A dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Reservoirs created by dams not only suppress floods but also provide water for such activities as irrigation, human consumption, industrial use, aquaculture, and navigability. Hydropower is often used in conjunction with dams to generate electricity. A dam can also be used to collect water or for storage of water which can be evenly distributed between locations. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees (also known as dikes) are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions.
The word dam can be traced back to Middle English, and before that, from Middle Dutch, as seen in the names of many old cities.
History
Ancient dams
Early dam building took place in Mesopotamia and the Middle East. Dams were used to control the water level, for Mesopotamia's weather affected the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and could be quite unpredictable.
The earliest known dam is the Jawa Dam in Jordan, 100 kilometres (62 mi) northeast of the capital Amman. This gravity dam featured an originally 9-metre-high (30 ft) and 1 m-wide (3.3 ft) stone wall, supported by a 50 m-wide (160 ft) earth rampart. The structure is dated to 3000 BC.
Damè is a town and arrondissement in the Atlantique Department of southern Benin. It is an administrative division under the jurisdiction of the commune of Toffo. According to the population census conducted by the Institut National de la Statistique Benin on February 15, 2002, the arrondissement had a total population of 11,034.
References
Coordinates: 6°51′00″N 2°05′00″E / 6.8500°N 2.0833°E / 6.8500; 2.0833
Damé is a town in eastern Ivory Coast. It is a sub-prefecture of Agnibilékrou Department in Indénié-Djuablin Region, Comoé District. Seven kilometres east of the town is a border crossing with Ghana.
Damé was a commune until March 2012, when it became one of 1126 communes nationwide that were abolished.
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Munich (/ˈmjuːnɪk/; also /ˈmjuːnɪx/ in UK English; German: München, pronounced [ˈmʏnçn̩],Bavarian: Minga [ˈmɪŋ(ː)ɐ]) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Bavaria, on the banks of River Isar north of the Bavarian Alps. Munich is the third largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Hamburg and the 12th biggest city of the European Union with a population of above 1.5 million. The Munich Metropolitan Region is home to 5.8 million people. The city is a major centre of art, advanced technologies, finance, publishing, culture, innovation, education, business and tourism in Germany and Europe and enjoys a very high standard and quality of living, reaching #1 in Germany and #4 worldwide according to the 2015 Mercer survey.
The name of the city is derived from the Old/Middle High German term Munichen, meaning "by the monks". It derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who ran a monastery at the place that was later to become the Old Town of Munich; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat of arms. Munich was first mentioned in 1158. From 1255 the city was seat of the Bavarian Dukes. Black and gold—the colours of the Holy Roman Empire—have been the city's official colours since the time of Ludwig the Bavarian, when it was an imperial residence. Following a final reunification of the Wittelsbachian Duchy of Bavaria, previously divided and sub-divided for more than 200 years, the town became the country's sole capital in 1506. Catholic Munich was a cultural stronghold of the Counter-Reformation and a political point of divergence during the resulting Thirty Years' War, but remained physically untouched despite an occupation by the Protestant Swedes; as the townsfolk would rather open the gates of their town than risk siege and almost inevitable destruction. Like wide parts of the Holy Roman Empire, the area recovered slowly economically.
Munich (German: Landkreis München) is a district in Bavaria, Germany. It borders (from the north and clockwise) the districts of Dachau, Freising, Erding, Ebersberg, Rosenheim, Miesbach, Bad Tölz-Wolfratshausen, Starnberg, Fürstenfeldbruck, and almost encircles (except for the west and northwest sides) district-free city Munich itself, which is the district seat.
History
The history of the region is connected to the city of Munich.
The district was established in 1852 and underwent several changes due to the ongoing incorporation of municipalities into the city of Munich. In 1972 the constant shrinking of the district was compensated by adding nine municipalities from the former district of Wolfratshausen.
Geography
The district is located in the east and the south of the city Munich, mostly covering the moraine plain around Munich. In the south of the district the foothills of the Alps start, which also contain the highest elevation of the district, two hills 703 m above sea level in the municipality Schäftlarn. The lowest elevation with 471 m is near Unterschleißheim in the north of the district. The main river is the Isar, which also flows through the city of Munich.
Munich is a 2005 historical drama and political thriller film based on Operation Wrath of God, the Israeli government's secret retaliation against the Palestine Liberation Organization after the Munich massacre at the 1972 Summer Olympics. The film was produced and directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Tony Kushner and Eric Roth.
Based on the book Vengeance about Yuval Aviv, who states he was a Mossad agent, Munich follows a squad of assassins as they track down and kill alleged members of the group Black September, which had kidnapped and murdered eleven Israeli athletes.
Shot in Malta,Budapest, Paris and New York City, Munich was a critical success but is also one of Spielberg's lowest-grossing films. It garnered positive reviews and five Academy Awards nominations: Best Picture, Best Director (Spielberg), Best Adapted Screenplay (Kushner and Roth), Best Film Editing (Michael Kahn) and Best Original Score (John Williams). Its worldwide box office gross was $130,358,911.