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Anthony Smith (explorer)
Anthony John Francis Smith (30 March 1926 – 7 July 2014) was, among other things, a writer, sailor, balloonist and former ''Tomorrow's World'' television presenter. He was perhaps best known for his bestselling work ''The Body'' (originally published in 1968 and later renamed ''The Human Body''), which has sold over 800,000 copies worldwide and tied in with a BBC television series, ''The Human Body'', known in America by the name '' Intimate Universe: The Human Body''. The series aired in 1998 and was presented by Professor Robert Winston. Life and work Smith read zoology at Balliol College, Oxford, became a pilot in the RAF and went on to write as a science correspondent for ''The Daily Telegraph''. He also worked extensively in both television and radio, writing for several natural history programmes. Smith's first expedition was to Persia, exploring the Qanat underground irrigation tunnels. This expedition was documented in his book ''Blind White Fish in Persia''; a sp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ali Akbar Abdolrashidi
Ali Akbar Abdolrashidi (Persian: علیاکبر عبدالرشیدی) (born 9 July 1949 in Kerman) is an Iranian intellectual, journalist, writer, traveler, television host, translator, and university lecturer. During his lengthy career as a journalist, Abdolrashidi conducted hundreds of television interviews with notable international figures, such as Fidel Castro, Rajiv Gandhi, and Muammar al-Gaddafi. For most of his career, Abdolrashidi has worked for the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB). Early career Abdolrashidi started his career in the early 1960s, while still a teenager. It was then that he began to work for a radio station in Kerman. Following this, he joined the national radio network as a researcher, working for a weekly program on folklore. Journalism On becoming competent in English, he joined the news and current-affairs department and worked as a translator of newswires. After seven years, he became the London-based correspondent of the IRIB in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmenistan to the north, by Afghanistan and Pakistan to the east, and by the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf to the south. It covers an area of , making it the 17th-largest country. Iran has a population of 86 million, making it the 17th-most populous country in the world, and the second-largest in the Middle East. Its largest cities, in descending order, are the capital Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Karaj, Shiraz, and Tabriz. The country is home to one of the world's oldest civilizations, beginning with the formation of the Elamite kingdoms in the fourth millennium BC. It was first unified by the Medes, an ancient Iranian people, in the seventh century BC, and reached its territorial height in the sixth century BC, when Cyrus the Great founded ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eleuthera
Eleuthera () refers both to a single island in the archipelagic state of The Commonwealth of the Bahamas and to its associated group of smaller islands. Eleuthera forms a part of the Great Bahama Bank. The island of Eleuthera incorporates the smaller Harbour Island. "Eleuthera" derives from the feminine form of the Greek adjective ἐλεύθερος (''eleútheros''), meaning "free". Known in the 17th century as Cigateo, it lies 80 km (50 miles) east of Nassau. It is long and thin—180 km (110 miles) long and in places little more than 1.6 km (1.0 mile) wide. Its eastern side faces the Atlantic Ocean, and its western side faces the Great Bahama Bank. The topography of the island varies from wide rolling pink sand beaches to large outcrops of ancient coral reefs, and its population is approximately 11,000. The principal economy of the island is tourism. Geography and wildlife The name Eleuthera refers both to the single Bahamian island and is also used to refe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Auxiliary Cruiser Widder
''Widder'' (HSK 3) was an auxiliary cruiser (''Hilfskreuzer'') of Nazi Germany's '' Kriegsmarine'' that was used as a merchant raider in the Second World War. Her Kriegsmarine designation was Schiff 21, to the Royal Navy she was Raider D. The name ''Widder'' (Ram) represents the constellation Aries in German. Early history Built for HAPAG, the Hamburg America Line, at Howaldtswerke, Kiel, she was launched in 1930 as the freighter ''Neumark''. After an uneventful career she was requisitioned by the '' Kriegsmarine'' for use as a commerce raider. She was converted for this purpose by Blohm & Voss in late 1939, and commissioned as the raider ''Widder'' on 9 December of that year. She sailed on her first and only raiding voyage in May 1940. Raider voyage ''Widder'' sailed as part of the Kriegsmarine's first wave of commerce raiders, sailing on 6 May 1940 under the command of ''Korvettenkapitän'' (later ''Fregattenkapitän'') Helmuth von Ruckteschell. Leaving Germany on 6 May 1940, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SS Anglo Saxon (1929)
SS ''Anglo Saxon'' was a cargo ship carrying coal from Wales to Argentina that was sunk by the on 21 August 1940. Several of the crew managed to get in a jolly boat, an all purpose small boat that could also be used as a lifeboat. It carried the surviving members of the ship's crew west across the Atlantic Ocean for 70 days, before finally landing in Eleuthera. By the time the jolly boat made landfall, only two of the seven survivors of the attack were still alive. Ship description The 5,596 ton merchant ship SS ''Anglo Saxon'' filled up with coal at Newport Docks and left for Bahia Blanca, Argentina on 6 August 1940 with 41 officers and crew. She had a single deck gun. A day later she called at Milford Haven, and on 8 August joined the outward-bound Liverpool Convoy OB 195. Sinking On 21 August 1940, some 800 miles west of the Canary Islands at 20:20 hours, the ''Widder'' approached the ''Anglo Saxon'' in pitch darkness and opened fire from a range of approximately one mile. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Imperial War Museum
Imperial War Museums (IWM) is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was intended to record the civil and military war effort and sacrifice of Britain and British Empire, its Empire during the First World War. The museum's remit has since expanded to include all conflicts in which British or Commonwealth forces have been involved since 1914. As of 2012, the museum aims "to provide for, and to encourage, the study and understanding of the history of modern war and 'wartime experience'." Originally housed in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham Hill, the museum opened to the public in 1920. In 1924, the museum moved to space in the Imperial Institute in South Kensington, and finally in 1936, the museum acquired a permanent home that was previously the Bethlem Royal Hospital in Southwark. The outbreak of the Second World War saw the museum expand both its coll ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alps
The Alps () ; german: Alpen ; it, Alpi ; rm, Alps ; sl, Alpe . are the highest and most extensive mountain range system that lies entirely in Europe, stretching approximately across seven Alpine countries (from west to east): France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany, and Slovenia. The Alpine arch generally extends from Nice on the western Mediterranean to Trieste on the Adriatic and Vienna at the beginning of the Pannonian Basin. The mountains were formed over tens of millions of years as the African and Eurasian tectonic plates collided. Extreme shortening caused by the event resulted in marine sedimentary rocks rising by thrust fault, thrusting and Fold (geology), folding into high mountain peaks such as Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn. Mont Blanc spans the French–Italian border, and at is the highest mountain in the Alps. The Alpine region area contains 128 peaks higher than List of Alpine four-thousanders, . The altitude and size of the range af ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ngorongoro
The Ngorongoro Conservation Area (, ) is a protected area and a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Ngorongoro District, west of Arusha City in Arusha Region, within the Crater Highlands geological area of northern Tanzania. The area is named after Ngorongoro Crater, a large volcanic caldera within the area. The Ngorongoro Conservation Area Authority administers the conservation area, an arm of the Tanzanian government, and its boundaries follow the boundary of the Ngorongoro District in Arusha Region. The western portion of the park abuts the Serengeti National Park (also a UNESCO World Heritage Site), and the area comprising the two parks and Kenya's Maasai Mara game reserve is home to Great Migration, a massive annual migration of millions of wildebeest, zebras, gazelles, and other animals. The conservation area also contains Olduvai Gorge, one of the most important paleoanthropological sites in the world. The 2009 Ngorongoro Wildlife Conservation Act placed new rest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zanzibar
Zanzibar (; ; ) is an insular semi-autonomous province which united with Tanganyika in 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania. It is an archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of many small islands and two large ones: Unguja (the main island, referred to informally as Zanzibar) and Pemba Island. The capital is Zanzibar City, located on the island of Unguja. Its historic centre, Stone Town, is a World Heritage Site. Zanzibar's main industries are spices, raffia and tourism. In particular, the islands produce cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, and black pepper. For this reason, the Zanzibar Archipelago, together with Tanzania's Mafia Island, are sometimes referred to locally as the "Spice Islands". Tourism in Zanzibar is a more recent activity, driven by government promotion that caused an increase from 19,000 tourists in 1985, to 376,000 in 2016. The islands are accessible via 5 ports and the Abeid Amani Karume International Airpor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hydrogen Balloon
Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, and highly combustible. Hydrogen is the most abundant chemical substance in the universe, constituting roughly 75% of all normal matter.However, most of the universe's mass is not in the form of baryons or chemical elements. See dark matter and dark energy. Stars such as the Sun are mainly composed of hydrogen in the plasma state. Most of the hydrogen on Earth exists in molecular forms such as water and organic compounds. For the most common isotope of hydrogen (symbol 1H) each atom has one proton, one electron, and no neutrons. In the early universe, the formation of protons, the nuclei of hydrogen, occurred during the first second after the Big Bang. The emergence of neutral hydrogen atoms throughout the universe occurred about 370,000 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alan Root
Alan Root (12 May 1937, London – 26 August 2017) was a British-born filmmaker who worked on nature documentary series such as ''Survival''. Until 1990 he was married to Joan Root, who was a Kenyan-born conservationist, murdered at Lake Naivasha in 2006. The couple had produced ''National Geographic'' articles together from 1963 to 1971 on animals, Galapagos Islands, and mainly African wildlife. Notable films include: ''The Year of the Wildebeest'' (1974), ''Safari by Balloon'' (1975), ''Mysterious Castles of Clay'' (1978), ''Two in the Bush'' (1980) and ''A Season in the Sun'' (1983). Alan Root's strong narrative style characterised much of ''Survival’s'' output and helped shape a sophisticated genre known as Blue Chip films. '' The Year of the Wildebeest'' was the epic story of the thundering migration of wildebeest herds across the plains of the Serengeti. '' Mysterious Castles of Clay'', by contrast, showed wildlife in intricate detail in and around termite mounds, revea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Douglas Botting
Douglas Scott Botting (22 February 1934 – 6 February 2018) was an English explorer, author, biographer and TV presenter and producer. He wrote biographies of naturalists Gavin Maxwell and Gerald Durrell (the former also being a personal friend). Botting was the inspiration behind and writer of the 1972 film '' The Black Safari'', a role-reversal parody of English explorers, with Africans touring England, shown in the BBC 2 documentary series '' The World About Us''. He also featured in much other BBC programming, including ''Under London Expedition'' exploring the London sewerage system, as part of the BBC2 nature series '' The World About Us''. He wrote numerous Second World War and early aviation books for Time Life Books. Botting took part, with Anthony Smith, in the first balloon flight over Africa. Biography Botting was born in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey; he lived in and went to school in Worcester Park. Having witnessed the London Blitz first-hand, he went on to m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
