Portal:Germany
Welcome to the Germany Portal!
Willkommen im Deutschland-Portal!
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Germany (German: Deutschland), officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central and Western Europe, lying between the Baltic and North Seas to the north and the Alps to the south. It borders Denmark to the north, Poland and the Czech Republic to the east, Austria and Switzerland to the south, France to the southwest, and Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands to the west.
Germany includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,578 square kilometres (138,062 sq mi) and has a largely temperate seasonal climate. With 83 million inhabitants, it is the second most populous state of Europe after Russia, the most populous state lying entirely in Europe, as well as the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is a very decentralised country. Its capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while Frankfurt serves as its financial capital and has the country's busiest airport.
In 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the revolution of 1918–19, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic. The Nazi seizure of power in 1933 led to World War II, and the Holocaust. After the end of World War II in Europe and a period of Allied occupation, two new German states were founded: West Germany, formed from the American, British, and French occupation zones, and East Germany, formed from the western part of the Soviet occupation zone, reduced by the newly established Oder-Neisse line. Following the Revolutions of 1989 that ended communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe, the country was reunified on 3 October 1990.
Today, Germany is a federal parliamentary republic led by a chancellor. It is a great power with a strong economy. The Federal Republic of Germany was a founding member of the European Economic Community in 1957 and the European Union in 1993. Read more...
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Johannes Kepler (/ˈkɛplər/; German: [joˈhanəs ˈkɛplɐ, -nɛs -] (listen); 27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his laws of planetary motion, and his books Astronomia nova, Harmonice Mundi, and Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae. These works also provided one of the foundations for Newton's theory of universal gravitation.
Kepler was a mathematics teacher at a seminary school in Graz, where he became an associate of Prince Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg. Later he became an assistant to the astronomer Tycho Brahe in Prague, and eventually the imperial mathematician to Emperor Rudolf II and his two successors Matthias and Ferdinand II. He also taught mathematics in Linz, and was an adviser to General Wallenstein. Additionally, he did fundamental work in the field of optics, invented an improved version of the refracting (or Keplerian) telescope, and was mentioned in the telescopic discoveries of his contemporary Galileo Galilei. He was a corresponding member of the Accademia dei Lincei in Rome. (Full article...)
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Anniversaries for March 22
- 1797 - Birth of Emperor Wilhelm I of Germany (pictured)
- 1799 - Birth of astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander
- 1832 - Death of writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
- 1935 - The world's first regular television service, Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow, starts broadcasting
- 1937 - Birth of athlete Armin Hary, first man to run 100 m in 10.0 s
Did you know...
- ... that in 2002, Georg Christoph Biller and others conceived the Forum Thomanum as a new music educational campus for the Thomanerchor, Bach's choir dating back to 1212?
- ... that Stephan MacLeod's 2021 recording of Bach's Mass in B minor with ten singers was said to be "characterised by swift momentum, crisp articulation and benevolent attention to detail"?
- ... that the 13th-century Austrian chronicler Jans der Enikel characterized Richard the Lionheart as a "noble goose-roaster"?
- ... that Franz Grave, the first bishop of Essen born in Essen, focused on intercultural dialogue with Latin America?
- ... that the 1711 Missa Sanctae Caeciliae, the first composition by Jan Dismas Zelenka, who had come from Prague to play in the Dresden court orchestra, is a 45-minute mass?
- ... that Anna Korsun, a composer who studied in Kyiv and Munich, and teaches in Amsterdam, was awarded a scholarship at the Villa Massimo in Rome in 2018?
- ... that humor in Nazi camps was a survival and defense mechanism?
- ... that after the 1871 German victory parade in Paris (pictured) 151 years ago today, the French symbolically scrubbed the streets on which the Germans had marched?
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Flammekueche (Alsatian), or tarte flambée (French), is a speciality of the region of Alsace. It is composed of bread dough rolled out very thinly in the shape of a rectangle or oval, which is covered with fromage blanc or crème fraîche, thin-sliced onions and lardons.
The name of the dishes varies in local dialects; it is called Flàmmeküeche, or Flàmmaküacha in Alsatian, or Flammkuche in Lorraine Franconian. All these names translate as "pie baked in the flames". Contrary to what the direct translation would suggest, tarte flambée is not flambéed but is cooked in a wood-fire oven. (Full article...)Topics
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- Requests: German Archaeological Institute at Rome , Hans Sauer (inventor) , Jürgen Wieshoff , Torsten Sträter , Werner Sonne , Jan Philipp Burgard , Markus Löning , Dorothea Siems , Anke Plättner , Hennes Bender , Herbert Helmrich , Ingrid Matthäus-Maier , Anton Stark , Christoph Strässer , Hans Wilhelmi , Siegfried Kauder , Matze Knop , Deutsche Familienversicherung , Franz Josef Wagner , Tom Koenigs , Gerd Poppe , Hajo Schumacher , Joseph von Utzschneider
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