title: Silicon

text: The silanes comprise a homologous series of silicon hydrides with a general formula of . They are all strong reducing agents. Unbranched and branched chains are known up to "n"=8, and the cycles and are also known. The first two, silane and disilane, are colourless gases; the heavier members of the series are volatile liquids. All silanes are very reactive and catch fire or explode spontaneously in air. They become less thermally stable with room temperature, so that only silane is indefinitely stable at room temperature, although disilane does not decompose very quickly (only 2.5% of a sample decomposes after the passage of eight months). They decompose to form polymeric polysilicon hydride and hydrogen gas. As expected from the difference in atomic weight, the silanes are less volatile than the corresponding alkanes and boranes, but more so than the corresponding germanes. They are much more reactive than the corresponding alkanes, because of the larger radius of silicon compared to carbon facilitating nucleophilic attack at the silicon, the greater polarity of the Si–H bond compared to the C–H bond, and the ability of silicon to expand its octet and hence form adducts and lower the reaction's activation energy.


title: Silicon

text: Silane pyrolysis gives polymeric species and finally elemental silicon and hydrogen; indeed ultrapure silicon is commercially produced by the pyrolysis of silane. While the thermal decomposition of alkanes starts by the breaking of a C–H or C–C bond and the formation of radical intermediates, polysilanes decompose by eliminating silylenes : or :SiHR, as the activation energy of this process (~210 kJ/mol) is much less than the Si–Si and Si–H bond energies. While pure silanes do not react with pure water or dilute acids, traces of alkali catalyse immediate hydrolysis to hydrated silicon dioxide. If the reaction is carried out in methanol, controlled solvolysis results in the products , , and . The Si–H bond also adds to alkenes, a reaction which proceeds slowly and speeds up with increasing substitution of the silane involved. At 450 °C, silane participates in an addition reaction with acetone, as well as a ring-opening reaction with ethylene oxide. Direct reaction of the silanes with chlorine or bromine results in explosions at room temperature, but the reaction of silane with bromine at −80 °C is controlled and yields bromosilane and dibromosilane. The monohalosilanes may be formed by reacting silane with the appropriate hydrogen halide with an catalyst, or by reacting silane with a solid silver halide in a heated flow reactor:


title: Silicon

text: Among the derivatives of silane, iodosilane () and potassium silanide () are very useful synthetic intermediates in the production of more complicated silicon-containing compounds: the latter is a colourless crystalline ionic solid containing K cations and anions in the NaCl structure, and is made by the reduction of silane by potassium metal. Additionally, the reactive hypervalent species is also known. With suitable organic substituents it is possible to produce stable polysilanes: they have surprisingly high electric conductivities, arising from sigma delocalisation of the electrons in the chain.


title: Silicon

text: Silicon and silicon carbide readily react with all four stable halogens, forming the colourless, reactive, and volatile silicon tetrahalides Silicon tetrafluoride also may be made by fluorinating the other silicon halides, and is produced by the attack of hydrofluoric acid on glass. Heating two different tetrahalides together also produces a random mixture of mixed halides, which may also be produced by halogen exchange reactions. The melting and boiling points of these species usually rise with increasing atomic weight, though there are many exceptions: for example, the melting and boiling points drop as one passes from through to . The shift from the hypoelectronic elements in Group 13 and earlier to the Group 14 elements is illustrated by the change from an infinite ionic structure in aluminium fluoride to a lattice of simple covalent silicon tetrafluoride molecules, as dictated by the lower electronegativity of aluminium than silicon, the stoichiometry (the +4 oxidation state being too high for true ionicity), and the smaller size of the silicon atom compared to the aluminium atom.


title: Silicon

text: Silicon tetrachloride is manufactured on a huge scale as a precursor to the production of pure silicon, silicon dioxide, and some silicon esters. The silicon tetrahalides hydrolyse readily in water, unlike the carbon tetrahalides, again because of the larger size of the silicon atom rendering it more open to nucleophilic attack and the ability of the silicon atom to expand its octet which carbon lacks. The reaction of silicon tetrafluoride with excess hydrofluoric acid produces the octahedral hexafluorosilicate anion .


title: Silicon

text: Analogous to the silanes, halopolysilanes also are known. While catenation in carbon compounds is maximised in the hydrogen compounds rather than the halides, the opposite is true for silicon, so that the halopolysilanes are known up to at least , , and . A suggested explanation for this phenomenon is the compensation for the electron loss of silicon to the more electronegative halogen atoms by pi backbonding from the filled p orbitals on the halogen atoms to the empty d orbitals on silicon: this is similar to the situation of carbon monoxide in metal carbonyl complexes and explains their stability. These halopolysilanes may be produced by comproportionation of silicon tetrahalides with elemental silicon, or by condensation of lighter halopolysilanes (trimethylammonium being a useful catalyst for this reaction).


title: Silicon

text: Silicon dioxide (), also known as silica, is one of the best-studied compounds, second only to water. Twelve different crystal modifications of silica are known, the most common being α-quartz, a major constituent of many rocks such as granite and sandstone. It also is known to occur in a pure form as rock crystal; impure forms are known as rose quartz, smoky quartz, morion, amethyst, and citrine. Some poorly crystalline forms of quartz are also known, such as chalcedony, chrysoprase, carnelian, agate, onyx, jasper, heliotrope, and flint. Other modifications of silicon dioxide are known in some other minerals such as tridymite and cristobalite, as well as the much less common coesite and stishovite. Biologically generated forms are also known as kieselguhr and diatomaceous earth. Vitreous silicon dioxide is known as tektites, and obsidian, and rarely as lechatelierite. Some synthetic forms are known as keatite. Opals are composed of complicated crystalline aggregates of partially hydrated silicon dioxide.


title: Silicon

text: Most crystalline forms of silica are made of infinite arrangements of tetrahedra (with Si at the center) connected at their corners, with each oxygen atom linked to two silicon atoms. In the thermodynamically stable room-temperature form, α-quartz, these tetrahedra are linked in intertwined helical chains with two different Si–O distances (159.7 and 161.7 pm) with a Si–O–Si angle of 144°. These helices can be either left- or right-handed, so that individual α-quartz crystals are optically active. At 537 °C, this transforms quickly and reversibly into the similar β-quartz, with a change of the Si–O–Si angle to 155° but a retention of handedness. Further heating to 867 °C results in another reversible phase transition to β-tridymite, in which some Si–O bonds are broken to allow for the arrangement of the tetrahedra into a more open and less dense hexagonal structure. This transition is slow and hence tridymite occurs as a metastable mineral even below this transition temperature; when cooled to about 120 °C it quickly and reversibly transforms by slight displacements of individual silicon and oxygen atoms to α-tridymite, similarly to the transition from α-quartz to β-quartz. β-tridymite slowly transforms to cubic β-cristobalite at about 1470 °C, which once again exists metastably below this transition temperature and transforms at 200–280 °C to α-cristobalite via small atomic displacements. β-cristobalite melts at 1713 °C; the freezing of silica from the melt is quite slow and vitrification, or the formation of a glass, is likely to occur instead. In vitreous silica, the tetrahedra remain corner-connected, but the symmetry and periodicity of the crystalline forms are lost. Because of the slow conversions between these three forms, it is possible upon rapid heating to melt β-quartz (1550 °C) or β-tridymite (1703 °C). Silica boils at approximately 2800 °C. Other high-pressure forms of silica are known, such as coesite and stishovite: these are known in nature, formed under the shock pressure of a meteorite impact and then rapidly quenched to preserve the crystal structure. Similar melting and cooling of silica occurs following lightning strikes, forming glassy lechatelierite. W-silica is an unstable low-density form involving tetrahedra sharing opposite edges instead of corners, forming parallel chains similarly to silicon disulfide () and silicon diselenide (): it quickly returns to forming amorphous silica with heat or traces of water


title: Silicon

text: Silica is rather inert chemically. It is not attacked by any acids other than hydrofluoric acid. However, it slowly dissolves in hot concentrated alkalis, and does so rather quickly in fused metal hydroxides or carbonates, to give metal silicates. Among the elements, it is attacked only by fluorine at room temperature to form silicon tetrafluoride: hydrogen and carbon also react, but require temperatures over 1000 °C to do so. Silica nevertheless reacts with many metal and metalloid oxides to form a wide variety of compounds important in the glass and ceramic industries above all, but also have many other uses: for example, sodium silicate is often used in detergents due to its buffering, saponifying, and emulsifying properties


title: Silicon

text: Adding water to silica drops its melting point by around 800 °C due to the breaking of the structure by replacing Si–O–Si linkages with terminating Si–OH groups. Increasing water concentration results in the formation of hydrated silica gels and colloidal silica dispersions. Many hydrates and silicic acids exist in the most dilute of aqueous solutions, but these are rather insoluble and quickly precipitate and condense and cross-link to form various polysilicic acids of variable combinations following the formula , similar to the behaviour of boron, aluminium, and iron, among other elements. Hence, although some simple silicic acids have been identified in dilute solutions, such as orthosilicic acid and metasilicic acid , none of these are likely to exist in the solid state.


title: Silicon

text: About 95% of the Earth's crustal rocks are made of silica or silicate and aluminosilicate minerals, as reflected in oxygen, silicon, and aluminium being the three most common elements in the crust (in that order). Measured by mass, silicon makes up 27.7% of the Earth's crust. Pure silicon crystals are very rarely found in nature, but notable exceptions are crystals as large as to 0.3 mm across found during sampling gases from the Kudriavy volcano on Iturup, one of the Kuril Islands.


title: Silicon

text: Silicate and aluminosilicate minerals have many different structures and varying stoichiometry, but they may be classified following some general principles. Tetrahedral units are common to almost all these compounds, either as discrete structures, or combined into larger units by the sharing of corner oxygen atoms. These may be divided into "neso"-silicates (discrete units) sharing no oxygen atoms, "soro"-silicates (discrete units) sharing one, "cyclo"-silicates (closed ring structures) and "ino"-silicates (continuous chain or ribbon structures) both sharing two, "phyllo"-silicates (continuous sheets) sharing three, and "tecto"-silicates (continuous three-dimensional frameworks) sharing four. The lattice of oxygen atoms that results is usually close-packed, or close to it, with the charge being balanced by other cations in various different polyhedral sites according to size.


title: Silicon

text: The orthosilicates MSiO (M = Be, Mg, Mn, Fe, Zn) and are "neso"-silicates. (phenacite) is unusual as both Be and Si occupy tetrahedral four-coordinated sites; the other divalent cations instead occupy six-coordinated octahedral sites and often isomorphously replace each other as in olivine, . Zircon, , demands eight-coordination of the Zr cations due to stoichiometry and because of their larger ionic radius (84 pm). Also significant are the garnets, [MM(SiO)], in which the divalent cations (e.g. Ca, Mg, Fe) are eight-coordinated and the trivalent ones are six-coordinated (e.g. Al, Cr, Fe). Regular coordination is not always present: for example, it is not found in , which mixes six- and eight-coordinate sites for Ca. "Soro"-silicates, involving discrete double or triple tetrahedral units, are quite rare: metasilicates involving cyclic "" units of corner-abutting tetrahedra forming a polygonal ring are also known.


title: Silicon

text: Chain metasilicates, {SiO}, form by corner-sharing of an indefinite chain of linked tetrahedra. Many differences arise due to the differing repeat distances of conformation across the line of tetrahedra. A repeat distance of two is most common, as in most pyroxene minerals, but repeat distances of one, three, four, five, six, seven, nine, and twelve are also known. These chains may then link across each other to form double chains and ribbons, as in the asbestos minerals, involving repeated chains of cyclic tetrahedron rings.


title: Silicon

text: Layer silicates, such as the clay minerals and the micas, are very common, and often are formed by horizontal cross-linking of metasilicate chains or planar condensation of smaller units. An example is kaolinite []; in many of these minerals cation and anion replacement is common, so that for example tetrahedral Si may be replaced by Al, octahedral Al by Mg, and by . Three-dimensional framework aluminosilicates are structurally very complex; they may be conceived of as starting from the structure, but having replaced up to one-half of the Si atoms with Al, they require more cations to be included in the structure to balance charge. Examples include feldspars (the most abundant minerals on the Earth), zeolites, and ultramarines. Many feldspars can be thought of as forming part of the ternary system . Their lattice is destroyed by high pressure prompting Al to undergo six-coordination rather than four-coordination, and this reaction destroying feldspars may be a reason for the Mohorovičić discontinuity, which would imply that the crust and mantle have the same chemical composition, but different lattices, although this is not a universally held view. Zeolites have many polyhedral cavities in their frameworks (truncated cuboctahedra being most common, but other polyhedra also are known as zeolite cavities), allowing them to include loosely bound molecules such as water in their structure. Ultramarines alternate silicon and aluminium atoms and include a variety of other anions such as , , and , but are otherwise similar to the feldspars.


title: Silicon

text: Silicon disulfide () is formed by burning silicon in gaseous sulfur at 100 °C; sublimation of the resulting compound in nitrogen results in white, flexible long fibers reminiscent of asbestos with a structure similar to W-silica. This melts at 1090 °C and sublimes at 1250 °C; at high temperature and pressure this transforms to a crystal structure analogous to cristobalite. However, lacks the variety of structures of , and quickly hydrolyses to silica and hydrogen sulfide. It is also ammonolysed quickly and completely by liquid ammonia as follows to form an imide:


title: Silicon

text: It reacts with the sulfides of sodium, magnesium, aluminium, and iron to form metal thiosilicates: reaction with ethanol results in tetraethylsilicate and hydrogen sulfide. Ethylsilicate is useful as its controlled hydrolysis produces adhesive or film-like forms of silica. Reacting hydrogen sulfide with silicon tetrahalides yields silicon thiohalides such as , cyclic , and crystalline . Despite the double bond rule, stable organosilanethiones RR'Si=S have been made thanks to the stabilising mechanism of intermolecular coordination via an amine group.


title: Silicon

text: Silicon nitride, , may be formed by directly reacting silicon with nitrogen above 1300 °C, but a more economical means of production is by heating silica and coke in a stream of nitrogen and hydrogen gas at 1500 °C. It would make a promising ceramic if not for the difficulty of working with and sintering it: chemically, it is near-totally inert, and even above 1000 °C it keeps its strength, shape, and continues to be resistant to wear and corrosion. It is very hard (9 on the Mohs hardness scale), dissociates only at 1900 °C at 1 atm, and is quite dense (density 3.185 g/cm), because of its compact structure similar to that of phenacite (). A similar refractory material is , formed by heating silicon and silica at 1450 °C in an argon stream containing 5% nitrogen gas, involving 4-coordinate silicon and 3-coordinate nitrogen alternating in puckered hexagonal tilings interlinked by non-linear Si–O–Si linkages to each other.


title: Silicon

text: Reacting silyl halides with ammonia or alkylammonia derivatives in the gaseous phase or in ethanolic solution produces various volatile silylamides, which are silicon analogues of the amines:


title: Silicon

text: Many such compounds have been prepared, the only known restriction being that the nitrogen is always tertiary, and species containing the SiH–NH group are unstable at room temperature. The stoichiometry around the nitrogen atom in compounds such as is planar, which has been attributed to a p–d interaction between a lone pair on nitrogen and an empty d orbital on silicon. Similarly, trisilylamines are weaker as ligands than their carbon analogues, the tertiary amines, although substitution of some groups by groups mitigates this weakness. For example,


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic value". A property listed in the National Register, or located within a National Register Historic District, may qualify for tax incentives derived from the total value of expenses incurred in preserving the property.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: The passage of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) in 1966 established the National Register and the process for adding properties to it. Of the more than one and a half million properties on the National Register, 95,000 are listed individually. The remainder are contributing resources within historic districts.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: For most of its history, the National Register has been administered by the National Park Service (NPS), an agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior. Its goals are to help property owners and interest groups, such as the National Trust for Historic Preservation, as well as to coordinate, identify and protect historic sites in the United States. While National Register listings are mostly symbolic, their recognition of significance provides some financial incentive to owners of listed properties. Protection of the property is not guaranteed. During the nomination process, the property is evaluated in terms of the four criteria for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places. The application of those criteria has been the subject of criticism by academics of history and preservation, as well as the public and politicians.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: Occasionally, historic sites outside the country proper, but associated with the United States (such as the American Legation in Tangier) are also listed. Properties can be nominated in a variety of forms, including individual properties, historic districts and multiple property submissions (MPS). The Register categorizes general listings into one of five types of properties: district, site, structure, building or object.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: National Register Historic Districts are defined geographical areas consisting of contributing and non-contributing properties. Some properties are added automatically to the National Register when they become administered by the National Park Service. These include National Historic Landmarks (NHL), National Historic Sites (NHS), National Historical Parks, National Military Parks, National Memorials and some National Monuments. (Federal properties can be proclaimed National Monuments under the Antiquities Act because of either their historical or natural significance. They are managed by multiple agencies. Only monuments that are historic in character and managed by the National Park Service are listed administratively in the National Register.)


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: On October 15, 1966, the Historic Preservation Act created the National Register of Historic Places and the corresponding State Historic Preservation Offices (SHPO). Initially, the National Register consisted of the National Historic Landmarks designated before the Register's creation, as well as any other historic sites in the National Park system. Approval of the act, which was amended in 1980 and 1992, represented the first time the United States had a broad-based historic preservation policy. The 1966 act required those agencies to work in conjunction with the SHPO and an independent federal agency, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), to confront adverse effects of federal activities on historic preservation.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: To administer the newly created National Register of Historic Places, the National Park Service of the U.S. Department of the Interior, with director George B. Hartzog Jr., established an administrative division named the Federal Office of Archaeology and Historic Preservation (OAHP). Hartzog charged OAHP with creating the National Register program mandated by the 1966 law. Ernest Connally was the Office's first director. Within OAHP new divisions were created to deal with the National Register. The division administered several existing programs, including the Historic Sites Survey and the Historic American Buildings Survey, as well as the new National Register and Historic Preservation Fund.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: The first official Keeper of the Register was William J. Murtagh, an architectural historian. During the Register's earliest years in the late 1960s and early 1970s, organization was lax and SHPOs were small, understaffed and underfunded. However, funds were still being supplied for the Historic Preservation Fund to provide matching grants-in-aid to listed property owners, first for house museums and institutional buildings, but later for commercial structures as well.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: A few years later in 1979, the NPS history programs affiliated with both the U.S. National Parks system and the National Register were categorized formally into two "Assistant Directorates". Established were the Assistant Directorate for Archeology and Historic Preservation and the Assistant Directorate for Park Historic Preservation. From 1978 until 1981, the main agency for the National Register was the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service (HCRS) of the United States Department of the Interior.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: In February 1983, the two assistant directorates were merged to promote efficiency and recognize the interdependency of their programs. Jerry L. Rogers was selected to direct this newly merged associate directorate. He was described as a skilled administrator, who was sensitive to the need for the NPS to work with SHPOs, academia and local governments.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: Although not described in detail in the 1966 act, SHPOs eventually became integral to the process of listing properties on the National Register. The 1980 amendments of the 1966 law further defined the responsibilities of SHPOs concerning the National Register. Several 1992 amendments of the NHPA added a category to the National Register, known as Traditional Cultural Properties: those properties associated with Native American or Hawaiian groups.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: The National Register of Historic Places has grown considerably from its legislative origins in 1966. In 1986, citizens and groups nominated 3,623 separate properties, sites and districts for inclusion on the National Register, a total of 75,000 separate properties. Of the more than one and a half million properties on the National Register, 95,000 are listed individually. Others are listed as contributing members within historic districts.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: Any individual can prepare a National Register nomination, although historians and historic preservation consultants often are employed for this work. The nomination consists of a standard registration form (NPS 10-900) and contains basic information about a property's physical appearance and the type of significance embodied in the building, structure, object, site, or district.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: The State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) receives National Register nominations and provides feedback to the nominating individual or group. After preliminary review, the SHPO sends each nomination to the state's historic review commission, which then recommends whether the State Historic Preservation Officer should send the nomination to the Keeper of the National Register. For any non-Federally owned property, only the State Historic Preservation Officer may officially nominate a property for inclusion in the National Register. After the nomination is recommended for listing in the National Register by the SHPO, the nomination is sent to the National Park Service, which approves or denies the nomination.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: If approved, the property is entered officially by the Keeper of the National Register into the National Register of Historic Places. Property owners are notified of the nomination during the review by the SHPO and state's historic review commission. If an owner objects to a nomination of private property, or in the case of a historic district, a majority of owners, then the property cannot be listed in the National Register of Historic Places.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: For a property to be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, it must meet at least one of its four main criteria. Information about architectural styles, association with various aspects of social history and commerce and ownership are all integral parts of the nomination. Each nomination contains a narrative section that provides a detailed physical description of the property and justifies why it is significant historically with regard either to local, state, or national history. The four National Register of Historic Places criteria are the following.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: The criteria are applied differently for different types of properties; for instance, maritime properties have application guidelines different from those of buildings.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: The National Park Service names seven categories of properties that "are not usually considered for" and "ordinarily ... shall not be considered eligible for" the National Register: religious properties (e.g., churches); buildings that have been moved; birthplaces or graves of important persons; cemeteries; reconstructed properties; commemorative properties (e.g., statues); and "properties that have achieved significance within the last fifty years". However, if they meet particular "Criteria Considerations" for their category in addition to the overall criteria, they are, in fact, eligible. Hence, despite the forbidding language, these kinds of places are not actually excluded as a rule. For example, the Register lists thousands of churches. (See also .)


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: The National Register evaluation procedures do not use the term "exclusions". The stricter National Historic Landmarks Criteria, upon which the National Register criteria are based, do specify exclusions, along with corresponding "exceptions to the exclusions", which are supposed to apply more narrowly.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: A listing on the National Register of Historic Places is governmental acknowledgment of a historic district, site, building, or property. However, the Register is mostly "an honorary status with some federal financial incentives". The National Register of Historic Places automatically includes all National Historic Landmarks as well as all historic areas administered by the National Park Service.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: Landmarks such as these include National Historic Sites (NHS), National Historical Parks, National Military Parks/Battlefields, National Memorials and some National Monuments. Occasionally, historic sites outside the United States borders, but associated with the United States, such as the American Legation in Tangier, Morocco, also are listed.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: Listing in the National Register does not restrict private property owners from the use of their property.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: Some states and municipalities, however, may have laws that become effective when a property is listed in the National Register. If federal money or a federal permitting process is involved, Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 is invoked. Section 106 requires the federal agency involved to assess the effect of its actions on historic resources. Statutorily, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) has the most significant role by Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. The section requires that the director of any federal agency with direct or indirect jurisdiction of a project that may affect a property listed or determined eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places must first report to the Advisory Council. The director of said agency is required to "take into account the effect of the undertaking" on the National Register property, as well as to afford the ACHP a reasonable opportunity to comment.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: While Section 106 does not mandate explicitly that any federal agency director accept the advice of the ACHP, their advice has a practical influence, especially given the statutory obligations of the NHPA that require federal agencies to "take into account the effect of the undertaking".


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: In cases where the ACHP determines federal action will have an "adverse effect" on historic properties, mitigation is sought. Typically, a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) is created by which the involved parties agree to a particular plan. Many states have laws similar to Section 106. In contrast to conditions relating to a federally designated historic district, municipal ordinances governing local historic districts often restrict certain kinds of changes to properties. Thus, they may protect the property more than a National Register listing does.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: The Department of Transportation Act, passed on October 15, 1966, the same day as the National Historic Preservation Act, included provisions that addressed historic preservation. The DOT Act is much more general than Section 106 NHPA in that it refers to properties other than those listed in the Register.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: The more general language has allowed more properties and parklands to enjoy status as protected areas by this legislation, a policy developed early in its history. The United States Supreme Court ruled in the 1971 case "Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe" that parklands could have the same protected status as "historic sites".


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: A multiple property submission (MPS) is a thematic group listing of the National Register of Historic Places that consists of related properties that share a common theme and can be submitted as a group. Multiple property submissions must satisfy certain basic criteria for the group of properties to be included in the National Register.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: The process begins with the multiple property documentation form which acts as a cover document rather than the nomination to the National Register of Historic Places. The purpose of the documentation form is to establish the basis of eligibility for related properties. The information of the multiple property documentation form can be used to nominate and register related historic properties simultaneously, or to establish criteria for properties that may be nominated in the future. Thus, additions to an MPS can occur over time.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: The nomination of individual properties in an MPS is accomplished in the same manner as other nominations. The name of the "thematic group" denotes the historical theme of the properties. It is considered the "multiple property listing". Once an individual property or a group of properties is nominated and listed in the National Register, the multiple property documentation form, combined with the individual National Register of Historic Places nomination forms, constitute a multiple property submission.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: Examples of MPS include the Lee County Multiple Property Submission, the Warehouses in Omaha, the Boundary Markers of the Original District of Columbia and the Illinois Carnegie Libraries. Before the term "Multiple Property Submission" was introduced in 1984, such listings were known as "Thematic Resources", such as the Operating Passenger Railroad Stations Thematic Resource, or "Multiple Resource Areas".


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: Listed properties are generally in one of five broad categories, although there are special considerations for other types of properties that in any one, or into more specialized subcategories. The five general categories for National Register properties are: building, structure, site, district and object. In addition, historic districts consist of contributing and non-contributing properties.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: Buildings, as defined by the National Register, are distinguished in the traditional sense. Examples include a house, barn, hotel, church, or similar construction. They are created primarily to shelter human activity. The term building, as in outbuilding, can be used to refer to historically and functionally related units, such as a courthouse and a jail or a barn and a house.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: Structures differ from buildings in that they are functional constructions meant to be used for purposes other than sheltering human activity. Examples include an aircraft, a grain elevator, a gazebo and a bridge.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: Objects are usually artistic in nature, or small in scale compared to structures and buildings. Although objects may be movable, they are generally associated with a specific setting or environment. Examples of objects include monuments, sculptures and fountains.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: Sites are the locations of significant events, which can be prehistoric or historic in nature and represent activities or buildings (standing, ruined, or vanished). When sites are listed, it is the locations themselves that are of historical interest. They possess cultural or archaeological value regardless of the value of any structures that currently exist at the locations. Examples of types of sites include shipwrecks, battlefields, campsites, natural features and rock shelters.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: Historic districts possess a concentration, association, or continuity of the other four types of properties. Objects, structures, buildings and sites in a historic district are united historically or aesthetically, either by choice or by the nature of their development.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: There are several other different types of historic preservation associated with the properties of the National Register of Historic Places that cannot be classified as either simple buildings and historic districts. Through the National Park Service, the National Register of Historic Places publishes a series of bulletins designed to aid in evaluating and applying the criteria for evaluation of different types of properties. Although the criteria are always the same, the manner they are applied may differ slightly, depending upon the type of property involved. The National Register bulletins describe the application of the criteria for aids to navigation, historic battlefields, archaeological sites, aviation properties, cemeteries and burial places, historic designed landscapes, mining sites, post offices, properties associated with significant persons, properties achieving significance within the last fifty years, rural historic landscapes, traditional cultural properties and vessels and shipwrecks.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: Properties are not protected in any strict sense by the Federal listing. States and local zoning bodies may or may not choose to protect listed historic places. Indirect protection is possible, by state and local regulations on the development of National Register properties and by tax incentives. By contrast, the state of Colorado, for example, does not set any limits on owners of National Register properties. See


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: Until 1976, federal tax incentives were virtually non-existent for buildings on the National Register. Before 1976 the federal tax code favored new construction rather than the reuse of existing, sometimes historical, structures. In 1976, the tax code was altered to provide tax incentives that promote the preservation of income-producing historic properties. The National Park Service was given the responsibility to ensure that only rehabilitations that preserved the historic character of a building would qualify for federal tax incentives. A qualifying rehabilitation is one that the NPS deems consistent with the Secretary of the Interior's Standards for Rehabilitation. Properties and sites listed in the Register, as well as those located in and contributing to the period of significance of National Register Historic Districts, became eligible for the federal tax benefits.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: Owners of income-producing properties listed individually in the National Register of Historic Places or of properties that are contributing resources within a National Register Historic District may be eligible for a 20% investment tax credit for the rehabilitation of the historic structure. The rehabilitation may be of a commercial, industrial, or residential property, for rentals. The tax incentives program is operated by the Federal Historic Preservation Tax Incentives program, which is managed jointly by the National Park Service, individual State Historic Preservation Offices and the Internal Revenue Service.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: Some property owners may also qualify for grants, like the now-defunct Save America's Treasures grants, which apply specifically to properties entered in the Register with national significance or designated as National Historic Landmarks.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: The NHPA did not distinguish between properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places and those designated as National Historic Landmarks concerning qualification for tax incentives or grants. This was deliberate, as the authors of the act had learned from experience that distinguishing between categories of significance for such incentives caused the lowest category to become expendable. Essentially, this made the Landmarks a kind of "honor roll" of the most significant properties of the National Register of Historic Places.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: In American historic preservation, the 50-year rule is the generally held belief that a property must be at least 50 years old to be listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Actually, there is no hard rule. As stated by John H. Sprinkle Jr., deputy director of the Federal Preservation Institute, "this 'rule' is only an exception to the criteria that shape listings within the National Register of Historic Places. Of the eight 'exceptions' [or criteria considerations], Consideration G, for properties that have achieved significance within the past fifty years, is probably the best-known, yet also misunderstood preservation principle in America."


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: Each year, a new group of resources crosses the 50-year threshold. The preservation of these "underage" resources has gained attention in recent years.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: As of 1999, there have been 982 properties removed from the Register, most often due to being destroyed. Among the properties that were demolished or otherwise destroyed after their listing are the Jobbers Canyon Historic District in Omaha, Nebraska (listed in 1979, demolished in 1989), Pan-Pacific Auditorium in Los Angeles, California (listed in 1978, destroyed in a fire in 1989), Palace Amusements in Asbury Park, New Jersey (listed in 2000, demolished in 2004), The Balinese Room in Galveston, Texas (listed in 1997, destroyed by Hurricane Ike in 2008), seven of the nine buildings included in the University of Connecticut Historic District in Storrs, Connecticut (listed in 1989, demolished in 2017), and the Terrell Jacobs Circus Winter Quarters in Peru, Indiana (listed in 2012, demolished in 2021).


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: In France, designation of monument historique is similar to NRHP listing. In the French program, however, permanent restrictions are imposed upon designated monuments, for example requiring advance approval for any renovation of a designated building. NRHP listing imposes no such restrictions, but rather is "primarily an honor",


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: Listed buildings of the United Kingdom may not be demolished, extended, or altered without special permission; the program covers about 374,000 listings in 2010, involving more than 500,000 buildings.


title: National Register of Historic Places

text: In 2022, the U.S. has about 94,000 NRHP-listed properties, including historic districts; the total number of buildings covered is much larger.


title: Asia-Pacific

text: Asia-Pacific (APAC) is the part of the world near the western Pacific Ocean. The Asia-Pacific region varies in area depending on context, but it often includes countries in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Oceania that border the Pacific Ocean. Afghanistan, the Indian subcontinent, Mongolia, Myanmar, and the Russian Far East are generally included in a wider Asia-Pacific region (also known as Indo-Pacific).


title: Asia-Pacific

text: The term may include countries in North America and South America that are on the coast of the Eastern Pacific Ocean; the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, for example, includes Canada, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and the United States. Alternatively, the term sometimes comprises all of Asia except Central Asia and the Middle East, as well as Oceania — for example, when dividing the world into large regions for commercial purposes (e.g., into APAC, EMEA, LATAM, and NA). Central Asia and the Middle East are almost never included.


title: Asia-Pacific

text: On the whole, there is no clear-cut definition of "Asia-Pacific", and the regions included change depending on the context. The term has become popular since the late 1980s in commerce, finance, and politics. Despite the heterogeneity of the regions' economies, most individual nations within the zone are emerging markets experiencing rapid growth (compare the acronym APEJ, "Asia-Pacific excluding Japan").


title: 2009 NBA draft

text: The 2009 NBA draft was held on June 25, 2009, at the WaMu Theatre at Madison Square Garden in New York City. In this draft, the National Basketball Association (NBA) teams took turns selecting amateur U.S. college basketball players and other eligible players, including international players.


title: 2009 NBA draft

text: The Los Angeles Clippers, who won the draft lottery on May 19, 2009, used their first overall draft pick to draft Blake Griffin from University of Oklahoma. However, he missed the entire 2009–10 season due to surgery on his broken left kneecap, which he injured during the pre-season. Tanzanian-born Hasheem Thabeet from University of Connecticut was drafted second by the Memphis Grizzlies. Thabeet became the first player born in Tanzania to be drafted by an NBA team. James Harden was drafted 3rd by the Oklahoma City Thunder. This made him the first player to be drafted by the franchise as the Oklahoma City Thunder; the franchise moved from Seattle to OKC in 2008. The Sacramento Kings drafted Tyreke Evans 4th; he was named 2009–10 NBA Rookie of the Year, after he became the fourth NBA player in history to average at least 20 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists in his rookie season, joining the elite club of Oscar Robertson (1960), Michael Jordan (1984) and LeBron James (2003). Spanish teenager Ricky Rubio was drafted 5th by the Minnesota Timberwolves. Rubio became the fifth-highest-drafted international player who never played U.S. college basketball to be drafted in the NBA, tied with Nikoloz Tskitishvili (5th in 2002), and behind Yao Ming (1st in 2002), Andrea Bargnani (1st in 2006), Darko Miličić (2nd in 2003) and Pau Gasol (3rd in 2001). Twenty-third pick Omri Casspi became the first Israeli player to be drafted in the first round, and later he became the first Israeli to play in the NBA.


title: 2009 NBA draft

text: The 2009 draft marked the first time three sons of former NBA players were selected in the top 15 picks of the draft. Stephen Curry, son of Dell Curry, was drafted 7th by the Golden State Warriors. Gerald Henderson Jr., son of Gerald Henderson, was drafted 12th by the Charlotte Bobcats. Austin Daye, son of Darren Daye, was drafted 15th by the Detroit Pistons. The draft also marked the first time a former high school player who skipped college to play professional basketball in Europe was selected in an NBA draft. Brandon Jennings, who skipped college to play professional basketball with Italian team Lottomatica Roma, was drafted 10th overall by the Milwaukee Bucks in the draft.


title: 2009 NBA draft

text: Of the 60 players drafted, four were freshmen, nine were sophomores, 12 were juniors, 22 were seniors, and 13 were international players without U.S. college basketball experience. The University of North Carolina's Tar Heels had the most players selected in the draft; three players were selected in the first round and one was selected in the second round. This marked the second time ever that four Tar Heels players were selected in the first two rounds of an NBA draft. The Minnesota Timberwolves had the league-high four first-round draft picks and the first time in team history that the team held two top-10 draft picks. The Timberwolves also had two second-round draft picks and became the team with the most draft picks in the 2009 draft with a total of six. The Houston Rockets and the Orlando Magic were the only NBA teams who did not have a draft pick this year, although Houston acquired three drafted players' rights after the draft.


title: 2009 NBA draft

text: From the players in this draft, there have been six players selected as All-Stars; out of these six, Curry and Harden have both won the NBA's regular season MVP award.


title: 2009 NBA draft

text: The CBA defines "international players" as players who permanently resided outside the U.S. for three years prior to the draft, did not complete high school in the U.S., and have never enrolled at a U.S. college or university.


title: 2009 NBA draft

text: The basic requirement for automatic eligibility for a U.S. player is the completion of his college eligibility. Players who meet the CBA definition of "international players" are automatically eligible if their 22nd birthday falls during or before the calendar year of the draft (i.e., born on or before December 31, 1987). U.S. players who were at least one year removed from their high school graduation and have played professional basketball with a team outside the NBA were also automatically eligible. Former high school player Brandon Jennings meets these criteria, having graduated high school in 2008, skipped college basketball and then played professional basketball in Italy.


title: 2009 NBA draft

text: A player who is not automatically eligible must declare his eligibility for the draft by notifying the NBA offices in writing no later than 60 days before the draft. For the 2009 draft, this date fell on April 26. An early entry candidate is allowed to withdraw his eligibility for the draft by notifying the NBA offices in writing no later than 10 days before the draft. This year, a total of 74 collegiate players and 29 international players declared as early entry candidates. At the withdrawal deadline, 55 early-entry candidates withdrew from the draft, leaving 39 collegiate players and 10 international players as the early-entry candidates for the draft.


title: 2009 NBA draft

text: A player who has hired an agent will forfeit his remaining college eligibility, regardless of whether he is drafted. Also, while the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between the league and its players' union allows a player to withdraw from the draft twice, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) mandates that a player who has declared twice loses his college eligibility. This second provision affected Chase Budinger, Wayne Ellington, and Ty Lawson, all of whom declared for and withdrew from the 2008 draft.


title: 2009 NBA draft

text: The lottery selection to determine the order of the top fourteen picks in the 2009 draft occurred on May 19, 2009. The Los Angeles Clippers won the first pick, while the Memphis Grizzlies and Oklahoma City Thunder moved up to second and third picks respectively. The Sacramento Kings and Washington Wizards, who had the two best chances to land a top-three pick, fell down to the fourth and fifth spots, the lowest possible picks they could be awarded through the lottery. The remaining first-round picks and all the second-round picks were assigned to teams in reverse order of their win–loss records in the previous season. As is commonplace in the event of identical win–loss records, the NBA performed a random drawing to break the ties on April 17, 2009.


title: 2009 NBA draft

text: Below were the chances for each team to get specific picks in the 2009 draft lottery, rounded to three decimal places:


title: 2009 NBA draft

text: Prior to the day of the draft, the following trades were made and resulted in exchanges of draft picks between the teams.


title: Australia (continent)

text: The continent of Australia, sometimes known in technical contexts by the names Sahul (), Australia-New Guinea, Australinea, Meganesia, or Papualand to distinguish it from the country of Australia, is located within the Southern and Eastern hemispheres. The name "Sahul" takes its name from the Sahul Shelf, which is a part of the continental shelf of the Australian continent. The continent includes mainland Australia, Tasmania, the island of New Guinea (Papua New Guinea and Indonesian Western New Guinea), the Aru Islands, the Ashmore and Cartier Islands, most of the Coral Sea Islands, and some other nearby islands. Situated in the geographical region of Oceania, Australia is the smallest of the seven traditional continents.


title: Australia (continent)

text: The continent includes a continental shelf overlain by shallow seas which divide it into several landmasses—the Arafura Sea and Torres Strait between mainland Australia and New Guinea, and Bass Strait between mainland Australia and Tasmania. When sea levels were lower during the Pleistocene ice age, including the Last Glacial Maximum about 18,000 BC, they were connected by dry land. During the past 18,000 to 10,000 years, rising sea levels overflowed the lowlands and separated the continent into today's low-lying arid to semi-arid mainland and the two mountainous islands of New Guinea and Tasmania.


title: Australia (continent)

text: With a total land area of , the Australian continent is the smallest, lowest, flattest, and second-driest continent (after Antarctica) on Earth. As the country of Australia is mostly on a single landmass, and comprises most of the continent, it is sometimes informally referred to as an island continent, surrounded by oceans.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Papua New Guinea, a country within the continent, is one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse countries in the world. It is also one of the most rural, as only 18 percent of its people live in urban centres. West Papua, a province of Indonesia, is home to an estimated 44 uncontacted tribal groups. Australia, the largest landmass in the continent, is highly urbanised, and has the world's 14th-largest economy with the second-highest human development index globally. Australia also has the world's 9th largest immigrant population.


title: Australia (continent)

text: The continent of Australia is sometimes known by the names Sahul, Australinea, or Meganesia to distinguish it from the country of Australia, and consists of the landmasses which sit on Australia's continental plate. This includes mainland Australia, Tasmania, and the island of New Guinea, which comprises Papua New Guinea and Western New Guinea (Papua and West Papua, provinces of Indonesia). The name "Sahul" takes its name from the Sahul Shelf, which is part of the continental shelf of the Australian continent.


title: Australia (continent)

text: The term Oceania, originally a "great division" of the world in the 1810s, was replaced in English language countries by the concept of Australia as one of the world's continents in the 1950s. Prior to the 1950s, before the popularization of the theory of plate tectonics, Antarctica, Australia and Greenland were sometimes described as island continents, but none were usually taught as one of the world's continents in English-speaking countries. Scottish cartographer John Bartholomew wrote in 1873 that, "the New World consists of North America, and the peninsula of South America attached to it. These divisions [are] generally themselves spoken as continents, and to them has been added another, embracing the large island of Australia and numerous others in the [Pacific] Ocean, under the name of Oceania. There are thus six great divisions of the earth — Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America and Oceania." In his 1879 book "Australasia", British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace commented that, "Oceania is the word often used by continental geographers to describe the great world of islands we are now entering upon" and that "Australia forms its central and most important feature." He did not explicitly label Oceania a continent in the book, but did note that it was one of the six major divisions of the world. He considered it to encompass the insular Pacific area between Asia and the Americas, and claimed it extended up to the Aleutian Islands, which are among the northernmost islands in the Pacific Ocean. However, definitions of Oceania varied during the 19th century. In the 19th century, many geographers divided up Oceania into mostly racially-based subdivisions; "Australasia", "Malaysia" (encompassing the Malay Archipelago), "Melanesia", "Micronesia" and "Polynesia". Today, the Malay Archipelago is typically considered part of Southeast Asia, and the term Oceania is often used to denote the region encompassing the Australian continent, Zealandia and various islands in the Pacific Ocean that are not included in the seven-continent model. It has been recognized by the United Nations as one of the world's five major continental divisions since its foundation in 1947, along with Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. The UN's definition of Oceania utilizes four of the five subregions from the 19th century; Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. They include American Samoa, Australia and their external territories, the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, French Polynesia, Fiji, Guam, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Pitcairn Islands, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Wallis and Futuna and the United States Minor Outlying Islands (Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Midway Atoll, Palmyra Atoll and Wake Island). The original UN definition of Oceania from 1947 included these same countries and semi-independent territories, which were mostly still colonies at that point. The island states of Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines and Taiwan, all located within the bounds of the Pacific, are excluded from the UN definition. The nation of Malaysia, which is located in both mainland Asia and the Pacific, is also excluded. Further excluded are East Timor and Indonesian New Guinea/Western New Guinea, areas which are biogeographically or geologically associated with the Australian landmass. This definition of Oceania is used in statistical reports, by the International Olympic Committee, and by many atlases. The World Factbook also categorize Oceania or the Pacific area as one of the world's major continental divisions, but use the term "Australia and Oceania" to refer to the area. Their definition does not include Australia's subantarctic external territory Heard Island and McDonald Islands, but is otherwise the same as the UN definition, and it is also used for statistical purposes.


title: Australia (continent)

text: In countries such as Argentina, Brazil, China, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, France, Greece, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland or Venezuela, Oceania is treated as a continent in the sense that it is "one of the parts of the world", and Australia is only seen as an island nation. In other countries, including Kazakhstan, Norway, Poland and Russia, Australia and Eurasia are thought of as continents, while Asia, Europe and Oceania are regarded as "parts of the world". In the "Pacific Ocean Handbook" (1945), author Eliot Grinnell Mears wrote that he categorized Australia, New Zealand and Pacific islands under the label of Oceania for "scientific reasons; Australia's fauna is largely continental in character, New Zealand's are clearly insular; and neither Commonwealth realm has close ties with Asia." He further added that, "the term "Australasia" is not relished by New Zealanders and this name is too often confused with "Australia"." Some 19th century definitions of Oceania grouped Australia, New Zealand and the islands of Melanesia together under the label of "Australasia", in other 19th century definitions of Oceania, the term was only used to refer to Australia itself, with New Zealand being categorized with the islands of Polynesia in such definitions.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Archaeological terminology for this region has changed repeatedly. Before the 1970s, the single Pleistocene landmass was called "Australasia", derived from the Latin , meaning "southern", although this word is most often used for a wider region that includes lands like New Zealand that are not on the same continental shelf. In the early 1970s, the term "Greater Australia" was introduced for the Pleistocene continent. Then at a 1975 conference and consequent publication, the name "Sahul" was extended from its previous use for just the Sahul Shelf to cover the continent.


title: Australia (continent)

text: In 1984 W. Filewood suggested the name "Meganesia", meaning "great island" or "great island-group", for both the Pleistocene continent and the present-day lands, and this name has been widely accepted by biologists. Others have used "Meganesia" with different meanings: travel writer Paul Theroux included New Zealand in his definition and others have used it for Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii. Another biologist, Richard Dawkins, coined the name "Australinea" in 2004. "Australia–New Guinea" has also been used.


title: Australia (continent)

text: The Australian continent, being part of the Indo-Australian Plate (more specifically, the Australian Plate), is the lowest, flattest, and oldest landmass on Earth and it has had a relatively stable geological history. New Zealand is not part of the continent of Australia, but of the separate, submerged continent of Zealandia. New Zealand and Australia are both part of the Oceanian sub-region known as Australasia, with New Guinea being in Melanesia.


title: Australia (continent)

text: The continent includes a continental shelf overlain by shallow seas which divide it into several landmasses—the Arafura Sea and Torres Strait between mainland Australia and New Guinea, and Bass Strait between mainland Australia and Tasmania. When sea levels were lower during the Pleistocene ice age, including the Last Glacial Maximum about 18,000 BC, they were connected by dry land. During the past 18,000 to 10,000 years, rising sea levels overflowed the lowlands and separated the continent into today's low-lying arid to semi-arid mainland and the two mountainous islands of New Guinea and Tasmania. The continental shelf connecting the islands, half of which is less than deep, covers some , including the Sahul Shelf and Bass Strait.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Geological forces such as tectonic uplift of mountain ranges or clashes between tectonic plates occurred mainly in Australia's early history, when it was still a part of Gondwana. Australia is situated in the middle of the tectonic plate, and therefore currently has no active volcanism.


title: Australia (continent)

text: The continent primarily sits on the Indo-Australian Plate. Because of its central location on its tectonic plate, Australia doesn't have any active volcanic regions, the only continent with this distinction. The lands were joined with Antarctica as part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana until the plate began to drift north about 96 million years ago. For most of the time since then, Australia–New Guinea remained a continuous landmass. When the last glacial period ended in about 10,000 BC, rising sea levels formed Bass Strait, separating Tasmania from the mainland. Then between about 8,000 and 6,500 BC, the lowlands in the north were flooded by the sea, separating New Guinea, the Aru Islands, and the Australian mainland.


title: Australia (continent)

text: A northern arc consisting of the New Guinea Highlands, the Raja Ampat Islands, and Halmahera was uplifted by the northward migration of Australia and subduction of the Pacific Plate. The Outer Banda Arc was accreted along the northwestern edge the continent; it includes the islands of Timor, Tanimbar, and Seram. Papua New Guinea has several volcanoes, as it is situated along the Pacific Ring of Fire. Volcanic eruptions are not rare, and the area is prone to earthquakes and tsunamis because of this. Mount Wilhelm in Papua New Guinea is the second highest mountain in the continent, and at above sea level, Puncak Jaya is the highest mountain.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Recent research points to a planned migration of hundreds of people using bamboo rafts, which eventually landed on Sahul.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Indigenous Australians, that is Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islander people, are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. They migrated from Africa to Asia around 70,000 years ago and arrived in Australia at least 50,000 years ago, based on archaeological evidence. More recent research points to earlier arrival, possibly 65,000 years ago.


title: Australia (continent)

text: They are believed to be among the earliest human migrations out of Africa. There is evidence of genetic and linguistic interchange between Australians in the far north and the Austronesian peoples of modern-day New Guinea and the islands, but this may be the result of recent trade and intermarriage. The earliest known human remains were found at Lake Mungo, a dry lake in the southwest of New South Wales. Remains found at Mungo suggest one of the world's oldest known cremations, thus indicating early evidence for religious ritual among humans. Dreamtime remains a prominent feature of Australian Aboriginal art, the oldest continuing tradition of art in the world.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Papuan habitation is estimated to have begun between 42,000 and 48,000 years ago in New Guinea. Trade between New Guinea and neighboring Indonesian islands was documented as early as the seventh century, and archipelagic rule of New Guinea by the 13th. At the beginning of the seventh century, the Sumatra-based empire of Srivijaya (7th century–13th century) engaged in trade relations with western New Guinea, initially taking items like sandalwood and birds-of-paradise in tribute to China, but later making slaves out of the natives. The rule of the Java-based empire of Majapahit (1293–1527) extended to the western fringes of New Guinea. Recent archaeological research suggests that 50,000 years ago people may have occupied sites in the highlands at New Guinean altitudes of up to , rather than being restricted to warmer coastal areas.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Legends of Terra Australis Incognita—an "unknown land of the South"—date back to Roman times and before, and were commonplace in medieval geography, although not based on any documented knowledge of the continent. Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle speculated of a large landmass in the southern hemisphere, saying, "Now since there must be a region bearing the same relation to the southern pole as the place we live in bears to our pole...". His ideas were later expanded by Ptolemy (2nd century AD), who believed that the lands of the Northern Hemisphere should be balanced by land in the south. The theory of balancing land has been documented as early as the 5th century on maps by Macrobius, who uses the term Australis on his maps.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Terra Australis, a hypothetical continent first posited in antiquity, appeared on maps between the 15th and 18th centuries. Scientists, such as Gerardus Mercator (1569) and Alexander Dalrymple as late as 1767 argued for its existence, with such arguments as that there should be a large landmass in the south as a counterweight to the known landmasses in the Northern Hemisphere. The cartographic depictions of the southern continent in the 16th and early 17th centuries, as might be expected for a concept based on such abundant conjecture and minimal data, varied wildly from map to map; in general, the continent shrank as potential locations were reinterpreted. At its largest, the continent included Tierra del Fuego, separated from South America by a small strait; New Guinea; and what would come to be called Australia.


title: Australia (continent)

text: In 1606 Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon made the first documented European sight and landing on the continent of Australia in Cape York Peninsula. Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman circumnavigated and landed on parts of the Australian continental coast and discovered Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania), New Zealand in 1642, and Fiji islands. He was the first known European explorer to reach these islands.


title: Australia (continent)

text: In the quest for Terra Australis, Spanish explorations in the 17th century, such as the expedition led by the Portuguese navigator Pedro Fernandes de Queirós, discovered the Pitcairn and Vanuatu archipelagos, and sailed the Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea, named after navigator Luís Vaz de Torres, who was the first European to explore the Strait. When Europeans first arrived, inhabitants of New Guinea and nearby islands, whose technologies included bone, wood, and stone tools, had a productive agricultural system. In 1660, the Dutch recognised the Sultan of Tidore's sovereignty over New Guinea. The first known Europeans to sight New Guinea were probably the Portuguese and Spanish navigators sailing in the South Pacific in the early part of the 16th century.


title: Australia (continent)

text: On 23 April 1770 British explorer James Cook made his first recorded direct observation of indigenous Australians at Brush Island near Bawley Point. On 29 April, Cook and crew made their first landfall on the mainland of the continent at a place now known as the Kurnell Peninsula. It is here that James Cook made first contact with an Aboriginal tribe known as the Gweagal, who he fired upon, injuring one. His expedition became the first recorded Europeans to have encountered the eastern coastline of Australia. Captain Arthur Phillip led the "First Fleet" of 11 ships and about 850 convicts into Sydney on 26 January 1788. This was to be the location for the new colony. Phillip described Sydney Cove as being "without exception the finest harbour in the world".


title: Australia (continent)

text: In 1883, the Colony of Queensland tried to annex the southern half of eastern New Guinea, but the British government did not approve. The Commonwealth of Australia came into being when the Federal Constitution was proclaimed by the Governor-General, Lord Hopetoun, on 1 January 1901. From that point a system of federalism in Australia came into operation, entailing the establishment of an entirely new national government (the Commonwealth government) and an ongoing division of powers between that government and the States. With the encouragement of Queensland, in 1884, a British protectorate had been proclaimed over the southern coast of New Guinea and its adjacent islands. British New Guinea was annexed outright in 1888. The possession was placed under the authority of the newly federated Commonwealth of Australia in 1902 and with passage of the Papua Act of 1905, British New Guinea became the Australian Territory of Papua, with formal Australian administration beginning in 1906.


title: Australia (continent)

text: The bombing of Darwin on 19 February 1942 was the largest single attack ever mounted by a foreign power on Australia. In an effort to isolate Australia, the Japanese planned a seaborne invasion of Port Moresby, in the Australian Territory of New Guinea. Between July and November 1942, Australian forces repulsed Japanese attempts on the city by way of the Kokoda Track, in the highlands of New Guinea. The Battle of Buna–Gona, between November 1942 and January 1943, set the tone for the bitter final stages of the New Guinea campaign, which persisted into 1945. The offensives in Papua and New Guinea of 1943–44 were the single largest series of connected operations ever mounted by the Australian armed forces.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Following the 1998 commencement of reforms across Indonesia, Papua and other Indonesian provinces received greater regional autonomy. In 2001, "Special Autonomy" status was granted to Papua province, although to date, implementation has been partial and often criticised. The region was administered as a single province until 2003, when it was split into the provinces of Papua and West Papua. Elections in 1972 resulted in the formation of a ministry headed by Chief Minister Michael Somare, who pledged to lead the country to self-government and then to independence. Papua New Guinea became self-governing on 1 December 1973 and achieved independence on 16 September 1975. The country joined the United Nations (UN) on 10 October 1975.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Migration brought large numbers of southern and central Europeans to Australia for the first time. A 1958 government leaflet assured readers that unskilled non-British migrants were needed for "labour on rugged projects ...work which is not generally acceptable to Australians or British workers". Australia fought on the side of Britain in the two world wars and became a long-standing ally of the United States when threatened by Imperial Japan during World War II. Trade with Asia increased and a post-war immigration program received more than 6.5 million migrants from every continent. Supported by immigration of people from more than 200 countries since the end of World War II, the population increased to more than 23 million by 2014.


title: Australia (continent)

text: For about 40 million years Australia–New Guinea was almost completely isolated. During this time, the continent experienced numerous changes in climate, but the overall trend was towards greater aridity. When South America eventually separated from Antarctica, the development of the cold Antarctic Circumpolar Current changed weather patterns across the world. For Australia–New Guinea, it brought a marked intensification of the drying trend. The great inland seas and lakes dried out. Much of the long-established broad-leaf deciduous forest began to give way to the distinctive hard-leaved sclerophyllous plants that characterise the modern Australian landscape.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Typical Southern Hemisphere flora include the conifers "Podocarpus" (eastern Australia and New Guinea), the rainforest emergents "Araucaria" (eastern Australia and New Guinea), "Nothofagus" (New Guinea and Tasmania) and "Agathis" (northern Queensland and New Guinea), as well as tree ferns and several species of "Eucalyptus". Prominent features of the Australian flora are adaptations to aridity and fire which include scleromorphy and serotiny. These adaptations are common in species from the large and well-known families Proteaceae ("Banksias" and "Grevilleas"), Myrtaceae ("Eucalyptus" or gum trees, "Melaleucas" and "Callistemons"), Fabaceae ("Acacia"s or wattles), and Casuarinaceae ("Casuarinas" or she-oaks), which are typically found in the Australian mainland. The flora of New Guinea is a mixture of many tropical rainforest species with origins in Asia, such as "Castanopsis acuminatissima," "Lithocarpus" spp., elaeocarps, and laurels, together with typically Australasian flora. In the New Guinean highlands, conifers such as "Dacrycarpus, Dacrydium, Papuacedrus" and "Libocedrus" are present.


title: Australia (continent)

text: For many species, the primary refuge was the relatively cool and well-watered Great Dividing Range. Even today, pockets of remnant vegetation remain in the cool uplands, some species not much changed from the Gondwanan forms of 60 or 90 million years ago. Eventually, the Australia–New Guinea tectonic plate collided with the Eurasian plate to the north. The collision caused the northern part of the continent to buckle upwards, forming the high and rugged mountains of New Guinea and, by reverse (downwards) buckling, the Torres Strait that now separates the two main landmasses. The collision also pushed up the islands of Wallacea, which served as island 'stepping-stones' that allowed plants from Southeast Asia's rainforests to colonise New Guinea, and some plants from Australia–New Guinea to move into Southeast Asia. The ocean straits between the islands were narrow enough to allow plant dispersal, but served as an effective barrier to exchange of land mammals between Australia–New Guinea and Asia.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Among the fungi, the remarkable association between "Cyttaria" "gunnii" (one of the "golf-ball" fungi) and its associated trees in the genus "Nothofagus" is evidence of that drift: the only other places where this association is known are New Zealand and southern Argentina and Chile.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Due to the spread of animals, fungi and plants across the single Pleistocene landmass the separate lands have a related biota. There are over 300 bird species in West Papua, of which at least 20 are unique to the ecoregion, and some live only in very restricted areas. These include the grey-banded munia, Vogelkop bowerbird, and the king bird-of-paradise.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Australia has a huge variety of animals; some 83% of mammals, 89% of reptiles, 24% of fish and insects and 93% of amphibians that inhabit the continent are endemic to Australia. This high level of endemism can be attributed to the continent's long geographic isolation, tectonic stability, and the effects of an unusual pattern of climate change on the soil and flora over geological time. Australia and its territories are home to around 800 species of bird; 45% of these are endemic to Australia. Predominant bird species in Australia include the Australian magpie, Australian raven, the pied currawong, crested pigeons and the laughing kookaburra. The koala, emu, platypus and kangaroo are national animals of Australia, and the Tasmanian devil is also one of the well-known animals in the country. The goanna is a predatory lizard native to the Australian mainland.


title: Australia (continent)

text: As the continent drifted north from Antarctica, a unique fauna, flora and mycobiota developed. Marsupials and monotremes also existed on other continents, but only in Australia–New Guinea did they out-compete the placental mammals and come to dominate. New Guinea has 284 species and six orders of mammals: monotremes, three orders of marsupials, rodents and bats; 195 of the mammal species (69%) are endemic. New Guinea has a rich diversity of coral life and 1,200 species of fish have been found. Also about 600 species of reef-building coral—the latter equal to 75 percent of the world's known total. New Guinea has 578 species of breeding birds, of which 324 species are endemic. Bird life also flourished—in particular, the songbirds (order Passeriformes, suborder Passeri) are thought to have evolved 50 million years ago in the part of Gondwana that later became Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea, and Antarctica, before radiating into a great number of different forms and then spreading around the globe.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Animal groups such as macropods, monotremes, and cassowaries are endemic to Australia. There were three main reasons for the enormous diversity that developed in animal, fungal and plant life.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Although New Guinea is the most northerly part of the continent, and could be expected to be the most tropical in climate, the altitude of the New Guinea highlands is such that a great many animals and plants that were once common across Australia–New Guinea now survive only in the tropical highlands where they are severely threatened by population growth.


title: Australia (continent)

text: In New Guinea, the climate is mostly monsoonal (December to March), southeast monsoon (May to October), and tropical rainforest with slight seasonal temperature variation. In lower altitudes, the temperature is around year round. But the higher altitudes, such as Mendi, are constantly around with cool lows nearing , with abundant rainfall and high humidity. The New Guinea Highlands are one of the few regions close to the equator that experience snowfall, which occurs in the most elevated parts of the mainland. Some areas in the island experience an extraordinary amount of precipitation, averaging roughly of rainfall annually.


title: Australia (continent)

text: The Australian landmass's climate is mostly desert or semi-arid, with the southern coastal corners having a temperate climate, such as oceanic and humid subtropical climate in the east coast and Mediterranean climate in the west. The northern parts of the country have a tropical climate. Snow falls frequently on the highlands near the east coast, in the states of Victoria, New South Wales, Tasmania and in the Australian Capital Territory. Temperatures in Australia have ranged from above to well below . Nonetheless, minimum temperatures are moderated. The El Niño-Southern Oscillation is associated with seasonal abnormality in many areas in the world. Australia is one of the continents most affected and experiences extensive droughts alongside considerable wet periods.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Christianity is the predominant religion in the continent, although large proportions of Australians belong to no religion. Other religions in the region include Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism, which are prominent minority religions in Australia. Traditional religions are often animist, found in New Guinea. Islam is widespread in the Indonesian New Guinea. Many Papuans combine their Christian faith with traditional indigenous beliefs and practices.


title: Australia (continent)

text: "Aboriginal Australian languages", including the large Pama–Nyungan family, "Papuan languages" of New Guinea and neighbouring islands, including the large Trans–New Guinea family, and "Tasmanian languages" are generic terms for the native languages of the continent other than those of Austronesian family. Predominant languages include English in Australia, Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea, and Indonesian (Malay) in Indonesian New Guinea. Immigration to Australia have brought overseas languages such as Italian, Greek, Arabic, Filipino, Mandarin, Vietnamese and Spanish, among others. Contact between Austronesian and Papuan resulted in several instances in mixed languages such as Maisin. Tok Pisin is an English creole language spoken in Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea has more languages than any other country, with over 820 indigenous languages, representing 12% of the world's total, but most have fewer than 1,000 speakers.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Since 1945, more than 7 million people have settled in Australia. From the late 1970s, there was a significant increase in immigration from Asian and other non-European countries, making Australia a multicultural country. Sydney is the most multicultural city in Oceania, having more than 250 different languages spoken, with about 40 percent of residents speaking a language other than English at home. Furthermore, 36 percent of the population reported having been born overseas, with top countries being Italy, Lebanon, Vietnam and Iraq, among others. Melbourne is also fairly multicultural, having the largest Greek-speaking population outside of Europe, and the second largest Asian population in Australia after Sydney.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Australia is the only first world country in the Australian-New Guinea continent, although the economy of Australia is by far the largest and most dominant economy in the region and one of the largest in the world. Australia's per-capita GDP is higher than that of the UK, Canada, Germany, and France in terms of purchasing power parity. The Australian Securities Exchange in Sydney is the largest stock exchange in Australia and in the South Pacific. In 2012, Australia was the 12th largest national economy by nominal GDP and the 19th-largest measured by PPP-adjusted GDP. Tourism in Australia is an important component of the Australian economy. In the financial year 2014/15, tourism represented 3.0% of Australia's GDP contributing A$47.5 billion to the national economy. In 2015, there were 7.4 million visitor arrivals.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Mercer Quality of Living Survey ranks Sydney tenth in the world in terms of quality of living, making it one of the most livable cities. It is classified as an Alpha+ World City by GaWC. Melbourne also ranked highly in the world's most liveable city list, and is a leading financial centre in the Asia-Pacific region.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Papua New Guinea is rich in natural resources, which account for two-thirds of their export earnings. Though PNG is filled with resources, the lack of country's development led foreign countries to take over few sites and continued foreign demand for PNG's resources and as a result, the United States constructed an oil company and began to export in 2004 and this was the largest project in PNG's history. Papua New Guinea is classified as a developing economy by the International Monetary Fund. Strong growth in Papua New Guinea's mining and resource sector led to the country becoming the sixth fastest-growing economy in the world in 2011.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Australia is a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy with Charles III at its apex as the King of Australia, a role that is distinct from his position as monarch of the other Commonwealth realms. The King is represented in Australia by the Governor-General at the federal level and by the Governors at the state level, who by convention act on the advice of his ministers. There are two major political groups that usually form government, federally and in the states: the Australian Labor Party and the Coalition which is a formal grouping of the Liberal Party and its minor partner, the National Party. Within Australian political culture, the Coalition is considered centre-right and the Labor Party is considered centre-left.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Papua New Guinea is a Commonwealth realm. As such, King Charles III is its sovereign and head of state. The constitutional convention, which prepared the draft constitution, and Australia, the outgoing metropolitan power, had thought that Papua New Guinea would not remain a monarchy. The founders, however, considered that imperial honours had a cachet. The monarch is represented by the Governor-General of Papua New Guinea, currently Bob Dadae. Papua New Guinea (along with the Solomon Islands) is unusual among Commonwealth realms in that governors-general are elected by the legislature, rather than chosen by the executive branch.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Since 1788, the primary influence behind Australian culture has been Anglo-Celtic Western culture, with some Indigenous influences. The divergence and evolution that has occurred in the ensuing centuries has resulted in a distinctive Australian culture. Since the mid-20th century, American popular culture has strongly influenced Australia, particularly through television and cinema. Other cultural influences come from neighbouring Asian countries, and through large-scale immigration from non-English-speaking nations. The Australian Museum in Sydney and the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne are the oldest and largest museums in the continent, as well as in Oceania. Sydney's New Year's Eve celebrations are the largest in the continent.


title: Australia (continent)

text: It is estimated that more than 7000 different cultural groups exist in Papua New Guinea, and most groups have their own language. Because of this diversity, in which they take pride, many different styles of cultural expression have emerged; each group has created its own expressive forms in art, performance art, weaponry, costumes and architecture. Papua New Guinea is one of the few cultures in Oceania to practice the tradition of bride price. In particular, Papua New Guinea is world-famous for carved wooden sculpture: masks, canoes, story-boards.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Australia has a tradition of Aboriginal art which is thousands of years old, the best known forms being rock art and bark painting. Evidence of Aboriginal art in Australia can be traced back at least 30,000 years. Examples of ancient Aboriginal rock artworks can be found throughout the continent – notably in national parks such as those of the UNESCO listed sites at Uluru and Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory, but also within protected parks in urban areas such as at Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park in Sydney. Aboriginal culture includes a number of practices and ceremonies centered on a belief in the Dreamtime. Reverence for the land and oral traditions are emphasised.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Popular sports in Papua New Guinea include various codes of football (rugby league, rugby union, soccer, and Australian rules football), cricket, volleyball, softball, netball, and basketball. Other Olympic sports are also gaining popularity, such as boxing and weightlifting. Rugby league is the most popular sport in Papua New Guinea (especially in the highlands), which also unofficially holds the title as the "national sport". The most popular sport in Australia is cricket, the most popular sport among Australian women is netball, while Australian rules football is the most popular sport in terms of spectatorship and television ratings.


title: Australia (continent)

text: Australia has hosted two Summer Olympic Games: Melbourne 1956 and Sydney 2000. Australia has also hosted five editions of the Commonwealth Games (Sydney 1938, Perth 1962, Brisbane 1982, Melbourne 2006, and Gold Coast 2018). In 2006 Australia joined the Asian Football Confederation and qualified for the 2010 and 2014 World Cups as an Asian entrant.


title: Kalyani Priyadarshan

text: Kalyani Priyadarshan (born 5 April 1993) is an Indian actress who predominantly appears in Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu films. She began her film career as an assistant production designer, and made her acting debut in the Telugu film "Hello" (2017). She won the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut and the SIIMA Award for Best Telugu Female Debut for her performance.


title: Kalyani Priyadarshan

text: Priyadarshan has acted in several successful films including "Chitralahari" (2019), "Varane Avashyamund" (2020), "Maanaadu" (2021), "Hridayam" (2022), "Bro Daddy" (2022), and "Thallumaala" (2022).


title: Kalyani Priyadarshan

text: Kalyani was born in a Malayali family to Indian filmmaker Priyadarshan and actress Lissy. She is the elder of two children, with a brother Sidharth. She did her early schooling in Lady Andal, Chennai and later studied in Singapore, where she also worked in theatre groups. After completing her schooling, she got her bachelor's degree in architecture designing from Parsons School of Design, New York City. During this time she also interned in theatre at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Returning to India, she attended an acting workshop in Adishakti Theatre, Pondicherry.


title: Kalyani Priyadarshan

text: Kalyani began her film career in 2013 as an assistant production designer under Sabu Cyril in the Hindi film "Krrish 3" (2013). In 2016 she worked as an assistant art director in the Tamil film "Iru Mugan" (2016). In the following year, she made her acting debut with the Telugu film "Hello" (2017), opposite Akhil Akkineni. The film released worldwide on 22 December 2017, and she had received positive response for her performance from critics. Her first release in Malayalam was "Varane Avashyamund", directed by Anoop Sathyan. In 2021, she appeared in Tamil-language science fiction action thriller film "Maanaadu" alongside actor Silambarasan. Her next release in the same year was Malayalam film "". The film received mixed to negative reviews and failed at the box office. In 2022, she appeared in "Hridayam", opposite Pranav Mohanlal. She next appeared in "Bro Daddy" directed by and starring Prithviraj Sukumaran, which released directly on Disney+ Hotstar, and also appeared in "Thallumaala" (2022) directed by Khalid Rahman, opposite Tovino Thomas.


title: Kalyani Priyadarshan

text: Kalyani made her place in "The Times of India's" "Most Desirable Women List" and was ranked at No. 41 in 2020.


title: Saint George

text: Saint George (Greek: Γεώργιος (Geórgios), Latin: Georgius, Arabic: القديس جرجس; died 23 April 303), also George of Lydda, was a Christian who is venerated as a saint in Christianity. According to tradition he was a soldier in the Roman army. Saint George was a soldier of Cappadocian Greek origin and member of the Praetorian Guard for Roman emperor Diocletian, who was sentenced to death for refusing to recant his Christian faith. He became one of the most venerated saints and megalomartyrs in Christianity, and he has been especially venerated as a military saint since the Crusades. He is respected by Christians, Druze, as well as some Muslims as a martyr of monotheistic faith.


title: Saint George

text: In hagiography, as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers and one of the most prominent military saints, he is immortalized in the legend of Saint George and the Dragon. His memorial, Saint George's Day, is traditionally celebrated on 23 April. Historically, the countries of England, Ukraine and Ukrainian Cossacks, Ethiopia, Georgia, Catalonia and Aragon in Spain, and Moscow in Russia have claimed George as their patron saint, as have several other regions, cities, universities, professions and organizations. The Church-Mosque of Saint George in Lod, Israel contains a sarcophagus believed by many Christians to contain St. George's remains.


title: Saint George

text: Very little is known about George's life, but it is thought he was a Roman officer of Greek descent who was martyred in one of the pre-Constantinian persecutions. Beyond this, early sources give conflicting information.


title: Saint George

text: The saint's veneration dates to the 5th century with some certainty, and possibly even to the 4th. The addition of the dragon legend dates to the 11th century.


title: Saint George

text: The earliest text which preserves fragments of George's narrative is in a Greek hagiography which is identified by Hippolyte Delehaye of the scholarly Bollandists to be a palimpsest of the 5th century. An earlier work by Eusebius, "Church history", written in the 4th century, contributed to the legend but did not name George or provide significant detail. The work of the Bollandists Daniel Papebroch, Jean Bolland, and Godfrey Henschen in the 17th century was one of the first pieces of scholarly research to establish the saint's historicity, via their publications in "Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca". Pope Gelasius I stated in 494 that George was among those saints "whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose actions are known only to God."


title: Saint George

text: The most complete version, based upon the fifth-century Greek text but in a later form, survives in a translation into Syriac from about 600. From text fragments preserved in the British Library a translation into English was published in 1925.


title: Saint George

text: In the Greek tradition, George was born to Greek Christian parents, in Cappadocia. After his father died, his mother, who was originally from Lydda, in Syria Palaestina, returned with George to her hometown. He went on to become a soldier for the Roman army, but, because of his Christian faith, he was arrested and tortured, "at or near Lydda, also called Diospolis"; on the following day, he was paraded and then beheaded, and his body was buried in Lydda. According to other sources, after his mother's death he travelled to the eastern imperial capital, Nicomedia, where he was persecuted by one "Dadianus". In later versions of the Greek legend, this name is rationalised to Diocletian, and George's martyrdom is placed in the Diocletian persecution of AD 303. The setting in Nicomedia is also secondary, and inconsistent with the earliest cults of the saint being located in Diospolis.


title: Saint George

text: George was executed by decapitation on 23 April 303. A witness of his suffering convinced Empress Alexandra of Rome to become a Christian as well, so she joined George in martyrdom. His body was buried in Lydda, where Christians soon came to honour him as a martyr.


title: Saint George

text: The Latin "Passio Sancti Georgii" (6th century) follows the general course of the Greek legend, but Diocletian here becomes "Dacian, Emperor of the Persians". His martyrdom was greatly extended to more than twenty separate tortures over the course of seven years. Over the course of his martyrdom, 40,900 pagans were converted to Christianity, including the empress Alexandra. When George finally died, the wicked Dacian was carried away in a whirlwind of fire. In later Latin versions, the persecutor is the Roman emperor Decius, or a Roman judge named Dacian serving under Diocletian.


title: Saint George

text: There is little information on the early life of George. Herbert Thurston in "The Catholic Encyclopedia" states that based upon an ancient cultus, narratives of the early pilgrims, and the early dedications of churches to George, going back to the fourth century, "there seems, therefore, no ground for doubting the historical existence of St. George", although no faith can be placed in either the details of his history or his alleged exploits.


title: Saint George

text: The Diocletianic Persecution of 303, associated with military saints because the persecution was aimed at Christians among the professional soldiers of the Roman army, is of undisputed historicity. According to Donald Attwater,


title: Saint George

text: Edward Gibbon argued that George, or at least the legend from which the above is distilled, is based on George of Cappadocia, a notorious 4th-century Arian bishop who was Athanasius of Alexandria's most bitter rival, and that it was he who in time became George of England. This identification is seen as highly improbable. Bishop George was slain by Gentile Greeks for exacting onerous taxes, especially inheritance taxes. J. B. Bury, who edited the 1906 edition of Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall", wrote "this theory of Gibbon's has nothing to be said for it". He adds that: "the connection of St. George with a dragon-slaying legend does not relegate him to the region of the myth". Saint George in all likelihood was martyred before the year 290.


title: Saint George

text: The legend of Saint George and the Dragon was first recorded in the 11th century, in a Georgian source.


title: Saint George

text: It reached Catholic Europe in the 12th century. In the "Golden Legend", by 13th-century Archbishop of Genoa Jacobus de Voragine, George's death was at the hands of Dacian, and about the year 287.