Bizarre eilanden

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From 1892 to 1954, over twelve million immigrants entered the United States through the portal of Ellis Island, a small island in New York Harbor.

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Op zondag 5 juni 2005 21:37 schreef Skande het volgende:
Hier:

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Op zondag 5 juni 2005 22:39 schreef k_man het volgende:

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Nee, dat is te simpel. De Engelse marine heeft geprobeerd het eilandje terug te veroveren, is beschoten en heeft zich toen terug getrokken. Er is een rechtszaak geweest waarbij de (Engelse) rechter oordeelde dat de Engelse rechtbank géén jurisdictie heeft op Sealand.

Hier is een heel topic over Sealand: Fascinerend ministaatje: Sealand

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Sealand wouldn't be what it is today without the hotspur energies of Roy Bates, who rose to the rank of major in the British army, fought in North Africa, Sicily, and Italy, and was wounded in action several times. After the war, he started various enterprises, including an import-export business, a wholesale meat business, and a 30-boat fishing fleet.

In 1965, the Bates family embarked on a project that Joan cheerfully describes as "pioneering commercial radio." Others called it pirate radio, because at the time the BBC was the only licensed broadcaster in England. Inspired in part by the success of another radio pirate, and ignoring the law, Roy set up a station on Fort Knock John, one of the abandoned WWII sea forts where he started broadcasting music and advertisements.

Called Radio Essex, the station's 5-kilowatt broadcast blanketed roughly a quarter of England. But the British government wasn't a fan: Bates received a summons in September 1966 for operating a transmitter without a license. Unfortunately for him, he had picked a tower that was just inside England's territorial limit, which was then set at 3 miles out from the coast. He was fined £100 and forced to shut down.

Roy wouldn't make the same mistake again. On Christmas Eve that year, he and Michael, 15 at the time and home from boarding school, dismantled their station and hauled everything to Roughs Tower, which was 6 miles out and therefore beyond the existing territorial limit. There wasn't much the British government could do to stop them, but the military did blow up another fort that stood beyond the 3-mile boundary, to prevent a similar takeover there.

A few months later, Roy and Joan were out with friends in a local pub. Joan mentioned casually that she wanted to have "a flag and some palm trees" to go with the "island" her husband had won for her. Their friends started listing all the things Roy and Joan could do with a sovereign property. Roy hired an attorney to do further research, and learned that a loophole in international law left room for the Bates family to claim Roughs Tower as its own.

"It's called dereliction of sovereignty," explains Michael. "We took over the sovereignty that the British government had derelicted."

On September 2, 1967, Roy proclaimed the independence of Sealand. He pegged the country's currency to the US dollar, minted gold and silver coins, issued passports, and printed a series of stamps honoring great discoverers like Christopher Columbus and Sir Walter Raleigh.

Britain basically ignored the "country" until 1968, when, in a move that helped force the sovereignty issue, Michael fired warning shots at workmen who were servicing a navigational buoy near the platform. The next time Michael and Roy set foot on British soil, they were promptly arrested for weapons violations. But in October of that year, a British court acquitted them, ruling that since Sealand was "about 3 miles outside territorial waters," the Crown's firearms laws didn't apply there. The authorities, perhaps sensing that an embarrassing precedent was taking shape, decided not to appeal.

The British government extended its territorial limit to 12 miles in 1987, but Sealand has been allowed to plod on. Over the years, other legal cases have seemed to bolster the Bateses' sovereignty claim, though the government's stance is still nonrecognition. In 1984, the British Department of Health and Social Security issued a written ruling that Michael Bates did not have to pay his national health insurance for the periods he resided on Sealand. In 1990, Sealand once again fired shots at a boat that came too close. Local authorities investigated, but the matter was quickly dropped.

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Op dinsdag 7 juni 2005 11:50 schreef Hansnr8 het volgende:
florida keys

4 jaar geleden geweest.. lange rij met eilanden verbonden met een lange brug, erg mooi... Key West en Key Largo zijn de grootste eilanden waar het meeste op te beleven is..

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Op dinsdag 7 juni 2005 11:53 schreef rubbereend het volgende:

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dat zijn toch die eilanden waar altijd alles kapot waait als er weer een tropische strom voorbij raast

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Op dinsdag 7 juni 2005 15:15 schreef Hansnr8 het volgende:

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er wil nog wel eens een tornado overheen razen ja...

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Op dinsdag 7 juni 2005 18:30 schreef TheSeeker_NL het volgende:
waar ligt dat nauru ergens?

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Op dinsdag 7 juni 2005 18:18 schreef rubbereend het volgende:

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tornado, k dacht meer aan een orkaan