Rou

Rou may refer to:

Rake (character)

A rake, short for rakehell (analogous to "hellraiser"), is a historic term applied to a man who is habituated to immoral conduct, particularly womanising. Often a rake was also prodigal who wasted his (usually inherited) fortune on gambling, wine, women and song, incurring lavish debts in the process. Comparable terms are "libertine" and "debauchee."

The Restoration rake was a carefree, witty, sexually irresistible aristocrat whose heyday was during the English Restoration period (1660–1688) at the court of Charles II. They were typified by the "Merry gang" of courtiers, who included as prominent members the Earl of Rochester; George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham; and the Earl of Dorset, who combined riotous living with intellectual pursuits and patronage of the arts. At this time the rake featured as a stock character in Restoration comedy.

After the reign of Charles II, and especially after the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the cultural perception of the rake took a dive into squalor. The rake became the butt of moralistic tales in which his typical fate was debtor's prison, venereal disease, or, in the case of William Hogarth's A Rake's Progress, insanity in Bedlam.

Romania

Coordinates: 46°N 25°E / 46°N 25°E / 46; 25

Romania (ⁱ/roʊˈmeɪniə/ roh-MAY-nee-ə; Romanian: România [romɨˈni.a]) is a unitary semi-presidential republic located in Southeastern Europe, bordering the Black Sea, between Bulgaria and Ukraine. It also borders Hungary, Serbia, and Moldova. It covers 238,391 square kilometres (92,043 sq mi) and has a temperate-continental climate. With its 19.94 million inhabitants, it is the seventh most populous member state of the European Union. Its capital and largest city, Bucharest, is the sixth largest city in the EU. The River Danube, which is Europe's second longest river after the Volga, rises in Germany and flows southeastwards for a distance of 2,857 km, coursing through ten countries before emptying in Romania's Danube Delta. Some of its 1,075 km length bordering the country drains the whole of it. The Carpathian Mountains, with their tallest peak Moldoveanu at 2,544 m (8,346 ft), cross Romania from the north to the southwest.

Modern Romania emerged within the territories of the ancient Roman province of Dacia, and was formed in 1859 through a personal union of the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. The new state, officially named Romania since 1866, gained independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877. At the end of World War I, Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia united with the sovereign Kingdom of Romania. During World War II, Romania was an ally of Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union, fighting side by side with the Wehrmacht until 1944, then it joined the Allied powers after being occupied by the Red Army forces. During the war, Romania lost several territories, of which Northern Transylvania was regained after the war. Following the war, Romania became a socialist republic and member of the Warsaw Pact. After the 1989 Revolution, Romania began a transition back towards democracy and a capitalist market economy.