Being the cradle of Western culture, Europe, comprising the western most part of the continent of Eurasia, lying towards Asia’s west, is the second-smallest continent on the planet.

The Black Sea along with the waterways that connect the Black Sea with the Mediterranean along with the Caucasus Mountains form the boundary in the southeast of Europe, the Mediterranean Sea lies on its south, the Atlantic Ocean on its west, and the Arctic Ocean on its north. In the east, the Caspian Sea, the Ural River, and the Ural Mountains separate Europe from Asia.

Although there is no geological separation of the landmass between Europe and Asia, political considerations have played a role in Europe always being regarded as a separate continent. The continent has got its name from a Phoenician Princess, named Europa, in Greek mythology.

In terms of area, Europe comprises of 3,930,000 sq mi, or 10,180,000 square kilometers, or 2 percent of the surface of the earth. Made up of 49 countries, the smallest is the Vatican, while the largest is Russia, both in population and area.

With a population numbering 710,000,000, or making up 11 percent of the population of the planet, the continent has the third largest population in the world. However, for the past 20 years, the population has been static, with the birth and death rates being level.

The events that have taken place in Europe have been the basis of much of western civilization, as we know it today. Some of the noteworthy events include: The profound impact of Ancient Greece on Western civilization, with the individualism and democratic culture being credited to it. Many cultural aspects of the West have had its roots in the rationalism, humanism, and philosophy of people like Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates. Scientists like Archimedes, Euclid, and Pythagoras provided the basis for scientific knowledge.

The establishment of the Roman Empire was another of Europe’s major influence, with it leaving its mark on government, law, architecture, language, and engineering, and which also saw the establishment of the Roman Catholic Church.

What do you think when you for the first time visit a Chinese restaurant and taste the food?….. well, for me Chinese food have a various of ingredient and also various type of food, so I like Chinese food especially that Peking Duck. Now lets learn a simple the history about Chinese food below :

Chinese food is known for its aroma, color and flavor. The Chinese food, culture and traditions can be traced back to the 16th century B.C. Yi Yin, a scholar who lived during the Shang Dynasty was of the opinion that food should include flavors such as sweet, sour, bitter, piquant and salty. The reason is, the five major organs of the human body - heart, liver, spleen, lungs and kidneys, require nutritional diet. He formulated the theory of harmonization of food, which stresses on good nutritional diet to maintain good health. The traditional belief that food and medicine share the same origin is a part of Chinese tradition. This could be the reason that Chinese use scallions, garlic, dried lily buds, fresh ginger root, bamboo shoots and tree fungus in their cooking. The Chinese believe that these herbal plants have properties that prevent as well as cure various illnesses.

The dining rules are a part of the Chinese tradition and culture. There are rules like how many people should be seated on a table and how the main courses are to be served. As a part of the Chinese culture, you have to sit down to have a meal. There are also rules like who should be seated first among old and young and also among men and women.

The United States of America is located in the middle of the North American continent with Canada to the north and the United Mexican States to the south. The first known inhabitants of modern-day United States territory are believed to have arrived over a period of several thousand years beginning sometime prior to 15,000 years ago by crossing the Bering land bridge into Alaska. Solid evidence of these cultures settling in what would become the US is dated to at least 14,000 years ago.

In its beginnings, the United States consisted only of the Thirteen Colonies, which consisted of states occupying the same lands as when they were British colonies. American colonists fought off their British colonists in the American Revolutionary War of the 1770s and issued a Declaration of Independence in 1776. Seven years later, the signing of the Treaty of Paris officially recognized independence from Britain.[7] In the nineteenth century, westward expansion of United States territory began, upon the belief of Manifest Destiny, in which the United States would occupy all the North American land east to west, from the Atlantic to Pacific Oceans. By 1912, with the admission of Arizona to the Union, the U.S. reached that goal. The outlying states of Alaska and Hawaii were both admitted in 1959.

Ratified in 1788, the Constitution serves as the supreme American law in organizing the government; the Supreme Court is responsible for upholding Constitutional law. Many social progresses came up starting in the nineteenth century; those advancements have been widely reflected in the Constitution. Slavery was abolished in 1865 by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution; the following Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments respectively guaranteed citizenship for all persons naturalized within U.S. territory and voting for people of all races. In later years, civil rights were extended to women and black Americans, following much activism and lobbying from members of these minority groups. The Nineteenth Amendment prohibited gender discrimination in voting rights; later, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed racial segregation in public places.

Gipsies [from Egypt, because of an inaccurate idea that Gypsies came from a so-called Little Egypt], a traditionally nomadic people with particular folkways and a unique language, found on every continent; they often refer to themselves as Roma. Their language, called Romany, belongs to the Indo-Iranian family and is closely related to the languages of NW India. Their blood groupings have been found to coincide with those of S Himalayan tribes, and genetic mutations they possess are otherwise found only among Indians and Pakistanis. Gypsies worldwide are estimated to number between 10 and 12 million.

In the course of their wanderings, Gypsies have occasionally mixed with non-Gypsy neighbors and have sometimes settled down, but they have clung tenaciously to their identity and customs. Their physical type has remained largely unaltered; most Gypsies are dark-complexioned, short, and lightly built. Their bands are still ruled by elders. Gypsies have usually adopted the religion of their country of residence; probably the greater number are Roman Catholic or Orthodox Eastern Christian. Each year in May they gather in S France from all over the world for a pilgrimage to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. Gypsies usually travel in small caravans and make their living as metalworkers, singers, dancers, musicians, horse dealers, and auto mechanics. Gypsy women are famous as fortunetellers.

It is believed that they came originally from NW India, which they left for Persia in the 1st millennium A.D. Probably during their sojourn in Persia, they became divided into three main tribal divisions: the Gitanos, the Kalderash, and the Manush. Later they moved northward and westward, and are recorded as first appearing in Western Europe in the 15th cent. Alternately welcomed and persecuted by civil and religious authorities, they moved from country to country until they had spread to every part of Europe by the beginning of the 16th cent. They arrived in North America in the late 1800s.

In modern times, and especially since the beginning of the 20th cent., various nations have attempted to end their nomadic lifestyle by requiring them to register and to go to school and learn trades. Some 500,000 perished in gas chambers and concentration camps during World War II. In 1956 the Soviet Union decreed that the last wandering Gypsy bands in that country be gradually settled in places of their choice. The countries of E Europe, where the great majority of Gypsies live, adopted similar measures under Communist rule, and most Gypsies eventually found economic and social protection, if not full acceptance. However, following the fall of Communism in the early 1990s, persecution of the Gypsies arose once more in E Europe, and by the early 21st cent. most faced increased discrimination and lived in poverty. In 2005 eight E European countries and the World Bank backed a ten-year program intended to improve the Gypsies’ socioeconomic status.

Bibliography

See G. Borrow, The Romany Rye (1857, new ed. 1949, repr. 1959); I. H. Brown, Gypsy Fires in America (1924); Gipsy Petulengro’s autobiography, A Romany Life (1935); J. Yoors, The Gypsies (1967); D. Kenrick and G. Puxon, The Destiny of Europe’s Gypsies (1972); D. Mayall, Gypsie-Travellers in Nineteenth Century Society (1988); I. Fonseca, Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey (1995).

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