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Blockade Running
A blockade runner is a merchant vessel used for evading a naval blockade of a port or strait. It is usually light and fast, using stealth and speed rather than confronting the blockaders in order to break the blockade. Blockade runners usually transport cargo, for example bringing food or arms to a blockaded city. They have also carried mail in an attempt to communicate with the outside world. Blockade runners are often the fastest ships available, and come lightly armed and armored. Their operations are quite risky since blockading fleets would not hesitate to fire on them. However, the potential profits (economically or militarily) from a successful blockade run are tremendous, so blockade-runners typically had excellent crews. Although having ''modus operandi'' similar to that of smugglers, blockade-runners are often operated by states' navies as part of the regular fleet; states having operated them include the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
SS Banshee
The ''Schutzstaffel'' (; ; SS; also stylised with SS runes as ''ᛋᛋ'') was a major paramilitary organisation under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II. It began with a small guard unit known as the ''Saal-Schutz'' ("Hall Security") made up of party volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich. In 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then been reformed and given its final name. Under his direction (1929–1945) it grew from a small paramilitary formation during the Weimar Republic to one of the most powerful organisations in Nazi Germany. From the time of the Nazi Party's rise to power until the regime's collapse in 1945, the SS was the foremost agency of security, mass surveillance, and state terrorism within Germany and German-occupied Europe. The two main constituent groups were the ''Allgemeine SS'' (General SS) and ''Waffen-SS'' (Armed SS). The ''Allgemeine SS' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stockholm
Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately 1 million people live in the Stockholm Municipality, municipality, with 1.6 million in the Stockholm urban area, urban area, and 2.5 million in the Metropolitan Stockholm, metropolitan area. The city stretches across fourteen islands where Mälaren, Lake Mälaren flows into the Baltic Sea. Outside the city to the east, and along the coast, is the island chain of the Stockholm archipelago. The area has been settled since the Stone Age, in the 6th millennium BC, and was founded as a city in 1252 by Swedish statesman Birger Jarl. The city serves as the county seat of Stockholm County. Stockholm is the cultural, media, political, and economic centre of Sweden. The Stockholm region alone accounts for over a third of the country's Gros ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Postage Stamps And Postal History Of The Confederate States
The postage stamps and postal system of the Confederate States of America carried the mail of the Confederacy for a brief period in U.S. history. Early in 1861 when South Carolina no longer considered itself part of the Union and demanded that the U.S. Army abandon Fort Sumter, plans for a Confederate postal system were already underway. Indeed, the Confederate Post Office was established on February 21, 1861; and it was not until April 12 that the American Civil War officially began, when the Confederate Army fired upon U.S. soldiers who had refused to abandon the fort. However, the United States Post Office Department The United States Post Office Department (USPOD; also known as the Post Office or U.S. Mail) was the predecessor of the United States Postal Service, established in 1792. From 1872 to 1971, it was officially in the form of a Cabinet of the Un ... continued to handle the mail of the seceded states as usual during the first weeks of the war. It was not until ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
USS Advance (1862)
USS ''Advance'', the second United States Navy ship to be so named, was later known as USS ''Frolic'', and was originally the blockade runner ''Advance'' captured by the Union Navy during the latter part of the American Civil War. She was purchased by the Union Navy and outfitted as a gunboat and assigned to the blockade of the waterways of the Confederate States of America. She also served as dispatch ship and supply vessel when military action eventually slowed. Construction and Irish service ''Lord Clyde'', named for Scottish military officer Colin Campbell, 1st Baron Clyde, was built for the packet service between Ireland and Scotland operated by the Dublin & Glasgow Sailing and Steam Packet Company. She was launched at Greenock, Scotland, by Caird & Co. as Yard No.97 on 3 July 1862. ''Lord Clyde'' was an iron-hulled vessel with a length of , a beam of , a depth of and a draft of . She measured and and was powered by a 2-cylinder oscillating side-lever steam en ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bermuda
Bermuda is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. The closest land outside the territory is in the American state of North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. Bermuda is an archipelago consisting of List of islands of Bermuda, 181 islands, although the most significant islands are connected by bridges and appear to form one landmass. It has a land area of . Bermuda has a tropical climate, with warm winters and hot summers. Its climate also exhibits Oceanic climate, oceanic features similar to other coastal areas in the Northern Hemisphere with warm, moist air from the ocean ensuring relatively high humidity and stabilising temperatures. Bermuda is prone to severe weather from Westerlies#Interaction with tropical cyclones, recurving tropical cyclones; however, it receives some protection from a coral reef and its position north of the Main Development Region, which limits the direction and severity of approach ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Bahamas
The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic and island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean. It contains 97 per cent of the archipelago's land area and 88 per cent of its population. It comprises more than 3,000 islands, cays and islets in the Atlantic Ocean, and is located north of Cuba and north-west of the island of Hispaniola (split between the Dominican Republic and Haiti) and the Turks and Caicos Islands, southeast of the U.S. state of Florida and east of the Florida Keys. The Capital city, capital and largest city is Nassau, The Bahamas, Nassau on the island of New Providence. The Royal Bahamas Defence Force describes the Bahamas' territory as encompassing of ocean space. The Bahama islands were inhabited by the Arawak and Lucayan people, Lucayans, a branch of the Arawakan-Taino language, speaking Taíno, for many centuries. Christopher Columbus was the first European to see the islands, making ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, Crown colony, colonies, protectorates, League of Nations mandate, mandates, and other Dependent territory, territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the English overseas possessions, overseas possessions and trading posts established by Kingdom of England, England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, and colonisation attempts by Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland during the 17th century. At its height in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it became the List of largest empires, largest empire in history and, for a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, of the world population at the time, and by 1920, it covered , of the Earth's total land area. As a result, Westminster system, its constitutional, Common law, legal, English language, linguistic, and Culture of the United Kingdom, cultural legacy is widespread. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lancashire Cotton Famine
The Lancashire Cotton Famine, also known as the Cotton Famine or the Cotton Panic (1861–1865), was a depression in the textile industry of North West England, brought about by overproduction in a time of contracting world markets. It coincided with the interruption of baled cotton imports caused by the American Civil War and speculators buying up new stock for storage in the shipping warehouses at the entrepôt. It also caused cotton prices to rise in China, in which trade had been steadily increasing following the Second Opium War and during the ongoing Taiping Rebellion. The increase in cotton prices caused the textile trade to rapidly lose two-thirds of its previous value of exports to China from 1861 to 1862. The worldwide cotton famine also produced a boom in cotton production in Egypt and Russian Turkestan. The boom years of 1859 and 1860 had produced more woven cotton than could be sold and a cutback in production was needed. The situation was exacerbated by an overab ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United Kingdom Of Great Britain And Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the union of the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into one sovereign state, established by the Acts of Union 1800, Acts of Union in 1801. It continued in this form until 1927, when it evolved into the United Kingdom, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, after the Irish Free State gained a degree of independence in 1922. It was commonly known as Great Britain, Britain or England. Economic history of the United Kingdom, Rapid industrialisation that began in the decades prior to the state's formation continued up until the mid-19th century. The Great Famine (Ireland), Great Irish Famine, exacerbated by government inaction in the mid-19th century, led to Societal collapse, demographic collapse in much of Ireland and increased calls for Land Acts (Ireland), Irish land reform. The 19th century was an era of Industrial Revolution, and growth of trade and finance, in which Britain largely dominate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anaconda Plan
The Anaconda Plan was a strategy outlined by the Union Army for suppressing the Confederacy at the beginning of the American Civil War. Proposed by Union General-in-Chief Winfield Scott, the plan emphasized a Union blockade of the Southern ports and called for an advance down the Mississippi River to cut the South in two. Because the blockade would be rather passive, it was widely derided by a vociferous faction of Union generals who wanted a more vigorous prosecution of the war and likened it to the coils of an anaconda suffocating its victim. The snake image caught on, giving the proposal its popular name. In the early days of the Civil War, Scott's proposed strategy for the war against the South had two prominent features. First, all ports in the seceding states were to be rigorously blockaded. Secondly, a strong column of perhaps 80,000 men should use the Mississippi River as a highway to thrust completely through the Confederacy. A spearhead, a relatively small amphibious ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
