Atlantic Ocean

Mayflower II is a reproduction of the 17th-century ship Mayflower, celebrated for transporting the Pilgrims to the New World in 1620.The reproduction was built in Devon, England during 1955–1956, in a collaboration between Englishman Warwick Charlton and Plimoth Patuxet (at the time known as Plimoth Plantation), a living history museum. The work drew upon reconstructed ship blueprints held by the American museum, along with hand construction by English shipbuilders using traditional methods.Mayflower II was sailed from Plymouth, Devon on April 20, 1957, recreating the original voyage across the Atlantic Ocean, under the command of Alan Villiers.According to the ship's log, Mayflower II arrived at Plymouth on June 22; it was towed up the East River into New York City on Monday, July 1, 1957, where Villiers and crew received a ticker-tape parade. The ship was listed on the US National Register of Historic Places in 2020.

The ship was built at the Upham Shipyard in Brixham and financed by private donations in England and Plimoth Plantation. It represented the alliance between the United Kingdom and the United States for collaboration during the Second World War. The ship is considered a faithful generic reproduction within a few details (electric lights added and ladder replaced with a lower-deck staircase), with solid oak timbers, tarred hemp rigging, and hand-coloured maps. It is 106 ft (32 m) long by 25 ft (7.6 m) wide, 236 tons displacement, three masts (mainmast, foremast, mizzen), a bowsprit and 6 sails.

Prince Henry of Portugal, Duke of Viseu (Portuguese: Infante Dom Henrique; 4 March 1394 – 13 November 1460), better known as Prince Henry the Navigator (Portuguese: Infante Dom Henrique, o Navegador), was a Portuguese prince and a central figure in the early days of the Portuguese Empire and in the 15th-century European maritime exploration. Through his administrative direction, he is regarded as the main initiator of what would be known as the Age of Discovery. Henry was the fourth child of King John I of Portugal, who founded the House of Aviz.

After procuring the new caravel ship, Henry was responsible for the early development of Portuguese exploration and maritime trade with other continents through the systematic exploration of Western Africa, the islands of the Atlantic Ocean, and the search for new routes. He encouraged his father to conquer Ceuta (1415), the Muslim port on the North African coast across the Straits of Gibraltar from the Iberian Peninsula. He learned of the opportunity offered by the Saharan trade routes that terminated there, and became fascinated with Africa in general; he was most intrigued by the Christian legend of Prester John and the expansion of Portuguese trade. He is regarded as the patron of Portuguese exploration. He is also considered to be one of the most responsible for developing the slave trade in Western Europe. The prince died on 13 November 1460 in Vila do Bispo, Algarve.

The Cape of Good Hope (Afrikaans: Kaap die Goeie Hoop [ˌkɑːp di ˌχujə ˈɦuəp]) is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa.

A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is the southern tip of Africa, based on the misbelief that the Cape was the dividing point between the Atlantic and Indian oceans. In fact, the southernmost point of Africa is Cape Agulhas about 150 kilometres (90 mi) to the east-southeast. The currents of the two oceans meet at the point where the warm-water Agulhas current meets the cold-water Benguela current and turns back on itself. That oceanic meeting point fluctuates between Cape Agulhas and Cape Point (about 1.2 kilometres (0.75 mi) east of the Cape of Good Hope).

The Sahelian kingdoms were a series of centralized kingdoms or empires that were centered on the Sahel, the area of grasslands south of the Sahara, from the 8th century to the 19th. The wealth of the states came from controlling the trade routes across the desert. Their power came from having large pack animals like camels and horses that were fast enough to keep a large empire under central control and were also useful in such kind of battle. All of these empires were also quite decentralized with member cities having a great deal of autonomy.

The Sahel states were limited from expanding south into the forest zone of the Bono and Yoruba as mounted warriors were all but useless in the forests and the horses and camels could not survive the diseases of the region.

The Arab world (Arabic: اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ al-ʿālam al-ʿarabī), formally the Arab homeland (اَلْوَطَنُ الْعَرَبِيُّ al-waṭan al-ʿarabī), also known as the Arab nation (اَلْأُمَّةُ الْعَرَبِيَّةُ al-ummah al-ʿarabiyyah), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, comprises a large group of countries, mainly located in West Asia and North Africa. While the majority of people in the Arab world are ethnically Arab, there are also significant populations of other ethnic groups such as Berbers, Kurds, Somalis and Nubians, among other groups. Arabic is used as the lingua franca throughout the Arab world.

The Arab world is at its minimum defined as the 19 states where Arabs form at least a plurality of the population. At its maximum it consists of the 22 members of the Arab League, an international organization, which on top of the 19 plurality Arab states also includes the Bantu-speaking Comoros, and the Cushitic-speaking Djibouti and Somalia. 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.

El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a global climate phenomenon that emerges from variation in winds and sea surface temperatures over the tropical Pacific Ocean. Those variations have an irregular pattern but do have some semblance of cycles. The occurrence of ENSO is not predictable. It affects the climate of much of the tropics and subtropics, and has links (teleconnections) to higher-latitude regions of the world. The warming phase of the sea surface temperature is known as "El Niño" and the cooling phase as "La Niña". The Southern Oscillation is the accompanying atmospheric oscillation, which is coupled with the sea temperature change.

El Niño is associated with higher than normal air sea level pressure over Indonesia, Australia and across the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic. La Niña has roughly the reverse pattern: high pressure over the central and eastern Pacific and lower pressure through much of the rest of the tropics and subtropics. The two phenomena last a year or so each and typically occur every two to seven years with varying intensity, with neutral periods of lower intensity interspersed. El Niño events can be more intense but La Niña events may repeat and last longer. El Niño events, on average, reduced Panama Canal Water Times–contrary to belief.

The ocean is the body of salt water that covers approximately 70.8% of Earth. The ocean is conventionally divided into large bodies of water, which are also referred to as oceans (in descending order: the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean, the Antarctic/Southern Ocean, and the Arctic Ocean), and are themselves mostly divided into seas, gulfs and subsequent bodies of water. The ocean contains 97% of Earth's water and is the primary component of Earth's hydrosphere, acting as a huge reservoir of heat for Earth's energy budget, as well as for its carbon cycle and water cycle, forming the basis for climate and weather patterns worldwide. The ocean is essential to life on Earth, harbouring most of Earth's animals and protist life, originating photosynthesis and therefore Earth's atmospheric oxygen, still supplying half of it.

Ocean scientists split the ocean into vertical and horizontal zones based on physical and biological conditions. Horizontally the ocean covers the oceanic crust, which it shapes. Where the ocean meets dry land it covers relatively shallow continental shelfs, which are part of Earth's continental crust. Human activity is mostly coastal with high negative impacts on marine life. Vertically the pelagic zone is the open ocean's water column from the surface to the ocean floor. The water column is further divided into zones based on depth and the amount of light present. The photic zone starts at the surface and is defined to be "the depth at which light intensity is only 1% of the surface value" (approximately 200 m in the open ocean). This is the zone where photosynthesis can occur. In this process plants and microscopic algae (free-floating phytoplankton) use light, water, carbon dioxide, and nutrients to produce organic matter. As a result, the photic zone is the most biodiverse and the source of the food supply which sustains most of the ocean ecosystem. Light can only penetrate a few hundred more meters; the rest of the deeper ocean is cold and dark (these zones are called mesopelagic and aphotic zones).

The 60th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 60 degrees north of Earth's equator. It crosses Europe, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, North America, and the Atlantic Ocean.

Although it lies approximately twice as far away from the Equator as from the North Pole, the 60th parallel is half as long as the Equator line, due to the cosine of 60 degrees being 0.5. This is where the Earth bulges halfway as much as on the Equator.

Bermuda is a British Overseas Territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. The closest land outside the territory is in the U.S. state of North Carolina, about 1,035 km (643 mi) to the west-northwest.

Bermuda is an archipelago consisting of 181 islands, although the most significant islands are connected by bridges and appear to form one landmass. It has a land area of 54 square kilometres (21 sq mi). Bermuda has a tropical climate, with warm winters and hot summers. Its climate also exhibits oceanic features similar to other coastal areas in the Northern Hemisphere with warm, moist air from the ocean ensuring relatively high humidity and stabilising temperatures. Bermuda is prone to severe weather from recurving tropical cyclones; however, it receives some protection from a coral reef and its position north of the Main Development Region, which limits the direction and severity of approaching storms.

Ascension Island is an isolated volcanic island, 7°56′ south of the Equator in the South Atlantic Ocean. It is about 960 miles (1,540 km) from the coast of Africa and 1,400 miles (2,300 km) from the coast of South America. It is governed as part of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, of which the main island, Saint Helena, is around 800 miles (1,300 km) to the southeast. The territory also includes the sparsely populated Tristan da Cunha archipelago, 2,000 miles (3,200 km) to the south, about halfway to the Antarctic Circle.

Ascension Island was possibly discovered by the Portuguese seafarer João da Nova in 1501, before being named Ascension by Afonso de Albuquerque in 1503 on Ascension Day. Ascension Island was garrisoned by the British Admiralty from 22 October 1815 to 1922 and was an important refuelling stop for ships and commercial airliners in the days of international air travel by flying boats. During World War II, it was an important naval and air station, especially providing antisubmarine warfare bases in the Battle of the Atlantic.