Atlas

An atlas is a collection of maps or charts bound in a volume. It may cover the entire world or specific regions.

The earliest atlas was produced by the Greek scholar Ptolemy in about AD 150 and was rediscovered and printed in Europe in the 15th century.

The first modern atlas was the Theatrum orbis terrarum, by cartographer Abraham Ortelius. It was published on May 20, 1570. by Gilles Coppens de Diest at Antwerp.

The atlas contained virtually no maps from the hand of Ortelius, but 53 bundled maps of other masters, with the source as indicated.

Demand for the Theatrum orbis terrarum was immediate and persisted for decades, during which time dozens of editions were published in several languages.

Ortelius World Map Typvs Orbis Terrarvm, 1570.

The first English atlas was a 1579 collection of the counties of England and Wales by Christopher Saxten.

From 1569 Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator devoted himself to producing a series of large engraved maps, designed for binding into volume form. By the time of his death in 1594 he'd published or prepared maps, of France, Germany, Italy, the Balkans and the British Isles.

When Rumold Mercator published his father's maps in 1595, he illustrated the title page and decorated the outside cover with the image of the Greek mythological character Atlas supporting the world on his back. In doing so the giant's name became the standard European word for a volume of maps.

The Goode's School Atlas, named for its first editor, Dr. J. Paul Goode, was published in 1923. It became a standard text for high school and college geography curricula. Later retitled Goode's World Atlas, it is now in its 23rd edition.

The Rand McNally Auto Chum, later to become the ubiquitous Rand McNally Road Atlas, was first published in 1924. The first full-color edition was published in 1960. It became fully digitized in 1993.  

The Doria Atlas, commissioned by Andrea Doria in the late 1500s, was saved from a fire in 2004 by a human chain.

Atlantic Ocean

With a surface area of about 82 million square kilometers (about 31,660,000 square mi), the Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the Earth’s four oceans (it is approximately half the size of the Pacific) and the most heavily traveled.

The Atlantic Ocean extents from the Arctic Ocean in the North to the Antarctic continent in the South. It situates between the east coast of the American continents and the west coast of Europe and Africa. 

The Ancient Greeks thought the Atlantic Ocean was a vast river encircling the world. It is named after the god Atlas who carried the Earth on his shoulders

The SS Savannah left port at Savannah, Georgia, United States, on May 22, 1819 on a voyage to become the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. The ship arrived at Liverpool, England, on June 20th. In fact, only a fraction of the distance was covered with the ship under steam power; the rest was sailed by wind power. In spite of her historic voyage, Savannah was not a commercial success as a steamship and was converted back into a sailing ship shortly after returning from Europe.

SS Savannah

The first great disaster in the Atlantic Ocean occurred in 1854 when the steamship SS Arctic sunk with 300 people on board.

Norwegian-born American clam diggers Frank Samuelsen and George Harbo were the first men to row across the Atlantic in 1896. It took them 55 days to row the 3,000 miles from New York to the Scilly Isles. Their time record for rowing the North Atlantic Ocean was not broken for 114 years, and then by four rowers instead of two.

Frank Samuelsen and George Harbo lived off tinned meat, biscuits and eggs boiled in their coffee on their open 18 foot boat.

The first regularly scheduled transatlantic flights began in 1951. They were between Idlewild Airport (now John F Kennedy International Airport) in New York City and Heathrow Airport in London, and were operated by El Al Israel Airlines.

TAT-1, the first trans-Atlantic telephone cable went into service on September 25, 1956 with an exchange of greetings between London, Ottawa and New York. The new $42 million cable consisted of two lines laid 18 and a half miles (30 kms) apart on the ocean floor.

Joe Kittinger became the first person to fly a hot air balloon alone across the Atlantic Ocean in 1984.

The Sargasso Sea is a region in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by ocean currents, It is the only sea that has no coast.

The Atlantic Ocean is saltier than the Pacific Ocean.

Its greatest depth is at the Milwaukee Depth in the Puerto Rico Trench, which descends 28,374 ft.

The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is the longest mountain chain on Earth (at 40 thousand kilometers).

Every year, thanks to the movement of the tectonic plates, the Atlantic gets 5cm (2 inches) wider.

In Newfoundland, Canada, the Atlantic Ocean sometimes freezes so people play hockey on it.

Atlanta

The area was settled in 1837 and was chosen as the southern terminus of the Western and Atlantic Railroad. Originally named Terminus, it was renamed Atlanta in 1843.

It got its current name from railroad engineer J. Edgar Thompson. Atlanta is thought to be a shortened version of “Atlantica-Pacifica.”

On November 11, 1864, after Atlanta surrendered to the Union Army during the Civil War, General Sherman ordered the city to be burned to the ground, sparing only its churches and hospitals. Four days later he started Sherman's March to the Sea.

Atlanta in ruins during the Civil War, 1864

Only 400 buildings survived, which is why Atlanta's symbol is a phoenix.

The Great Atlanta Fire of 1917 caused $5.5 million in damages, destroying some 300 acres including 2,000 homes, businesses and churches. The fire displaced about 10,000 people but led to only one fatality (due to a heart attack).

Atlanta was the first large city in the South to elect a black mayor, Maynard Jackson, in 1973.

Atlanta is the headquarters of Coca-Cola and also since 1994 EarthLink, an Internet service provider, which in 2000 was second only to AOL in the USA.

Atlanta hosted the 1996 Summer Olympic Games. A pipe bomb exploded at Centennial Olympic Park during the Olympics on July 27th. One woman (Alice Hawthorne) was killed, and a cameraman suffered a heart attack fleeing the scene. 111 people were injured.

Atlanta is the fifth capital of the state of Georgia. The previous capitals were Savannah, Augusta, Louisville and Milledgeville.

In Atlanta it is illegal to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole or street lamp.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is the world's busiest airport, both in terms of passenger traffic and aircraft operations. The terminal is as big as 45 football fields.

Atlanta is located within a two-hour flight of 80% of the U.S. population.

The escalator in the CNN Center in Atlanta, Georgia is the longest freestanding escalator in the world, rising 160 feet or approximately eight stories in height.

Sources Hutchinson Encyclopedia, Mentalfloss.com

Athletics

Athletics or track and field is a group of sporting events that involves competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking.

Athletic competitions were held in Egypt as far back as 3800BC.

Most of the international competitions open to track and field athletes can be traced back to the Greek sporting festivals held as early as 1500 BC. The major festivals were the Olympic Games, held at Olympia; the Pythian Games, at Delphi; the Nemean Games, at Nemea; and the Isthmian Games, at Corinth. All were part of religious celebrations that honored the ancient Greek gods.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, organized sports declined in popularity until the 11th century, when the tournament became a favorite pastime of the nobility. The English also engaged in such field sports as throwing the bar or the hammer, but these were considered detrimental distractions from the military sport of archery and were sometimes actually forbidden by law. 

The term 'heats' referring to the preliminary contests to a sporting event, that eliminates competitors goes back to the horse track. Prior to a race, a horse was exercised to heat it up. A record of 1577 suggests, "walke him to chafe him, and put him in a heate."

A revival of athletics began in the middle of the 19th century in the schools and colleges of England and the U.S. In 1864 the first collegiate track and field meet was held between Oxford and Cambridge universities in England.

In 1868 the newly formed New York Athletic Club held the first American amateur track-and-field meet.

The first photo-finish took place at the Plainfield Track in New Jersey in 1888.

The International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) is the supreme governing body which controls athletics worldwide. It was founded in Stockholm in July 1912 with 17 members.

The first international athletics competition for women was held at the Pershing Stadium in Paris on August 20, 1922. It was called the "Women's Olympics." 77 participants from five nations competed in 11 events: running (60 metres, 100 yards, 300 metres, 1000 metres, 4 x 110 yards relay and hurdling 100 yards), high jump, long jump, standing long jump, javelin and shot put.

On February 5, 1929, black American inventor George Bresnahan received a patent for the world’s first starting blocks for athletes. Bresnahan called his invention a ‘Foot Support.’ The earliest recorded use of the term ‘starting blocks’, also by Bresnahan, was in 1937.  Before starting blocks, sprinters dug holes in the track to give support for their feet at the start.

The mile was run in under four minutes for the first time on May 6, 1954, when the barrier was broken by Roger Bannister at the Iffley Road track in Oxford with a time of 3:59. The record today is 3:43, held by Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj.

The first Athletics World Championships took place in Helsinki in 1983.

The longest-standing modern Olympic athletics record is Bob Beamon's achievement in the men's long jump at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, which also stood as the world record for 23 years until Beamon's compatriot, Mike Powell, jumped farther at the 1991 World Championships in Athletics in Tokyo.

Sources Europress Family Encyclopedia, Daily Express

Athlete

The Greek mythological Atalanta was the daughter of King Iasus, who had hoped for a son. Disappointed that instead she was a girl, he left her on a mountaintop to die. A she-bear suckled and cared for Atalanta until hunters found and raised her, and she became a strong huntress. Swift of foot, Atalanta refused to marry unless the suitors defeated her in a trace, and she killed those who lost.
Many young men died in the attempt to win her hand until Hippomenes outrun her. He won the race by dropping three irresistible golden apples, given to him by the goddess Aphrodite. Every time Atalanta got ahead of Hippomenes, he rolled an apple ahead of her, and she would stop to pick it up.

In 1888 Charles Sherill of Yale University’s track team became the first runner to use the crouching start for a fast getaway in a foot race.

Betty Robinson, who won the first Olympic 100m for women in 1928 at just 16, was later involved in an airplane crash. A man who discovered her wrongly thought she was dead and drove her to an undertaker. She awoke from her coma seven months later, before returning to win a relay gold medal at the Munich Olympics in 1936.

There were just five individual track and field events for women at the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles. Mildred "Babe" Didrikson qualified to compete in all of them, but Olympic rules limited female athletes to three. So, she skipped the discus and 100 meters. Then Didrikson took gold in the 80-meter hurdles and the javelin, setting new world records in both. In the high jump, she tied with her teammate Jean Shiley but took silver after a tie-breaking "jump off."

In 1935, Jesse Owens set three track and field world records and tied a fourth in a single day in Ann Arbor, Michigan--all in less than an hour.

Roger Bannister became the first person to run a mile in under four minutes. He achieved this feat at the Iffley Road Track, Oxford, England, on May 6, 1954, in a time of 3 min 59.4 seconds. His world record lasted just 46 days before Australian John Landy, shaved 1.4 seconds off it.

Blue plaque recording the first sub-4-minute mile run by Roger Bannister 

Jim Hines of the United States of America became on October 14, 1968 the first man ever to break the ten-second barrier in the 100 meters in the 1968 Summer Olympic Games held in Mexico City. His time was 9.95 seconds.

Jim Hines -- 100 mètres -- Mexico 1968

Haile Gebrselassie, the Ethiopian distance runner, ran six miles to and from school each day. He still runs with a crook in his arm, as if he’s carrying his books.

A day after his 105th birthday in September 2015, Japanese centenarian Hidekichi Miyazaki set a new record as the world’s oldest competitive sprinter. Nicknamed the ‘Golden Bolt’, he ran a 100-metre sprint in the over-80s category in 42.22 seconds.

Research shows that top sprinters have long ring fingers compared with their index fingers.

70% of U.S. elite athletes have a key heart gene variant that makes a good sprinter, while 75% of all Jamaicans have it.

Sources Creators, The Atalanta entry was originally written for Songfacts.com.

Athens

Situated on the Attic plain on the Greek mainland, Athens is surrounded by mountains on three sides,

The site was first inhabited about 3000 BC and it was named Athens after its patron goddess Athena.

Athena was the daughter of Zeus. She was born dressed in armor and is often depicted with a helmet and shield. She fought against Poseidon for the city of Athens.

Every year in Ancient Athens, citizens had the chance to vote their least favorite politician into exile.

Although most of the city dates from after the mid-19th century, important works of antiquity remain. The most prominent and famous landmark is the Acropolis, a flat-topped hill on which stand the remains of the Parthenon (below) and several other beautiful structures erected in the 5th century BC. 

By Steve Swayne 

On June 9, 411 BC, wealthy Athenians overthrew the democratic government of ancient Athens and replaced it with a short-lived oligarchy known as "The Four Hundred".

The Tower of the Winds is an octagonal Pentelic marble clocktower in the Roman Agora in Athens that is considered the world's first ever meteorological station. The structure features a combination of sundials, a water clock, and a wind vane. It was supposedly built by Andronicus of Cyrrhus around 50 BC, but according to other sources, might have been constructed in the 2nd century BC before the rest of the forum.

Panathenaic Stadium in Athens, Greece is the only stadium in the world built entirely of marble. It had a greater capacity (50,000) in 144 AD than today (45,000).

The Parthenon was severely damaged on September 26, 1687. An ammunition dump inside the building was ignited by bombardment from Venetian forces led by Morosini who were besieging the Ottoman Turks stationed in Athens.

The first modern Olympiad was held in Athens. Because Ancient Greece was the birthplace of the Olympic Games, the Greek capital city was considered to be an appropriate choice to stage the inaugural modern Games. The games officially opened on April 6, 1896 and closed ten days later. 241 athletes from 14 nations participated in 43 events in nine disciplines.

Athens authorities spent four years demolishing rooftop billboards in an effort to beautify the city for the 2004 Summer Olympics.

Athens spent $16 billion on the 2004 Olympics. They only budgeted for $1.5 billion.

It is the capital and largest city of Greece. The municipality of Athens is the most populous in Greece, with a population of 664,046 people (in 2011). 

At the heart of the modern Athens is Constitution Square, on or near which are found the Parliament Building and several museums.

In Athens, Greece, a driver's license can be taken away by law if the driver is deemed either unbathed or poorly dressed.

Athens has less green space than any other European capital (4%).

Athens is the only capital city in Europe where the air is more polluted outside than inside.

Athens is an anagram of hasten as well as the less common words ‘sneath’ (the pole of a scythe) and ‘snathe’ (to prune or lop trees).

Sources Funk & Wagnells Encyclopedia, Daily Express

Atheism

Atheism is a doctrine that denies the existence of deity.

Early Christians were considered atheists by the Roman Empire because they didn't believe in Polytheism.

Western atheism has its roots in pre-Socratic Greek philosophy, but did not emerge as a distinct world-view until the late Enlightenment. Criticism of Christianity became increasingly frequent in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially in France and England.

The first known atheist who threw off the mantle of deism, bluntly denying the existence of gods, was Jean Meslier, a French priest who lived in the early 18th century.

The first ever openly atheistic book published in Britain was Liverpool physician Matthew Turner's 1785 Answer to Dr Priestley's Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever.

The French Revolution took atheism outside the salons and into the public sphere.

In 1810 two students at Oxford University, Percy Shelley and Thomas Jefferson Hogg sent a radical anti religion pamphlet, The Necessity of Atheism, to the heads of the colleges. Both students refused to answer questions about the pamphlet and were expelled on March 25, 1811.

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In 1841 the German philosopher, Ludwig Feuerbach, published The Essence of Christianity, which promoted humanistic atheism. The book argued that mankind had invented God as a spiritual answer to their needs, hopes and fears. His work proved to be a great influence on Karl Marx who at the time was a student at the University of Berlin.

The 20th century saw the political advancement of atheism, spurred on by interpretation of the works of Marx and Engels. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Soviet Union and other communist states promoted state atheism and opposed religion, often by violent means.

In 2003, the Department of Veterans Affairs approved a policy allowing emblems for atheism, humanism, and agnosticism alongside traditional religious symbols on American gravestones.

In 2014 there were seven countries in which you could be executed for being an atheist (Afghanistan, Iran, Maldives, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan).  

The highest rates of atheism occur in nations where citizens have high economic and political stability.

In Hinduism, atheism is considered to be a valid path to spirituality, as it can be argued that God can manifest in several forms with "no form" being one of them.

While projections show Islam and Christianity having population booms into 2050, atheism is expected to dwindle as time goes on. The main reason is atheists have extremely low fertility rates in comparison to Christians and Muslims.

Atheophobia is the fear or hatred of atheists or atheism.