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Diamond Shoal Light
Diamond Shoal Light is an inactive offshore lighthouse marking Diamond Shoals off Cape Hatteras. History Diamond Shoals, which extend many miles out from Cape Hatteras, is considered to be one of the most dangerous spots on the Atlantic seaboard. While a light was exhibited from the cape itself from 1804, its range was insufficient, and a lightship was stationed on the shoal itself in 1824. It was driven off station numerous times, eventually being wrecked near Ocracoke Inlet in 1827. Various buoys were placed beginning in 1852, but all were short-lived. In 1889 Congress authorized construction of a permanent lighthouse on the shoal, at a cost not to exceed $500,000. The firm of Anderson & Barr, which had constructed the Fourteen Foot Bank Light in Delaware Bay in 1885-1887, was awarded the contract. A caisson was constructed in Norfolk, Virginia and towed to the site in June 1891. It was sunk into the shoal on July 1 and immediately began to tilt due to the sandy bottom and s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lighthouse
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways. Lighthouses mark dangerous coastlines, hazardous shoals, reefs, rocks, and safe entries to harbors; they also assist in aerial navigation. Once widely used, the number of operational lighthouses has declined due to the expense of maintenance and has become uneconomical since the advent of much cheaper, more sophisticated and effective electronic navigational systems. History Ancient lighthouses Before the development of clearly defined ports, mariners were guided by fires built on hilltops. Since elevating the fire would improve the visibility, placing the fire on a platform became a practice that led to the development of the lighthouse. In antiquity, the lighthouse functioned more as an entrance marker to ports than as a warning signal for reefs a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Park Service
The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational properties with various title designations. The U.S. Congress created the agency on August 25, 1916, through the National Park Service Organic Act. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C., within the main headquarters of the Department of the Interior. The NPS employs approximately 20,000 people in 423 individual units covering over 85 million acres in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and US territories. As of 2019, they had more than 279,000 volunteers. The agency is charged with a dual role of preserving the ecological and historical integrity of the places entrusted to its management while also making them available and accessible for public use and enjoyment. History Yellowstone National Park was created as the first national par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
UNC Press
The University of North Carolina Press (or UNC Press), founded in 1922, is a university press that is part of the University of North Carolina. It was the first university press founded in the Southern United States. It is a member of the Association of University Presses (AUPresses) and publishes both scholarly and general-interest books and journals. According to its website, UNC Press advances "the University of North Carolina's triple mission of teaching, research, and public service by publishing first-rate books and journals for students, scholars, and general readers." It receives support from the state of North Carolina and the contributions of individual and institutional donors who created its endowment. Its headquarters are located in Chapel Hill. History In 1922, on the campus of the nation's oldest state university, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, thirteen educators and civic leaders met to charter a publishing house. Their creation, the University of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lighthouse Digest
''Lighthouse Digest'', a specialty magazine from FogHorn Publishing in East Machias, Maine, is about maritime history with particular attention to the preservation of lighthouses and their past. Though it is geared toward enthusiasts and antiquarians in the United States, it is also quoted commonly in more academic publications, and its editors have become a staple presence in scholarly circles. Editor Tim Harrison issued the first number in May, 1992. Scope Coverage includes historic and current lighthouse events and an events calendar for lighthouse activities around the United States and elsewhere. They publish a "Doomsday List" of Endangered lighthouses, and have helped save a number of at-risk lighthouses. They have been credited with uncovering many parts of lighthouse history that had been unknown, or which were thought to have been lost. Each issue carries articles and unusual lighthouse-related stories that, for the most part, cannot be found elsewhere, and many phot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Houghton Mifflin
The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often vocalize it as star (as, for example, in ''the A* search algorithm'' or '' C*-algebra''). In English, an asterisk is usually five- or six-pointed in sans-serif typefaces, six-pointed in serif typefaces, and six- or eight-pointed when handwritten. Its most common use is to call out a footnote. It is also often used to censor offensive words. In computer science, the asterisk is commonly used as a wildcard character, or to denote pointers, repetition, or multiplication. History The asterisk has already been used as a symbol in ice age cave paintings. There is also a two thousand-year-old character used by Aristarchus of Samothrace called the , , which he used when proofreading Homeric poetry to mark lines that were duplicated. Origen is kn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Star Tribune
The ''Star Tribune'' is the largest newspaper in Minnesota. It originated as the ''Minneapolis Tribune'' in 1867 and the competing ''Minneapolis Daily Star'' in 1920. During the 1930s and 1940s, Minneapolis's competing newspapers were consolidated, with the ''Tribune'' published in the morning and the ''Star'' in the evening. They merged in 1982, creating the ''Star and Tribune'', and it was renamed to ''Star Tribune'' in 1987. After a tumultuous period in which the newspaper was sold and re-sold and filed for bankruptcy protection in 2009, it was purchased by local businessman Glen Taylor in 2014. The ''Star Tribune'' serves Minneapolis and is distributed throughout the Minneapolis–Saint Paul metropolitan area, the state of Minnesota and the Upper Midwest. It typically contains a mixture of national, international and local news, sports, business and lifestyle content. Journalists from the ''Star Tribune'' and its predecessor newspapers have won seven Pulitzer Prizes. Histor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Charlotte Observer
''The Charlotte Observer'' is an American English-language newspaper serving Charlotte, North Carolina, and its metro area. The Observer was founded in 1886. As of 2020, it has the second-largest circulation of any newspaper in the Carolinas. It is owned by Chatham Asset Management. Overview ''The Observer'' primarily serves Charlotte and Mecklenburg County and the surrounding counties of Iredell, Cabarrus, Union, Lancaster, York, Gaston, Catawba, and Lincoln. Home delivery service in outlying counties has declined in recent years, with delivery times growing later as the paper has outsourced circulation services outside the primary Charlotte area. Circulation at ''The Charlotte Observer'' has been declining for many years. The period of May 2011 showed that ''Charlotte Observer'' circulation totaled 155,497 daily and 212,318 Sunday. 2017 Print Circulation Daily: 69,987 and Sunday: 106,434. The newspaper has an online presence and its staff also oversees a NASCAR news we ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
General Services Administration
The General Services Administration (GSA) is an independent agency of the United States government established in 1949 to help manage and support the basic functioning of federal agencies. GSA supplies products and communications for U.S. government offices, provides transportation and office space to federal employees, and develops government-wide cost-minimizing policies and other management tasks. GSA employs about 12,000 federal workers. It has an annual operating budget of roughly $33 billion and oversees $66 billion of procurement annually. It contributes to the management of about $500 billion in U.S. federal property, divided chiefly among 8,700 owned and leased buildings and a 215,000 vehicle motor pool. Among the real estate assets it manages are the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C., which is the largest U.S. federal building after the Pentagon. GSA's business lines include the Federal Acquisition Service (FAS) and t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hurricane Fran
Hurricane Fran caused extensive damage in the United States in early September 1996. The sixth named storm, fifth hurricane, and third major hurricane of the 1996 Atlantic hurricane season, Fran developed from a tropical wave near Cape Verde on August 23. Due to nearby Hurricane Edouard, the depression remained disorganized as it tracked westward, though it eventually intensified into Tropical Storm Fran on August 27. While heading west-northwestward, Fran steadily strengthened into a hurricane on August 29, but weakened back to a tropical storm on the following day. On August 31, Fran quickly re-intensified into a hurricane. By September 2, Fran began to parallel the islands of the Bahamas and slowly curved north-northwestward. Early on September 5, Fran peaked as a Category 3 hurricane. Thereafter, Fran weakened slightly, before it made landfall near Cape Fear, North Carolina early on September 6. The storm rapidly weakened inland and was only a tropical depression later tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Texas Tower (lighthouse)
A Texas Tower lighthouse is a structure which is similar to an off-shore oil platform. Seven of these structures were built in the 1960s off the shores of the United States. Automation started in the late 1970s, which led to the obsolescence of the housing built for the keepers which resulted in such a large structure. Three of the towers were dismantled over time due to deteriorating structural conditions among other problems, while another one was destroyed in a ship collision. The last Texas Tower was deactivated in 2016 having served for over half a century. Today only three of the former lights remain. Design and construction These lights were all constructed at offshore stations previously served by lightships. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Coast Guard
The United States Coast Guard (USCG) is the maritime security, search and rescue, and law enforcement service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country's eight uniformed services. The service is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the United States military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission with jurisdiction in both domestic and international waters and a federal regulatory agency mission as part of its duties. It is the largest and most powerful coast guard in the world, rivaling the capabilities and size of most navies. The U.S. Coast Guard is a humanitarian and security service. It protects the United States' borders and economic and security interests abroad; and defends its sovereignty by safeguarding sea lines of communication and commerce across vast territorial waters spanning 95,000 miles of coastline and its Exclusive Economic Zone. With national and economic security depending upon open global trade a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
