Lebanon, Pennsylvania

Lebanon (/ˈlɛbənɒn/ locally /ˈlɛbənən/ leb-A-nen, is a city in and the county seat of Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 25,477 at the 2010 census, a 4.2% increase from the 2000 count of 24,461. Lebanon is located in the central part of the Lebanon Valley, 26 miles (42 km) east of Harrisburg and 29 miles (47 km) west of Reading.

Formerly known as Steitztown, the city changed its name to Lebanon, which was named for the country of Lebanon.

History

Native tribes in the area of what is now Lebanon included the Shawnee, Susquehannock, Gawanese, Lenape (or Delaware), and Nanticoke peoples. Lebanon was settled by European colonists in 1720, many with the family names of "Steitz" and "Light", along a creek that was then named "Steitz Creek". The Light patriarchs built a fort to protect against Indians and named it "Light's Fort". The town was laid out in 1753, incorporated as a borough on February 20, 1821, and became a city on November 25, 1885. It adopted the commission form of government, consisting of four councilmen and a mayor.

Lebanese wine

Lebanon is among the oldest sites of wine production in the world. The Israelite prophet Hosea (780–725 BC) is said to have urged his followers to return to Yahweh so that "they will blossom as the vine, [and] their fragrance will be like the wine of Lebanon". The Phoenicians of its coastal strip were instrumental in spreading wine and viticulture throughout the Mediterranean in ancient times. Despite the many conflicts of the region, the country has an annual production of about 600,000 cases of wine. Recently the sector has been witnessing an unprecedented growth. The number of wineries went from 5 in 1998 to over 30 nowadays.

History

Vitis vinifera evidence from ancient Rome shows wine was cultivated and then domesticated in Lebanon, at least two thousand years before Alexander the Great. While some people believe it arrived from the South Caucasus via Mesopotamia or the Black Sea trade routes there is no record to support such a claim. Vines grew readily in the land of Canaan, the coastal strip of today's Lebanon, and the wines of Byblos (Gubla, Gebal, Jubail, Jbeil) were exported to Egypt during the Old Kingdom (2686 BC–2134 BC). The wines of Tyre and Sidon were famous throughout the ancient Mediterranean, although not all the cargoes reached their destination; Robert Ballard of Titanic fame found the wrecks of two Phoenician ships from 750 BC, whose cargo of wine was still intact. As the first great traders of wine ('Cherem'), the Phoenicians seem to have protected it from oxidation with a layer of olive oil, followed by a seal of pinewood and resin - this may well be the origin of the Greek taste for retsina. The philosophers Zeno of Citium and Chrysippus of Soli are both said to have enjoyed their wine, in fact the latter died from overindulgence.

Lebanon (NJT station)

Lebanon is a New Jersey Transit railroad station on the Raritan Valley Line in Lebanon, New Jersey. There is a station building on the north side of the tracks. The southern track is no longer in use and the stop has limited weekday service and no weekend service. The station was bought by the town in 1978, it has been recently refurbished.

Station layout

References

External links

Virginia

Virginia (ⁱ/vərˈdʒɪnjə/ vər-JIN-yə, UK /vərˈdʒɪniə/ vər-JIN-ee-ə), officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state located in the South Atlantic region of the United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" due to its status as the first colonial possession established in mainland British America, and "Mother of Presidents" because eight U.S. presidents were born there, more than any other state. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth are shaped by the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Chesapeake Bay, which provide habitat for much of its flora and fauna. The capital of the Commonwealth is Richmond; Virginia Beach is the most populous city, and Fairfax County is the most populous political subdivision. The Commonwealth's estimated population as of 2014 is over 8.3 million.

The area's history begins with several indigenous groups, including the Powhatan. In 1607 the London Company established the Colony of Virginia as the first permanent New World English colony. Slave labor and the land acquired from displaced Native American tribes each played a significant role in the colony's early politics and plantation economy. Virginia was one of the 13 Colonies in the American Revolution and joined the Confederacy in the American Civil War, during which Richmond was made the Confederate capital and Virginia's northwestern counties seceded to form the state of West Virginia. Although the Commonwealth was under one-party rule for nearly a century following Reconstruction, both major national parties are competitive in modern Virginia.

50 Virginia

50 Virginia /vərˈdʒɪnjə/ is a large, very dark main belt asteroid. It was discovered by American astronomer James Ferguson on October 4, 1857 from the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. German astronomer Robert Luther discovered it independently on October 19 from Düsseldorf, and his discovery was announced first.

The reason for Virginia's name is not known; it may be named after Verginia, the Roman noblewoman slain by her father, but it may alternatively have been named after the American state of Virginia, which is contiguous with Washington.

Photometric observations of this asteroid at the Organ Mesa Observatory in Las Cruces, New Mexico during 2008 gave a light curve with a period of 14.315 ± 0.001 hours and a brightness variation of 0.19 ± 0.02 in magnitude. The shape of the light curve at the maximum was found to change with phase angle.

The orbit of 50 Virginia places it in an 11:4 mean motion resonance with the planet Jupiter. The computed Lyapunov time for this asteroid is only 10,000 years, indicating that it occupies a chaotic orbit that will change randomly over time because of gravitational perturbations of the planets.

Virginia (novel)

Virginia (1913) is a novel by Ellen Glasgow about a wife and mother who in vain seeks happiness by serving her family. This novel, her eleventh, marked a clear departure from Glasgow's previous work—she had written a series of bestsellers before publishing Virginia—in that it attacked, in a subtle yet unmistakable way, the very layer of society that constituted her readership. Also, as its heroine, though virtuous and god-fearing, is denied the happiness she is craving, its plot did not live up to readers' expectations as far as poetic justice is concerned and was bound to upset some of them. Today, Virginia is seen by many as an outstanding achievement in Glasgow's career, exactly because the author defied literary convention by questioning the foundations of American society around the dawn of the 20th century, be it capitalism, religion or racism.

Plot summary

Born in 1864 to a clergyman and his dutiful wife, Virginia grows up as a Southern belle in the town of Dinwiddie, Virginia. Her education is strictly limited to the bare minimum, with anything that might disturb her quiet and comfortable existence vigorously avoided. Thus prepared for life, Virginia falls for the first handsome young man who crosses her path—Oliver Treadwell, the black sheep of a family of capitalist entrepreneurs who, during the time of Reconstruction, brought industry and the railroad to the South. Oliver, who has been abroad and has only recently arrived in Dinwiddie, is a dreamer and an intellectual. An aspiring playwright, his literary ambitions are more important to him than money, and he refuses his uncle's offer to work in his bank. However, when Virginia falls in love with him he realizes that he must be able to support a family, and eventually accepts his uncle's offer to work for the railroad.