Gil Byington, age 13, of Nashville, Tenn., for his question:
JUST WHERE ARE THE DARDANELLES?
Dardanelles is a small strait which joins the Aegean Sea with the Sea of Marmara. The strait is part of a waterway which leads from the landlocked Black Sea to the Mediterranean. Also part of the waterway is the Bosporus, a second strait which joins the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara.
Dardanelles is a word that comes from the ancient Greek city of Dardanus, on Asia's side of the strait. The ancient Greeks called this strait the "Hellespont."
The Dardanelles is about one mile wide from the European shore to the Asiatic at its narrowest point. The average width of the strait is three to four miles. It is about 37 miles long and the average depth is 200 feet.
A strong surface current in the direction of the Aegean Sea is usually found in the Dardanelles, but a powerful undercurrent flows east and carries salty water through the Sea of Marmara and the Bosporus into the Black Sea. This undercurrent keeps the Black Sea from becoming a fresh water body.
The Dardanelles has a colorful history. About 480 B.C., Xerxes led the Persian army across the strait and invaded Europe. In 334 B.C., Alexander led his army over a bridge of boats across the Dardanelles into Asia.
Hundreds of years later, the strait was important to the defense of the Byzantine Empire. After that empire fell, the Ottoman Turks ruled the strait.
Early in World War II, the strait was closed to all ships except with special permission from Turkey. Although threatened many times, Turkey kept control of the waterway.
After World War II, Russia unsuccessfully attempted to gain control of the Dardanelles. The Western powers supported Turkey's right to the strategic and important strait. The link between Europe and Asia remains in Turkey's control today.
Great Britain, France, Prussia and Austria, the great powers of Europe in the last century, agreed to give Turkey control of the passage of ships through the Dardanelles in 1841. This argument was renewed in 1856 and again in 1871 and 1878.
The Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 opened the Dardanelles to all nations. In 1936, however, the Montreux Convention gave Turkey permission to remilitarize the strait.
The Bosporus is 19 miles long and from a half mile to two miles wide. The ancient city of Istanbul, which was formerly Constantinople, lies at the southern end of the strait.
The Bosporus is Russia's only outlet for ships and submarines that is open throughout the winter. Turkey owns the land on both sides of the Bosporus and heavily fortifies the waterway.
The Bosporus gets its name from Greek words meaning ax ford, probably because it was so narrow in some places that cattle could cross. According to a Greek legend, the goddess Io swam the Bosporus in the form of a heifer.