1. Scotland Yard: a popular name for the headquarters of London’s Metropolitan Police Force, and especially its Criminal Investigation Department. The name is derived from a small area where the headquarters were situated from 1829 to 1890. The area, in turn, was named after a medieval palace in which the kings and queens of Scotland resided during state visits to London. The custom of referring to the headquarters and its officers as Scotland Yard began soon after the Metropolitan Police Force was reorganized by the British statesman Sir Robert Peel in 1829. The headquarters were moved in 1890 to new buildings erected on the Thames Embankment, which were known as New Scotland Yard. In 1967 the present headquarters, a modern 20-storied building situated near the Houses of Parliament, were opened. The web site http://www.met.police.uk provides background information on Scotland Yard.
2. South America: the fourth largest of the Earth’s seven continents (after Asia, Africa, and North America), occupying 17,820,900 sq km (6,880,700 sq mi), or 12 percent of the Earth’s land surface. It lies astride the equator and tropic of Capricorn and is joined by the Isthmus of Panama, on the north, to Central and North America. The continent extends 7,400 km (4,600 mi) from the Caribbean Sea on the north to Cape Horn on the south, and its maximum width, between Ponta do Seixas, on Brazil’s Atlantic coast, and Punta Parias, on Peru’s Pacific coast, is 5,160 km (3,210 mi).
The web site http://www.globalgeografia.com/south_america/south_america.htm offers a general view of South America.
3. Guinea: formerly People’s Revolutionary Republic of Guinea, an independent nation in western Africa, bounded on the north by Guinea-Bissau, Senegal, and Mali; on the east and southeast by Cite d’Ivoire; on the south by Liberia and Sierra Leone; and on the west by the Atlantic Ocean. The total area of the country, including the Los Islands of Conakry, is 245,857 sq km (94,926 sq mi). Conakry is the capital and largest city. The web sit
