The Sorbs are a west Slavic minority from Lusatia in the German states of Saxony and Brandenburg (in the former GDR).
Historically, Sorbs have been a much-persecuted group of western Slavs, especially in NaziGermany. They belong to the same language group as the Poles, Czechs, Slovaks[?] and Kashubians, and are also known as Lusatian Sorbs or Serbs of Luzice. See also Wends.
... Nevelskoi in 1849 definitively established the existence and navigability of this strait. The Russians made their first permanent settlement on Sakhalin in 1857 as a Czarist ...