Britannica Student Encyclopedia - 2010

of Ukrainians into slaves and murdered

about 600,000 Ukrainian Jews. The

Soviets drove the Germans out of

Ukraine in 1944.

Independence

In 1991 the Soviet Union broke apart,

and Ukraine declared its independence.

In 2004 many Ukrainians protested

when Viktor Yushchenko lost the presidential

election. They thought the election

had been unfair. Ukraine then held

a second election, and Yushchenko won.

..More to explore

Crimea • Kiev • Union of Soviet

Socialist Republics

Folk dancers in traditional dress perform on

a street in Ukraine.

Facts About

UKRAINE

Population

(2008 estimate)

46,222,000

Area

233,062 sq mi

(603,628 sq km)

Capital

Kiev

Form of

government

Republic

Major cities

Kiev, Kharkiv,

Dnipropetrovsk,

Odessa, Donetsk

BRITANNICA STUDENT ENCYCLOPEDIA Ukraine 7

 

Ulaanbaatar

Population

(2008 census)

1,031,200

Ulaanbaatar is the capital of Mongolia,

a country in central Asia. It is the

largest city in Mongolia by far. It lies

on the Tuul River. Ulaanbaatar is one of

the world’s coldest capitals. Its average

year-round temperature is only 27° F

(.3° C).

Ulaanbaatar is one of Mongolia’s industrial

centers. Factories in the city make

food products, fabrics, carpets, leather

goods, and a luxury fiber called cashmere.

Many people in Ulaanbaatar work

for the government or in trade or other

service industries.

Buddhists built a religious center called

the Da Khure monastery in what is

now Ulaanbaatar in 1639. Over time a

city grew around the monastery. It

became a trade center on a route

between China and Russia.

China controlled Mongolia for hundreds

of years. In 1911 Mongolia

became an independent country. Ulaanbaatar

was made its capital in 1924. The

city grew rapidly during the 1900s.

..More to explore

Mongolia

Ulster

Ulster was an ancient kingdom of Ireland.

It covered the northern part of the

island of Ireland. The name Ulster is

now commonly used for Northern Ireland,

a part of the United Kingdom.

Ulster was one of five Irish kingdoms

created about 2,000 years ago by people

called the Celts. In its early history, it

was the most powerful of the kingdoms.

It was ruled by Roman Catholic kings.

England took control of Ireland in the

1100s. In the late 1500s Ulster rebelled

against England, but it was defeated.

The English king then sent Protestant

settlers from Scotland and England to

Ulster. Ulster changed from Catholic to

mostly Protestant. The religious differences

led to fighting.

Elderly people gather outside a Buddhist

religious center in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

8 Ulaanbaatar BRITANNICA STUDENT ENCYCLOPEDIA

 

In the early 1900s southern Ireland

moved toward independence from Great

Britain. The Protestants of Ulster

wanted to remain part of Britain. In

1920 Britain divided the island. Six of

Ulster’s nine counties remained under

British rule. They became Northern

Ireland. The other three counties joined

the new country of Ireland.

#More to explore

Celt • Ireland • Northern Ireland

Underground

Railroad

The Underground Railroad was not an

actual railway. Instead, it was a secret

organization that existed in the United

States before the CivilWar. The people

of the Underground Railroad helped

escaped slaves from the South to reach

places of safety in the North or in

Canada.

The Underground Railroad used railway

terms as code words. The routes to freedom

were called “lines.” The hiding

places on the lines were called “stations.”

The people who moved or hid the slaves

were called “conductors.” The slaves

themselves were sometimes called

“freight.”

The Underground Railroad had to be

secret because it was against the law.

Laws called the Fugitive Slave acts protected

slaveholders’ rights even in states

that did not allow slavery. The people

who ran the Underground Railroad were

abolitionists—they wanted to abolish, or

end, slavery in all states.

Many Underground Railroad conductors

were followers of the Quaker religion.

The Quaker leader Thomas

Garrett is believed to have helped about

2,700 slaves escape. Other conductors

were Northern blacks. Harriet Tubman,

a former slave, led hundreds of slaves to

freedom.

The heaviest activities of the

Underground Railroad were in

Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, New York,

and the New England states. Most

routes ended in Canada. Estimates of

the number of slaves who “rode” the

Underground Railroad range from

40,000 to 100,000. The Railroad’s

activities ended with the beginning of

the Civil War in 1861.

#More to explore

Abolitionist Movement • Fugitive Slave

Acts • Quaker • Slavery • Tubman,

Harriet

A painting shows how the Underground

Railroad in the United States moved

enslaved Africans to freedom in the dark of

night.

BRITANNICA STUDENT ENCYCLOPEDIA Underground Railroad 9

 

Unicorn

#see Animals, Legendary.

Unidentified

Flying Object

(UFO)

An unidentified flying object, or UFO,

is anything in the sky that cannot be

explained by the person who sees it.

Some people think that UFOs are alien

spaceships. But most scientists say that

UFOs can be explained in much more

ordinary ways.

Descriptions of UFOs have ranged from

glowing wheels to colored balls of light

to cigar-, crescent-, or disk-shaped

objects. A sighting of disk-shaped UFOs