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Congo Rubber
''Landolphia owariensis'' is a species of liana from the family Apocynaceae found in tropical Africa. Latex can be extracted from this plant for the manufacture of natural rubber. Other names for this vine are eta, the white rubber vine and the Congo rubber plant. Congo rubber was a commercial rubber exported from the Congo Free State starting in 1890, most notable for its forced harvesting under conditions of great human suffering, in the Congo Free State, detailed in the 1904 Casement Report. From 1885 to 1908, millions died as a result of murder, deprivation, and disease, with population falling by millions in this period; some writers estimate this loss to be as high as 10 million people. Description When growing in savannah, ''Landolphia owariensis'' is an erect bush or small tree, but when growing among trees, it can develop into a woody vine with a stem that grows to a metre wide and long. The bark is rough, dark brown or greyish-brown, and often covered with pale yell ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fig Tree
''Ficus'' ( or ) is a genus of about 850 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, epiphytes and hemiepiphytes in the family Moraceae. Collectively known as fig trees or figs, they are native throughout the tropics with a few species extending into the semi-warm temperate zone. The common fig (''F. carica'') is a temperate species native to southwest Asia and the Mediterranean region (from Afghanistan to Portugal), which has been widely cultivated from ancient times for its fruit, also referred to as figs. The fruit of most other species are also edible though they are usually of only local economic importance or eaten as bushfood. However, they are extremely important food resources for wildlife. Figs are also of considerable cultural importance throughout the tropics, both as objects of worship and for their many practical uses. Description ''Ficus'' is a pantropical genus of trees, shrubs, and vines occupying a wide variety of ecological niches; most are evergreen, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gonorrhea
Gonorrhea, colloquially known as the clap, is a sexually transmitted infection (STI) caused by the bacterium ''Neisseria gonorrhoeae''. Infection may involve the genitals, mouth, or rectum. Infected men may experience pain or burning with urination, discharge from the penis, or testicular pain. Infected women may experience burning with urination, vaginal discharge, vaginal bleeding between periods, or pelvic pain. Complications in women include pelvic inflammatory disease and in men include inflammation of the epididymis. Many of those infected, however, have no symptoms. If untreated, gonorrhea can spread to joints or heart valves. Gonorrhea is spread through sexual contact with an infected person. This includes oral, anal, and vaginal sex. It can also spread from a mother to a child during birth. Diagnosis is by testing the urine, urethra in males, or cervix in females. Testing all women who are sexually active and less than 25 years of age each year as well as thos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pool Malebo
The Pool Malebo, formerly Stanley Pool, also known as Mpumbu, Lake Nkunda or Lake Nkuna by local indigenous people in pre-colonial times, is a lake-like widening in the lower reaches of the Congo River."Malebo Pool" ''''. Accessed June 2011. The river serves as the border between the on the north and the Democratic Republic of the Congo
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Léon Fiévez
Léon Fiévez (30 April 1855 – 27 May 1939) was a Belgian official of the Congo Free State. While employed by the Congo Free State, Fiévez became notorious for his harsh methods of enforcing rubber production in his territory, included the wide-scale oppression and killing of local Congolese. Fiévez's actions accrued significant coverage in the foreign press, forcing his removal from office and return to Belgium. Biography Fiévez was born to a farming family in Wallonia, Belgium. In 1888 he was recruited into the ''Force Publique'', a military force formed to garrison Leopold II of Belgium's Congo Free State, arriving in the Congo in the town of Boma. Though the conquest of the Congo was well underway by 1888, Fievez quickly became noted as a particular effective soldier, successfully leading military expeditions in the upper Congo. In the late 1891 he was forced by illness to return to Belgium, but by 1893 had returned to the Congo. When the commissioner for the crown- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hippopotamus
The hippopotamus ( ; : hippopotamuses or hippopotami; ''Hippopotamus amphibius''), also called the hippo, common hippopotamus, or river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae, the other being the pygmy hippopotamus (''Choeropsis liberiensis'' or ''Hexaprotodon liberiensis''). Its name comes from the ancient Greek for "river horse" (). Aside from elephants and rhinos, the hippopotamus is the largest land mammal. It is also the largest extant land artiodactyl. Despite their physical resemblance to pigs and other terrestrial even-toed ungulates, the closest living relatives of the hippopotamids are cetaceans (whales, dolphins, porpoises, etc.), from which they diverged about 55 million years ago. Hippos are recognisable for their barrel-shaped torsos, wide-opening mouths with large canine tusks, nearly hairless bodies, pillar-like legs, and large size: adults average ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chicotte
The sjambok () or litupa is a heavy leather whip. It is traditionally made from an adult hippopotamus or rhinoceros hide, but is also commonly made out of plastic. A strip of the animal's hide is cut and carved into a strip long, tapering from about thick at the handle to about at the tip. This strip is then rolled until reaching a tapered-cylindrical form. The resulting whip is both flexible and durable. A plastic version was made for the apartheid era South African Police, and used for riot control. Peter Hathaway Capstick describes a sjambok as a short swordlike whip made from rhino pizzle leather that could lay a man open like a straight razor. The sjambok was heavily used by the Voortrekkers driving their oxen while migrating from the Cape of Good Hope, and remains in use by herdsmen to drive cattle. They are widely available in South Africa from informal traders to regular stores from a variety of materials, lengths and thicknesses. Use by police In South Africa, use ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corvée
Corvée () is a form of unpaid, forced labour, that is intermittent in nature lasting for limited periods of time: typically for only a certain number of days' work each year. Statute labour is a corvée imposed by a state for the purposes of public works. As such it represents a form of levy (taxation). Unlike other forms of levy, such as a tithe, a corvée does not require the population to have land, crops or cash. The obligation for tenant farmers to perform corvée work for landlords on private landed estates was widespread throughout history before the Industrial Revolution. The term is most typically used in reference to medieval and early modern Europe, where work was often expected by a feudal landowner (of their vassals), or by a monarch of their subjects. The application of the term is not limited to that time or place; the corvée has existed in modern and ancient Egypt, ancient Sumer, ancient Rome, China, Japan, everywhere in continental Europe, the Incan civ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Force Publique
The ''Force Publique'' (, "Public Force"; nl, Openbare Weermacht) was a gendarmerie and military force in what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1885 (when the territory was known as the Congo Free State), through the period of Belgian colonial rule (Belgian Congo – 1908 to 1960). The FP was retitled as the Congolese National Army or ANC in July 1960 after independence. Establishment The ''Force Publique'' was initially conceived in 1885 when King Leopold II of the Belgians, who held the Congo Free State as his private property, ordered his Secretary of the Interior to create military and police forces for the State. Soon afterwards, in early 1886, Captain Léon Roger (of the Belgian Army's Carabiniers) was sent to the Congo with orders to establish the force. A few months later, on 17 August, he was promoted to "Commandant of the Force Publique". A number of other Belgian officers and non-commissioned officers were also dispatched to the territory as the nuc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (; HMH) is an American publisher of textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults. The company is based in the Boston Financial District. It was formerly known as Houghton Mifflin Company, but it changed its name following the 2007 acquisition of Harcourt Publishing. Prior to March 2010, it was a subsidiary of Education Media and Publishing Group Limited, an Irish-owned holding company registered in the Cayman Islands and formerly known as Riverdeep. History Ticknor and Allen, 1832 In 1832, William Ticknor and John Allen purchased a bookselling business in Boston and began to involve themselves in publishing; James T. Fields joined as a partner in 1843. Fields and Ticknor gradually gathered an impressive list of writers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau. The duo formed a close relationship with Riverside Pres ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hevea Brasiliensis
''Hevea brasiliensis'', the Pará rubber tree, ''sharinga'' tree, seringueira, or most commonly, rubber tree or rubber plant, is a flowering plant belonging to the spurge family Euphorbiaceae originally native to the Amazon basin, but is now pantropical in distribution due to introductions. It is the most economically important member of the genus ''Hevea'' because the milky latex extracted from the tree is the primary source of natural rubber. Description ''H. brasiliensis'' is a tall deciduous tree growing to a height of up to in the wild, but cultivated trees are usually much smaller because drawing off the latex restricts the growth of the tree. The trunk is cylindrical and may have a swollen, bottle-shaped base. The bark is some shade of brown, and the inner bark oozes latex when damaged. The leaves have three leaflets and are spirally arranged. The inflorescence include separate male and female flowers. The flowers are pungent, creamy-yellow and have no petals. The fru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First Brazilian Republic
The First Brazilian Republic, also referred to as the Old Republic ( pt, República Velha ), officially the Republic of the United States of Brazil, refers to the period of Brazilian history from 1889 to 1930. The Old Republic began with the deposition of Emperor Pedro II in 1889, and ended with the Brazilian Revolution of 1930 that installed Getúlio Vargas as a new president. During the First Brazilian Republic, Brazil was dominated by a form of machine politics known as coronelism, in which the political and economic spheres were dominated by large landholders. The most powerful of such landholders were the coffee industry of São Paulo and the dairy industry of Minas Gerais. Because of the power of these two industries, the Old Republic's political system has been described as "milk coffee politics." Overview On November 15, 1889, Marshal Deodoro da Fonseca deposed Emperor Pedro II, declared Brazil a republic, and reorganized the government. According to the new republ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Association Of The Congo
The International Association of the Congo (french: Association internationale du Congo), also known as the International Congo Society, was an association founded on 17 November 1879 by Leopold II of Belgium to further his interests in the Congo. It replaced the Belgian ("Committee for the Study of the Upper Congo"), which was part of the International African Association front organisation created for the exploitation of the Congo. The goals of the International Congo Society was to establish control of the Congo Basin and to exploit its economic resources. The Berlin Conference recognised the society as sovereign over the territories it controlled and on August 1, 1885, i.e. four and half months after the closure of the Berlin Conference, King Leopold's Vice-Administrator General in the Congo, announced that the society and the territories it occupied were henceforth called "the Congo Free State". Ownership and control The official stockholders of the Committee for the Stud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
