Marine Electronics

If you are at all interested in either Pennsylvania or American history, you will certainly have heard of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and the historic activities that took place there for the period of the American Civil War. The three day long battle that took place there in July 1863 was harsh and bloody, but was claimed as a victory for the Unionist North.

Even so, one quick look in the Union Army burial ground in the Gettysburg National Cemetery on Cemetery Hill will persuade you that the victory came at a very high cost. The cost in human life and human suffering was gigantic on both sides. Later on in the same year, Abraham Lincoln gave a discourse which was to become famous throughout the world as the Gettysburg Address.

These days, the Gettysburg National Military Park is a tranquil place, but it serves as a moving reminder of the battle that was fought, the strategies employed, the heroism of the combatants and the willingness of military leaders to sacrifice the common soldier for political objectives.

If you go to the Gettysburg National Military Park, you would do well to start your tour in the visitors' centre. There you will be able to pick up books, pamphlets and leaflets to help you orientate yourself when you are on the battleground, even if you are familiar with how and where the actual battle was fought.

If you think that it would be too much for you to work things out for yourself or if you do not have much time, you could join one of the regular guided tours. If you are somewhere in between these two positions, you could first watch a film in the Cycloarma Center, where there are also historical items recovered from the battleground on the numerous excavations that have taken place over the nearly 150 years since the battle at Gettysburg took place. If you do not look around the museum before you go on to the battleground, you ought to look later.

If you are visiting Gettysburg to enlighten your children about that most important era of American history, you ought to first check out the special interest programmes available to 7-12 year olds in the warmer summer months. One programme allows children to enlist in the army of 1863 for an hour in order to get a sense for what it was like for soldiers of the day and what it was like for the children that helped them go into battle.

Another programme consists of a story-teller recounting stories of what it was like to be a youngster in the days of the Civil War and the role that children played both in the war and in civilian life back then.

Gettysburg is a spellbinding place to go to whether your family was embroiled in the battle there or not. Many of the combatants' names and place names like Devil's Den and Cemetery Hill will already be familiar to you and a visit to the Gettysburg National Military Park will bring them back to life for you.

Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on quite a few topics, but is at present involved with thinking about the Poconos International Raceway in Pennsylvania. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Poconos Vacations.

Congress and the president have designated ten days as federal holidays. Being 'federal', these holidays theoretically only pertain to federal employees and residents of the District of Columbia, although they are so widely observed that they can be thought of as national holidays.

Officially, it is up to each individual state to designate public holidays. If the holiday falls on a Saturday or Sunday, the Friday before or the Monday after is given in lieu to make a long weekend.

New Year's Day (January 1) - celebrating the New Year dates back to pre-Christian times, when rites were performed to try to ensure the return of Spring.

Martin Luther King Jnr. Day (third Monday in January) - before he was shot dead in 1968, Martin Luther King Jnr. was the foremost civil rights leader of the 1950's and 1960's. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. Congress set this day aside to celebrate his life and achievements in 1983.

Washington's Birthday (third Monday in February) - originally it was commemorated on Washington's actual birthday, the 22nd of February, but it was moved in 1971 to make a long weekend. It is sometimes known as Presidents' Day, because it is near Lincoln's birthday on the 12th February.

Memorial Day (last Monday in May) - also known as Decoration Day, it honours soldiers fallen in battle.It originates from the Civil War and is customarily marked by parades and services.

Independence Day (4th July) - this, the most important US holiday, marks the 1776 signing of the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. It was first commemorated in 1777 and is marked by fireworks, parades and speeches.

Labor Day (first Monday in September) - this, the proposal of Peter J. McGuire, the president of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, was adopted in 1894 to celebrate American workers.

Columbus Day (second Monday in October) - Christopher Columbus and his crew landed in the Bahamas on Oct 12th 1492. It was first commemorated in 1792, although it was not officially recognized until 1909. It is a cause of special pride to Italian-Americans, who claim the Genoan voyager as their own.

Veterans Day (Nov 11th) - or Armistice Day marks the end of the First World War on Nov 11th 1918. It was made a legal holiday in 1938, but its name was changed in 1954 to honour all American veteran soldiers.

Thanksgiving Day (fourth Thursday in November) - it was first celebrated in Plymouth County, Massachusetts in 1621, the year in which the Pilgrims landed in the New World to give thanks for the new harvest and the new land they had colonized. President Lincoln made it a holiday in 1863.

Christmas Day (December 25th) - Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with Franklin Covey planner refillss If you have an interest in calendars, organizers or promotional calendars, please go over to our website now at Promotional Desk Calendars

I was looking through a history book and it was going on about memorable events of ten years ago, but I had forgotten most of them. I have picked out some of the events of exactly ten years ago this month - January, in a word. So here are a few things that you may or probably will not remember from January 2000.

1 - on his first day as interim president, Vladimir Putin left to visit Russian troops in Chechnya.

4 - President Clinton recommends Alan Greenspan to a fourth four year term as Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

5 - President Clinton rules that Elian Gonzalez, a six year old Cuban boy who survived the capsizing of a refugee boat, should be returned to his father in Cuba.

6 - much of Miami is shut down by hundreds of Cuban-Americans protesting the Gonzalez decision. - the S.E.C reports that most partners of Price, Waterhouse, Coopers, the world's largest accounting firm, contravened regulations requiring that they may not hold shares in firms that they audit. Five partners were fired.

7 - Vice Pres. Al Gore back-tracks on his promise to ensure that all new appointees to the Joint Chiefs of Staff were sympathetic to permitting gays to serve openly in the military.

8 - AOL announces a merger with Time Warner for $165 billion: the world's biggest ever.

11 - the British government rules that General Pinochet is medically unfit to stand trial for suspected crimes against humanity in Chile during his presidency.

13 - executives at the nation's leading drugs companies say they want to cooperate with Clinton to institute Medicare coverage for prescription drugs this year.

15 - Arkan, the notorious Serbian paramilitary leader was shot dead in a hotel lobby in Belgrade.

18 - Helmut Kohl resigns as honorary Christian Democratic Party chairman over allegations of corruption from within the party.

24 - the Supreme Court rules that laws limiting political donations to $1,000 in Missouri are constitutional.

25 - the Congressional Budget Office reports that the flood of tax revenues resulting from the exceptionally strong economy will last for ten years.

26 - 'The New York Times' reports that U.S investigators have discovered links between a group of Algerians charged with plotting a terrorist strike in the U.S. and Osama Bin Laden, the exiled Saudi accused of bombing two American embassies.

31 - Republican Gov. George Ryan of Illinois halts all executions in the state citing a disgraceful record of convicting innocent people and putting them on death row. - top officials n the C.I.A. are accused of blocking an internal investigation into indications that the agency's past director, John M. Deutsch, mishandled secret information.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with custom wall calendars If you have an interest in calendars, organizers or promotional calendars, please visit our website now at Promotional Desk Calendars

Before their implementation of the Western solar calendar system, the Chinese almost exclusively followed their own lunar calendar for determining the times of planting and harvesting and festival days. Although people in China today use the Western calendar for almost all business, governmental and practical matters of daily life, the old method still serves as the basis for working out numerous recurring holidays. This coexistence of two calendar schemes has long been accepted by the people of China.

However, this does not only happen in China, it also occurs in most other Eastern countries, like Thailand, and most Arabic countries.

A lunar month is calculated by measuring the period of time needed for the moon to complete its full cycle of 29 and a half days, a standard that makes the lunar year a whole eleven days shorter than its solar counterpart. This disparity is made up every 19 years by the addition of seven lunar months.

The 12 lunar months are further divided into 24 solar divisions distinguished by the four seasons and times of heat and cold, all of which bear a close relationship to the annual cycle of agricultural work.

The Chinese calendar - very much like the Hebrew calendar- is a combination of the solar and lunar calendars in that it strives to have its years concur with the tropical year and its months coincide with the synodic months. It is not surprising that a few similarities exist between the Chinese and the Hebrew calendar.

For example, an average year has 12 months, a leap year has 13 months. An ordinary year has 353, 354, or 355 days, a leap year has 383, 384, or 385 days. When working out what a Chinese year will be like, one needs to make a couple of astronomical calculations.

First of all, you have to determine the dates for the new moons. In these cases, a new Moon is the completely black Moon (that is to say, when the Moon is in conjunction with the Sun), not the first visible crescent, as is used by the Islamic and Hebrew calendars. The date of a new moon is then the first day of a new month.

The reason why the majority of countries which had their own calendars had to drop them in favour of the Western, Julian calendar that we use today, is business. First the British and then the Americans ran international business and they used the Gregorian calendar. Anyone who sought to work with them had to follow suit. This is why national policy often differs from local custom in Third World countries.

The government desires to deal on the International markets, but the ordinary family in the country can not. So, the government took up the Gregorian calendar but the people only pay lip service to it. I live in Thailand and people here do not even use the 24 hour day divided into two halves. Their day has four sections of six hours each and the first part starts at 6AM, not midnight. Therefore, they have four 4 o'clocks a day, for instance but no 7 o'clocks. They are also 543 years ahead of us, although this is more common, for instance in Muslim countries.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with researching Franklin planner pages. If you have an interest in calendars, organizers or promotional calendars, please go over to our web site now at Promotional Desk Calendars

categories: calendars,astronomy,time,holidays,history,current events,politics,sociology,science,religion,commentary,other,uncategorized,business