The global computer communications network now stretches around the world. However, there are many places within reach of the Net which are currently not connected, either because of lack of money, of knowledge, or of other factors impeding online access. There are many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and online services spreading, but these commercial entities do not guarantee that everyone who would be interested in connecting with the on-line world will have the ability to do so. Also, the personal computer is not affordable to a great number of people around the world. Just as it is important to the American society as a whole to co...

Article: 52786 of comp.dcom.telecom From: TELECOM Digest Editor Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom Subject: The Need For a Netizens Association Date: Tue, 05 Mar 1996 04:00:00 GMT Organization: TELECOM Digest, PO Box 4621, Skokie, IL 60076 An interesting message reached me today that I thought several of you might be interested in. If you do wish to continue the discussion, please send your comments direct to the author as shown below and not to the Digest itself. Perhaps at some future point the author will be so kind as to summarize responses for the Digest and submit them to me for publication. PAT From: hauben@vanakam.cc.columbia.edu (Mich...

On the night of June 1, 2009, a twin-engine Airbus A330 plane, of the French company Air France, (flight AF 447), was flying with 228 people on board, in the South Atlantic, on a north-east route. He had left a few hours earlier from Rio de Janeiro and his final destination was the city of Paris. The last message received by the Brazilian air traffic control system dates back to 1.33 AM (UTC), when the plane approached the edge of the Brazilian-controlled air zone. After approximately forty minutes, the Senegalese control towers received a series of automatic messages indicating numerous anomalies and malfunctions, including significant d...

When Christopher Columbus arrived on the island of Guanahani, in October 1492, he could not imagine that in the New World, later called America, there lived a total of more than 2000 different peoples, for a total population of around 60 million people. As we know, the majority of these indigenous people died following the invasion of the Europeans, initially the Spanish and Portuguese and later the Dutch, English and French. Europeans unknowingly transported viruses and bacteria, often present in their animals: cattle, pigs and horses. The dispersion of these viruses, especially smallpox, caused many epidemics over the following centurie...

The Peruvian department of Madre de Dios, the ancient Antisuyo, is still today one of the most mysterious, wild, little-known and uncontaminated territories on the planet. Its virgin forests have been declared "intangible" territory (access is prohibited, as well as any mining, water or forestry exploitation), precisely to preserve the enormous biodiversity present there. Over the five centuries that separate us from the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in Peru, the Madre de Dios was also the objective of many expeditions of explorers and adventurers who were looking for the lost city of Paititi, the last outpost where the Inca priest...

In Western Europe, around 3000 BC, some people lived who developed a particular culture, called megalithic. The main constructions of that era are the Cromlech, large stones arranged in a circle, both for ritual and calendar reasons, the Dolmen, funerary urns made up of two vertical stones surmounted by a horizontal slab, and the Menhir, vertical stones stuck in the ground, which probably had the function of paying homage to the sun. The most important archaeological sites of this ancient culture are found in Stonehenge (whose monument, however, was remodeled around the 60s of the last century), in Brittany, Ireland, Corsica, Sardinia, Ma...

According to the orthodox historical vision, there were no contacts between the Middle Eastern world and the Americas before the arrival of the Genoese navigatorChristopher Columbus in 1492. However, there is much evidence that the Middle Eastern world and also the Celtic-megalithic world, had sporadic contacts with South America, starting from the time of the Sumerians. The Sumerian pre-contact theory is supported both by elements of linguistic similarity of the ancient Sumerian language with the Aymara language still spoken today in Bolivia, and by two very particular finds that were found near Lake Titicaca. I am referring to theFuente...

During the era of European expansion in the New World, Italian navigators had a decisive influence not only in maritime exploration, but also in the study of the New Continent from an ethnic, social and naturalistic point of view. The five great Italian navigators were: Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Giovanni and Sebastiano Caboto and Giovanni da Verazzano. Everyone had to look for jobs outside Italy, given that the rulers of the time did not understand the real added value that these navigators could bring to their territories (and even less to the whole of Italy, understood as a nation). Unfortunately, even today many excellent...

The first European who found himself in the presence of the vestiges of the Mayan civilization was the Andalusian Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba, on an expedition in 1517. The aim of the exploration of the Central American mainland was to imprison indigenous people and then use them as slaves in agricultural lands and mines of Cuba. The adventurers set sail from Cuba on February 8, 1517 with two caravels and a brig. After about twenty days of sailing, they sighted land on the coast of Yucatan. The invaders, amazed, saw stone houses and realized that they were in the presence of an advanced culture. The village was called Great Cairo, foll...

The conqueror of the area inhabited by the Quimbaya indigenous people was Jorge Robledo, one of the lieutenants of Sebastian de Belalcazar, governor of Popayan and founder of Santiago de Cali. In 1539 Robledo left the village of Cali, commanding a troop of about one hundred Spaniards and various indigenous slaves, and pushed north, along the Cauca river. After founding the village of Anserma, he came into contact with Cananao, the cacique of the Irras. From the latter he received a golden vase as a gift and as a sign of submission and welcome. The Spaniards instilled terror on the natives, especially for those strange shiny iron barrels t...