Gothic architecture is a style of architecturethat flourished during the high and late medieval period. Itevolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded byRenaissance architecture. Originating in 12th-century France andlasting into the 16th century, Gothic architecture was known duringthe period as Opus Francigenum ("French work") with the term Gothicfirst appearing during the later part of the Renaissance. Itscharacteristics include the pointed arch, the ribbed vault and theflying buttress. Gothic architecture is most familiar as thearchitecture of many of the great cathedrals, abbeys and churchesof Europe. It is also the architecture of many castles, palaces,town halls, guild halls, universities and to a less prominentextent, private dwellings.It is in the great churches and cathedrals and in a number of civicbuildings that the Gothic style was expressed most powerfully, itscharacteristics lending themselves to appeals to the emotions,whether springing from faith or from civic pride. A great number ofecclesiastical buildings remain from this period, of which even thesmallest are often structures of architectural distinction whilemany of the larger churches are considered priceless works of artand are listed with UNESCO as World Heritage Sites. For this reasona study of Gothic architecture is largely a study of cathedrals andchurches.A series of Gothic revivals began in mid-18th-century England,spread through 19th-century Europe and continued, largely forecclesiastical and university structures, into the 20thcentury.

Italy Listeni/ˈɪtəli/ (Italian: Italia[iˈtaːlja]), officially the Italian Republic (Italian: Repubblicaitaliana),[7][8][9][10] is a unitary parliamentary republic inSouthern Europe. To the north, Italy borders France, Switzerland,Austria, and Slovenia, and is approximately delimited by the Alpinewatershed, enclosing the Po Valley and the Venetian Plain. To thesouth, it consists of the entirety of the Italian Peninsula and thetwo biggest Mediterranean islands of Sicily and Sardinia.Italian territory also includes the islands of Pantelleria, 60 km(37 mi) east of the Tunisian coast and 100 km (62 mi) southwest ofSicily, and Lampedusa, at about 113 km (70 mi) from Tunisia and at176 km (109 mi) from Sicily, in addition to many other smallerislands. The sovereign states of San Marino and the Vatican Cityare enclaves within Italy, while Campione d'Italia is an Italianexclave in Switzerland. Italy covers an area of 301,338 km2(116,347 sq mi) and has a largely temperate climate. With 60million inhabitants, it is the 5th most populous country in Europe.Italy is also the 4th-largest economy in the European Union, 3rd inthe Eurozone and 9th in the world (IMF, 2012).Italy's capital and largest city, Rome, has for centuries been theleading political and religious centre of Western civilisation,serving as the capital of both the Roman Empire and Christianity.During the Dark Ages, Italy endured cultural and social decline inthe face of repeated invasions by Germanic tribes, with Romanheritage being preserved largely by Christian monks. Beginningaround the 11th century, various Italian cities, communes andmaritime republics rose to great prosperity through shipping,commerce and banking (indeed, modern capitalism has its roots inMedieval Italy);[11] concurrently, Italian culture flourished,especially during the Renaissance, which produced many notablescholars, artists, and polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci,Galileo, Michelangelo and Machiavelli. Meanwhile, Italian explorerssuch as Polo, Columbus, Vespucci, and Verrazzano discovered newroutes to the Far East and the New World, helping to usher in theEuropean Age of Discovery. Nevertheless, Italy would remainfragmented into numerous warring states for the rest of the MiddleAges, subsequently falling prey to larger European powers such asFrance, Spain, and later Austria. Italy would thus enter a longperiod of decline that lasted until the beginning of the 18thcentury.After many unsuccessful attempts, the second and the third wars ofItalian independence resulted in the unification of most ofpresent-day Italy between 1859 and 1866.[12] From the late 19thcentury to the early 20th century, the new Kingdom of Italy rapidlyindustrialized and acquired a colonial empire becoming a GreatPower.[13] However, Southern and rural Italy remained largelyexcluded from industrialisation, fuelling a large and influentialdiaspora. Despite victory in World War I as one of the Big Fourwith permanent membership in the security council of the League ofNations, Italy entered a period of economic crisis and socialturmoil, which favoured the establishment of a Fascist dictatorshipin 1922. The subsequent participation in World War II, at the sideof Nazi Germany and Japan forming the Axis Alliance, ended inmilitary defeat, economic destruction and civil war. In the yearsthat followed, Italy abolished the monarchy, reinstated democracy,and enjoyed a prolonged economic boom, thus becoming one of themost developed nations in the world,[5][14][15][16][17] with thefifth largest economy by nominal GDP by the early 1990s. Italy wasa founding member of NATO in 1949 and one of the Inner Six of theEuropean Community in 1957, which became the EU in 1993. It is partof the Schengen Area, and has been a member of the Eurozone since1999.

Food is any substance[1] consumed to providenutritional support for the body. It is usually of plant or animalorigin, and contains essential nutrients, such as fats, proteins,vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ingested by an organism andassimilated by the organism's cells to provide energy, maintainlife, or stimulate growth.Historically, people secured food through two methods: hunting andgathering, and agriculture. Today, most of the food energy requiredby the ever increasing population of the world is supplied by thefood industry.Food safety and food security are monitored by agencies like theInternational Association for Food Protection, World ResourcesInstitute, World Food Programme, Food and Agriculture Organization,and International Food Information Council. They address issuessuch as sustainability, biological diversity, climate change,nutritional economics, population growth, water supply, and accessto food.The right to food is a human right derived from the InternationalCovenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR),recognizing the "right to an adequate standard of living, includingadequate food," as well as the "fundamental right to be free fromhunger."

A message in a bottle is a form ofcommunication whereby a message is sealed in a container(archetypically a glass bottle, but could be any medium, so long asit floats and remains waterproof) and released into the sea orocean. Among other purposes they are used for scientific studies ofocean currents.The first recorded messages in bottles were released around 310 BCby the Ancient Greek philosopher Theophrastus, as part of anexperiment to show that the Mediterranean Sea was formed by theinflowing Atlantic Ocean.[1][unreliable source]On his return to Spain following his first voyage to the New World,Christopher Columbus's ship entered a severe storm. Columbus threwa report of his discovery along with a note asking it to be passedon to the Queen of Castile, in a sealed cask into the sea, hopingthe news would make it back even if he did not survive. In fact,Columbus survived and the sealed report was never found, or, atleast, its discovery never reported.[verification needed]In the 16th century, the English navy, among others, used bottlemessages to send ashore information about enemy positions. QueenElizabeth I even created an official position of "Uncorker of OceanBottles", and anyone else opening the bottles could face the deathpenalty.[2][dubious – discuss]In 1784 Chunosuke Matsuyama sent a message detailing his and 43shipmates' shipwrecking in a bottle that washed ashore and wasfound by a Japanese seaweed collector in 1935, in the village ofHiraturemura, the birthplace of Chunosuke Matsuyama.[3]Since 1876, people have often used messages adrift in containers tocommunicate from the remote Scottish island of St Kilda. [4]In 1914, British World War I soldier Private Thomas Hughes tossed agreen ginger beer bottle containing a letter to his wife into theEnglish Channel. He was killed two days later fighting in France.In 1999, fisherman Steve Gowan dredged up the bottle in the RiverThames. Although the intended recipient of the letter had died in1979, it was delivered in 1999 to Private Hughes' 86-year olddaughter living in New Zealand.[5]In February 1916 the doomed crew of Zeppelin L 19 dropped theirlast messages to their superiors and loved ones into the North Sea.These washed up on the Kattegat coast near Gothenburg, Sweden sixmonths later.[6]In December 1945, American World War II veteran Frank Hayostektossed a bottle over the side of his ship. It was recovered by anIrish milk maid, Breda O'Sullivan who set off an exchange ofletters that lasted seven years before the two finally met amid aninternational media circus. Despite (or perhaps because of) themedia attention, the two were never able to get their romance offthe ground.In May 2005 eighty-eight shipwrecked migrants were rescued off thecoast of Costa Rica. They had placed an SOS message in a bottle andtied it to one of the long lines of a passing fishingboat.[7]On June 10, 1914, a scientist from the Glasgow (Scotland) School ofNavigation cast 1,890 bottles into the ocean to test undercurrentsin the seas around Scotland. One of those bottles was recovered in2012, and was confirmed by Guinness World Records to be the oldestmessage in a bottle ever found—98 years.[8] The bottle was foundeast of Shetland by Andrew Leaper, skipper of the Shetland-basedvessel Copious, the same fishing vessel involved in the previousrecord recovery.[9]That previous record was a find that spent 92 years 229 days atsea. A bottom drift bottle, numbered 423B, was released at 60° 50'N00° 38'W (about halfway between Aberdeen, Scotland and the coast ofDenmark) on April 25, 1914 and recovered by fisherman Mark Andersonof Bixter, Shetland, UK, on December 10, 2006.

Squirrels belong to family Sciuridae of smallor medium-size rodents. The family includes tree squirrels, groundsquirrels, chipmunks, marmots (including woodchucks), flyingsquirrels, and prairie dogs. Squirrels are indigenous to theAmericas, Eurasia, and Africa, and have been introduced toAustralia.[1] The earliest known squirrels date from the Eocene andare most closely related to the mountain beaver and to the dormouseamong living rodent families.

Hong Kong (香港, see Name section),alternatively known by its initials H.K., is situated on China'ssouth coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South ChinaSea.[8] The city is known for its expansive skyline and deepnatural harbour. With a land mass of 1,104 km2 (426 sq mi) and apopulation of over seven million people, Hong Kong is one of themost densely populated areas in the world.[9] Hong Kong'spopulation is 93.6% ethnic Chinese and 6.4% from other groups.[4]Hong Kong's Cantonese-speaking majority originate mainly from theneighbouring Canton (now Guangdong) province,[10] from which manyof them fled to escape wars and Communist rule in China from the1930s to the 1960s.[11][12][13][14]Hong Kong became a colony of the British Empire after the FirstOpium War (1839–42). The Hong Kong Island was first ceded to the UKin perpetuity, followed by Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 and then theNew Territories was put under lease in 1898. It was occupied byJapan during the Pacific War (1941–45), after which the Britishresumed control until 1997, when China resumed sovereignty.[15][16]The region espoused minimum government intervention under the ethosof positive non-interventionism during the colonial era.[17] Thetime period greatly influenced the current culture of Hong Kong,often described as "East meets West",[18] and the educationalsystem, which used to loosely follow the system in England[19]until reforms implemented in 2009.[20]On 1 July 1997, Hong Kong became the first Special AdministrativeRegion of the People's Republic of China, under the principle of"one country, two systems" (the other, Macau, attained that statusin December 1999). It has a different political system frommainland China.[21] Hong Kong's independent judiciary functionsunder the common law framework.[22][23] Hong Kong Basic Law, itsconstitutional document, which stipulates that Hong Kong shall havea "high degree of autonomy" in all matters except foreign relationsand military defence, governs its political system.[24][25]Although it has a burgeoning multi-party system, a small-circleelectorate controls half of its legislature. The head of thegovernment, the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, is chosen by anElection Committee of 400 to 1,200 members, a situation that willbe in effect during the first 20 years of Chineserule.[26][27][28]Hong Kong is a world city. It is one of the Al­pha+ cities. Also, aTime Magazine article in 2008 coined the phrase "Nylonkong", whichreferred to New York City, London and Hong Kong, that these threecities form a global network that facilitates the global economy.As Hong Kong ranks the third most important leading internationalfinancial centre, after London and New York City, Hong Kong has amajor capitalist service economy characterised by low taxation andfree trade, and the currency, Hong Kong dollar, is the eighth mosttraded currency in the world.[29] The lack of space caused demandfor denser constructions, which developed the city to a centre formodern architecture and the world's most vertical city.[30][31]Hong Kong has one of the highest per capita incomes in theworld.[5] The dense space also led to a highly developedtransportation network with the public transport travelling rateexceeding 90 percent,[32] the highest in the world.[33] Hong Konghas numerous high international rankings in various aspects. Forinstance, its economic freedom, financial and economiccompetitiveness,[34] quality of life, corruption perception,[35]Human Development Index are all ranked highly. According toestimates from both UN and WHO, Hong Kong had the longest lifeexpectancy of any region in the world in 2012.[36] Hong Kong alsohas the highest average IQ score in 81 countries around theworld.

Snail is a common name that is applied mostoften to land snails, terrestrial pulmonate gastropod molluscs.However, the common name "snail" is also applied to most of themembers of the molluscan class Gastropoda that have a coiled shellthat is large enough for the animal to retract completely into.When the word "snail" is used in this most general sense, itincludes not just land snails but also thousands of species of seasnails and freshwater snails. Occasionally a few other molluscsthat are not actually gastropods, such as the Monoplacophora, whichsuperficially resemble small limpets, may also informally bereferred to as "snails".Snail-like animals that naturally lack a shell, or have only aninternal shell, are usually called slugs, and land snails that haveonly a very small shell (that they cannot retract into) are oftencalled semislugs.

A church building, often simply called achurch, is a building used for religious activities, particularlyworship services. The term in its architectural sense is most oftenused by Christians to refer to their religious buildings but can beused by other religions. In traditional Christian architecture, thechurch is often arranged in the shape of a Christian cross. Whenviewed from plan view the longest part of a cross is represented bythe aisle and the junction of the cross is located at the altararea. Towers or domes are often added with the intention ofdirecting the eye of the viewer towards the heavens and inspiringchurch visitors. Modern church buildings have a variety ofarchitectural styles and layouts; many buildings that were designedfor other purposes have now been converted for church use; and,similarly, many original church buildings have been put to otheruses.