Calais in the context of "Pas-de-Calais"

The Spanish Armada (often known as Invincible Armada, or the Enterprise of England, Spanish: Grande y Felicísima Armada, lit. 'Great and Most Fortunate Navy') was a Spanish fleet that sailed from Lisbon in late May 1588, commanded by Alonso de Guzmán, Duke of Medina Sidonia, an aristocrat without previous naval experience appointed by Philip II of Spain. His orders were to sail up the English Channel, join with the army of Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma in Flanders, and escort an invasion force that would land in England and overthrow Elizabeth I. Its purpose was to reinstate Catholicism in England, end English support for the Dutch Republic in the north and prevent attacks by English and Dutch privateers against Spanish interests in the Americas.

The Spanish were opposed by an English fleet based in Plymouth. Faster and more manoeuvrable than the larger Spanish galleons, its ships were able to attack the armada as it sailed up the Channel. Several subordinates advised Medina Sidonia first to enter Plymouth Sound and attack the English fleet before it could leave harbour and then to anchor in the Solent and occupy the Isle of Wight, but he refused to deviate from his instructions to join with Parma. Although the armada reached Calais largely intact, while awaiting communication from Parma, it was attacked at night by English fire ships and forced to scatter. The armada suffered further losses in the ensuing Battle of Gravelines and was in danger of running aground on the Dutch coast when the wind changed, allowing it to escape into the North Sea. Pursued by the English, the Spanish ships returned home via Scotland and Ireland. Up to 24 ships were wrecked along the way before the rest managed to get home. Among the factors contributing to the defeat and withdrawal of the armada were bad weather conditions and the better employment of naval guns and battle tactics by the English.

The Burghers of Calais (French: Les Bourgeois de Calais) is a sculpture by Auguste Rodin in 12 original castings and numerous copies. It commemorates an event during the Hundred Years' War, when Calais, a French port on the English Channel, surrendered to the English after an 11-month siege. The city commissioned Rodin to create the sculpture in 1884 and the work was completed in 1889.

Boulogne-sur-Mer (French: [bulɔɲ syʁ mɛʁ] ; Picard: Boulonne-su-Mér; Dutch: Bonen; Latin: Gesoriacum or Bononia), often called just Boulogne (UK: /bʊˈlɔɪn/, US: /buːˈloʊn, buːˈlɔɪn/), is a port city in Northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department of Pas-de-Calais. Boulogne lies on the Côte d'Opale, a touristic stretch of French coast on the English Channel between Calais and Normandy, and the most visited location in the region after the Lille conurbation. Boulogne is its department's second-largest city after Calais, and the 183rd-largest in France. It is also the country's largest fishing port, specialising in herring.

Boulogne is an ancient town and was the main Roman port for trade and communication with its Province of Britain. After a period of Germanic presence following the collapse of the Empire, Boulogne was integrated into the County of Boulogne of the Kingdom of France during the Middle Ages. It was occupied by the Kingdom of England numerous times due to conflict between the two nations. In 1805 it was a staging area for Napoleon's troops for several months during his planned invasion of the United Kingdom.

The Strait of Dover or Dover Strait, historically known as the Dover Narrows, is the strait at the narrowest part of the English Channel, marking the boundary between the Channel and the North Sea, and separating Great Britain from continental Europe. The shortest distance across the strait, at approximately 20 miles (32 kilometres), is from the South Foreland, northeast of Dover in the English county of Kent, to Cap Gris Nez, a cape near to Calais in the French département of Pas-de-Calais. Between these points lies the most popular route for cross-channel swimmers. The entire strait is within the territorial waters of France and the United Kingdom, but a right of transit passage under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea allows vessels of other nations to move freely through the strait.

On a clear day, it is possible to see the opposite coastline of England from France and vice versa with the naked eye, with the most famous and obvious sight being the White Cliffs of Dover from the French coastline and shoreline buildings on both coastlines, as well as lights on either coastline at night, as in Matthew Arnold's poem "Dover Beach".

The County of Artois (French: comté d'Artois, Dutch: graafschap Artesië, Picard: Comté d'Artoé) was a historic province of the Kingdom of France, held by the Dukes of Burgundy from 1384 until 1477/82, and a state of the Holy Roman Empire from 1493 until 1659.

Present-day Artois lies in northern France, near the border with Belgium. Its territory has an area of around 4,000 square kilometres (1,500 sq mi) and a population of about one million. Its principal cities include Arras (Dutch: Atrecht), Calais (Dutch: Kales), Boulogne-sur-Mer (Dutch: Bonen), Saint-Omer (West Flemish: Sint-Omaars, Lens and Béthune. It forms the interior of the French département of Pas-de-Calais.

The white genocide, white extinction, or white replacement conspiracy theory is a white nationalist conspiracy theory that claims there is a deliberate plot (often blamed on Jews) to cause the extinction of white people through forced assimilation, mass immigration, or violent genocide. It purports that this goal is advanced through the promotion of miscegenation, interracial marriage, mass non-white immigration, racial integration, low fertility rates, abortion, pornography, LGBTQ identities, governmental land-confiscation from whites, organised violence, and eliminationism in majority white countries. Under some theories, Black people, non-white Hispanics, East Asians, South Asians, Southeast Asians, and Arabs are blamed for the secret plot, but usually as more fertile immigrants, invaders, or violent aggressors, rather than as the masterminds. A related, but distinct, conspiracy theory is the Great Replacement theory.

White genocide is a political myth based on pseudoscience, pseudohistory, and ethnic hatred, and is driven by a psychological panic often termed "white extinction anxiety". Objectively, white people are not dying out or facing extermination. The purpose of the conspiracy theory is to justify a commitment to a white nationalist agenda in support of calls to violence.

The Calais Jungle (known officially as Camp de la Lande) was a refugee and immigrant encampment in the vicinity of Calais, France, that existed from January 2015 to October 2016. There had been other camps known as "jungles" in previous years, but this particular shanty town drew global media attention during the peak of the European migrant crisis in 2015, when its population grew rapidly. Migrants stayed at the camp while they attempted to enter the United Kingdom, or while they waited for their French asylum claims to be processed.

The camp was located on a former landfill site to the east of Calais. By July 2015, it had 3,000 inhabitants and continued to grow. Although estimates of the number of migrants differed, a Help Refugees (now Choose Love) census gave a figure of 8,143 people just before the camp's demolition in October 2016. As well as residences, the Jungle contained shops, restaurants, hairdressers, schools, places of worship and a boxing club.

The Pale of Calais was a territory in northern France ruled by the monarchs of England from 1347 to 1558. The area, which centred on Calais, was taken following the Battle of Crécy in 1346 and the subsequent Siege of Calais, and was confirmed at the Treaty of Brétigny in 1360, in the reign of Edward III of England. It became an important economic centre for England in Europe's textile trade centred in Flanders.

The Pale, which was historically part of Flanders and Artois, also provided England with a permanent strategic, defensible outpost from which it could plan and launch military action on the continent. Its position on the English Channel meant it could be reinforced, garrisoned and supplied over the Straits of Dover. The territory was bilingual with English and Flemish commonly spoken. It was represented in the Parliament of England by the Calais constituency.