This image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), shows a patch of space filled with galaxies of all shapes, colors and sizes, many of which belong to the galaxy cluster SDSS J0952+3434.

Just below center is a formation of galaxies akin to a smiling face. Two yellow-hued blobs hang atop a sweeping arc of light. The lower, arc-shaped galaxy has the characteristic shape of a galaxy that has been gravitationally lensed — its light has passed near a massive object en route to us, causing it to become distorted and stretched out of shape.

Hubble captured this image in an effort to understand how new stars spring to life throughout the cosmos. WFC3 is able to view distant galaxies at an unprecedented resolution — high enough to locate and study regions of star formation within them.

Stars are born within giant clouds of gas. These massive clouds, or stellar nurseries, grow unstable and begin to collapse under gravity, becoming the seeds that will grow into new stars. By analyzing the luminosity, size and formation rate of different stellar nurseries, scientists hope to learn more about the processes that can lead to the formation of a newborn star. Studying nurseries within different galaxies will provide information about star formation at different points in time and space throughout the universe.

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA; Acknowledgment: Judy Schmidt (geckzilla)

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NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.

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Liftoff of Sentinel-2B on a Vega launcher from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana at 01:49 GMT (02:49 CET) on 7 March 2017.

Sentinel-2B is the second satellite in the Sentinel-2 mission for Europe’s Copernicus environment monitoring programme.

Designed as a two-satellite constellation – Sentinel-2A and -2B – the Sentinel-2 mission carries an innovative wide swath high-resolution multispectral imager with 13 spectral bands for a new perspective of our land and vegetation. This information is used for agricultural and forestry practices and for helping manage food security. It also provides information on pollution in lakes and coastal waters. Images of floods, volcanic eruptions and landslides contribute to disaster mapping and help humanitarian relief efforts.

Credit: ESA-S.Corvaja

Mýrdalsjökull 20210715

The glacier Mýrdalsjökull is a very strange beast in the flora of natural wonders in Iceland. As the fourth largest ice cap in Iceland, approximately 600 square kilometers in size, it puts its mark on all its neighbors in all directions. It is the ever-percent beauty seen from the south shore at Sólheimasandur. It is a dominating part of the landscape from the east side of Mýrdalssandur. On the north side of the Highland, it is on your south side when driving on the Fjallabaksleið Syðri at Mælifellssandur. On the west side, it contributes to the magnificent landscape in the oasis Þórsmörk. It displays the stunning background of snowy white mountains for the enjoyment and beauty of the landscape. But despite all the beauty and peace, the glacier throws at us from all directions it has a very dark side, it is the home of one of the most destructive forces in Icelandic nature, the dangerous volcano Katla.

Source Hit Iceland

Aside from the trails in Lofoten being exceedingly damp, they tended to lack grading. If you wanted to go up – straight up it was. The one trail that didn't ooze water with each step you took was the one to the top of Reinebringen, the peak that looked down on the town of Reine. Instead of a damp trail, we found this one to be dry and very crumbly. The high traffic to this popular view also probably contributed to the deteriorating conditions. Minus a short detour that led us to the trail disappearing into nothingness, we made it to the top without incident. But on the way down, we had made it about halfway when, from above us, we heard, “ROCK!” And then we could hear it tumbling in our direction, but couldn't see where it was. Moments later we saw the large football sized boulder. It passed a foot or so from Megan's head. I shouted some choice words up at the people who seemed to be oblivious to the fact they'd almost just took my wife's head off. Next time she'll be sure to duck instead of freezing.

Note: The end of the fjord on the upper left is where the trail begins for Horseid. Just up and over the saddle and you're there (kinda).

Holika Dahan also Kamudu pyre is celebrated by burning Holika, the devil. For many traditions in Hinduism, Holi celebrates the death of Holika in order to save Prahlad, and thus Holi gets its name. In olden days, people use to contribute a piece of wood or two for Holika bonfire.

..........Wikipedia

Fort Lauderdale is a city in the U.S. state of Florida, 25 miles (40 km) north of Miami. It is the county seat of Broward County. As of the 2019 census, the city has an estimated population of 182,437. Fort Lauderdale is a principal city of the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to an estimated 6,198,782 people in 2018.

The city is a popular tourist destination, with an average year-round temperature of 75.5 °F (24.2 °C) and 3,000 hours of sunshine per year. Greater Fort Lauderdale which takes in all of Broward County hosted 12 million visitors in 2012, including 2.8 million international visitors. The city and county in 2012 collected $43.9 million from the 5% hotel tax it charges, after hotels in the area recorded an occupancy rate for the year of 72.7 percent and an average daily rate of $114.48. The district has 561 hotels and motels comprising nearly 35,000 rooms. Forty six cruise ships sailed from Port Everglades in 2012. Greater Fort Lauderdale has over 4,000 restaurants, 63 golf courses, 12 shopping malls, 16 museums, 132 nightclubs, 278 parkland campsites, and 100 marinas housing 45,000 resident yachts.

Fort Lauderdale is named after a series of forts built by the United States during the Second Seminole War. The forts took their name from Major William Lauderdale (1782–1838), younger brother of Lieutenant Colonel James Lauderdale. William Lauderdale was the commander of the detachment of soldiers who built the first fort. However, development of the city did not begin until 50 years after the forts were abandoned at the end of the conflict. Three forts named "Fort Lauderdale" were constructed; the first was at the fork of the New River, the second at Tarpon Bend on the New River between the Colee Hammock and Rio Vista neighborhoods, and the third near the site of the Bahia Mar Marina.

The area in which the city of Fort Lauderdale would later be founded was inhabited for more than two thousand years by the Tequesta Indians. Contact with Spanish explorers in the 16th century proved disastrous for the Tequesta, as the Europeans unwittingly brought with them diseases, such as smallpox, to which the native populations possessed no resistance. For the Tequesta, disease, coupled with continuing conflict with their Calusa neighbors, contributed greatly to their decline over the next two centuries. By 1763, there were only a few Tequesta left in Florida, and most of them were evacuated to Cuba when the Spanish ceded Florida to the British in 1763, under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1763), which ended the Seven Years' War. Although control of the area changed between Spain, United Kingdom, the United States, and the Confederate States of America, it remained largely undeveloped until the 20th century.

The Fort Lauderdale area was known as the "New River Settlement" before the 20th century. In the 1830s there were approximately 70 settlers living along the New River. William Cooley, the local Justice of the Peace, was a farmer and wrecker, who traded with the Seminole Indians. On January 6, 1836, while Cooley was leading an attempt to salvage a wrecked ship, a band of Seminoles attacked his farm, killing his wife and children, and the children's tutor. The other farms in the settlement were not attacked, but all the white residents in the area abandoned the settlement, fleeing first to the Cape Florida Lighthouse on Key Biscayne, and then to Key West.

The first United States stockade named Fort Lauderdale was built in 1838, and subsequently was a site of fighting during the Second Seminole War. The fort was abandoned in 1842, after the end of the war, and the area remained virtually unpopulated until the 1890s. It was not until Frank Stranahan arrived in the area in 1893 to operate a ferry across the New River, and the Florida East Coast Railroad's completion of a route through the area in 1896, that any organized development began. The city was incorporated in 1911, and in 1915 was designated the county seat of newly formed Broward County.

Fort Lauderdale's first major development began in the 1920s, during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. The 1926 Miami Hurricane and the Great Depression of the 1930s caused a great deal of economic dislocation. In July 1935, an African-American man named Rubin Stacy was accused of robbing a white woman at knife point. He was arrested and being transported to a Miami jail when police were run off the road by a mob. A group of 100 white men proceeded to hang Stacy from a tree near the scene of his alleged robbery. His body was riddled with some twenty bullets. The murder was subsequently used by the press in Nazi Germany to discredit US critiques of its own persecution of Jews, Communists, and Catholics.

When World War II began, Fort Lauderdale became a major US base, with a Naval Air Station to train pilots, radar operators, and fire control, operators. A Coast Guard base at Port Everglades was also established.

On July 4, 1961, African Americans started a series of protests, wade-ins, at beaches that were off-limits to them, to protest "the failure of the county to build a road to the Negro beach". On July 11, 1962, a verdict by Ted Cabot went against the city's policy of racial segregation of public beaches.

Today, Fort Lauderdale is a major yachting center, one of the nation's largest tourist destinations, and the center of a metropolitan division with 1.8 million people.

Credit for the data above is given to the following website:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Lauderdale,_Florida

© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.

9691 MECONOPSIS BETONICIFOLIA

Himalayan flower imported by Elsie Reford in the early 1930s that has since become the floral emblem of the Gardens.

Visit : www.refordgardens.com/

From Wikipedia: Visit : en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsie_Reford

Elsie Stephen Meighen - born January 22, 1872, Perth, Ontario - and Robert Wilson Reford - born in 1867, Montreal - got married on June 12, 1894.

Elsie Reford was a pioneer of Canadian horticulture, creating one of the largest private gardens in Canada on her estate, Estevan Lodge in eastern Québec. Located in Grand-Métis on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, her gardens have been open to the public since 1962 and operate under the name Les Jardins de Métis and Reford Gardens.

Born January 22, 1872 at Perth, Ontario, Elsie Reford was the eldest of three children born to Robert Meighen and Elsie Stephen. Coming from modest backgrounds themselves, Elsie’s parents ensured that their children received a good education. After being educated in Montreal, she was sent to finishing school in Dresden and Paris, returning to Montreal fluent in both German and French, and ready to take her place in society.

She married Robert Wilson Reford on June 12, 1894. She gave birth to two sons, Bruce in 1895 and Eric in 1900. Robert and Elsie Reford were, by many accounts, an ideal couple. In 1902, they built a house on Drummond Street in Montreal. They both loved the outdoors and they spend several weeks a year in a log cabin they built at Lac Caribou, south of Rimouski. In the autumn they hunted for caribou, deer, and ducks. They returned in winter to ski and snowshoe. Elsie Reford also liked to ride. She had learned as a girl and spent many hours riding on the slopes of Mount Royal. And of course, there was salmon-fishing – a sport at which she excelled.

In her day, she was known for her civic, social, and political activism. She was engaged in philanthropic activities, particularly for the Montreal Maternity Hospital and she was also the moving force behind the creation of the Women’s Canadian Club of Montreal, the first women club in Canada. She believed it important that the women become involved in debates over the great issues of the day, « something beyond the local gossip of the hour ». Her acquaintance with Lord Grey, the Governor-General of Canada from 1904 to 1911, led to her involvement in organizing, in 1908, Québec City’s tercentennial celebrations. The event was one of many to which she devoted herself in building bridges with French-Canadian community.

During the First World War, she joined her two sons in England and did volunteer work at the War Office, translating documents from German into English. After the war, she was active in the Victorian Order of Nurses, the Montreal Council of Social Agencies, and the National Association of Conservative Women.

In 1925 at the age of 53 years, Elsie Reford was operated for appendicitis and during her convalescence, her doctor counselled against fishing, fearing that she did not have the strength to return to the river.”Why not take up gardening?” he said, thinking this a more suitable pastime for a convalescent woman of a certain age. That is why she began laying out the gardens and supervising their construction. The gardens would take ten years to build, and would extend over more than twenty acres.

Elsie Reford had to overcome many difficulties in bringing her garden to life. First among them were the allergies that sometimes left her bedridden for days on end. The second obstacle was the property itself. Estevan was first and foremost a fishing lodge. The site was chosen because of its proximity to a salmon river and its dramatic views – not for the quality of the soil.

To counter-act nature’s deficiencies, she created soil for each of the plants she had selected, bringing peat and sand from nearby farms. This exchange was fortuitous to the local farmers, suffering through the Great Depression. Then, as now, the gardens provided much-needed work to an area with high unemployment. Elsie Reford’s genius as a gardener was born of the knowledge she developed of the needs of plants. Over the course of her long life, she became an expert plantsman. By the end of her life, Elsie Reford was able to counsel other gardeners, writing in the journals of the Royal Horticultural Society and the North American Lily Society. Elsie Reford was not a landscape architect and had no training of any kind as a garden designer. While she collected and appreciated art, she claimed no talents as an artist.

Elsie Stephen Reford died at her Drummond Street home on November 8, 1967 in her ninety-sixth year.

In 1995, the Reford Gardens ("Jardins de Métis") in Grand-Métis were designated a National Historic Site of Canada, as being an excellent Canadian example of the English-inspired garden.

LES JARDINS DE MÉTIS

Créés par Elsie Reford de 1926 à 1958, ces jardins témoignent de façon remarquable de l’art paysager à l’anglaise. Disposés dans un cadre naturel, un ensemble de jardins exhibent fleurs vivaces, arbres et arbustes. Le jardin des pommetiers, les rocailles et l’Allée royale évoquent l’œuvre de cette dame passionnée d’horticulture. Agrémenté d’un ruisseau et de sentiers sinueux, ce site jouit d’un microclimat favorable à la croissance d’espèces uniques au Canada. Les pavots bleus et les lis, privilégiés par Mme Reford, y fleurissent toujours et contribuent , avec d’autres plantes exotiques et indigènes, à l’harmonie de ces lieux.

Created by Elsie Reford between 1926 and 1958, these gardens are an inspired example of the English art of the garden. Woven into a natural setting, a series of gardens display perennials, trees and shrubs. A crab-apple orchard, a rock garden, and the Long Walk are also the legacy of this dedicated horticulturist. A microclimate favours the growth of species found nowhere else in Canada, while the stream and winding paths add to the charm. Elsie Reford’s beloved blue poppies and lilies still bloom and contribute, with other exotic and indigenous plants, to the harmony of the site.

Commission des lieux et monuments historiques du Canada

Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.

Gouvernement du Canada – Government of Canada

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Le coeur de la voie lactée au dessus du port de Lampaul à Ouessant (Finistère). L'ile d'Ouessant est préservée de la pollution lumineuse exceptée celle du phare de Créac'h, l'un des plus puissants d'Europe. C'est donc un endroit idéal pour photographier la voie lactée ... à condition d'arriver à prendre les photos entre deux passages du puissant faisceau du phare. Les feux de tête de mât des voiliers et l'éclairage rouge du phare de la Jument participent au décors étoilé. Certains bateaux ont eu du mal à rester 25s immobiles! Photo prise au port de Lampaul (Ouessant; Finistère) le 19 Septembre 2022 à 22h00. Réglage: focale 17mm ; f/2.8; 3200iso ; 25s.

The Lampaul harbour (Ouessant island; Brittany; France) under the Milky Way. The Ouessant island is protected from light pollution except for that of the Créac'h lighthouse, one of the most powerful in Europe. It is therefore an ideal place to photograph the Milky Way... provided you manage to take the photos between two passages of the powerful beam of the lighthouse. The masthead lights of the sailboats and the red lighting of the Jument lighthouse contribute to the starry decor. Some boats struggled to stand still for 25s!

Captured at Lampaul harbour (Ouessant; Brittany; France) 19th September 2022 at 22h00 (17mm; f/2.8; 25s; 3200iso)

Built c. 1872.

"Newburyport is a coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, 35 miles (56 km) northeast of Boston. The population was 18,289 at the 2020 census. A historic seaport with vibrant tourism industry, Newburyport includes part of Plum Island. The mooring, winter storage, and maintenance of recreational boats, motor and sail, still contribute a large part of the city's income. A Coast Guard station oversees boating activity, especially in the sometimes dangerous tidal currents of the Merrimack River.

At the edge of the Newbury Marshes, delineating Newburyport to the south, an industrial park provides a wide range of jobs. Newburyport is on a major north-south highway, Interstate 95. The outer circumferential highway of Boston, Interstate 495, passes nearby in Amesbury. The Newburyport Turnpike (U.S. Route 1) still traverses Newburyport on its way north. The Newburyport/Rockport MBTA commuter rail from Boston's North Station terminates in Newburyport. The earlier Boston and Maine Railroad leading farther north was discontinued, but a portion of it has been converted into a recreation trail." - info from Wikipedia.

The fall of 2022 I did my 3rd major cycling tour. I began my adventure in Montreal, Canada and finished in Savannah, GA. This tour took me through the oldest parts of Quebec and the 13 original US states. During this adventure I cycled 7,126 km over the course of 2.5 months and took more than 68,000 photos. As with my previous tours, a major focus was to photograph historic architecture.

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With all due respect please do not Arward and Banners for me, it contributes nothing and I prefer a fave or a comment, both is also warmly appreciated.....:-))

Jordan, with a population of 50,745 as of 2015. Located 48 kilometres (30 mi) north of the capital of Jordan, Amman.

The history of the city is a blend of the Greco-Roman world of the Mediterranean Basin and the ancient traditions of the Arab Orient. The name of the city reflects this interaction. The earliest Arab/Semitic inhabitants, who lived in the area during the pre-classical period of the 1st millennium BCE, named their village Garshu. The Romans later Hellenized the former Arabic name of Garshu into Gerasa. Later, the name transformed into the Arabic Jerash.

The city flourished until the mid-eighth century CE, when the 749 Galilee earthquake destroyed large parts of it, while subsequent earthquakes (847 Damascus earthquake) contributed to additional destruction. However, In the early 12th century, by the year 1120, Zahir ad-Din Toghtekin, atabeg of Damascus ordered a garrison of forty men stationed in Jerash to convert the Temple of Artemis into a fortress. It was captured in 1121 by Baldwin II, King of Jerusalem, and utterly destroyed.

Jerash was then deserted until it reappeared in the Ottoman tax registers in the 16th century. It had a population of 12 households in 1596. However, the archaeologists have found a small Mamluk hamlet in the Northwest Quarter which indicates that Jerash was resettled before the Ottoman era. The excavations conducted since 2011 have shed light on the Middle Islamic period as recent discoveries have uncovered a large concentration of Middle Islamic/Mamluk structures and pottery.

In 1806, the German traveler, Ulrich Jasper Seetzen, came across and wrote about the ruins he recognized. In 1885, the Ottoman authorities directed the Circassian immigrants who were mainly of peasant stock to settle in Jerash, and distributed arable land among them.

The ancient city has been gradually revealed through a series of excavations which commenced in 1925, and continue to this day.

Residences in the historic heart of Florence catch the morning light. Elegant, understated details of these shuttered Tuscan facades are typical of Florence. Love the warm earthy tones that characterize this magnificent jewel of the Renaissance. Thank you to the astonishing craftspeople and designers -- many unknown -- who contributed to the beauty of this city, now a World Heritage Site.

You can learn more about Florence via my Flickr photo album "Beautiful Florence with Travel Tips". Enjoy! And Grazie a Italia for cherishing and maintaining her cultural heritage!

Built in 1900-1902, this Colonial Revival-style house was designed by Charles Alling Gifford for Joseph Stickney, a coal broker, to serve as a caretaker’s residence for the adjacent Mount Washington Hotel. The house is clad in white-painted wooden shingles with one-over-one windows, a hipped roof, porches with rectilinear columns, a rough-hewn stone base, multi-story bay windows, and oxeye attic windows flanked by decorative reliefs. The house is a contributing resource to the Mount Washington Hotel, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1986.

While quite a few masters including Bramante, Bernini, and Raphael contributed to the beauty of Saint Peter’s Basilica, it was only Michelangelo who designed the magnificent dome.

Remarkably, he started this project at the age of 71 years old. But when Michelangelo died in 1564, his student successfully continued Michelangelo’s vision, finishing the dome in 1590.

A model for numerous other domes, including the United States Capitol Building, St. Peter’s Dome has a height of 136 meters and an internal diameter of 42 meters, making it one of the largest domes in the world.

Pieter Paul Rubens (Siegen, 28 June 1577 - Antwerp, 30 May 1640) - The triumph of Jülich (1622) - preparatory sketchs for the cycle of Maria de 'Medici Dimensions 64.8 x 50 cm - Alte Pinakothek Munich

Maria de' Medici, che era stata la regina della Francia come consorte di Enrico IV, era al momento dell'esecuzione dei dipinti la regina madre e reggente, dato che il re Luigi XIII era salito al trono all'età di nove anni (nel 1610). L'ordinativo del quadro era stato fatto da Maria stessa, allo scopo di rafforzare la sua sovranità e legittimità. Il programma di tutta la serie era stato ideato dall'abate di Saint-Ambroise, ma ugualmente la Regina, il Cardinale Richelieu e il pittore stesso hanno contribuito al soggetto con le loro proposte.

Rubens disegnò gli schizzi a Parigi, ma l'esecuzione fu eseguita con l'aiuto di collaboratori ad Anversa. Mentre le immagini della serie sono conservate nel Louvre, i cartoni si trovano nella Alte Pinakothek di Monaco di Baviera.

Maria de 'Medici, who had been the queen of France as Henry IV's consort, was the queen mother and regent at the time of the paintings, given that King Louis XIII had ascended the throne at the age of nine (in 1610). The order for the painting had been made by Maria herself, in order to strengthen her sovereignty and legitimacy. The program of the whole series had been conceived by the abbot of Saint-Ambroise, but equally the Queen, Cardinal Richelieu and the painter himself contributed to the subject with their proposals.

Rubens drew the sketches in Paris, but the execution was carried out with the help of collaborators in Antwerp. While the images of the series are kept in the Louvre, the cartoons are found in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.

Fort Lauderdale is a city in the U.S. state of Florida, 25 miles (40 km) north of Miami. It is the county seat of Broward County. As of the 2019 census, the city has an estimated population of 182,437. Fort Lauderdale is a principal city of the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to an estimated 6,198,782 people in 2018.

The city is a popular tourist destination, with an average year-round temperature of 75.5 °F (24.2 °C) and 3,000 hours of sunshine per year. Greater Fort Lauderdale which takes in all of Broward County hosted 12 million visitors in 2012, including 2.8 million international visitors. The city and county in 2012 collected $43.9 million from the 5% hotel tax it charges, after hotels in the area recorded an occupancy rate for the year of 72.7 percent and an average daily rate of $114.48. The district has 561 hotels and motels comprising nearly 35,000 rooms. Forty six cruise ships sailed from Port Everglades in 2012. Greater Fort Lauderdale has over 4,000 restaurants, 63 golf courses, 12 shopping malls, 16 museums, 132 nightclubs, 278 parkland campsites, and 100 marinas housing 45,000 resident yachts.

Fort Lauderdale is named after a series of forts built by the United States during the Second Seminole War. The forts took their name from Major William Lauderdale (1782–1838), younger brother of Lieutenant Colonel James Lauderdale. William Lauderdale was the commander of the detachment of soldiers who built the first fort. However, development of the city did not begin until 50 years after the forts were abandoned at the end of the conflict. Three forts named "Fort Lauderdale" were constructed; the first was at the fork of the New River, the second at Tarpon Bend on the New River between the Colee Hammock and Rio Vista neighborhoods, and the third near the site of the Bahia Mar Marina.

The area in which the city of Fort Lauderdale would later be founded was inhabited for more than two thousand years by the Tequesta Indians. Contact with Spanish explorers in the 16th century proved disastrous for the Tequesta, as the Europeans unwittingly brought with them diseases, such as smallpox, to which the native populations possessed no resistance. For the Tequesta, disease, coupled with continuing conflict with their Calusa neighbors, contributed greatly to their decline over the next two centuries. By 1763, there were only a few Tequesta left in Florida, and most of them were evacuated to Cuba when the Spanish ceded Florida to the British in 1763, under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1763), which ended the Seven Years' War. Although control of the area changed between Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Confederate States of America, it remained largely undeveloped until the 20th century.

The Fort Lauderdale area was known as the "New River Settlement" before the 20th century. In the 1830s there were approximately 70 settlers living along the New River. William Cooley, the local Justice of the Peace, was a farmer and wrecker, who traded with the Seminole Indians. On January 6, 1836, while Cooley was leading an attempt to salvage a wrecked ship, a band of Seminoles attacked his farm, killing his wife and children, and the children's tutor. The other farms in the settlement were not attacked, but all the white residents in the area abandoned the settlement, fleeing first to the Cape Florida Lighthouse on Key Biscayne, and then to Key West.

The first United States stockade named Fort Lauderdale was built in 1838, and subsequently was a site of fighting during the Second Seminole War. The fort was abandoned in 1842, after the end of the war, and the area remained virtually unpopulated until the 1890s. It was not until Frank Stranahan arrived in the area in 1893 to operate a ferry across the New River, and the Florida East Coast Railroad's completion of a route through the area in 1896, that any organized development began. The city was incorporated in 1911, and in 1915 was designated the county seat of newly formed Broward County.

Fort Lauderdale's first major development began in the 1920s, during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. The 1926 Miami Hurricane and the Great Depression of the 1930s caused a great deal of economic dislocation. In July 1935, an African-American man named Rubin Stacy was accused of robbing a white woman at knife point. He was arrested and being transported to a Miami jail when police were run off the road by a mob. A group of 100 white men proceeded to hang Stacy from a tree near the scene of his alleged robbery. His body was riddled with some twenty bullets. The murder was subsequently used by the press in Nazi Germany to discredit US critiques of its own persecution of Jews, Communists, and Catholics.

When World War II began, Fort Lauderdale became a major US base, with a Naval Air Station to train pilots, radar operators, and fire control, operators. A Coast Guard base at Port Everglades was also established.

On July 4, 1961, African Americans started a series of protests, wade-ins, at beaches that were off-limits to them, to protest "the failure of the county to build a road to the Negro beach". On July 11, 1962, a verdict by Ted Cabot went against the city's policy of racial segregation of public beaches.

Today, Fort Lauderdale is a major yachting center, one of the nation's largest tourist destinations, and the center of a metropolitan division with 1.8 million people.

Credit for the data above is given to the following website:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Lauderdale,_Florida

© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.

This year, we celebrated 40 years since the launch of NASA's twin Voyager probes -- the two farthest, fastest spacecraft currently in operation. Each Voyager has contributed an enormous amount of knowledge about the solar system, including the unexpected diversity of its planets and their moons. Among their many distinctions, Voyager 1 is the only spacecraft to enter interstellar space, and Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to fly by all four giant planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

This image shows a copy of the Golden Record each Voyager spacecraft carries, which has been featured in several works of science fiction. The record's protective cover, with instructions for playing its contents, is shown at left.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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NASA Media Usage Guidelines

La basilique Notre-Dame de Bonsecours est une basilique mineure catholique située à Bonsecours, près de Rouen sur le lieu d'un pèlerinage dédié à la Vierge Marie et dominant la métropole rouennaise.

Sur le mont Thuringe existe une très ancienne tradition de dévotion à Marie. Dès le XIème siècle, une chapelle est dédiée à la Vierge que l’on vient honorer sous le nom de «Notre Dame du Bon Secours ».

Cette chapelle deviendra église et paroisse au XIIIème siècle.

Les bateliers de Seine aimaient particulièrement s’y rendre en pèlerinage, c’est pourquoi il y avait dans la nef nombre de maquettes de bateaux suspendues en ex-voto.

On mentionne un pèlerinage de 50 000 personnes en 1552.

L’édifice subit beaucoup de modifications au cours des siècles, ainsi que de nombreuses destructions dues aux guerres de religion. A noter que, ruinée par la Révolution de 1789, elle conserve cependant sa pièce la plus importante et la plus vénérée : la statue de Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, œuvre anonyme en bois polychrome du XVIème siècle.

C’est en 1838 que l’abbé Godefroy fut chargé du projet de construction de l’église actuelle.

De nombreux évêchés de France et d’outre-mer, ainsi que ceux d’Antioche, de Babylone et d’Ispahan ont contribué, grâce à leurs dons, au financement de la construction.

La première pierre fut posée le 4 mai 1840 par le cardinal-prince de Croÿ. La première messe, célébrée le 15 août 1842, rassembla 20 000 fidèles des quatorze paroisses de Rouen.

Le privilège du «couronnement » fut accordé en 1870 par le pape Pie IX et le pape Benoît XV lui donne le titre de basilique mineure en 1919.

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The Basilica of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours is a minor Catholic basilica located in Bonsecours, near Rouen, on the site of a pilgrimage dedicated to the Virgin Mary and overlooking the Rouen metropolis.

Mount Thuringia has a long tradition of devotion to Mary. As early as the 11th century, a chapel was dedicated to the Virgin, whom people came to honor under the name of “Notre Dame du Bon Secours”.

This chapel became a church and parish in the 13th century.

The boatmen of the Seine were particularly fond of going there on pilgrimage, which is why there were a number of model boats hanging in the nave as ex-votos.

A pilgrimage of 50,000 people was reported in 1552.

The building underwent many modifications over the centuries, as well as destruction during the Wars of Religion. Although ruined by the Revolution of 1789, it has retained its most important and revered piece: the statue of Notre-Dame de Bonsecours, an anonymous work in polychrome wood dating from the 16th century.

In 1838, Abbé Godefroy was entrusted with the project to build the present church.

Numerous bishoprics in France and overseas, as well as those of Antioch, Babylon and Isfahan, contributed to the building's financing through donations.

The foundation stone was laid on May 4, 1840 by Cardinal-Prince de Croÿ. The first mass, celebrated on August 15, 1842, was attended by 20,000 faithful from Rouen's fourteen parishes.

The privilege of the “crown

via Instagram ift.tt/1P762op

Fort Lauderdale is a city in the U.S. state of Florida, 25 miles (40 km) north of Miami. It is the county seat of Broward County. As of the 2019 census, the city has an estimated population of 182,437. Fort Lauderdale is a principal city of the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to an estimated 6,198,782 people in 2018.

The city is a popular tourist destination, with an average year-round temperature of 75.5 °F (24.2 °C) and 3,000 hours of sunshine per year. Greater Fort Lauderdale which takes in all of Broward County hosted 12 million visitors in 2012, including 2.8 million international visitors. The city and county in 2012 collected $43.9 million from the 5% hotel tax it charges, after hotels in the area recorded an occupancy rate for the year of 72.7 percent and an average daily rate of $114.48. The district has 561 hotels and motels comprising nearly 35,000 rooms. Forty six cruise ships sailed from Port Everglades in 2012. Greater Fort Lauderdale has over 4,000 restaurants, 63 golf courses, 12 shopping malls, 16 museums, 132 nightclubs, 278 parkland campsites, and 100 marinas housing 45,000 resident yachts.

Fort Lauderdale is named after a series of forts built by the United States during the Second Seminole War. The forts took their name from Major William Lauderdale (1782–1838), younger brother of Lieutenant Colonel James Lauderdale. William Lauderdale was the commander of the detachment of soldiers who built the first fort. However, development of the city did not begin until 50 years after the forts were abandoned at the end of the conflict. Three forts named "Fort Lauderdale" were constructed; the first was at the fork of the New River, the second at Tarpon Bend on the New River between the Colee Hammock and Rio Vista neighborhoods, and the third near the site of the Bahia Mar Marina.

The area in which the city of Fort Lauderdale would later be founded was inhabited for more than two thousand years by the Tequesta Indians. Contact with Spanish explorers in the 16th century proved disastrous for the Tequesta, as the Europeans unwittingly brought with them diseases, such as smallpox, to which the native populations possessed no resistance. For the Tequesta, disease, coupled with continuing conflict with their Calusa neighbors, contributed greatly to their decline over the next two centuries. By 1763, there were only a few Tequesta left in Florida, and most of them were evacuated to Cuba when the Spanish ceded Florida to the British in 1763, under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1763), which ended the Seven Years' War. Although control of the area changed between Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Confederate States of America, it remained largely undeveloped until the 20th century.

The Fort Lauderdale area was known as the "New River Settlement" before the 20th century. In the 1830s there were approximately 70 settlers living along the New River. William Cooley, the local Justice of the Peace, was a farmer and wrecker, who traded with the Seminole Indians. On January 6, 1836, while Cooley was leading an attempt to salvage a wrecked ship, a band of Seminoles attacked his farm, killing his wife and children, and the children's tutor. The other farms in the settlement were not attacked, but all the white residents in the area abandoned the settlement, fleeing first to the Cape Florida Lighthouse on Key Biscayne, and then to Key West.

The first United States stockade named Fort Lauderdale was built in 1838, and subsequently was a site of fighting during the Second Seminole War. The fort was abandoned in 1842, after the end of the war, and the area remained virtually unpopulated until the 1890s. It was not until Frank Stranahan arrived in the area in 1893 to operate a ferry across the New River, and the Florida East Coast Railroad's completion of a route through the area in 1896, that any organized development began. The city was incorporated in 1911, and in 1915 was designated the county seat of newly formed Broward County.

Fort Lauderdale's first major development began in the 1920s, during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. The 1926 Miami Hurricane and the Great Depression of the 1930s caused a great deal of economic dislocation. In July 1935, an African-American man named Rubin Stacy was accused of robbing a white woman at knife point. He was arrested and being transported to a Miami jail when police were run off the road by a mob. A group of 100 white men proceeded to hang Stacy from a tree near the scene of his alleged robbery. His body was riddled with some twenty bullets. The murder was subsequently used by the press in Nazi Germany to discredit US critiques of its own persecution of Jews, Communists, and Catholics.

When World War II began, Fort Lauderdale became a major US base, with a Naval Air Station to train pilots, radar operators, and fire control, operators. A Coast Guard base at Port Everglades was also established.

On July 4, 1961, African Americans started a series of protests, wade-ins, at beaches that were off-limits to them, to protest "the failure of the county to build a road to the Negro beach". On July 11, 1962, a verdict by Ted Cabot went against the city's policy of racial segregation of public beaches.

Today, Fort Lauderdale is a major yachting center, one of the nation's largest tourist destinations, and the center of a metropolitan division with 1.8 million people.

Credit for the data above is given to the following website:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Lauderdale,_Florida

© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.

España - Ciudad Real - Almadén - Plaza de toros hexagonal

ENGLISH:

Building declared UNESCO World Heritage Site on june, 30th, 2012, unique in the world with its hexagonal shape and possibly the oldest bullring in Spain.

The construction of the Plaza de Toros of Almadén is closely linked to the San Rafael Royal Mining Hospital.

In early August 1752, the superintendent of the mines, which at the time was Mr. Francisco Javier de Villegas, given the frequent epidemics and high mortality among the population and forced laborers in the mines, proposed the foundation of the San Rafael Royal Mining Hospital.

These epidemics were motivated, among other reasons, by the housing shortage to accommodate the seasonal workers of the mines. This resulted in the construction of 24 houses shaping a hexagonal plaza with a dual purpose, to avoid overcrowding in the neighborhood - 4 or 5 families per house - which increased the risk of epidemics, and to contribute, with its rental, with money to build the Mining Hospital.

These 24 houses, in turn, formed a ring for the celebration of bullfighting festivals and was a meeting place for the general population, with a capacity of 4,000 people, investing likewise the income obtained in such celebrations in the construction of the San Rafael Royal Mining Hospital.

Another reason for the construction of the bullring was the spread of the mining works to the plaza where, up to then, the bullfighting celebrations had been taking place (currently Plaza de la Constitución). In fact, there is a winch (mineshaft) located in what today are the stairs to the Church of San Juan. For this reason, the arc located under Almadén Town Hall is known as “el toril", since it is the place where the bulls were enclosed. At the same time, and for the same reason, Antonio Blazquez Street is locally known under the name of "street of the bulls," as this is the street by where the bulls were brought to the pen to be enclosed.

Once the "Plaza Nueva" was built, the project of at least six annual bullfight festivals, with five or six bulls each, was established with the aim of raising revenue for the construction of the hospital.

The Villegas superintendent did not wait for the approval of his superiors to start working on the plaza. In an official statement on August 16, 1752 he reported the commencement of the construction, while requesting permission to hold the first bullfights celebration in order to get the first money to meet the loans granted for its construction by the town residents, mainly mine journeymen and members of the Charity Congregation.

These requests are approved by Royal Order of August 28, 1752. On April 4, 1753 all interior and exterior walls up to the first floor had been built in order to celebrate the first festivals. The rental of the houses, mainly intended for seasonal workers accommodation, began in late 1753 with only 8 inhabited houses and in 1755 more than half of them were inhabited and the number of occupants exceeded 200.

Between 1755 and 1757 the works were forced unemployment of the mine workers due to the fire that affected the mines, and which lasted for two and a half years. During this period, both the square and the hospital itself-which began its construction in November 1755- benefited from the use of a greater number of workers in an attempt to avoid a massive emigration.

The old houses are placed on two floors surrounding the arena, which is formed in turn by two galleries in height, being the lower built in whitewashed arcade and the upper by wooden columns and wooden structure holding elements. After their rehabilitation in 2003, still today important bullfighting festivals take place and it also houses the Bullfighting Museum, exhibition hall, Tourist Office, restaurant and hotel.

*******************************************************************************

ESPAÑOL:

La plaza de toros de Almadén, construida a partir de 1752, es única en el mundo por su forma HEXAGONAL, además está considerada como una de las plazas de toros más antigua de España.

La construcción originaria de la plaza de toros de Almadén, hay que vincularla a la construcción del Real Hospital de Mineros de San Rafael. El entonces superintendente de las Minas, D. Francisco Javier de Villegas, ante las reiteradas epidemias y alta mortandad que existía en la población y en los forzados que trabajaban en las minas, propone la fundación del Real Hospital de Mineros. Las epidemias y la falta de alojamientos, fueron motivo para que se construyeran veinticuatro VIVIENDAS en esta plaza hexagonal. Dichas viviendas tendrían una doble finalidad: evitar el hacinamiento de vecinos en las casas de la localidad, que estaba en cuatro o cinco familias por casa, lo que aumentaba el riesgo de epidemias y aportar dinero con el alquiler de las mismas, para la construcción del Hospital de Mineros. La plaza en sí, con capacidad para unas cuatro mil personas, se destinaría a la celebración de festejos taurinos y serviría de centro cívico de la población.

De dos pisos de altura, constituido por una sola manzana, integrada por veinticuatro viviendas al exterior con cubierta de teja acusada y curiosas e interesantes chimeneas; se mantiene el zócalo y el encalado, en su interior se diseñó la plaza de toros propiamente dicha, con dos alturas, la baja formada por arcos y la superior adintelada por soportes.

En 1754, Fernando VI prohibió la celebración de festejos taurinos en todo el Reino. Con esta disposición, pretendía la recuperación de la cabaña ganadera, diezmada por la sequía y las epidemias. Pero esta medida no afectó a Almadén, ya que el Superintendente Villegas, argumentando el destino benéfico de los ingresos, obtuvo una dispensa para la celebración de festejos.

Desde 1979 es Monumento Histórico Nacional y desde 2012 es Patrimonio de la Humanidad de la Unesco.

Actualmente es un edificio privado. Su última restauración finalizó en el año 2003, y hoy día se celebran importantes festejos taurinos, así como alberga sala de exposiciones, oficina de turismo, hotel y restaurante.

M4H 45/52: Vibrant. Not sure what's more vibrant: the beech tree leaves or the personalities of the two people who contributed to my being.

4" square collage made to contribute to May 13 Int'l Collage Day exhibit at Medstar Georgetown Univ. Hospital.

Mushrooms

Artist: Sylvie Fleury

It is as if these Mushrooms (2005-2006) literally shoot out of the ground like toadstools. Sylvie Fleury is fascinated by consumer culture and the surrounding superficiality and ostentatiousness. Brightly coloured and expanded to human-scale dimensions, the mushrooms are nearly psychedelic in effect. They become both objects as well as agents of desire asking to be touched, embraced and even tasted.

The building

In close cooperation with museum Voorlinden, Kraaijvanger Architects designed a building whose every aspect is arranged in service to the art. The elongated footprint consists of alternating planes of natural stone and transparent glass. The architecture of the museum actively contributes to the experience of nature inside the building.

Located at 215 North Elm Street, this former American Legion hall was built in 1934. The Art Deco edifice was named the Worsham Building, in honor of Lt. Arch D. Worsham. It contributes to the Henderson Commercial District, which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

Henderson is located in western Kentucky across the Ohio River from the city of Evansville, Indiana. It serves as the seat of Henderson County.

One of the larger displays at the Orchid Festival, in the Princess of Wales Conservatory, Kew Gardens, this one had orchids overhead representing the rain forest type of environment in parts of Colombia.

Scientists from Kew Gardens have been collaborating with Colombian colleagues on research into the very diverse flora of the country and ways in which they may contribute to solutions to the challenges of modern life.

A view of the south side of Lockhart's courthouse square. Shown here is the 100 block of E. Market St. as seen from S. Main St. The buildings shown in this view are contributing properties in the Caldwell County Courthouse Square Historic District listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

On the corner at 100 E. Market St. is the E. L. Bowden Building, built in 1889 for a hardware business. The facade has been much altered with plaster, however, the two-story commercial building still retains its original ornamental awning hooks across the front and down its entire west side.

Next door at 102 E. Market St. is the former First National Bank of Lockhart Building. Constructed in 1888, this two-story, three-bay stuccoed building has two one-story Doric columns sup- porting the central bay, while flanking pilasters terminate the sides. The original openings have been replaced, but the decorative molding over the first floor is still evident. The second floor contains a wide central window, flanked by narrower windows. An applied cornice with large double brackets and a triangular parapet crown the building.

The third building from the corner is the Flowers and Storey Building at 104-106 E. Market. Constructed in 1902, this building originally housed a barber shop and druggist's office.

The two-story, originally redbrick building is distinguished by the recessed entrance sheltered by an arcade of three round arches supported by two central Corinthian columns. The three-bay building is divided by brick pilasters on the second floor. Two round arched windows form the central bay, while flat arched windows form the end bays. These windows have been replaced with aluminum windows. The building is crowned by decorative corbelling and a parapet over the central bay.

When the building was built an agreement was made with the bank to the west to build and maintain a common stairway to each building's second floor. The first floor entrance has recently been bricked over, but the narrow round arched window on the second floor is still evident.

There are five other buildings in this block, but our view of them is obscured by a tree and light pole. The five buildings were all constructed between 1889 and 1910, and originally housed businesses including two saloons, a confectionery, barber shop, and storehouse.

Lockhart, a community of 14,811 at the 2020 census, is the seat of Caldwell County and is located just 30 miles south of the state capital in downtown Austin. Lockhart's square and downtown is filled with late 19th and early 20th century buildings, nearly all contributing properties to the historic district. The city's turn-of-the-century appearance has attracted the attention of film makers. Over 50 films for the theater and TV have been shot in whole or in part in Lockhart, including the 1996 Christopher Guest comedy film Waiting for Guffman and the 1993 drama What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

Contributing Building - St Cloud Downtown Historic District - National Register of Historic Places

NRIS #SG100009031

Built ca 1910

Style: Masonry Vernacular

St. Nicholas, patron saint of Lorraine.

He's portrayed here with the three young children he is said to have saved from a butcher - an episode that contributed to his status as a patron saint of children, as well as of Lorraine.

The importance of water.

The Tâmega River is a tributary of the Douro River. From Verín, in Spain, it flows south to Portuguese city of Chaves.

“Chaves Thermal Springs are located in Campo do Tabolado, in the right bank of the Tâmega river.

The thermal waters contributed greatly to the importance of the region during the roman times, as the name given to the town shows ‒ Aquae Flaviae” (in livingchaves.pt).

Two key climate change indicators -- global surface temperatures and Arctic sea ice extent -- have broken numerous records through the first half of 2016, according to NASA analyses of ground-based observations and satellite data.

Each of the first six months of 2016 set a record as the warmest respective month globally in the modern temperature record, which dates to 1880, according to scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The six-month period from January to June was also the planet's warmest half-year on record, with an average temperature 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.4 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than the late nineteenth century.

Read more: go.nasa.gov/29SQngq

Credit: NASA/Goddard

NASA image use policy.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.

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Honfleur is a commune in the Calvados department in Normandy en.normandie-tourisme.fr/normandy-tourism-109-2.html in northwestern France. It is located on the southern bank of the estuary of the Seine across from le Havre and very close to the exit of the Pont de Normandie. Its inhabitants are called Honfleurais. It is especially known for its old, beautiful picturesque port, characterized by its houses with slate-covered frontages, painted many times by artists, including in particular Gustave Courbet, Eugène Boudin, Claude Monet and Johan Jongkind, forming the école de Honfleur (Honfleur school) which contributed to the appearance of the Impressionist movement. The Sainte-Catherine church, which has a bell tower separate from the principal building, is the largest church made out of wood in France. The first written record of Honfleur is a reference by Richard III, Duke of Normandy, in 1027. By the middle of the 12th century, the city represented a significant transit point for goods from Rouen to England. Located on the estuary of one of the principal rivers of France with a safe harbour and relatively rich hinterland, Honfleur profited from its strategic position from the start of the Hundred Years' War. The town's defences were strengthened by Charles V in order to protect the estuary of the Seine from attacks from the English. This was supported by the nearby port of Harfleur. However, Honfleur was taken and occupied by the English in 1357 and from 1419 to 1450. When under French control, raiding parties often set out from the port to ransack the English coasts, including partially destroying the town of Sandwich, in Kent, England, in the 1450s. At the end of the Hundred Years' War, Honfleur benefited from the boom in maritime trade until the end of the 18th century. Trade was disturbed during the wars of religion in the 16th century. The port saw the departure of a number of explorers, in particular in 1503 of Binot Paulmierde Gonneville to the coasts of Brazil. In 1506, local man Jean Denis departed for Newfoundland island and the mouth of the Saint Lawrence. An expedition in 1608, organised by Samuel de Champlain, founded the city of Quebec in modern day Canada. After 1608, Honfleur thrived on trade with Canada, the West Indies, the African coasts and the Azores. As a result, the town became one of the five principal ports for the slave trade in France. During this time the rapid growth of the town saw the demolition of its fortifications on the orders of Colbert. The wars of the French revolution and the First Empire, and in particular the continental blockade, caused the ruin of Honfleur. It only partially recovered during the 19th century with the trading of wood from northern Europe. Trade was however limited by the silting up of the entrance to the port and development of the modern port at Le Havre. The port however still functions today. On August 25, 1944, Honfleur was liberated together by the British army - 19th Platoon of the 12th Devon's, 6th Air Landing Brigade, the Belgian army (Brigade Piron) on 25 August 1944.[1] and the Canadian army without any combat. en.normandie-tourisme.fr/articles/honfleur-278-2.html

Pieter Paul Rubens (Siegen, 28 June 1577 - Antwerp, 30 May 1640) - Apotheosis of Henry IV and the proclamation of the regency (1622) - preparatory sketchs for the cycle of Maria de 'Medici - Alte Pinakothek Munich

Maria de' Medici, che era stata la regina della Francia come consorte di Enrico IV, era al momento dell'esecuzione dei dipinti la regina madre e reggente, dato che il re Luigi XIII era salito al trono all'età di nove anni (nel 1610). L'ordinativo del quadro era stato fatto da Maria stessa, allo scopo di rafforzare la sua sovranità e legittimità. Il programma di tutta la serie era stato ideato dall'abate di Saint-Ambroise, ma ugualmente la Regina, il Cardinale Richelieu e il pittore stesso hanno contribuito al soggetto con le loro proposte.

Rubens disegnò gli schizzi a Parigi, ma l'esecuzione fu eseguita con l'aiuto di collaboratori ad Anversa. Mentre le immagini della serie sono conservate nel Louvre, i cartoni si trovano nella Alte Pinakothek di Monaco di Baviera.

Maria de 'Medici, who had been the queen of France as Henry IV's consort, was the queen mother and regent at the time of the paintings, given that King Louis XIII had ascended the throne at the age of nine (in 1610). The order for the painting had been made by Mary herself, in order to strengthen her sovereignty and legitimacy. The program of the whole series had been conceived by the abbot of Saint-Ambroise, but equally the Queen, Cardinal Richelieu and the painter himself contributed to the subject with their proposals.

Rubens drew the sketches in Paris, but the execution was carried out with the help of collaborators in Antwerp. While the images of the series are kept in the Louvre, the cartoons are found in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.

Sgraffito is an artisanal craft that contributes greatly to the unmistakable charm of the Engadin's villages.

Day by day our green world is getting warmer due to climate change. Let's raise your voice against pollution and contribute to build a green world for our new generation. Otherwise nature 'll take it's revenge and it is a must.

Fort Lauderdale is a city in the U.S. state of Florida, 25 miles (40 km) north of Miami. It is the county seat of Broward County. As of the 2019 census, the city has an estimated population of 182,437. Fort Lauderdale is a principal city of the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to an estimated 6,198,782 people in 2018.

The city is a popular tourist destination, with an average year-round temperature of 75.5 °F (24.2 °C) and 3,000 hours of sunshine per year. Greater Fort Lauderdale which takes in all of Broward County hosted 12 million visitors in 2012, including 2.8 million international visitors. The city and county in 2012 collected $43.9 million from the 5% hotel tax it charges, after hotels in the area recorded an occupancy rate for the year of 72.7 percent and an average daily rate of $114.48. The district has 561 hotels and motels comprising nearly 35,000 rooms. Forty six cruise ships sailed from Port Everglades in 2012. Greater Fort Lauderdale has over 4,000 restaurants, 63 golf courses, 12 shopping malls, 16 museums, 132 nightclubs, 278 parkland campsites, and 100 marinas housing 45,000 resident yachts.

Fort Lauderdale is named after a series of forts built by the United States during the Second Seminole War. The forts took their name from Major William Lauderdale (1782–1838), younger brother of Lieutenant Colonel James Lauderdale. William Lauderdale was the commander of the detachment of soldiers who built the first fort. However, development of the city did not begin until 50 years after the forts were abandoned at the end of the conflict. Three forts named "Fort Lauderdale" were constructed; the first was at the fork of the New River, the second at Tarpon Bend on the New River between the Colee Hammock and Rio Vista neighborhoods, and the third near the site of the Bahia Mar Marina.

The area in which the city of Fort Lauderdale would later be founded was inhabited for more than two thousand years by the Tequesta Indians. Contact with Spanish explorers in the 16th century proved disastrous for the Tequesta, as the Europeans unwittingly brought with them diseases, such as smallpox, to which the native populations possessed no resistance. For the Tequesta, disease, coupled with continuing conflict with their Calusa neighbors, contributed greatly to their decline over the next two centuries. By 1763, there were only a few Tequesta left in Florida, and most of them were evacuated to Cuba when the Spanish ceded Florida to the British in 1763, under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1763), which ended the Seven Years' War. Although control of the area changed between Spain, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Confederate States of America, it remained largely undeveloped until the 20th century.

The Fort Lauderdale area was known as the "New River Settlement" before the 20th century. In the 1830s there were approximately 70 settlers living along the New River. William Cooley, the local Justice of the Peace, was a farmer and wrecker, who traded with the Seminole Indians. On January 6, 1836, while Cooley was leading an attempt to salvage a wrecked ship, a band of Seminoles attacked his farm, killing his wife and children, and the children's tutor. The other farms in the settlement were not attacked, but all the white residents in the area abandoned the settlement, fleeing first to the Cape Florida Lighthouse on Key Biscayne, and then to Key West.

The first United States stockade named Fort Lauderdale was built in 1838, and subsequently was a site of fighting during the Second Seminole War. The fort was abandoned in 1842, after the end of the war, and the area remained virtually unpopulated until the 1890s. It was not until Frank Stranahan arrived in the area in 1893 to operate a ferry across the New River, and the Florida East Coast Railroad's completion of a route through the area in 1896, that any organized development began. The city was incorporated in 1911, and in 1915 was designated the county seat of newly formed Broward County.

Fort Lauderdale's first major development began in the 1920s, during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. The 1926 Miami Hurricane and the Great Depression of the 1930s caused a great deal of economic dislocation. In July 1935, an African-American man named Rubin Stacy was accused of robbing a white woman at knife point. He was arrested and being transported to a Miami jail when police were run off the road by a mob. A group of 100 white men proceeded to hang Stacy from a tree near the scene of his alleged robbery. His body was riddled with some twenty bullets. The murder was subsequently used by the press in Nazi Germany to discredit US critiques of its own persecution of Jews, Communists, and Catholics.

When World War II began, Fort Lauderdale became a major US base, with a Naval Air Station to train pilots, radar operators, and fire control, operators. A Coast Guard base at Port Everglades was also established.

On July 4, 1961, African Americans started a series of protests, wade-ins, at beaches that were off-limits to them, to protest "the failure of the county to build a road to the Negro beach". On July 11, 1962, a verdict by Ted Cabot went against the city's policy of racial segregation of public beaches.

Today, Fort Lauderdale is a major yachting center, one of the nation's largest tourist destinations, and the center of a metropolitan division with 1.8 million people.

Credit for the data above is given to the following website:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Lauderdale,_Florida

© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.

Dug out of the archive to contribute to a photo club theme entitled "Hands and Feet". Taken on July 12th, 2008 at my home when I lived in the Charente, France. The adult finger is my left index finger and the tiny hand clutching it is my grand-daughter Hermione's. Dicey shot: I had to hold the camera in the other hand to take the shot.

Type 'l' to view in flickr's 'Lightbox". Repeat to return.

Personal ref: 20080712-DSC_4569-SmallForWebBWversion.

Fort Lauderdale is a city in the U.S. state of Florida, 25 miles (40 km) north of Miami. It is the county seat of Broward County. As of the 2019 census, the city has an estimated population of 182,437. Fort Lauderdale is a principal city of the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to an estimated 6,198,782 people in 2018.

The city is a popular tourist destination, with an average year-round temperature of 75.5 °F (24.2 °C) and 3,000 hours of sunshine per year. Greater Fort Lauderdale which takes in all of Broward County hosted 12 million visitors in 2012, including 2.8 million international visitors. The city and county in 2012 collected $43.9 million from the 5% hotel tax it charges, after hotels in the area recorded an occupancy rate for the year of 72.7 percent and an average daily rate of $114.48. The district has 561 hotels and motels comprising nearly 35,000 rooms. Forty six cruise ships sailed from Port Everglades in 2012. Greater Fort Lauderdale has over 4,000 restaurants, 63 golf courses, 12 shopping malls, 16 museums, 132 nightclubs, 278 parkland campsites, and 100 marinas housing 45,000 resident yachts.

Fort Lauderdale is named after a series of forts built by the United States during the Second Seminole War. The forts took their name from Major William Lauderdale (1782–1838), younger brother of Lieutenant Colonel James Lauderdale. William Lauderdale was the commander of the detachment of soldiers who built the first fort. However, development of the city did not begin until 50 years after the forts were abandoned at the end of the conflict. Three forts named "Fort Lauderdale" were constructed; the first was at the fork of the New River, the second at Tarpon Bend on the New River between the Colee Hammock and Rio Vista neighborhoods, and the third near the site of the Bahia Mar Marina.

The area in which the city of Fort Lauderdale would later be founded was inhabited for more than two thousand years by the Tequesta Indians. Contact with Spanish explorers in the 16th century proved disastrous for the Tequesta, as the Europeans unwittingly brought with them diseases, such as smallpox, to which the native populations possessed no resistance. For the Tequesta, disease, coupled with continuing conflict with their Calusa neighbors, contributed greatly to their decline over the next two centuries. By 1763, there were only a few Tequesta left in Florida, and most of them were evacuated to Cuba when the Spanish ceded Florida to the British in 1763, under the terms of the Treaty of Paris (1763), which ended the Seven Years' War. Although control of the area changed between Spain, United Kingdom, the United States, and the Confederate States of America, it remained largely undeveloped until the 20th century.

The Fort Lauderdale area was known as the "New River Settlement" before the 20th century. In the 1830s there were approximately 70 settlers living along the New River. William Cooley, the local Justice of the Peace, was a farmer and wrecker, who traded with the Seminole Indians. On January 6, 1836, while Cooley was leading an attempt to salvage a wrecked ship, a band of Seminoles attacked his farm, killing his wife and children, and the children's tutor. The other farms in the settlement were not attacked, but all the white residents in the area abandoned the settlement, fleeing first to the Cape Florida Lighthouse on Key Biscayne, and then to Key West.

The first United States stockade named Fort Lauderdale was built in 1838, and subsequently was a site of fighting during the Second Seminole War. The fort was abandoned in 1842, after the end of the war, and the area remained virtually unpopulated until the 1890s. It was not until Frank Stranahan arrived in the area in 1893 to operate a ferry across the New River, and the Florida East Coast Railroad's completion of a route through the area in 1896, that any organized development began. The city was incorporated in 1911, and in 1915 was designated the county seat of newly formed Broward County.

Fort Lauderdale's first major development began in the 1920s, during the Florida land boom of the 1920s. The 1926 Miami Hurricane and the Great Depression of the 1930s caused a great deal of economic dislocation. In July 1935, an African-American man named Rubin Stacy was accused of robbing a white woman at knife point. He was arrested and being transported to a Miami jail when police were run off the road by a mob. A group of 100 white men proceeded to hang Stacy from a tree near the scene of his alleged robbery. His body was riddled with some twenty bullets. The murder was subsequently used by the press in Nazi Germany to discredit US critiques of its own persecution of Jews, Communists, and Catholics.

When World War II began, Fort Lauderdale became a major US base, with a Naval Air Station to train pilots, radar operators, and fire control, operators. A Coast Guard base at Port Everglades was also established.

On July 4, 1961, African Americans started a series of protests, wade-ins, at beaches that were off-limits to them, to protest "the failure of the county to build a road to the Negro beach". On July 11, 1962, a verdict by Ted Cabot went against the city's policy of racial segregation of public beaches.

Today, Fort Lauderdale is a major yachting center, one of the nation's largest tourist destinations, and the center of a metropolitan division with 1.8 million people.

Credit for the data above is given to the following website:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Lauderdale,_Florida

© All Rights Reserved - you may not use this image in any form without my prior permission.

shot with the latest iPhone (perhaps processed in one or more desktop or iOS apps) and finished in photoshop.

an ongoing project contributing to my pocket project flickr set.

"Klimalab" (climate lab) is a workshop for young people, where they discuss over four evenings their proposals on how the municipality can best contribute to a more climate-friendly future. Well-known professionals and debaters will participate in the workshop. As a prelude, the municipality's climate officer, together with two youth representatives, went to schools and educational institutions to recruit participants aged 14-24. To make it more entertaining, the factual information was constantly sabotaged by "climate nut" Gerhard, who argued that young people should not worry and just increase their consumption.

Baltorpskolen, Ballerup.

Puzzle Piece It was designed by Gerald Gasson, a board member of the UK's National Autistic Society in 1963. Just as a puzzle piece is unique and fits into a larger picture, this symbol is meant to represent how each individual with autism contributes their own unique qualities to society.

How ever There are claims of the puzzle piece symbol being harmful and offensive to people with autism – and because of that, the use of the puzzle piece has caused a lot of backlash.

According to many people with autism, the whole ‘missing piece’ idea is problematic. It implies that there is something about the person that is incomplete and that they need fixing. Autistic people don’t need to be fixed, they need to be celebrated.

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Autism is a spectrum condition and affects people in different ways. Like all people, autistic people have their own strengths and weaknesses.

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lets not ostracize folks because they have different ways of communicating or different behaviour patterns. Lets support them learn from them and love them.

My grandson is autistic and he is the brightest flame in my life and the happiest little lad I have ever known xxx

~

ai/gimp/pixlr

Simon Vouet (Paris, January 9, 1590 - Paris, June 30, 1649) - Aeneas and his father fleeing Troy (1635) - oil on canvas 140.34 x 110.01 cm - SDMA San Diego Museum of Art

Fu uno dei maggiori esponenti del caravaggismo prima di ritornare in Francia nel 1627 dove fece evolvere il suo stile e contribuì all'introduzione del barocco italiano in Francia, in particolare quello di Paolo Veronese, del Tiziano e dei Carracci, adattandolo alle grandi decorazioni dell'epoca di Luigi XIII e di Richelieu. Fu nominato primo pittore del re, e lo stesso Luigi XIII gli commissionò ritratti, cartoni per le tappezzerie e pitture per i palazzi del Louvre, del Lussemburgo e per il Castello di Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

Il suo allievo più influente è stato Charles Le Brun, che ha realizzato tutte le decorazioni degli interni a Versailles e ha portato lo stile di Vouet alla corte di Luigi XIV di Francia.

Tra gli altri studenti di Vouet si ricordano Valentin de Boulogne (figura principale dei francesi "caravaggeschi"), Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy, Pierre Mignard, Eustache Le Sueur, Chaperon Nicolas, Claude Mellan e il fiammingo Abraham Willaerts.

He was one of the major exponents of Caravaggism before returning to France in 1627 where he evolved his style and contributed to the introduction of Italian Baroque into France, in particular that of Paolo Veronese, Titian and the Carraccis, adapting it to the great decorations of the time of Louis XIII and Richelieu. He was appointed first painter of the king, and Louis XIII himself commissioned portraits, cartoons for the tapestries and paintings for the palaces of the Louvre, Luxembourg and the Castle of Saint-Germain-en-Laye.

His most influential pupil was Charles Le Brun, who did all the interior decoration at Versailles and brought Vouet's style to the court of Louis XIV of France.

Vouet's other students included Valentin de Boulogne (a leading figure of the French "Caravaggesque" painters), Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy, Pierre Mignard, Eustache Le Sueur, Chaperon Nicolas, Claude Mellan, and the Flemish Abraham Willaerts.

I hope you'll enjoy the my images as much as I enjoyed taking them.

When I get out of the water, I'm so happy - 5 Goose gosling they often bite each other little wings and feet. Sometimes they wrestled among themselves. It was the first time I watched them chasing and fighting each other. Greylag Geese was following the family around made the father very uneasy. The sun emerging through the clouds this morning contributed to the colours on my photos from time to time.

Quick note - Sorry I know a little too much for the 15 Goose gosling photo series.

Canada goose gosling - The baby geese, called goslings, take about a month to hatch. Hatchlings are covered with yellowish down and their eyes are open. They leave the nest when 1-2 days old, depending on weather, and can walk, swim, feed, and even dive. They have enough energy remaining in their yolk sac to survive 2 days before feeding. Babies are covered with soft feathers called down. They hatch with their eyes open and will leave the nest within 24 hours, following their parents. Goslings can swim right away. In less than two months, the goslings grow adult feathers and learn to fly.

How many goslings can Canadian geese have?

Gang broods may range from 20 to 100 goslings following just a few adults. Gang broods are more common in areas of high nest density. Family groups of parents, that year's offspring, and sometimes 1 or 2 of the previous year's goslings stay together well into the winter.

How long before baby geese can fly?

Eggs hatch after 25 to 30 days of incubation. The young, called goslings, can walk, swim, and feed within 24 hours. Both parents (especially the gander) vigorously defend the goslings until they are able to fly, which is at about ten weeks. The young geese remain with their family group for about one year.

Do Canadian geese return to the same place every year?

Nest sites are chosen to offer some protection from exposure to wind while giving the incubating female a clear line of sight to detect approaching predators. Female Canada Geese always return to nest in the same area where their parents nested and often use the same nest site year after year.

In spring and summer, geese concentrate their feeding on grasses and sedges, including skunk cabbage leaves and eelgrass. During fall and winter, they rely more on berries and seeds, including agricultural grains, and seem especially fond of blueberries. They’re very efficient at removing kernels from dry corn cobs. Two subspecies have adapted to urban environments and graze on domesticated grasses year round.

Thank you so much for visiting my stream, whether you comments , favorites or just have a look.

I appreciate it very much, wishing the best of luck and good light.

© All rights reserved R.Ertug Please do not use this image without my explicit written permission. Contact me by Flickr mail if you want to buy or use Your comments and critiques are very well appreciated.

Lens - hand held or Monopod and definitely SPORT VR on. Aperture is f5.6 and full length. All my images have been converted from RAW to JPEG.

I started using Nikon Cross-Body Strap or Monopod on long walks. Here is my Carbon Monopod details : Gitzo GM2542 Series 2 4S Carbon Monopod - Really Right Stuff MH-01 Monopod Head with Standard Lever - Really Right Stuff LCF-11 Replacement Foot for Nikon AF-S 500mm /5.6E PF Lense -

Thanks for stopping and looking :)

These are charming thatched cottages in the village of Micheldever, Hampshire, England. This picturesque village is renowned for its well-preserved, historic thatched and timber-framed cottages, offering a glimpse into traditional English rural life.

Micheldever boasts some very old thatched cottages, with structures like Shillingbury and Corner Cottage dating back to the 15th century (around 1453), making them among the oldest in the village.

The cottages here showcase classic English architectural styles, with features such as exposed timber frames, unique thatch patterns, and in some cases, distinctive elements like the thatch griffin on Griffin Cottage. The village setting, with its traditional pubs and historic buildings like the former bake house and post office, contributes to the idyllic atmosphere surrounding these cottages.

Micheldever is located in Hampshire, southern England, offering a peaceful rural escape while remaining within reach of larger towns and attractions in the region.

The village and civil parish is situated 10 km north of Winchester. It lies upon the River Dever.

The river, and village, formerly part of Stratton Park (Not to be confused with Stratton Park in Kempshott, Basingstoke), lie on a Hampshire grass downland, underlain with chalk and flint. Parts of the river now disappear in summer through lack of replenishment, evaporation and, more specifically, the porous nature of the bedrock.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micheldever

In the remote depths of the wood, every detail contribute to the beauty of the scene. Even the sign of time and season. Every element mixes up with harmony in the simplest views.

Nella remota profondità del bosco, ogni dettaglio contribuisce alla bellezza della scena. Anche i segni del tempo e della stagione. Ogni elemento si mescola con armonia nei modi più semplici.

We all are so different and yet essentially the same, and that's what makes life unique… the way every culture contributes to the verse.

Four wheel bulk cement wagons (nicknamed "Bubbles") at Kildare Train Station. See the comments below for a ton of information from Flying Snail on these Bubbles...

Ellen-Mai contributed that these cement trains "used to go to Cement factory at Carnlough Road, Cabra West, Dublin 7. The tracks ran under Cabra Road", and Flying Snail confirmed that Cabra "was the main terminal for bulk cement in Dublin. They would travel via the tunnel under Phoenix Park having diverged from the Cork line at Islandbridge Jct."

Thanks for a countrywide perspective on bulk cement depots from david.geraghty:

"Cabra was a storage depot (road tankers would be filled here for local delivery to concrete plants etc) that was served by the factory at Platin. Athy was served by the factory at Limerick until March 2005. Athy is the Tegral roof tile factory, it used a special type of cement. Other bulk depots around the country were; Cork, Athenry, Sligo, Tullamore & Belfast. Sadly no more."

Date: Saturday, 14 January 1967

NLI Ref.: ODEA 43/11

Nova

Stars are essentially giant fusion reactions occurring in the vacuum of space. Because stars have so much mass, they possess powerful gravitational force—but they don’t collapse because of the outward force generated by nuclear fusion, continually converting hydrogen atoms to helium.

Sometimes stars begin orbiting each other, forming a binary star system. Typically this involves a white dwarf star and a red giant. Orbiting the red giant like a moon, the dwarf star rips matter from its companion until it essentially gags on the excess, coughing hot gas and radiation into space. This dramatic phenomenon is relatively common, and the white dwarf is not destroyed in the resulting nova.

To learn more about x-ray emissions, read about NASA’s Chandra mission: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/main/

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Original caption: In Hollywood blockbusters, explosions are often among the stars of the show. In space, explosions of actual stars are a focus for scientists who hope to better understand their births, lives, and deaths and how they interact with their surroundings.

Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have studied one particular explosion that may provide clues to the dynamics of other, much larger stellar eruptions.

A team of researchers pointed the telescope at GK Persei, an object that became a sensation in the astronomical world in 1901 when it suddenly appeared as one of the brightest stars in the sky for a few days, before gradually fading away in brightness. Today, astronomers cite GK Persei as an example of a “classical nova,” an outburst produced by a thermonuclear explosion on the surface of a white dwarf star, the dense remnant of a Sun-like star.

Read Full Article: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/mini-supernova-explosi...

NASA image use policy.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.

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Der Froschteich ist ein künstliches Teich, welcher ca. 1896 ausgehoben wurde, um zur Verschönerung des Rosentales beizutragen. Die Erdmassen wurden u. A. für den angrenzenden Erdhügel "Mont Scherbeli" auf dem der Aussichtsturm steht, verwendet.

Rear Rosentalteich (frog pond) in the Rosental of Leipzig.

The frog pond is an artificial pond, which was dug around 1896 to contribute to the beautification of the rose valley. The masses of earth were used, among other things, for the adjoining mound of earth "Mont Scherbeli" on which the observation tower stands.

Arrière Rosentalteich (étang à grenouilles) dans le Rosental de Leipzig.

I did this several months ago but thought I would put it on the old flickr page.

I was asked recently to contribute to a great cause. My friend and fantastic artist Frank Chimero and 9 other artist visited Vietnam orphanages and helped paint some murals and do other good deeds. While there, they asked the kids to do some drawings and then brought back and paired them with an artist to do their own version of the drawing back home in the states. All drawings were on display for a gallery show and auction for the orphanage.

You can buy this 11x17 screenprint on wood here: www.tadcarpenter.com/store/art-prints/back-to-kids-print/?