The Propitious Esculent: The Potato in World History is a book by John Reader outlining the role of the potato (the esculent of the title) in world history. It was also published under the titles The Untold History of the Potato and Potato: A History of the Propitious Esculent.The potato has been present and influential during the major events in the last 500 years. These include the historical moments of discovery and culture change that have led to the present globalized world. Potatoes had a single region of origin; how they moved from place to place has affected the variety of tubers and...

The Moscow Helsinki Group (also known as the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group, Russian: Московская Хельсинкская группа) is today one of Russia's leading human rights organisations. It was originally set up in 1976 to monitor Soviet compliance with the Helsinki Accords and to report to the West on Soviet human rights abuses.: 414  It was forced out of existence in the early 1980s, but revived in 1989 and continues to operate in Russia as of 2021.In the 1970s, Moscow Helsinki Group inspired the formation of similar groups in other Warsaw Pact countries and support groups in the West. Within the Soviet...

The Helsinki Final Act, also known as Helsinki Accords or Helsinki Declaration was the document signed at the closing meeting of the third phase of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) held in Helsinki, Finland, between 30 July and 1 August 1975, following two years of negotiations known as the Helsinki Process. All then-existing European countries (except Andorra and pro-Chinese Albania) as well as the United States and Canada, altogether 35 participating states, signed the Final Act in an attempt to improve the détente between the East and the West. The Helsinki Accords...

Noun: geen

1. genitive plural of ge

Verb: geen

1. to go
2. 1589, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, letter
3. Geen. Ire.

Adjective: geen (not comparable)

1. (archaic except in set phrases) yonder...

Colin Angus is a Canadian author and adventurer who is the first person to make a self-propelled global circumnavigation. Due to varying definitions of the term "circumnavigation," debate has arisen as to whether or not the route travelled fulfilled the strictest criteria (for further discussion, see World Circumnavigation). As part of the circumnavigation, Angus and his then fiancé Julie Wafaei (now Julie Angus) made the first rowboat crossing of the Atlantic Ocean from mainland Europe to mainland North America, and Wafaei became the first Canadian woman to row across any ocean. Colin and Julie...

Kvass is a fermented cereal-based low alcoholic beverage with a slightly cloudy appearance, light-brown colour and sweet-sour taste. It may be flavoured with berries, fruits, herbs or honey. Kvass stems from the northeastern part of Europe, where the grain production is thought to have been insufficient for beer to become a daily drink. The first written mention of kvass is found in the Primary Chronicle, describing the celebration of Vladimir the Great's baptism in 996. In the traditional method, kvass is made from a mash obtained from rye bread or rye flour and malt soaked in hot water, fermented...

B. Traven (German: [ˈbeː ˈtʁaːvn̩]; Bruno Traven in some accounts) was the pen name of a novelist, presumed to be German, whose real name, nationality, date and place of birth and details of biography are all subject to dispute. One certainty about Traven's life is that he lived for years in Mexico, where the majority of his fiction is also set—including The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1927), the film adaptation of which won three Academy Awards in 1948. == Life == Virtually every detail of Traven's life has been disputed and hotly debated. There were many hypotheses on the true identity of...

Żurawiejka was a short, two-line facetious couplet, written specifically for cavalry regiments of the Polish Army in the interbellum period. It humorously and ironically presented history of a given regiment, as well as its contemporary fate. Żurawiejkas were also used in cavalry regiments of the Imperial Russian Army, as the tradition of writing them, as well as the very name of the couplet, comes from Russian cavalry, and was taken over by the Poles in the interbellum period. Famous Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov is considered the father of żurawiejka, as he wrote first couplets while serving...

Baarle (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈbaːrlə] (listen)) is a village whose territory is divided into a patchwork of Belgian and Dutch territories. The Belgian parts of the village are called Baarle-Hertog and the Dutch elements are called Baarle-Nassau. The Belgian part includes 16 exclaves within Dutch territory. The exclaves, in turn, surround seven Dutch areas. Belgian territory also surrounds an eighth Dutch area near Ginhoven. In 1995, the border was finalized to include a formerly neutral grassland. Baarle also includes a quadripoint shared by two of the exclaves. The line of the border means that...

Maine (pronounced [mɛːn]) is one of the traditional provinces of France. It corresponds to the former County of Maine, whose capital was also the city of Le Mans. The area, now divided into the departments of Sarthe and Mayenne, counts about 857,000 inhabitants. == History == === Antiquity === The Gallic tribe Aulerci Cenomani lived in the region during the Iron Age and Roman period. The province of Maine was named after them, in the 6th century CE as in Cinomanico (in pago Celmanico in 765, *Cemaine, then Le Maine from the 12th century). === Early Middle Ages === In the 8th and 9th c...

The Celtic nations are a cultural area and collection of geographical regions in Northwestern Europe where the Celtic languages and cultural traits have survived. The term nation is used in its original sense to mean a people who share a common identity and culture and are identified with a traditional territory. The six regions widely considered Celtic nations are Brittany (Breizh), Cornwall (Kernow), Ireland (Éire), the Isle of Man (Mannin, or Ellan Vannin), Scotland (Alba), and Wales (Cymru). In each of the six nations a Celtic language is spoken to some extent: Brittonic or Brythonic languages...