The Pillars of Hercules: A Grand Tour of the Mediterranean is a travelogue written by the American travel writer and novelist Paul Theroux, first published 1995.[1]
The Mediterranean Sea was the central superhighway of transport, trade and cultural exchange between diverse peoples encompassing three continents: Western Asia, North Africa, and Southern Europe. The history of the cultures and people of the Mediterranean Basin is important for understanding the origin and development of the Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Canaanite, Phoenician, Hebrew, Carthaginian, Greek, Persian, Illyrian, Thracian, Etruscan, Iberian, Roman, Byzantine, Bulgarian, Arab, Berber, Ottoman, Christian and Islamic cultures.
The Levant is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, it is equivalent to the historical region of Syria, which included present-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Israel, Palestine and most of Turkey south-east of the middle Euphrates. In its widest historical sense, the Levant included all of the Eastern Mediterranean with its islands; that is, it included all of the countries along the Eastern Mediterranean shores, extending from Greece to Cyrenaica in eastern Libya.
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant. Although the sea is sometimes considered a part of the Atlantic Ocean, it is usually referred to as a separate body of water. Geological evidence indicates that around 5.9 million years ago, the Mediterranean was cut off from the Atlantic and was partly or completely desiccated over a period of some 600,000 years during the Messinian salinity crisis before being refilled by the Zanclean flood about 5.3 million years ago.
The Pillars of Hercules was the phrase that was applied in Antiquity to the promontories that flank the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar. The northern Pillar, Calpe Mons, is the Rock of Gibraltar. A corresponding North African peak not being predominant, the identity of the southern Pillar, Abila Mons, has been disputed throughout history, with the two most likely candidates being Monte Hacho in Ceuta and Jebel Musa in Morocco.
The Arab world, formally the Arab homeland, also known as the Arab nation, the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, consists of the 22 Arab countries which are members of the Arab League. A majority of these countries are located in Western Asia, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa; the southernmost member, the Comoros, is an island country off the coast of East Africa. The region stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the Indian Ocean in the southeast. The eastern part of the Arab world is known as the Mashriq, and the western part as the Maghreb. Arabic is used as the lingua franca throughout the Arab world.
A landlocked country or landlocked state is a sovereign state that does not have territory connected to an ocean or whose coastlines lie on endorheic basins. There are currently 44 landlocked countries and 5 partially recognized landlocked states. Kazakhstan is the world's largest landlocked country.
USS John Rodgers (DD-983), a Spruance-class destroyer, was the sixth ship of the United States Navy to be named for the three generations of the Rodgers family who served in the navy.
USS Harlan R. Dickson (DD-708), an Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer, was named for Lieutenant Commander Harlan Rockey Dickson.
USS Charles H. Roan (DD-853) was a Gearing-class destroyer of the United States Navy. The ship was named after Charles Howard Roan, a United States Marine who lost his life in action on the island of Palau during World War II.
USS Hugh Purvis (DD-709) was an Allen M. Sumner-class destroyer in service with the United States Navy from 1945 to 1972. She was then transferred to Turkey and served until 1993 as TCG Zafer (D356). The ship was scrapped in 1994.
Greece–United States relations, also known as Greek–American relations, refers to bilateral relations between the Hellenic Republic and the United States of America.
Israeli–Turkish relations are the bilateral ties between the Israel and the Republic of Turkey. Israel–Turkey relations were formalized in March 1949, when Turkey was the first Muslim majority country to recognize the State of Israel. Both countries gave high priority to military, strategic, and diplomatic cooperation, while sharing concerns with respect to the regional instabilities in the Middle East. However, relations between the two countries have increasingly deteriorated in the last decade.
The relations between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Turkey are complex and characterized by both tension and cooperation. Both countries fight for influence in the Middle East through supporting opposing proxies as part of the Iran-Turkey proxy conflict. The two countries are also major trade partners and are perceived as mutually interdependent due to geographical proximity as well as shared cultural, linguistic, and ethnic traits. For example, the Kurds, a Iranic ethnic group, are the second-largest ethnicity in Turkey.
Greece and Italy enjoy special and strong bilateral diplomatic relations. Modern diplomatic relations between the two countries were established right after Italy's unification, and are today regarded as cordial. The two states cooperate in the fields of energy, security, culture and tourism, and are major trading partners, both in exports and imports.
Turkey shares its longest common border with Syria; various geographic and historical links also tie the two neighbouring countries together.
Cyprus–Israel relations refer to the bilateral relations between Cyprus and Israel. Israel has an embassy in Nicosia, while Cyprus has an embassy in Tel Aviv. Both countries are members of the Union for the Mediterranean, United Nations, Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and World Trade Organization.
On 22 June 2012, a Turkish F-4 Phantom reconnaissance jet was intercepted and shot down by the Syrian Army in international airspace, after having violated Syrian airspace. The jet's pilots were killed; both Turkish and Syrian forces searched for them before recovering their bodies in early July. The incident was part of a series of incidents between Turkey and Syria since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War and greatly escalated the tensions between the two countries.
The migration of Moroccan Jews to Israel occurred predominately after The Holocaust of European Jewry. The spotlight was turned to the North African; and particularly; Moroccan Jewish communities, constituting the largest of the Jewish communities in North Africa at the time. Riots in Oujda and Jerada and fear that Morocco's eventual independence from France would lead to the persecution of the country's Jews, led to a large-scale emigration. Approximately 28,000 Jews immigrating to Israel between 1948 and 1951.
The Turkish Straits crisis was a Cold War-era territorial conflict between the Soviet Union and Turkey. Turkey had remained officially neutral throughout most of the Second World War. When the war ended, Turkey was pressured by the Soviet government to allow Soviet shipping to flow freely through the Turkish Straits, which connected the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. As the Turkish government refused the Soviet Union's request, tensions arose in the region, leading to a Soviet show of naval force. The incident would later serve as a deciding factor in the issuing of the Truman Doctrine. At its climax, the tensions would cause Turkey to turn to the United States for protection through NATO membership.
The Russia–Turkey proxy conflict is a strategic struggle between Turkey and initially the Syrian government which turned into a military crisis between Turkey and Russia after the November 2015 shoot-down of a Russian Air Force Su-24 by the Turkish Air Force after an alleged airspace violation. Increased Russian military aggression and hostile Turkish territorial responses have all contributed to increasing escalation. Aerial confrontations between the two countries have grown more common. Turkey accuses Russian Forces of violating Turkish sovereign airspace and war crimes against Syrian Turkmens. The Russian military has accused Turkey of maintaining illegal economic ties with ISIL and condemned Turkish military interventions in Syria and Libya.
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