and Their Effects on the Ocean K. Aagaard and R. A. Woodgate, Polar Science Center, Applied Physics Laboratory University of Washington, January 2001. Retrieved 7 December 2006.
- ^ "CERA says peak oil theory is faulty". Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA). 2006-11-14. Retrieved 2008-07-27.