Rock of Gibraltar

The Rock of Gibraltar, sometimes called the Pillar of Hercules, is located in Gibraltar, off the southwestern tip of Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. It is 426 meters (1,396 feet) high. This Rock is owned by England, and borders Spain. The rock was won in a war between England and Spain.

The Rock of Gibraltar is a monolithic Jurassic limestone promontory. (36°08′43″N, 05°20′35″W) The geological formation was created when the African tectonic plate collided tightly with Europe about 55 million years ago. The Mediterranean became a lake that, in the course of time, dried up during the Messinian salinity crisis. About five million years ago the Atlantic Ocean broke through the Strait of Gibraltar, and the resultant flooding created the Mediterranean Sea.

The inside of the Rock is criss-crossed by a great and complex system of underground fortifications, known as the Great Siege Tunnels. This network of tunnels was begun by the British in 1782, during the Great Siege of Gibraltar by the Spanish. After the Siege, the fortifications were rebuilt. In the 1800s, the walls were lined with Portland stone which gave them their present white appearance. When World War II broke out in 1939, the civilian population was evacuated to the United Kingdom, Jamaica, and Madeira so that Gibraltar could be fortified against the possibility of a German attack. By 1942 there were over 30,000 British soldiers, sailors, and airmen on the Rock. The tunnel system was expanded and the Rock became a keystone in the defense of shipping routes to the Mediterranean.

In February 2007, it was revealed the British had a secret plan (Operation Tracer) to bury alive service men in the rock incase it was captured by the Germans during World War II. The team in the rock would have radio equipement to monitor enemy movements. The team of six was sent to Gibraltar where it waited under cover for two and half years. The Germans never got close to capturing the rock, so the men were never sealed inside, and they were disbanded to resume civilian life when the war ended.

Despite long sieges it seemed that there was nothing that could destroy the Rock or its people. This history has inspired the simile "solid as the Rock of Gibraltar", which is used to describe a person or situation that cannot be overcome and does not fail. The motto of the Royal Gibraltar Regiment, Nulli Expugnabilis Hosti, reflects this famous invincibility; it is Latin for "Conquerable by No Enemy".

Bosnian War.

The War in Bosnia and Herzegovina, commonly known as the Bosnian War, was an armed conflict that took place between March 1992 and November 1995. The war involved several ethnically defined factions within Bosnia and Herzegovina: Bosnian Muslims/Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats as well as a smaller faction in Western Bosnia led by Fikret Abdić. These factions changed their objectives and allegiances several times at various stages of the war.

Since the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina was a consequence of events in the wider region of former Yugoslavia, and due to the involvement of neighboring countries Croatia and Yugoslavia, there is an ongoing debate about whether the conflict was a civil war or a war of aggression. Most Bosniaks and many Croats claim that the war was a war of aggression from Serbia, while Serbs tend to consider it a civil war. The involvement of NATO, during the 1995 Operation Deliberate Force against the positions of the Army of Republika Srpska made the war an internationalized conflict.

There was a trial before the International Court of Justice, following a suit by Bosnia and Herzegovina against the Serbia and Montenegro for genocide (see Bosnian genocide case at the International Court of Justice) from 1993. On 26 February 2006 the ICJ dismissed most charges, claiming that Montenegro and Serbia are innocent, that neither of them have committed genocide nor were they a accomplice in such an event, and that thus the two should pay no war damage to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The war was brought to an end after the signing of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina in Paris on 14 December 1995 [7]. The peace negotiations were held in Dayton, Ohio, and were finalized on 21 December 1995. The accords are known as the Dayton Agreement.

The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina came about as a result of the breakup of Yugoslavia. Crisis emerged in Yugoslavia with the weakening of the Communist system at the end of the Cold War. In Yugoslavia, the national Communist party, officially called Alliance or League of Communists of Yugoslavia, was losing its ideological potency, while the nationalist and separatist ideologies were on the rise in the late 1980s. This was particularly noticeable in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to a lesser extent in Slovenia and Macedonia.